Chapter 34. The Auction House Beneath the Crescent Moon (3)
“Hello.”
At that moment, a gray-haired man walked out from beyond the tanks.
He was neatly dressed.
Yukgap looked him over and asked,
“Are you Doctor Mozg?”
“That is correct, No. 6.”
The moment Yukgap heard his old designation, his body flinched instinctively.
Only the Twelve Archons of Abraxas and a very small number of related personnel knew about his existence.
Yet this man spoke his code number as though it were common knowledge.
“How do you know that name?”
“For an information broker, knowing that much is basic.”
Doctor Mozg smiled.
Then he casually added,
“I also know why you came here.”
“...Then this conversation should be easy. I hate beating around the bush, so I’ll get straight to the point. I want to know about my past and my family.”
Doctor Mozg suddenly chuckled.
“Hehehe.”
“Why are you laughing?”
“Why do you want to know?”
Doctor Mozg sounded as though he were testing him.
Yukgap immediately frowned.
“Isn’t that obvious? Wouldn’t anyone want to know who they are and where they came from?”
“There is also a saying that ignorance is bliss.”
Doctor Mozg casually threw out the cryptic remark.
Yukgap’s expression immediately hardened.
“What are you trying to tell me?”
“What if your past is the exact opposite of what you hope for? Perhaps you lived a terrible life. Perhaps your family members were not good people either.”
Doctor Mozg calmly continued.
“No. 6, why not simply forget everything and continue living under your new name?”
A predatory gleam flashed through Yukgap’s eyes.
He gave a low growl.
For a moment, he looked exactly like an enraged beast.
“I’m warning you. Don’t call me by that name.”
Doctor Mozg tilted his head.
“Then what should I call you?”
“Yukgap. That’s my name now.”
Doctor Mozg nodded.
“Very well, Mr. Yukgap. In any case, I am an information broker. If you pay the proper price, I can sell you any information you want.”
“Do you have information about my past?”
“Unfortunately, Abraxas is extremely sensitive about information leaks. Even we only possess fragments.”
At least that did not sound like a lie.
Yukgap had hoped this place would finally reveal something about himself.
Disappointment entered his voice.
“I see.”
Doctor Mozg then carefully added,
“However, there is someone who may know about you.”
“What? Who?”
Yukgap immediately looked up.
Doctor Mozg extended a hand toward him.
“Are you curious? Then pay the price.”
As expected.
Yukgap had never believed the information would be free.
He calmly asked,
“Fine. What do you want?”
“An information fee. One hundred thousand dollars in cash.”
Yukgap thought he had misheard.
One hundred thousand dollars.
That was well over a hundred million won.
“One hundred thousand dollars? Are you insane?! There’s no way I have that kind of money!”
Doctor Mozg immediately offered another option.
“Then there is another method. The Abraxas Archon who visited me recently accepted the same arrangement and bought information from me.”
“What is it?”
Doctor Mozg smiled sinisterly.
“Kill someone I designate. That should be very easy for an Archon of Abraxas, shouldn’t it?”
Yukgap instinctively flinched.
He had expected something like this.
But hearing the offer directly was different.
“No.”
“Excuse me? You’re one of the Twelve Archons. Killing people is practically your everyday life, isn’t it?”
“I want to face my family with at least a little dignity. I know the sins I’ve already committed won’t disappear. But at least until the moment I meet them again, I don’t want to throw away my humanity.”
Yukgap continued in a firm voice.
“I’m not a weapon. I’m a person.”
Doctor Mozg burst into loud laughter.
“Hahahahahaha! Fascinating! An Archon of Abraxas has developed an error. That itself is incredibly valuable information!”
“Laugh if you want. I’m still not killing anyone.”
Yukgap did not back down.
Then he narrowed his eyes.
“Besides, you’re not the real Doctor Mozg anyway.”
Doctor Mozg’s laughter stopped instantly.
His voice sharpened.
“What do you mean?”
“Seryun said Doctor Mozg was an ‘annoying woman.’ But you’re a man. And there’s only one ‘woman’ in this place.”
Yukgap drew a dagger from his waist.
Then he hurled it toward one of the tanks.
“Doctor Mozg! If you want to make a deal, stop hiding behind a stupid stand-in and come out yourself!”
Yukgap roared toward the brain floating inside the tank.
The dagger slammed into the ground directly in front of it.
If he had thrown it only a few centimeters farther, the glass tank would have shattered.
[Sharp... eyes...]
A crackling mechanical voice came from beyond the tank.
The gray-haired man who had been speaking with Yukgap bowed toward it.
“My apologies, Master.”
[It’s fine, Leon. He is one of Abraxas’s Twelve Archons. I expected him to notice eventually.]
Several wires beside the tank beeped.
Then the other brains connected to it began twitching all at once.
They looked almost like living creatures stretching after waking from sleep.
“Finally feel like coming out yourself?”
Yukgap glared at the tank.
A small camera lens extended from beside it.
Apparently, that served as her eye.
[How did you know I was the real Doctor Mozg?]
The real Doctor Mozg sounded genuinely curious.
Yukgap answered casually.
“I know someone who looks a lot like you. It wasn’t hard to guess. Did you turn yourself into that just to gather information?”
[All I needed to store information was a brain. I had no need for an aging body. I simply chose the most efficient form.]
And the result was a brain floating in a tank.
There was only one thing Yukgap could say.
“You’re insane.”
[Those who reject the natural order tend to live that way. Just like the Lich alchemist who introduced you to me.]
There was not a trace of regret in Doctor Mozg’s voice.
If anything, she sounded proud.
[Thanks to this, I have lived for what feels like eternity, gathering information from every corner of the world. To contain all the knowledge in existence. That is my dream and my purpose.]
There was a bottomless madness and obsession in her words.
Yukgap asked again,
“So are you going to sell me the information?”
[My offer has not changed. Bring me one hundred thousand dollars in cash, or kill the person I designate. Otherwise, you get nothing.]
Doctor Mozg was firm.
Yukgap desperately pressed her.
“Then give me another option! I’ll give you anything else!”
[If you insist, there is one other method.]
Doctor Mozg spoke as though doing him a favor.
The wires connected to the tank suddenly glowed.
At the same time, the interior of the tent began violently shaking.
“Whoa!”
Yukgap shouted in surprise.
It felt as though everything around him had suddenly come alive.
Then the floor split open.
Several enormous mechanical arms covered in wires erupted upward.
They shot toward Yukgap at tremendous speed.
[Give me your body. Even I still know very little about the Twelve Archons. I’ll study you and obtain knowledge I don’t yet possess!]
Doctor Mozg’s greedy voice thundered throughout the tent.
Yukgap had no intention of staying still.
“Like hell!”
He quickly gripped daggers in both hands.
Spotted patterns began appearing across his skin.
His body rapidly transformed.
“Grrrrrr!”
In an instant, Yukgap took on the beast-like form of a human mixed with a cheetah.
Then he knocked away the mechanical arms rushing toward him.
The arms targeting his body were shattered in moments.
[As expected of one of the Twelve Archons. I knew you wouldn’t be easy to subdue.]
Doctor Mozg remained calm.
Yukgap warned her,
“What exactly makes you think you can target me like this? Did it ever occur to you that if I go wild in here, all those precious brains around you might get destroyed?”
Doctor Mozg sounded completely relaxed.
[Did you not just say that you no longer kill people?]
“I did.”
Yukgap crossed his daggers and took a breath.
Then his beast-like eyes gleamed.
“But no matter how I look at it, you’re not a ‘person.’”
With those words, Yukgap shot forward toward Doctor Mozg.
Doctor Mozg clicked her tongue.
[Tch. What a foolish choice. You should have simply become my test subject.]
The tank containing Doctor Mozg’s floating brain trembled.
The wires beside it beeped repeatedly.
Then enormous mechanical arms burst endlessly from the floor, walls, and ceiling.
Apparently, Doctor Mozg controlled all of them.
[This tent is practically my body. You’re nothing but a tiny parasite that crawled inside me!]
The mechanical arms surged from every direction, attempting to seize Yukgap.
But to his eyes, they were unbearably slow.
“Then try and catch me!”
Yukgap darted between them, dodging every mechanical arm that came his way.
Doctor Mozg spoke in a sinister voice.
[Many fools like you have crawled in here seeking information. Some even tried to resist me. Do you know what happened to them?]
All the different brains connected to Doctor Mozg began twitching at once.
[They all became part of me. And soon, you will too.]
