Chapter 54

70% of urban crimes happen at night.

A man jumped from the 4th floor of a church with a flashing red cross.

*Thud.*

It seemed like he jumped once from the 2nd floor and once more from the 1st floor, landing lightly on the ground.

Amon, who had landed safely, sighed and removed his hood.

It had been a month since he planned to infiltrate the church.

As soon as he heard that Shanlai had been completely dismantled, Amon put his plan into action.

Taking advantage of the night, he kicked through the air three times, leaping through an unlocked window, and returned an hour later.

Sonia approached Amon, who had finished his investigation.

“How was it?”

Amon shook his head.

“They’re smart. I think they’ve hidden it underground.”

Amon had thought the leader’s room might be on the upper floors, like in a hospital, but it was located underground.

It was a wise choice.

In this world, unless you build something 30 stories high, it’s much wiser to place important rooms like the boss’s office underground.

After all, this is a world where not only people like Amon, who can triple jump, but also those who can climb walls or fly undetected by radar can appear from anywhere.

At least underground, there’s no way in except through tunnels, and if you try to infiltrate through a tunnel, you’re bound to get caught.

This church was no exception.

The priest of this church, whom Cash’s brother Owen attends, had his room built underground.

He claimed it was because a priest shouldn’t look down on his congregation, but Amon and Sonia didn’t believe him.

“So, how are we going down?”

Sonia asked.

Amon shrugged.

“Who do you think I am?”

“Amon.”

“…The guy who infiltrated the heart of the Hixen Group.”

Amon, who had also breached Megacorp’s security vulnerabilities.

Breaking through the security of a local church was nothing.

Realizing the meaning behind his words, Sonia cringed.

“Don’t tell me… you’re planning to cross-dress again?”

At first glance, she seemed disgusted, but her eyes sparkled slightly.

Interest and disgust.

Two conflicting emotions coexisted.

But Amon, the person in question, vehemently denied it, almost having a fit.

“No. Absolutely not.”

Cross-dressing once was enough.

The priest of this church wasn’t the type to be swayed by women, unlike the Hixen Group chairman’s son.

Cross-dressing would be pointless.

Amon had a completely different plan in mind.

“There’s a passphrase or something to go down. Just say it and walk down confidently.”

It was simple: say you came to confess, prove you’re a member of the church, and you’re in.

It might seem lax, but if a cult’s security is too tight, it’s hard to recruit new members.

Amon planned to take advantage of that.

“Really? I’m not good at that, so you do it.”

“Leave it to me.”

Amon confidently entered the church with Sonia.

The church was open 24/7 to everyone, but perhaps because it was night, there weren’t many people.

Amon headed for the stairs leading underground.

At the foot of the stairs, two armed giants glared at them.

‘This is definitely not a normal church.’

Amon observed the men’s weapons as he approached the stairs.

Amon and Sonia’s weapons were all wrapped in special cloth and hidden deep in their clothes, so at first glance, they appeared to be harmless civilians.

But the men at the stairs stopped them.

“What brings you here? The prayer room is on the 2nd floor.”

The men spoke politely, just in case Amon and Sonia were members.

But their fingers were halfway on the triggers, wary of Amon.

Amon acted slightly scared, adding a touch of timidity to his performance.

“Um… I heard I need to go downstairs to confess…”

“Who referred you?”

“Brother Owen.”

“Ah. You’re someone Brother Owen brought in.”

The men’s attitudes softened slightly at the mention of Cash’s brother’s name.

But that alone wasn’t enough to let Amon pass.

“Then what do you need from the priest?”

This was the passphrase-like thing Amon had mentioned.

If you answered something like “I need someone to listen to my worries” or “I need comfort,” they wouldn’t let you pass.

Instead, they’d just point you to the “regular” confession room on the 1st floor.

To go downstairs, you had to answer, “I came to receive a revelation.”

This was something Amon had found out by rummaging through a nun’s personal drawer on the 4th floor.

Recalling this, Amon’s lips twitched.

“Revel…”

As the word began to leave Amon’s lips, the tension in the men’s bodies eased.

Ah, this person is one of our members.

They were already thinking of letting him pass, their legs relaxing.

That’s when it happened.

*Wham!*

Amon’s uppercut sent the man’s jaw flying.

A clean hit.

The man’s eyes rolled back as he passed out.

Before the other man could react, Amon struck his throat and tripped him.

Then he snapped the fallen man’s neck, completely incapacitating him.

The entire process took less than 2 seconds.

“…”

Sonia, watching from behind, gave him a bewildered look.

“You said you knew the passphrase?”

“I did. I knew it.”

“You knew it?”

“I just couldn’t bring myself to spit out that false faith.”

“Ugh… figures.”

“Let’s move these guys first. We can dump them in the bathroom stalls.”

“Someone might notice they’re missing.”

“That’s why we came at night when there aren’t many people. But let’s move quickly.”

“Sigh…”

Sonia sighed and dragged the men to the bathroom with Amon.

*

Later, the two descended underground.

Amon tried to keep up the act of being a cult member, but he couldn’t help but snap necks along the way.

Still, the cleanup was thorough, and since it was night, there weren’t many people around, so they weren’t caught.

Finally, the two reached the deepest part of the church.

In the deepest part of the church’s basement, a thick iron door stood.

<Receiving Revelation! Do Not Disturb.>

Looking at the iron door with a cold expression, Sonia muttered.

“So that’s where the priest went.”

Before reaching this iron door, they had already been to the priest’s office.

They broke into the locked room, but no one was there.

So they searched the room and found documents about the revelation.

And the documents contained something that couldn’t be ignored.

“That revelation thing… we’ll have to check it out ourselves, right?”

“Well, we’ve come this far. No choice.”

Originally, it would have been rational to be satisfied with that and go home.

But the content of the revelation was too horrifying.

Amon and Sonia weren’t saints, nor were they champions of justice, but they judged that leaving it be could put Cash in danger.

“Then I’ll break it.”

At Sonia’s words, Amon stepped back from the iron door.

Sonia placed her hand on the iron door, closed her eyes, and began to concentrate.

“awp dake dleidy doxn si he”

Unintelligible words flowed from her mouth.

Immediately, a bright circle was drawn on the door.

Amon kicked the circle.

*Bang!*

A circular piece of iron fell off the other side, creating a large hole in the door.

The hole was big enough for the two to pass through.

Amon took the lead.

“Let’s go.”

She followed.

They had long since abandoned stealth.

Having decided to disrupt the revelation, there was no more hiding.

When they entered the room, the gazes of the priest and the others fell on them.

The priest was in his priestly robes, but the others were wearing white lab coats like scientists.

Amon and Sonia each drew their weapons.

Amon had a crossbow, Sonia had a pistol.

They weren’t fully equipped for a covert infiltration, but it was enough to deal with these people.

Amon charged at the scientists.

Immediately kicking off the air, Amon flew over their heads and shot the priest’s knees with his crossbow.

*Thwack thwack!*

Despite the weak sound, the crossbow bolts pierced the priest’s knees cleanly.

“Guh…!”

The pain of having his knees destroyed was incomparable to any other pain.

It was so horrific that he couldn’t even scream, only gasp for air.

While Amon prevented the priest from escaping, Sonia pulled the trigger in a stable stance.

*Pop.*

The pistol borrowed from Amon pierced the wrist of a scientist reaching for the alarm switch with a bottle cap popping sound.

Two more shots incapacitated the scientist.

After that, the two steadily aimed for the shoulders or knees of the researchers.

Amon’s crossbow occasionally missed, but Sonia’s shots never did.

Before they knew it, all the scientists were subdued with their knees or shoulders shattered.

“Ugh…”

While Sonia quickly bandaged the bleeding scientists, Amon grabbed the priest by the back of his neck and sat him in a chair.

Then he showed him the documents they had taken from the priest’s room.

“Wet supercomputer. Where is it?”

The priest, dazed from the pain, was startled by the words from Amon’s mouth.

“How do you know that… Could it be Shanlai’s intelligence division…!”

“No.”

There was no need to correct the misunderstanding, but Amon didn’t want to be associated with those guys.

“CIA?”

“No.”

“Then who…?”

“Can’t you grasp the situation? Just answer the question.”

It was pointless to explain that they were just individuals driven by personal faith and a sense of justice to cause chaos.

Pressing for an answer, Amon aimed his crossbow at the priest’s groin.

Reluctantly, the priest spoke.

“It’s that computer in the center…”

“Wait here. We’ll deal with you later.”

Amon left the priest in the chair and headed for the computer he had pointed out.

The computer’s main body was very small.

He pried off the cover.

But the inside was ordinary.

“Did you lie to me?”

“No. Pry up the floor.”

Hearing the priest’s words, Amon pried up the floor tiles.

And then…

“Ugh… damn it…”

He couldn’t help but curse.

Under the tiles, an acrylic floor was revealed.

Below it were computer components,

and human brains floating in tanks, connected by countless wires.

*

Since the creation of supercomputers, countless attempts have been made to predict the future through them.

Numerous leaders, entrepreneurs, and scientists believed that using vast arrays of processing units and AI trained over long periods could simulate the future.

But no one succeeded.

Because human emotions were variables that couldn’t be calculated.

At best, predicting the tendencies of large groups was possible, but even that only reached 75%, with the remaining 25% completely changing the future due to individual incitement or emotions.

If trying to predict an individual, the success rate dropped to 55%.

Even the scientists operating the supercomputer or the leaders wanting to use it were emotional beings, making practical application nearly impossible.

In other words, emotions were variables that AI or CPUs couldn’t perfectly predict.

In that situation, one scientist had an idea.

– “What if we put human emotions themselves into the components?”

That casual suggestion was accepted by leaders who valued human life less than that of flies, and a wet supercomputer combining human brains, processing units, and AI was completed.

The completed wet supercomputer succeeded in predicting individuals.

Moreover, the more brains networked together, the more complex human relationships and emotional variables it could calculate.

And that wet computer was operating in the form of “revelation” in the church’s basement.

“You’re really worse than an animal.”

“Please-”

*Pop.*

Amon pulled the trigger.

The priest’s body slumped down.

The source of these brains went without saying.

In a city rife with human trafficking and murder, it wasn’t strange for someone to go missing after attending church.

This wouldn’t even make the list of investigations.

Amon looked down at the tanks with cold eyes.

Then, he suddenly noticed something strange in the priest’s explanation.

The leader’s permission.

That word bothered him.

Amon immediately went through the documents again.

He checked the computer’s internal data and administrator information.

In the back of his mind, he recalled the name of Cash’s father, the chairman of Rekhetio Corporation.

But the more he investigated, the more the chairman’s name faded from Amon’s mind.

Instead, it was replaced by the name of Cash’s mother.

[Mary Iliya]

Amon had thought she was a victim of the cult.

But that wasn’t the case.

[Following the orders of High Priest Iliya.]

She wasn’t a mere follower but the high priest.

But there was something even more surprising.

She wasn’t stupid, nor was she delusional.

She had a rational basis for creating this cult.

[The blood of Rekhetio is blessed by God. They carry the blood of prophets who can lift the veil and glimpse the future.]

[But God has abandoned my son. That child was not allowed to see the future.]

[I am that child’s mother. Even if God, my husband, and the elders of the family abandon my son, I cannot abandon him.]

She wasn’t stupid.

She was just insane.

[Research Log. XXXX Year X Month X Day]

[The computer is almost complete. The prototype in the church basement will be given to the priest.]

[Because that computer is incomplete.]

[Sorrow, joy, anger. The computer could calculate most emotions.]

[But it couldn’t calculate love.]

[The AI couldn’t understand how far humans would go for love.]

[So I decided to complete the final key and give it to my son as a gift.]

[Owen. My beloved son. I’m always sorry for bringing you into this world like this.]

[This is the only gift I, your inadequate mother, can give you.]

[Even though I’m lacking, I’m confident that my love for you is second to none.]

[As much as I love you, the computer will give you more accurate revelations.]

[Don’t be sad. I’m not dying.]

[I’ll be watching over you forever.]

[All of this is for you.]

She was insane, thoroughly insane.

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