NOVEL NEXT Chapter 226
Episode 226. The Token of Victory
Facility No. 1 has been subdued.
Two short documents were delivered to all facilities, all officers, and all bureaucrats of the Foundation.
[This is Administrator Dr. Kim.]
[Facility No. 1 of the Foundation is currently under my direct management, and the internal conflict within the Foundation has been resolved. Please return to your duties.]
[All employees of the Foundation, please respect the chain of command and follow the orders of the Administrator Council when given.]
[Thank you.]
Meanwhile.
[Half of the Administrator Council has been killed or incapacitated, and Facility No. 1 has been subdued. Do not hastily cooperate with the orders from above.]
Even if someone knows nothing about the Foundation Headquarters, unless they’re a fool, it wouldn’t be hard to figure out what’s going on.
The top of the Foundation has changed. Facility No. 1 has been subdued, and the Council that controls the Foundation has been toppled by internal forces.
The official documents make it seem like a choice must be made now. But with such a flat way of thinking, survival is difficult. If you don’t think, you die.
The fact that choices are presented in this way means the balance has already tipped.
One side urges a return to normalcy, while the other urges a fight to the death. Which side has won, and whose words should be trusted?
Unless you’re a fool, there’s only one conclusion.
In fact, there was a third document. This was sent only to Foundation Directors and Special Forces Team Leaders, and its origin was unknown.
[Welcome the new Emperor of the Foundation.]
[Special Forces Team Leader Meeting]
[Agenda: The Fall of Facility No. 1]
[Participants: Administrator Royal Guard Captain and others]
[※ The Special Forces Team Leader Grand Meeting is conducted by Special Forces Team Leaders selected through separate procedures. Today’s meeting will disclose the affiliations of speakers to each other by mutual agreement. ※]
[※ Meeting begins. ※]
—-
[Royal Guard: I won’t speak long. Facility No. 1 has fallen, and the Administrator Council will soon lose its will to fight. As of now, the Royal Guard will not cooperate with any hostile actions against Dr. Kim.]
[Catfish: Let’s be honest now, we’ve been saying it all along. We’re not killing machines. Decide what’s worth fighting for, what’s worth risking your life for.]
[Ghost: I hate to admit it, but those who opposed Dr. Kim have been defeated. The surviving members of Special Forces Ghost will also cease hostile actions.]
—-
[Misteltein: We’ve stood on the same battlefield as Dr. Kim multiple times. Once as enemies, once as allies. If we can turn into enemies, we can turn back into allies.]
[Dreamwalker: That’s something to boast about.]
[Royal Guard: I didn’t know there were survivors in Dreamwalker. I heard they all died.]
[Dreamwalker: There’s more than one Dreamwalker team. Those who went to Seoul all died. To Pygmalion’s monsters.]
—-
[Moon of Seoul: We will fight for Dr. Kim. We are currently on standby at Facility No. 1 to escort Dr. Kim.]
[Luddite: We don’t regret our choice. Though there were quite a few casualties.]
[Walpurgis: What are the opinions of the other Administrators? Especially No. 1 and No. 2. The situation is so chaotic right now, it’s hard to tell what’s what.]
[Omega: This is the Las Vegas Branch. The Omega Special Forces surrendered at Facility No. 1 and fled to the Las Vegas Branch. Any plans for further hostile actions against Dr. Kim?]
[Royal Guard: No.]
—-
[Omega: I wouldn’t recommend it. The commanders of Facility No. 1 probably thought they could win against Dr. Kim’s group inside the walls of Facility No. 1, where supernatural phenomena can’t be used.]
[Royal Guard: Until Pygmalion’s entity swung its sword at supersonic speed and cut through a tank without supernatural phenomena. I guess it weakened from cutting warships to cutting tanks.]
[Omega: Yeah, that.]
[Royal Guard: Then, let’s make a decision. Cease hostile actions against Dr. Kim and recognize Dr. Kim as an Administrator.]
The war is over.
Most of the original staff of Facility No. 1 have been sent to various Foundation branches across the U.S.
The scientists and soldiers of Facility No. 1 will be replaced with people loyal to me as much as possible.
The Special Forces Team Leader Meeting has resolved to cease hostile actions against me. Now all that’s left is to meet with the Administrators again.
Here, in the Administrator’s office of Facility No. 1.
I was sitting with my legs stretched out.
Nanami, who had just entered the office, was standing near the entrance. I took a good look at Nanami’s face for the first time in a while.
Chestnut-brown, or perhaps yellow, short hair. A face that looks too young for her status or power, but the sharp gaze of a bird of prey shows who she really is.
Even if Nanami is pretty, no one would mistake her for just a pretty girl. Not if they’ve looked into her eyes.
Anyway. I picked up a dusty fountain pen on the desk and rolled it on my hand.
“Nanami.”
“Yeah.”
“This office has been empty for over 70 years, right? The Administrators, beings enhanced by supernatural phenomena, were afraid to enter Facility No. 1, which neutralizes supernatural phenomena.”
Nanami tilted her head.
“That makes sense, right? Even our allied mages ran away, saying they couldn’t enter here.”
“True.”
“I wish Dr. Kim would return to the Seoul Branch too. This place is honestly dangerous.”
“I think it’s the bare minimum of conscience. We, who hide the existence of supernatural phenomena from humanity, are afraid of the absence of supernatural phenomena in Facility No. 1. That’s too pathetic, don’t you think?”
Nanami sighed.
“That’s an idealistic thought.”
“I have to be different from my predecessors. I don’t plan to stay long. I’ll leave once things are settled.”
It’s a secret from Nanami too, but right now I have exactly one nanobot treatment kit in my pocket. It’s okay to die once. I can move outside the facility and use the Popo Serum.
Nanami looked at me.
“What are you going to do now?”
“Once the situation inside Facility No. 1 is settled, I’ll return to the Seoul Branch as soon as possible. I’ll sort things out from there.”
“Do that.”
Nanami closed the Administrator’s office door and leaned against it. Her expression was much brighter than the usual blank look.
“Let’s go play. As soon as we get to Seoul.”
“Ah. Of course.”
I nodded.
There’s one last thing to do.
The Tachyon Particle Accelerator.
The Tachyon Particle Accelerator is a means to send information to the past, but it’s not used for that purpose. The reason is simple.
Suppose a problem actually occurs.
If you use the Tachyon Particle Accelerator to send information to the past, the problem won’t occur, and there’s no reason to send information to the past.
Thinking about it, the Tachyon Particle Accelerator ultimately only sends and receives one or two predefined words from the future to the past.
I was looking at the Tachyon Particle Accelerator with the scientists from the Seoul Branch. There are a total of seven particle accelerators in Facility No. 1.
Nanami tilted her head.
“Dr. Kim, are you going to mess with this?”
“No. It’s dangerous.”
Messing with the Tachyon Particle Accelerator could destabilize the timeline itself.
It’s something that should never be touched unless it’s a world-ending event.
That’s why Tachyon Particle Accelerators are scattered all over the world. One Tachyon Particle Accelerator can only send four letters to the past.
A global agreement is needed to send meaningful information to the past. Of course, Facility No. 1 has seven of them.
I didn’t plan to do anything grand.
“Let’s just play a little prank.”
“Okay.”
The Research Department Head smiled knowingly. Currently, the particle accelerators in Facility No. 1 have ‘VRTS’ as both input and output values.
‘VERITAS’, the Latin abbreviation for truth.
A default output value with no special meaning.
“It’s a shame to just leave it, so let’s change the output value once. Change the output value to ‘SCNC’.”
The abbreviation for ‘SCIENCE’.
The scientists operating the accelerator control system turned the seven Tachyon Particle Accelerators off and on, then changed the output value.
My token of victory was sent to the past.
Literally, providence bent for me. The people gathered in the control room clapped and cheered for me.
For a moment, my mind went blank.
I sighed in relief. I don’t know what the people who received the token will think, but it’s a fact that it was delivered.
The fight was long.
But we won.
We succeeded in reaching the heart of the system that rules the world from the shadows. We wrested a little bit of control over providence from the hands of fools decades or centuries old.
As the Administrators claimed, I might end up making the same choices as them.
But that’s something to find out.
If I make the same choices as the previous Administrators, nothing will change. The Foundation under my rule will be a different Foundation from the past.