Prototype
I was rebuilding everything from the ground up.
“Don’t skimp on the materials. If this fails, we won’t get another shot at making it.”
Instead of the simple organisms I’d been using to keep development costs down, I started fabricating with tougher magical beasts that could accept mana far more readily.
Given what they were, the materials shattered by the dozens of billions of won if I’d paid full price. Flesh from a young despair dragon, the stomach of a starfish, a portion of hatred’s flesh… I’d haggled them down by pointing out their murky origins.
When I first said I wanted these things, even Yekaterina had tried to talk me out of it, calling it pure insanity—so that should give you some idea how expensive they were. In the end she fronted the funds after I promised a definitive result once the experiment was over.
Thanks to that, my bank account was currently a barren wasteland.
Ah… I really want to hack something…
If I just cracked a bank and pulled out a clean five hundred billion, I could live without ever worrying about budget again. But ever since arriving in this world I’d sworn never to use Laplace for illegal work aimed at personal gain, and a promise was a promise. The moment I walked out of a bank with five hundred billion, I’d be a criminal beyond any debate.
It’s the goddess’s fault I got dragged here. What do ordinary people have to do with it?
I’d scraped and saved for exactly this kind of situation, yet I was learning the hard way that a research institute was a monster that devoured money.
What form shall we use for the base?
“Go with the slime type. That looks best for utilizing its abilities.”
The ultimate life-form modeled after Darwin’s Demon—something no living creature could ever rival. I had spent countless hours debating what was truly needed to create such a being.
Was raw strength enough? That would make it no different from a dragon. Dragons ranked among the strongest monsters, untouchable by ordinary forces, yet dragon slayers existed and physical damage could still kill them.
What about ghost-type entities immune to physical harm? They proved vulnerable to specialized abilities or energy-based attacks that bypassed the body entirely.
To forge a truly invincible life-form in the real world, it had to adapt to ever-changing environments. A fixed form was simply too much of a liability. After slamming into problem after problem, the method I finally chose was accelerated evolution.
Real-time evolution.
That was the ideal form of Darwin’s Demon as I envisioned it.
With the completed theory in hand, fabrication of the prototype took two full days. Machines that needed neither food nor rest finished the work far ahead of schedule—though the cost was beyond imagination. I was already thinking I’d have to live off odd jobs from Leviathan for a while.
At last, on the day of completion, I prepared the final experiment remotely.
Activation sequence for Prototype 01 is ready.
“Is the bloodstone sufficient?”
Prepared at 50% above projected requirements.
“Fifty percent… vague, but let’s try it.”
The bloodstone was fundamentally bound to my body, so we were using mana stones charged with its power as substitutes. Charge a mana stone, ship it to the secret lab, and monitor the reaction. Eventually I would need to make physical contact to complete the master imprint, but for now I was keeping contact to a minimum.
“Begin.”
Initiating activation of Prototype 01.
Injecting bloodstone. Time remaining until complete infusion: 60 seconds… 59… 58…
Crimson energy from the bloodstone flowed into the body of the unidentified life-form composed of black slime. Because the original cellular structure had been completely rewritten, the magical-beast byproducts did not reclaim their former shapes under the bloodstone’s influence; instead they began adapting to the newly fixed body of the creature.
Blood began to circulate through it, and the power of the bloodstone took over the role of a brain, dominating the body.
Wooooong—
I could feel the bloodstone energy accumulated inside the lab draining in real time. Three years of carefully stockpiled unique-ability power, gathered with Yekaterina’s help, was being swallowed by the thing in an overwhelming flood.
Yet the creature remained stable. Its cells did not grow grotesquely out of control, nor did it wither from lack of nutrients. It was simply… coming alive, slowly.
“This… maybe…?”
20 seconds… 19… 18…
When the countdown finally dropped into the tens, I saw the creature’s body twitch. Until now it had been nothing more than a corpse assembled from mixed organic matter. Now that corpse was moving.
10 seconds… 9… 8…
With ten seconds left I could no longer bear the tightening anxiety and shut my eyes. Failure would mean not only the loss of hundreds of billions in research funds but also the near-certainty that Leviathan would cut off further support. Praying there would be no unexpected error, I waited, then slowly opened my eyes again.
The result before me drew neither laughter nor despair—only an ambiguous expression.
“Uh… that means it succeeded, right?”
Correct.
“Then why is that thing acting like that…?”
Kyuuung— kyuuung—
Inside the glass tube, still hooked up to various nutrient-supply devices, the newly awakened creature extended tiny tentacles from its main body and tapped at the glass. The force was so weak that the tube suffered not the slightest damage.
“…”
Kkuung— kkuung—
When the glass refused to break, the creature seemed to panic and slammed its slime body against the tube. Being semi-liquid, it simply bounced off helplessly. Judging by the way it cradled the point of impact, it actually hurt. A hollow laugh escaped me.
This is… the ultimate life-form?
I may have made it, but this was not what I’d had in mind…
“What am I supposed to tell Yekaterina…?”
The thought of announcing that tens of billions’ worth of materials had produced this made the world swim before my eyes.
First I had Prototype 01 delivered to my location. Had it been too large I would have gone myself, but it was small enough to fit in a box and required no special storage, so transport was simple.
After sending the package I went downstairs hoping for even a brief rest, only to find the maids deep in conversation.
“Is something wrong?”
“Oh? Ah… looks like the water pipes are broken. No water’s coming out.”
“Have you called a repairman?”
The maids shook their heads.
“No. The whole city’s like this right now.”
“The entire city?”
A problem with the water mains?
I was worrying whether some nearby factory had leaked toxic substances when another maid approached with a heavy sigh.
“Oh, you’re here. How’s it looking?”
“Not good. Every worker who went down to fix the water supply has gone silent.”
“Gone silent? Why would— Anyway, let’s secure water first. How much do we have stored in the mansion?”
“About five tons?”
“Guess we won’t be showering until the mains are fixed.”
Fortunately the mansion had emergency water tanks. We would have to make do with the reserves until the supply recovered, and we were better off than most. Of course we also had more people to support. Roughly fifteen staff plus others brought the total to around twenty, meaning about 250 liters per person. Enough for drinking, but if we used it the usual way it would vanish in no time.
“Shall I fetch Lady Yulia?”
“Hmm? She still hasn’t come down?”
“You didn’t know? Ever since vacation started she’s been locked in her room every day.”
“Her room?”
Lady Yulia, of all people, holing up in her room? Even a passing dog wouldn’t believe that.
“I’ll go check.”
“Yeah, let’s have Seo-hyun go up and take a look.”
Leaving the maids behind, I headed for Yulia’s room. The door was locked. The moment I reached for the handle, I heard her sobbing.
“Uwaaaah—!”
“…”
“Uuuugh, parting with Seo-hyun… She hasn’t even played with me lately…”
“…”
“Always locked in her room talking to other people… uuu…”
“…”
“D-did she get tired of me? What if she never wants to see me again? She won’t leave the mansion when winter break ends, right? Why does the law keep trying to take Seo-hyun away from me…!”
Apparently I had left Yulia alone for far too long.
Knock knock—
The instant I knocked, the crying cut off as if a switch had been flipped.
“My lady? I’m coming in.”
I opened the door and stepped inside. Yulia was curled up tightly under the covers.
“My lady?”
“S-Seo-hyun…? D-did you hear?”
She squirmed under the blanket. I nodded.
“W-well, th-that was…!”
Yulia scrambled for an excuse, only to leap to her feet in shock at the sudden wail of a siren.
Beeeeeep—!
A magical-beast air-raid warning—capable of producing anywhere from hundreds to tens of thousands of casualties the moment it struck—echoed across the entire city of Seoul.