FPL 017-1 affiliated base researcher Emily Harper was spinning her pen.
It had been quite some time since she had been dispatched to the Fourth Research Institute.
When she was teaching the bright new recruit, Kang Hana, time had flown by without her noticing.
But now that she was working alone, Emily was finally starting to feel the passage of time.
“Giselle goes to check on her every day, but I haven’t had the time….”
The absence of Giselle, who had left to check on Kang Hana, felt strangely significant.
Apparently, Kang Hana was still clinging to IF-017 again, but Emily had no time to see it for herself.
Ever since the E Research Director, who had been pushing for a forced demotion, disappeared, the demotion order had become meaningless.
Everyone already treated Giselle as a researcher, but on paper, she was still a Gamma-class personnel.
In the end, it was Emily who had to handle all the necessary tasks.
Looking through some documents, Emily clicked her tongue.
“It’s ruined.”
She had stored them properly, but when she found them again, the writing was completely illegible.
It must have been the humidity.
For the past few days, ever since IF-017 had rampaged, it had been raining non stop.
It seemed like the ventilation system had been turned off.
Emily checked the control console.
Sure enough, the button that was supposed to be lit was dark.
She pressed the button.
Still, the light did not turn on.
“Ah… Looks like the power is out.”
Emily could understand this much.
The encounter between IF-684 and IF-017—
It had caused a shockwave that left a hole hundreds of meters wide in the center of the research facility.
At the Fourth Research Institute, minor malfunctions like this were practically routine.
The only reason this wasn’t treated as an emergency was that the hostile anomalies had self-contained themselves due to the blood IF-684 had scattered.
If that hadn’t been the case, with the possibility of additional containment failures occurring at any time and any place, a full-scale evacuation would have already taken place.
Emily began dismantling the control console.
Having spent a significant amount of time in the field, she had handled plenty of unexpected situations.
She wasn’t a professional, but she was skilled enough to fix most minor malfunctions at an engineer’s level.
“…What the hell is this?”
And that was exactly the problem.
With a grim expression, Emily shone a flashlight inside the console.
“This is a disaster….”
The delicate mechanical components were completely rusted and corroded, making it difficult to even recognize what they were.
This console had been working just fine earlier that morning, but now it looked like it had been submerged in seawater for thirty years before being dragged out.
Emily quietly closed the console.
“The Anti-Entropy reading… isn’t showing? What the hell?”
She tilted her head, looking at her wristwatch.
She had assumed it was an anomalous phenomenon, but the Anti-Entropy measurement device wasn’t reacting at all.
For those working with anomalies, the Anti-Entropy readings were more reliable than their own eyes.
The fact that it was showing zero left Emily utterly perplexed.
She took a deep breath.
The air was unusually humid.
It was so suffocating that she couldn’t stand it any longer, so she opened the lab door and stepped into the hallway.
But the hallway was just as damp.
As Emily frowned, she heard murmuring voices.
“So when I ran into IF-017 back then, the flames just—”
It was a familiar voice.
The researcher who had been advocating for a forceful containment approach after encountering IF-017 in its ascended state.
That was all.
The lab was relatively close, but Emily had only spoken with him a few times in passing.
She could see several researchers and other staff gathered.
It seemed they had all been experiencing the same strange situation.
Emily was about to join them when—
***
Thud.
The researcher who had been passionately speaking a moment ago suddenly collapsed to the ground.
His entire body trembled violently.
His mouth was gaping open as he desperately tried to suck in air, but all that came out were wheezing, choking sounds.
People panicked as they watched him struggle.
Emily immediately pushed through the crowd and rushed to him.
She had no idea why this was happening in the middle of the research facility, but—
This was a symptom she had seen countless times before at Base 017-1.
Drowning.
She was sure she could save him.
“Gurk, grrrk—”
—Splash, splash.
From the torrents of water he vomited, small water bugs and tiny, unidentifiable fish leaped into the air.
The sheer amount of water was absurd—at least two full water dispensers’ worth.
A volume of water physically impossible to be inside a human body.
The water soaked Emily’s shoes.
She looked down at a fish near her feet.
A grotesque creature with four eyes and three pectoral fins.
An instinctive and indescribable disgust crawled up her spine, making her take two steps back.
Thud.
Thud.
One by one, people started collapsing.
And soon—
Emily realized she was submerged in deep, endless darkness.
Bubbles escaped from her open mouth, and when she moved her hands and feet, she felt resistance.
Water.
‘?!’
Cold.
A terrible, bone-chilling cold that froze her to the core.
She couldn’t see or hear anything.
Yet she instinctively knew—
This was not the ocean.
Not a river.
A lake.
She couldn’t open her eyes.
She mustn’t open them.
From the moment she was swallowed by this darkness, she knew with absolute certainty.
Something was swimming.
Something that had existed in the abyss of this lake for eternity.
Something that had hidden in the darkness, avoiding the light of the lake’s ruler.
Something ancient.
Something beyond comprehension.
A fundamental terror.
Something purely and infinitely terrifying.
The lake itself had opened its jaws.
It was swimming beneath Emily.
She was utterly terrified of it.
She wanted to swim upward, to escape.
But she had no way of knowing which way was up.
If she opened her eyes to check, and she was looking downward—
She couldn’t even imagine what unspeakable horror would happen next.
Light.
If only there were a single point of light in this darkness.
Just as she clenched her eyes shut—
From above the water.
A light.
Tiny compared to the vastness of the lake.
Weak compared to the terrifying thing lurking in the abyss.
‘…It’s warm.’
She could feel a burning heat.
The terror vanished, disappearing into the depths with an inhuman screech.
Emily opened her eyes and swam.
Towards that tiny sun, towards the surface.
Just before her breath ran out—
She barely managed to pull herself ashore.
Emily doubted her own eyes.
Far ahead—
The small light she had followed, the one that had settled at the lakeside—
That light was—
“Aaaah… Can we please take a break? Just for a little bit?”
Kang Hana, surrounded by tiny IF-017s made of flames, being playfully tormented.
‘What.’
‘Why was Kang Hana here?’
‘And what were those tiny, mascot-like IF-017s?’
Before Emily could think further, her vision blurred.
Like waking from a dream.
Emily snapped back to her senses.
Her body felt fine, with no issues at all.
If it weren’t for the people around her still vomiting water, she might have thought it was all just a hallucination.
She took a deep breath.
Anti-entropy readings not showing?
What a joke.
It was clearly an anomalous phenomenon.
Surviving the water, Emily could sense it.
The feeling of unease was so strong, it made her realize just how strange the current state of the research facility was.
It was dark and terrifying, like the lake she had just experienced.
The objective light levels weren’t that dark, but to Emily’s eyes, it seemed that way.
The only relief was that it was limited to the research facility itself.
If she looked outside the window, there was no trace of such darkness at all.
She had to get out.
She had to escape the Fourth Research Institute.
Emily ran toward the exit.
For a moment, the thought of Kang Hana crossed her mind.
‘What about her? ‘
‘And Giselle, who went to check on her?’
But she had no courage to face that darkness again, so those thoughts were left behind.
“Hmhm… ancestor, this place is so good…”
As she petted her descendants, she was listening to her surroundings.
It was nothing for her to encompass an entire building within her senses.
In her current state, with her horns gleaming, there was no need for concentration.
The ripples began.
Whee-wee-ing, crackle, krrr…
Boom!
It all started with the annoying mechanical noises.
The loud sounds that filled the building started to fade away in an instant.
Emily had fantasized about breaking those noises a million times, but now, it had become reality.
She had finally silenced those vile, evil mechanical sounds!
‘Was this what peace of mind felt like?’
She was so pleased that she began messing with her descendant’s head again.
“Ugh, ancestor, you’re being too rough…!”
The neat hair of her descendant turned into a mess, and they shot her a sharp glare, but Emily paid no mind.
With the surroundings this quiet, what else mattered?
She reached out to mess their hair up again, but—
Smack!
Ah.
Next…
It was the humans, who were quietly following the machines’ lead.
In the end, this is how it goes.
It was an exile order, but they were stubbornly staying behind.
She had done nothing to them.
She simply turned her head away.
Some people were already trying to leave, but Emily had no intention of helping or hindering them.
There was no point in thinking about them.
The humans who had troubled her descendant, the offspring of a priest, were already beyond her interest.
Well.
The noise had decreased, so Emily felt satisfied.
She stretched her senses out as the building grew quieter.
She enjoyed the simple happiness.
With the plump snake and the descendant from Loch Ness.
It was so enjoyable, she felt as happy as if she had found the ‘first orb.’
As she was basking in this joy, suddenly—
“Kuwak!”
A bird, whose features were freely expressive, flew toward her.
‘Huh.’
‘What’s this?’
‘Is it something like freshly delivered to my door?’
She locked eyes with the bird.
Then, with a swift movement, the bird circled around her naturally before flying off.
Ah, now look at that…
‘If it had come this far, it should just be eaten, so why fly back? ‘
“Where are you going?”
With wings spread, Emily quickly ran toward the bird.
Her body started to lift slightly from the ground.
The bird seemed panicked, flapping in midair.
Hehe.
It had been a while since she felt this.
This was what people meant by excitement.
“Kyaaa!”