-Monster Incarnate
* * *
Kim Seonho told the bodyguards who had followed him to wait outside and entered the cave alone.
It was a cave located in the mountain wilderness behind the company training center in Hanam City.
Very few even within the company knew of this place. It was a secret cave housing top-secret experimental subjects.
These days, he had been hiding out at the company training center.
Had it been after hearing that the Bureau was looking for him? No, perhaps it was after hearing that his damn collaborators had all been arrested and taken away by the Bureau.
In any case, Kim Seonho was now a fugitive from the government.
“What the hell is this? Not being able to enter my own house, not being able to go to my own company—does that make any sense?! Do you know who I am! I’m Kim Seonho!”
Having entered the cave, he suddenly began shouting at the top of his lungs.
Now that he was alone, the resentment he had built up all this time burst out as sound.
He had maintained a 24-hour security detail, keeping guards close even when he slept.
The fact that he was trembling in fear of being caught and thrown into a cell by those self-important Bureau bastards was simply absurd.
It was unbelievable. Who was Kim Seonho? Was he not a corporate titan leading the Korean economy from the very forefront?
He was a renowned businessman respected worldwide, and they were treating him like a criminal just because he had conducted some experiments to develop a new product?
“This is all because of that bastard Odin. That ungrateful wretch! That damned ingrate who repays kindness with enmity! Just because he caught a few monsters, he thinks he’s some kind of hero.”
Kim Seonho muttered incessantly like a man of unsound mind, occasionally screaming as he was swept up in madness.
It was true that he was half-mad, having been obstructed just as the goal he had devoted his entire life to was within arm’s reach.
“Damn bastard! Let’s see how long you can gloat. I’ll specially release my precious monster just for you.”
He was also in a state of half-resignation.
He had to launch the Golden Apple no matter what. The Golden Apple was not merely a product released to make money.
He could earn money through plenty of other means.
But the Golden Apple was different. It was power.
Mighty power that held and shook the dreams and lives of every person in the world in the palm of his hand. The power to make everyone in the world cling to Kim Seonho.
And that wasn’t all. He could even lure the black magicians of the Magic Tower with the Golden Apple and place them beneath his feet.
In short, it was something that would allow him to grasp all the power in the world.
If only it could be properly completed and launched. But now, both completion and launch had become uncertain.
“What the hell is this because of those idiots! Am I doing this just for myself? This is all for the world, for humanity. Why the hell are you standing in my way?”
It was the fulfillment of humanity’s long-cherished dream of eternal life. Though it would only be realized under the conditions of the Golden Apple.
In other words, conditional eternal life where one could survive only with Kim Seonho’s permission.
Was it not enchanting? Where could there be greater glory than that?
But it was being blocked by a wall. It was on the verge of crumbling.
If that was the case, there was no need to grant humanity its dream. Instead, he would give them a hellish reality, even if it meant sacrificing Kim Seonho’s precious test subjects.
“Now that my collaborators are gone, there’s no such thing as cooperation. Those stupid bastards, disappearing without even clearing a path for me. I wasted my money for nothing.”
Even as he chattered incessantly like a madman, Kim Seonho properly found his way to the secret space inside the cave. The path was like a maze, but it posed no problem. After all, he was the one who had created it.
This was the last remaining secret space.
There had been three locations in total where the test subjects were stored. The mansion’s underground warehouse had been sealed by Odin and revealed to the world.
The second was the secret space in the company penthouse, and the test subjects there had already all been expended.
They had been mutated pigeons and lizardmen.
“But the more I think about it, the stranger it is. The pigeons were nothing but trivial test subjects, so it didn’t matter if they were annihilated. But the lizardmen had mutated into quite useful specimens… How were they all wiped out?”
The lizardmen were not simple animal test subjects, but a different race. He had mutated them to possess magic-resistant traits. Their ability to spew forth lizards, and their combat capability besides.
He had thought that even magicians wouldn’t be able to handle them easily, but somehow they had all been taken away.
But apparently, Odin hadn’t even been at the scene. It was a mystery what great magician could have subdued all the lizardmen.
He couldn’t get proper statements from the employees who had gone to the scene either.
They said only that magic had activated and they had been subdued in an instant, but they couldn’t remember anything about what magic it was or who the magician was.
Their memories had been erased.
“Whoever it was, they must have used mental magic. Yes, they’re quite something, but they won’t be able to handle this. The one here is on a completely different level from the lizardmen. Hehehe.”
Now Kim Seonho was snickering like a deranged man.
Creation is difficult, but destruction is easy. If the Golden Apple couldn’t be launched immediately, he intended to destroy part of the world first.
Humans couldn’t live forever anyway. Would they grieve if they met their destined death just a little sooner?
Instead, he would grant glory to the survivors. They would receive the glory of obtaining eternal life with Kim Seonho’s permission.
Kim Seonho finally reached the end of the maze. A massive iron door blocked his path. Beyond it lay the secret space.
Here, there was a being that, although a failed test subject, was perfectly suited for the purpose of destruction.
It was the legacy Ren had left behind. A test subject created by injecting her blood.
A test subject like a child that carried her DNA and inherited her traits.
And that wasn’t all. He had fed it the Golden Apple grown by injecting it with Ren’s blood. And so, a monstrously strengthened being had been born.
No. It was a monster incarnate.
“I shouldn’t have let Ren be taken. Of all things, she had to fall into Odin’s clutches.”
The more he thought about it, the more he regretted losing Ren. If she had remained in Vanaheim’s laboratory, the finest Golden Apple would undoubtedly have been completed by now.
Even the failures would have been the finest monsters.
“What a pity, such a pity. I couldn’t even draw blood to my heart’s content because I was afraid she might die. If I had known she would escape like that, I would have rather drained every last drop of blood from her body. Or should I have just chopped her entire body into pieces and stored it?”
Now, even as he spouted such monstrously terrible words, he was completely unaware of his own appearance.
Kim Seonho entered the password into the locking device on the iron door and completed the iris scan. Still, the door did not open. A security spell remained.
“How did it come to this, not having a single trustworthy magician…”
There were barely any usable magicians left around Kim Seonho. Yasin had betrayed him and left, and An Seokju was currently in Bureau custody.
Aside from them, the magicians working at the research lab were merely people who could wield magic adequate for experiments.
Kim Seonho wished for a magician like Odin to be by his side. If that had been the case, experiments, security, and bodyguards would have posed no problem whatsoever.
But that bastard had instead sealed away the test subjects in the mansion’s underground cave, exposed Vanaheim’s secrets to the world, and chosen to become an enemy.
“He doesn’t want money, he doesn’t want eternal life—what the hell is that Odin guy? Doesn’t every human dream of eternal life? Is he so desperate to be a hero that he refuses even eternal life? Anyway, what an ill-fated wretch.”
Kim Seonho took out a transparent blue jewel from his pocket and held it up to the lock. Then, glittering shards of light in various colors floated up and orbited the iron door.
He was not a magician, but he possessed quite decent magical artifacts.
Soon, the security spell on the iron door was released, and the massive door opened soundlessly.
Kim Seonho slowly pushed the door open.
What state would the interior be in now? He was curious, but also slightly anxious.
Was entering alone without a magician too much after all?
But he had various magical artifacts besides the blue crystal. He also possessed artifacts imbued with enormous mana, boasting far greater power than ordinary magicians.
Moreover, no matter how monstrous the test subject was, it was Kim Seonho’s creation. How could the creator fear his creation?
“Where are you? Come here.”
Calling out to the monster gently, as if summoning a pet, he walked into the secret space.
The monster did not come running out. There was no sign of it whatsoever.
It couldn’t be dead. It was extremely unstable, but its body was sturdy.
Providing food continuously was no easy task, so they had captured and confined an enormous quantity of animals all at once.
Since it hadn’t even been a month since it came here, that should have been sufficient. At the very least, it wouldn’t have starved to death.
Kim Seonho continued deeper into the secret space. Much like the mansion’s underground cave, the inside was far wider and deeper than the entrance.
But why was it so quiet?
There was no sign of other animals either, not just the monster. Had it already devoured them all?
Surely it hadn’t broken through a corner of the space and escaped outside?
That couldn’t be. For one, it wouldn’t have been able to break through the security magic, and if it had gotten outside, the world wouldn’t have remained silent. There would have been immediate chaos, and the news would have been abuzz.
Because if this one was released into the world, it could never stay quiet.
* * *
The report from the Magic Tower investigation team and the countermeasures meeting were attended not only by the investigation team and my team members but also by several mid-level magicians from the Bureau and the Hall.
Yu Jaeseon took charge of the investigation report, and I supplemented the explanations from time to time. I was the only one who had directly witnessed things like the combat power and magical abilities of the red-horned goat demon tribe.
When the topic of Leviathan came up, everyone added a word here and there.
The power of Leviathan they had seen before crossing through the portal at the end had been so shocking that they couldn’t stop talking about it.
Upon hearing about the number and scale of the creatures from the demonic realm that Samir had summoned, especially regarding Leviathan, even the magicians who hadn’t been at the scene couldn’t help but be appalled.
Everyone had an intuition that the terror attack Samir was orchestrating would bring about destruction on an enormous scale.
“We need to gather all the magicians from across the country in Seoul.”
“If we do that, what if the demonic realm races attack the provinces?”
“That won’t happen. This will be different from the simple disruption terror attacks carried out so far. This time, they will try to wage all-out war. If so, they will attack the heart.”
“We need to borrow the power not only of magicians but also of public authorities like the police and military, as well as the strength of other races.”
“That’s right. We must mobilize every force that can be mobilized.”
“It seemed like bullets couldn’t even penetrate, and shells would just slip off that slimy body of Leviathan?”
“That’s probably right. The magicians will have to handle Leviathan.”
“My team and I will take Leviathan.”
The countermeasures meeting deepened.