The Foreigner on the Periphery

The Kavite civilization was influenced by Endelion from its very beginning.

At the time, Endelion was wavering between theism and atheism, and the religious views of the Kavites naturally came to reflect that.

'If God truly exists, he is flawless—an absolute good entirely free from evil. Only he can bestow an unconditional love that transcends race and class. Such a thing is impossible for mortals, but God can achieve it.'

Records documented exactly how far Endelion had advanced thanks to God's gifts. If a god loved them enough to appear in the guise of a tentacled monster, surely he would express that same love to the Kavites.

'Through him, we can become greater than we are now!'

But they could not wait forever. They might very well go extinct before God returned. Unlike him, they were flawed beings living alongside malice and violence—and the Kavites and Todd were particularly aggressive in expressing both.

At that rate, the blades they held could have cut each other's throats at any given moment.

Ultimately, thanks to Endelion's contributions, they achieved a form of time travel through hibernation—and their gamble succeeded.

Looking back, it was nothing short of a miracle.

Among the reawakened Ancient Race, the ones who found God first were not Endelion, but the Kavites. It was an astonishing achievement, even by their own estimation.

At first, the Kavites tried to hide this discovery from the rest of the Ancient Race, intending to monopolize communication with God.

However.

'This is... somewhat strange.'

Originally, the Kavites had worried they would be unable to properly communicate with God.

Mortals might fail to comprehend the thoughts of a divine being, and the desires mortals expressed might hold zero value to a god.

But the primordial race they encountered...

'As we conversed, I found myself empathizing with him. The emotions and thoughts he expressed... did not seem all that different from ours. I even felt a sense of fondness toward him.'

People could empathize with God.

That very fact brought the Kavites terror instead of joy.

'Is it truly the right choice to wake them all?'

All this time, the Kavites had been desperately searching for a subject to worship.

A god had to be an omnipotent, absolute being occupying the realm of the incomprehensible.

But the god they had stumbled upon... was just a person.

'Since they are people, they too must harbor evil and hatred. It doesn't matter how peaceful and rational the one I spoke with is. I say again, the problem is that his kin are also people.'

The Kavites projected their own ugliest qualities onto the word 'people.'

The Kavites felt threatened by the fact that beings possessing power untouchable by existing civilizations still thought and felt at the level of mere people.

'The god we envisioned loves people unconditionally. But people...'

People could swing their blades at one another at any given moment. This was a fact proven by the history of the universe.

But what if those blades harbored the power to drive everyone else to extinction?

'People wielding such transcendent power must not be allowed to return.'

Fortunately, this god had not yet recovered his power.

Therefore, their only chance was now.

It was an ideological shift that dragged a Transcendent down into the secular realm. The atheistic worldview was finally complete; it was the moment the Ancient Race declared the death of God.

Though these beings genuinely existed, they could no longer command the worship of people.

Now, gods no longer existed.

   *

"You are merely trying to enact your revenge on us. This isn't some authoritative punishment; it's nothing more than repaying blood with blood. Seeing this only proves that our choice was inevitable!"

the Grand Committeeman shouted, his voice boiling with anguish.

Even after completely seizing control of his body, Minjun had deliberately left his ability to speak intact. The Kavite guessed that this, too, was part of his revenge.

That made it all the more horrifying.

"Awakening people who could exterminate every race on a whim with our own hands? How could we do that unless we were completely insane?!"

A being wielding such power had to be an avatar of absolute good, transcending the thoughts of mortal people.

But the Minjun they had witnessed was all too human... and even temporarily defenseless.

"The moment we awakened the rest, we would have been entering a relationship with a group of people, not gods. And eventually, we would have formed grudges against one another. Just as people so commonly do!"

The grudges of ordinary races led to war.

But a grudge harbored by the primordial race would lead to absolute slaughter.

"Even if we committed no sins against you, your slightest whim could have ruined us all! We couldn't afford to take that risk!"

Minjun tilted his head as he listened to the venom pouring out of him.

His ensuing voice carried a trace of amusement.

"I clearly promised you. I said that once my kin awakened, we would help you. You were the ones who broke that pact."

"It was a promise completely dependent on your goodwill. Not the favor of gods, but the favor of people! With no one to monitor or enforce it, what would have happened if they all woke up? We would have lived like livestock, praying every single day that you wouldn't suddenly change your minds and devour us!"

In the end, the Kavites simply could not trust Minjun or the primordial race.

It was much like the classic prisoner's dilemma.

The most desirable future was one where neither side betrayed the other. The primordial race would have awakened, and the Kavites would have received their help and prospered.

But the most terrifying future was one where only the primordial race betrayed them. If they awakened and broke their promise, the Kavites might have been reduced to something worse than livestock.

Therefore, weighing the benefits against the risks from the Kavites' perspective, their best option was to strike first before the primordial race could betray them. The Grand Committeeman never doubted that this was the right choice.

Their only mistake was...

"Our only mistake was underestimating you. Even if it took eons... we should have found Asiph-1 with our own strength and exiled you forever!"

Minjun stated in a deadpan voice,

"I actually agree with you on that."

"...?!"

Minjun's failure lay in his inability to endure that vast stretch of time, and the Kavites' failure was exactly the same.

But they had made another mistake.

"Nipping a threat in the bud before it can harm you is common among beasts. Animals that relentlessly smash the eggs of predators exist everywhere. It's the providence of nature, the sheer instinct of a beast."

The Kavite had a sinking feeling about where this was going.

He raised his voice to refute him, but in that very moment, something like tiny grains surged up his throat.

"But that is the method of a beast. It is not the way of people. No one hangs the neighbor's child just because that kid might eventually grow strong enough to strangle them."

Minjun had always referred to the Kavites as beasts.

Because he judged them entirely unqualified to be considered people.

"The reason people don't do that is because they possess the capacity to judge right from wrong. And there is one other important reason."

A faint smile graced Minjun's lips.

"Because the moment you strike out, you hand over the hilt of the blade. The right to demand revenge and exact punishment is birthed right into the victim's hands. And you lot gifted that exact right to the absolute worst opponent imaginable."

And Minjun fully intended to exercise that right without holding back.

"Ugh! Mmmph!"

The Grand Committeeman could no longer speak. The tiny grains packing his mouth wriggled relentlessly, burrowing into his throat and the roof of his mouth.

The Kavite had no choice but to choke down his final protest.

'We... we only wanted to protect ourselves.'

The bugs burrowing into his flesh hatched their young, multiplying in an instant. Roll! His pupils darted downward against his will.

The Kavite, who had been left with only half of his body, finally realized what was happening beneath his severed waist.

Blood vessels, nerves, and muscle fibers were sprouting out like the roots of a tree. That grisly construction was the work of the bugs burrowing through his body.

The Grand Committeeman had initially mistaken them for Happy Bugs, but these were a new breed of organism Minjun had modified to suit his purposes.

Taking over the host's nervous system, they burrowed deep into the muscles to parasitize them and replace missing body parts.

Much like a parasite that devours a fish's flesh only to replace its tongue and jaw.

Srrk!

The Grand Committeeman's body began to move. Once again, it was entirely against his will. The Kavite's lower half had been replaced by a sprawling stump of interwoven bugs and muscle mass, acting as his new legs.

"You've likely already guessed."

The Kavite shrieked through mental waves. Minjun simply ignored it and continued.

"I am not going to brainwash you."

Absolute obedience often brought about a twisted sense of happiness. Fanatics, for example, could even learn to enjoy their own pain.

Minjun didn't want that.

He planned to strip away the Grand Committeeman's physical autonomy while leaving his free will perfectly intact. He knew that, depending on the circumstances, the freedom to think could become its own hellish punishment.

"And unlike the other beasts, I won't kill you either. I will give you the eternal life you so desperately craved. Those bugs will ceaselessly replace your decaying flesh."

The Kavite had dreamed of achieving perfect eternal life through dragon blood.

Coincidentally enough, the bugs now parasitizing his body were practically born from dragon blood. The driving force that allowed them to burrow, hatch, and grow so instantaneously was the abnormal vitality Minjun had infused into them. And naturally, that vitality had come from the dragon blood Minjun had absorbed.

In a twisted way, the Kavite had finally achieved his eternal life through dragon blood.

"I am giving you a front-row seat to watch. You will witness the complete downfall of the race you tried so desperately to uplift."

The Kavite wept.

   *

'What in the world is going on?!'

The manager of Yongreung felt like he was losing his mind.

He was moving alongside his escorts aboard a flying craft.

'Why is this happening to me?!'

Their craft had departed from a control room that jutted out like a balcony, and it was currently descending through the center of the structure.

Viewed from the outside, Yongreung looked like an inverted pyramid. Yet its core was a hollow, cylindrical abyss that plunged straight from the roof down into the underground. The depth to which it pierced the earth was nearly identical to the height of the structure looming above ground.

This area could only be accessed through the top-floor control room, as the raw materials that fueled the Mana Crystal production line were stored down here.

The manager cast a pale gaze downward. At the very bottom of the cylindrical void sat a separate operation room. That was their destination.

The manager recalled the Grand Committeeman's orders.

'This is insane. Do I really... have to do this?'

Just this morning, it had been a day like any other.

His daily routine had begun with offering his greetings to the Grand Committeeman, who had been visiting once a day as of late.

"So, you are telling me there is absolutely no way to increase Mana Crystal production?!"

The man barking at him was one of the elders perched at the very pinnacle of their race's hierarchy.

He belonged to the group known as the 'First Awakened'—the very ones who had proposed the hibernation protocol and executed it themselves.

He was also a war hero who had provided the decisive opening they needed to defeat the dragons.

Thus, instead of talking back to the irate elder, the manager had simply repeated his tedious explanation.

"Ever since the state of emergency was declared over Asif-666, Yongreung has been operating at maximum capacity. Pushing past this limit is impossible without some sort of revolutionary breakthrough."

"Finding that revolutionary breakthrough was exactly what I ordered you to do! Furthermore, we have more than enough materials, don't we? I can see them with my own eyes right now!"

The manager, replaying their morning conversation in his head, suddenly turned his head.

Their craft had come to a halt.

"We have arrived."

He opened the door, stepped out, and stared out the window of the operation room.

A colossal cluster of red ore was piled as high as a mountain.

'Dragon Hearts...!'

The sight before him was enough to instantly trigger another war if the Dragon Race ever found out.

Here in Yongreung—a place the Kavites had only discovered thanks to the primordial race—lay a stockpile of Dragon Hearts vast enough to last for untold eons without ever running dry.

The raw material for Mana Crystals.

The raw energy that could be extracted directly from a Dragon Heart was limited. Just as crude oil was difficult to burn in its unrefined state, converting the hearts into Mana Crystals required a highly complex incantation. It was a spell taught to them by the primordial race in the distant past.

Of course, the original intent was to refine fuel to awaken the rest of their kin, but the Kavites had betrayed them, hoarding the resource to ensure the prosperity of their own civilization.

However, because the betrayed Asif-666 refused to cooperate any further, there had been zero improvements made to the incantation since that day. As a result, the production of Mana Crystals was still nearly one hundred percent manual labor.

That was why production bottlenecked despite their boundless stockpile of raw materials.

'And he wants me to blow all this up...?!'

He recalled the Grand Committeeman's final orders.

"Head down there and annihilate every last remaining Dragon Heart! I want you to blow this entire planet to dust!"

"What? But...!"

"It is better for our kin to destroy it all rather than let it fall into Asif-666's hands."

The manager began manipulating the facility's terminal, typing in a secret sequence only he possessed. His voice trembled as he issued the self-destruct overrides to the artificial intelligence.

'Why... why do I have to die here? I was guaranteed eternal life! Why must I die here...!'

Even if he stubbornly held his ground, he would only end up butchered by Asif-666.

Die a meaningless death, or sacrifice himself as a heroic martyr for his kin?

He had no other choice.

Yet, that didn't change the fact that he was orchestrating his own execution. A deep sense of despair gripped him, making him feel like a prisoner of war being forced to dig his own grave. His sheer survival instinct made his fingers sluggish over the controls.

Just then.

Swaaaak!

The manager heard a sharp, piercing sound rip through the air. He fought a frantic internal battle between the urge to turn around and the paralyzing fear that he absolutely shouldn't.

Thud!

That was followed by an ominous crash echoing right behind his head.

"No... no...!"

The manager kept operating the console, no longer even sure of what he was hoping for.

Splatter!

Hot liquid erupted in all directions, raining down across the room. Feeling it splatter against his back, the manager shuddered. The foul, metallic stench of Kavite bodily fluids began to flood the air.

"Please!"

Clang! Bang! Craaack! Boom!

The grotesque sound of something hard being relentlessly crushed and minced by something even harder was drawing closer.

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