Hunter of the Ruined World Chapter 30

“37 years ago the BMCP fortress, on the souther tip of the Peninsula, closed. The MCP stopped showing activity. Headquarters, located in Europe, sent a research group. The bigwigs at Asia HQ thought that they should be handling this issue, however. They demanded that Europe HQ leave the issue to them. Europe saw this quieting of an MCP as unprecedented and extremely important, believing they couldn’t merely leave it to Asia HQ. So they sent their research group, ignoring the demand from Asia HQ,” recalled lieutenant Charl, who clearly had an encyclopedic knowledge and memory of the incident.

By the time the research group had reached Busan fortress, however, it had already been completely sealed.

The soldiers from Asia HQ reported that MCP activity had stopped when experiments they were conducting with some of the monsters had gotten out of hand. They went on to say that they had no choice but to seal the bunker due to the deadly amounts of CP gas present. If the European research team wanted to get inside the bunker, they’d have to blast it open. Asia HQ insisted that they couldn’t permit this, as the high levels of CP and radiation that would spill out of the fortress could destroy the entire Peninsula.

Asia HQ insisted that things had gotten out of hand so quickly that they had no choice but to act the way they had. Nevertheless, there were certainly many strange things at work.

“Busan fortress was a stronghold for Asia HQ - it would have been nearly impossible for Europe HQ to exert force on them there. They had no choice but to close the investigation under pressure from Asia HQ.

The research team ultimately couldn’t close the case and had no choice but to head back to Europe HQ without even entering Busan fortress, tail between their legs. The only thing they could do was close the case, accepting Asia HQ’s clearly fabricated report.   

That was the beginning of the split between Europe and Asia. The Asia faction was clearly hiding something. HQ tried desperately to find whatever it was.

Wargrave was extremely powerful, but that power was beginning to fracture. Both sides lacked enough force or confidence to start a war and destroy the other. Years of silence followed as the fissures percolated.

“My role was to learn if Central Asia HQ was planning something - anything. I concealed my ident.i.ty as an investigator, and waited for another mole from Europe HQ to select me for service at Asia HQ. I started with executor training soon after.”

While Charl worked for Europe HQ, she actually spent much more time at Asia HQ as a mole, even receiving her gigaframe surgery there.

“Huh...why did you have to go all the way undercover? Couldn’t they just have sent you straight to Busan?” asked Zin.

“For the past 30 some odd years, every single executor HQ has sent down here has gone MIA (Missing in Action). All murdered - must’ve been. We’re in East Asia right now - that’s too far from Europe. To get here you’ve gotta go right through the Asia faction. You’re bound to get caught.”

Europe HQ decided the best way to get to the bottom of the Busan incident would be to plant an executor mole in Asia HQ. Lieutenant Charl began working as an executor and slowly extended her activities towards the Peninsula.

“One of the guidelines of being an executor for Asia HQ is to avoid the Peninsula whenever possible. They never told us why. They’d give us a warning if we ever got too close. Most executors can’t step foot on the Peninsula.”

Only when Wargrave was attacked on the Peninsula was Charl given the pretext and the opportunity to move south towards Busan.

“They trusted me as an executor. They trusted me to enter the Peninsula and track down those slaughter a.s.sholes.”

She headed to Seoul fortress and got her a.s.signment, successfully avoiding suspicion again. She was slowly fulfilling her original a.s.signment of finding out what happened at Busan fortress.

Then she heard that Jado had been destroyed by some unknown force from Zin and Leona.

“I started to feel like a big problem was forming, and that I didn’t have any time to waste. HQ had some idea too. We had a feeling there was something going on with manmade devils.”

“So, what the h.e.l.l happened?”

“Those a.s.sholes were successful.”

“f.u.c.k...worse than I thought.”

The Asia faction had pretended to close Busan fortress. They were still inside - carrying out cutting edge experiments. They were doing everything without Europe HQ ever catching on.

“On the outside it looked like the fortress was sealed. In reality, they had just close themselves in. When I blew the doors off the place and went down into the bunker, those research a.s.sholes were all in a pile,” explained Charl.

“After I got into the system, I learned what kind of research they were doing.”

The power that executors wield with gigaframe would be far too large for a mere researcher, or even an ordinary soldier, to handle. Charl had a confused look on her face.

“They successfully engineered the devil 37 years ago. The reason the BMCP went dormant was because the energy of the devil was so strong.”

Zin spent a moment thinking about all the people who must’ve been sacrificed for this monstrosity.

“A devil caused a Ma.s.s Confusion Point to go dormant?”

“That’s right.”

“What the f.u.c.k did the researchers do here 37 years ago?”

“They took their devil, improved it, learned how to control it, did all kinds of experiments on it…”

The researchers had used this fortress as a battleground to do experiments and manipulate the power of the devil however they wanted.

“I imagine they were trying to gain complete control over the devil, then ma.s.s manufacture and deploy them. Whether they were planning to use that power to take town HQ or make all of Wargrave stronger - who knows. I’m sure they figured that either way, bigger and better weapons couldn’t hurt.”

In other words, the prototype that they had created - and ultimately lost - was a man-made devil. Charl’s body shook uncontrollably for a moment, as she covered her face with both hands.

“But in the end, it got out because of me…”

“What are you talking about?”

“Normally in circ.u.mstances like this executors take care of the people involved. The moment they learned I was an investigator for HQ...those b.a.s.t.a.r.ds may as well received a death sentence.”

The leaders of the Busan fortress knew what fate would become of them if they didn’t take drastic measures, so they made a daring decision. They decided to put complete trust in their creation of 37 years.

“Those a.s.sholes let the devil out. They told it to kill me.”

“I see. But they couldn’t control it. After it took care of you, it turned on the researchers, ripping them all to shreds.”

“Exactly.”

The expression on Charl’s face was undescribably pained. She had unearthed Asia HQ’s secret plan, but in doing so, had forced them to release the devil. She had become the trigger of the entire event.

She was disgusted with herself. Despite the immense power of the gigaframe, she couldn’t stand up to the power of the devil. It was difficult for her to recall this memory. There was something that was puzzling Zin, however. He asked immediately:

“Wait...so the experiment, the prototype, it was here locked up the whole time? So then how was Jado destroyed?”

“That’s been bugging me, too” answered Charl. Just as she finished speaking, she shot up from her seat, suddenly remembering something.

“Let’s check the database...there might be something there.” Charl and Zin headed immediately to the records room, where all the data from the castle should be stored. Everything in the sea of blood that had become the bunker was dead. All the researchers were beaten, ripped and cut beyond recognition. This bunker was the manifestation of unadulterated rage. Whatever those researchers had kept caged was treated like a lab rat for 37 years. Given that fact, the researchers perhaps were thankful that they met a quick end.

Charl took charge of sifting through all the information in the database. She did so at incredible speed, combing through huge amounts of data in mere seconds.

“Seems like of all the powers of devils, they were most interested in witches’ ability to control monsters. The devil they created borrowed and intensified most of its characteristics from witches.”

“Ah, I see. That would’ve been easier.”

“Easier?”

“It’s nothing...keep going,” said Zin, nodding his head. Charl didn’t understand what Zin was trying to say, but she kept looking through the data anyway. She gritted her teeth.

“It was a Chimera experiment.”

“Sure, must’ve been.”

The researchers weren’t just creating something out of nothing. They were trying to put the power of a devil into the body of a human. The completed product wouldn’t look like a devil. Rather, it would be a human, with the power of a devil sewn into it. And the prototype, now roaming the surface, didn’t just have the power of a witch. It had powers from other devils, too. The situation continued to become more and more astonis.h.i.+ng. Lieutenant Charl’s face hardened as she told Zin the latest unbelievable discovery:

“I see...there were two completed experiments.”

“Two??”

“That’s right. They had a Prototype-1 and a Prototype-2. It was Prototype-1’s power that messed with the MCP 37 years ago. At that time, the BMCP started producing monsters 100 times faster. More soldiers were sent to the MCP to keep the monsters in check. While all the soldiers were preoccupied with the monsters, Prototype-1 managed to break through the defenses and release Prototype-2. It says here though that the pursuit team managed to killed Prototype-2.”

“Whatever their intention, it’s likely that that is false information.”

“I think so too. Seems to me that Prototype-2 is still alive. It makes sense that Jado was destroyed by #2.

“Not one, but two devils. So why did it show up 37 years later?”

“No idea,” answered Charl.

Eventually the MCP went dry after sucking up ma.s.sive amounts of energy. Charl continued to absorb the information in front of her, eventually flinching after reading something.

“Th...this…”

“What is it?

“Pictures of the prototypes…” said Charl. Her eyes were open as wide as possible, awash in utter astonishment. The prototypes were both female. That much is not a surprise - they were trying to put the powers of a witch into a human. They would’ve used girls for the experiment. That’s not what was important, however. The photos of prototype-1 didn’t elicit much a response from either Charl or Zin. The photos of prototype-2 were a different story, however.

“She looks a lot like….like Leona,” said Charl, staring at Zin.

“That’s true,” replied Zin.

The picture of #2 looked astonis.h.i.+ngly similar to Leona. It looked like an adult version of Leona. Charl couldn’t understand. The Leona she had met was a child. And aside from being a bit rude, she didn’t seem to have any qualities that could be a.s.sociated with a devil.

“Is this...is this possible? Or can devils change their appearance whenever they want?” asked Charl.

“Leona’s mother must’ve been a witch,” said Zin, answering Charl’s question.

“What the f.u.c.k do you mean? A devil having a child? Humans and monsters can have intercourse...but they can’t have children. Everyone knows that…” started Charl, who was cut short by Zin:

“You’ve got that wrong.”

“What?”

“Witches aren’t monsters,” explained Zin with a bitter smile on his face, as if he were remembering something he didn’t want to remember.

“Witches are originally human.”

“What...what the…?”

“That’s the backbone of the human experiments that were carried out in this fortress,” said Zin. Charl’s expression betrayed her disbelief. Zin continued:

“A witch’s power...that’s just a superpower.” Witches are just regular humans, born with powers that most humans don’t have. The word ‘devil’ refers to 7 particular types of monsters. Witches are the only type of monster to be included in this list of devils that are also human.

Charl remained silent for a while. For Zin, the things he didn’t understand continued to pile up.

If Leona’s mother was a witch, why did she let herself die so easily? Zin had no answer to that question.