Chapter 108

Episode 108. The King of Korea (3)

****

Boom boom boom!

Professor Mayer frowned at the loud noise. Who’s knocking on the research lab door at this hour? It’s already getting dark.

There’s no way the linguistics department has an urgent matter.

Professor Mayer slowly got up, but the lab door unlocked itself before he could even touch it.

“Professor Mayer. Stanford Ph.D. in Linguistics, specializing in Korean Studies, Semiotics, and Cognitive Psychology, correct? We have a problem that requires your expertise.”

Professor Mayer scratched his head.

A man in black—wearing a black suit and an earpiece, looking like a bodyguard—stood before him. Whatever equipment he used, it seemed he could unlock doors effortlessly.

“And who are you?”

“I’m from the government.”

Professor Mayer pondered for a moment.

“What, did you find aliens or something?”

It was a joke, but the man in black shook his head with a serious expression.

“Not today.”

“……”

“Sorry, but we’re running late. If you want to make it to the Director’s meeting on time, we need to leave now.”

“When’s the meeting?”

“In 15 minutes.”

“It’s rush hour. Just getting into the city center would take over 15 minutes—”

“There’s a helicopter on the rooftop.”

“Ah.”

“Let’s hurry. We’re out of time.”

“Who exactly is this Director? Do we really need to use a helicopter just to keep a meeting with them? If you’d told me a day earlier, I could’ve just driven.”

“The Director isn’t that kind of person.”

He didn’t seem willing to elaborate. Professor Mayer quickly packed his laptop.

“This isn’t dangerous, is it?”

“It’s very dangerous.”

“Uh, what if I don’t want to do it?”

“You can tell the Director that.”

The man in black shrugged.

****

It had been a while since the Foundation brought in an external expert. A foreign professor from Seoul National University’s linguistics department, secured through considerable effort.

“Paper Yang. Didn’t we have a meeting with an external researcher today? Something about decoding an angel’s message.”

“Yes. In 10 minutes. They’re probably being briefed in the external reception room right now.”

“Ah. Did you deliver the transcripts?”

“Yes. They should be reviewing them.”

Paper hesitated for a moment.

“But, Director, was it really necessary to deploy a helicopter? We could’ve given it another day. I heard one deployment costs as much as my monthly salary.”

Wait, does she earn that much?

“It’s about control. Scare them enough to work hard and keep their mouths shut. Plus, the helicopter pilots need to log flight hours anyway.”

Paper nodded.

****

Professor Mayer frowned as he reviewed the transcripts. The text he was analyzing was cryptic, but not impossible to decipher.

“What is this…?”

Professor Mayer sighed. Who in the world sends a helicopter just to analyze some poetry? Are these people swimming in money?

He couldn’t help but think of something.

In Lovecraft’s *The Dunwich Horror*, Professor Armitage was a literature Ph.D. That’s why he could translate the Necronomicon.

But Professor Mayer didn’t have that kind of ability. Could this really be that kind of situation?

Ah, they’re probably just eccentric rich people.

As he zoned out for a moment, a woman—no, a girl?—in a white lab coat over a vest suit entered, flanked by heavily armed soldiers.

At her gesture, the soldiers left the room.

****

I looked at Professor Mayer.

“Are you the Director?”

“Yes. Hello.”

Definitely. I checked my clipboard again.

“Anthony Mayer. Professor at Seoul National University’s Linguistics Department, specializing in Semiotics and Korean Studies. Married a Korean woman at 35, became a professor in Korea at 44. Correct?”

“Uh, close enough.”

I sat down across from Professor Mayer.

“You’ve seen the transcripts, right?”

“I’ve seen a few poems. The rest were all redacted.”

“Well… the less you know, the safer you are.”

Curiosity could get you killed.

Or dragged into our line of work. Fortunately, as a family man with much to lose, he kept his mouth shut. I pulled out the transcripts from my clipboard.

“Start the analysis, Professor.”

First poem:

– A name is such a small, fleeting thing.

The labels we give ourselves hold no meaning.

Only the reflection in others’ eyes

Becomes the means to call and define.

Professor Mayer pondered.

A poem about names. The author is unknown. It’s a four-line poem discussing the meaninglessness of the speaker’s name. Professor Mayer jotted down his thoughts on the provided paper.

“The poem suggests the speaker’s name is unimportant. It might express the fleeting nature of a passive existence defined only through others.”

“A passive existence?”

“It says ‘the reflection in others’ eyes,’ right? It implies existence only through observation, like the archetype of a tree falling in the forest.”

Magic arises from humans. It’s born from collective thought or desire. In that context, supernatural phenomena might only exist when observed.

Not all supernatural phenomena are like that, though.

Second poem:

– Need is a word too often used.

Human life is a series of needs,

But not all living beings are subjected

To an endless chain of necessity.

“What does this mean?”

Professor Mayer thought for a while.

“This… Can I assume this isn’t just a simple poem but has some special meaning? Given the content and the helicopter.”

“Go ahead.”

“It subtly expresses a sense of superiority, claiming the speaker is different from humans. The speaker asserts they’re not human.”

They really don’t seem human.

Fourth poem:

– You are the ones who bound providence with chains.

I know what you are. You are the ones

Who shattered the rainbow with a prism.

Tailors of a godless reality and providence.

“This is straightforward. It’s a critique of modern civilization. The poetic reference to Newton dismantling the rainbow is already famous. It’s also called the end of magic.”

“If magic really ended, how simple life would be. Got it.”

****

Fifth poem:

– The Foundation is not at fault.

Resisting death is every being’s

Inherent right. I have no intention

Of hindering the Foundation. I am wholly on humanity’s side.

“I’m not sure what the Foundation is. But it seems to be portrayed as an entity resisting death, a kind of ideal.”

“……”

I didn’t respond.

Sixth poem:

– Cherubim, Nephilim, Seraphim.

We are the celestial messengers

Humanity has revered for millennia,

The arbiters of providence.

But humans have usurped our place.

“This is intuitive. It’s about angels. Connecting it to the second poem, the speaker’s claim of not being human fits.”

Listening to the analysis, the poems don’t seem to have much substance. The angel’s words are grandiose but lack depth.

Seventh poem:

– You, no. War is fair.

War is not fair. Seven wars.

The seventh has not yet come.

The civil war of heaven, the war of gods.

“This is ironic. The seventh poem says the seventh war hasn’t come yet.”

I tilted my head.

“Do you know any myths or tales related to seven wars?”

“Nothing comes to mind immediately. There’s the Seven Years’ War between Britain and France. The seven deadly sins. The number seven also symbolizes a woman’s life…”

Is it just that six have passed? But seven is a highly symbolic number. The seventh might not be that important.

Eighth poem:

– 1945. Humanity triumphed.

The age of magic ended,

And the war in heaven was forcibly concluded.

History was rewritten by the tailors’ hands.

“This is easy. It references 1945, the end of World War II.”

Ninth poem:

– Enforced oblivion. We have not forgotten.

Non-human beings have not forgotten.

Only humans live on, forgetting.

The land, the angels, remember the scars.

“That’s it. What do you think? What’s the message of these poems?”

Professor Mayer closed his eyes.

“Hard to say. It could be a WWII veteran’s lament about modern civilization and the horrors of war. A pessimistic hope for the future. There’s no way to know with just this information.”

I brushed off my clothes and stood up.

“Follow me, Mr. Mayer. Let’s meet the author of these poems.”

****

Arc Cosine tilted her head.