Thinking that Jurim was at least someone he could reason with, Serhi turned toward him and opened his mouth.
“I’m from Kirus, and I was—what do you call it?—basically a lab mannequin they experimented on in a lab that was researching Awakening.”
Jurim flinched at the words “research” and “experimentation.”
After the Cataclysm, every country in the world had seen a surge in unethical experiments.
There were over ten confirmed cases in Korea alone.
Regardless of whether the intent was good or evil, human experimentation itself had become far from uncommon.
Even so, it was hard not to react on instinct.
“I always thought Gnosis was the one who saved me from that lab. But I think... I was being played by Gnosis all along.”
“Gnosis experimented on you?”
“Maybe not from the start, but I’m sure they were involved.”
Serhi began dragging up memories as dark as pitch.
The researchers had changed many times, and the handlers assigned to him rotated constantly. Not that it made a difference—what they did was all the same anyway.
He remembered the sky on the day the lab crumbled like a candy house.
A clear blue sky, dotted with lazily drifting clouds. So this is how big the sky is.
The emotion Serhi felt as he stared at that vast expanse—
It was fear, hidden beneath the feeling of liberation.
All he could remember was the life of a test subject in that lab.
He didn’t know his name, his age, or anything about the outside world.
The lab had always been the place he most wanted to escape from, but once that confinement vanished, the boy trembled with fear.
That was why he clung to Irina even more tightly.
The world was too vast, too terrifying.
He hid in the space Irina had created for him and wandered freely only through the internet.
To the boy, Gnosis was the one who saved him from that lab, who crushed the complicit Kirus, and who helped him overcome his fear of the world.
So he thought, Living like this is enough.
Whenever memories of the collapsing Kirus and the people dying surfaced, Serhi would repeat those words to himself.
Never realizing it was all a farce built on lies.
But until he entered the [RP-Rank Dungeon], truly, that life had felt like enough
Serhi suddenly remembered the pastoral squirrel farm, the excavator trundling through it, and the squirrels scampering about. And the flying squirrel who puffed up with pride, declaring himself king.
Experience was terrifying.
Once you tasted something sweet, you could never go back to life before it.
“My eyes turned out like this because of the experiments.”
Serhi pulled down the lower lid of his left eye, tugging at the undereye fat.
“Guru saw Gnosis’s mark in my eye.”
Guru? Both Gidan # Nоvеlight # and Kim Jongwon couldn’t hide their surprise at the sudden name drop.
“So doesn’t that make my whole ‘Gnosis saved me’ thing contradictory? They reawakened me first, then pretended like they rescued me afterwards.”
Hmph. Jurim covered his mouth with one hand.
It made sense.
He’d been tricked into joining Gnosis, realized it wasn’t what he thought, and decided to leave.
And now, he’d come to Hyeonak—likely for that very reason.
Guru...
Just like Guru had grown attached to him, it was probably the same the other way around.
Jurim let out a faint, dry laugh.
Leave a little kid alone, and she’d bring back all sorts of things.
A famous child actor, a hatching fridge egg, and now... Gnosis.
Whether or not what this kid said was true, there were ways to verify it—so that could wait.
“I get your situation. So, what’d you bring to the table?”
No criminal left their organization without a plan.
Anyone looking to negotiate always came with at least one or two pieces of insurance.
“You going to give us Gnosis’s base in Korea or something?”
“It’s probably destroyed already. It’s an interdimensional pocket, easy to relocate. What I brought isn’t that. It’s this.”
Serhi pulled something like a shard of broken glass from his inventory.
Jurim recognized it and rested his chin on his hand.
“That’s a leftover crumb from my kid’s pet after it ate. You know that, right?”
It was a fragment of the RP Dungeon core he had shattered.
Jurim’s way of saying “that’s trash” was clear, so Serhi added more detail.
“Irina’s going to open another RP Dungeon. That one was a prototype. The next one will be the real thing.”
“Irina?”
“She’s the Gnosis member based in Korea. Zhenya... I mean, her Korean name is Jin Siwon’s younger sister.”
“What?!”
Gidan jolted up with his mouth hanging open.
“Th-then is that why Team Leader Jin defected to Korea?”
Raid Team 1’s leader whispered to Jurim.
“Looks like it.”
Jurim frowned like he’d just been handed another headache.
Serhi rolled the core shard across the desk as he continued nonchalantly.
“That was what they needed it for. To open it. If you want to artificially create an RP Dungeon, you need a new core. You need a foundational database to project the space.”
Mmm. Jurim nodded slowly.
“Why RP specifically? To get artifacts?”
“No, more like... You know how RP is a world that replays the civilization the System was born from, right? They want to find the System’s origin. Who created it, how they made it, what they used.”
The origin of the System? Jurim narrowed his eyes.
“What does Gnosis want to do with that?”
If that were the goal, Gnosis would only be generating RP Dungeons.
But Gnosis’s experiments were wide-ranging and diverse.
So the origin chase was likely just one step toward a bigger goal.
“I dunno. Irina just does whatever she wants and only says what she feels like. I’m not all that curious about stuff, either.”
The team leader tapped the table in frustration.
“And you expect us to believe all that?”
Serhi folded his arms and replied, unimpressed.
“That’s all I know. If you don’t wanna believe it, don’t.”
“Is it just you and Irina here in Korea?”
“Far as I know, yeah. I moved here from Kirus with her. I haven’t seen any other Gnosis members.”
That wasn’t entirely implausible.
Gnosis specialized in large-scale experiments, and it would be harder to operate in a developed country like this.
“Is Irina the head of Gnosis?”
“No, I don’t think so. She said she was chosen, too.”
“Chosen?”
Serhi gave a short shake of his head, as if that was the end of what he knew.
Jurim tilted his head.
“Doesn’t seem like you know much.”
“Well... figured you’d say that—”
Serhi opened his hand. The RP core shard shimmered.
“—so I brought this.”
Jurim let out a faint laugh at the boy’s sulky face.
Even if he was Gnosis, he was the same age as Gidan. Sixteen. His mannerisms were immature, and his face was unmistakably youthful.
An S-Rank kid—no wonder Gnosis found him so useful.
“Well, whatever. Catching Gnosis isn’t our job. That’s for the government to negotiate.”
Serhi nodded.
“Yeah, that’s why I came. I’m a foreigner, and honestly, I don’t really know what I’m supposed to do. Wouldn’t it be better to be affiliated with someone? Like, for protection or paperwork or whatever? I’d need all that, right?”
Kim Jongwon let out a heavy sigh.
“You want us to help you get a lawyer or something?”
Serhi looked away and spoke in a flat voice, deliberately suppressing all emotion.
“Or maybe keep me safe from Jin Siwon.”
“What did you do to Team Leader Jin?”
After hesitating, Serhi puffed out a balloon.
“...Ganged up on him and stabbed him in the back?”
Gidan, who had been silently watching, muttered,
“Damn, your Korean’s really good.”
Serhi turned toward Gidan with a slightly surprised look.
“That’s the first time anyone’s said that.”
Gidan grinned.
Jurim clutched his throbbing head as the two underage boys bonded through profanity.
“Gidan. Out.”
“Ugh...”
Gidan stood up with slumped shoulders.
Dragging his feet, he pulled open the door.
Just outside, something small sat curled up with her head bowed low.
As the door shut behind him, Gidan looked down at Guru, who was squatting against the opposite wall.
All throughout the interrogation with Serhi, he had sensed that small presence pacing circles in the hallway. She had probably heard everything from just outside the door.
Gidan sat beside her, wrapped an arm around her shoulders, and pulled her into a side hug.
“Our Guru’s got a real knack for scouting. How the hell’d you manage to bring Gnosis home?”

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