Chapter 174 - Diver VI

The little Munch inside my heart screamed.

'Go Yori? Why? Why, Go Yori?'

For the record, apart from the squatter Go Yori who had made herself at home in my unconscious world, it had been thousands of years since I last encountered the real Go Yori in “reality.”

To be precise, 2,112 years.

That was enough time for Silla to fall twice over, with time to spare. Enough for the Egyptians to look at the pyramids they themselves had built and wonder, “Wow, what incredible people built those mysterious structures?”

Merely keeping my facial muscles composed at that moment deserved praise as a truly superhuman feat of patience.

“Oh, Guild Leader. The corners of your mouth are trembling.”

“... I've heard a great deal about you.”

I immediately launched into method acting.

Go Yori? Who was Go Yori? I was nothing more than a small-business owner running a little café in Inunaki Tunnel. Besides, Yu Jiwon's living spirit was watching over me.

“Ms. Go Yori. I understand you operate primarily out of Daejeon. What brings you to Busan? And without any advance notice, at that.”

“Oh. Um...”

“Having seen you often on SG Net, I'd like to accommodate you as much as possible, but this is neither the time nor the place. Please understand that without a satisfactory explanation, we have no choice but to respond in accordance with our rules.”

Go Yori gazed intently into my eyes. She started to reach her left hand toward me, then paused.

“Oh, I see.”

I didn't want to know what she meant by “Oh, I see.” Nor could I know.

After all, any knowledge I believed I had arrived at on my own would merely be brainwashing induced by Go Yori.

“I'm sorry, Guild Leader Undertaker.”

“...”

Go Yori withdrew her hand and bowed her head to me as I desperately engaged in doublethink. An awkward smile hung at her lips like the shade of wisteria.

“Actually, I never intended to visit so rudely.”

“Then why...”

“I don't know whether you'll believe me, but when I opened my eyes, I was here.”

“...”

“I was terribly flustered at first, too. I'd been working hard, running around helping all the refugees who had come up from Busan in such great numbers. Then one day, I was suddenly transported here.”

The retort What the hell are you talking about? didn't come readily to my lips.

It wasn't simply because her expression and words inspired overwhelming trust, making me want to believe her on the spot.

It was because I knew that discovering the truth was impossible to begin with.

Unlike the relatively kind “Go Yori in my unconscious,” the “Go Yori in reality” sitting before me felt somewhat different.

A little rougher.

If asked what exactly was rougher about her, I couldn't have given a precise answer. It was merely the intuition of a regressor who had lived far too long.

“In other words, your visit has no purpose? In that case, I'll make arrangements for you to stay here until the Great Monsoon has been defeated. Living conditions will be somewhat uncomfortable, but I hope you'll understand our difficult circumstances.”

“Oh. No. That's not it.”

Go Yori waved her hand with a soft smile.

“Really, Guild Leader, you're speaking far too quickly. Are you that eager to jump to a conclusion?”

“...”

“You're right, Guild Leader. This isn't the appropriate time or place. But, hmm. I do feel a little unfairly treated.”

“Unfairly treated?”

“Yes. After all, I'm not the only thing that ‘shouldn't be’ in this time and place, am I?”

Saliva slid silently down my throat.

The Great Monsoon anomaly, which had never originally been meant to make landfall on the Korean Peninsula.

Me, who had caused the “Toilet Bathtub Effect,” when no such phenomenon should ever have occurred.

The arks that hadn't originally existed here. The operation to ensnare the typhoon with puppet strings.

Almost every condition making up our present situation was something that “shouldn't be.”

Was that what Go Yori was pointing out?

“I don't know why I came here. But aren't humans the same? They don't know why they were born into this world, yet they still try to find a purpose for their lives.”

“That's far too abstract.”

“I know what I need to do here. Once I arrived, I simply came to know it.”

Something wriggled.

A water bug squirmed along Go Yori's long index finger. Its flicking tail stirred up a tiny bubble, which rose to her lips before bursting.

She doted on the water bug as though a little bird had alighted on her finger.

Despite sitting underwater, her voice remained steady and her hair lay neatly in place. Even as the typhoon tossed the ark about, her posture never wavered. It was proof that her control of aura had reached a supremely smooth level.

No—though I also doubted whether that really was thanks to aura.

“Guild Leader, you're planning to slay the dragon, aren't you?”

A dragon.

A term I had never heard used before.

I instinctively sensed that this was Go Yori's own way of referring to the Great Monsoon anomaly.

“Please take me with you when you hunt the dragon. I'm certain I'll be of help.”

“... And if I tell you we can't suddenly add an outsider to a subjugation operation we've been preparing so carefully in Busan?”

“Oh? Then perhaps I'll become a Busan citizen myself.”

“...”

“I've been a Lotte fan for ages!”

It was an offer I couldn't refuse.

10

The Great Monsoon subjugation operation, codenamed “Typhoon Hunt,” proceeded as follows.

First, agents of the National Road Management Corps ran about explaining the operational plan.

“In one hour, the arks will begin rocking violently!”

“Everyone, please take your assigned seats and fasten your belts! Awakened must not unfasten their belts without authorization, either!”

Seats had been installed in the arks' Isolation Sections from the outset in anticipation of violent currents.

Think of them as upgraded airplane seats.

Unfortunately, that didn't mean an upgrade from economy to business class.

Waist belts, chest belts, leg belts, and so on. It was an upgrade in the S&M sense, designed to keep a firm grip on everyone's limbs no matter what happened.

“All awakened, please make sure to hold on to the strings!”

“Orders will be transmitted through the strings in real time! When instructed, keep channeling aura into them, but only to a level that won't exhaust you!”

Each passenger seated in a torture chair received several of Lee Hayul's puppet strings.

These strings ran along Ark One's bulkheads to its figurehead, then extended from there to the figureheads of the other arks.

A fleet of twelve arks.

Every awakened aboard them was connected through a “Khala.”

Readers well versed in StarCraft would sense, from this description of arks and the Khala, that “fall” was gradually approaching.

“Your Excellency. All awakened are seated,” Yu Jiwon said in the Operations Control Office.

Thousands of awakened were still displayed on the [Minimap] she had brought. Regular-sized chess pieces couldn't accommodate them all, so most units were represented by miniature pieces just two centimeters tall.

Even the Saintess's [Clairvoyance] was almost completely out of commission.

To command a large-scale operation, we now had no choice but to rely on Yu Jiwon's [Minimap].

“The positions of the arks?”

“They're maintaining sufficient distance from one another. Even if the currents become turbulent, the probability of a collision is extremely low, Your Excellency.”

“Good.”

I looked around.

Noah. Dang Seorin. Sim Aryeon. Lee Hayul. Yu Jiwon. Even our uninvited guest, Go Yori.

Except for that last illegal entrant, everyone was exhausted in body and mind.

But their eyes were still alive.

For Operation Typhoon Hunt to succeed, not a single person here could be left out.

“Then let's begin.”

“... Will you be all right, Undertaker?”

Dang Seorin looked at me with worried eyes.

“You said the Great Monsoon would go away quietly if we just held out for another thirty days or so. Rather than you going this far, wouldn't it be better to simply wait...”

“Then the Great Monsoon will come again next summer. And every time it does, we'll have to board the arks just as we have now.”

“...”

“Don't worry, Dang Seorin. This probably won't reassure you, but I've already had my arms and legs cut off several times.”

“Seriously. That isn't reassuring at all.”

Dang Seorin shook her head, looking utterly resigned.

It was an expression I liked, too.

“All right. Then... shall I sing?”

“Please.”

Pressing gently on the puppet strings, Dang Seorin parted her lips.

“Aaah...”

A song flowed from her mouth. It was Spell-Song Chanting.

As always, the first and second phrases were “Repeat” and “Playback.” They laid the groundwork for Dang Seorin's signature grand magic by making the songs she had already sung repeat automatically.

The spell that followed was unusual.

“Aaah... ah... aaah...”

Sensory Maximization.

This spell pushed human senses to their utmost limits.

You sometimes see scenes in comics where bullets flying toward someone's face appear to move in slow motion. Sensory Maximization was a spell designed to induce precisely that state.

However, it had the side effect of making you feel every twitch of your heart, every movement of your blood, and every stir of your internal organs.

Naturally, it was more debuff than buff. Casting it on ordinary awakened was an excellent way to give them a nervous breakdown.

Dang Seorin cast Sensory Maximization on me alone.

“...”

THUMP.

My perception of the world intensified without limit.

My five senses had already been honed to a superhuman level. With Dang Seorin's support added to them, I could feel every delicate ripple of the waves striking the ark's bulkheads.

It felt as though waves were breaking directly against my heart.

“Good... Jiwon.”

“Yes.”

“Cut off the fingers.”

“Forgive me, Your Excellency.”

SHICK.

Without a moment's hesitation, Yu Jiwon drew her sword and severed the fingers.

Naturally, they weren't her own fingers. Yu Jiwon was practically the incarnation of self-love.

They were mine.

Left hand, right hand—all ten fingers were cleanly severed.

Horrific pain surged up for an instant, but I expertly brought it under control.

'What would happen if I screamed like good old Guan Yu right now?'

A fierce curiosity briefly seized me, but I was more concerned about the resulting damage to my reputation. I'd satisfy that curiosity in the next run.

Without letting out so much as a groan, I spoke calmly.

“Commander. Now.”

“Haaah...”

Noah sighed deeply enough to cave in the floor of the ship. Still, she came over and immediately began working—a testament to her professionalism.

One by one, she fitted assistive devices onto the stumps of my severed fingers. Each had been modeled after my own fingers.

Thanks to Noah's awakened ability, these “fingers” felt as real as if they had always been part of my body.

I moved them freely, without any sense of loss.

And these fingers had puppet strings attached to them.

They had been designed that way from the moment they were made. Like Spider-Man's fingers.

As I mentioned before, Lee Hayul's puppet strings, attached to each fingertip, were connected to Ark One, and from there to the fleet of twelve arks swimming through the enormous Great Monsoon typhoon.

“I-I'll heal you, Guild Leader!”

Sim Aryeon hurried over and cast healing on me. The prosthetic fingers adhered perfectly to the exposed flesh.

The moment the puppet strings joined with my nerves, my “eyes” opened.

“...!”

How could I describe this sensation?

I saw the sea. Heard it. Felt it.

The nerves inside my body extended along the puppet strings into every corner of the ark.

Those nerve strands stretching outside the ark rode the aura, surging against the currents and waves in an instant.

Where all twelve ships were, where they were headed, how rough the currents they were pushing through were—I sensed it all, without exception.

'Ahh.'

Wasn't it said that riders who learned horsemanship from childhood savored a state of perfect unity with their horses?

Then the proper description for my current sensation would be unity of man and ship.

As a test, I sent aura through the puppet strings. I felt the ark surge forward with a heavy lurch.

- “Wh-what was that?”

- “Must've been a wave.”

- “Wave. Occurring. Wave. Occurring.”

I even “heard” the slightly startled reactions of people throughout the ship to the sudden movement.

The aura of an awakened hurriedly tapping out Morse code also reached me with perfect clarity.

Everything lay within my grasp.

A slight sense of omnipotence.

Controlling objects vastly larger than myself as easily as moving my fingers brought even a certain pleasure.

“...”

Go Yori quietly watched me with a bright smile.

Her gaze was like someone licking ice cream with their eyes instead of their tongue.

Normally, that look would have horrified me, but right now I had to focus entirely on controlling the arks.

I looked around the Operations Control Office and spoke.

“I've successfully taken control of the arks.”

Exclamations rose all around. Noah, in particular, gave an incredulous chuckle, muttering, “Crazy bastard...”

I smiled as well.

“Now, let's hunt a typhoon.”

It was time to bring summer to an end.