Ch.131We will not be defeated

# Morning. At the hotel inside the apartment.

Robin began the briefing after placing her laptop on the dining table.

“Then I’ll begin the presentation.”

A neatly created PowerPoint document was displayed on the screen.

[Plan to Prevent the End of the World]

“Let’s look at the table of contents first.”

Robin glanced around at the audience before leaning forward to click the mouse.

With a click sound, the screen changed.

– Objective

– Current Forces

– Detailed Plan

– Expected Variables

– Aftermath

The PPT had large text that was easy to read at a glance.

But there was nothing special about it.

I thought the Foundation’s leadership would use something like holograms. It’s a bit disappointing.

“Our goal is to stop the Professor and protect human civilization.”

Click.

Robin pressed the mouse again, but this time the screen didn’t immediately change.

“Huh?”

Instead, a screen transition animation played.

The slide with the table of contents folded neatly and turned into a paper airplane, flying into the black screen.

Whoosh-

“Wait. When did you add this?”

“Hehe.”

Riko laughed as she watched Robin’s confused face.

It seemed to be Riko’s work.

“In such a serious situation…”

The screen finally moved to the next slide.

Large text appeared on a white background.

[The Professor]

“The Professor. A member of the Foundation’s leadership and a senior researcher. We don’t know his motives, but it’s almost certain that he’s planning to destroy humanity.”

The ‘Professor’ can see the future.

He has protected humanity and efficiently contained anomalies based on his abilities.

Yet now, he’s leading an experiment that will destroy humanity. He must know the outcome.

What could he possibly be thinking?

“What he’s trying to do might simply be ‘unleashing the chains,’ but disasters will cascade one after another. Eventually, this world itself will be deleted. As if it never existed in the first place.”

Robin’s voice became resolute.

“We must stop him.”

***

I sat in the corner listening to Robin’s presentation.

Beside me, Serim was staring blankly ahead.

“Dabin. Wasn’t our goal to get out of here? But…”

Her face and tone suggested she didn’t understand what was going on.

“…”

For a moment, I was puzzled.

Serim was once a Librarian too. Shouldn’t she know about the future ‘destruction’?

Then I realized the answer.

After transferring her Librarian authority to me, she was quickly forgetting dangerous knowledge.

That’s fortunate. Knowing about destruction and such things isn’t good for anyone.

“It’s related to that. Very much so.”

It’s best to have only a vague understanding of these things.

The Professor’s plan will ultimately lead the world to destruction.

That’s also why there’s no way to escape from the apartment.

Because there’s nowhere for us to go in a world that’s already been destroyed and deleted.

“The outside world is currently in a state of destruction due to the ‘Professor’s’ plan. That’s why we couldn’t find a way to escape from the apartment.”

“Ah… But can the time sequence work like that?”

“Yes. This place was designed that way from the beginning.”

I took a rubber band out of my pocket.

It was a hair tie I’d been carrying around but hadn’t used since changing to a medium-length hairstyle.

I stretched the round band straight, then twisted it randomly and tied a knot.

“Time that should flow in a straight line has become tangled, and this apartment is like that knot.”

Before the knot is reality.

After it is the destroyed future.

Unless the knot is untied, time cannot move forward.

“Unless we resolve this tangled event, we couldn’t leave here.”

In other words, we needed preparation to face the future.

Clatter.

Jung Haewon made noise by fiddling with the weapons.

Weapons seized from the Foundation were placed on the table.

They were either cutting-edge technology or items that transcended modern technology altogether.

For some items, we had to conduct simple experiments because we couldn’t figure out how to use them.

“Now we’re going to stop the Professor and fix the ending.”

While I was speaking, Robin continued her presentation.

Three days from now.

We’ll raid the Professor’s laboratory established inside the apartment.

Riko knows the location of the lab.

So, we’ll spend the next few days focusing on preparations.

“That’s all I have to say. Does anyone have questions?”

As soon as Robin finished her presentation, Heo Yoon raised her hand and stepped forward.

“What happens next?”

“Pardon?”

“If we stop this Professor person, what happens next? Can we get out of here?”

Robin thought for a moment, then spoke in a heavy voice.

“At least we’ll have a chance.”

We moved to a floor that looked like a bomb shelter, taking the elevator.

According to the exploration log, it’s relatively safe.

Judging it suitable as a practice space, we relocated there.

Two people who could handle firearms followed: Heo Yoon and Seok Hyunmin.

Dan didn’t come along.

Dan was actually the reason we needed to find a separate practice space.

He had turned a hotel room into a mess while testing a newly acquired gun, and since I had resolved the hotel basement issue, the room didn’t return to normal even after swiping the key card.

As a result, we’ve completely abandoned one room.

A little later.

Ratatatatat!

With an intense noise, fragments flew in all directions.

Seok Hyunmin held the gun while examining the pillar on the opposite side.

Seeing his puzzled expression, I approached and asked for his impression.

“How is it?”

“This definitely isn’t an ordinary weapon.”

“What?”

“Look over there.”

Where Seok Hyunmin was pointing.

The parking pillar had bullet marks beautifully clustered together.

“Hmm…”

“They don’t usually cluster like that.”

I’m no military expert, but anyone who’s played military games would know this.

Shot grouping.

The tighter the grouping, the more accurate and better performing the gun is.

“Let me try.”

“You want to shoot too, noona?”

“Yeah.”

Heo Yoon, who had been watching from the side, silently took the weapon.

Ratatat!

Her gun barrel wasn’t aimed at a practice target.

Toward the dark interior of the underground space.

The gun muzzle spat fire, and a formless scream echoed.

“…Nice.”

[Bomb Shelter]

– This appears to be a bomb shelter built to prepare for some kind of apocalypse

– Be cautious of attacks

And something began to crawl out of the darkness.

Exactly as written in the exploration log.

– When someone enters, the bomb shelter projects their image caught in the apocalypse

– If you stay too long, you yourself will become part of the apocalypse.

“Uuuuuugh.”

“Grrrrrr.”

Faces on the other side gleaming in the flashlight beam.

At first, they were hard to recognize, but gradually the detailed features became visible.

Dozens of Heo Yoons were approaching.

People melting away.

Tumors growing rapidly in place of the melted parts.

Moving while melted, each using different body parts to move.

Some stick together and move as one body, while others split in two and move separately.

What kind of event happened in the world outside the bomb shelter?

– Do not contact them

– Beware of infection

Heo Yoon silently pulled the trigger.

With empty eyes.

Ratatatatat!

Thud-!

The gun seized from the Foundation seemed to fire a heavy single shot, but in reality, it was firing three bullets simultaneously.

A 3-round burst implemented stably without any restrictions.

The corpses fell before this weapon of impossible performance.

“Noona.”

Heo Yoon didn’t respond to Seok Hyunmin’s voice.

“I think we’ve practiced enough, let’s stop.”

“Okay.”

Despite answering in a dazed voice, Heo Yoon didn’t stop pulling the trigger.

Ratatatatat!

Thud!

“All.”

“Uuuuuuugh.”

“…All dead.”

Only after her own corpses had piled up like a mountain did she stop the massacre.

Heo Yoon was breathing heavily, and Seok Hyunmin’s face had turned pale with shock.

I took them both back to the hotel.

Heo Yoon was also at her mental limit.

But it was impossible to take care of her now.

Not me, not Seok Hyunmin. And not the others. None of us who could take care of Heo Yoon were in a position to do so.

I just hoped this would end quickly.

Just a little. Just a little longer and we could get out of here.

Inevitably, I was looking forward to confronting the Professor.

***

Inside the apartment. The Foundation’s laboratory.

The Professor stood leaning against his desk.

The wind mercilessly beat against the window, and the sky visible through the blinds was ashen.

“Chen.”

The man called Chen silently faced the Professor.

“This will be the last experiment I conduct with you.”

Silence filled the small office.

“…How do you feel about that?”

“I’m… not sure.”

“You started it, and you designed the plan, didn’t you?”

The Professor continued, his hand on the desk.

“When you first caused the incident, I was engrossed in completely different work. What you did was extraordinary, but I thought the Foundation’s other personnel could handle it if they worked together.”

“…”

“But the situation was more serious than expected.”

“It was unavoidable.”

“That’s right.”

The Professor reached into the air with a bitter expression.

It was a gesture as if looking for a cigarette, but there was nothing for his fingertips to grasp.

He seemed to give up and turned his gaze to Chen.

“The entity you brought in. Seven has a different level of danger compared to other entities.

While other entities might at most bring about the end, Seven doesn’t even leave that possibility… The dimension is deleted, and only oblivion remains in its place…”

The Professor, who had been muttering to himself, got up and patted Chen’s shoulder, who was standing a few steps ahead.

“I don’t know if this will comfort you, but your judgment was correct.”

Chen. A senior researcher at the Foundation and the first survivor of the apartment.

Dr. Chen recalled a word he had delved into countless times.

[Hyeonghyochak].

All worlds are someone’s creation.

The ‘creations’ written by beings from higher dimensions constitute lower dimensions through some process.

And the creations made in those lower dimensions constitute dimensions below them.

Creations written in lower dimensions constitute even lower dimensions.

A layered structure built through this process.

Each of these layers is called a narrative layer.

A thread of text we write. The imaginary world we think of before sleep might gain life.

So when he discovered the entity of ‘Seven,’ he couldn’t leave it alone.

It was trying to ascend beyond our reality, this narrative layer, to a higher one.

What it brings is complete oblivion without a trace.

If it devours our creator, our world will disappear too easily.

That was the thought.

We had to protect our god.

Not for faith, but for immediate survival.

The experiment where Seven was discovered was carried out ignoring procedures.

Seven, who was trying to devour the higher dimension, was captured and forcibly brought here.

And a plan was made.

Humanity must be prepared for extinction.

Disasters bound for eons will be unleashed.

The timeline will inevitably distort, and it’s impossible to fully calculate the aftermath.

Perhaps the Foundation will have to throw away all the values they’ve protected in an instant.

But reality itself.

This narrative layer where we live can be preserved.

To stop Seven, that much of a price was necessary.

Who could bear it all?

Chen knew roughly how the Foundation’s leadership judged and acted.

As expected, his research authority was quickly suspended, and the leadership issued a disposal order.

Only one person noticed the seriousness of the situation and helped him.

Only the Professor.

“I don’t know if this will comfort you, but your judgment was correct.”

The Professor repeats.

“I don’t know if this will comfort you, but your judgment was correct.”

He repeats with the same voice, the same gap between words, the same breath and the same resonance.

“I don’t know if this will comfort you”

“but your judgment was correct.”

Clank.

The office scenery scattered and disappeared.

When he opened his eyes again, Dr. Chen had a thick rope around his neck.

The sudden feeling of his own weight.

“Kuhek!”

Air was sucked out of his throat regardless of his intention.

“Khuuuugh.”

It will repeat forever.

As the price for meeting the Professor.

As the responsibility for his actions, and as the result of trying to protect people.

Dr. Chen’s consciousness faded.

And soon he would be back in the office with a clear mind.

Right now. Just before his consciousness sank into darkness.

At this moment, someone’s face always came to mind.