Chapter 170 - Diver II

4

Back in Joseon, there was something called the Empty Island Policy. As the name suggested, it was a policy of removing the inhabitants from islands.

It was a reversal in thinking: rather than let Zerglings (Japanese pirates) keep raiding expansions that barely produced any minerals or gas anyway, why not simply lift off the Command Centers and relocate them? It was also proof that our ancestors had cared for their subjects just as they would SCVs.

As a member of the Terran people myself, I could hardly fail to follow their example.

“Your Excellency Undertaker. We have evacuated all residents of Jeju Island.”

“Good work.”

On my orders, Yu Jiwon had been traveling around the islands of the South Sea, directing the evacuation. There had been some resistance, but we ignored it.

The difference between the “monsoon” ordinary people imagined and the “Great Monsoon” bearing down on us was the difference between a whistle and a typhoon. Unless we evacuated them now, they would all be wiped out anyway. Multiple runs had confirmed that.

The evacuation orders were not limited to the real world.

-[Three Thousand]WitchTrialJudge: (Must Read) Guidelines for surviving the Great Monsoon.

-[Hundred Flowers]HighSchoolYear8: All roads connected to Sejong City will be closed from July through August until the Great Monsoon ends! If you're short on food, please come to Sejong City Hall and apply for refugee status!! >_<);;

-Administrator: (Notice) Please be advised that access to SG Net may be unreliable during the Great Monsoon.

Guild leaders allied with us, such as Dang Seorin and Cheon Yohwa, took the initiative and volunteered to serve as canaries in the coal mine.

Even Seo Gyu, SG Net's administrator, stepped in. When the “Administrator” username, which almost never appeared, made an appearance, even some of the awakened who prided themselves on being tough guys took notice.

-Anonymous: Wait, has SG Net ever actually gone down before?

└Anonymous: Nah, but once in a blue moon it redirects you to some weird site. I entered the exact same address once and got forcibly redirected to a place called “Live Net” lol

└BookishGirl: Eeeeeek!

└Anonymous: That was temporary contamination by a suicide-site anomaly. It didn't actually block access to SG Net. This Great Monsoon really is an unprecedented event, yeah...

-Anonymous: So Busan's the only place in serious danger. Can't you just run away?

└Anonymous: Yeah, that's why almost all the ordinary people around here have gone north to Daejeon. At least the shelters and soup kitchens there are run properly.

└Anonymous: They'll probably get lost in the void and die on the way lolol

└[National Road]Historian: The National Road Management Corps currently operates emergency caravans twice a week. We ask all civilians to use these caravans.

-CookingQueen: If you're struggling, please come to Daejeon. I'll help you whenever I can, as far as my means allow.

The southern Korean Peninsula bustled with preparations for flooding.

Of course, even after all those warnings, some people remained complacent.

-Anonymous: Seriously, what a fucking fuss lolol

-Anonymous: A typhoon? We've got the SSS-class breakwater known as the Japanese archipelago. No worries

It couldn't be helped.

Humanity was a race enslaved to dopamine and thrills. Weren't humans the very animals who insisted on camping in valleys during floods and tried swimming in the sea during typhoons?

-Anonymous: It's still just a monsoon, isn't it? lol Maybe ordinary people, sure, but you seriously think awakened are gonna die from a little rain??

Amid those leaving Busan and those staying, those building arks and those mocking them, amid bustling preparations and cold sneers...

PLOP...

PLOP-PLOP. PLOP.

PATTER-PATTER...

The rain began.

5

[“We have visual confirmation of the typhoon wall.”]

The Saintess's voice rang inside my head.

It would have reached the other awakened as well, not just me. In their case, though, the message would have arrived in the name of a “constellation.”

[“Jeju Island has entered the typhoon's area of influence.”]

“Good. Please withdraw the Three Thousand Worlds guild members scattered along the southern coast, one group at a time.”

[“Understood.”]

Every member of Three Thousand Worlds could use flight magic, and they were currently serving as our weather bureau. Clinging to their staffs, they flew over the sea, observing the typhoon as it drew closer by the moment.

The Saintess shared the weather observers' vision through [Clairvoyance]. That allowed us to track the typhoon's course from multiple angles.

[“This is...”]

As a result, the Saintess witnessed the true form of the “Great Monsoon” more clearly than anyone, from a first-person perspective. She couldn't help faltering for a moment.

[“Jeju Island is being torn apart. No. It was swallowed. The island. The whole thing.”]

[“Like a tsunami... Just like something from a movie, but so much bigger...”]

[“A wall of waves stretching from the horizon to the sky, a tsunami over ten kilometers high, is approaching. How can something like that...”]

Even the Saintess, who had witnessed countless anomalies and voids, briefly lost her composure.

A typhoon made of seawater, at least ten kilometers high and twelve hundred kilometers across. A waterspout of waves that could easily swallow even Everest.

It was violence that would make any human shudder, with fear of nature engraved in their DNA.

“Saintess. We can't let it head anywhere else. We need the Three Thousand Worlds guild members to lure it slowly toward the arks.”

[“But even with the arks we've built, something like that... Can we stop it?”]

“We can. If we don't, the Japanese archipelago will sink, or the entire Korean Peninsula will be submerged.”

[“... All right. I'll start guiding it.”]

The Saintess regained her composure and directed the operation according to my instructions.

Our command staff had gathered in Ark One's Operations Control Office. Noh Doha, Dang Seorin, Yu Jiwon, Seo Gyu, and Lee Hayul were all looking down at the map.

Chess pieces moved across it in accordance with Yu Jiwon's ability, [Minimap]. Each piece represented a Three Thousand Worlds scout. Thanks to them, we could observe the typhoon's movements in real time from a third-person perspective.

I spoke.

“The typhoon will arrive soon.”

“...”

“The Great Monsoon's typhoon is both an anomaly and a void. The moment it reaches Busan, we will effectively be entering the ‘Great Monsoon void.’”

I had emphasized these points several times already. But they could never be repeated too often, so I gave one final briefing.

“The monsoon rain scattered by that typhoon is not ordinary rainwater. It's a toxic substance composed of void poison. Contact alone puts you at risk of bodily transformation.”

“...”

“Our ships may be serving as arks, but they will still flood. When that happens, calmly use your buckets to keep bailing water in relays, whether it takes an hour or dozens of hours. Do not question how effective that could possibly be at keeping the water out. The act and motion of bailing water are what matter.”

We had gathered old rust buckets formerly used as pleasure boats and converted them into arks. Their outer walls were encased in wood, and we had stocked their interiors with enough food to last at least forty days.

There were twelve arks in total, each with an average capacity of five thousand. Sixty thousand Busan citizens had boarded the arks moored along Geumjeongsan's ridge.

“The rain will definitely fall inside the ships as well. Therefore, do not move to other areas without good reason. Every section must remain strictly isolated. If you absolutely must communicate with another section—”

I took a firm hold of a thread.

It formed part of a spiderweb-like network, running along the ceiling and walls of the Operations Control Office to connect with other sections. These were the puppet strings Lee Hayul had strung up.

“Please use these puppet strings. As we approach the typhoon's area of influence, SG Net and Telepathy will stop working. When that happens, you must channel aura into the puppet strings to transmit Morse code.”

PLOP.

It happened then. A drop of rain splashed against the window, which was made of reinforced glass.

It wriggled.

The rainwater on the glass moved of its own accord, like a living insect. The droplet stretched sideways, then up and down, forming a strange shape.

The shape spelled out:

雨.

Each drop of rain squirmed independently. Sometimes large. Sometimes small. Yet every droplet ultimately revealed the same single character.

雨.

Whenever the droplet characters writhed with life, a faint frog's croak sounded from somewhere.

It was strange.

We had never loaded frogs onto the arks. We had merely imitated the ark from Genesis as a means of survival, not actually built a cradle for living creatures.

雨.

[“Undertaker.”]

雨雨.

[“It has made landfall in Busan. Now, ah. The typhoon's water is rapidly converging on Busan. Impossible. The typhoon... It's changing from a gigantic spiral into something like a straw, ah. The wat■, the tsunami on the horizon. It's all converg■ng on Geumjeongsan■■. Everyone, be ca■—”]

雨雨雨雨雨.

Static interrupted the Saintess's Telepathy, which never cut out under any circumstances.

RIBBIT.

Seo Gyu's hand froze as he anxiously checked his smartphone yet again. “Boss, SG Net's down—”

RIBBIT.

The space within the ark, held securely in place by the law of universal gravitation—the ship beneath our feet—seemed to float up for an instant.

RIBBIT.

Seo Gyu had just opened his mouth, and Dang Seorin shouted, “Undertaker!” and something else, but their voices were entirely drowned out by the rain pouring outside the window and the croaking of frogs that cried within its sound.

RIBBIT.

Rain fell.

雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨雨.

Amid the deafening noise of water and frogs, I blinked. The very next moment, I couldn't breathe.

The view before me rippled.

Everyone in the Operations Control Office, myself included, was underwater.

6

GLUG-GLUG-GLUG.

Bubbles rose right in front of my nose.

They were Lee Hayul's exhaled breath. Faced with a kind of void she had never encountered before, she was visibly flustered.

She had merely closed her eyes for an instant and opened them again, only to find her entire body submerged.

“...! ..., ...!”

Lee Hayul flailed underwater. Everyone else's reactions were much the same.

No matter how many times I had explained and emphasized it, remaining calm while drowning was no easy feat.

RIBBIT.

Worse still, as Lee Hayul and the other awakened streamed bubbles, their fingers were gradually coming to resemble “frog hands.”

Bodily mutation. Contamination of their very being.

These were typical symptoms of exposure to void poison. As the hands and feet they had used as their own limbs all their lives suddenly turned into those of frogs, they briefly succumbed to panic.

GLUG-GLUG. RIBBIT. GLUG. RIBBIT.

Feeding on human panic, the void poison spread faster and faster. The sound of the bubbles escaping Lee Hayul was now turning into something closer to a frog's croaking.

The Chinese character for frog, 蛙, pronounced wa, contained the component meaning “insect” (虫). That was because a crouching frog's posture resembled the shape of the character for “insect” (虫).

RIBBIT. GLUG-GLUG. GLUG. RIBBIT.

Frog hands. Frog legs. Green skin. My companions were turning into insects in the blink of an eye.

Only about six seconds had elapsed.

I infused my voice with aura and let it explode.

“Move your buckets!”

“...!”

My thunderous roar shook the water.

“Go through the motions of bailing water. It doesn't matter how clumsy you are! Bail it out! Hayul, move! Now! How many times have I told you!”

“...! ...!”

Only then did Lee Hayul and the other awakened snap out of it and grab their buckets, setting them in motion.

Moving underwater was difficult, but they had all trained together before boarding the arks.

“...!”

“...! ...!”

Looking rather ridiculous, but utterly desperate, everyone performed the motions of bailing with their buckets.

They flailed and floundered.

Then the water filling the Operations Control Office began to recede, little by little.

The water in the buckets wasn't actually being carried outside. Yet the water dwindled as though it really were being bailed out.

“Pff, haa!”

As the water finally dropped low enough, my companions thrust their heads above the surface.

Their skin, which had been turning green, had returned to its human color before we knew it.

“F-fuck, I almost d-died!”

“Haa... Hah, hoo, haa...!”

“Is everyone all right?”

My companions panted, soaked to the skin.

Their hands were still elongated like frogs', and membranes had formed between their fingers, but those, too, were gradually healing.

“It's too soon to relax.”

My companions all turned toward me.

I glanced at the window. Outside, there was nothing to see but “雨.”

Like us, the entire ark was underwater. It had been completely submerged.

Not in the sea, the mother of all life, but in a deadly void poison that reaped life.

“Now we have to check whether the other sections are safe.”

“...”

“Hayul, come with me.”

“Okay.”

I kept moving my bucket until all the water had drained from the Operations Control Office, then stepped through the door with Hayul alone.

RIBBIT RIBBIT RIBBIT RIBBIT.

The ark's long corridor stretched before us.

Frogs croaked thickly all around, echoing from both sides.