Black Badger

All three of us had the blueprint memorized. The headquarters stood alone in a desolate wasteland with nothing around it. The building itself was so plain that if you glanced at it once and walked past, it felt like it wouldn’t stick in your memory at all.

Barbed wire encircled the building. At a glance, it looked like something set up in preparation for Creature appearances, but in truth it was probably meant to block both Creatures and people alike.

Five floors in total.

Sylvia would head to the top floor.

Igor and I would go underground.

“Didn’t that brat say she wanted to come along?”

Since this was an infiltration, I couldn’t bring the greatsword.

While checking the concealed weapons on my body, Igor asked.

Sylvia had already left the truck. We planned to infiltrate ten minutes later. The truck was a vehicle that had been entering the building; we climbed into the cargo bed and slipped inside the building while the owner went to pick something up.

Sitting between stacks of boxes in the truck, I replied.

“She did. I had a hard time stopping her.”

“Did you stop the murder and the divorce too?”

“I did. Heath’s chances of dying are gone. Once he noticed that Heath was starting to view me favorably in a strange way, Rose’s attitude did a complete turn....”

When I urgently explained the situation by message yesterday, Rose replied with a bizarre answer: ‘Oh my. Looks like he’s finally come to his senses!’

I even called Rose once after returning to the quarters.

With a voice dripping in intoxicated delight, Rose whispered this.

‘I was going to kill him, but I changed my mind. That way would be better for you too, Commander, wouldn’t it?’

‘No. Don’t kill him in the first place, Rose. The divorce is up to you, but....’

‘I can’t tell you how relieved I am that he’s come to his senses, even if it’s late.’

Conversations with this subordinate never went smoothly.

‘I’m finding my husband admirable for the first time.’

It wasn’t that he’d come to his senses—this was simply the Heath family’s values, and not everyone agreed with their judgments. I wanted to say that if he knew what Yehyeon had said—that I would have sided with Kyle if victory had been assured—Heath’s attitude could flip 180 degrees. But I didn’t.

I stopped a murder. That was enough.

“Let’s go.”

A phone notification. Anything that might make noise when moving. After checking everything that could fall off my body, I lifted my head.

“Their security awareness is a mess, so it shouldn’t be that hard. Let’s deal with it quickly and get back.”

“Infiltration isn’t really my thing.”

Igor scratched the back of his head, yet smiled crookedly despite what he said.

“Still, trying it once in a while isn’t bad.”

We got out of the truck.

The blueprint helped a lot. We crossed the barren field quickly, then opened the back door and went inside. It was a door workers used to go out for smoking, but since the after-meal break had passed, no one was around.

The door was unlocked. We opened it and went in like ordinary workers.

A narrow, dark stairwell.

It led underground.

We went down without making a sound and gently opened the door connected to Basement Level 1.

Bright lights and an empty corridor.

I pricked up my ears.

From far away, I could hear people talking.

“A Badger’s here, they say?”

“What? Why?”

“Looks like a deserter Badger is inside.”

“Fuck. I knew we’d get our tail caught!”

Footsteps heading toward the elevator.

The sound of the elevator arriving. The doors opening, people getting on. No other footsteps followed.

I signaled Igor and stepped out into the corridor.

A long, white corridor appeared.

Just like on the blueprint, Basement Level 1 was shaped like a picture frame. In the center was one large square room, with corridors encircling it like a frame. Offices lined the outer side of the corridor.

The massive room in the center had only one door.

Our objective was to enter that unknown room. There was definitely either a portal machine or something equivalent inside.

Go left, turn right, reach the center of the corridor, and the door would appear.

We walked down the corridor, killing our footsteps.

Just as we were nearing the corner, Sylvia’s voice came through the communicator lodged in my ear.

[It’s here.] 𝙧𝙚𝙚𝔀𝒆𝓫𝓷𝙤𝓿𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝙤𝓶

Her voice was tinged with exhilaration.

[It’s mine.]

Bang!

“What the hell?!”

...Senior. Please give us some time to hide.

People poured out of the offices all at once. Igor and I pressed ourselves flat against the wall. Two men who were hardly small clung to the wall, glancing sideways at those rushing into the corridor.

Bang!

More gunshots rang out, drawing everyone’s gaze upward.

This is helpful.

Using the chaos of people panicking, I slipped into an open office.

“To the emergency exit! Emergency exit!”

“Everyone get out now and lock the basement door!”

As we entered the empty office, more workers spilled into the corridor.

“The central room! Same there! Get out! We have to pretend there is no basement!”

“What about the top-floor portal device?”

“That’s already been exposed.”

The conversation in the corridor leaked in through the gap in the door.

“Even so, we can make excuses for that. Say we used it for illegal inter-Core distribution and made some money. But what’s in the central room can’t be excused. If that’s discovered, we’re finished.”

“Isn’t it enough if we just hand over the deserter Badger quietly?”

“Wouldn’t it be better to hide here quietly instead of leaving?”

“How can you guarantee they won’t call the police?!”

Someone snapped sharply.

“If the police come and comb through the building and the people who entered, and there’s no record of anyone on floors 1 through 5, what do you think they’ll say? We have to pretend we don’t use the basement at all! Everyone out! Central room! Out!!”

Bang bang bang bang bang!

Someone pounded violently on the door of the central room.

Igor and I stayed pressed to the office door, listening intently to everything. When I knelt on one knee, Igor placed his knee on my back and pressed his ear to the door.

Heavy.

“What the hell is in there to make them act like this?”

The rude subordinate muttered, showing no intention of moving his knee.

I replied curtly.

“We’ll find out later.”

We heard people from the central room grumbling as they came out.

“Soon enough, it’ll be just us left anyway.”

One thing was certain: there was something in the central room other than Doug Clark or a portal device.

Was it Green Dream piled up?

Or maybe they were producing Green Dream in there. The pharmaceutical company chairman was a major backer of the Chronos Cult. It wouldn’t be strange at all if Green Dream production machines were here.

If the police found out, things would explode.

“I’m guessing it’s a Green Dream production machine.”

“Makes sense.”

Igor agreed.

If our guess was right, we had to enter the central room and destroy whatever was inside.

Bang! Ratatatatang!

“That doesn’t sound like the silver-haired woman’s gun.”

Igor muttered.

While listening to people leaving via the stairs and elevator, I touched the communicator.

“Senior. It’s me.”

[I know.]

Leonard answered.

Two seconds later, I realized that this strangely off-key reply wasn’t a joke.

Ignoring it, I said what I needed to say.

“Please don’t kill Doug Clark right away. It looks like there’s a Green Dream production machine underground.”

[Alright.]

Sylvia and Leonard answered at the same time.

Neither of them bothered to hide the pleasure in their voices.

[Herding rabbits is fun too.]

Sylvia’s assessment.

I barely suppressed a hollow laugh of disbelief.

Then we waited until everyone had completely left Basement Level 1. While I couldn’t sense human presence, ★ 𝐍𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 ★ civilians usually made a lot of noise when they moved.

It wasn’t hard to tell when everyone had left Basement Level 1.

The sound of the basement shutting down.

The lights went out.

We immediately stepped into the corridor.

“Doesn’t look like it’ll open by force.”

We went to the central room door and checked the lock.

It was secured with a mechanism that wouldn’t easily give way even to our strength.

The door required biometric authentication and was as thick as the doors in the portal zone. Whatever was inside, they’d hidden it as tightly as something on par with a portal device.

If Eve exists, would she be on the top floor?

Thinking that, I stepped back three paces.

Then I called to the subordinate examining the lock with his phone’s light.

“Igor.”

Igor turned his head.

“I’m going to cut it. Step back.”

I drew my dagger.

Igor straightened from his crouch and looked at the blade.

“It’s just a dagger?”

“It’s a sword.”

“Can you cut it?”

I smiled faintly and prepared a small sword strike.

“Of course.”

Slash.

A small sword strike flew out.

The thin blade of force traveled exactly along the trajectory I wanted, cleanly splitting the lock in two.

Igor whistled.

“Delicate.”

“Thanks.”

I replied and pushed open the door to the central room.

“We don’t know when they’ll come back, so let’s check quickly and get out.”

The moment the thick door slid inward, harsh fluorescent light stabbed my eyes, revealing the objects inside the room.

Cables.

Cables as thick as an adult man’s thigh.

Gears.

Pipes.

Levers and buttons.

Panels and gauges covered in control equipment.

A Green Dream production device?

The thick gray cables converging at the center of the room reminded me of massive tree roots. They were connected to a rectangular box that looked like the trunk of a tree. Carefully avoiding stepping on the cables that covered three-quarters of the floor, I headed toward what looked like a pitch-black refrigerator or computer tower.

Igor followed closely behind.

He grumbled.

“What is all this?”

I couldn’t answer, so I walked in silence.

A sound like steam venting—hiss, hiss—echoed rhythmically.

As we moved inward, we walked in a semicircle, avoiding the cables. Suddenly, a patch of floor with no cables appeared.

Standing there and looking directly at the rectangular box, I saw a screen attached to the top of the black box.

The screen was off.

Staring at it, I slowly approached the box.

“Doesn’t look like a Green Dream production device, does it?”

Igor said as he came to stand beside me.

“There’s not a trace of green liquid anywhere.”

“I want Yun here.”

I muttered to myself as I slowly reached out toward the box.

“I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I really have no idea what’s going on....”

I placed my hand on the box.

Below the screen, on the pitch-black surface.

I carefully felt around with my palm. As I brushed the surface with my calloused hand, I realized that it was a door that opened when pulled, like a microwave door.

When I grabbed the black handle, Igor raised an eyebrow.

“It opens?”

“Seems like it.”

“You’re going to open it?”

“There’s nothing else we can do.”

I said it, but I wasn’t confident.

“What’s going to happen just from opening this one thing?”

“That’s true.”

Still, Igor’s agreement eased my mind.

“Let’s open it. If something happens, I’ll cover it with my body, so don’t worry.”

That kind of cover won’t be necessary.

Thinking that, I pulled the handle.

Click.

A thin black door opened outward.

Light poured out from inside.

It was close to fluorescent. Like when you open a refrigerator and the light turns on, the inside of the black box lit up.

The light illuminated a tank.

Inside this pitch-black rectangle was a tank. Like food inside a refrigerator, there was a massive tank inside this rectangular box.

A tank filled with liquid thicker than water.

And floating in the middle of it....

Floating with wires plugged into it....

“What is this?”

As Igor muttered, a strangled sound escaped my throat.

I couldn’t breathe properly.

I felt like I knew what this was.

No.

I felt like I knew who this was.

Whose brain this floating thing belonged to.

Who it was.

A brain in a tank, floating in fluorescent liquid....

“Eve?”

I rasped.

“Is that you?”

As if answering my question, the dark screen lit up.