Chapter 347

I'd already saved nearly a hundred times more than I would have if I'd used [Justitia]. Now, all that remained was to have an honest conversation.

"Alright, picking up from where we left off—let me make one thing clear. I already know you hired Enzo to do something. That's why I came all the way here."

"_"

"So while we're at it, I want a detailed explanation of why you went out of your way to send beasts like Enzo to Korea."

I questioned the PIXY shareholder. Incidentally, in my right hand was a piece of equipment I'd long favored—the [Screaming Stake].

In other words, the very device that had forced him to disclose the terms of his contract against his will was still perfectly intact.

Teleportation items were useless, and all his bodyguards had already been knocked unconscious.

So what options did this man really have?

"Ugh."

Andy Oliver answered sooner than I'd expected.

"Hmm?"

Thud.

Precisely fourteen seconds later, an item appeared in his hand.

It was a cylindrical scroll, its exterior completely pitch-black.

"What is this?"

The item must have been stored inside an inventory box, because it had remained relatively intact despite the flooding.

But the moment Andy Oliver handed me the scroll, I understood something.

Even if it had been caught directly in the tsunami earlier, this thing probably would have emerged without so much as a scratch.

"The surface is smooth and soft."

It felt like a material similar to silicone—smooth and pliable.

And yet, despite taking the form of an old-fashioned relic mostly used in bygone eras, the scroll seemed to contain an enormous amount of information.

"Th-that... that's the reason I took those actions."

"You mean actions like the invasion of Seoul, right?"

"Yes, yes."

The man continued his explanation.

Most of the text written on the scroll artifact was in Hindi, which meant that even an ordinary commercial translator could provide a rough idea of what it said.

[41.40338-2.17403]

[78.45222-57.68550]

The only real obstacle was the strings of numbers attached before and after the Hindi sentences.

When Andy Oliver first happened upon this particular scroll, he said he couldn't make heads or tails of those cryptic numbers no matter how hard he tried.

"Science isn't a bad branch of technology. Especially the internet. Now that's an excellent achievement of civilization!"

When I pressed him for an explanation, he admitted that by making use of the vast array of technologies humanity had developed, he had eventually managed to decipher even the numerical sections of the scroll.

"Th-the numbers at the beginning are coordinates. And the ones at the end... they're timestamps."

"Coordinates?"

"They're completely different from the directional notation we normally use, but..."

"That makes sense."

"When I compared the gates that had appeared over the past few months with the rare creatures indicated by the artifact, the pattern became clear without much difficulty."

"Hmm."

"By the way, the information on the first line can be summarized as, 'On January 1st, year XX, a winged reptile appears inside Iguazu Falls.' In other words, it predicted the appearance of a dragon's nest."

Doesn't that mean this scroll is something truly extraordinary?

To summarize, the artifact in Andy Oliver's possession conveyed three types of information.

First: The location where a gate would appear.

Second: A description of the monster or item that would emerge there.

Third: The exact time at which the dungeon would be generated.

In other words, this artifact could ultimately be interpreted like this:

"You probably already knew that the company I work with used to be a game developer, right?"

The man, having lost his glasses in the flood, narrowed his unfocused eyes and struggled to continue.

"So, to be honest, I'm fairly familiar with this kind of terminology. I thought of that scroll as a sort of scheduled update list..."

"What did you say?"

"Or perhaps even a leaked set of patch notes."

Oh my goodness.

A scheduled update list!

I understood what he meant.

However, as a magician who had lived for a very long time, another expression came to mind—one far less sophisticated and considerably more primitive.

"Simply put, it's a book of prophecy!"

Even if its prophecies were strictly limited to the appearance of gates, it was still an item capable of revealing what would happen tomorrow or the day after.

Naturally, I couldn't help but be astonished.

"This is being confiscated."

"Yes?"

"It's confiscated. And judging by the way you're talking, you've already decoded the entire scroll. So do yourself a favor while I'm still asking nicely and hand over the complete translation as well."

"Th-that, no, I mean... it's just..."

"Are those strange lumps of metal in your pocket some kind of storage device?"

"Gasp! No. That's not it."

Artifacts like this had never been discovered on Alphaut.

It was most likely a new method devised by the machine-minded species.

Naturally, I took a great deal of interest in the scroll the man had revealed—and ultimately decided to claim it for myself.

"If I have this information, then at the very least I can predict where disasters are going to occur."

Come to think of it, Gate Update Schedule wasn't such a bad name after all.

"K-keugh."

Given the nature of digital media, there was an extremely high probability—almost a certainty—that a copy of the scroll's data existed somewhere.

Perhaps that was why, despite his obvious reluctance, Andy Oliver handed over the information relatively easily.

And surprisingly enough, what appeared next was yet another primitive tool.

"Paper?"

"This is special paper made from dungeon materials."

This was the content of the scroll, finally rendered readable after undergoing all manner of processing.

[Scheduled Gate Appearance]

[...Month-...Day — Japan — Nest of the Venomous Dragon (Completed)]

[...Month-...Day — Republic of Korea — Boss with an item table including an anti-aging drug (Completed)]

[...Month-...Day — Northern Mariana Islands — Perfect Elixir]

I skimmed through a few of the entries that caught my eye.

But at that point, another question arose.

"Wait a second... As far as I know, Spectrum and you were supposed to be on the same side. So how did the world's wealthy elites end up banding together over something like this?"

If someone obtained information this valuable, wouldn't the natural response be to monopolize it?

"And just so we're clear, I came here already knowing that the gate that appeared in Seoul was connected to the elixir of immortality. So if you waste time trying to hide that little detail, you might actually get stabbed—not with the Screaming Stake, but with S-rank strength."

"_"

I widened my eyes and fixed him with a piercing stare as I asked the question.

Andy immediately broke into a cold sweat and spilled everything.

Apparently, the shock of watching all his subordinates get wiped out by a single flood had shaken him more deeply than I'd thought.

"I... I knew you were a talented appraiser, but I never imagined you were a psychic powerful enough to have discovered the true identity of [Soldeus], KIM..."

Come to think of it, judging from the context, Soldeus must have been the name of the flower that appeared in the Korean dungeon.

Compared to the name I'd casually given it—Sunflower—the real designation sounded far more classical. Almost regal.

But that wasn't the issue right now.

"As you said, it's only natural that I already knew the elixir of immortality was going to appear, thanks to that scroll-type loot."

"Yeah."

"There are about four separate predictions concerning appearances of [Soldeus] recorded on that scroll..."

"_"

"What's more, it even included specific instructions on how to make sure the dungeon boss bloomed safely."

He shifted his posture and crossed his arms.

"Do you understand everything I've told you so far?"

By the time the other person's translator relayed those words, our gazes briefly shifted.

"The gate system is actually more straightforward than you might expect. And at least so far, it has never deliberately deceived humanity."

"Go on. I'm listening."

"...So I completely trusted the artifact's instructions saying that, in order to obtain the anti-aging potion, I had to trigger the dungeon and alter the boss's item table..."

"Yeah."

"From the very beginning, I organized the group with the intention of acquiring all four of those potions. When you're dealing with information that valuable—something even money can't easily buy—you can temporarily bring even a nation's leader under your control. That's all there is to it."

At last, the truth came out.

Just hearing that much was enough for the entire sequence of events to begin falling neatly into place in my mind.

"It was one thing to know in advance that an anti-aging drug would appear. But if something like that emerged in a densely populated city like Seoul, controlling the situation or suppressing information about it would've been nearly impossible."

So that was the background behind the Beast incident?

"Even with an item that valuable at stake, no ordinary country would cooperate if massive civilian casualties were expected... But if he'd openly revealed that the item was an anti-aging drug, all he'd have done was create more competitors. Makes sense."

Alright.

Now I understand.

I finally understand exactly how much of a scumbag Andy Oliver really is.

"Ugh!"

Immediately afterward, sobbing echoed through the damp bunker.

"Thanks for explaining everything so obediently. More than I expected, really. You've got decent instincts, and you're not stupid. But there's one thing we absolutely need to address."

"W-wait—!"

"Because of that bullshit you orchestrated, the hunters in Seoul went through hell."

I continued our conversation while stabbing him with the [Screaming Stake].

Oh, and as I'd mentioned earlier, the man was already restrained by telekinesis.

With my drooping, Western-looking eyes—courtesy of ptosis—I continued the violence without pause.

Caught completely helpless, Andy Oliver had no choice but to endure the scolding that followed.

"Sure, maybe you can say people at the level of Jung Haseong or Seo Esther would've been fine. But what exactly were you thinking when you put all those civilians in danger?"

"U-ugh, aaaaaagh! W-wait. Just—just a moment...!"

Immortality.

I, too, once pursued such a thing.

And after years of research, I even succeeded in attaining it...

As an Alpha uri who has forgotten the fear of aging, I'm hardly in a position to dismiss that desire outright.

To be honest, I'm not really qualified to condemn their plan simply because they desired eternal youth.

"Phew. Seriously."

But that doesn't mean I can't put my fist down over the way they went about it.

"Go die. You b*stard."

I had achieved my goal through research alone.

But this man, driven solely by his own desires, had nearly gotten countless fellow Homo sapiens killed.

Unable to forgive that, I broke his collarbone.

It was a mammalian bone that had irritated me for a long time anyway, always jutting out so awkwardly.

Could one person's youth ever be worth the lives of so many others?

Of course, the only acceptable answer is "no."

At least, that's what this archmage believes.

Therefore, I punished the mammal without hesitation.

Bang!

But just because someone is detestable doesn't mean I can go around ending lives—especially now that I've put aside my grand plan to purge humanity.

"I suddenly miss my notebook."

Why would an extraterrestrial lifeform go to the trouble of infiltrating a bunker this deep in person?

Killing that man—Oliver, or whatever his name was—could easily have been done from a distance.

Naturally, I had come here for an entirely different purpose.

That was why I'd tried talking first.

And now, in accordance with my original plan, it was time to stop wasting time.

"As you just revealed, there seems to be quite a sizeable faction in this world terrified of growing old. And to think they conducted all their discussions online, of all places."

I needed to secure a definitive answer from him beforehand—with the aid of a genuine cursed item known as [The Knight's Oath].

"Listen carefully from now on."

I quickly presented a proposal to the shareholders of Play Corporation.

"What?"

He must never use the information contained in the scroll to commit any evil deeds.

Furthermore, he must ensure that everyone else involved in the Beast incident abides by the same condition.

"The fairy's promise was only a preview. The contracts that actually matter are written on the parchment I've taken out now. Just in case, I've written everything in English underneath as well, so you can check it with your own eyes."

The proposal written on the second line of the contract artifact, when expanded in full, amounted to this:

Andy Oliver would now be required to personally keep every upper-ranking member of the group he knew under control—I'll refer to them collectively as the leadership circle for convenience.

If any of those who had received information from the scroll attempted to commit crimes similar to the ones in Seoul, he would be obligated to use every bit of his wealth and manpower to stop them.

He was to monitor every gate mentioned in the prophecy scroll with the utmost caution.

And, if possible, he was to seek out his associates personally and give them the same sort of rough, hands-on persuasion I had given him.

"That's the [Knight's Oath], isn't it? So you're saying that if I fail to carry out those orders, I'll die immediately?"

What followed were statements made with absolutely no regard for ethics.

"Make your friends sign the [Knight's Oath] with the peace treaty written on it too. That way, the penalty won't be triggered."

Times have changed.

Is there really any reason to stubbornly cling to hunting everything by hand?