Embedded Files
Psst! We're moving!
Iroa’s unconscious legs dangled lifelessly in the air. She was much thinner than she appeared in photographs, her limbs were covered in dirt, and dried blood stained her cheek.
Nox also stopped his attack upon seeing Iroa’s face. That only amplified Yoon Tae-ha’s anxiety.
“Killing one more agent won’t achieve your goals. Let her go. Deal with me.” Yoon Tae-ha said in a heavy voice.
“You really don’t understand your situation to the very end. That’s where you differ from Professor Yoon. He always knew exactly what he was doing.”
Kali seemed to hold Professor Yoon in very high regard. She looked happy just by speaking his name. Her eyes were somewhat dazed, as if she was intoxicated. That bothered Yoon Tae-ha. Soon, Kali, who had been arrogantly looking down at the two, opened her mouth.
“This isn’t a human. It’s a chimera we created.”
Kali, emphasizing the last word, threw Iroa onto the floor.
“After countless trials and errors, we finally succeeded in creating a product similar to a human. It was a tear-jerking time.”
Echidna. A human-like chimera. And Iroa, lying on the floor. Yoon Tae-ha’s mind began to churn, muddled with various images and words.
“If you don’t believe me, I’ll show you proof.”
Having finished speaking, Kali drew a circle on the floor with the tip of her spear. The shield then transformed into a long rope. The rope quickly drew a circular magic circle near Yoon Tae-ha and Kali. Soon, Yoon Tae-ha fell into an unfamiliar space.
Suddenly plummeting onto hard stairs, she was forced to roll defenselessly downwards.
Yoon Tae-ha finally managed to stop by clutching the edge of a stair. An unbearable pain shot up from her lower back, as if she had injured a muscle.
Looking around, Yoon Tae-ha realized she was inside a towering spire. A spiral staircase clung to the wall, winding upwards like a snail’s shell towards the top. To ascertain her position, she crawled to the edge of the stairs and looked down.
The floor below was also dizzyingly far from where she stood. The bottom of the tower appeared to be a dark teal, almost black, and seemed to hold water, judging by the subtle rippling.
Just then, Kali’s voice came from above. “It’s a magnificent castle, isn’t it?”
Kali stood a few steps above her. It seemed she had changed locations to separate herself from Nox.
With Iroa at her feet, Kali extended her right hand forward. Iroa’s limp body floated upwards.
As Kali softly whispered in an unknown language, a green gem floated out of Iroa’s body. Yoon Tae-ha stared intently at the gem with desperate eyes. As the gem exited, Iroa’s body went limp like a toy with dead batteries and rolled down the stairs.
“She still doesn’t react, even after this.”
Suddenly, Kali pierced Iroa’s stomach with the tip of her spear. Blood emerged, but Iroa still showed no basic biological response.
“Haven’t you seen this in the Green Hive? Beings that look exactly like humans, but aren’t human?”
The gem, flying through the air, dropped in front of Yoon Tae-ha. Yoon Tae-ha awkwardly knelt and picked it up.
It was indeed a green feather. The shape of the inclusions matched the mineral she had seen inside Shilla’s destroyed corpse. Her fingertips, holding the gem, trembled.
“Iroa was a chimera... Whose?”
“Whose? A copy of the human Iroa, of course. Once upon a time, there were two beings in the world with Iroa’s face. One was an Esper born from a mother’s womb. The other was a chimera born in Gaia’s incubation chamber.”
“If this is a chimera, where is the real Iroa? Did you eliminate her to destroy evidence?”
“Cleanup isn’t my department.”
“Don’t lie!” Yoon Tae-ha shouted abruptly.
“Did Blackwood suggest making this? Or Yoon Jung-hoon? Were you trying to create an army of chimeras to counter the rifts?”
“That’s an interesting thought too. But creating chimeras is a very tricky process. An army is difficult. It’s hard to put together a plausible one here.”
Kali tapped her head with her finger.
“But we found a solution. The answer was simple. After implanting a consciousness into the completed chimera body, we erase one memory from their minds. We erase the fact that they are a chimera.”
“What?”
Yoon Tae-ha’s eyes widened in shock.
“If they knew they were a chimera, like Echidna, their ego would easily crumble. A violent tendency would emerge more quickly, and eventually they would cause various incidents, big and small. But products that forgot they were chimeras maintained a much more stable state. Believing themselves to be truly human. Isn’t that fascinating?”
Kali, with a nonchalant expression, revealed a terrible truth. A sensation like living insects crawling all over her body dominated Yoon Tae-ha.
“Tell me the name of another chimera besides Iroa.”
“So readily? That’s no fun. Work to get it. That’s what makes it valuable.”
The very moment Kali scoffed, Yoon Tae-ha’s rage surpassed its limit. She leaped in an instant to where the enemy was, then swung her spear. Kali also took her stance.
Their spears constantly changed positions, aiming for each other’s weaknesses. When illusions weren’t forming well due to her excitement, Yoon Tae-ha tore bricks from the surrounding wall and hurled them at her opponent. Even in the thick dust, Kali’s form remained clear.
Each clash of spears filled the inside of the tower with ear-splitting roars. The water pooled on the floor began to ripple increasingly violently due to the vibrations from the battle. Yoon Tae-ha, gripping her spear short, gave Kali no spatial leeway to prepare attack magic.
“I’ll send you to be with your beloved Professor Yoon. Live forever, making chimeras together in hell!”
Suddenly, a maniacal laugh erupted from Kali. Just before the laughter ceased, Yoon Tae-ha finally managed to grab her red hair with psychokinesis. And she swung her.
Kali, who had consistently deflected psychokinesis with magic, flew in a straight line towards the opposite wall and slammed into it. There was a loud crash. Kali, who had been so nonchalant, let out a pained groan.
Yoon Tae-ha instantly teleported to her side and immediately thrust her spear towards her heart. Bang! Shards of the wall flew everywhere. The wall behind Kali was deeply dented as if struck by a meteor.
“Cough!”
A pure white spear was impaled in Kali’s shoulder, barely missing her heart. Bright red blood began to seep from the wound.
“Tell me. The name of another chimera besides Iroa. Because I’ll find them and kill them. Everyone who made this, and everyone who uses it, will die by my hand.”
“You’ve been wandering around unrevealed dungeons for five years, and you’ve become quite a formidable opponent.”
Kali chuckled weakly, eyes closed. Yoon Tae-ha’s entire body ached from pushing herself, thinking this was the last chance. Control over her powers was becoming increasingly difficult.
If she had her way, she would have twisted Kali’s neck right then. But it was like trying to turn a slippery, greased doorknob; her strength kept failing. Just then, Kali slowly opened her eyes. Her vertically sharpened eyes emitted an eerie glow.
“If you want to achieve your dream, there’s someone you need to kill first. A strong chimera exists among you.”
“Tell me. Wherever it is, I’ll chase it down.” Yoon Tae-ha snarled fiercely. Kali’s lips curved upwards to their fullest extent. She looked directly at Yoon Tae-ha and said,
“It’s right here. In front of my eyes.”
The whisper slithered into Yoon Tae-ha’s body like a snake.
“The most perfect chimera we made, is you.”
No. No. That’s absurd. Don’t listen. It’s a lie. Yoon Tae-ha felt a surge of anxiety. Kali was trying to deceive her again.
Yoon Tae-ha gritted her teeth and plunged her spear deep into the wall. Kali screamed. But it was a disgusting scream, tinged with a perverse pleasure.
“Didn’t you think it was strange?”
She continued, gasping, “Why did I let you live? When you were eighteen. There was no reason for you not to die then... Why did I stop at killing the guide... Yoon Tae-ha. Think about it. Professor Yoon always emphasized it. Don’t accept memories as they are.”
“You were trying to awaken me through a shocking experience, weren’t you? Galatea, I know that damn name. It was a trick to activate the dormant factors in my body! You wanted to create Espers who could survive without guiding!”
“Was that all? Hasn’t your body changed from before?”
Several moments when her abilities didn’t work on Cheon Geon-yeong flashed quickly through her mind.
“From the beginning, you were different from other Espers. Why were Espers so favorable towards you... They were desperate to protect you, as if you were even guiding them.”
Soon after, the faces of Lee Hae-kyung and Seo Do-jin dimly appeared. Han Gyeo-wool, who had said they would eat first when they returned from the green sea, too. The time they spent together. Kali was claiming that all of it was an illusion.
“Someone like you wouldn’t understand us. People can act that way if they like someone else.”
“Look directly at where your intuition points.”
Yoon Tae-ha’s heart was beating faster than ever before. It was as if the source commanding her body had shifted from her brain to her heart.
“You were subconsciously radiating guiding. That’s why they liked you. Professor Yoon’s granddaughter was a uniquely valuable specimen from the cradle. Outsider blood, and even dimension-traveler blood. A valuable hybrid, one might say.”
Outsider? Yoon Tae-ha was frozen. She felt like she had been abandoned alone in a maze with no exit. She knew she shouldn’t listen, but she couldn’t tear her ears away from the snake’s whispers.
“There was a need to experiment if a copy of a special body would also function normally. Because if we could endlessly copy a being like you, that would be the completion of the Galatea Project. Professor Yoon’s true intentions could be realized. So we swapped the real one with you. Do you understand?”
Kali narrowed her eyes.
“Ultimately, Echidna and you are no different.”
You smell similar to us, too.
The chimera’s slender voice struck Yoon Tae-ha’s head. Hadn’t she herself felt an unpleasant sense of kinship towards her? The hand holding the spear trembled.
“The mission is over.”
Kali spoke gently, then extended her uninjured arm and grabbed Yoon Tae-ha’s cheek. The blood she had shed had already invaded beneath Yoon Tae-ha’s feet. As Kali chanted a low spell, the blood bubbled like lava.
“Let’s go back to the Cradle.”
A moment later, a thin, long, stalagmite-like structure rose from the surface of the blood puddle, then curved sideways and impaled itself into Yoon Tae-ha’s ankle. In an instant, a pain more intense than berserker’s rage surged to the top of her head.
Google Sites
Report abuse