Chapter 195. Where We Will All Arrive (3)
“It’s a small place, but come in and make yourself comfortable. If I’d known I was getting a guest, I would’ve bought something to drink.”
The middle-aged woman who had let No. 5 inside spoke casually.
No. 5 followed her into the house without thinking much of it.
Then a framed photograph across the room caught her eye.
“Ah...”
A gasp escaped her lips.
Inside the frame was a smiling boy who looked to be around twelve years old.
No. 5 recognized him instantly.
“What is it?”
“My son.”
“That’s my son!”
No. 5 answered with overwhelming emotion.
No one needed to tell her.
She instinctively knew that this boy was the child she had given birth to.
More than anything, the instant she saw his face, an overwhelming affection surged inside her.
That alone was proof enough.
“You recognized Hikaru immediately.”
“Abraxas’s technology really is remarkable.”
The middle-aged woman answered calmly.
No. 5 immediately latched onto the name.
“Hikaru?”
“My son’s name is Hikaru?”
Instead of answering, the woman let out a long sigh.
“It’s a long story.”
She sat down on the sofa in the living room.
No. 5 took a seat across from her.
Then the woman began speaking calmly.
“I worked as an intelligence agent for the CIA in the United States for many years.”
“Then I met a man and became pregnant.”
“We were happy.”
She paused and swept aside the hair covering her face.
The dark burn scars No. 5 had noticed earlier became fully visible.
“Until someone bombed us.”
The scars were not limited to the left side of her face.
They extended over her ear and down toward her neck.
It looked as though she had taken the blast from close range along one side of her body.
“My husband died.”
“I survived, but my face was burned.”
“With a face like this, I couldn’t continue working as an intelligence agent.”
“So I returned to my home country, Japan.”
No. 5 remembered being taught that intelligence operatives needed to blend naturally into crowds.
Anything physically distinctive could become a liability.
“After I returned to Japan, I needed money.”
“My son had just been born.”
“Raising a child costs a lot.”
The woman glanced at No. 5.
“That was when Abraxas approached me.”
“They said they had been watching my intelligence skills for a long time.”
“In exchange for a large amount of money, they gave me two conditions.”
“What are you trying to say?”
No. 5 hurriedly asked, sensing something deeply unsettling.
The woman continued anyway.
“First, I was never to return to society.”
“I was to live as quietly as if I were dead.”
“That condition was easy enough.”
“With my face like this, living a normal public life was already impossible.”
Only then did No. 5 understand why the woman had reacted so violently when she appeared outside.
After making that deal, someone from Abraxas had suddenly shown up again.
Of course she had been alarmed.
“Second, I had to provide them with my genetic information.”
“They said they would use my genes to create a capable clone and turn it into a biological weapon.”
“Th-Then...”
No. 5 stammered.
A terrible possibility flashed through her mind.
The middle-aged woman stared directly into her face.
“I’m your original.”
“My name is Ohara Megumi.”
Victoria was trapped in an indescribable ocean of thought.
With every passing second, unimaginable calculations and computations flooded into her mind.
There was nothing she could do.
She could only think.
And think.
And think.
There was no destination in this ocean of thought.
Like a tiny boat caught in a storm, she could only endure the endless waves of thought crashing over her entire existence.
It felt as though ideas were being forcibly crammed into every single brain cell.
Victoria wanted to scream from the pain.
But right now, she had no mouth.
All sensation from her body had long since disappeared.
She was effectively nothing more than a single brain.
Think.
Think.
Think.
Calculate.
Calculate.
Calculate.
Compute.
Compute.
Compute.
Inside that endless ocean of thought with no destination, Victoria answered every question humanity was capable of reaching.
And in the end, only one remained.
The final point of all calculation.
The moment she became aware of it, fear surged through her.
That was not a realm she could control.
Instinctively, she knew that if she reached it, the existence known as Victoria would shatter completely.
But the ocean of thought swallowing her consciousness did not stop.
It forcibly pushed Victoria’s mind toward the final question.
“Victoria!”
“Victoria! Can you hear me?!”
Then, suddenly, the ocean of thought stopped.
Victoria slowly opened her eyes to the sound of someone calling her.
Yukgap’s urgent face came into view.
Victoria struggled to speak.
“Yuk...gap...?”
“Do you recognize me?”
At his question, Victoria gave him a faint smile.
“Of course I do.”
“You’re Yukgap, the one and only chef of Restaurant Shelley.”
“Thank goodness.”
Yukgap let out a breath of relief.
The transmitter lay discarded beside him.
Apparently, Yukgap had forcibly pulled it off her.
“How did you come back to your senses?”
Victoria asked as she struggled to sit up.
A loud answer immediately came from behind her.
“It’s all thanks to us. You should be grateful.”
“We had kimchi brought over on the off chance it might help.”
“Once he ate it, he came back to his senses.”
It was No. 7 and No. 8.
They were holding kimchi.
Apparently, after realizing something was wrong with Yukgap, they had fed him kimchi to restore his memories.
“The power of kimchi really is amazing.”
Victoria muttered in admiration.
She had always felt this way, but to Koreans, kimchi seemed less like ordinary food and more like some kind of spiritual pillar.
[Ah.]
At that moment, a short gasp came through the speakers.
Alpha.
It gradually grew louder.
[Ahhhhhh!]
