By Zephyria “Where the hell is the entrance?”
“Over there.”
Following Joo-oh’s fingertip, Mu-hae saw a slight undulation amidst the dense weeds. Cautiously approaching and pulling away the vines, a solid iron door blocking the entrance was revealed.
If even the boundary of the only entrance was covered with vines to this extent, it meant it hadn’t been opened for a while.
There were too many signs of activity here and there to say that no one stayed. It was an impossible situation unless the entity coming and going here was something like a ghost from a trivial urban legend.
Jin Mu-hae reached into a small hole and grabbed the lever. Clunk, it felt like something was blocking it.
“It won’t open.”
“Is it broken?”
“No. Looks like they did this on purpose.”
It didn’t seem to be without power. Ordinary shelters stopped locked and opened when they got energy, but this place felt like it was firmly locked by being powered.
“Looks like they installed a separate recognition key.”
In the slums, where crazy bastards lived who would steal anything valuable, they didn’t use such security devices, but neighborhoods with a high standard of living often installed door locks.
It was convenient because you didn’t have to carry a key, but if you lost your Link Watch or had a problem with your internal chip, you were stuck outside.
Fortunately, there were technicians in the city who could open doors. In other words, there was no one to help in such a dangerous place outside.
“Joo-oh. Do you think anyone’s inside?”
At the question, Joo-oh twitched his ears and rolled his eyes. After a long pause, he answered with a confident voice.
“No. I don’t hear any human sounds.”
“Other than humans?”
“Nothing.”
Only then did Jin Mu-hae return the Taser to its original position and start looking around. It was an area where Aberrants had been sighted nearby.
Without knowing for sure, the living environment would definitely not be easy. If so, they would have prepared a way to open the door in case of a problem with the chip or losing the Watch…
“There must be a backed-up recognition key.”
“Teacher Jung said it’s stupid to hide important things outside the house.”
“That’s because you keep shoving that Tinkle thing under the hospital door.”
Mu-hae ignored the chattering one and started walking around. He touched every suspicious place, from the wide open space to the ground where the grass grew crookedly.
Finally, while tearing off the overgrown vines, he found a flat device attached to the wall. When he tapped it with his hand, there was no change, but when he brought the Link Watch close, surprisingly, a red dot appeared on the surface.
It was a simplified symbol. Two squiggly lines drawn in a square looked like a path in the ground.
“Jin Mu-hae.”
Just in time, Joo-oh gestured from far away. He was pointing at the wall, and sure enough, there was the same device there.
The fact that there wasn’t just one of these gave him a terribly annoying feeling.
“It’s a mini-game.”
“What game.”
As expected, there were a total of three devices found, all with symbols that made no sense.
One had countless dots like chocolate chips in a round circle, and the other had a simplified human figure that looked like a hieroglyph.
As he stared blankly at it, all the dots disappeared in an instant. When Mu-hae brought the Link Watch close, it turned on again, but this time the positions of the three symbols were completely changed.
“Oh. It turned off.”
Joo-oh exclaimed, bringing Mu-hae’s pad close without permission. He was dumbfounded at when he had stolen it, but thanks to that, he got the result that any electronic device that could receive the key would be recognized.
‘Is there even an order?’
No sooner had Mu-hae guessed than,
“I think you have to put them in order. Otherwise, it turns off right away.”
Even the most sloppy and strange guy came up with a similar answer. It was useful, but somehow his pride was hurt.
In the end, to get the recognition key from this strange device, you had to put the electronic devices together in order within a limited time.
Considering the distance between the devices, it was quite a tight method. Moreover, one of them could only be reached by stepping on the curves of the wall, so unless you had a drone, the time was tight even if you jumped without making a mistake.
“Then shall I do that one over there?”
If he was alone, that is. Joo-oh waved his hand in front of the device far away and smiled.
“How do you know the order?”
At the crooked question, he made an ‘ah’ expression. Poor thing, he seemed to have forgotten the most important thing.
Of course, since there were only three devices, the number of possible patterns was limited. Mu-hae didn’t bother to explain it and brought the Link Watch to the devices in succession.
Blink. The symbol of the human figure appeared and then turned off.
That’s not it. Then what’s left is…
“It was the sky before. Then let’s do the ground.”
“…Yeah. Good job.”
Mu-hae raised one eyebrow and activated the device. Was that the ground, and was that the sky? It just looked like a square pad and a chocolate chip cookie to him.
Just as he was thinking that, a strange pattern flashed through Mu-hae’s head.
Square, circle, and triangle.
“I did it!”
Joo-oh’s shout rang in his ears, and the round picture filled his vision. Even though he felt like it was too much of an assumption, Mu-hae somehow held out his wrist as if possessed.
Thud. The symbol was fixed as if it was the correct answer. Only then did he come to his senses and hurriedly run halfway around the building and barely step on the curves of the wall.
Only after climbing the wall as if climbing a rock did he see the last device.
What appeared there was a dotted human that was far from a triangle no matter how you looked at it. When he put the Watch on the symbol that looked close to the letter ‘clothes’, Wooo-wooo-
His wrist vibrated as if he had received a call.
Unsafe download blocked.
[Delete] [Run Ignoring]
‘It’s not a hacking file…’
The Link Watch, which had helplessly blocked even the data center when receiving his father’s data, issued a warning message.
After receiving the recognition key, Mu-hae went to the entrance where he had torn off the tangled vines.
When he put his left hand inside the hole and pulled the lever again, a small beep sounded and the door opened smoothly.
When he checked the Link Watch screen again, there was an unknown confirmation window.
Requirements have been verified.
It was the first time he had seen that phrase while using the Link Watch. He didn’t know what it was, but it was obviously unsettling, so if there was a problem when he went back, he thought he should go to Director Gil.
“The air is good.”
Joo-oh, who had been following closely behind, took a deep breath. As expected, the internal power was fine, so the air purifier must have been running all along.
When he opened the middle door and entered, surprisingly, the inside was a house itself, with a strong smell of people living there.
Someone had occupied it and used it as a residence, so the repairs were done properly, albeit clumsily.
Of course, that didn’t mean it was clean. Cups with dried-up drinks were scattered everywhere, as if they had been left for quite a while.
In particular, there were clear signs of eating, sleeping, and living near the computing system, which looked like an old model.
Weeeing-.
When he turned on the power, the monitor attached to the wall lit up. It was a very smooth boot for an old-looking one.
The first thing that caught his eye was the language. Characters that were not used anywhere in Goryeo City or Seogyeong City were extremely messy.
‘Damn it.’
It seemed like he had come to the right place after all. Jin Mu-hae slowly massaged the back of his neck, staring at the arrangement of letters that he could vaguely recognize.
The illegal occupant of this shelter was definitely a researcher from Solar City. He didn’t know where he was now, but at least that research remained intact.
‘Is this… um… an experiment, right?’
Stumbling and recalling the language he had learned a long time ago, Jin Mu-hae read the files one word at a time. Of course, he didn’t understand it. There was no way he could understand the contents he wouldn’t even know if he encountered them in his native language.
He just rummaged through the folders aimlessly and found a few ridiculous programs, and the most noticeable one was a trick that projected a hologram of an Aberrant on the outside of the building.
A building that didn’t look like a shelter at first glance. The figure of an Aberrant suddenly appearing from somewhere.
No one would seem to visit this place, but even if someone came late at night, they would have been terrified and ran away immediately.
“Jin Mu-hae.”
At that time, Joo-oh, who had been wandering around the room as he pleased, called Mu-hae. Something was in his hand as he ran out to the living room.
It was a medicine bottle made of opaque material. There were a few scratches on the clean, dried surface, as if it had been reused.
When Mu-hae turned his head again at the object that didn’t seem particularly special, Joo-oh pulled his sleeve all the way and turned the empty bottle upside down.
“Look at this.”
A picture he had seen somewhere was engraved on the bottom of the bottle.
A mysterious sun pattern…
‘What is this?’
‘Solar City. I saw it in Solar City.’
Thump. His heart sank. An ominous feeling soared like an instinct, and the memory of a while ago flickered before Mu-hae’s eyes.
Buckta’s half-destroyed Small aircraft and the red cross first aid kit that Joo-oh had found.
The corpse of someone who had been eaten by something and only had bones left, who was neither a miner nor a person from Goryeo City.
“Where did you get it?”
“Over there.”
In one corner of the room he hurriedly ran into, similar medicine bottles and tubes were piled up neatly. Not only that, but there were also several things like clothes and broken machine parts.
…Could it be a coincidence? Now that he thought about it, the space in front of the shelter was just the right size for the vertical take-off and landing of a Small aircraft.
What about the vines that had grown to cover the door as if it hadn’t been opened for several weeks?
The clothes were of such good quality for someone hiding in a place like this, and the fabric that touched his hand was soft and tough.
“I saw it for the first time, but it’s connected.”
Joo-oh smiled with a curious expression, as if he hadn’t grasped the situation.
Jin Mu-hae recalled the blackened human bones and clenched the medicine bottle with a cold face.