Stripped of the Five Senses (10)
Chi-ik—!
I torched the Ant Line with my torch.
"Kk—ghk! Hahk... hah...!"
Moans and ragged breathing rose from beneath the Ant Line, which had spread thin as a single-layer blanket.
It was Chief Kwon Mu-seop.
Chiii-ik—!
I melted the rest of the Ant Line around him with the torch.
Once he could finally move, Kwon Mu-seop peeled himself free of the tangled Ant Line and equipment, piece by piece. He had to strip off his body armor and tear away his sleeves before he could escape at last.
The state of him underneath was a wreck. Both arms had been shredded to ribbons, drenched in blood, and slime had seeped into the wounds, hardening into thick crusts of white Ant Line.
"Chief..."
"It's okay. The bleeding's actually stopped, thanks to this."
He said it with perfect composure, clearly reading why I'd called out to him.
The Ant Line was a substance that could contaminate you on skin contact alone. And it hadn't just touched bare skin — it had seeped into stab wounds.
And he says he's fine. What part of him is fine?
"Are you all right, Do-woon?"
"Yes, I'm fine."
Honestly, I had no idea.
I'd ditched my vest and padding just like Kwon Mu-seop, so I was standing there completely exposed. The Ant Line clinging to my hair was beyond saving — it still hung off me in heavy clumps.
I kept picturing my whole head unraveling into a tangled ball of thread, but there wasn't even time to worry about it now.
"What happened to Alpha?"
"He's pinned under the Ant Line."
I swept the floor with my searchlight. Kwon Mu-seop couldn't see it, but one spot under the coating of Ant Line bulged conspicuously upward.
It was Alpha.
Cornered earlier, Alpha had snapped the Execution Ant's neck and ruptured its venom gland. The Ant Line slime had erupted as a result, and we'd taken the whole blast head-on.
The slime had hardened the instant it touched anything, forming a thin film like paraffin wax. Because of that, I'd nearly suffocated to death.
No — I think I actually did die, for a moment. If my hand hadn't found the torch, I'd be dead for certain.
After all that ordeal, the two of us finally clawed our way out of the Ant Line, and we were both an absolute mess.
Tik. Tik—!
And now, on top of everything, my gun had jammed.
"What should we do about Alpha?"
"Leave him and go."
Would that be okay?
No — even if it wasn't, there was nothing I could do about it. If we tried to dig Alpha out, he could counterattack while we tore at the Ant Line. Rather than take that risk, better to seal him in like this and shatter the core.
That way we could also observe what happens to a Mercenary Entity from another zone when this one collapses.
And above all, the most important thing was breaking the core before our contamination progressed any further.
We made it back to the fork, barely, and took the right-hand path we'd skipped earlier.
...God, this is actually insane.
New cocoons were sprouting all over the corridor. The colony was preparing its next generation, apparently.
Alpha killed two of the Ants earlier, right? So only one was left. Then why wasn't that one showing itself?
I advanced slowly, sweeping my gaze in every direction. My stamina was spent, and my steps had grown heavy. But Kwon Mu-seop was silently following me, so I couldn't afford to show how exhausted I was.
He knew, of course, that the Ant Line had gotten into his wounds. He understood far better than I did what happens when zone matter is injected into the body — the extreme mutation it causes.
And yet there wasn't a trace of disorder about him.
This was a man who was cold-blooded not only toward other people's lives, but toward his own.
I froze.
"What is it?"
Kwon Mu-seop stopped behind me and asked.
"The corridor's blocked by cocoons. Torn cocoons and newly grown ones seem to have fused together."
So that's why I hadn't seen the last Ant. Two cocoons had knotted together and sealed the way.
I angled the searchlight through the gap where the cocoons pressed against each other. Sure enough, an Ant was flailing around on the far side.
"There's an Ant over there. Looks like the last one of this generation."
"Test whether the ring works."
Chiii-ik—!
I pried the cocoon gap open with the torch and extended my ringed hand toward it.
Kiii-gi-gi-gi-geuk—!
The Ant thrashed its antennae like it was convulsing. It was unmistakably, visibly terrified.
But unlike the Employees of the warehouse-type mart, it didn't back off easily.
Those Employees were Neutral Entities, after all. This Ant, by contrast, was a genuine Hazard Entity — and we'd exterminated two full generations of its kind. We were even closing in on this zone's core right now.
A more hostile reaction was only natural.
So what now? I had to get past here, but how was I supposed to neutralize that thing...?
Then it happened.
—Chief!
Yoon Woo-jeong's voice rang out from my smartwatch, standing in for the radio we'd abandoned tangled in the Ant Line.
—An Echo has been observed in Section A-3 of Ant Hill!
The Echo?
Another Mercenary Entity's name. And now that one had appeared too? It hadn't even been ten minutes since Alpha was subdued?
"Do-woon, open the path."
"The Ant isn't retreating even with the ring out!"
"I know. Open the path and give me the Ant's position."
Following Kwon Mu-seop's orders, I burned away the rest of the empty cocoon.
"The Ant's one meter in front of me. The cocoon's almost completely melted. ...It's coming — now!"
The moment the cocoon melted away, the Ant lunged at us.
Kwaduduk—!
Kwon Mu-seop drove his knife straight into it.
He seized one of its antennae and carved away with ferocious slashes, until at last he'd gouged out one of its tusks. Then he shouted to me.
"Do-woon, run!"
Damn it...!
I clenched my teeth and vaulted over the wreckage at my feet, then bolted at full sprint.
Faster — hurry!
If I didn't break the core in time, Kwon Mu-seop dies!
Kkududuk—
But this was no time to be worrying about someone else.
Kkuduk— kkuduk—
What the—?
The cocoons lining the corridor had begun to writhe.
Could the last Ant have died? No — Chief Kwon Mu-seop wouldn't make a mistake like that.
Then a cheerful voice from some training material flashed through my mind.
—A Special Zone has an instinct to protect its core at all costs.
—When the core comes under threat, the zone will withdraw all activity and focus everything on defending it.
Son of a bitch. It activated.
This zone's self-preservation system!
Kkuduk— chiii-ik—!
The Ants finally tore their way out of the cocoons.
But perhaps because they'd skipped the proper process, the newly emerged Ants were in bad shape. Instead of their usual glossy black carapaces, they were draped in something like translucent husks.
Kii-gi-gi— kii-gi-gi-geuk—!
Those immature things tried to bite and tear at me, then backed off a few steps short and let out these horrible, unsettling cries.
The ring.
It was Baek Sa-ra's ring.
But how long would that effect last?
Chiii-ik! Chii-ik—!
Cocoons kept splitting open all around me, front and back.
Before long, I was running in a single tangled pack with those Ants, like a marathoner with an unwanted entourage.
It went on for a while.
Kiii-ik—!
One Ant, retreating backward even as it faced me, finally charged.
I threw myself into a roll and barely dodged its tusks.
Sploosh—!
But the floor was soaked.
Wait — is this Ant Line...?
Damn it, so that's why the floor had felt sticky for a while now!
These incomplete things were leaking slime continuously.
Since it was already everywhere, I pulled the torch back out and cranked the flame to maximum.
Kiii-iik—!
The Ants' husks melted away, and that was enough to drive off the ones loitering in my path.
The way forward was clear — good — but the melted residue made the floor even stickier. No, sticky didn't cover it anymore. It was like wading into a mudflat; my feet began sinking deep with every step.
I forced my way through it and kept running. The extra weight on my stride made my heart feel ready to burst. My legs grew heavier and heavier until they felt like they'd snap off entirely.
A part of me even thought: maybe I should just give up. It would be easier.
But if I did that, Chief Kwon Mu-seop would die a dog's death...!
Even if it killed me, I was going to die running — with that thought, I pushed on.
Then the space ahead suddenly brightened.
Outside? No — it was a wall. The searchlight's beam had hit a dead-end and reflected back, lighting up the tunnel's end.
Kung— kung— kung—!
My heartbeat thundered in my throat and ears.
Is this it? Then why is there nothing here?
Don't tell me I took the wrong path...
I started to turn back, exactly like Kwon Mu-seop had earlier — then stopped.
When I came down this path, the Ants had torn their way out of their cocoons. That meant I'd reached the heart of the zone just fine.
I gulped down air and looked around wildly, sweeping the walls with the light like a madman.
Then—
I stopped.
I spotted a black sphere resting on the floor.
No — was it even a sphere? It was so utterly black that it gave off no sense of volume at all. It looked less like an object and more like a hole, which was why I hadn't recognized it right away.
The core of the Special Zone.
Kii-gi-geuk—!
When I shone the light on the core, the Ants thrashed harder and came scrambling.
I hurled my leaden body forward and reached my hand toward the core.
But — what is this?
There was resistance. A pushing force, like pressing two magnets of the same pole together.
Deudeuk— deudeudeuk—!
My hand wouldn't advance through the empty air. A kind of force I'd never felt in my entire life was shoving me back.
I squeezed out the last of my strength, fighting down the blackness creeping over my vision.
"Ugh — aaaah...!"
Ppadudeuk—!
Something broke.
And my hand touched the core.
Wuuung—!
A strange vibration passed through my whole body.
But that was all.
The core did not shatter.
Why not?
I slammed my fist down on the pristine, untouched core.
This time there was no resistance at all. It just felt like punching a metal sculpture.
It won't break!
Why? It's supposed to shatter the instant you touch it...!
I pounded the core again and again, and in my desperation I spun around.
"...Huh?"
The Ants were melting into the floor, vanishing.
Right before my eyes, a pale clump dropped free.
It was the Ant Line that had been tangled in my hair.
What's happening? Is it resetting?
The Ants seeped into the ground bit by bit until they were completely gone. The melted husks, every last slick trace of them, vanished without a trace as well.
I stared blankly, then picked up the core from the floor.
The fearsome core of a Special Zone was, at most, the size of a bowling ball.
I was busy hammering it against the wall, trying to shatter it before anything else happened, when—
Jeobeok—!
A sound behind me made me whirl around. "Do-woon."
It was Chief Kwon Mu-seop.
He was walking toward me looking even more battered than before, all the while scanning our surroundings with his eyes.
"Chief, can you see?"
"Yes. I can suddenly see again. What happened?"
"I'm not sure either— euk!"
I clamped my nose mid-sentence. An acrid, smoky stench flooded in all at once, stinging the bridge of my nose.
Apparently my sense of smell had come back too.
Kwon Mu-seop asked again.
"The core?"
"Right here."
"...It didn't break?"
"See for yourself."
Kwon Mu-seop stared at the core with a bewildered expression. Then his brow slowly knitted.
"Wait. Your ring — where is it?"
The ring?
I turned over the hand holding the core, and only then realized the ring was gone.
Of the two rings, the silver one was still on my finger. The only thing missing was the black one Baek Sa-ra had given me.
"Huh?"
Startled, I searched the floor. Where did it go? It had been there just moments ago — right when I reached out to touch the core. But now I couldn't find even a fragment of it.
As I cast around in confusion, Kwon Mu-seop spoke into my smartwatch.
"Deputy Head, please check the status of Ant Hill."
"What about the woman contaminated by the Ant Line?"
"...!"
That woman? The young woman who'd left us her last words?
I brightened at the unexpected good news. But Kwon Mu-seop showed no elation; his follow-up questions came grave and precise.
"No missing body parts, no bleeding? Are you certain the body that had been mutated by contamination has been restored?"
An unreadable emotion rippled through Kwon Mu-seop's eyes.
When he couldn't bring himself to speak, Yoon Woo-jeong added in a trembling voice: