I left the food factory behind and made my way toward the submersible.
My dull, fatigue-soaked footsteps echoed through the city.
Each time I breathed, a faint taste of blood seemed to linger.
The way back was even quieter now that the broadcast, which had been blaring noisily until moments ago, had fallen silent.
Once the sound that had been focused on me disappeared, I realized it had actually been quite a comfort.
Now, only a silence as if everything had been switched off surrounded me.
From time to time, I heard a rough scraping sound against the walls of buildings, but compared to the metallic voice the killing machine had emitted, it felt more like background music that put the mind at ease.
“Haa… To think the sound of Cyclopes would feel peaceful.”
On Earth, that would have been unthinkable.
The clamor of people filling the streets, the electronic chime when the automatic doors in front of a convenience store opened, the soft aroma of a latte drawn from a coffee machine….
Even such trivial pieces of daily life had now been pushed far, far away from me.
If anything, all of it felt like a fantasy.
All I had now was the burden called the Deep Sea.
Not even the shadow of a Cyclops showed nearby.
There were only rows of weathered yet still gleaming blue glass windows, and around me, nothing but silent stillness.
Normally, I would have been on edge, never knowing when one might leap out, but now only a heavy silence lay over everything, like ruins after a war had ended.
Thanks to that, I could walk to the submersible more easily.
“Phew….”
A sigh mixed with faint relief slipped out.
Perhaps because I felt relieved, my whole body seemed to grow a little heavier.
As the tension drained away, instead of looking around, my gaze fell on the egg I was holding.
Scales that still retained their luster despite clearly being old.
A black sheen similar to the Deep Sea, but with a faint green tint.
It truly resembled a dragon egg like something I had seen in webtoons.
When I tapped it as if knocking on a watermelon, the impact rang sharply through my fingertips as though I had struck a wall.
What kind of creature would emerge from such a hard egg?
That thought crossed my mind.
“…Would it be stronger than me?”
According to natural law, a subadult born from an egg would have a hard time defeating another adult, but….
This seemed like it might be an exception.
An egg that revealed an invisible pressure through its very existence.
If it could hatch, perhaps I could make it fight in my place. That thought occurred to me.
As I entertained one thought after another, I saw the submersible half-buried in the wet sand.
I walked toward the rounded head of the submersible, which looked similar to a fish.
Beside it, a familiar machine rolled over.
Whirr. Whirr.
“Yeah, I’m back.”
Eosollujeun approached, smoothly turning its caterpillar tracks.
The way it moved its mechanical arms with little swishes reminded me of a cat wagging its tail in welcome.
Before I knew it, I held out my hand, and Eosollujeun clasped it tightly.
For an instant, warmth filled my chest.
But that lasted only briefly.
Soon, when I saw my mana gradually decreasing, I became slightly dejected.
How should I put it? It was like the feeling when a cat welcomes me, only for me to realize it was because of a treat.
“So that’s why you were happy to see me….”
After absorbing my mana, Eosollujeun began moving even more energetically.
Though it was a machine, the fact that we could at least share actions with one another felt strangely comforting.
But as soon as Eosollujeun let go of my hand, it began spinning around and searching the surroundings.
It spread mana like tiny electrical currents from its body, checking through my clothes, the gaps in my equipment, and my entire body as though groping over them. As if it was determined to find something.
Then.
Whirr!
Letting out a short signal tone, it raised one mechanical arm high.
The tip of the arm was pointing at my chest.
At the black egg.
“…The egg? What about this egg?”
….
Despite my question, Eosollujeun did not answer.
It merely held its arm fixed toward the egg without moving, revealing its wariness.
Thinking it strange, I activated the scanner again, but the result was unchanged.
“There’s nothing wrong with it….”
It was nothing more than a simple egg.
The information was unchanged as well, so I thought there was no problem at all.
It was at that moment.
Srrk.
“Hrk…!”
Something was torn away from my body.
My vision washed white, and my knees gave out.
I collapsed onto the coarse sand with a thud and gasped for breath.
“Hah, hah.”
Sitting on the rough sand, I panted heavily.
The shock of having something that made up my life torn away did not easily fade.
The egg had absorbed something that was neither my blood nor my flesh.
The source that composed life itself—mana.
An emptiness like half my heart had been hollowed out swept over me.
“What is… this….”
While I was still unable to properly gather my senses.
Only one machine moved within the world that wavered like an old film.
Eosollujeun swiftly pulled the egg away from my chest and pushed it far off.
It was in such a hurry that the sound of its metal tracks rang out sharply.
However, the egg immediately returned.
As if that was its rightful place, it was pushed away without resistance, yet before I knew it, it was back beside me.
Eosollujeun repeated this several times.
Pushing it away, it returned, pushing it away again….
At last, Eosollujeun raised its arm high and struck the egg hard.
Clang!
A dull sound rang out as the metal arm came down.
But the egg did not even suffer a scratch.
The egg merely remained leisurely near me.
Beep beep!
A small warning sound rang out.
When I turned my gaze toward the source of the sound, Eosollujeun was there.
As if the egg greatly annoyed it, Eosollujeun tried damaging it in other ways.
Magic that produced a small flame, punches imbued with faint mana, crushing it beneath its caterpillar tracks, and so on.
Despite all those efforts, the egg merely stayed in place.
Watching that, I placed a hand on the ground and lowered my head.
When I closed my eyes and focused on myself, I could feel my condition in detail, as though looking at an X-ray.
The flow of mana, the breath circulating deep within me, the traces of training.
Fortunately, as time passed, my mana gradually returned.
The fact that it had not been permanently drained was at least some comfort.
As my mana returned, my thoughts also slowly began to function normally.
It was not merely the sensation of being alive; my ability to think and analyze this situation gradually regained its proper function.
‘First, I need to sort out the current situation.’
Repeating that inwardly, I looked again at the existence before me.
This egg was definitely not an ordinary egg.
If it were merely the shell of some simple creature, there would be no reason for Eosollujeun to show such wariness.
Then what had it been wary of?
Holding on to that question, I naturally recalled what I had just experienced.
If there was one point where I had felt my life threatened…
There was the fact that it had teleported after me, but the mana loss I had just experienced seemed most in line with Eosollujeun’s wariness.
Certainly, if the amount of mana I possessed was about 1.5 liters when compared to a water bottle, then the amount of mana Eosollujeun usually took was only about a cup.
Naturally, even if that much was taken, it filled back up quickly.
But this egg was different.
Judging by what I had just felt, it had taken at least close to a liter of mana from me all at once.
Not simple consumption, but an absorption that suggested some kind of intent.
And when my mana was taken, I did not merely experience a loss of strength.
For an instant, I had the illusion that I saw something.
Even though I had not closed my eyelids, an unfamiliar shape seeped into my field of vision.
It seemed as though I had seen a long, slit yellow pupil inside the egg.
A yellow light that seemed to lure prey in the Deep Sea.
It seemed as though I had seen a massive body where a long-stretched abyss and mana were mixed together.
Like the present Deep Sea and the ancient city.
I knew it instinctively.
This egg was not a mere relic or the shell of some creature.
That was not simply a guess, but seemed like an unconditional truth resounding through my entire body.
Naturally, my hand moved toward the equipment hanging at my waist.
I took out the scanner.
An utterly human action, meant to dispel the fear of the unknown.
I thrust a torch into the abyss where pressure lingered.
The egg in which a great ruler was stirring remained still before me, without the slightest movement.
As if I were doing exactly what it wanted.
However, I could not get past the fear of the unknown enough to take back this action.
Rather than live while carrying a risk, I would uncover everything.
This world placed extreme importance on cause and effect.
If there was a reason, there was a result; if there was a result, there was a reason.
‘If it took my mana….’
Then something must have been accomplished.
With anxiety and curiosity intertwined, I pulled the scanner’s trigger.
In that instant, a thin wave of blue light took shape and began sweeping over the egg.
As the blue light brushed over the surface, the scales rippled briefly, as if something inside had stirred.
A moment later, the scanner quietly beeped and displayed words on the screen.
-Haeasha’s Egg
-Hatching Progress: 1%
Hatching progress: 1%. That sentence of blue light settled in my pupils.
My heart pounded, and sweat began to gather in my hands.
Was it tension, or anticipation?
Or perhaps it was both.
The price of mana was the hatching of an ancient ruler.
A ruler from before even the city I stood in had existed.
A ruler who had built an overwhelming civilization, and who, even in the vanished era, had been evaluated as comparable to a major corporation.
An unpredictable gamble that could become my greatest fighting force, or devour me.
Had been set in motion.