Chapter 14
Archeon Genetics.
A subsidiary of Archeon, one of Magitera’s Top 100 corporations.
True to its name, it primarily conducted research and development in genetics, biocompatibility, artificial organs, and circuit compatibility rates.
Even at this very moment, a meeting about a new project was underway in a conference room on the uppermost level.
“Therefore, the new compatibility candidate screening process is expected to improve efficiency by 3.7 percent over the current system….”
A holographic presentation floated in the center of the spacious conference room.
All the meeting attendees nodded as they looked at the presenter.
All except one.
Lea ValenCroft rested her chin on one hand and stared out the window.
A prestigious family that led Archeon.
As the eldest daughter of the ValenCroft family and the current head of Archeon Genetics, she found the meeting nothing but tedious.
More precisely, she found the people sitting in the meeting tedious.
They were busy displaying their business cards, not their results. Rotten roots with no remaining utility should be cut away.
“…Therefore, we have determined that maintaining the existing research-team structure would be the most stable course for this quarter’s budget adjustment proposal.”
When the presentation ended, several executives seemed poised to applaud, as though they had been waiting for it.
But when Lea raised her right hand, the conference room fell silent.
She slowly straightened and stared at the presenter with an empty expression.
“You know the materials you just presented.”
The presenter raised his head with a nervous expression.
“Yes, CEO.”
“Summarize them in three lines.”
“Pardon?”
“The contents you just spent exactly twelve minutes talking about. Summarize them in three lines.”
The unexpected question left the presenter visibly flustered.
“I-I mean… distributing the budget while maintaining the stability of the research-team structure….”
“One line.”
When Lea cut him off,
“You’re asking for money as usual.”
The atmosphere in the conference room began to freeze.
The presenter shut his mouth. No, he could not bring himself to open it again.
Lea pointed at several people with her finger.
“You.”
The first executive selected went pale.
“You.”
Then the second executive.
“And you.”
Then the third executive as well.
“Yes…?”
Lea continued in a listless voice.
“You’re fired. Get out.”
In the suffocating atmosphere, several people exchanged furtive glances, as if trying to figure out what was happening.
One of the executives who had been fired barely managed to speak, but—
“CEO, even so, a decision made in this manner is procedurally….”
“Procedure?”
Lea tilted her head slightly at his words.
“Fine. Let’s follow procedure.”
When she lightly tapped her wrist terminal, the performance records of the three executives soon appeared on the hologram in the center of the conference room.
Project delays, budget overruns, rising researcher attrition, and omitted failure reports. They were more than sufficient grounds to throw them out.
Lea flicked through the numerous records that had been shelved during internal audits.
“Procedurally speaking, I should have fired you much sooner.”
The three executives’ wrist terminals simultaneously turned red.
[Access privileges revoked.]
[Executive credentials invalidated.]
[Security escort requested.]
The conference room door opened, and security personnel in black uniforms entered and forcibly dragged them out.
Some might call it tyranny, but she had the authority to do so.
Lea ValenCroft had never borrowed the power of her family name. Everything she possessed and everything she had achieved… she had accomplished entirely on her own.
She had personally overturned departments running deficits, dismantled research teams plagued by failure, and reorganized three long-term projects, nearly doubling Archeon Genetics’ net profits.
She had often been called ruthless, but never incompetent.
Lea surveyed the people remaining in the conference room with cold eyes, then—
“Everyone, get a grip.”
She manipulated her wrist terminal and sent new materials to the terminals of every attendee.
[Project: Helix Gate]
[Biological Circuit Adaptation Rate Redefinition Plan]
[Confidentiality Level: A-7]
Lea finished with a few brief words.
“Read all of it by tomorrow.”
Someone cautiously asked her, but—
“CEO, this project has not yet received board approval.”
“That’s why I told you to read it. I didn’t tell you to approve it.”
She answered the question and rose from her seat.
“Anyone who still doesn’t understand these materials by the next meeting can pack their own bags.”
With that, she left the conference room and entered her private room without a care.
When the door closed, the sounds from outside were cut off.
She leaned back in her chair, intending to clear her head for a while.
“Boring.”
She could obtain anything she wanted, and as a perfectionist, she succeeded in every plan by immediately cutting away anything that wouldn’t work. As a result, all that remained was the feeling that everything was boring.
Just as Lea was about to close her eyes for a moment—
Ruuuuumble!
The building shook violently with an enormous roar.
Lea opened her eyes without changing her expression.
A second impact.
KWAANG!
This time, the protective barrier outside the window began to activate. She could also see mana shields momentarily rising over the outer walls of corporate buildings in the distance.
The citywide automatic defense systems were responding.
Lea instinctively sensed that this was no ordinary incident and rose from her seat.
When the door to her private room opened, the outside was already in chaos, with employees running through the corridors.
Lea quickly surveyed the scene, then grabbed an employee from the data analysis team who was running past nearby.
“What happened?”
The employee bowed his head while gasping for breath.
“C-CEO. Our department doesn’t know the details yet, either….”
“Summarize.”
It was something Lea emphasized even under normal circumstances. At that single word, the employee immediately straightened.
“A mana discharge with an absurdly high output was detected in the underground levels.”
For the first time, her expression showed that she could not understand.
“The underground levels?”
“Yes. We’re still analyzing the exact level. The detection network was momentarily overloaded, so the coordinates are fluctuating. The other corporations are also having trouble analyzing the data.”
“The source?”
“Unknown. It doesn’t match any registered ACU signal.”
At those words, Lea’s gaze changed.
“You’re saying it isn’t a registered ACU signal?”
“Yes. That’s what makes it even more problematic.”
The employee brought up the data screen with trembling hands, and a holographic graph appeared.
Most mana discharges were rapidly classified through the corporate network.
This made it easier to identify incidents such as ACU output surges or magitech-device overloads.
Because their waveforms were predetermined, it was possible to identify, at least roughly, which corporation and technological branch they belonged to, even when they were unstable.
But the waveform displayed on the screen was strange. An outlier. No, more precisely, a new waveform that did not exist anywhere in the countless existing data sets.
And more than anything else… the output had spiked into an abnormally sharp shape for an extremely brief period. It looked as though a lightning strike had been rendered as a data graph.
Lea stared intently at the screen, then offered an uncharacteristic reaction.
“Interesting.”
The employee froze.
“Pardon?”
“Underground.”
That word lingered strangely in her mouth.
Beneath Magitera. The place where everything abandoned by the corporations flowed. Failed test subjects, illegal circuit users, discarded data—in other words, a garbage dump. An anomaly had occurred in such a place.
Lea asked the employee in a low voice,
“What’s Seraph’s response?”
The employee blinked in confusion, then hurriedly checked his terminal.
“Part of Seraph Industries’ internal network has been temporarily shut down. It isn’t responding to external requests.”
The corner of Lea’s mouth lifted slightly.
“As expected.”
Whether for good or ill, Seraph was undoubtedly involved somehow. Her long-standing intuition told her so.
Either way, it was more than enough to pique her interest.
Lea released him.
“Call in the entire analysis team. Secure the original detection waveform. Before the other corporations do.”
“Yes, CEO.”
“And open the unofficial data on the underground levels.”
The employee’s face stiffened.
“By unofficial data….”
“Find it.”
She spoke decisively.
“Whatever that is, Archeon will be the first to find out.”
Lea’s eyes shone more brightly.
“I have a feeling there might be something interesting underground.”
***
The corridor in Closed Residential District C-9 could no longer be called a corridor.
Only after the dust settled did Kael slowly let out a breath.
His fingertips were trembling.
The pain inside his circuits had become distinct after he broke the fourth ACU. It was the price of forcibly igniting his withered mana circuits. He could feel the mana circuits closing again.
He looked down at Pale, of whom only his head and the portion below his nape remained.
He had deliberately left him that way.
The sixth-tier ACU was embedded there, and Kael thought it could become an important card.
Kael bent his knee and examined the back of Pale’s neck.
The sixth-tier ACU glowed faintly inside the broken protective suit. Red warning lines flashed across the casing, heated by the overload, but the core circuits were still alive.
‘Not bad.’
Just as Kael reached out his hand—
“…Wait.”
Pale’s dry voice reached him.
Kael’s hand stopped at his words.
He was still alive, though on the verge of death. Even so, his consciousness remained. Kael clicked his tongue, wondering how people in this world could be so difficult to kill.
He slightly furrowed his brows.
“You’re remarkably tenacious.”
Pale exhaled a breath mixed with blood.
“You….”
Even as his life ebbed away, Pale wanted to know his opponent’s identity.
“What… are you, really?”
Kael did not answer.
“I’m… dying.”
Pale spoke slowly.
“So… you can tell me now.”
Kael looked down at him with an expression suggesting he had no choice.
“Tell you what?”
“Your identity.”
“Hah.”
“You’re not… an agent from another megacorp.”
He struggled to swallow a breath.
“You’re not… an experimental subject, either.”
“….”
Pale’s voice grew quieter.
“A monster like you… shouldn’t exist in this city.”
Even so, he continued asking questions.
“Tell me….”
“Don’t say it. It’s embarrassing.”
Kael cut him off shortly and sighed.
He had no particular need to answer.
But telling a dying enemy his name was a habit he had carried with him from the battlefields of long ago.
Kael revealed his identity.
“I’m the archmage of the hero’s party.”
Pale’s eyes went still. After staring at Kael for several seconds, his expression showed that he did not understand.
Until the very end.
“…That.”
Pale’s lips trembled, then—
“What… the fuck are you talking about….”
With those words, the light went out of Pale’s eyes.