Ch.170Chapter 20. Patriot (22)

# Hampton City Hall, Commander’s Office of the Elza Central-Southern Regional National Integration Forces.

Virginia Helford put down her fountain pen after signing the last document. She had finished her work 20 minutes earlier than expected.

Now she could press the call button for her aide, who would take away all the documents Virginia had processed, then place another stack of papers that needed attention on her desk with a thud.

But Virginia didn’t press the call button. Not because she wanted to rest for even those 20 minutes. Virginia was someone who knew how to work toward fulfilling her grand ambitions.

Instead, she stood straight in front of the world map. It was a map intricately connected with colorful pins and threads that she herself had placed.

‘All maps in the world are inaccurate.’

Virginia thought of her grandfather. Unlike her father, her grandfather had been quite fond of her. In fact, she wasn’t sure if he had treated her siblings the same way, but that didn’t matter. In the Helford family, her grandfather was the only one who had treated her like a human being.

‘A road map doesn’t show where the beds in homes are located. A treasure map doesn’t indicate how many monsters there are. A guide for hikers shows forests but provides no information about the toadstools nestled beneath the spruce trees.’

Maps conceal, manipulate, and edit the world. They reveal only one truth. The single piece of information people need to know, by cutting away everything unnecessary.

“Good.”

Virginia approached the bookshelf and pulled out an old book.

It was titled “Analysis of the Goddess of Hunger Faith and Its Symbols,” published by Römer Honor University Press. The pages were so worn that they seemed like they would tear with the slightest pull, so Virginia had to hold the bottom of the pages to turn them.

Her hand stopped. A page filled with a statue of a goddess. Below it was the caption: ‘Illustration a.41. Ancient goddess statue excavated from the site.’

It showed a naked woman with all her bones visible, her mouth opened wide in an O shape. She looked as if she might be singing, protesting, or crying out in pain—a strange expression.

But this wasn’t the image Virginia was looking for.

The illustration on the next page was what she truly sought. A precise geometric pattern carved on the lower part of the ancient goddess statue. It resembled two hexagrams overlapping at odd angles. It matched exactly the pattern created by the pins and threads on the world map. And those threads marked the boundaries crossing between human protected zones and unprotected zones.

Virginia picked up black and white pins. This time, she inserted black and white pins into the areas encircled by the threads. It didn’t take long.

“…So it wasn’t a coincidence after all.”

The black pins represented human unprotected zones. The white pins represented human protected zones. Sometimes black and white pins were placed in the same area, indicating places that were initially protected zones but later designated as unprotected.

With this visualization, what Virginia wanted to know became clearly evident.

In the early stages, before the Elza government designated unprotected zones. The ‘undiminishing hunger’ syndrome had become a major social problem. Everything on earth suddenly felt hungry, leading to bizarre incidents like pets attacking humans when they ran out of food, or hostile neighbors tearing at each other’s flesh.

Though varying in severity, the ‘hunger’ syndrome spread to wider areas. Simultaneously, zombies appeared here and there. The Elza government eventually established ‘human unprotected zones.’

This much was common knowledge.

But Virginia’s judgment went one step further.

The areas with the most reports of undiminishing hunger were closely related to the Goddess of Hunger faith. They were places where ancient goddess statues had been excavated, excavation work was underway, or martyrdom sites existed. Martyrdom sites referred to places where people from Elza who believed in the goddess faith were taken and massacred by the Western or Eastern nations.

In this way, the white pins gradually expanded their influence and eventually took their place at the core of the human unprotected zones.

Virginia picked up the book again. This time she flipped quickly to the front pages. She found the passage she had marked earlier and read it.

“In that year, a star fell from the sky, burning a third of the heavens, withering a third of the earth, and making a third of the waters bitter. The earth twisted in agony…

The buried Goddess cut through the underground, willingly chewing and swallowing the star that tried to take root in the earth. The star quickly passed through the Goddess’s body, trying to return to the world. Then the Goddess stretched and bent her body to place her mouth against her genitals, resembling a snake biting its own tail.

‘Behold, my followers. Behold! This pain is mine. This suffering is my portion alone. It is what heaven has prepared for me, and I shall gladly eat it.

Though it pierces my mouth, makes my tongue dry, cracked and feverish, scratches my throat painfully, and twists my intestines like a burning ball rolling around, this is solely my burden. Not even a speck of this shall I pass on to you!'”

At first glance, she might seem like a greedy parent, but the reality is the opposite. The Goddess didn’t want to see her ‘children’ eat the star and suffer, so she trapped it within her body.

It appears to be a noble sacrifice—preferring to suffer alone rather than passing harm to her children. Perhaps this is only possible for a divine being.

Virginia sat in her chair. Her long, shiny silver hair covered her snake-like eyes. Like the curtains that hung in her grandfather’s study during her childhood.

In those days when her hair was black and she knew how to smile freely, she used to hide behind the curtains to surprise her grandfather. Except for just one time.

That day, her grandfather had brought a guest. The atmosphere was heavy, so Virginia didn’t dare emerge from behind the curtain.

But the conversation was too interesting. Even though her legs were numb and she needed the bathroom urgently, the exchange was so fascinating that Virginia could still recall it.

‘So, Professor Helford, you believe this record is not merely a tradition, is that right?’

‘That’s correct. The goddess statues, not the ones made recently but the ancient ones excavated from the ground, contain many elements of meteorites. It’s entirely possible that meteorites made people sick, and when they made them into goddess statues and buried them in the ground, people got better…’

‘But there aren’t even similar traditions in Römer and Minsk. Surely you’re not suggesting that meteorites only fell on Elza’s land?’

‘Well, I don’t know about that. But by that logic, the Goddess of Hunger faith wasn’t widely spread in Römer and Minsk either. The Goddess of Hunger faith is like the final spiritual fortress of a people who have suffered all their lives.’

‘The final spiritual fortress?’

‘When it’s impossible to overcome difficulties and suffering in this life, people imagine and believe in some greater order that humans don’t understand. At least it gives them peace of mind.’

‘The sorrow of a small nation caught between powerful countries like Römer and Minsk.’

‘Oh, did you know? Dozens of trucks are needed at ancient Goddess of Hunger statue excavation sites. There are so many burial goods. It seems there were massive sacrificial ceremonies. Human sacrifices, that is.’

In the end, Virginia wasn’t discovered that day. Actually, toward the end, she wanted to come out on her own. She wanted to question what they were talking about, where such a world existed. After all, there was no place for her in Römer at that time.

Her father had urged her to go to Minsk…

“No. No.”

Virginia took out whiskey from the cabinet and poured half a cup. She filled the rest with water. Though there was no ice, it was enough to clear her mind.

“Focus.”

She looked at the map again. One thing was certain. The ancient goddess statue excavation sites, the places they called sacred… these were excavated under the direction of the Elza Archaeological Department. And under the leadership of one woman. Virginia had already printed out that person’s personal information.

“Joanna Murstain, Professor of Archaeology.”

A young, confident-looking woman wearing round glasses.

That woman had traveled throughout Elza, digging up the earth. Naturally, she had visited unprotected zones and early hunger amplification areas. Of course, this was before the outbreak. In some places, she found nothing; in others, discoveries were abundant. The important thing was that she had been quite diligent in her travels.

“What kind of trick did she pull?”

Displeased, Virginia clicked her tongue. But was there really any connection between the two? There was no clue at all. Even if a clue were found, it would have to involve an enormous logical leap.

That this woman, Joanna Murstain, dug up a zombie virus buried deep in the ground? Does that make any sense?

No, might all this be an overreaction? Virginia pressed her brow firmly. Perhaps it was an overreaction, she thought.

‘Because of ambition and vengeance, clinging to something that makes no sense…’

Buzz.

A sudden vibration disrupted Virginia’s thoughts. Annoyed at having her rare moment of deep contemplation interrupted, Virginia roughly grabbed her mobile phone.

“What’s this?”

– Message received.

Subject: Virginia’s_Unknown_Expression(video file) / Sender: Leticia