“My son died fighting monsters.”
He started sharing his story.
“My only remaining daughter, that foolish girl, was also a superhuman but I wanted to make her live like a normal person. By then, my wife was already dead so I couldn’t have another child. My daughter was so stubborn that we fought very often.”
Yu Jitae remembered the woman that was crying on her knees in front of the portrait.
“Season. Does a prophet have children too?”
“Who knows. I don’t have any myself.”
“Then don’t make a child for the next decade at least.”
“…”
His deep sigh was mixed with smoke. Soon, he reopened his mouth along with another sigh of smoke escaping through his white moustache and beard.
“Time sometimes flies. It was already time for that young girl to get married. She wanted to show me a grandchild – a child giving birth to a child. But like what I said to you then, I told her not to. My foolish daughter married before the war but the war broke out when they were newlyweds.”
And yet the baby was born.
“Who could stop a married couple sleeping together? In the end, near the end of the war, she did bear a child. I should have known she was as stubborn as myself, and should’ve separated her from her husband or something… but they had a child already and she was pregnant. What could I do then?”
“Did you scold her?”
“Of course. How long has it been since your brother turned into a corpse? How could you bear a child in a time like this? I admonished them a ton. The two of them cried together and yelled. I was going to tell them off for the rest of my life but when the baby was actually born…”
He smiled with a low voice. Before long, there was a slightly denser smile on his lips.
“…His little dick was so tiny and cute, alright. My DNA is quite powerful though, and he looked just like my dead son. So I bought a stroller for him. It was a very expensive, large and pretty stroller made in Japan. The shock absorber in it was great. It didn’t shake an inch even when going over speed bumps.”
Christoph turned towards Yu Jitae.
Because of the smile that was on his lips, when killing intent suddenly sparked from his face, he looked even more sinister. The gaze of a beast that was seconds away from dashing forward and ripping someone to pieces was in his eyes.
“The Korean government floats an island in the sky to nurture kids into killing monsters. Chaliovan announces that it will be a peaceful period – Valentine said the world would be fine even without her and buried herself in the forest with young men. The sovereign, little Brzenk – that young man is twice as strong as the witch. Seeing all that, this old man’s brain must have softened.”
He spoke faster and faster.
“I was dreaming,
“Watching children peacefully grow up,
“Teasing my foolish daughter ageing with her husband,
“Like a retired old dotard, I was going to sit back and wait until I could eventually meet my wifey.
“I thought it would be okay.”
To the old superhuman, this was not simply the death of a young life.
“I was going to decorate gardens and flowerbeds,
“People around me teased me for going senile.
“But I meant it. As you turn older, you funnily get more attached to flowers.
“So I grew flowers, looked after the garden,
“Bought a slide and a seesaw so that kids could play around.
“I thought it would be okay.”
In his mind, an entire era had ended.
“When Michael was born, I planted an oak tree in my garden.
“Wouldn’t he later become a father himself?
“Wouldn’t he tell me that he would show me a great-grandson in the future?
“By then, it would be another twenty to thirty years and the oak tree should have grown enough. If I was still alive, I would have cut that tree and used it for the entrance of that kid’s house.
“That’s what I thought. I wasn’t expecting the tree to become the child’s coffin.”
Because the era around him had changed, the old superhuman couldn’t simply be the grandpa of the young boy. He had to be a soldier, and soldiers did not cry from people’s death.
“People say you become more childish as you age. Maybe that happened to me.
“Or maybe I got a screw loose like what the people talking behind my back are saying.
“I was too soft-hearted, thinking it was an era where I could grab a stroller and not a sword, live peacefully growing flowers, and die without worrying about a single thing.
“I thought my life had finally regained that era.”
His eyes turned bloody. Veins popped out of his hand carrying the cigarette. His skin turned bloody from his fury as one by one, dense words oozed out of his mouth.
“It was all an illusion.”
The old soldier quietly revealed his rage.
***
‘Me rummaging through everything might indeed have been a problem.’
Finishing it off with those words, Christoph turned around. The old man, who thought an era of peace had finally come, grasped many things but he now had to let go of them all, and the old soldier was not the only one seeing this as the turning point.
[A relative of the 5 Transcendents of Chaliovan murdered.]
[The international Superhuman Association announces a radical response to the terrorist group, Quasar.]
[Chairman Chaliovan sternly claims to retake the price of blood]
The Association didn’t make a fuss over the incident. But their reaction was slightly different from the past where they tended to remain silent no matter the incident. It was a small yet visible change and the world in turn also noticed the small shift.
After a few days, people gathered in the main conference room of the Association.
Chairman Chaliovan, BM, 4 transcendents including Christoph, the Druid of Regeneration Myung Yongha, the Sword of the Royal Family Minamoto and other members of their group – added to that was the chief of strategies Zhuge Haiyan and other advisors, and lastly Season and One.
The chairman of the Association, Chaliovan, opened his mouth.
“I heard the said communication centre was for military support.”
“Yes sir. As you have likely seen from the reports, it was the communication centre of Quasar’s military support and was being used as a type of control tower.”
“Who was the one that made the underground fortress we found prior to that?”
“It is estimated to be a mage above Rank 200 at the very least sir.”
Chaliovan slightly tilted his head to the side, slowly with composure. As if in deep thought, he touched his lips with his long and white fingers.
“…How strange.”
He then said slowly with a relaxed tone of voice.
“It is as weird as Christoph not finding any traces at the communication centre. How can a mere battalion-sized underground fortress of an Anti-Association terrorist group be made by a Rank 200 mage?”
“Let me explain from there.”
Someone else replied this time. It was a slender woman with a short height, circular-framed glasses, neat ponytail and a hazy, dry gaze.
She was the chief of the strategy council, Zhuge Haiyan.
“There were heterogeneous objects from what we have secured. KSR-type drugs, 407-bullet artifacts, and one-way teleportation gate v04.”
“…”
Hearing her words, the listeners were filled with doubt.
KSR-type drug was a medicine produced in Japan, renounced due to its side effects.
407-bullet artifacts were human-encroaching bullets used in Mexico, that were later banned due to its extremely inhumane effects.
And one-way teleportation gate v04 was something used by the old Russians that eventually got substituted by superior versions during the Great War.
It was strange for those objects to all be at the same place.
“…Have they been preparing these for a long time?” said one of the advisors in doubt but Zhuge Haiyan shook her head in response.
This was not that simple.
“Our internal tests have allowed us to confirm the authenticity of the items. All the military equipment was genuine. V04 was in fact proven to have been used in Russia while other consumables were also newly crafted.”
Items that weren’t meant to be used were being used. And items that should have been abandoned by the countries were all newly crafted.
“A sponsor huh.”
Chaliovan concluded it with one word.
“Yes. There are people sponsoring Quasar from behind. Governments. That would explain the underground fortress and the communication centre perfectly.”
People gasped hearing Zhuge Haiyan’s voice filled with certainty.
An Anti-Association terrorist group – that much was already a headache. But when there were groups sponsoring the terrorist groups from behind, that would be even more of a headache.
And if those groups happened to be governments?
It was something they had to watch out for.
“And the source of the military supplies?”
“We are looking into every possible source as of yet but there is nothing that stands out. They were known to have all been disposed of directly by the military companies of the respective countries themselves without going through a number of steps.”
“Then I assume it’s not one specific government then.”
“However we still need to consider that as there are several who are discontent with the Association’s current affairs…”
Zhuge Haiyan and Chaliovan’s conversation was too fast. One of the advisors shot his hand up with a frown.
“P, please wait! Doesn’t that mean there has to be an organisation that has connections with the military companies of all countries? How could there be such an organisation?”
In response, Zhuge Haiyan turned around.
“What else could it be. Of course it’s the Undetectables.”
As if a heavy piece of lead had dropped on the room, the atmosphere rapidly turned grave. The transnational group of demons – Undetectables.
Her words however made them sceptical.
“Undetectables… But I remember them stopping all of their actions after Noah recently died.”
“Right. As always, they hid themselves again. Discarding their bases and cutting tails.”
Seemingly irritated by thinking back on what happened, Zhuge Haiyan replied with a frown. She still was not able to find any concrete evidence on who Noah’s killer was.
On the other hand, it indeed was strange. Demons were always sly and cautious, and they were composed since they had a long life ahead of them. They tended to watch from the sidelines until they were certain and it didn’t make sense for them to provide aid to the Anti-Association group and willingly create traces that way.
“That is the weird part. They don’t gain anything by opposing the Association right now, so it doesn’t make sense for the demons to be the sponsors of Quasar, right?”
“That’s what I wanted to say. Who would like to guess? Why are they doing this?”
Zhuge Haiyan placed her hands on her waist and tilted her head. Why was it that the frightened dog was acting up again?
“…”
No-one replied so Zhuge Haiyan continued with an empty smile.
“They want to blow their nose without using their own hands. Trying to have someone else make things fall on their lap.”
“Who is that ‘someone else’ though?”
“Who knows. There is no proof yet, and I do not like talking based on circumstantial evidence. They are wrong sometimes.”
Turning her gaze, she looked at one of the people inside the room. She speculated that that man was the one who killed Noah, but there was not a single concrete proof to back off her claim, so she didn’t even bother saying it out loud. It was the same this time.
The prolonged silence was then broken by Chaliovan.
“Speak.”
“Sorry?”
“Say it Haiyan. Who do you think is the sponsor.”
“…”
In response, Zhuge Haiyan closed her mouth and pondered.
“May I postpone my response for now?” She then asked.
“As you wish.”
After saying that, she turned towards Yu Jitae.
“Prophet Season. Who do you think it is?”
Zhuge Haiyan was scratching the itchy spots of everyone present with her question. Ever since they received the report, a few of the advisors had been curious about Season’s thoughts on the matter, while Zhuge Haiyan herself was also curious. There just wasn’t enough evidence to come to a conclusion and it was one’s basic instincts that mattered the most at this point.
Usually it was a question they tended to ask Christoph, but his expression dissuaded them from asking him.
Therefore, their eyes naturally gathered on Yu Jitae.
He was leaning back on the chair, quietly listening to them talk and despite the question, he was still silent.
Was he about to reveal the profound secrets of the heavens? They curiously waited for him to open his mouth.
But actually, Yu Jitae didn’t know either…
The advisors would probably be thinking along the lines of this:
The source of the supplies was Japan, Russia or Switzerland.
It was well-known that the royal family of Japan had various different faces and everyone knew how the Russian government was leaning more towards an anti-Association constitution. The neutral country Switzerland was a good place to secretly move military supplies.
That wasn’t the end. After the Great War, there were only 2 countries that were close allies with these 3 countries.
Korea and USA – but wasn’t the deputy president of America killed in the process? So it has to be either Korea, Japan, Russia or Switzerland right?
No.
According to what he thought, this marked the start of an era. An era where countries were discontent with the military expansion of the Association and fought against it. There might be a ‘certain existence’ as Christoph mentioned at the centre of all this, but that guy was simply accelerating the process. Even without that ‘certain existence’, the world nonetheless would have naturally flowed into that era.
Something similar had occurred in the 6th iteration.
Back when he killed Chaliovan and declared the dictatorship of the Association in order to rule over the Earth by himself. With his overwhelming power he suppressed every country across the globe.
Back then, it wasn’t one specific nation that was cautious of his increasing dominion.
“Prophet. Speak. Who is our enemy?”
Unable to handle the long silence, Chaliovan hurried him and at last, Yu Jitae opened his mouth.
“The entire world.”
He dropped a bomb into the conference room.