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Chapter 174

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Diver VI

The little Munch inside my heart screamed.

\'Koyori? Why? Why, Koyori?\'

By the way, apart from the unauthorized tenant Koyori who had taken residence in my subconscious world, the real Koyori, as of this moment, was someone I hadn\'t seen in thousands of years.

To be exact, it had been 2,112 years.

2,112 years is enough time for Silla to have fallen twice. It\'s enough time for Egyptians to look at the pyramids they built and wonder, "Wow, what kind of amazing people could have constructed such mysterious buildings?"

Just managing to control my facial muscles calmly was a testament to my superhuman patience, and I deserved to be praised for it.

"Ah, Guild Master, your lips are trembling."

"...I\'ve heard a lot about you."

I immediately went into method acting mode.

Koyori? Who is Koyori? I\'m just a small business owner running a café in the Inunaki Tunnel. Also, Yoo Jiwon\'s spirit was protecting me.

"Koyori, I heard that you usually operate around Daejeon. What brings you to Busan? And without any prior notice at that."

"Ah, um..."

"I\'ve seen you often on SGNet, and I would like to accommodate you as much as possible, but this is neither the time nor the place. If a proper explanation is not given, we will have no choice but to respond according to the rules. I hope you understand."

Koyori\'s eyes stared at me intently.

She reached out her left hand towards me but then...

"Oh, I see."

...hesitated.

I didn\'t want to know what she meant by \'Oh, I see.\' I couldn\'t know.

Anyway, any knowledge I believed I had gained on my own was probably nothing more than brainwashing induced by Koyori.

"I\'m sorry, Guild Master."

"..."

Koyori withdrew her hand.

She bowed her head towards me, who was desperately trying to maintain my doublethink.

A troubled smile hung on her lips like wisteria shade.

"To be honest, I had no intention of visiting so rudely."

"Then why..."

"Believe it or not, I opened my eyes, and I was here."

"..."

"I was really startled at first. I was working hard in Busan, helping the refugees who had fled there, and then suddenly, I was transported here."

I couldn\'t easily blurt out a retort like, ‘What kind of nonsense is that?’

It wasn\'t just because Koyori\'s expression and words conveyed an overwhelming sense of trust that made me want to believe her.

It was because I knew it was impossible to find out the truth.

Unlike the relatively kind \'Koyori in my subconscious,\' the \'real Koyori\' sitting in front of me felt a bit different.

She was a bit rougher.

If you asked what exactly was rougher, I wouldn\'t be able to answer accurately. It was just the intuition of someone who had lived too long and repeated too many lives.

"Are you saying that you have no purpose for your visit? If so, I can arrange for you to stay here until the Great Flood is eradicated. Although life may be somewhat uncomfortable, I hope you understand our difficult situation."

"Ah, no, that\'s not it."

Koyori smiled bashfully and waved her hand.

"Really, Guild Master, you speak so quickly. Are you so eager to reach a conclusion?"

"..."

"What you said is correct. This is not the right time or place. But, um, I feel a bit wronged."

"Wronged?"

"Yes. After all, I\'m not the only element that \'shouldn\'t be\' in this time and place, am I?"

My saliva slipped down my throat silently.

The Great Flood that wasn\'t originally supposed to land on the Korean Peninsula.

The \'bathtub effect\' that wasn\'t supposed to happen but was caused by me.

The Ark that wasn\'t originally here. The plan to restrain the typhoon using the Puppet Room.

Almost all the conditions that made up the current situation were elements that \'shouldn\'t be.\'

Was Koyori pointing that out?

"I don\'t know why I ended up here. But isn\'t that the same for humans? They don\'t know why they\'re born, but they still try to find their life\'s purpose."

"That\'s too abstract."

"I know what I\'m supposed to do here. I realized it after coming here."

A small insect wriggled on Koyori\'s long index finger.

A tiny bubble formed around the insect\'s tail as it moved, which rose to Koyori\'s lips before popping.

Koyori seemed to adore the insect on her finger as if a small bird had landed there.

Despite sitting underwater, her voice was steady, and her hair was calm. Her posture remained unchanged even as the Ark swayed in real-time from the typhoon. It was a testament to her extreme mastery of Aura manipulation.

No, I was even beginning to doubt whether that was really due to Aura.

"Guild Master, are you planning to slay the dragon?"

Dragon.

A term I had never heard before.

I instinctively sensed that it was Koyori\'s unique way of referring to the Great Flood.

"When you go dragon hunting, take me with you. I\'m sure I\'ll be of help to you."

"...What if I say that I can\'t suddenly include an outsider in the carefully prepared subjugation operation from Busan?"

"Oh my, then I might just become a Busan citizen too."

"..."

"I\'ve been a Lotte fan since forever!"

It was an offer I couldn\'t refuse.

____

The operation to subjugate the Great Flood, codenamed \'Typhoon Hunting,\' was carried out as follows.

First, agents from the National Road Management ran around explaining the operation plan.

"From an hour from now, the Arks will begin to shake violently!"

"Everyone, please take your assigned seats and fasten your seatbelts! Even Awakeners should not unbuckle their belts!"

The quarantine area of the Ark had seats prepared in advance to deal with the violent movements of the currents.

Think of it as an upgraded version of airplane seats.

Unfortunately, this didn\'t mean that the quality had been upgraded from economy to business class.

There were waist belts, chest belts, leg belts, and so on. The upgrade was SM-like, meaning the restraints would firmly hold a person\'s limbs no matter what happened.

"Awakeners, please make sure to hold onto the thread!"

"Commands will be given through the thread in real time! When instructions are issued, please continue to inject Aura into the thread at a level that won\'t exhaust you!"

The awakened passengers, seated in their torture chairs, were each given several strands of Lee Hayul\'s Puppet Room thread.

This thread extended along the bulkhead of the first Ark to the figurehead and then from the figurehead to the figureheads of the other Arks.

A fleet of 12 Arks.

All the awakened on board were connected together like \'beads on a string.\'

If you’re a reader well-versed in StarCraft, you might start to feel that "autumn" is approaching as you read this description of the ark and the beads on a string.

"Sir, all Awakened personnel have taken their seats," Yoo Jiwon said from the operations control room.

On the [minimap] that Yoo Jiwon brought, thousands of Awakened ones were still visible.

Ordinary-sized chess pieces were insufficient to manage them, so most of the units were directed using miniature 2cm-sized chess pieces.

Even the Saintess’s [Clairvoyance] had become almost useless.

To command this large-scale operation, they had no choice but to rely on Yoo Jiwon’s [minimap].

“What are the positions of the arks?”

"They\'re spaced out sufficiently. Even if the current gets turbulent, the chances of the arks colliding are extremely low, sir."

"Good."

I looked around.

Noah. Tang Seorin. Sim Aryeon. Lee Hayul. Yoo Jiwon. Even the uninvited guest, Koyori.

Excluding the last illegal stowaway, everyone was exhausted both mentally and physically.

But their eyes still held life.

To succeed in the "Typhoon Hunt" operation, not a single person here could be left out.

“Then, let\'s begin.”

“…Are you sure about this, Doctor Jang?”

Tang Seorin asked, looking at me with worried eyes.

“The Great Flood will pass quietly in about 30 days if we just hold out. You don’t have to go this far….”

“If we wait, another monsoon will come next summer. And each time, we’ll have to board the arks like now.”

“……”

“Don’t worry, Tang Seorin. This might not be comforting, but I’ve already had my limbs severed multiple times.”

“Really. That’s not comforting at all.”

Tang Seorin shook her head in exasperation. It was a face that said she had no choice.

It was also a look I liked.

“All right. Then… shall I sing?”

“Please do.”

Tang Seorin gently pressed the puppet strings and opened her lips.

“Ah――.”

A song flowed from her mouth. It was a cursed chant.

The first and second verses were always the same: \'repeat\' and \'replay,\' laying the groundwork for Tang Seorin’s grand magic, which automatically repeated the already sung verses.

The spell that followed was peculiar.

“――Ah―Ah―Aah――.”

Sensory Amplification.

This spell heightened human senses to their extreme.

You often see in comics where bullets flying toward you appear to move slowly. ‘Sensory Amplification’ was a spell designed to evoke exactly that state.

However, the downside was that you could feel even the subtle pulsations of your heart, the flow of your blood, and the writhing of your internal organs.

Naturally, the debuff outweighed the buff. If given to ordinary Awakened, it would just push them toward nervous breakdowns.

Tang Seorin cast the ‘Sensory Amplification’ spell solely on me.

“…….”

Thump.

My senses toward the world were infinitely amplified.

My five senses were already honed to a superhuman level.

With Tang Seorin’s assistance added, I could feel even the ripples of waves striking the hull of the ark.

It felt like the waves were crashing directly against my heart.

“Good… Yoo Jiwon.”

“Yes?”

“Cut off the fingers.”

"Excuse me, sir."

Shing-

Without a moment\'s hesitation, Yoo Jiwon drew her sword and severed the fingers.

Of course, it wasn’t Yoo Jiwon\'s own fingers, as she was almost a paragon of self-love.

It was my fingers.

All ten fingers, both left and right, were cleanly severed.

An intense, excruciating pain surged instantly, but I suppressed it skillfully.

‘I wonder what would happen if I screamed like Brother Guan Yu at this moment?’

A strong curiosity briefly flashed through my mind, but I was more concerned about the ensuing loss of honor. I decided to satisfy this curiosity in the next turn.

Without letting out even a groan, I calmly spoke.

"Chief of Operations, now."

“Sigh……”

Noah sighed so deeply it seemed like his stomach would collapse. Yet, he approached me and immediately began the operation, showing his professional spirit.

At the severed ends of my fingers, Noah started fitting ‘prosthetics’ one by one. Each was a prosthetic modeled after my original fingers.

Thanks to Noah’s Awakening ability, these ‘fingers’ felt as alive as if they had always been part of my body.

I could move the fingers freely, without any sense of loss.

――And these fingers were connected to ‘puppet strings.’

They were designed that way from the start, just like Spider-Man’s fingers.

Each fingertip was connected to Lee Hayul’s puppet strings, which, as mentioned earlier, were linked to Ark No. 1.

They were also connected to the fleet of 12 arks that were navigating through the giant typhoon.

“I-I’ll heal you! Guildmaster!”

Sim Aryeon quickly approached and cast healing magic on me. The prosthetic fingers adhered perfectly to my flesh.

When the puppet strings connected to my nerves,

my ‘eyes’ opened.

“……!”

How should I describe this sensation?

I could see the sea. Hear it. Feel it.

The nerves in my body extended through the puppet strings to every corner of the ark.

The nerves that stretched beyond the ark immediately rode the aura, overcoming the currents and waves.

As a result, I could sense exactly where all 12 ships were, where they were heading, and how fiercely they were pushing through the rough currents.

‘Ahh.’

They say a rider who has mastered horseback riding from a young age experiences the state of being one with the horse.

In that case, my current state should be described as being one with the ship.

I tried channeling aura through the puppet strings as a test. Then, I felt the ark moving forward with a deep hum.

-What, what’s going on?

-It must have been some waves.

-Waves. Detected. Waves. Detected.

I could ‘hear’ the slightly panicked voices of various people on board due to the sudden movement.

I could also clearly sense the aura of a certain Awakened who was hastily sending a Morse code message.

Everything was in my grasp.

A slight sense of omnipotence.

Controlling an object vastly larger than myself as easily as moving my fingers even brought a subtle pleasure.

“…….”

Koyori was quietly watching me, smiling.

Her gaze was like licking ice cream with her eyes instead of her tongue.

Usually, I would have been alarmed by that gaze, but now I had to focus entirely on controlling the arks.

I looked around the operations control room and spoke.

“I have successfully taken control of the arks.”

Gasps of amazement echoed from all around. Noah, in particular, chuckled in disbelief, muttering,

“You crazy bastard…”

I smiled as well.

“Now, let’s hunt this typhoon.”

It was time to end the summer.