Chapter 170
Chapter 170
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Translator: crow
Chapter Title: Faith
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"Thank you for your cooperation!"
"Much obliged."
『Thanks to you, we've pinpointed their base. That's game over for them.』
The three of them left the office.
Now that they'd located the base, the threat of world destruction had been downgraded to something easily resolvable.
"Since Sephiroth couldn't find it, that's what made it dangerous. But now that we have, it should be no problem."
As expected, the Foundation threw everything they had at this incident.
"All agents B-Grade and above are being mobilized. So we'll have to clear out too."
"If anything happens at the branch while we're gone, we leave it in your hands."
『No major issues should crop up.』
What was the last time I'd seen the Foundation go all out?
I remembered them bringing in a spaceship or something.
"By the way, what kind of group even are they? I'm really curious."
They were behind the disappearances of ships and planes passing over the ocean.
Their base was in the Arctic.
They aimed to destroy the world.
And they were a group, not an individual.
With just these fragments of info, it was impossible to figure out what they were after.
"Should I use a Quest Ticket?"
The reward: information on the group in the Arctic plotting world destruction.
Using the Scales of Equivalent Exchange, I fixed the mission reward to a monetary value.
The cost required was a mere 100 million won.
"Something's off."
The Foundation had paid a heavy price, yet I could get this info for just 100 million won?
Once I claimed the reward, I understood why.
[Information: Fanaticism, Faith.]
That was the reward—just two words.
I tried again, but got the same result. No additional info.
"Fanaticism and faith, huh."
Still, it gave me a slight glimpse into the identity of the group that desired world destruction.
'They're probably after annihilation for religious reasons.'
Religion is a mental refuge that sustains people's hearts.
It's also a lubricant that creates social norms and maintains communal life, but sometimes religions emerge that yearn for world destruction or catastrophe.
『Religion and destruction are closely linked. Especially when a religious founder wants to solidify their power, one common tactic to lure followers is apocalypticism: promising a new era after the end times, so they command devotees to surrender their worldly possessions.』
Rapture in Protestant eschatology.
Millenarianism.
The descent of false prophets.
The Heaven's Gate mass suicide, and so on.
"Deceiving others for money and power happens all the time."
『But I don't get it. Most doomsday prophecies are scientifically implausible, and even if they're not purely scientific, they're easily debunked. Modern people receive solid basic education through public schooling—why fall for such lies?』
"Because intelligence has nothing to do with faith."
I'd once questioned it myself.
Back when I was deep into conspiracy theories, I couldn't understand why people believed this stuff.
Did they really think the deep state controlled the world?
Did they truly believe the U.S. never landed on the moon?
Did they seriously think NASA and America were lying about the Earth being round when it's flat?
"People believe what they want to believe. Sometimes they have to believe just to survive. And no matter how intelligent you are, you don't think logically about everything. If it's not your field of expertise, you're vulnerable."
『Is that so?』
"High-IQ folks, once they latch onto a wrong belief, use their smarts to rationalize it. That creates a vicious cycle where they sink even deeper."
The rationalizations they build tie into their intelligence, growing more solid and intricate.
"Japan's infamous cult, Aum Shinrikyo, had 12 master's degree holders. Back then, with low college attendance rates, they were elites—yet they fell for a cult."
There were Ivy League grads who believed in the Rapture and donated everything to their leader.
Even tenured professors from top universities have claimed the Earth is flat.
"The inventor of polymerase chain reaction, a DNA amplification technique—Kary Mullis—believed in astrology. The anti-vaccine movement started with a disgraced doctor, Andrew Wakefield. And there are PhD engineers claiming the Earth is flat."
Intelligence and foolishness aren't linked.
"High-IQ types can get obsessively hooked on conspiracy theories or cults due to confirmation bias."
『Humans are so strange.』
"That's what makes life interesting, isn't it?"
The day after chatting with Sarang about this.
"External Special Advisor."
A Foundation agent visited the office.
"All agents headed to the Arctic have gone missing."
"No turbulence at all."
I leaned back against the seat inside the Foundation's special mission transport plane.
Beyond the window, fierce white snow blizzards raged.
"It's packed with tech superior to U.S. military transports."
"We left Korea less than 30 minutes ago, and we're already at the Arctic. That's why."
The Foundation agent with me was C-Grade from the Korean branch, Mr. Andrew.
He checked outside the window and began the briefing.
"Operation Winter Train: 574 B-Grade agents and 97 A-Grade agents from around the globe. Communications cut off the moment they entered the Arctic, vital signs transmitted briefly, but even those stopped 12 hours ago."
"Are they all dead?"
"No, we believe something jammed their vital sign transmitters for some reason. If they'd truly died, our necromancers could have summoned their souls."
The Foundation even had necromancers.
My knowledge grew.
"The Foundation's special weapons also lost signal the instant they entered the Arctic."
"I heard there are scientific bases in the Arctic. What about them?"
"We checked—they're fine. Only those who advanced over 10 km from the Arctic coastline toward the North Pole went missing."
"What's my job?"
"Please search for and rescue the missing agents. And if possible, crush the conspiracy of the group in the Arctic."
"Got it."
The ramp door opened.
No further approach was possible without risking disappearance, so the Arctic coastline was set as the drop zone.
"Then I'll be off."
"For humanity."
I jumped from the transport amid Mr. Andrew's salute.
Having consumed Dried Friendship, I landed without a parachute.
"Whew, the North Pole's that way, huh."
『270 meters to the communication blackout line.』
"Meaning something happens the moment you cross it?"
I moved to the point Sarang indicated.
Ahead lay only white snowfields—nothing special.
"Here goes?"
I took one step forward.
In that instant, the world changed.
"!?"
Gravity vanished.
The stars, moon, and sun in the sky streaked wildly across it like they'd lost their way.
A storm-like wind lifted my body, and with no gravity, I floated through the air like dust.
'This isn't good.'
I could see the ground.
The earth was cracking and shattering.
The problem: this was all visible only in my right eye.
'A world visible only to my right eye.'
The world through my left eye was normal.
But my body was affected by what my right eye saw.
'Usually, the left eye shows reality, and the right shows realms of possibility.'
This time, it was reversed.
'Dimensional overlap? Possibility convergence? Probabilistic domain?'
Whatever it was, this was dangerous.
The cracking ground wasn't looking good.
'The fissures are too severe. It feels like the entire earth is ripping apart into pieces.'
I twisted my body to survey the surroundings.
Only after reaching high in the sky did I grasp the situation.
"This is something."
The earth was flat.
"So that's it?"
More precisely.
"The Earth is flat."
'The Earth being flat is physically impossible.'
Flat Earth theory.
A famous conspiracy, also one that mocks ancient thinking.
'The ancient Greeks proved mathematically that the Earth was round as early as their era.'
Same during the Age of Exploration.
When Columbus recruited for his circumnavigation, the story goes that sailors refused, fearing they'd fall off the flat edge—but actually, Earth's roundness was widely known; they just didn't trust Captain Columbus.
"Hmm, historical facts aren't the point."
Right now, survival was key.
At this rate, I'd punch through the atmosphere and become a lost astronaut.
'The Earth has definitely gone flat.'
From the atmosphere, the sun and moon orbited the Earth.
The Earth wasn't orbiting the sun—the two celestial bodies circled it.
"Geocentrism mixed in too."
No.
For day and night to exist on a flat Earth, didn't it have to be geocentrism?
'Let's recall what I know about this place.'
Religion, world destruction, Flat Earth, body crossed into a world of possibility, missing planes and ships, outside Sephiroth's influence.
'Doubts are the labor pains of truth.'
Keep questioning.
'The Earth is flat—why no vanished gravity? Why the raging winds? Why are the sun and moon crossing space faster than light?'
It defies science.
Yet it made scientific sense.
"If the Earth were flat, conventional gravity couldn't exist. Gravity comes from the Earth's core, but a flat Earth has no core—or at best a tiny one."
The winds' reason was simple too.
"On a flat Earth, convection currents can't function properly. That causes El Niño or La Niña phenomena, massive atmospheric pressure shifts beyond ocean currents, spawning super typhoons."
Missing ships and planes? Simple.
"On a flat Earth, anything crossing the edge falls off into the void."
When a scientifically impossible flat Earth occurs.
Aren't the scientifically inevitable consequences exactly what I'm experiencing?
'The group entrenched here is unaffected by these phenomena.'
Only one reason.
"Faith. And fanaticism."
Because they truly believe in Flat Earth.
They don't think scientifically, so they're safe.
"Then I just need unscientific thinking too."
The Earth is flat.
I believe it.
'It doesn't work at all.'
Just thinking it—without true belief.
'Then...'
I believe the group that made the Earth flat.
They have basic common sense, so they know about gravity.
How do they explain it?
'Conspiracy theories are golden towers built on pseudoscience and paranoid logic.'
So here too, gravity exists for some pseudoscientific reason I don't know.
Convection cycles normally for reasons I don't know.
The ground doesn't split, celestial bodies move properly—for reasons I don't know.
"I don't believe in the unscientific."
Instead, I believe in their faith and fanaticism—the ones who created this unscientific world and imposed belief upon it.
"That's possible because it's an entity."
Or because I'm using an entity.
With belief, the winds stopped.
My body was soon on the ground, and the worlds from my right and left eyes merged into one.
A perfectly normal world.
But with a flat Earth.
"Oh, heavens!"
"An outsider reached this place!"
"Another has awakened to the truth!"
A group appeared in the snow.
They wore robes like medieval monks, welcoming me.
"Welcome to the Flat Earth Society, FES, young one!"