Serhii turned toward Jurim and spoke, thinking that at least he might be able to communicate with him.
“I’m from Cyrus. I was—what do you call it? Anyway, I’m like a mannequin that was experimented on in a laboratory there that was researching Awakening.”
Jurim flinched at the words research and experiment.
After the Great Cataclysm, all sorts of unethical experiments had run rampant throughout the world.
There had been more than ten known cases in Korea alone.
Regardless of whether the purpose was good or evil, it meant that human experimentation itself was no longer anything unusual.
Even so, he couldn’t help reacting instinctively.
“I used to think Gnosis was the one that rescued me from that laboratory. But I think I was deceived by Gnosis.”
“You’re saying Gnosis experimented on you?”
“They might not have been involved from the beginning, but they must have taken part.”
Serhii dredged up memories as black as pitch.
The researchers had changed several times, and the people in charge of him had also varied from time to time. Of course, since they all did the same things regardless of who they were, it hadn’t mattered to him back then…
Serhii recalled the sky on the day the laboratory shattered like a house made of sweets.
Clouds drifted lazily across the blue sky. The sky was so vast.
What Serhii felt as he gazed up at that wide-open sky was—
Fear hidden within a sense of liberation.
All he remembered was his life as a laboratory test subject.
He knew neither his name nor his age, not even anything about the outside world.
The laboratory had been the place he’d wanted so desperately to escape from, yet when the restraints were finally gone, the boy trembled in fear.
That was why he clung even more tightly to Irina’s side.
Because the world was too vast, and too frightening.
Hiding in the space Irina had created, he enjoyed the world freely—but only through the internet.
To the boy, Gnosis was his benefactor, the one who had freed him from the laboratory, destroyed Cyrus, which had stood by and watched him suffer, and helped him escape his fear of the world.
So this much was enough.
Whenever Cyrus collapsing and the people dying there came to mind, Serhii repeated those words to himself.
Unaware that it was all a farce made up of nothing but lies…
But until he entered the RP dungeon, that really had been enough for him.
Serhii suddenly thought of the squirrel farm, where excavators moved about amid pastoral scenery, and of the squirrels themselves. He even remembered the flying squirrel that had proudly proclaimed itself king.
Experience was frightening.
Once you had tasted a sweet experience, you could never return to the time before you had tasted it.
“My eye became like this because of the experiments.”
Serhii grasped the lower lid of his left eye and pulled it down.
“Gru saw the emblem of Gnosis in my eye.”
Gru? Gidan and Kim Jongwon couldn’t hide their surprise at the name that had suddenly emerged.
“Then it doesn’t add up that Gnosis rescued me, does it? It would be more accurate to say that Gnosis caused me to Awaken again, then pretended to rescue me afterward.”
“Hm.” Jurim stroked his mouth with one hand.
It sounded plausible.
He had joined Gnosis after being deceived by them, then decided to leave once he learned that it wasn’t what he had believed.
There was also a reason he had come all the way to Hyeonak.
‘Gru…’
Given how attached Gru had become to him, this one must have been the same.
Jurim let out a low, hollow laugh.
If left alone, the little one picked up all sorts of things.
A famous child actor, a refrigerator egg that hatched, and now Gnosis.
There was another way to find out whether what he was saying was true, so for now, Jurim decided to set that aside…
“I understand the circumstances. So what cards did you bring?”
A criminal wouldn’t have left an organization without thinking.
When negotiating, it was only natural to bring one or two forms of insurance.
“Are you going to tell us where Gnosis’s Korean base is?”
“It’s probably already been destroyed. Since it’s in subspace, it’s easy to move around. I brought something else.”
Serhii took something resembling a shard of broken glass from his inventory.
Recognizing it, Jurim propped his chin on his hand.
“That’s the debris left behind after our kid’s pet ate something and spat it out.”
It was a fragment of the RP dungeon core he had destroyed.
When Jurim indirectly called it trash, Serhii added an explanation.
“Irina is going to open another RP dungeon. This one is a prototype—the real one is the one she’ll open again afterward.”
“Irina?”
“She’s Gnosis in Korea. Zhenya… or, in Korean, Jin Siwon’s younger sister.”
“What?!”
Gidan sprang to his feet in surprise, his mouth falling open.
“Is that why Team Leader Jin defected to Korea?”
The Team Leader of Team One whispered to Jurim.
“Looks that way.”
Jurim deeply furrowed his brow, his face showing that he regretted hearing yet another troublesome story for no reason.
Serhii rolled the fragment of the core across the desk and continued speaking impassively.
“We needed this to open it. To artificially construct an RP dungeon, you need something that can become a new core. You need a foundational database in order to manifest the space.”
“Hmm.” Jurim nodded.
“Why RP, specifically? To obtain artifacts?”
“No, rather… RP is a world that replays the civilization in which the system was born, right? Naturally, they’re trying to find the system’s origins. Who created it, how they created it, and what they used.”
The system’s origins? Jurim narrowed his eyes.
“What does Gnosis want to do after finding that?”
If finding the origins had been their goal, Gnosis would have created only RP dungeons.
But Gnosis’s experiments were varied and extensive.
That meant finding the system’s origins was merely one part of the process leading to their true objective.
“I don’t know. Irina is eccentric and only says whatever she wants, and I’m not particularly curious myself.”
The Team Leader interrupted, lightly tapping the desk as though frustrated.
“You expect us to believe that?”
Serhii crossed his arms and replied indifferently.
“That’s all I know, so don’t believe me if you don’t want to.”
“Are you and Irina the only members of Gnosis who came to Korea?”
“As far as I know. I moved from Cyrus to Korea with Irina. I haven’t seen anyone else involved.”
It wasn’t entirely implausible.
Gnosis primarily carried out large-scale experiments. If so, it would have been difficult for them to operate in an advanced country like this.
“Is Irina the head of Gnosis?”
“No, not that. Irina said she was merely chosen, too.”
“Chosen?”
As if to say he knew nothing more, Serhii briefly shook his head.
Jurim tilted his head to one side.
“You don’t know much, do you?”
“Well… I figured that might be the case—”
Serhii spread out his hand. The fragment of the RP core glinted.
“—which is why I brought this.”
Jurim let out a small laugh as he looked at Serhii’s sullen face.
Even if he was with Gnosis, he was the same age as Gidan. Sixteen. His actions were immature, and his face still looked unmistakably young.
A young S-rank—he must have been convenient for Gnosis to make use of.
“Well, it doesn’t matter. Catching Gnosis isn’t our job. The negotiations are something for the government agencies to handle, not us…”
Serhii nodded.
“That’s why I came to ask for help with things like that. I’m a foreigner, and honestly, I don’t really know what I’m supposed to do. It’d be more convenient to have an affiliation, wouldn’t it? Protection, documents, things like that? I’ll need all sorts of things, right?”
Kim Jongwon let out a long sigh.
“You want us to help you hire a lawyer?”
Serhii looked away and spoke with his emotions suppressed as much as possible.
“You could protect me from Jin Siwon, too.”
“What did you do to Team Leader Jin?”
After hesitating, Serhii blew up a balloon.
“…Backstabbing and ganging up on him, more or less?”
Gidan, who had been silently watching, muttered,
“You’re crazy good at Korean.”
Serhii turned toward Gidan, looking slightly surprised.
“That’s the first time I’ve heard that.”
Gidan grinned.
As he watched the underage children bond through profanity, Jurim clutched his throbbing head.
“Gidan, get out.”
“Aww.”
Gidan rose, his shoulders drooping.
Dragging his feet, he opened the door.
A small figure was sitting outside with its head bowed low.
“……”
As Gidan closed the door, his gaze lowered to Gru, who was crouched against the opposite wall.
Throughout the entire confrontation with Serhii, he had sensed the small presence circling around the hallway. The child had probably heard everything from in front of the door.
Gidan sat beside Gru, draped an arm around his shoulders, and pulled him close.
“Our Gru has quite a talent for scouting. How did you manage to bring Gnosis here?”