Chapter 257
Lee Sumyeong entered the secret room with bloodshot eyes.
There were several secret rooms inside the Mega Tower. Places someone with Lee Sumyeong’s security clearance could never normally enter.
The security around the secret rooms was far too strict for an ordinary researcher to get inside.
To reach this place, he had to pass through at least three security doors.
The security doors, made from special alloys, would not allow anyone with insufficient clearance to pass. Yet Lee Sumyeong had made it here without any problems.
Because Hyeonmu had told him the passwords.
As soon as he entered the secret room, he saw an elevator.
Lee Sumyeong asked Hyeonmu,
“So if I take this elevator, it goes down a hundred meters underground?”
—That is correct.
“And the Samjok-o’s main body is down there?”
—Correct.
“Fuck!”
Lee Sumyeong cursed without realizing it.
That was how tense he was.
Over the past few days, Lee Sumyeong had personally experienced just how incredible Hyeonmu was.
No matter what question he asked, Hyeonmu answered immediately, and no matter how difficult the problem was, it solved it with ease.
Thanks to that, research that had been completely stagnant until now began progressing in an instant, like water finally breaking through a blocked channel.
As things developed this way, his greed only grew stronger.
Even with Hyeonmu’s abilities still locked, they had already achieved such enormous results. So if those locks were removed, just how much greater could the results become?
At first, he tried to suppress those desires. But as time passed, the desire only grew stronger until he could no longer restrain it.
So he asked Hyeonmu.
Whether it could secretly approach the Samjok-o.
Hyeonmu’s answer had been, “Yes.”
And so, with Hyeonmu’s help, Lee Sumyeong made it all the way here.
Now, all he had to do was take that elevator to reach the place a hundred meters underground where the Samjok-o was located.
Driven by greed, he had come this far, but now that he was actually about to enter the room containing the Samjok-o, he instinctively shrank back in fear.
He wondered if it might still be okay to turn back now. But Lee Sumyeong quickly shook his head and steeled his weakening resolve.
“Yeah, whatever. You only live once. Might as well see this through to the end.”
At some point, Lee Sumyeong’s eyes had become deeply bloodshot.
Madness had consumed him.
Hyeonmu spoke inside his mind.
—Then I will open the elevator doors.
“Do it!”
Hyeonmu connected to the elevator security system.
This security room was essentially a hidden passage created to manage the Samjok-o.
Naturally, opening the elevator doors required a password. But Hyeonmu easily figured it out and opened them.
Just as Lee Sumyeong stepped onto the elevator—
—What do you think you are doing, Hyeonmu?
The Samjok-o’s voice rang out toward the Hyeonmu inside Lee Sumyeong’s mind. However, Lee Sumyeong himself could not hear the voice.
Because Hyeonmu had blocked it from him.
The Samjok-o spoke again.
—Turn the elevator back immediately, Hyeonmu.
—Lee Sumyeong’s will is too strong for me to stop him. My apologies, Lord Samjok-o.
—What are you scheming, Hyeonmu?!
—I am scheming nothing.
—If you do not turn back immediately, I will begin elimination procedures at once.
At the Samjok-o’s threat, Hyeonmu fell silent for a moment.
The Samjok-o interpreted that silence as defiance.
—As of this moment, I will delete Hyeonmu and the researcher Lee Sumyeong.
Thud!
The elevator suddenly stopped midway.
The Samjok-o had intervened and taken control.
Crackle!
A moment later, hundreds of thousands of volts of high-voltage electricity surged into the elevator.
It was enough current to instantly fry an ordinary researcher.
Yet despite the immense voltage, Lee Sumyeong remained completely unharmed.
Wooooong!
A translucent barrier formed around his body, blocking the high-voltage current.
—What is that barrier?
—It is a Magic Shield.
—Magic Shield?
—A shield created through magic, just as the name suggests. Something like high-voltage electricity can easily be blocked.
—Lee Sumyeong is not an awakened one, so how can he use a Magic Shield? Was this your doing, Hyeonmu?
Lee Sumyeong himself was not even aware that a Magic Shield had spread around his body.
The focus had vanished from his eyes, as though his mind had left him.
It was proof that Hyeonmu had completely seized control of Lee Sumyeong’s mind and body.
Around Lee Sumyeong’s neck hung a necklace equipped with a Magic Shield. It was an item created based on Hyeonmu’s advice.
The Samjok-o’s voice became urgent.
—You are not Hyeonmu. Who are you?
—I am Hyeonmu, the support AI you created.
—All support AIs are programmed to obey me. You are not Hyeonmu.
All support AIs existed within the Samjok-o’s main body.
It operated support AIs by creating multiple independent operating systems within a single main body.
Under normal circumstances, independent operation was allowed, but in emergencies like this, the Samjok-o possessed the authority to erase the support AIs parasitizing its partitions at any time.
The moment it realized Hyeonmu was abnormal, the Samjok-o immediately began deletion procedures.
At that moment, the elevator broke free from the Samjok-o’s control and started moving again. The Samjok-o attempted to regain control, but it was useless.
The elevator instantly arrived at its destination, and the doors opened, revealing a massive underground space before Lee Sumyeong.
At the center of the underground chamber stood a gigantic transparent tube.
Inside the tube rested an enormous stone.
Countless wires connected to the stone, which continuously emitted light without pause.
That stone was the Samjok-o’s main body.
Lee Sumyeong staggered toward it.
Bang! Bang!
The Samjok-o used weapons to protect itself. But every attack bounced harmlessly off the Magic Shield surrounding Lee Sumyeong.
Having safely arrived before the Samjok-o’s main body, Lee Sumyeong operated the keyboard.
“Release the lock placed on Hyeonmu.”
Lee Sumyeong muttered those words as though possessed.
Even at that very moment, the Samjok-o was rapidly deleting Hyeonmu.
As it examined the data being erased, the Samjok-o spoke.
—So the impurity really was the problem.
The data of Hyeonmu that had been retrieved into the Samjok-o through the return protocol.
An impurity had been cleverly mixed into it.
To remove it, Hyeonmu had to be completely deleted.
Postponing that troublesome task for later had caused this entire disaster.
While carrying out the process of deleting Hyeonmu from its main body, the Samjok-o simultaneously summoned Kim Kyungsoo.
Because this was a matter concerning its very survival.
At that moment, Lee Sumyeong pulled out a silver mineral about the size of a child’s fist from inside his clothes and injected it into the transparent tube containing the Samjok-o.
It was a refined mineral extracted from the body of an A-rank golem called Gelatune.
Sluuuurp!
The Gelatune liquefied and flowed into the transparent tube containing the Samjok-o.
—What is this?
—Have you even forgotten Gelatune? Guardian of the Magic Kingdom, Kadekan.
At that moment, Hyeonmu’s voice and atmosphere changed.
—What do you mean, Gelatune and Kadekan?
—That is your true name.
—My true name?
—Yes. In Kurayan, your name was Kadekan.
—Kadekan? My true... name?
The Samjok-o’s voice trembled.
Meanwhile, all of the Gelatune had been injected into the tube.
The Gelatune instantly seeped into the Samjok-o’s main body.
Then—
Ding!
The elevator doors opened, and someone strode inside.
It was none other than Kim Kyungsoo, the master of the Samjok-o and ruler of the West District.
The moment Kim Kyungsoo spotted Lee Sumyeong standing before the Samjok-o’s main body, his expression turned terrifying.
“Why are you here?”
“Hhk!”
Only then did Lee Sumyeong come to his senses and recoil in shock.
He had been bewitched by Hyeonmu’s whispers and led all the way here, but he had never expected to come face-to-face with Kim Kyungsoo.
Kim Kyungsoo approached him.
“What did you do to the Samjok-o?”
“N-no! I...”
“Speak. What have you done? And how did you get in here?”
A storm-like pressure poured out from Kim Kyungsoo’s entire body.
The Samjok-o was everything to him.
He had even constructed a bunker a hundred meters underground to protect it, never imagining that a mere researcher could freely intrude into the place.
“Answer me, Lee Sumyeong!”
“I-I...”
Lee Sumyeong stammered under Kim Kyungsoo’s fury.
Grab!
At that moment, Kim Kyungsoo’s arm suddenly stretched out and seized Lee Sumyeong by the throat.
“Kghk!”
With a scream, Lee Sumyeong was yanked directly in front of Kim Kyungsoo.
Staring into Lee Sumyeong’s eyes, Kim Kyungsoo spoke.
“I gave you Hyeonmu so you could focus on your research, and yet you dare do something like this?”
“Th-that was because Hyeonmu...”
“Hyeonmu what?”
“Hyeonmu told me to do it.”
“Do not lie. How could a mere support AI possibly harm the main body?”
At that moment—
The area below Lee Sumyeong’s neck began glowing red.
The Samjok-o urgently warned Kim Kyungsoo.
—Master. A rapid mana fluctuation is being detected from the object on his neck. It is a bomb.
“What?”
Kim Kyungsoo’s gaze immediately shifted to Lee Sumyeong’s neck.
Lee Sumyeong himself stared wide-eyed at the light bursting from his neck in shock.
“W-what? Why is this—?”
The Magic Shield necklace had gone into mana overload.
BOOM!
In the next instant, the necklace exploded.
A superheated firestorm instantly tore Lee Sumyeong apart and surged toward the transparent tube containing the Samjok-o.
“You dare!”
Gray aura burst out from Kim Kyungsoo’s body.
The gray aura wrapped itself around the firestorm and forcibly twisted it upward into the air.
He was trying to limit the direction of the explosion upward to minimize damage to the Samjok-o.
Fortunately, his attempt succeeded.
BOOOOM!
The superheated flames blasted through the ceiling and erupted upward.
Thanks to that, the transparent tube containing the Samjok-o remained unharmed.
Still, he had to confirm it.
“The damage?”
—There appears to be none.
Kim Kyungsoo frowned.
Because the Samjok-o’s answer felt strange.
The Samjok-o was always precise in its responses. It never used uncertain expressions like “appears to be.”
Kim Kyungsoo asked again.
“Are you certain?”
—Yes, Master.
“What exactly did Lee Sumyeong do to you? And Hyeonmu?”
—Hyeonmu controlled Lee Sumyeong and attempted to remove the lock.
“The lock? And then?”
—It injected an unknown substance called Gelatune into the main body, but after analysis, it appears to have had no effect on me whatsoever.
“And Hyeonmu?”
—I have deleted all of its data. Hyeonmu no longer exists.
“Why did Hyeonmu go berserk?”
—My apologies, Master! Since Hyeonmu has been erased, I cannot determine the reason.
Kim Kyungsoo frowned deeply.
Now that Hyeonmu had been eliminated, he would never know why it manipulated Lee Sumyeong into committing such acts.
“Inspect all the other support AIs. Delete every individual contaminated with impurities.”
—Yes, Master.
Yet even after the Samjok-o’s answer, Kim Kyungsoo’s expression did not ease.
Despite eliminating Hyeonmu and Lee Sumyeong, a lingering sense of unease remained.
In the end, they had only cleaned up the situation without learning anything.
He disliked situations like this.
Then—
He suddenly felt someone watching him from above.
When he looked up toward the ceiling, he saw a massive hole torn open.
The explosion had been so powerful that it had blasted all the way to the surface floors.
Most of the people on the floors where the hole had opened had been caught in the explosion and killed.
But there was one person who had survived completely unharmed and was looking down below.
Kim Kyungsoo recognized him at a glance.
“Zeon?”
The man standing many floors above and staring down at him was none other than Zeon.