episode_0671

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-What do you mean? The people at that facility didn’t think that way…

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Emily’s voice was heard, bewildered.

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“Of course, the people at this facility did something stupid.”

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-What is that… Everyone who works at ECHO has a sense of mission to work for humanity. There’s no way they’d do something like let the Blade Lord escape!

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It was Emily who vehemently denied the possibility I had suggested.

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Well, she might find that hard to believe.

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Even though we were working in different facilities, we were all part of the same ECHO.

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‘But just because it’s the same organization, it doesn’t mean that all members have the same thoughts.’

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And even though they share the same goal of working for humanity, isn’t it possible that the way they do so is crooked?

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Well, it’s not real, it’s something that only appears in novels or movies, but it’s something that’s surprisingly common in organizations that have these kinds of grand goals.

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Like suddenly turning black because you’re so absorbed in something that your head spins 360 degrees. Or like taking away all human free will that could cause accidents in order to protect humanity.

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‘This case is not to that extent, but it seems like something that happened while trying to somehow dispose of a dangerous abnormal entity.’

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There’s something I’ve been thinking about since I first heard the reason why the Blade Lord escaped.

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In such a thoroughly managed, state-of-the-art facility, an abnormal entity escaped due to aging isolation equipment?

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At that time, I didn’t think much about the Blade Lord’s escape because it was such an urgent matter, but honestly, I think it was nonsense.

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Isolation facilities for abnormal entities are tailored to the characteristics of each entity.

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It makes no sense to just rotate equipment around like a prison to hold human criminals.

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If you handle things that way, the abnormal entity will immediately escape and harm the personnel and researchers working at the facility, and civilians may also suffer damage.

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‘The Blade Lord’s isolation cell must have been newly built to contain him.’

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But the facilities are aging.

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It’s not some lame joke.

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Emily may not have completely missed something strange in that analysis. However, the escape of the Blade Lord, a Umbra-class being, was such a big deal, and the presence of Scarlett and I, who were treated as humanoid abnormalities, distracted her, so I guess she didn’t notice it quickly.

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I wouldn’t have been so sure if I hadn’t discovered something unique among the abnormal entities in this facility that I had received through Maria.

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I walked while looking at the map Maria showed me.

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“To be exact, this incident was not a simple accident, but a man-made disaster.”

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-So, because the facility was not maintained on time…

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“Was ECHO’s work so sloppy that it could have caused something like this to happen, to the point of neglecting maintenance? No, does it make sense to neglect maintenance like that in the first place? It’s a matter of people’s lives.”

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-… … .

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“Well, you can only know the truth if you see it with your own eyes.”

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I moved to the location where the abnormal entity I had previously observed was isolated.

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As I moved, I didn’t forget to pick up the corpses of the abnormal entities I killed.

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Because my principle is to never forget to farm loot.

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-The corpse of the Blade Lord…?

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Emily let out a surprised voice as she watched the large corpses disappear in an instant as I passed by.

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“Looking at the information on the terminal you sent, it says that there is a high probability that another abnormal entity will be born from the corpse of an abnormal entity. So I am grateful that you are handling it for free.”

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This wasn’t my lie to collect samples of the abnormal entity.

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In fact, it was recorded that ECHO’s facilities suffered great damage due to abnormal entities born in this manner.

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It is said that in the past, ECHO would deal with the corpses of abnormal entities by lumping them together and putting them in a warehouse in a specific location.

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However, when the number of corpses stored in the warehouse exceeded a certain amount, a monster burst out of the warehouse and most of the people managing the place were killed or injured.

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If you think about the reason, it seems to be related to the method of birth of the abnormal entity that Emily had previously guessed…

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I thought that perhaps the powers related to the laws that make up this world that the corpse of the abnormal entity possessed were somehow strangely distorted, or that they were the manifestations of terrifying imaginations that the humans guarding the facility had unconsciously conjured up.

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Listening to the story, it seems like it’s a world where there are strange entities related to ghost stories and legends, so it wouldn’t be strange if something like a monster that feeds on people’s fears were born.

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Another abnormality is born from the corpse of an abnormality. It has a reproductive capacity greater than that of a cockroach.

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It was more vicious than mobile game gachas that were designed to suck money, in that you couldn’t be sure until the end whether you would be born or not.

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‘In some ways, that kind of annoying nature seems similar to a bug…’

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Anyway, it was a good excuse to get my loot for myself.

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If I had to make a metaphor, it would be like me taking care of nuclear waste that could explode at any time.

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Of course, if you take this out into the real world, an accident could happen in the real world too, so I planned to take it out and deal with it at the travel destination if possible.

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You can take it out from the top or Nova Empire.

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Because even if an accident happens there, it will end within one layer or planet.

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Emily also seemed to have no complaints about me disposing of the body, so she went over to another part.

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-The terminal… It’s still here… But you haven’t even seen it in person yet…

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“Was that so? Then let’s just count it as received.”

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-… … .

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I silenced Emily and walked down the halls of the facility for a while.

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Killing the abnormal entities that seemed to have escaped during the commotion was a bonus.

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It was unclear whether all personnel in the facility had been evacuated or if any had survived.

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“At first, I thought these guys had escaped from the Blade Lord. I thought they were intelligent and wanted to form a group to fight humans. But that wasn’t the case. It was just a coincidence that the paths of non-hostile entities crossed.”

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Because the name “Monarch” was included in his nickname, he was mistaken for having leadership power among some strange entities.

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Thanks to that, the actual fight ended surprisingly easily, compared to my overestimation of the guy’s abilities.

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Stand tall

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I arrived at my destination and stopped.

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A door that was completely rusted and broken.

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It was a sight that looked more like the door had collapsed on its own due to old age rather than having been breached by some kind of corrosive attack.

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Emily’s voice came from afar.

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-There are no live surveillance cameras or speakers nearby. The abnormal entity inside that isolation room…

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“I had a rough idea. If this is the cause of this incident, then it’s only natural.”

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Jeokbuk-

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As I stepped through the door, I felt the metal floor crumble under my weight.

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It felt like I was walking on sand.

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The scenery inside the isolation room was quite bleak.

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There was a faint swirl of dust, and several corpses of researchers who looked like they had somehow turned into mummies were lying in the center of the isolation room.

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And the object held in the hand of one of them.

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What at first glance appears to be an ordinary silver compass was precisely what I had found to be the cause of this incident.

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“Found.”

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[ECHO Record ID #A-415: Compass of Time]

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Category: Aegis

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Isolation Procedures

A-415 is contained in the temporal anomaly storage room at Site-07.

The vault houses the A-415 in a triple-walled metal box with built-in distortion-blocking devices, and the box is kept under vacuum.

Operation of A-415 is only permitted under experimental circumstances with Level-4 or higher authorization, and during experiments, there must be no living organisms within a 50m radius around the isolation chamber.

The storage room is monitored 24 hours a day, and an emergency shutdown device is automatically activated in the event of a time distortion.

A-415 has a direct effect on the flow of time and can cause serious damage to living organisms and the environment if used carelessly.

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outline

A-415 is a silver compass about 10cm in diameter and 2cm thick. Instead of a needle pointing to the north in the center, it has symbols symbolizing the past and the future engraved on it. The perimeter of the compass is engraved with unknown characters and ancient-style patterns.

The A-415’s main feature is that it allows the user to manipulate time to either speed up or slow down.

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As the user turns the outer ring of the compass, the flow of time around it changes according to the set direction.

Clockwise rotation: Accelerates the flow of time.

Counterclockwise rotation: slows down the flow of time.

The A-415’s time distortion operates within a radius of approximately 5 to 50 meters, with the range and speed varying depending on the strength of the manipulation.

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During time acceleration, surrounding objects may age rapidly, or living organisms may experience rapid acceleration of cellular activity, which may result in fatal consequences.

During time slowdown, the target will exhibit slow, nearly stationary movements, and in extreme cases, the target can become virtually stationary.

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Discovery circumstances

A-415 was discovered on ██/██/20██ in an antique shop in Florence, Italy.

The shop owner reportedly demonstrated to customers his ability to grow certain plants in a matter of seconds using a compass.

While Foundation agents were investigating the store, a user’s carelessness caused A-415 to go out of control, causing time inside the store to flow abnormally quickly for three hours.

A-415 was later recovered by the Foundation, and initial experiments revealed that it had the side effect of severely aging the user’s body.

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Summary of Experimental Records

Experiment A-415-A3

Purpose: To measure the time acceleration effect.

Procedure: Rotate A-415 90 degrees clockwise.

Results: Plants within a 10m radius completely wither and die within 30 seconds. A bottle of water within the same range evaporates. Laboratory equipment rapidly increases in operating speed, causing circuits to overload and burn out.

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Experiment A-415-B6

Purpose: To measure the effects of time slowing on living organisms.

Procedure: Rotate A-415 180 degrees counterclockwise to D-1453 (30 year old male).

Results: D-1453’s body movements slowed to 0.1x speed. While in a state of slowdown, the subject’s consciousness remained normal, but physical recovery and metabolic functions were observed to have virtually stopped. After 20 minutes, D-1453 returned to normal time, but complained of severe confusion and memory distortion.

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