Chapter 54
Chapter 54
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 54
Chapter Title: Salvation
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Late at night.
Research Institute, Entrance Gate.
A domestic mid-size sedan pulled up to the barrier.
The guard, who had been playing an idle game in the guard booth, panicked and set down his smartphone before stepping out.
“What’s the matter? Access hours are over. If you have business, come back tomorrow…….”
“Ah, I’m researcher Kim Na-hye here.”
Kim Na-hye rolled down the car window and showed her access card.
The guard leaned down to peer inside the vehicle and confirmed that Kim Na-hye was the only one there.
“Even so, is it okay to let you in at this hour? Let me call the shift leader real quick.”
He was a K Shield guard who had been hired purely on the basis of his combat prowess.
That was why he didn’t know standard procedures all that well.
“Hey, come on, don’t do that. I’m in a hurry. The director sent me himself.”
Kim Na-hye’s heart pounded wildly.
For an ordinary person like her to lie to the guard while hiding two Chinese agents in the back seat was no easy feat.
“I really can’t…….”
Unable to stand it any longer, Laura secretly cast a light charm spell.
The guard became highly susceptible to persuasion.
“The new researcher didn’t properly refrigerate a specimen labeled ‘CH-07,’ and it’s worth over ten million won. If we drag this out, it’ll have to be discarded. The director called me in a panic too.”
She spun a plausible story.
The guard’s resolve wavered.
‘Should I let her through?’
And Kim Na-hye’s next words sealed the deal.
“A week ago, you let someone through for a similar situation. Isn’t that how it’s done?”
“Ah… yeah?”
The guard recalled the duty roster in his head.
A week ago had been his two-year senior’s shift.
If that senior had let them through, it was probably fine.
‘Eh, what’s the worst that could happen?’
He nodded and returned to the guard booth to raise the barrier.
“Then hurry back out.”
“Yes, yes. Thank you. Have a good shift.”
Kim Na-hye bowed her head in thanks and stepped on the accelerator.
After that, everything went smoothly.
All the security doors inside the research institute opened with her security card.
Shin Noda and Laura simply trailed invisibly behind her.
The long-awaited underground research wing.
Security here relied on biometric systems.
To open the door, Kim Na-hye had to undergo fingerprint and iris scans.
Shin Noda thought from behind.
‘Security’s tight. Good thing we didn’t try forcing our way in. Worth the extra effort.’
The security systems matched the intel from the information broker, but the bulkheads isolating each sector were thicker than expected.
As if designed to withstand attacks from Awakeners.
‘They’re guarding against test subject rebellions, no doubt.’
It was a common cliché for a human experimentation lab to be overrun by its own creations.
Precautions were only natural.
Beep.
【Researcher Kim Na-hye, verified.】
Once Kim Na-hye completed the biometric scan, the security door slid open with a dry voice announcement.
“You said you’d extract the data first, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Then we need to head to the control room. That’s where they manage the internal network.”
They made their way to the control room.
It resembled a typical office, except for the massive display dominating the front wall.
When Kim Na-hye powered it on, the darkened control room lit up.
The display showed footage of the two test subjects: ‘Alpha’ and ‘Omega.’
They were curled up asleep in their respective rooms.
“This PC is for admin use, but like I said before, turning it on will alert the director.”
Kim Na-hye pointed to one of the computers and said.
“Guess it’s a time attack from here on. Oh, and no CCTV in here, right?”
“Yes.”
Laura immediately dropped her invisibility spell.
Apparently, relying on the Philosopher’s Stone for an artificial body meant her mana reserves were limited.
As the invisibility faded, the figures of ‘Dark Knight’ and Laura slowly materialized.
Kim Na-hye shuddered.
“The Dark Knight disguise… it looks so real.”
“We put some work into it. Copy all the data to the USB, and once it’s done, can you wipe the entire database?”
“It’ll take some time, but yes. You want it unrecoverable, right?”
Shin Noda nodded gravely.
“Of course. They dared to steal from China—they’ll pay the price.”
“Got it. I’m not a programmer, so it won’t be perfect, but I’ll do my best. Just don’t forget the promised compensation…….”
“Naturally. The People’s Republic of China never forgets its commitments.”
Extract key data to the USB drive and delete the entire existing database.
Mindful of this, Kim Na-hye booted up the PC.
“We’ll go rescue the kids.”
She nodded vaguely at Shin Noda’s words and focused on typing.
Shin Noda had a rough map of the place from the information broker.
They recast their invisibility spell and headed first to ‘Omega’s’ room.
Her rescue took priority.
The test subject rooms could only be opened from outside by entering a code.
Shin Noda punched in the numbers.
473697.
He’d gotten it from Kim Na-hye in advance.
Beep, clank.
With a cheerful sound, the iron door swung open.
As the invisibility wore off, their figures began to appear.
***
Her first memory.
It was of multiple pairs of eyes staring down at her.
‘I hate it.’
Even without knowing language yet, without any way to properly express it……
She vaguely sensed that her feelings were negative.
They arbitrarily named her ‘Omega.’
Then they mostly ignored her.
By the time she’d received basic education and learned general social norms.
The other test subjects began ‘Awakening’ one by one.
Omega never Awakened.
The researchers’ attention shifted entirely to the Awakened children, leaving Omega cruelly neglected.
She clearly hated them, yet being alone was unbearably lonely.
For a fleeting moment, she even wished they’d experiment on her.
One day, she met a boy like herself.
His name was ‘Alpha.’
Like Omega, he hadn’t Awakened and had been discarded into indifference.
“Let’s be friends.”
“Yeah.”
During group activities, the two were always together, forging a deep bond.
About a year later, they too experienced ‘Awakening’ belatedly.
《You have Awakened.》
A translucent message window appeared before her eyes.
Omega panicked, not knowing what to do.
“You see this too?”
She asked Alpha, who nodded.
“Yeah. My skill is ‘Reflection.’”
“Skill? Oh—mine’s ‘Fragment of Chronos.’ It lets me speed up or slow down time, and once, I can send one person back into the past. Apparently the distance depends on the rank.”
From that day on, they drew massive attention.
Especially Omega—researchers swarmed her for intensive care, catching up on all the backlog experiments.
“If we use this ability right, it could work like a time machine.”
“The range is extremely short, but with reinforcement, maybe.”
‘Fragment of Chronos’ was a skill that had never appeared before.
A unique discovery from the lab’s DNA tinkering.
For now, the limit was about a day.
But no one knew what would happen as intelligence rank and skill proficiency rose.
At just a day back, it sounded far-fetched, but the director saw the big picture.
Through long experiments, he measured how far back they could go as intelligence and proficiency increased.
The result: up to 150 years.
Achievable if both reached S-rank or higher.
Ambition bloomed in the director’s heart.
A dream he couldn’t share, lest he be called insane.
‘If we can rewind just 100 years…….’
Send an Awakened superhuman back to avert the national humiliation and prepare future generations for the Gates.
Then the homeland would rise as a superpower in this Gate era.
“Focus research on Omega.”
Push for results fast, even at a loss.
Even if Omega died from the institute’s reckless experiments, it wouldn’t matter.
They could clone her.
Clones weren’t guaranteed to Awaken, but out of ten, at least one would match.
Following the director’s orders, the lab centered on amplifying Omega’s power.
Awakener legion research continued too, but as a side project.
The main goal: strengthen Omega’s skill.
But Omega suffered for it.
Neglect had been sad; now daily toxic drugs and untested machines strapped to her head were torture.
Thick metal outer walls to prevent escape.
Their chill seeped into her marrow.
Curled asleep in her room, tears streamed from her eyes.
‘Why must I endure this pain? If only I had a decent power like Alpha…….’
Growth accelerators gave her middle-school-level thinking; she roughly understood why they obsessed over her.
“Sniff. Sob.”
But understanding didn’t stop the overwhelming sorrow.
Like the kids in educational videos, she wanted loving parents, school life.
“Why only me…….”
She dreamed of a storybook prince on a white horse rescuing her.
Alpha’s face flashed in her mind.
Kids from Chinese samples were basically Western-style beauties and handsome princes.
“No, he’s in the same boat.”
To both Alpha and Omega, they were just livestock.
Omega hoped daily to escape this prison.
Then one day, a major experiment came.
“We’re finally implanting the power amplifier.”
“Yeah. Gamma succeeded, they say. Died from infection, though. Too frail.”
“You’ve prepared countermeasures for that?”
“Something about semi-permanent bio-coating. Not our field, so I don’t know details.”
Researchers chattered heartlessly in front of Omega about dead subjects or failures due to weakness.
‘If only I had the combat power to crush them all.’
Omega could only fantasize about demolishing the lab.
Reality was brutal.
She was dragged to the operating table as planned and implanted with the amplifier in her abdomen.
Back in her frigid room, Omega lifted her shirt.
A long, ugly scar across her belly.
Something foreign lurked inside.
Without being an Awakener, she might not have survived the shoddy surgery.
“Wah, sob.”
That day, Omega wept uncontrollably.
But in this institute, no kind soul would comfort her.
Only fellow subjects.
Alpha shared her plight, but they met rarely, and he had no spare empathy amid his own struggles.
Omega passed another tearful night into fitful sleep.
Beep. Clank.
Then, with a mechanical sound, the door to her prison cell opened.
“Are you Omega?”
A stranger in a black robe.
Perhaps the white-horsed prince had come to free her from this hell.
She knew basics about heroes and villains from news and shows played for test subject stress relief.
“Dark Knight……?”
Tears on Omega’s cheeks.
Unlike her usual tears of anguish, these held hope for the future.