Turning Point (23)
Kwa-ga-ga-gak!
An attack composed of white lines of sound smashed into the spot where Licorice had just been. The moment it touched the hard floor, cracks instantly spread across the ground, and the area of contact pixelated.
Countless small cubes scattered everywhere—it almost looked comical, like something out of an 8-bit game. Nevertheless, the phenomenon itself was extremely eerie.
If I hadn't quickly grabbed Licorice and yanked her backward, the one turning into pixels wouldn't have been the ground, but Licorice herself. That much was obvious.
"Hah...!"
Nadia recoiled in fright alongside me. Luckily, I had made sure to familiarize myself thoroughly with the surrounding layout, so we didn't bump into anything as we retreated. That was at least one small mercy.
"... I'm sure of it. That sound just now was Wolf Call. Woof-woof, you said you only imitated a cow, but you made the real thing. It's not just making noise—it's detecting outside sounds too."
Licorice, who was pressed against my waist, coughed as she said this. Wolf Call. With that term coming up again, I couldn't help but ask,
"What is Wolf Call?!"
"It's a warning signal! I don't know exactly what it is, but it detected us! Before we detected it!"
Licorice shouted in a low voice. Her message was clear. We may not know where the enemy is, but the enemy knows exactly where we are. Once detected, it would not lose track of us.
We'd already been found. That went without saying—an attack had just come our way. The real problem was our opponent's assault. That attack that disintegrated anything into small cubes was not something you could afford to even graze you.
"The attack's pretty troublesome, but it's too late to just sneak by quietly, right?"
"You already know the answer. If there was a way around this, we wouldn't be having this conversation."
Licorice continued calmly.
"I heard the warning signal just now, so the enemy must be using a sound detector similar to ours. Every sound we make will alert the enemy to our presence. Telling them we're here."
A trembling breath, shaking hands, a body lacking confidence. Licorice said every action that could make noise was a trace, a signpost.
Nadia slightly parted her lips as if to say something. But even before she could speak, another attack came flying in.
Whoong—!
A white line of sound skimmed the floor. Knowing exactly what would happen if it touched us, we both launched ourselves into the air at the very moment we noticed it.
Moments after we climbed onto the nearest shelf, there came a crashing sound—an attack that missed us toppled the shelf behind. Perhaps it was at a distance, because I couldn't see its form.
Even so, the outcome was easy to predict. Changing our position so abruptly may have helped. Instead of a beast's howling, the beeping sound of a detector echoed through the space once more.
Each time the sound pulsed, our surroundings became visible. I knew that to hide completely, we'd have to turn even the detector off—but that wouldn't help us avoid danger, it would just invite it.
Since sound was virtually our only way to see, to lose it would mean we'd be blinded. Besides, even the enemy's attacks could only be seen thanks to the detector, so shutting it off was out of the question.
... Click.
Nadia raised her glue-gun, determined to identify the attack's direction and hit back at the next one. There was a smart pistol boasting perfect accuracy, but unless you registered a target, it was useless—so it wasn't much help in our current situation.
Beep—... Beep—...
We suppressed our breathing as much as possible, nerves fully tensed. Cautiously turning our heads, we stood watch for an attack that could come at any moment—sometimes revealing ourselves, sometimes disappearing from sight.
"......"
Having suffered two attacks, we expected a third to come at any moment. And yet, no matter how long we waited, the next attack never came.
Licorice raised a finger to her lips. Then, as if telling us to listen closely, she tapped her ear. My senses were already sharpened—every subtle sound around us was crystal clear.
Suppressed but inescapable sounds of breathing, separate heartbeats, nervous dry swallowing, shuffling clothes and twitching bodies.
And then—the detector's sound suddenly changed again.
"......!"
A howling, beast-like noise lingered in my ear. Knowing what the sound really meant, it struck me differently than before. Even though our position was detected, the enemy did not attack right away. It felt like it was watching, testing us.
Was its attack effective? Did we dodge by chance, or on purpose? What state were we in—frightened? Defensive? The enemy was still invisible, but I felt all of this.
Except for the unavoidable noises we made, everything was utterly still. Just that was enough to create an oppressive atmosphere. All because in this oddly-rules-bound space, the enemy knew our exact location.
As the sense of pressure began to close in on us, Nadia fiddled with the detector a few times before pressing the device into my hand.
"... Multipurpose Unit 1 forcibly boosted the detector's performance. The component fit is poor, so it's much less durable, but the detection range is dramatically increased. Just think of it as a noise generator now."
"Noise?"
"The louder the noise, the more we can see, right? Our location's already blown anyway, so I removed the limiter."
"So you want me to scan the whole area with this?"
I understood what Nadia wanted. She wanted me to fire up this souped-up sonic detector and illuminate the area, if only for a moment.
"Yeah, then leave the rest to me."
"If that's all you need... Give me all the detectors you've got."
"Huh? Uh, here."
"Licorice, you too."
"......"
Licorice, covering her mouth with one hand, handed over her device. She'd complained of motion sickness ever since we entered, and now it was getting worse.
I hoped she wouldn't actually vomit and used telekinesis to levitate the detectors. As soon as we started moving, the howling sound grew even louder, a clear warning not to mess around.
But we weren't the types to just listen obediently. Compared to what we'd been through so far, this was just a new and fascinating situation—nothing that crossed a real line.
It was only that much. We were well past the point where a little unfamiliarity could scare us. Otherwise, we wouldn't have survived this long.
"Be careful. The enemy might attack."
With those final words, I threw the detectors as far as I could. As long as the range covered everywhere around us, it didn't matter.
The devices created a wide sound—no longer just 'beep' but 'beeeep!'
The sound-waves rippled out, and as they did, objects hidden in darkness revealed outlines traced in white.
This time, the range was anything but small. It didn't illuminate the entire sector, but it got most of it.
"Found it—!"
Nadia shouted, readying her glue-gun. Her gaze followed a vague shape far off in the distance. It was impossible to tell if it was a machine or a living thing.
Although it had triggered the edge of the amplified detection field, the object bounced the sound back, so its real form couldn't be seen. It might even have been a mirage, but in this place, it was the only thing moving apart from us. Either way, it had to be dealt with.
Po-po-po-pong—
Clusters of glue shot out from her gun. Beeeeep—beeeeep, the sound traced a choppy trajectory through the space.
The expected sticky splat never came, just the clatter of tiny cubes rolling across the ground. Before the glue could hit, the unknown creature pixelated them all.
"Ugh—! They won't even explode...!"
While Nadia failed to pin down its movements, she shouted that at least she could trigger the glue's explosive properties. But that, too, seemed to fail. Apparently, things that got pixelated lost their original properties entirely.
I reached out with my hand—my target was the thing darting between the shelves, apparently trying to avoid detection. It had always been there, just invisible until now. So with telekinesis, I should be able to grab it.
Soon, the shelves hidden in darkness began to collapse. Most toppled like dominoes, crumbling into small cubes and failing to block the enemy as it darted about. If anything, the cubes' noise was helping it hide.
"It's too fast!"
Nadia suppressed her panic and continued aiming. My whole body was about to spring forward, but I held back. If I left, I couldn't guarantee the safety of the other two.
Nadia's small, but she has good reflexes and would probably dodge. Licorice, on the other hand, couldn't manage that.
'I was trying to save my strength...'
At this rate, if we were going to make a commotion, it might be better to do it properly. No matter how fast it was, as long as it stayed within this sector, we could catch it.
As I powered up my supernatural power, trying to sweep the area with everything I'd learned, Licorice—who had been sitting on the ground—stood up and grabbed me.
"Lee Hyun-woo, I told you. We came down here risking so much to help you."
Telling me to conserve my strength, Licorice took out something—no, it looked like the sector's control crystal—and manipulated it. A strange sound spread through the sector.
I recognized the sound. It was a resonance that came when power started running through the cables. The tell-tale vibration ran through the space.
Some kind of lighting was coming on, but since we were in a place where only sound could 'illuminate' space, the appearance didn't change dramatically. However, speakers on each wall activated, marking the boundaries of the sector.
A wide, rectangular structure. Nadia, Licorice, and I were in the center, and the unidentified enemy was circling the perimeter to avoid our attacks.
Licorice spoke.
"... Just drive it into one place. You can do that much, right?"
White sound lines still traced the monochrome world. What changed was our spatial awareness and Licorice's request.
Not total suppression, but herding it. Nadia and I nodded. That was so easy it was laughable.
"Let's just go all out. Seems like direct fire won't work anyway. The attack's scary, but it doesn't matter if it doesn't hit—that's just like every attack."
Nadia, now with some idea of the enemy's position, aimed her glue-gun and fired. Po-po-po-pong— A weak sound, followed by splatting gel on the floor and objects. Some sounds of shelves crumbling mixed in, but far less than before.
"Blow!"
At Nadia's shout, Multipurpose Unit 1 triggered the detonators as if it had been waiting. With thunderous explosions, the world transformed—everywhere flashed white, sound-waves so intense they became surfaces, not just lines.
Naturally, our ears rang. Thankfully, Carrot's small shielding generator was always active, so anything above a certain decibel was automatically blocked to protect our eardrums.
With explosions on all sides, the enemy was trapped, unable to move. It was still bouncing sound off and blocking detection, but that just made its position clearer.
Wasn't this our own Wolf Call? It wasn't howling, but this kind of blast would serve as a warning signal to anything.
I set up a barrier so the blasts wouldn't reach us and only affected the area where the enemy was. The invisible wall pushed the force of the blast back, forming a kind of quarantine.
It was the best backup I could offer. It wasn't about showing off my strength, and after being told to conserve my power, using telekinesis to rip apart an already-isolated enemy would be no different from running off and leaving everyone behind.
"Set coordinates! Keep it in place!"
"I need to reload!"
"Ten seconds!"
"I can do that much!"
"No, Hyun-woo, don't step in! ... Multipurpose Unit 2! Connect the backup energy pack and activate Big Hand!"
Nadia shouted, resigned. Multipurpose Unit 2, which had been on standby, extended all its slender legs to reveal its belly. It had a lens attached—not something from the original design, so it must have been modified.
Like an open hand, Unit 2 manifested its power at the target. The industrial artificial gravity chain system—codenamed Big Hand—activated, and amid the chaos, pinned the desperate enemy flat.
The thing, which had been standing stiff with its head raised, crumpled as if collapsing. Licorice, who had been feverishly working the controls, finally shouted that it was done.
"... Settings complete!"
With those words, the sector began to normalize. The otherworldly rules faded, and the space turned into a regular Stasis Storage.
Darkness, burning away like ash, drifted upward, and light from above filled the vacancy. The places once concealed by darkness became visible.
We no longer had to rely on sound. At last, the abnormal darkness vanished, leaving only natural shadows.
Licorice gave a sigh of relief as she saw the stasis chamber activate safely, and sank to the floor.
"Haah..."
"Ahh... my chest..."
Nadia rubbed her palm over her bio-circuit near her heart, strained from running the Big Hand system. She looked like she wanted to cry. I wanted to help, too, but given where we were, I could only pat her shoulder and say, "Good job."
While the two caught their breath, I looked inside the stasis chamber. The form was strange—clearly, this was no ordinary monster. Inside the diamond-shaped, transparent crystal sat a spherical mass of darkness.
It felt like neither a machine nor a living creature. Fitting, perhaps, that it was being kept in the Stasis Storage.
"So that thing must've broken out and caused this mess."
"... It wasn't what I meant to do, but I'm glad we took it down from a distance."
Nadia shivered her tail and kept a wary eye on the diamond creature, surrounded by heaps of scattered cubes—no, not just scattered, piled up. The explosion had blocked my view before, but it must have put up quite a fight.
"... Weren't you too sick to move?"
This time, I asked Licorice with a look that pretty much said, "When did you even prepare for this?"
"What? What do you take me for—never mind. Just go secure it so we can get out of here."
"You caught it, Licorice."
Honestly, if not for Licorice, the fight could have dragged on. She restored the sector's energy and activated the stasis chamber in time. Otherwise, this would've been much more troublesome. The enemy's attack was just that tricky.
'How did she even know what to do?'
It was Licorice who first figured out the control crystal, and Licorice who discovered the Archive's map. Most of it, honestly, was her doing. And this time, she figured out how to activate the stasis chamber.
She did call herself an expert at uncovering information, but strangely enough, I felt like she was more remembering things long forgotten than discovering them anew.
'No way...'
A sudden uneasy thought made me glance worriedly at Licorice. Her complexion was terribly pale. She wasn't in any state for questions.
"Now that it's caught, let's move on to the next sector—! ... Ugh."
Barely managing her words, Licorice clapped a hand harder over her mouth. I had the sense that her dry gag was not normal. This time, there was real danger.
I wanted to yell, 'Breath! Get to the corner!' but decided it wasn't worth putting my life at risk, so I just pointed silently at the corner.
Licorice sped over to the corner, doubled over, and I blocked out the sounds that followed. For her sake.