Chapter 91: Anti-Antenon Alliance (2)
The day Sa-hyeok first named Bang-ul-i, “Bang-ul-i”.
Bang-ul-i told him about himself.
Actually, there wasn’t much to tell.
Because he barely had any memories left.
Bang-ul-i didn’t even know his original name, nor could he remember what he originally was.
All he knew was that he was chopped up (?) by Antenon and sealed within Colonnio robots.
When he traced back his memories, he saw a river and sand.
And for some reason he couldn’t understand, he really loved water.
That was all the fragmented memories Bang-ul-i had left.
Therefore, Bang-ul-i desperately wanted to find other Colonnios existing in the world.
Because his existence and memories were divided and stored within them.
And finally, he succeeded in finding and retrieving another Colonnio for the first time.
That meant he had recovered, albeit a small part, of his lost memories.
So Sa-hyeok said.
“Okay, tell me.”
Tell him about the recovered memories.
[……I see a river. A very long, wide river. I’m in that river. It’s comfortable.]
“Keep talking.”
[I see sand. This is, that……]
“Like a white sand beach by the river?”
[I thought so, but it’s not. It’s a bit different from a beach. I see sand dunes. Large and small sand dunes, undulating like waves, filling the horizon.]
“And?”
[The clear, stinging sunlight, and that thing I see in the distance…… is it a mountain?]
“A mountain?”
[I see a pointed mountain. It’s not that high. It has a particularly pointed peak…… but it’s hard to see clearly because of the strong sunlight and sand dust.]
“Hmm…… Then, besides past memories, are there no relatively recent memories?”
[Recent memories…… Ugh.]
“Why?”
[……It’s Antenon, I was captured and brought to an Antenon research facility.]
“……!”
[They’re dividing me…… A knife? No, it’s not that. This is…… What’s this word?]
“Word?”
[They said the word
“What’s that……?”
[I don’t know. They said they captured me using the Canopus System…… Ugh……!]
“Hey, that’s enough, it’s okay. You can stop now.”
Sa-hyeok first calmed Bang-ul-i down.
It ended just as it seemed like a clue was about to emerge.
A large and wide river.
Stinging sunlight.
Numerous sand dunes.
Pointed mountains.
……Just what place is he talking about?
But still, there was one thing he definitely got.
He searched it and found that Canopus was a term referring to the jars used when making mummies.
The four jars, Canopus, that contain the liver, lungs, stomach, and intestines removed from the body being mummified.
After confirming the meaning of Canopus, Sa-hyeok felt a bit of a chill.
It was because the meaning of Canopus strangely overlapped with Bang-ul-i’s testimony of being chopped up and stored in various places.
However, he still didn’t know exactly what the ‘Canopus System’ was, other than Canopus.
But it was certain that it was the name of something Antenon was handling secretly.
Even this much was good for now.
He had grabbed a clue to trace back.
“Okay, good. Let’s stop the memory playback here. But it’s okay to just put these beads in the storage box, right?”
Saying that, Sa-hyeok pointed to the suitcase he had brought.
The suitcase full of beads from the Colonnio he had just retrieved.
[Yes. I’ve already absorbed all the memories recorded there. And as long as they don’t come into contact with me, they’ll remain deactivated, so it should be fine.]
“Okay.”
Sa-hyeok opened the cabinet and put the suitcase inside.
Then he took out the book that was stuck in the corner of the cabinet.
The undecipherable book he had looted from the Knight and Slime dungeon.
“You said the letters engraved on the wall of the golem dungeon and the letters written in this book are the same characters, right?”
[Yes. You brought your laptop, right, Hyeong-nim? I’ll send you the pictures first.]
Bang-ul-i sent half of the pictures he took in the golem dungeon to Sa-hyeok’s laptop.
The amount of text was enormous, easily exceeding hundreds of thousands of characters.
[First, look at these. These are the letters engraved on the left wall of the dungeon. How about it, they’re the same as the letters in the book, right?]
“Comparing them, they’re definitely the same. But you’re saying you can decipher this?”
[Of course it can’t be deciphered with just that. Now I’ll send you the pictures of the letters engraved on the right wall.]
The transfer of the pictures was complete.
Sa-hyeok’s eyes widened as he opened them.
“These letters…… are Mado Language?!”
[Yes. You can read Mado Language, right, Hyeong-nim?]
“Of course. There’s probably no one on Earth who can’t read Mado Language.”
Mado Language.
A special language used to design and activate magic.
All the magic currently used by Hunters is designed based on Mado Language.
Unlike other languages on Earth, Mado Language was a language system that suddenly ‘appeared’ after the Gate incident.
A language discovered through inscriptions, murals, and reliefs within dungeons.
In other words, it was not a language created by humans.
The biggest characteristic of Mado Language was that ‘anyone could decipher it’.
Although the reason was still unknown, anyone could interpret Mado Language just by looking at it.
It didn’t matter if their native language was Korean, English, or Swahili.
A language that anyone could interpret immediately without translation, that was Mado Language.
But half of the letters photographed in the golem dungeon are in Mado Language?
That means……
[But read the last sentence of the Mado Language part here.]
“……It says, ‘This text is written in the language of the Ukvaron Empire and the language of magic’. What’s the Ukvaron Empire again? Anyway, the language of magic here must refer to Mado Language, right?”
[Probably. Then, according to this sentence……]
“It means the same text was written once in the Ukvaron Empire language and once in Mado Language.”
[Exactly.]
“Since Mado Language can be deciphered, if there’s a Ukvaron language text with the same content……”
[It can be deciphered through comparison and contrast.]
“And based on that, it becomes possible to interpret this book as well?”
[Yes.]
His heart started to race.
If he could decipher the unidentified texts excavated from the dungeon, he would be able to gain information on a completely different level.
“How long will it take to decipher?”
[Well, roughly three hours?]
“……That’s all it takes?!”
[It’s easier because there’s so much data.]
Easier because there’s so much data.
What does that even mean?
“……Then I’ll leave it to you.”
[Leave it to me, Hyeong-nim. And I’m curious too.]
At that moment.
Beep-
A message arrived on Sa-hyeok’s phone.
A single line message from an unknown sender.
‘1900 hours Sanwang Building Rooftop’
A message meaning to come to the rooftop of Sanwang Building by 19:00.
He thought he knew who sent it.
‘Master Cheon Hun.’
Sa-hyeok looked at his watch.
The current time was 6 PM, 18:00.
Sa-hyeok said to Bang-ul-i.
“Then I’ll leave the deciphering to you. I’ll be back.”
[No, you’re leaving the labor to me and running away, Hyeong-nim?]
“I’m going to work too.”
Sa-hyeok went outside the boarding house.
Whoosh!
And jumped up onto the building.
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Sanwang Building.
A high-rise building with a height of 70 floors.
Sa-hyeok climbed up the outer wall of the building with his telekinesis and reached the rooftop in an instant.
The night view of Seoul seen from the high-rise was magnificent.
Of course, that wasn’t the important thing.
“You’ve come, Hunter Min Sa-hyeok.”
Sa-hyeok turned to where the voice came from.
Standing there, contrary to his expectations, was not Master Cheon Hun.
It was DAVO’s Vice Master, Byeon Il-gu.
“……Vice Master Byeon Il-gu? Was it you who sent the message?”
“I did send the message. But I’m not Byeon Il-gu.”
“What?”
Crackle.
Il-gu suddenly ripped something off the surface of his face.
At first, Sa-hyeok was horrified, thinking he was ripping off his facial skin.
But looking closely, it wasn’t facial skin, but a mask that was tightly attached to his face.
As he removed the mask, his real face was revealed.
It was Cheon Hun.
Sa-hyeok asked.
“……What is that? That mask?”
“It’s a mask artifact called Human Skin Mask. If you wear it on your face, it changes your face to whatever you want.”
“I didn’t know such an artifact existed.”
“Yeah, it’s a forbidden artifact, so the Quarantine Organization collected all the ones on the market.”
“It doesn’t look very dangerous, so why is it forbidden……”
“It’s because it’s an item that doesn’t help with raids but has plenty of room for abuse.”
“Ah.”
“Of course, not everyone can use it. It can’t change the size of the user’s face. So to perfectly use the Human Skin Mask, you have to either imitate a face similar to your head size or have the ability to transform your skull.”
“You have such an ability……?”
“I do.”
Crack, crackle, snap.
Hun showed off a horrifying trick (?) of shrinking his head size by crumpling and bending his facial bones.
“Ugh……”
“It’s okay, it’ll be restored with healing anyway.”
Swoosh-
After Hun restored his head, Sa-hyeok asked.
“Then Vice Master Byeon Il-gu is……”
“That’s me. My disguised identity.”
“……So there was no Byeon Il-gu from the beginning.”
“That’s not entirely true. The real Byeon Il-gu was a homeless man who died three years ago near Busan Station in a monster attack. I obtained his personal information and made it mine after some administrative manipulation.”
“Vice Master Byeon Il-gu was also known as a Regeneration Sorcerer, so you participated in all the raids under the identity of Byeon Il-gu?”
“Yes.”
Now he understood why information related to Cheon Hun was so veiled.
Since he had been carrying out his actual Hunter activities under the identity of Byeon Il-gu, it was natural that related information wouldn’t be revealed.
“That was a long digression. Now let’s talk about what’s to come.”
“I agree. Then can I ask a question first?”
“Of course.”
“Why did you pretend to d*e?”
“Because that’s the only way to completely escape Antenon’s eyes.”
“……!”
“Through this funeral, ‘Cheon Hun’ is completely dead. Antenon will think so even more. Because they’re the ones who blew my head off.”
“You didn’t get attacked by Antenon, you let them attack you.”
“Of course. I was waiting for an opportunity. An opportunity to be naturally killed by them. Now that I’m dead, they won’t care about the existence of Cheon Hun anymore. That alone creates a huge loophole in their plan. I’ve become free to move outside their field of vision.”
He acted under a disguised identity, hiding his true abilities, and used those abilities to fake his death and deceive Antenon.
A bold and meticulous plan that was astounding.
It was surprising, but also curious.
“But why go so far?”
“What do you mean?”
“Living as a deceased person means giving up a lot.”
Living as the late Cheon Hun meant giving up everything he had built as Cheon Hun.
It was not a decision an ordinary person could make.
Hun said.
“It’s okay. I have something to protect, even if it means doing that.”
“What is it?”
“That’s……”
Hun trailed off and then spoke again.
“……You wouldn’t understand even if I told you. Rather, let me ask you a question this time.”
“Ah, yes.”
“Are you a Contractor?”
Contractor?
Countless question marks passed through Sa-hyeok’s mind.
“What’s a Contractor?”
“Is this the first time you’ve heard of it?”
“Yes.”
Hun used his ‘Diagnosis’ eyes to analyze Sa-hyeok’s statement.
Sa-hyeok’s words were true again.
Hun said.
“A Contractor refers to those who can use the power of gods through a contract with them.”
“……What?”
Sa-hyeok was momentarily stunned.
“Gods? Are you talking about gods?”
“Yes.”
“Gods actually exist……?”
“Gods have been with humanity since the beginning. Although they took their actual form after the Gate incident.”
“……!”
“The reason I’m telling you this is one thing. Hunter Min Sa-hyeok, you have a singularity that you don’t even know about.”
“Singularity……?”
“The power of gods doesn’t work on you. At all.”
