Hacking the Pentagon
Pentagon
Crunch—
Fifty meters underground, the steel-reinforced concrete warped in a single instant. Through the gaping tear, massive teeth closed on every rebar exposed in the rubble and devoured it without leaving a scrap.
The colossal monster that hauled itself over the collapsed wall scanned the surroundings, confirmed they were clear, then sent a signal back toward the nest it had crawled from.
Moments later, dozens—then hundreds—of monsters began pouring out of the nest in a living flood.
“Haat—!”
“...”
“Hiyaap...!”
“...Young lady... please stop...”
“Ah, no! I almost had it! Look over there—look! That rat—!”
“It’s perfectly fine and alive...”
“It fainted earlier and got back up! Huh? I succeeded in creating a vacuum state, I tell you!”
“Then why isn’t it working now?”
“Huh? Uh, that is...”
Julia rolled her eyes at Seo-hyun’s words.
“Uh... maybeee... because it’s too dangerous a power, there are restrictions...?”
“...”
“Uuuu... it’s true though...”
“Why don’t we check the CCTV?”
“Th-that’s it! We can check the CCTV!”
And so they did. The footage clearly captured the rat collapsing the instant Julia activated her unique ability.
“See? See! I told you I succeeded!”
“So it seems...”
Honestly, the theory of generating a vacuum to restrict an opponent’s movement had been one of the many possibilities that sprang to mind the moment I first heard about her power. Until now her strength had simply been insufficient to attempt it. Only when the time to leave drew near did I decide to unload everything I knew.
Even so, I figured it would take at least a month. Succeeding in two days...
Her talent was clearly far beyond anything I had anticipated.
“Then why isn’t it working this time...”
“That’s what I’m saying! It clearly worked before...”
...
Something about it felt off. As if an unknown force were deliberately halting her excessive growth—warning that if she pushed any further, something she could never handle would erupt. Even she herself seemed unaware of the interference.
No, wait. Then how do I know this?
If something exists that even the person involved cannot perceive, a third party like me should have no way of noticing it either. Or does coming from another world grant some special privilege?
It could just be a misunderstanding.
Perhaps activation simply demanded an enormous degree of concentration, and the conditions were not met right now.
By the way, this feeling... I’ve felt it somewhere else before...
I still could not place where.
Disposing of Experimental Subject No. 1349.
Hearing Laplace’s calm announcement of Project Darwin’s 1,349th failure, I leaned back against the chair.
“Looks like this approach won’t work after all.”
Until now the experiments had advanced by discovering problems and solving them in turn. Yet the moment a new countermeasure was applied, it spawned still more problems. The list of issues that needed fixing only grew longer. Some of those problems defied modern science entirely; others, even when the correct solution was clear, could not be implemented because of budget constraints.
Have we spent about ten billion here?
Each experiment cost several million won. Surprisingly cheap, one might think—until you realized that price was only possible after we built a distribution network that could easily supply organic materials like grain and livestock carcasses. Before that, materials had cost several times more. Factor in over a thousand runs and the pure experimental outlay already reached tens of billions; the machinery and facilities cost even more. Without Leviathan’s sponsorship we would have needed hundreds of billions just to construct the labs. Leviathan itself looked financially strained from pouring funds into the research.
Only because I had expanded the company’s scale nearly dozens of times in the ten years since partnering with Leviathan could we even attempt this. Before that, even Yekaterina would have struggled to support me.
Still, we could not keep bleeding money like this.
We need new technology.
I had been leaning too heavily on biotechnology and the power of bloodstones alone.
What I ultimately want is the embodiment of ultimate evolution. Simply being strong and overcoming the weaknesses of existing life forms is not enough.
Creating merely powerful creatures was already within my reach. Regardless of Yekaterina’s personal will, Leviathan needed tangible returns on the research budget that had vanished, so some of the life forms born during the experiments were already being mass-produced and prepared for combat deployment. Numbers were still low, but they were being evaluated as next-generation weapons to counter Behemoth’s future movements.
Against humans they would be devastating. Against monsters, however, they still felt a step inferior. No matter how combat-optimized the design, they remained lesser copies compared to creatures that wielded the unique force of demonic energy. Sheer numbers might let us grind down demonkin, but anything beyond that was unthinkable.
To create something that could at least wound the Demon King, I needed to step outside every concept I currently possessed.
“I’ve decided. We’re raiding the Pentagon.”
...?
Even a super-intelligent AI seemed unable to keep pace with the sudden leap. I would need to explain more carefully.
“You know about the biochemical experiments running inside the Pentagon, right?”
Yes. We have also secured a large volume of related detailed information.
“But even if we know exactly what they’re researching, we still haven’t properly mapped the progress or the underlying theories.”
More precisely, we could have—but chose not to. Reaching a level that could breach Pentagon security was one thing; doing so would inevitably leave a trail. Honestly, there had never been enough profit in raiding the place. The usual prizes—reputation for hacking the Pentagon, or raw classified data—were useless to me. In the underworld I was already famous enough that no one failed to recognize the name, and Laplace could pull almost any information I needed without the risk. Even if the need had existed, meddling with the United States, the nation that steered global affairs, carried far too many complications.
Now, however, everything had changed. I could examine the full details of the Pentagon’s biochemical work, and Laplace’s current hacking capacity was more than enough to shake off American trackers. Suitable reward, acceptable success rate—there was no reason left not to go in.
Still, it’s not as if I’m actually damaging anything...
Confidential data would leak, of course, but I had no intention of releasing it to anyone else. From the Department of Defense’s perspective the real loss would be minimal.
While Julia headed to school for her unique-ability lecture, I finished booting the computer and activated Laplace.
“All right. Let’s get ready.”
At Laplace’s signal, hundreds of thousands of zombie PCs came online, preparing for the massive siege that would unfold today.
In a few hours I won’t even have the energy left to answer anything.
So, as a way of loosening my mind before the operation began, I let my thoughts drift.
Honestly, this hack felt a little rushed. Project Darwin was being squeezed by budget pressure, and my own impatience had been mounting day by day. More than that, this was not a client request I was solving—it was purely my own will. That made the experience a first.
But if anyone asked whether I intended to cancel even now... the answer was no. Perhaps because the whole thing was wrapped in the noble cause of dealing with the Demon King, or perhaps because I had spent so long straddling the line between legal and illegal that the boundary had simply gone numb.
Either way, set that aside. Focus on the operation itself.
I’m confident I can extract the data. The real problem will be the Pentagon hackers who come after me through every possible channel afterward.
The goal was singular: copy every biology-related paper stored inside the Pentagon’s databases. That was the only prize I wanted.
Please let the key that completes Project Darwin be waiting inside.