Chapter 22: It’s here

Finally, I stepped inside the broadcasting station where the distress signal had echoed.

At a glance, it seemed like it had been ages since anyone had set foot here.

The concrete walls were cracked and fissured, and the floor creaked with every step.

Vines slithered like snakes through the gaps in the walls, and faint light seeped through them.

The place felt eerie.

And… oddly decadent.

“The signal cuts out around here, right?”

“Yes. Once the terminal enters within 100 meters, the location becomes even more unclear.”

“Hmm, I see.”

I nodded and opened the world map.

The coordinates of the distress signal were still clearly marked—location, distance, direction, even the surrounding structures.

I could even see the layout of the corridors beyond the walls.

While everyone else was stumbling around clueless, I could just glance at the map and bam—know exactly where to go.

‘At this point, it’s practically cheating.’

‘Or maybe this is what they call the “player’s privilege” of being possessed.’

My body is in reality, but the system is still a game.

Information pops up like notifications, and coordinates update in real time.

With abilities like these, I should be plowing through enemies by now, shouting, ‘It’s here!’ like some unstoppable force.

The problem is, my body is too ordinary.

At the end of the day, I’m still human.

Without Levi, even a hundred cheat abilities wouldn’t stop me from becoming just another corpse rotting in some forgotten ruin.

“Looks like the signal’s coming from the second floor of the station,” I said, skimming the world map.

Serika’s eyes widened in surprise.

“Huh?! How did you… know that?”

I clamped my mouth shut. 

Oops. I’d forgotten—this ability was supposed to be a secret for now.

I hesitated, scrambling for an excuse.

“Chanwoo is human, after all!” Levi quickly cut in.

“Something like this… he can just sense it!”

The air froze. 

‘Did she really just say that with a straight face?’

Serika stared at her, dumbfounded, before finally nodding solemnly.

“…I see.”

A brief silence.

Then, an utterly serious nod followed.

“As expected, humans are amazing!”

“…What?”

‘Did she just—?’ I replayed Levi’s words in my head. 

‘Sense the signal’s location by gut feeling? And she actually bought that?’ It was such an obvious lie, yet Serika’s expression was completely earnest—clear and bright with admiration.

Humanity had been extinct for thousands of years.

To these androids, humans were mythical beings—something they’d only read about in records, never seen in person.

‘At this rate, they’ll start worshiping a single drop of my cum as the essence of life itself.’

‘…Well, technically, one shot is about 300 million of those.’

***

Holding Levi and Serika’s hands, I climbed the creaking stairs.

The aged concrete crumbled quietly underfoot, and the steel beams groaned with an unsettling noise.

Step by step.

With every footfall, the strange tranquility from the floor below grew more unnerving.

The air felt off.

There wasn’t any particular smell, but something… heavy pressed against the back of my neck.

And then, the moment we reached the second floor, my breath caught.

“What the hell… is this?”

Lined up along one side of the hallway were androids.

No—more accurately, the corpses of androids.

They sat perfectly arranged, as if someone had organized them, backs straight against the wall, heads slightly bowed, hands folded neatly on their laps.

Their eyes were closed, lips sealed, not a single twitch of movement.

No scars, no disarray, not even a strand of hair out of place.

They didn’t look dead—just asleep.

“This is strange,” Serika murmured, stepping forward.

Her tone was as languid as ever, but her eyes had narrowed slightly.

“I heard the distress signal was sent by four people… but there are far more here. Many more.”

Without another word, she crouched down.

Her movements were precise, her breath steady as she began scanning each corpse one by one.

She looked like a cat, fur bristling, cautiously inspecting an unfamiliar presence.

After a long moment, she stood and lifted her head.

“All of them are in a complete shutdown state.”

She exhaled softly, pausing before finishing.

“Their cores are completely severed.”

The core—the so-called “heart” of an android.

For it to stop meant only one thing: their lives had been extinguished.

But something was off.

Death is supposed to be messy.

Loud. Filled with screams, resistance, struggle.

Yet here, there was nothing.

Not a single breath, not a trace of debris, scars, or broken parts.

Everything was arranged neatly, quietly, far too still.

As if they had willingly fallen asleep.

And that silence, ironically, sent chills down my spine.

***

“Levi. What do you think?”

Levi, following Serika’s lead, silently scanned the surroundings.

Then she spoke cautiously.

“…They’re too intact.”

That said it all.

“There’s no sign of destruction from combat. And most of us androids operate independently. For so many to gather in one place and be wiped out simultaneously… This is my first time seeing something like this.”

Her words implied one thing: this scene itself was abnormal.

“Could a Queen-class lifeform have been nearby?”

I asked, but Levi shook her head.

“No. There haven’t been any reports of such a thing in this area for decades.”

She repeated the scan alongside Serika.

But the result was the same.

“I’m sorry, Chanwoo. I have no idea what caused this.”

Unexplainable death.

And corpses far too still.

I knelt beside one of the androids lying neatly on the ground.

Its face was serene.

Not like its breath had been cut off, but as if it might rub its eyes and wake at any moment.

But then I noticed something odd on the back of its neck.

“Huh? This is…”

To be precise, a dot.

Just a single dot.

A needle-thin hole pierced the back of its neck.

So small it was almost invisible, but unmistakably a mark made from the outside.

“This android has a tiny hole in the back of its neck.”

“A hole… you say?”

Levi approached and checked another body.

She immediately looked back at me.

“This one has it too. And… here as well. It seems every single one has the same mark!”

They were all identical.

The same hole, the same size, the same location on every android’s nape.

“Levi. If you were attacked like this, would you shut down immediately?”

“Calculating.”

After a brief pause, she shook her head.

“No. An intrusion this minor might cause a temporary error in the language module, but it wouldn’t stop my functions.”

“So there’s no way this could kill them.”

“Correct. It’s far too insignificant to be fatal.”

It didn’t make sense—yet right before us, that very impossibility had happened, quietly and perfectly.

The same hole.

The same position.

The same posture.

And the same death.

***

In that unsettling silence, an unfamiliar voice rang out.

“Here… I am.”

Low, slow, and strangely distorted.

That single utterance sent a freezing shiver down my spine.

I reflexively turned my head.

In that direction—where the distress signal had been detected—a pale arm jutted out from the darkness beyond the corner, slightly raised above the floor.

White and slender, it swayed slowly, rhythmically.

Like a broken doll repeating the same motion.

“Here… I am.”

“Survivor spotted!”

“Wait! We’ll help you right away!”

Levi shouted, and Serika instinctively sprinted forward before the words had even finished.

At that moment, I yelled sharply.

“Serika, stop!”

She halted mid-step.

“Chanwoo?”

“That thing… something’s wrong with it.”

Whatever was waving that hand—it looked alive, but to my eyes, it was off.

An unnatural tremor, a disjointed rhythm—something didn’t add up.

I pulled up the world map again.

The signal matched.

The location was exact.

But it was too exact—that was the problem.

“I’m human.”

I spoke slowly but firmly toward the figure beyond the corner.

“And as a human, I invoke Article Zero to issue a command.”

The arm kept swaying.

Slow, steady, eerily mechanical.

“Here… I am.”

“Then start with a simple order.”

I took a deliberate step forward.

Levi and Serika’s eyes snapped to me.

“Roll onto your side and show me your face. You can at least do that much.”

“Chanwoo, this approach is—!”

Serika’s voice was frantic.

“That unit might be injured! Pushing it like this could be dangerous!”

“If the wound opens further, recovery will be harder,” Levi added quietly.

“Repeated phrases indicate a control module error. Forcing commands in that state could damage the circuits. Chanwoo.”

“Only if that’s really an android.”

My words left them speechless.

Serika opened her mouth but froze.

Levi just blinked, motionless.

***

In the suffocating silence, unspoken tension seeped through the gaps.

“Doesn’t this seem off? The deaths. The unexplained holes. The corpses without a single trace. And that reaction.”

I stared at the arm again.

Still swaying, but now undeniably faster.

“Here… I am. Here… I am. Here… I am. Here… Here I am. Here I am. Here I am! Here I am!!”

The voice distorted.

Syllables tangled, collapsed, warped into something grotesque—like a broken recorder.

“Androids don’t refuse human orders.”

My voice was low and clear.

“If that doesn’t work… then it’s not on humanity’s side.”

That wasn’t an android.