Chapter 93

After Jang Seokyun left, I stood blankly in the laboratory.

Ham Jiwol, who had been adjusting her glasses, quietly came over to my side.

“Goyo-ssi….”

She looked sadly at the IV needle inserted into the back of my hand and muttered,

“Goyo-ssi doesn’t have to do this…. Why did they put it in…. I, I told them not to….”

At her muttering, loud enough for everyone to hear, I simply held out my hand to her without a word.

Ham Jiwol immediately brightened, came over to me, and removed the IV needle.

When she tried to subtly pocket the gauze that had been used to stop the bleeding, I called out to her.

“Director Ham. Do you need a blood sample?”

Ham Jiwol’s eyes and mouth fell open at the same time.

“I-I do! I need it very, very much!”

I calmly addressed the woman who looked ready to cut me open with a scalpel on the spot.

“I’ll let you draw my blood, so please talk with me for a while.”

“O-of course…! Getting to talk with Goyo-ssi, I’d love that…!”

Ham Jiwol hurried out, saying she’d go get the blood collection equipment.

As her flustered figure disappeared, rushing off in case I changed my mind, I was left alone for a moment.

It suddenly felt as though all the strength had drained from my body.

It was difficult just to remain standing, so I simply collapsed onto the floor.

I looked up at Mo Haein inside the glass pillar.

I’d naturally assumed she was out on a mission. Je Hyun-oh and the Captains were always busy, after all.

But I hadn’t expected to find her in a place like this.

She looked peaceful as she slept.

So peaceful that I couldn’t help thinking she might be spending an even calmer moment than when she was awake.

After staring at her for a while, I lowered my gaze slightly.

The Meteorite of Trial glowed with a brilliant pink light.

It felt strangely out of place because the color didn’t really suit Mo Haein.

I examined the meteorite for a while, trying to guess what kind of Trial it contained, but nothing came to mind.

I lowered my head.

“…….”

I hadn’t known at all.

Not that Mo Haein had a meteorite implanted in her, nor that her younger sibling was trapped inside an Trial.

The Creator’s game was set in South Korea.

Within the Archive world, I traveled through Trials and across South Korea, obtaining a great deal of information.

But in the end, all of that information had been processed through the Creator’s hands.

I could only know the information the Creator wanted me to know.

The amount of information was uneven.

I knew quite a lot about the members of the Special Mission Team, but I didn’t know everything.

There were many gaps, even in the important parts.

‘I didn’t even know the names they used in the Trials, and I knew nothing at all about their individual pasts….’

If the Special Mission Team had only been revealed to me through scattered fragments of information, some other people had been explained in detail even down to things that weren’t necessary.

‘Chairman Cheon-gang’s personal history was explained all the way down to the fact that she changed her name.’

And it wasn’t only information about people.

The same was true of other things, and sometimes information that should have been provided had simply been omitted.

‘I didn’t even know where the Trials first hatched in Korea.’

What was the standard for deciding what information to include?

The Creator had to have had a standard of his own, but I couldn’t figure it out.

A strange thought suddenly came to mind.

Perhaps he had only wanted to show me the good parts of the Archive world.

Like an enjoyable, lighthearted game, or an entertaining novel or movie.

Perhaps he had wanted to show me a fairy-tale world where I overcame appropriate hardships and adversity together with fascinating people.

It was only speculation….

But remembering the Creator I had seen in my dream this time, it seemed at least somewhat plausible.

He had seemed to place great importance on me enjoying the game.

In any case, one thing was certain.

‘I can’t judge reality based only on the information I obtained from the game.’

The information I knew had been acquired through the following process.

1. An event exists.

2. The Creator selects only part of that event and presents it in the game.

3. I play the game, judging and absorbing that information through my own perspective.

Information that had been processed twice—once by the Creator and once by me—could never be the complete truth.

Yet I had treated it as absolute and never questioned it.

The first time I felt a disconnect between the game and reality was with Mo Haein’s Black Moon Blade.

I had been convinced, based on what I’d seen and judged in the game, that the Black Moon Blade was a spear.

Had I not heard the truth directly from Mo Haein, I probably never would have known.

Because I’d assumed I was right, I wouldn’t even have thought to ask her.

I had also regarded Je Hyun-oh exactly as he appeared in the game—simply an overwhelmingly powerful existence.

The sight of him trapped in Gorgos’s illusion magic, reliving happy memories while harming himself….

I had never even imagined such a thing.

And after seeing Mo Haein today, I fully realized it.

You can’t make assumptions about someone or judge them based only on the information from the game.

I need to step outside the game and hear the real story.

“Roasted Chestnut.”

I picked up the pudding slime that had quietly waited for me the entire time and placed him on my palm.

Dominic, who obediently let himself be picked up, sat on my hand and looked up at me.

“Roasted Chestnut is the master of this place.”

He spoke in a quiet, admonishing voice.

“If humans offend Roasted Chestnut, there is no need for you to take action personally. You need only command your subordinates. The subordinate made of black metal seemed well suited for such matters. Let us revive him.”

Listening to Dominic’s long speech, I smiled faintly.

Whenever he talked as though I were some incredible being, it comforted me a little.

In reality, I was just an unemployed man who’d retired from being an athlete because of a broken body and spent his days shut inside playing games.

The only thing I had going for me was that I’d played a few more games than most people.

At the moment, I was barely keeping up with quests involving severed limbs and gouged-out eyes.

Whenever Dominic seriously gave me advice like this, I really did feel as though I were Earth’s young god.

“Dominic-ssi.”

“Yes, Roasted Chestnut.”

“May I squish you again? Just a little.”

“Hmm….”

The pudding slime stared at me.

I looked back at him with pitiful eyes.

“If it is only for a moment, I will allow it.”

Having ultimately received the pudding slime’s generous permission, I spent a while enjoying his soft, squishy body.

While I was doing so, Ham Jiwol returned. Carrying an armful of blood collection equipment, she asked excitedly,

“Goyo-ssi! Um, how much….”

“100 milliliters.”

“No! Th-that’s much too little…!”

She probably wanted to forcefully draw more blood, but at the moment she had no way of overpowering me.

If she called the other researchers over, they’d find out she was secretly trying to collect my blood.

I made a proposal to the anxious Ham Jiwol.

“If Director Ham answers my questions sincerely, I may be willing to increase the amount.”

“Ugh…!”

Ham Jiwol anxiously chewed on her lip.

I simply waited, idly wondering if the standard blood donation amount for an adult had been 400 milliliters.

Unable to overcome her greed in the end, Ham Jiwol accepted my proposal.

“O-okay, ask!”

“Is the meteorite implanted in Captain Mo all right?”

“Of course it is…!”

As she tried to stick the needle into me while answering, I reminded her that the explanation came first.

Pouting slightly, Ham Jiwol explained,

“If you implant a meteorite into a compatible person, it enters hibernation…!”

Normally, once an Trial Meteorite hatched, it would explode if the Trial wasn’t cleared within a certain amount of time.

However, if the meteorite was implanted into the body of a compatible person, it entered a dormant state, like a computer that had been powered off.

“A-and it’s an incredibly dangerous procedure. Only I can do it!”

The higher the meteorite’s grade, the more it had to be implanted into someone whose body could withstand a meteorite of that level, but matching the grade alone wasn’t enough.

It also had to satisfy the extremely vague condition that ‘the Trial itself must take a liking to the compatible person.’

If either of those conditions wasn’t met, the meteorite would explode the instant it was implanted.

In the early days, meteorite implantation had also been proposed as a method of dealing with Trials, but it seemed to have been abandoned due to human rights concerns and the difficulty of finding compatible hosts.

In reality, though, the larger reason was probably that if too many compatible people died during implantation, it would create problems for defending against Trials.

Once a meteorite entered hibernation, it was treated as nothing more than an ordinary stone, meaning someone with an implanted meteorite could still enter an Trial.

However, there were two things a compatible person with an implanted meteorite had to be careful of.

The first was that they absolutely could not die.

The moment the host died, the implanted meteorite would immediately explode.

The second was emotional instability.

Strong emotions could stimulate the meteorite and become the catalyst that caused it to hatch.

“After Captain Mo closed Clean3… she entered the special isolation facility because of that.”

She had entered the special isolation facility in case the meteorite hatched due to a PTSD episode.

Not even knowing she’d been admitted there, I quietly lowered my eyes.

Then I asked,

“Was Director Ham the one who performed the procedure?”

“N-no! For someone like Captain Mo, th-the higher-ups had to approve it…. Captain Mo wanted the implantation herself…!”

Hoping that one day the Trial could be closed, she had chosen to have the meteorite containing her younger sibling implanted into herself.

Apparently, the reason she had been “hospitalized” in the laboratory this time was because they were worried something might happen to the meteorite.

After sitting in thought for a while, I spoke beneath Ham Jiwol’s burning gaze.

“200 milliliters.”

“W-wait, why…! I answered everything honestly…!”

“Would you like 300?”

Ham Jiwol nodded her head vigorously. I held out my forearm so the blue veins stood out clearly and said,

“Then lend me your phone.”

Ham Jiwol’s eyes wavered. I could see the thought, I shouldn’t, flash across her face.

Smiling faintly, I said,

“I’ll make it 400 milliliters.”

After returning to my hospital room, I turned on Ham Jiwol’s phone.

Then goosebumps immediately spread all over my body.

The wallpaper was a picture of me….

I was asleep, and judging by the things visible around me, it seemed to have been taken in the laboratory.

‘When was I ever in the laboratory?’

Since I had no memories outside the hospital room, I stopped to think for a moment.

It was probably when I’d first been brought to the Trial Response Agency. Back then, I’d still been a suspect.

After shivering to myself for a moment, I looked around the room.

There were no CCTV cameras in this new hospital room.

Holding the phone, I spoke with unwavering faith in the state-of-the-art android.

“Samra.”

It was simply the belief that if I got my hands on an electronic device somehow, Samra would take care of the rest.

‘He can create reverse-phase electromagnetic waves and control nanorobots. Something like this should be easy enough.’

As expected, Samra did not betray my faith.

The phone’s screen suddenly went black. Then a brief loading screen appeared.

A percentage appeared beneath the loading indicator.

The number, which started at 0%, rapidly climbed until it reached 100%.

A moment later, the person I’d been waiting for appeared on the screen.

—Han Goyo-ssi.

Samra’s expression looked somewhat anxious.

The moment I saw him, I brought the phone close to my face and asked,

“Are you all right? You were attacked by Daeil Yeorae.”

—I am unharmed.

“I’m glad to hear that. I was worried.”

Samra fell silent for a moment after hearing my words.

Looking at me through the screen, he slowly closed and opened his eyelids, as though imitating a human.

—Were you worried about me as well, Han Goyo-ssi?

“Hm?”

—Never mind. Please continue.

He had said something so obvious that I found myself worrying all over again that Daeil Yeorae’s attack might have caused some sort of malfunction.

Still, he looked perfectly normal through the screen. After watching him for a moment, I asked,

“What about Lieutenant Colonel Je and CEO Cha?”

—They are both unharmed. CEO Cha has been detained for this act of terrorism.

In reality, “detained” just meant that he’d willingly allowed himself to be taken into custody.

It was surprising that he’d gone along with it so obediently, though considering how enormous an incident he’d caused, perhaps it made sense.

There were plenty of other things I wanted to ask, but I decided to get to the urgent matter first.

“Samra, I need your help.”

—What is it that you want?

What I wanted was perfectly clear.

However, I had no intention of acting the way Jang Seokyun wanted me to.

“I’d like to give Director Jang Seokyun a little surprise.”