A Week in the Lab

Okay, so here's the deal. Yejin-yang's been crashing at my place - my home, really, but also the secret lab - for a week now. She's been a little shook since that, uh, lab incident. But you know, she's tough. Seeing Yejin-yang playing with Doggie makes me reflect on her mental strength. It's a nice change of pace from, you know, fighting Enemy Species and dodging Dimensional Rifts. Doggie's breed is Doggie, after all. "U-jju-jju, so cute!"

She's got potential, that Yejin-yang. She admitted she survived because she "knew" someone would save her. That kind of Precognition is top-tier. Reminds me of the Gaia Force, something that is given by God to a Force User. We got talking about her Precognition - ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠how it works, the risks. I mean, we're talking full-blown Causality here. It's like having a Body Waiver with fate: if you borrow from fate, you gotta pay back. It's like a loan shark. You sense something, but there's a price. I did the Precognition too, so I know a little bit about that. I told her, "It's like Final Destination... but way more complicated." And the Master needs to watch her from Interference.

Sion-ssi, my Wife, had the idea to use the Mental Care Facility we have in the underground lab. "It'll sort out her trauma and brain processing." Of course, we went down to Delta Castle. I'll never get over how cool our anti-gravity technology is. "Wang, Dulleong, Jiing!" I mean, who wouldn't be impressed? The facility is top-notch, with the Powered Exoskeleton that hits Mach 10. I do the math, "40,000 km / 3 hours = 13,333 km/h." Sion-ssi corrects me. "Speed of sound is 1,224 km/h, so roughly Mach 10." I just chuckle. "We should ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠start building giant robots, or at least a Force User suit!"

Then, Iron Man and Batman. Sion-ssi's got an otaku side, and you know how she feels about Batman v Superman... She was spitting mad. "Shitty PC stuff! And it's 'Your mom's Martha!' No, you devil!" It's still good. I mean, "An organization of castrated bastards!" We had a good laugh.

The Mental Care Facility is really just a fancy brainwashing machine, but it works. "Time heals all wounds." It's Delta Castle tech - fifteen minutes, poof - trauma gone. Final Destination-ish visions... gone! Sion-ssi and I use the power of the Gaia Force, you know?

Then, the incident. She accidently touched the Dimensional Rift Detector. Yeah, you can guess what happened. Brain overload, the worst kind. "Woong!" She got hit with this huge, uncontrolled Precognitive vision. It was bad. Like, really bad.

Luckily, Sion-ssi and I combined. "Spreading sesame salt (flirting), aren't you?" I got Sion-ssi on my shoulders, and we stabilized her brain... just barely. It's a miracle, but not for long. We could only focus for a short time.

She told us what she saw. A destroyed city, flames, many deaths... and the Statue of Liberty. The Statue of Liberty! That's never good. Now, we're looking at a huge problem... Preparation prevents calamities.

[What's there to life, just living as it goes]

It has already been almost a week since Yejin-yang came to our house. Since she has to go back to school in three days, I told her to relax and play to her heart's content until then.

"U-jju-jju, Doggie. Go fetch!"

"Wang!"

"Is that a fox, a dog, or a cat? I can't tell what its species identity is."

"Doggie's species is Doggie-nim."

"Is it a dog or what?"

Yejin-yang, playing with Doggie in the front yard, seems to have shaken off what happened in the laboratory quite a bit.

Thinking about it, her mental strength seems extraordinary. For a normal person, even a Force User, to maintain their sanity in a hopeless situation where they were locked up and experimented on incessantly... her mental fortitude might be quite sturdy.

"Ah, actually, I endured because I thought someone would save me. There were many times I almost gave up because they used drugs that made my mind hazy so often. But I held on somehow."

"You're really lucky. If I hadn't come, how would you have escaped from there..."

Wait a minute, Yejin-yang is a Precognition awakener, isn't she?

Does that mean she knew instinctively, even if not in detail, that I would come?

To have the ability to instinctively see a future several weeks away without even being refined yet... I've seen many types of people, whether they were seers or prophets, but her talent is among the very best.

"If you refine it, you at least won't die anywhere."

"Oh, really?"

"Even if you only know what will happen ten seconds from now, it can change a person's life or death. If you just avoid dangerous things, you can save your life most of the time."

Setting aside the lives of others, that is.

I deliberately didn't say that part. It's too early for a kid to hear something like that.

"However, while I can teach you how to fight, I don't know how to develop Precognition-type abilities. The most I can do is a few seconds of future prediction through the Mind's Eye, which relies on Sense."

Since I'm not particularly brainy, even when I use future prediction, I rely on gut feeling and can see maybe ten-odd seconds at most. If I tried to see several weeks ahead, my brain would probably overheat and I'd die.

Even doing it in a soul-only state would overload the soul. Peeking into the future requires that much complex information processing capability and Causality.

"This isn't my field, it's my wife's field."

"I cannot perform future prediction either."

"You can, though."

"That is merely an inference limited to fields where the items are already determined. For example, picking lottery winning numbers."

"In the end, it means you can do it because you're smart. That's half of it, so just doing half is enough."

Two things are needed for future prediction.

One is the information processing capability that makes it possible.

The other is the Causality that allows it.

If even one is missing, the result is death all the same.

"I understand that your head would explode and you'd die without information processing capability. But what is Causality?"

"Have you ever seen the movie Final Destination?"

"......Uh, isn't that the story where they see the future and avoid death, only to die in the original order anyway?"

"That's how it goes."

If you peek into the future and change it recklessly, you end up paying the price.

For example, let's say 100 people are destined to die, but you avoid it and save them.

If there's no way to defy fate, those 100 people will die one way or another. Furthermore, if the person who predicted the future cannot take responsibility for the karma of saving 100 lives, that person dies too.

"A Precognition user's Causality is, so to speak, like incurring a debt. Let's say I have 1 million won, and every time I see the future, 100,000 won is deducted. If I see it ten times, all the money will be gone, right?"

"Uh..... I guess so?"

"If you see the future when you have no money, the 100,000 won you have to pay becomes a debt. Depending on your profession, you might be able to pay back a few million won, but what happens when it goes over hundreds of millions or billions?"

Fate is a nasty loan shark.

If you can't repay the debt, a Body Waiver (death) is sent immediately.

"From what I see, you possess considerable Causality. As long as you don't look at things that are too big, nothing disastrous will happen, so don't worry."

"It's not like I can see it whenever I want anyway."

"I suppose that's true...... First, we should learn how to use the ability. You'll feel more at ease if you can at least control it."

If Causality is settled, then information processing capability is the next issue.

But this is surprisingly simple. Although it's a bit unsettling, it's just a matter of activating the human brain.

"Brain activation without side effects is simple, isn't it?"

"Ahjussi?! Isn't the part about touching the brain itself dangerous?!"

"No, well, it's natural to feel repulsed because the brain is still an unknown territory in modern society. But with a reasonable amount of development, brain activation without side effects is easy."

Even just a few hundred years ago, there were many diseases judged incurable. But in modern society, most of those diseases are cured, and even cancer, which was the synonym for incurable until a few years ago, is starting to be conquered.

In just a few more decades, brain-related diseases will be treatable without side effects. Considering the level of technology Sion-ssi possesses, tinkering with the brain a bit is simple.

"Most of the equipment is elsewhere, but there is one mental treatment facility in the basement. Since it is originally treatment equipment, there should be no problem even if we use it."

"What do you want to do?"

"Hmm..... It sounds a bit sketchy when Ahjussi says it, but it sounds credible when Ajumeoni says it."

"Do I really have an impression that people can't trust?"

"Please go look in a mirror first. Who else besides me would trust you easily?"

"You're casually spreading sesame salt, aren't you?"

If it's the basement, it's the secret underground laboratory Sion-ssi mentioned last time... or a research lab. The one she said was in the yard's shed.

Yejin-yang agreed, so we decided to go to the secret laboratory to take a look.

The small shed in the yard was so small that it was a bit cramped with just the three of us inside. It didn't seem like many people could enter at once.

When Sion-ssi turned the hand of an old clock in the shed one full circle, the floor began to descend with a dulleong sound.

"Wow! Ooh-waa! It really feels like a secret base!"

"It is a secret base. It is that thing, a man's romance."

"You're a woman."

The descending floor was about the thickness of a single thin plate. But seeing how it descended at a fairly high speed without shaking, anti-gravity technology was definitely being applied.

Soon, after descending about a hundred meters underground, a single door greeted us. When Sion-ssi placed her palm next to the door, it opened with a jiing sound.

"I have registered my fingerprints and your fingerprints for now. So, Yejin-yang, when you want to come here, you can just tell me or my husband."

"Ah, yes!"

The inside of the door wasn't as large as I expected. It was barely the size of the first floor of our house.

However, the near-futuristic structure and equipment, and the human-shaped Powered Exoskeleton in one corner caught my eye.

"Oh? That..."

"It is not an Iron Man suit."

"The shape is a bit different, but isn't it similar?"

"I made that just in case, but it is a useless item. Honestly, my husband is stronger than something like that."

My superhuman strength, abilities, and sensing capabilities cannot be mimicked by a machine.

To me, it would have the convenience of a paring knife at best. Just as it doesn't matter if you peel an apple or wash it clean and eat it with the skin on. It might be a bit convenient to have, but it's simpler not to have it.

"I was keeping it even though it was meant to be scrapped, but I plan to keep an eye on it for the time being."

"Can you wear it and move?"

"Since it is specialized for mobility, its mobility is incredible. It only takes three hours to go around the Earth once."

"Uh...... In terms of hourly speed, the Earth's circumference is roughly 40,000 kilometers, so calculating that gives 40,000 km/h. The speed of sound was 340 m/s. Hmm, hmm......"

"Then, since the speed of sound is 1,224 km/h, it is roughly Mach 10."

Mach 10 with alien technology is nothing to scoff at.

In this era, a technology that has a humanoid appearance, can be piloted by a human, and can move with stable output at Mach 10 without refueling? Moreover, this doesn't need propellant.

To put the lack of propellant simply, it means it doesn't need oil or fuel. It means it moves purely on energy.

It even seems to have an Anti-gravity Control Device, so from that point on, it's not something that should be made in the current era.

"Who would have thought there'd be such a high-technology research lab in the front yard of a house?"

"Iron Man and Batman were real!"

"Honestly, it is not bad for a wealthy person with nothing to do to make."

"You could even make a suit that can fight Superman!"

"No, you devil!"

"Your mom's Martha!"

Iron Man is fine, but a Bat-suit is a no-go! Uwaaaa!

"It is because I came too late! Uwaa! I did not let shitty PC stuff get into the works, but BvS was too late even before the PC! Uwaaaaa!!!"

"Sion-ssi is having a violent reaction! This is the first time in nearly 200 years I've seen such a reaction!"

Sion-ssi's number one priority is me, and number two is her hobbies. But there are times when she suffers a fatal blow in those hobbies, and that's when expectations are betrayed.

Honestly, BvS was too much. To ruin such a well-known brand like that!

Take this! Green Ring Beam!

"I like hero movies too, so I watch them often...... But DC movies aren't that bad, are they?"

"What's this? Has an angel descended?"

That's not bad? Just how maniacal is your taste?

Sion-ssi and I barely regained our senses after having a mutual rejection reaction. For Transcendents, a mental shock is far more damaging than a planet-destroying attack.

Anyway, we approached a high-backed chair in a corner of the lab. Above it was equipment like a helmet meant to be worn on the head, and it looked like a facility where one receives treatment while sitting.

"Life sciences are not my specialty, but this is a sufficiently good piece of equipment. It is the latest model of mental care from Delta Castle. While we are at it, I will also lightly touch upon what happened at the research institute so it does not become a trauma."

"I'm a bit nervous......"

"You can be nervous about things I made, but this is fine. Delta Castle is a strict place where if you accidentally kill someone, you receive a punishment worse than death."

"I hate that place."

There are several factions that wander through the gaps between dimensions without having a base inside a dimension. Delta Castle, one of them, is a place with top-tier technology.

If you commit the crime of murder there, it's a place so strict that you'd rather commit suicide. However, as long as you don't commit a crime, there's no better place to live.

......But personally, I don't like it there. I can't trust an organization of castrated bastards.

Even if you can't trust the people there, you can trust the technology. Technology created by rare elites is at a level comparable to what Sion-ssi developed. Especially since Sion-ssi is a complete novice when it comes to life sciences, this side is more trustworthy regarding things related to the human body.

"It will all be over if you just lie down for a moment."

"How long will it take?"

"It depends on the case, but it usually takes about 15 minutes."

"I could boil five packs of ramen in that time."

"You're not suggesting we boil five packs at once, are you?"

Yejin-yang sat in the chair. Automatically, the helmet-like equipment descended from above, was placed on her head, and covered her eyes.

Sion-ssi pressed a few buttons on the side and officially started it up.

"Then, I shall begin."

With a woong sound, light flashed. It looked stable even to me, so it seemed like it would benefit Yejin-yang rather than harm her.

It'll probably take about 20 minutes from now......

"But haven't you started too many things in such a small lab?"

"There are not many. There is only the specially manufactured armor, the treatment equipment, and the Dimensional Rift Detector that was necessary because of the previous incident. It just looks like there are many types because there are so many things to handle, but in reality, there are only a few."

After hearing Sion-ssi's words and re-categorizing the inside of the lab, one thing took up a lot of space and things were just a bit scattered around it, but there really weren't many.

"When ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠are you going to use a suit like that? Honestly, I don't need it."

"Preparation prevents calamities."

"Preparation prevents calamities? Honestly, it's true that it's useless. Excluding me, who would use something like that?"

There aren't many people who would wear something like that and go around saving people. How many heroes would there really be who would say "I am Raccoon Man" in front of people?

Being a hero is only possible if you have a spirit of self-sacrifice. In this harsh modern society, how many people have the self-sacrificing spirit to throw away their own lives for a stranger they've never even seen?

Self-sacrifice is that noble, but it's also rare. Although it's a disqualification not to have it, since it's the basic ideology of a hero.

"Since it's already here, just give it to someone later. It's better to give it to someone who will use it properly than to keep it and not use it, right?"

"That is true."

Who would there be to give it to...... One person comes to mind, but it's not the time yet.

After a short conversation, Yejin-yang's procedure was over. The device placed on her head was lifted, and she woke up while complaining of a bit of dizziness.

"Are you okay? How many fingers am I holding up?"

"One. And although I'm dizzy...... I feel like my head has cleared up a bit, so I think it's good."

Yejin-yang looked much better. There might not be any visible changes, but her eyes had become much clearer.

"Mental care interferes with the subject's brain to give the effect that a bit of time has passed regarding negative memories. Since they say time heals all wounds, wouldn't it be enough to give the effect that time has passed?"

"Uh..... What does that mean?"

"It means that even if what Yejin-yang experienced was a story from a few weeks ago, it feels like a story from several years ago. If we recklessly removed memories, the sense of incongruity would be immense, so it is a method of burying them deep in distant memories instead."

The human brain is surprisingly complex, so if you tinker with it wrong, it's game over. Neither I nor Sion-ssi mess with the brain recklessly and instead rely on the help of machines.

"If we really took time to solve it, there would be a possibility of it becoming a trauma, but since we did it in a short time, we did not even give it time to become a trauma, so there are no side effects. If you do not think about it for a long time, you will just end up forgetting it."

"For now...... I think it's quite okay. My mind is clearer than I thought, and I'm not confused. I'm glad I did it."

After sitting there for about five minutes, the slight dizziness seemed to have disappeared as Yejin-yang stood up with a brighter face than before.

I don't know why her body is moving when her head got better, but Yejin-yang looked much lighter as she stretched. Does mental care have a function to remodel the body too?

"Oh?"

While stretching, Yejin-yang's gaze was fixed on a table in a corner of the lab. Something about the size of an adult male's upper body, connected with complex circuits and equipment. That... was probably the Dimensional Rift Detector, right?

The concept of dimension I'm talking about is the 4th dimension, which adds time to the 3rd dimension we live in. And a comprehensive concept of dimension that contains the concept of the universe above that.

In short, the universe we live in is placed under one concept called a dimension, and it's a form where countless such dimensions are crowded together.

A Dimensional Rift Detector is a device that detects the distortion of such dimensions. Earth developed detectors because of Enemy Species, but they are usually used to detect disasters like earthquakes.

A Dimensional Rift feels like an earthquake too. Though the scale is completely different.

"What about that?"

"No, something feels strange......"

Yejin-yang slowly reached out and touched the Dimensional Rift Detector.

And she began to tremble as if she had been electrocuted by something.

"Kyaaaak!!!"

"Wait, was that thing plugged into electricity?!"

"I did not even turn on the power, so what electricity? And that is definitely not a reaction from being electrocuted!!!"

I hurriedly pulled Yejin-yang's hand away from the Dimensional Rift Detector. Then I laid her down and injected Gaia Force into her body to calm her convulsing frame.

But the problem wasn't her body. It was her head.

"Her head is suddenly overloading. This is...... that feeling of being burdened when seeing the future?"

Yejin-yang, who was predicting the future after suddenly touching the Dimensional Rift Detector, was showing a bizarre reaction, trembling occasionally with empty pupils. When I placed my hand on her forehead, I felt a body temperature that was clearly not normal.

"Can you do something?"

"She's not a Transcendent, so I have to manually manipulate her brain, but you know that's not my specialty! What about you?"

"I said life sciences are not my specialty! I can analyze and mimic electrical signals, but Yejin-yang is not a computer, so manipulating them delicately is ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠impossible!"

"It can't be helped! Combine!"

"Ah, a combination here!"

Of course, it's not a combination in an adult sense, but a combination of each other's abilities.

I put Sion-ssi on my shoulders, and Sion-ssi placed her hand on my head to give commands to my mind.

The delicacy of my ability and Sion-ssi's electrical signals combined, completing an ability capable of manipulating a single human brain.

"It was overloading quite a bit....... Her brain would have cooked if we left it for just five minutes."

"It is a relief she is a Force User. If she were not, she would have died long ago."

"She's like this because she's a Force User, so isn't that like giving the disease and then the medicine?"

I delicately handled the electrical signals Sion-ssi sent to manipulate her brain. I stopped the ongoing precognition in the middle and forcibly stabilized it.

Since both Sion-ssi and I are missing something in our abilities to the point of tinkering with a brain... we barely managed it with the two of us, but there's no guarantee there won't be side effects.

The brain, along with the heart, is the most important organ. In a situation where even an expert's touch might not be enough, the two of us, who aren't even specialists, barely solved it by combining our strength, so it's a relief she even survived.

"Ugh, ahhh......"

"Yejin-ah, are you conscious?"

After stopping her precognition and giving her some time to recover, she regained consciousness a short while later while letting out a groan.

As if she had a headache, she stood up while clutching her head and trembling. Like someone who had seen something terrifying, she tightly gripped my sleeve.

"Ah, Ahjussi..... I, I saw something incredibly scary. I saw so many people dying, and the city collapsing......!"

"Calm down first and speak slowly."

Sion-ssi brought water from somewhere, and Yejin-yang began to talk about what she saw while taking small sips to moisten her throat.

"The moment I touched that, something zapped through me like an electric shock. And...... because of the Enemy Species that came out of the Dimensional Rift, so many people died and the city collapsed."

"The city?"

It's been 20 years since the Great Depression. The level of Force Users has risen, and Master users have appeared, so a typical Enemy Species can no longer cause the kind of damage seen in those days.

While one or two people might die, catastrophic damage to the point of a city collapsing ended when I was in elementary school.

If such a thing were to happen again, it would mean that an Enemy Species that strong would appear.

"Where was it? Is there anything you remember? Is it our country by any chance?"

"That place was......"

Yejin-yang frowned as she searched her memory, then soon said.

"I saw a broken Statue of Liberty."