545

 [Chapter 148]

[New Humanity Project (3)]

『The experiment was successful as expected. Here we discovered results we hadn't anticipated.

The body of the child transplanted with a heart containing vast mana became healthier than before. After the one week period for the new heart to adapt to the body, the child's body changed to one suitable for digesting vast mana.

Above all, the child who had high efficiency in manifesting internal mana showed more surprising changes than other children transplanted with hearts containing vast mana!

This can be said to be like replacing the engine of a sports car that had engine problems with an engine suitable for a sports car.

In the end, the human body changes to a better state according to the heart, according to the internal mana possessed by the heart.

In other words, human evolution is related to the heart.

(Omitted)

...It turns out he was right.

The Superman is a human who is one step ahead of existing humanity, more superior and excellent.

Therefore, though there are enough points to criticize, from the perspective of eugenics, shouldn't much more superior and excellent humans rule much more foolish and inferior humans?

Unfortunately, the world has been destroyed.

We can no longer return to the past.

In a world where physical strength is changing the game, shouldn't humans enter under stronger and more excellent humans to escape the threat of monsters?

As I've said several times before, we are still continuously being ruled by someone without our knowledge.

In the end, except for the minority ruling class ruling humans, all humans are being ruled by someone.

Then isn't it better to be ruled by humans we can entrust our lives to, the Supermen trying to wield autocratic power as leaders of each region, rather than rule we have to receive anyway?

(Omitted)

But the child who had a heart with vast mana, who had a superior body and was optimized for such a body, showed surprising changes after being transplanted with a heart containing less mana than originally.

The child's body changed abnormally, surprising our research team. That child suffered and died as is.

Other children who had heart transplants generally died within 6 months after surgery.

Our research team concluded it was because the hun and baek did not perfectly match.

As a single scientist, I never want to believe in the concept of a soul, but in a world where magic openly exists, the soul is presumed to actually exist.

It seems we'll have to conduct research on human hun and baek along with the New Humanity Project.

(Omitted)

We found a way to somewhat solve the problem of side effects after surgery.

(Omitted)

...After solving the above problems, we proceeded with surgery to transplant another heart into a child who had been transplanted with a heart containing vast mana.

The majority died during surgery due to problems with hun and baek.

Children who completed surgery with a very low probability gained bodies suitable for hearts with much more vast mana after about a week passed.

But these children also died soon after experiencing disharmony of hun and baek.

Damn it! What is the human soul!

Is there really a God in the world!

But there is one child who uniquely survived.

Test subject 392.

We decided to try transplanting a new heart into this child.

(Omitted)

...It's an amazing thing.

Test subject 392.

How is this child able to keep living, unlike children who received surgery at the same time, no, much earlier than this child?

Moreover, this child had undergone heart transplants several times.

Most die due to problems with hun and baek after just 2 heart transplants, but this child is currently showing no side effects.

What on earth is going on?

I was caught up in the foolish thought that perhaps the child's soul was something special.

So I set up one hypothesis.

In mana studies, it is said that the soul exists in the heart and brain.

From the perspective of mana studies, we can assume children die after heart transplants because some of the original owner's soul remains in the newly transplanted heart.

It's a situation where two souls exist in one body.

Then perhaps children who survived heart transplants have such strong mental power that they can be fine even with two souls?

In other words, perhaps the soul residing in the brain is much stronger than the soul newly seated in the heart?

(Omitted)

Children who gained new hearts did not show changes in their Gifts.

The heart affects internal mana.

The brain affects Gifts.

To be precise, some signal from the brain interlocks with the heart to activate Gifts from the heart.

We can see that Gifts are somewhat related to the human soul.

(Omitted)

...We examined test subject 392's Gift through a Mana Management Bureau employee.

Surprisingly, test subject 392's Gift was <Connection >.

<Connection >!

Isn't that a Gift that connects consciousness to consciousness, creating an imaginary world separate from the existing world?

We were very lucky to discover a child with a very strong <Connection > at a time when the whole world is enthusiastically trying to build a Player library.

Anyway, I was able to figure out why test subject 392 could keep living.

Test subject 392 doesn't show side effects even when another human's soul enters the body through <Connection >.

(Omitted)

...Test subject 392 is amazing.

It's still living fine even after 26 heart transplants.

I, we decided to give a name for this special child.

Then, he who showed interest in test subject 392 said he wanted to personally give a name.

(Omitted)

...Belphegor.

It's the name of the great demon governing sloth, one of the seven deadly sins.

If God created humans,

We also created humans.

Of course, that human is a demon wearing the mask of a human.

I have taken one step closer to God.

─ From Dr. Deus' research journal』

☆

In the previous life,

The Demon Lords (九魔) who suddenly appeared in the world one day without any precursor claimed to be the new humanity and caused indiscriminate terrorism across the country.

Each one was a monster beyond human limits.

The incident where humanity learned of the existence of Mayins, who were treated as walking disasters.

The world feared the Demon Lords who called themselves by names of demons that would only appear in stories.

Monster army's invasion of Seoul.

<Myeongwang > Sindorim's half-destruction of Yeouido.

The 2nd Battle to Recapture Uijeongbu.

And the Demon Lords' terrorism.

The Fairy Lady government could not avoid nationwide condemnation due to successive disasters.

In such a situation─

'─I'll tell you one thing, you who live meaningless given lives. I was created by you.'

Demon Lord Belphegor.

Belphegor, who put people to sleep on the scale of an entire city and made them dream dreams they would never wake from, declared.

That he was reborn as a Mayin by the New Humanity Project.

He was a survivor of the New Humanity Project, which was known to have no survivors.

I didn't think there would be a survivor of the New Humanity Project...

Because it was known that everyone inside died when the 2nd Bio Center exploded...

Belphegor was a man-made disaster.

A disaster that could have been prevented in advance.

People were angry at those involved in creating the man-made disaster Belphegor.

Then they were greatly outraged after hearing Belphegor's explanation.

Because another truth was revealed.

'─You don't think the government didn't know while so many children were dying, do you? If that's the case, you humans really can't escape from your dreams.'

As the 2nd Bio Center exploded,

Almost all data related to the New Humanity Project was lost.

But Belphegor had the lost data.

And revealed it to the media.

The revealed data even mentioned the Mana Management Bureau and had Fairy Lady Im Ga-eul's seal stamped on it.

The authenticity of the data was unknown, but...

The seal was undoubtedly real.

Inhumane human experiments.

When it was revealed that it was actually an experiment approved by the Fairy Lady government,

Public opinion boiled over.

Criticism of Fairy Lady Im Ga-eul reached its peak.

In the end─

─Im Ga-eul's political life ended just like that.

After all the Demon Lords were subjugated,

People pulled down Fairy Lady Im Ga-eul and denounced her as a villainess.

It was possible because people already had Ha Baek-ryeon to replace her.

And so Im Ga-eul, who fell to become a villainess, became merely a tool to restore cocoons, and ended up wandering the country in a bongo truck until the day she died.

'─You think I would have approved such a thing?'

'...'

'I don't know either... Why my seal was stamped there...'

The day Im Ga-eul left Seoul,

Eunha secretly went to find her to hear the truth.

Im Ga-eul professed her innocence.

Eunha could tell her words were not lies.

She who had lost everything wouldn't have lied even when she reached a point of no return.

Above all─

─Though Im Ga-eul had a personality of using whatever she could use, she wasn't someone who would do such a thing.

And the flow of Im Ga-eul's alleged crimes being revealed timed with public opinion turning is too exquisite.

As if someone had gotten on a well-laid out board.

Eunha felt that way at the time.

But he could never know who laid out the board.

Just who is it?

Who orchestrated the board?

It's the same now.

That's why Eunha infiltrated the 2nd Bio Center.

While Belphegor is sleeping here─

─Surely that data must be somewhere here too.

Because the data Belphegor revealed in the previous life should be here.

Both Belphegor and the research data.

Eunha intended to obtain them before they fell into someone else's hands.

☆

2nd Bio Center underground 2nd floor 9th sector. The confidential area continuing from there.

Eunha, who set foot in the confidential area by combining information heard from Yoo Do-jun, soon had to stop walking.

Is it a problem from there...

Eunha who came down avoiding the eyes of surveillance cameras pressed his back against the wall.

He checked the surveillance cameras installed in the passage leading to the confidential area while reflecting the area beyond the corner with a hand mirror.

It seemed to be monitoring the entire passage towards the entrance.

There didn't seem to be any blind spots.

"Whew... Somehow the surveillance wasn't very tight until coming down here... They were concentrating most of the surveillance cameras on monitoring the confidential area."

"Pipi pipi!"

"I know too. I'm thinking about what to do now."

The 2nd Bio Center was ostensibly a place researching embryonic stem cells, but in reality was where the New Humanity Project was being conducted.

So security was lax in areas other than the confidential area.

It should be about time for contact from Twenty-five...

Is it not yet?

There was a limit to how much he could move while avoiding the gaze of surveillance cameras.

Eunha waited for contact from Twenty-five who went to take control of the surveillance cameras.

The time he predicted was approaching.

And soon─

[─I've taken control of the Planning and Finance Headquarters. No one will notice for 6 hours until the next security personnel change.]

"...Well done."

Twenty-five's report was delivered through the in-ear device.

When Eunha checked the surveillance cameras again using the hand mirror, he could see the red light blinking then lighting up anew.

Now the surveillance cameras will only broadcast footage from the previous time period for 6 hours.

Eunha boldly turned the corner.

...There are even traps.

Flinging open the iron door,

Eunha faced a long passage.

After taking just a few steps, he noticed the flow of mana surrounding the area was unnatural.

Traps that can't be confirmed with the naked eye. They were installed here and there at regular intervals.

It seems to be traps that will sound an alarm if passed through without a specific tool...

Roughly grasping the technique of the traps,

Eunha frowned.

Though disabling the traps wouldn't be difficult, it seemed it would take quite a lot of time to disable the traps installed in each area one by one.

I should have come with Twenty-five.

If it was Twenty-five, he could have disabled the traps quickly...

It can't be helped.

Eunha quickly finished calculating.

If it was before learning Uboshin, he would have had no choice but to choose the option of breaking through head-on.

If that happened, he would have had to engage in successive battles with Slayers.

─Uboshin

But because he learned Uboshin,

Eunha could easily jump over the detection net of the traps.

As expected,

The traps did not react to him moving through Uboshin.

The problem is that he has to pass through each trap, so he has to use that much Uboshin...

He wanted to use Uboshin to pass through the remaining distance in one breath.

But he couldn't determine the presence of traps in far away locations.

There was a chance of accidentally setting off an alarm by landing wrong.

In the end, though it consumed mana, he had to use Uboshin to pass even very short distances.

"You have to stick close to my head. You could be cut in half if you make even a small mistake."

"Pipi."

A familiar connected by Pass.

Nevertheless, moving not just himself but the familiar too with Uboshin required that much high control.

Eunha let out a sigh of relief after breaking through all the traps.

Of course, it was still far from being able to feel relieved.

He expected it to some extent from when he started using Uboshin...

It came faster than I thought.

Thud thud.

Footsteps were heard from far away.

He could infer the other person was approaching close by the footsteps getting louder.

Also, the steps never stopped and were approaching at a constant stride.

Finally, the approaching other person soon manifested their internal mana to reveal their presence.

"..."

In other words,

It means he was detected.

It was understandable since he manifested magic.

The fortunate thing is that if he had broken through without using Uboshin, all the Slayers in the confidential area would have noticed.

Eunha could now visually identify the person walking from ahead.

That means the other person was also at a distance where they could visually identify him.

"─I sensed mana suddenly and came to check what was going on, but to think there was an intruder."

"..."

"You're not going to say you got lost and somehow flowed in here. What, who are you?"

A man with a frivolous impression.

The man stopped at a distance where they could converse.

He spat out gruffly while flashing his eyes slit sideways.

"Well... if you're not going to say, forget it. Intruders like you wouldn't confess easily anyway." "..." "Why you infiltrated here... that's something I have to find out. So I'll tell you..."

The man's hand moved to the sword at his waist.

The man was about to draw his sword.

"Don't think you'll die peacefully. Who you are, thoroughly─"

─Uboshin

Mana Crasher

At the very moment the man was about to fully draw his sword,

Eunha took one step and instantly passed by the man.

At the same time, he quickly moved his hand on Maengoshu to cut the man's neck.

It was just a fleeting moment.

"...Huh?"

The man didn't seem to realize his head and neck were separating.

The man's head fell first with a thud.

Then the man's body lost balance and fell forward.

"If you had time to move your mouth, you should have just drawn your sword."

"Papa!"

It was what he expected when appearing openly, not as a surprise attack.

Eunha looked down at the man's head that died with eyes open.

If he was a Slayer stationed here, he must have been quite confident in his skills.

It seems he was careless due to overconfidence in his skills.

Pathetic bastard...

Eunha clicked his tongue.

Thanks to that, it wasn't difficult to take down the Slayer.

I should roughly erase traces and hide the corpse somewhere inconspicuous.

Slayers who committed crimes and immersed themselves in the illegal world.

Slayers like the fallen man would be wandering around the confidential area.

Eunha roughly cleaned up the man's corpse and searched through his belongings.

"─Found it."

A pocket watch that looked unremarkable on the outside. 

Eunha realized it was an item needed to pass through the traps.

"Shall we go?" "Pipi pipi!"

After pocketing the watch, he soon got up.

He walks in the direction the man came from. 

The nearby Slayers who realized the man disappeared would likely find it suspicious.

He intended to eliminate them before they became aware of his presence.

Belphegor or the research data will eventually appear if I keep going deeper inside.

Due to the structural characteristics of the confidential area, if you keep going deeper inside, you'll eventually reach the place where human experiments are conducted.

It doesn't matter which path I take.

Above all─

"─Was it Dr. Deus...?"

"Pipi?" "There's something like that."

"Pupu..."

Surely somewhere in this vast confidential area is the person in charge of the New Humanity Project.

Eunha intended to find him.

In his previous life, he escaped the 2nd Bio Center together with Belphegor.

"..."

And appeared as an accomplice of the Demon Lords to throw public opinion into confusion.

The figure who played a decisive role in Fairy Lady Im Ga-eul's downfall.

...That bastard said so.

That he conducted the experiments on orders from the Fairy Lady...

Dr. Deus.

A guy who was truly like a mad scientist, calling himself a god.

He must surely know the truth.

"I remember his face clearly, so he'll turn up somewhere if I keep searching around."