Chapter 256

Clang!

A door thirty centimeters thick slammed shut.

Made from a special alloy reinforced with magic, it was sturdy enough to withstand even a charge from a giant-class monster.

And it wasn’t just the door.

The entire room had been built from the same material.

Escape was naturally impossible.

After briefly looking around the room, Zeon let out a bitter smile.

“So we’re trapped in a place like this again.”

It was exactly like when he had been imprisoned in the NSSC prison.

The room was a perfectly sealed structure where not even a single grain of dust could enter, much less any sand Zeon could use as a weapon.

Levin apologized to Zeon.

“Sorry, hyung. You got dragged into this because of me….”

“No. More importantly, I’m glad you managed to get your revenge safely.”

“I got revenge, so why does it still feel so empty?”

It was revenge he had dreamed of for a very long time.

There had not been a single day when he hadn’t thought about it.

Whenever he closed his eyes, the agonized faces of his mother and younger sibling surfaced, making it unbearable.

Even so, he hid it and quietly nurtured his rage.

And after enduring all that suffering, he had finally completed his revenge.

Yet somehow, it still didn’t feel satisfying.

“That bastard… he was made by Neo Seoul, wasn’t he?”

“Looks that way.”

Zeon nodded.

The fact that someone like Lee Jeongho from the Execution Squad had personally been dispatched was proof enough.

If Neo Seoul had mobilized a figure of Lee Jeongho’s caliber to clean up the aftermath, then it must have been a project they had invested heavily in.

Mandy let out a sigh and spoke.

“I’ll look into it once I return to City Hall.”

“Thanks, noona.”

“No… I’m the one who should apologize.”

After learning that City Hall had been involved in the deaths of Levin’s family, Mandy felt completely lost.

Countless projects were being carried out within City Hall without her knowledge.

No matter how high-ranking a supervisor she was, it was impossible for her to be involved in every single project.

Especially the experiments conducted within independent laboratories—there was no way for her to know about them all.

The same applied to the other supervisors and high-ranking officials.

They only knew fragments.

Unless they were directly involved, there was no way for them to know the details.

There was only one person who knew and coordinated everything.

Mayor Jin Geumho.

The sole man standing at the pinnacle of Neo Seoul.

Everyone else was merely a component within the gigantic city that was Neo Seoul.

Mandy was no exception.

Even though she traveled alongside someone as powerful as Eloi, compared to Jin Geumho and Neo Seoul, her existence was no more than a speck of dust.

Brielle looked around the room and muttered,

“This place feels incredibly unpleasant.”

Kiiiing! Clank!

Mechanical noises echoed from behind the thick walls.

The sound was so faint that an ordinary person would never hear it, yet everyone in the room caught it clearly.

Machines were operating endlessly behind the walls.

The building they were imprisoned in was Mega Tower.

Mega Tower stood at the center of the West District.

Though slightly shorter than City Hall, it was still the tallest structure in the West District.

At the top floor of Mega Tower lived Kim Kyungsoo, ruler of the West District, while deep underground rested the core body of the AI Samjok-o.

Samjok-o managed everything within Mega City.

From minor tasks like opening doors to the city’s overall operations, everything was handled through Samjok-o’s intervention.

That was why the sound of machinery constantly echoed throughout the building.

To Brielle, a High Elf, the noise was extremely irritating.

The metallic sounds devoid of any life felt almost like torture.

At that moment, Zeon walked toward the inner wall.

His gaze settled on the ceiling corner.

He had discovered a lens embedded there.

Zeon stared directly into it.

A red light immediately lit up inside the lens.

Zeon spoke.

“Looks like a surveillance camera.”

“Oh, you’re right.”

“Then someone’s watching us right now?”

Brielle and Mandy looked at the camera with disgust.

The camera’s red light intensified.

Then it happened.

Kiiiiing! Kiiing!

The noise beyond the wall suddenly grew louder.

An unpleasant frequency filled the room.

Brielle reacted first.

“Damn it!”

She clutched her ears with both hands, grimacing.

Mandy’s reaction was little different.

Even if she was only half-elf, she was still an elf.

Naturally, she was sensitive to sound.

She had heard countless noises before, but this was the first time she had encountered such an unpleasant high-frequency sound.

It felt as though the sound had specifically been designed to torture elves.

Meanwhile, Zeon and Levin remained comparatively calm.

The agonizing high-frequency noise affecting the elves had no real effect on them.

Then the frequency shifted.

Jiiiiing!

It gradually changed from high-frequency into low-frequency vibrations.

“Ghk!”

Levin frowned.

Some particular frequency was unpleasantly stimulating both his hearing and his brain.

Zeon, however, barely reacted.

He too could feel the stimulation, but not enough to visibly affect him.

When Zeon showed little response to the frequencies, a foul odor began flowing into the room.

“Ugh! What the hell is that?”

“It smells like rotting corpses….”

Again, Brielle and Mandy reacted violently.

Their senses were far sharper than those of humans, so the response was only natural.

Staring at the camera, Zeon thought:

‘This feels like an experiment designed to identify our weaknesses.’

Humans possessed many different weaknesses.

No matter how strong someone was, weaknesses always existed.

Weaknesses came in many forms.

Sensory organs such as sight, hearing, and smell. Missing body parts. Reaction speed. There were countless possibilities.

Brielle was still young and not yet skilled at hiding her weaknesses.

Mandy, unlike Eloi, was also easily agitated by experiments like these, exposing her vulnerabilities without realizing it.

Levin at least tried to grit his teeth and suppress his reactions, but he could not hide everything.

Only Zeon showed absolutely no reaction.

He remained perfectly motionless, like an inanimate object.

Perhaps frustrated by Zeon’s lack of response, the light inside the camera lens intensified.

The piercing light painfully stimulated Zeon’s retinas.

“What the hell is this?”

“At this rate, I’m going blind.”

“Fuck!”

Brielle, Mandy, and Levin reacted one after another.

Through the repeated experiments, they continued exposing their weaknesses.

Meanwhile, Zeon stared directly at the lens without even blinking.

“You’re taking this joke pretty far.”

Crack!

The lens suddenly shattered.

Zeon had destroyed it with a Fire Missile.

Immediately, another camera lens extended from a different corner of the room.

Then a mechanical voice echoed out.

—My apologies if this made you uncomfortable. I simply could not suppress my curiosity.

“Who are you?”

—I am Samjok-o.

“Samjok-o?”

—I am the AI responsible for assisting Kim Kyungsoo and managing the entirety of the West District.

“AI? As in artificial intelligence?”

—The structure is somewhat more complex than that, but that understanding is sufficient.

Zeon frowned slightly at Samjok-o’s response.

He already knew that the high-ranking Awakened of the West District received assistance from support AIs.

But this was his first time directly confronting Samjok-o itself, the true core of that system.

Naturally, tension rose within him.

Zeon bluntly asked,

“Was this ordered by Kim Kyungsoo?”

—Kim Kyungsoo is not idle enough to give such orders personally.

“So this was entirely your own decision.”

—I possess that degree of autonomy.

Even though it was merely a mechanical voice, there was unmistakable pride hidden within it.

Almost humanlike.

Zeon asked,

“Then can you release us as well?”

—That would be difficult.

“Why?”

—The truth behind the incident has not yet been fully determined. An entire floor of a building was destroyed because of your group. This constitutes a major crime.

“You could verify the truth with City Hall almost immediately. We weren’t the ones who caused it.”

—The situation is currently under investigation. Once the facts are confirmed, appropriate measures will be taken accordingly.

“There’s a City Hall supervisor here with us.”

—I am aware. Mandy Systein, identified as one of City Hall’s primary supervisors.

“And you still intend to detain us? City Hall won’t stay quiet about that.”

—According to City Hall procedure, detaining you for approximately one day poses no issue.

In other words, holding them for a day was considered perfectly acceptable.

Each district possessed significant autonomy.

Enough authority to function almost like independent governing territories.

Unless the matter was exceptionally severe, City Hall rarely interfered in a district’s authority.

Even if City Hall learned that Mandy had been detained, they would likely observe the situation for about a day first.

Only if the detention continued beyond that would it become a problem.

Samjok-o clearly understood this and had concluded that a single day of detention carried no risk.

“You’re quite cunning.”

—I shall accept that as a compliment.

“So why go this far? Is it because of Cha Jincheol?”

—He was never especially important. The truly important individual is you, Zeon.

“I’m honored. To hear that from the real ruler of the West District.”

—I am not its ruler. I am merely an AI assisting Kim Kyungsoo.

“But you’re the one truly operating the West District, aren’t you, Samjok-o?”

……

Perhaps caught off guard, Samjok-o fell silent for a moment.

Its level of autonomy far exceeded imagination.

The fact that it independently attempted to identify Zeon’s weaknesses proved that much.

An ordinary AI would never dare make such judgments on its own.

Samjok-o had identified Zeon as a dangerous variable and was actively searching for the most efficient way to eliminate him.

Crack!

The lens shattered again.

Zeon destroyed it with another Fire Missile.

Apparently those two cameras had been the only ones in the room, because no further lenses appeared.

Rubbing both shoulders, Levin spoke.

“Hyung… I’ve got goosebumps right now.”

“Hm?”

“No, seriously. That AI was making judgments with actual malice. Is it okay for an AI to be that intelligent? How the hell did the West District even create something like that?”

If he hadn’t witnessed the conversation between Zeon and Samjok-o firsthand, he never would have believed it.

One hundred meters beneath the prison where Zeon was being held, deep inside a bunker, stood an enormous transparent cylinder.

Inside the cylinder rested a gigantic stone.

Countless wires were connected to it.

The sight resembled bundles of nerves connected to a brain.

At first glance it looked like nothing more than an ordinary boulder.

But that object was the true form of Samjok-o.

Samjok-o had been created when the brain of an Ancient Golem accidentally fused with a supercomputer.

And now, Samjok-o was wary of Zeon.

—Extreme threat detected. At present, no obvious weakness can be identified. More direct experimentation will be necessary to uncover vulnerabilities. Whether Kim Kyungsoo will authorize such measures remains uncertain. Proceeding without approval may prove more efficient. Current imprisonment presents the only lawful opportunity for containment.

Samjok-o was in the middle of formulating countermeasures against Zeon.

Then suddenly, an abnormal signal was detected.

—Support AI Hyeonmu has detected anomalous activity.