Previously, to get to Antarctica, we had to fly over ten thousand kilometers in a transport plane, but there was no need for that this time.
Just as we had come from Antarctica to the Baekdu Mountain ruins, we could simply go by spatial transfer.
Leaving Catherine and Magreta at the Baekdu Mountain base, I went back down into the underground ruins with Hanna.
Perhaps the cleanup was finished; unlike a little while ago, there were many people in the underground ruins.
They were the people heading to Trappist.
I could not tell whether anyone had died in the battle.
However, the expressions of those gathered were grim, as if they had witnessed the fighting.
Waiting in front of the altar, they looked at us when we appeared late, and the officer guarding the ruins ran over.
“Are you returning to Trappist already?”
I shook my head at his words.
“We’re going somewhere else.”
“You can go somewhere other than Trappist… So that was possible.”
The officer, who had looked surprised, nodded.
At his words, I was the one who grew puzzled instead.
Because what he said next was different from what I had expected.
I had never shown them that I could go anywhere other than Trappist, yet he said such a thing.
“You believe me.”
“Because it’s you, Deputy Commander Hyun.”
As if he had finally gotten the chance to speak, the U.S. officer poured out his words.
“To be honest, we’ve made all kinds of guesses about you among ourselves. From the idea I just mentioned, that you might be able to go to other ruins at will, to absurd talk that you might be able to ignore personnel limits and even have no restrictions on the amount or type of luggage.”
Curious about my answer, he looked at me with sparkling eyes.
[It seems they’re all correct.]
Their guesses were almost entirely true, but I had no intention of admitting it.
I shook my head, and the officer asked me with a disappointed expression.
“Then, will you depart first? It looks like it will take a little while to send the people who arrived earlier to Trappist.”
At his words, I looked at the people gathered in front of the altar.
They were looking at me as well.
While I was speaking with the officer, they seemed to have asked the technicians and others about me.
The expressions with which they looked at me had changed.
“There’s no need. Let’s send them first. I’ll help.”
“Ah, that would work.”
The officer relayed my words to the technicians, and the technicians shook their heads as they stepped away from the machine they had been operating.
Seeing that, the people wore bewildered expressions.
I approached them and gave instructions.
“Everyone, stay where you are and hold hands with the person next to you. You do not have to go up onto the altar. However, every single person must be holding hands. Anyone who isn’t will be left here.”
At my words, the people looked startled.
Partly because the instruction was unexpected, but also because they had all heard it in their own languages.
“You heard him, right? Those are Deputy Commander Trappist’s orders. Just think of it as something you were told in advance before leaving.”
The officer shouted again in English, and the Korean soldiers and technicians also told the people to follow my words.
Though puzzled, the people held hands with those beside them, and after confirming that everyone was holding hands, I took the hand of the person in front of me as well.
“Soph.”
[I will activate it.]
With Soph’s words, a portal opened above the altar.
At the portal that had suddenly appeared, the people’s eyes widened, and the technicians looked back and forth between the machine and the portal, letting out sighs.
Holding everyone’s hands, I walked the path.
Whoooosh!
There was no need to enter the portal directly.
The portal merely signaled that a passage to another world had opened.
Since it was not a path in three-dimensional space, I could walk it while standing in place.
The path to Trappist.
When we reached the end of the path, I let go of their hands.
I felt the people leave the path.
They had arrived at Trappist.
After dropping the people off at Trappist like that, I walked the path again and returned to my original position.
Whoooosh!
After the light vanished, what came into view was the underground ruins and the altar.
I was standing where I had been.
Naturally, the people whose hands I had been holding were nowhere to be seen.
The soldiers stared at me in shock, and the technicians whispered among themselves with serious faces.
“They just disappeared.”
“Wasn’t that spatial transfer?”
“They didn’t even go into the portal.”
“That man did it. He must’ve used something like magic.”
“Someone ask him. How on earth did he do that?”
I had gone to the trouble of hurrying, so there was no reason for me to answer questions.
I took Hanna’s hand and climbed onto the altar.
The portal was still open.
There weren’t many people, so there was no need to perform any tricks.
I stepped toward the portal.
Thud.
But before I could enter the portal, I had no choice but to stop.
Because Hanna had not followed.
“Why?”
When I looked at her, Hanna was staring at the portal with a grave expression.
“It looks a little dark inside the hole.”
“It turned black?”
“No. It was fine until just now, but when we tried to go in, it started getting darker little by little.”
Getting darker little by little?
That meant something had gone wrong where we were headed.
On top of that, it also meant there was a time limit.
I quickly asked Soph.
“Soph, please put up a shield.”
[Understood.]
In an instant, a shield unfolded around us.
Until now, we had hidden magic on Earth as much as possible, but there was neither need nor reason to do so anymore.
After I layered another shield inside the one Soph had cast, I looked at Hanna.
Hanna nodded.
“Let’s go.”
“Good.”
Now that the guardian had given her permission, it was time to move.
Holding Hanna’s hand, I threw myself into the portal.
White light covered the world, then immediately receded.
An underground hall appeared before my eyes.
An underground hall with a stone slab fitted with a control panel.
It was the ruins of the Antarctic continent.
However, the interior of the underground hall was difficult to see with the naked eye.
Because the underground hall was filled with steam.
Hissss—
Droplets of water formed all over the surface of the shield.
Droplets that looked hot just by looking at them.
It was similar to what I had seen on Venus.
“If it’s similar to Venus, that means that steam is close to one hundred degrees, right?”
[I do not know exactly how many degrees it is, but it does seem hot.]
If that steam was around one hundred degrees, I could endure it to some extent. But Hanna was different.
On Earth, Hanna was an ordinary person. There was no doubt she would be unable to endure even a moment inside that steam.
“Hanna, was what you saw that steam?”
At my question, Hanna shook her head.
“I’m not sure. Ever since we arrived on Earth, I haven’t been able to see clearly. But the area near the entrance looks darker than inside here.”
The entrance is dark?
I tilted my head and spread out my senses.
Beyond the underground hall, into the vertical passage.
All the way to the lobby filled with water.
My face twisted at once.
This place had not filled with steam for no reason.
Above us now, it was filled with boiling water.
Boiling water filled the lobby and the passage.
The water had passed through the corridor and was now pouring down the vertical passage.
Kwa-kwa-kwa-kwa!
At the same time, a thunderous roar of water came from the hall entrance.
Along with the sound, a torrent burst out from the entrance to the hall.
I shouted to Soph.
“Hanna is here! We have to make the shield bigger!”
[I am already expanding it.]
With Soph’s reply, the shield rapidly grew larger.
Swaaaaash!
The shield collided with the torrent.
Tremendous pressure battered the shield, but this much could be endured easily even without using black stone.
The water continued to pour in and began filling the hall.
It passed the height of our legs, rose past our waists, and the water that kept climbing eventually filled the entire hall.
A short while later, the underground hall was completely submerged, except for the shield where we were.
The hall filled with hot water.
Fortunately, the shield killed the heat convection, and because it had been expanded sufficiently, the heat did not reach Hanna or me.
I extended my senses as far as I could and examined the surroundings.
Fortunately, now there was nothing else unusual within my senses.
Lastly, I asked Hanna.
“How is it now?”
“Everywhere else is still dark, but it’s gotten bright beside you, Oppa.”
That meant it was fine inside the shield.
“What on earth is this water?”
[It must be the Antarctic glaciers. Water that had been draining out to the sea poured in here.]
At Soph’s words, the scene I had seen before came to mind.
The sight of glaciers melting and pouring down through cracks, and the water that had fallen flowing into the enormous waterway formed beside the lava.
Remembering that, I understood Soph’s words, except for one thing.
“Why did the water that was flowing out to the sea come in here? The waterway and the entrance to the ruins seemed to be fairly high up…”
[The sea level must have risen beyond that.]
At Soph’s words, a piece of common knowledge came to mind.
The scientific fact that if Earth’s temperature rose too much, glaciers would melt and sea levels would rise.
The sea level had risen, and the terraforming waterway had backflowed from the sea.
The water was hot because it had been heated by lava.
Soph continued.
[If this place is submerged, most coastal cities must be underwater as well.]
Hearing a reality I did not particularly want to hear, I headed toward the stone slab with Hanna.
Though it had been swept by the water, the stone slab was intact.
I set the spear on top of the stone slab.
The spear slowly rose into the air.
Old and scratched, the spear nevertheless still looked sturdy.
Holograms appeared around the spear.
Each time a hologram appeared, magic circles lit up on the ceiling, walls, and floor of the hall.
Magic circles glowing and wavering in the hot water.
Soph was awakening these ruins once more.
I committed all of the magic circles to memory.
I still could not use them as freely as Soph, but now I could understand their contents to some extent.
From next time on, I felt like I too would be able to operate the terraforming ruins like Soph.
Once all the magic circles were shining, Soph spoke.
[Place the black stone on it.]
I took the Demon King’s black stone out of the box and placed it on the stone slab.
A hole formed in the stone slab, and the black stone disappeared into it.
After the black stone vanished, Soph opened his mouth.
[Because the star lacks energy, restoring it to its original nature is impossible. Moreover, though it belongs to the Demon King, we are ultimately using a black stone, so there will be a time limit as well.
Maintaining the current state for a few years, ten at most, will be the limit.]
It was a disappointing thing to hear, but even so, I was grateful.
“That much is enough.”
In a situation where it could not even hold out for a few months, a few years was more than enough.
With that amount of time, we could move truly many people to Trappist.
Not hundreds or thousands, but millions, tens of millions of people.
[Good. I will begin.]
With Soph’s words, the magic circles began to scatter light, and the stone slab began to shine.
Rumble, rumble.
The ground shook, and the water began to churn.
The magic circles shone brighter and brighter like that, until at some point—
Zzzzzzt.
They began to lose their light.
The magic circles grew darker and darker.
“There still isn’t enough energy?”
[Even the Demon King’s black stone is insufficient…]
Watching the darkening magic circles, I bit my lip.
I had finally become able to analyze the magic circles, yet there was nothing I could do.
It was simply because there was not enough energy.
Was it because a crack had formed in the black stone?
Even though we had brought the Demon King’s black stone, we had failed to ignite these terraforming ruins.
“Damn it.”
[The chances of success were quite high. To think it would fail like this… I did not expect this at all.]
That was when Soph and I were standing in despair before the stone slab.
“No. It didn’t fail.”
Hanna’s voice came from behind me.
Hanna passed by my side and continued speaking.
“It was only missing one thing. Earth’s permission. That’s the reason I, the guardian, had to come here.”
Hanna placed her hand on the stone slab.
Fwoooooosh!
Light burst out from the stone slab.
The magic circles that had been growing dark became bright again.
Swaaaaaash!
The water that had filled the hall began to be pushed away.
With the shining stone slab behind her, Hanna spoke.
“From now on, this place will become Earth’s sanctuary, if only for a short time.”
With those words, the terraforming ruins—Earth’s sanctuary—began to move.
Evacuation (1)