Chapter 81
The torrential rain continued throughout the night.
The abnormal weather that swallowed the entire lodge area damaged the power systems.
It also tore up the mountain paths and sealed off the sky, and as a result, the descent scheduled for the following morning was provisionally canceled.
It was, quite literally, a space completely isolated by disaster.
When the abnormal weather continued well past noon, Yun Jeongseop summoned Lee Eunho, Cha Yeri, and to his room.
“We cannot just sit here and wait for this severe weather to end.”
Yun Jeongseop insisted that we should risk descending the mountain.
There was a desperate air about his expression.
Along with a blind determination to return to Seoul no matter what.
Cha Yeri spoke in a businesslike tone.
“Has this not already been settled? I do not see the need to take such risks.”
As Cha Yeri said, students from the other academies had given up on descending and were passing the ti in their respective lodges.
No matter how malicious the weather was, the downpour would eventually pass, and since tomorrow was Sunday anyway, there was no reason to involve ourselves in unnecessary hardship.
“That is true. We cannot take risks lightly. But what if the weather worsens even further? What if now is actually the better mont? With the power already cut, there is nothing we can guarantee. As the saying goes, it would not be strange if the lodge roof were torn off. It is not made from items retrieved beyond the rift, after all.”
“Is that not an absurd assumption?”
“Since the twenty-first century, weather forecasts incorporating magitech have almost never been wrong. According to the projections, the sky today should have been perfectly clear. But it was not.”
“No matter how advanced magitech is, probability cannot be ignored.”
“No. The probability of a weather forecast being wrong is close to zero. It is not even worth discussing statistically. It would be more reasonable to assu that sothing around here is exerting an influence.”
“An influence… environntal mana, perhaps?”
When Cha Yeri asked, Yun Jeongseop neither affird nor denied it and instead cast his gaze toward .
As if prompting to answer in his place.
“Would not an investigator from the Special Affairs Division with abilities beyond standard paraters know better?”
“……”
It was obvious he wanted to agree with him.
Of course, I understood his intentions perfectly.
However, there was no way I could allow us to turn our backs on the episode and descend just yet.
“I am sorry, but as I said yesterday, there was nothing unusual visible to my Demonic Eye.”
At my words, Yun Jeongseop’s eyes narrowed.
Ignoring his gaze, I turned to Cha Yeri.
“However, it would be best to descend while we can. Staying here another day without electricity would be tedious. In that sense, how about we survey the surrounding area first? If we can secure a reliable descent route, the other academies will move as well.”
Perhaps my suggestion was not unreasonable, because Cha Yeri nodded imdiately. Lee Eunho, who had been listening quietly until now, added his thoughts.
“I agree. Before considering a descent, I think we should first check whether there is a suitable route.”
“…Very well. Then let us move without delay. If you find a viable path for descent, return and report imdiately.”
“Excuse , Instructor. Are you not coming with us?”
At Lee Eunho’s question, Yun Jeongseop hesitated briefly before nodding belatedly.
“Yes. Soone needs to stay behind and persuade the other instructors…”
The end of Yun Jeongseop’s sentence wavered, unlike his usual self.
As if he were trembling with fear.
***
We headed out into the downpour.
Since we had not prepared raincoats, we put on wide-brimd hats and secured LED flashlights to them with layers of tape.
“Cadet Ji Seokhyeon! How is it over there?”
“It will not work here either! The path is too narrow. If we descend in a line, there is a risk of falling!”
“Let us try another route! Co back up, quickly!”
If it were only the three of us, we could have managed to descend sohow.
However, safely leading the entire expedition down was a completely different matter.
The students from other academies could not possibly be on the sa level as Hero Prep cadets, talents counted among the very best of their generation.
If even one student were to lose their way during the descent, they would inevitably spend the entire night wandering the mountain.
Everyone was aware of that, which was why the decision had been made to postpone a safe descent.
Of course, I was not wandering through the torrential rain rely to find a descent route.
Rather, I was deliberately enduring hardship to facilitate a narrative progression disguised as coincidence.
I intentionally led Lee Eunho and Cha Yeri toward the location of the forced awakening facility.
The entrance resembled a crude bunker slathered with cent.
The access path was restricted by tangled vines, and if not for the soil having been washed away by the heavy rain, it would have been impossible to discover. It was hidden with remarkable cunning.
Given that the experint there had supposedly been discontinued five years ago, this was the first ti the facility was being found, and there were no traces whatsoever of anyone having entered it.
“…W-What is this place?”
“It looks like… a bunker.”
I turned to the two of them, who were wearing bewildered expressions, and spoke.
“Since it has co to this, let us take shelter from the rain for a mont. The wind seems even stronger than before.”
When I led the way inside, they followed without objection.
Perhaps because of the rain, a horrific stench of rot assaulted our noses, and strange viscous substances that could not be mistaken for rainwater had dried along the corridor.
We passed through the convoluted passages and soon reached a wide space with a high ceiling.
The interior did not resemble a military bunker at all.
Rather, it seed designed to conceal sothing, or to confine soone.
“It does not seem to be a simple structure. How should I put it… it feels like a detention facility built for a specific purpose.”
Cha Yeri’s keen instincts had already begun probing the nature of the place.
Indeed, it would have been stranger to overlook a location that felt as though it might house corpses.
Lee Eunho also seed to sense the ominous atmosphere. He moved his flashlight restlessly as we proceeded down the dark corridor, as though entranced by sothing unseen.
After about five minutes, we arrived at a large hall with a single crude door. Exchanging silent glances, we opened it and stepped inside.
A thoroughly ransacked laboratory ca into view.
Shattered flasks, docunts torn into pieces, and restraint devices of unknown use scattered everywhere.
Cha Yeri spoke calmly.
“Cadet Lee Eunho, can you interact with this place’s power supply?”
“…Of course.”
When Lee Eunho grasped one of the wires dangling from the ceiling, light flickered on along the walls of the laboratory.
The illumination was dim, likely nearing the end of its lifespan, but it was more than sufficient to grasp what kind of research had been conducted here.
Because blood, as if from an explosion, was splattered everywhere.
“Human… experintation?”
Lee Eunho muttered vacantly.
Clenching her teeth, Cha Yeri picked up a flask filled with a violet liquid from a nearby desk.
She cautiously inhaled its scent, then frowned deeply.
“Hoo. This is an anesthetic for awakened beings. It is typically used when bonding talgrid with the body. But sothing is strange. Normally, it is so potent that it needs to be diluted with sothing else… yet judging by the color of this flask, it looks like undiluted concentrate.”
Lee Eunho asked,
“What does it an to use it in its pure form?”
“It can only an that they conducted experints in which death had to be denied. One of the representative forbidden studies… like chira research.”
“…!”
At the word chira, both of their gazes shifted to .
Suspicion.
As expected, Lee Eunho spoke in a reproachful tone.
“Ji Seokhyeon, do not tell you deliberately brought us here.”
Judging by his expression, it was not suspicion but conviction.
Cha Yeri’s eyes were just as sharp.
It was an atmosphere that seed to allude to my recent battle with a chira.
Well, I had no intention of denying it in the first place.
In the original story, Lee Eunho was supposed to discover this place himself.
I spoke with relative composure.
“Are you accusing simply because I fought a chira before? I am sorry, but what I fought was not a chira. It was a thought-form onto which a monster’s mana had been projected.”
“A… thought-form? What is that?”
“Before explaining that, I should acknowledge that coming here was indeed my intention. And that this matter is classified information of the Special Affairs Division.”
“……”
Classified information of the Special Affairs Division.
No matter how one thought about it, it was the perfect excuse.
“Lee Eunho, why do you think we ca to Mount Wol-dal? Out of all the many exploration fields, why ghost investigation, which has the least empirical basis?”
The answer ca from Cha Yeri.
“So it was not a random draw. The Special Affairs Division influenced the site selection to conduct a covert investigation.”
That was wrong.
It had absolutely been a random draw.
Just as in the original story, it was rely the result of coincidence, untouched by anyone’s influence.
But I calmly nodded.
It was more convenient in many ways for her to think so.
Cha Yeri continued.
“Then the monster ghosts reportedly sighted in this area are also a type of thought-form, as you ntioned?”
“Yes. However, they are different from the thought-form captured on video that day. Calling them entities might even be inaccurate. Those ghosts are more like mirages, temporarily manifested due to an excessive concentration of environntal mana in this area.”
“Mirages…”
“Of course, they are not rely phenona caused by natural environntal mana. The cause would be mana deliberately released by soone. In this case, likely the mana of monsters used in human experintation.”
A heavy silence settled over us.
Lee Eunho swallowed hard before speaking.
“What kind of experints were conducted here?”
“To be clear, experints stitching together the flesh of different species were not carried out. I cannot disclose the detailed circumstances due to classification, but…”
I trailed off and deliberately activated my Demonic Eye.
Then, exactly as described in the original story, I headed toward the corner of the laboratory floor and retrieved docunts hidden in the seam.
“T-That is…!”
Cha Yeri and Lee Eunho rushed toward with startled expressions.
These docunts were experintal logs regarding forced awakening conducted five years ago, and they were originally ant to be discovered by Lee Eunho.
They were materials left behind by an anonymous researcher burdened with a sliver of guilt, and they also served as clues to infer the identity of the person backing Callia.
I handed the docunts to Cha Yeri first and continued speaking.
“Even if it is classified, if clues are found before Special Affairs Division investigators do, information leakage is inevitable.”
Cha Yeri stared at with a doubtful expression, but soon accepted the docunts and shone the LED light over them.
“Research log. Experints to accelerate human evolution by applying monster mana… This cannot be referring to forced awakening, can it?”
When I nodded in confirmation, Cha Yeri and Lee Eunho placed the docunts on a nearby desk and began examining them in earnest.
And about ten minutes later.
With a cold expression, Cha Yeri turned the final page.
“So this place was where children at the age of ability manifestation were kidnapped and subjected to unethical experints.”
A purpose so clear that no embellishnt was necessary.
I neither affird nor denied it and listened to what Cha Yeri said next.
“How could sothing like this happen in this day and age? There are dozens of test subjects recorded here alone. Most of them were middle school students on the verge of awakening. There is no way the families of the victimized children would have remained silent…! Why was an incident of this magnitude never properly disclosed in the first place? What were the Special Affairs Division and Dispel even doing at the ti? Do not tell this is classified as well?”
Her voice grew increasingly agitated.
Cha Yeri opened the docunts again and held out a specific page toward .
“And here, at the end of the test subject list, there is an annotation ntioning a man nad Yun Jeongseop.”
“……”
“Do not tell that is the sa na I am thinking of?”
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