Chapter 217

Extraction of retained data.
To put it in the professor’s terms, it was a transplant or a restoration. When the work began, the professor sat in an empty movie theater and watched scenes from the past.
At some point, however, the professor’s consciousness became intermingled with the past. He inherited all the emotions he felt at the time, and it became increasingly difficult to distinguish between the present and the past.
As if you’re experiencing it yourself.
The professor regained all his memories.
“……started, yes, there was a chapter.”
In a dry, cold voice, the professor said.
“One day, Helena pointed out the dangers of the research, saying that if we went any further, something might happen to us. It’s not that I didn’t understand the argument, I just had a vague sense of it.”
It was more of a process of organizing a flood of memories than explaining it to someone.
“But that would negate all the hard work of the lab, and more importantly, Leila, and Helena was trying to discard a subject that I cared about like my own daughter, that I couldn’t help but care about.”
The two didn’t see eye to eye.
Then the professor overheard Kushan and Helena’s conversation.
“……Helena tried to wipe my memory.”
For some ridiculous reason to put the brakes on research.
“What’s even more outrageous is that Helena had the ability to do it. It’s an act that erases not only my memories, but my personality, and I can’t stand by and let it happen….”
He reached out to the Emperor of Xuran, with whom he was actively engaged at the time, for help.
“The Emperor brought Helena in secret to build ‘that thing’ out there, so to speak, a miraculous device created by the synergy of Shiran’s technology and Helena’s spells.”
“Are you saying that Helena cooperated with you in harming yourself?”
“No problem, we’ve created a situation where we have no choice but to work together.”
There’s a lot of hidden knowledge in Xuran, including drugs that work on the minds of captives and common torture devices. Things have been spiraling out of the professor’s control ever since.
As a result, Helena isn’t dead, but she can’t be said to be alive either.
The emperor coveted the professor’s work. The professor was stripped of his memory and abandoned in a remote location. Funnily enough, he escaped biological death. In case of emergency, he may need to be ‘retrieved’.
What the emperor didn’t expect was how long it took to interpret the data.
“Maybe it was the Emperor’s handiwork that found me in the lab.”
You can think of anything that makes sense.
“The man never seriously antagonized Rap in the first place, even after Heinz turned his back on his country and became a Kushan. He’s always seen it for what it’s worth.”
The professor clears his throat.
Kim stared down at the professor wordlessly, then asked a question.
“So how about now.”
“How about, what?”
“Do you think the old you is gone, as I thought?”
The professor was silent for a moment.
After a moment of pursing her lips, she hesitated.
“I don’t even know how to say it. It’s just, everything is so blurry and confusing. The me of the past few years, the me before that, and even the me now seem so far away.”
Drop your head heavily and cover your face with both hands.
“……It’s all my karma.”
That’s the story behind the Cellbrox Labs. In the past, the lab had done research that was off-limits to the outside world, hurt each other, and helped plunge a continent into a quagmire.
By the end of Polaris, the Professor is no longer a pure player. His unrelated actions are uncovered and, like Kushan, he is a sinner. As a character.
The professor breathed raggedly, then lifted his head to face Kim.
“Hyun, I have a favor I want you to fulfill.”
“Tell me.”
“I don’t want you to know about Helena, and I don’t want you to tell Leila.”
It was something the professor of not so long ago would not have said; she was, in some ways, more vulnerable than Leila, and would not have been able to bear the guilt of concealing the truth.
This is no longer the case.
I wouldn’t characterize this as growth.
“The distant past, the near past, and now. Because even though we’re different in so many ways, I still know that I care about him.”
“Doesn’t that make you feel like you need to tell me more?”
“Maybe that’s the mentality, but sorry, it’s not me.”
As much as she cares about Leila, she wants to be treated with the same respect, the professor said.
“I know it sounds shameless… but this is how I really feel.”
“Well, yeah. I don’t want to make a scene either.”
Kim accepted the professor’s request.
The idea that Helena was trying to exclude the professor is not paranoia. Indeed, the Helena who emerged in the flashbacks was not the maternal, saintly soldier Leila knew.
‘I’ve been called a lot of names.
A character that has been criticized by the community.
His skills as a researcher are the least developed of the lab’s major figures, and he’s the boss who tells him that he’s too good to be true. While I can understand his motives, his methods are hard to criticize.
Even if the professor had followed Helena’s advice and stopped his research, there is no guarantee that things would have been any better. One way or another, the disaster would have continued, and the emperor would have continued to be unrelenting.
“It’s all in the eye of the beholder.
However, there is one thing we can say with certainty.
If you can end a catastrophe now, that’s as close to a “good” as you can get.
A professor must prove his goodness by his actions.
“There’s a way to get rid of the crack.”
Determination flashed in his deep, clear eyes.
* * *
Xuran Imperial Palace.
Maximilian once again confronted Kim and the professor. His impression of the professor was very different from the last time: not only was he physically imposing, but his aura had changed.
It didn’t matter, compared to what she said.
“There is a device near Shiran that can induce a rift.”
“……induces cracking, what exactly does that mean?”
“It’s exactly what it sounds like. The fissures are the erosion of the continent, the pollution, you can’t see it, but the continent is already eroded, and fissures can happen anywhere.”
The professor continued.
“Let’s say, hypothetically, that the continent is currently contaminated by a value of 100, and the rifts each have a contamination value of 5. We’ve also seen in the lab that when a rift is destroyed, the area is cleansed of contamination.”
“Well, hmmm. In a worst-case scenario, there could be twenty cracks, all at the same time. Am I to understand that the loss of one would result in a deduction of five taint levels?”
“That’s the right perception.”
Maximilian’s complexion instantly brightened.
“So that means that as long as we keep closing the cracks as we are now, all the contamination will be cleaned up.”
“In theory, yes, but…….”
The professor glanced at Kim.
“That’s not realistic, because we’d never be able to keep up with the creation of cracks.”
“Yeah. You don’t know when or where it’s going to blow up, and in the meantime, it’s going to continue to pollute, and it’s going to pollute faster than it can be cleaned up, so it’s never going to end.”
“Well, yeah.”
The news is that the response is slowing down. Leila alone is not enough, and even with the addition of Kim Yi-hyun, the limitations are clear. That’s why we’ve taken other measures in the game.
“So, I’m planning to utilize the inducements you mentioned.”
A much more extreme, all-or-nothing gamble.
“We’re artificially opening up one big crack so we can write off the numbers all at once.”
Maximilian’s eyes narrowed at the professor’s words.
“……Is such a thing possible?”
“If the induction device works as designed, yes.”
Design. What that meant was obvious.
“I made some sort of deal with the Emperor a long time ago, and in return, I was involved in the creation of the device, though it had a different purpose since the rift didn’t exist then.”
The puzzle was coming together in Maximilian’s head.
“In the last 40 years, Xuran has been uncannily spared from catastrophes.”
In a calm voice, as if reciting recorded data.
“It was an embarrassing level of control, to say the least, but it was manipulative. It turned the concept of a lightning rod on its head, so to speak, and the entire continent, except for Xuran, shared the burden.”
A buried truth, unwritten and unrecorded, hit me.
“As you suspected, Laura, there is likely a connection between the Emperor and the rift. It’s possible that the device could be a trigger for the rift, although it’s not the way it was designed to be utilized.”
“For what?”
“At the time, the Emperor was acting to get his hands on the long-neglected Cellbrox Labs, and he was a human being who knew the value of the Labs and Leila as well as I or Kushan.”
Those two facts alone paint a picture.
A global threat called Rift. And the only hand to counter it. It was the kind of situation that could hold the lifeblood of a continent in its hands, just as Kim Yi Hyun once did.
“Of course, that’s just speculation at this point.”
Even as she spoke, the professor had no doubt of my assertion: the Emperor she knew had always been a madman, obsessed with nothing but the prosperity of Xuran.
“That, that insanity….”
Maximilian was horrified. It was no human handiwork. The emperor’s greed was like a monkfish’s appetite, and the professor’s knowledge was far beyond human reach.
“Let’s backtrack here.”
Toward the end of his explanation, Kim chimed in.
“This is an unprecedentedly risky operation. Even if we can fix the rift itself, Lab and Dustborn won’t be able to counter the Parasite with just their power, so we need troops to clear the way.”
“Are you asking me to fill that role in my home country?”
“I’m not asking you to be one of them, I’m just asking you to package it up nicely and deliver it to Harenthal and Cadillac.”
It was a favor I couldn’t refuse.
It is the darkness of the Cellbrox Labs and the darkness of Shiran. Exposure to the world would tarnish Shiran’s standing. More than Maximilian realized, the throne was tainted with deceit.
“……Did I mention a large crack, where does it open?”
“The most eroded places on the continent right now would qualify.”
The professor declared.
“It will be the territory of the old Shalem.”
The first parasite discovered and killed,
A ruinous nation, destroyed by one disaster after another.
The place where the Polaris story all began.
* * *
April 15, 2048.
Kim stands in front of a helicopter owned by Xu Lan. The destination was Shalem, the Cellbrojax Labs. The scattered operational teams that had responded to the rift had been instructed to assemble by Shiran’s contacts.
The professor will join us later. We have already confirmed the existence of the rift inducer. Since the professor is the only one who can handle it, she will be the one to operate it on the day of the execution.
It’s a weight you’ll have to carry on your own.
“……, what am I going to do when this is all over?”
On the helipad, the professor asked in an uneasy voice. In front of Kim Yi-hyun, he often appeared the same as he was before he regained his memory. This is because they have a strong trust in each other.
However, Kim didn’t have any advice to offer.
“Anything will do, but a catastrophe, a rift, whatever, isn’t going to make the continent whole; too many people have died, and we don’t have the means to clean up the land that’s already been contaminated.”
There is no vaccine or cure for parasitization. Depending on the situation, the continent could be further devastated. The scars left by this disaster are endlessly deep.
“I honestly think that Leila is the only one of you who can be said to have been wronged. You said it yourself, but whether it’s you or Kushan, there’s a strong sense of karma, and you have to take responsibility.”
If there’s anyone who deserves it more than Leila, it’s the professor before she lost her memory, or Kim Yi-hyun or Yoo Da-hee, who ended up here simply because they loved the game.
“But what the heck. No one else’s opinion matters.”
All I can say is that it’s up to you.
“Just do your part first. Please.”
Kim left the professor behind and boarded the helicopter.
“This will be the last time.
For a professor who has just realized his karma, this is just the beginning. But the main part of Polaris is coming to an end. For the drifter, Kim, it’s the end that ties up all the loose ends.
Naturally, there’s some hesitation.
“It shouldn’t have to be big enough to scale.
The lives of hundreds of millions of people have been swayed and bent by a few humans. And to the end, the fate of the continent rests in the hands of a few. It’s a hard weight to realize.
This makes me think.
‘It’s not like it’s a shitty thing.’
The smell of this shit is no stranger to me now.