# Chapter 20
“A rich person like you is trying to empty the wallet of a mere salary man?”
When I shot back that there was no way, Ben pouted glumly.
“…I don’t have money.”
“That’s ridiculous. An S-class would earn over tens of billions in annual salary. Say something believable.”
It was certainly hard to believe. Especially for Ben, who was practically the face of Peace. For someone like him to say he had no money was deception toward regular employees like Tade.
“But I really don’t have any…”
But Ben stubbornly maintained his stance. Perhaps there were circumstances. Since he had a personality that made him easily deceived, he might even be under some sort of slave contract.
“To think my hard-earned tax money goes to someone like him.”
Tade could only continue to express his outrage. Even if it was a slave contract, a contract is still a contract. I couldn’t interfere carelessly. All of this was assuming he was under a slave contract.
In such cases, I could leave it to Fenil, who could leak it naturally to the media and resolve it quickly, but I couldn’t do anything recklessly without evidence.
“Let’s stop chatting and get to work.”
It wasn’t my concern anyway. I should have ignored it from the beginning, but why couldn’t I?
“Okay.”
Leaving Tade, who quietly agreed, I turned my attention to Ben.
“And Ben, stay quiet.”
I hope I won’t run into any issues tonight.
“Yes, I’ll just watch quietly.”
Looking at Ben, who sat in the chair with sparkling eyes, I wondered: Would it be better to shatter his expectations, or to hide them?
* * *
Night finally arrived. The lights in the office building went out one by one, and darkness surrounded the building.
The elevator was operating normally for employees on night shifts.
I activated Zenon’s ability and boarded the elevator. When I pressed the basement level 10, the doors slowly closed.
I had one hour. What I needed to do in that time was simple. Infiltrate the control room and explore the 11th basement floor. The more secrets a place has, the stronger its security. I couldn’t imagine there wouldn’t be surveillance cameras in such a place.
I couldn’t rule out the possibility that what Ben had told me was false. That’s why Zenon’s ability was all the more necessary.
This was the only way to avoid the traps. I stepped out as the doors opened.
An opaque glass window greeted me. Judging by the silhouettes moving inside, quite a few researchers hadn’t gone home yet.
I quietly watched them, waiting for the door to open. It was worth waiting until the researchers’ quitting time. Not long after I started waiting, a researcher appeared. I slowly approached him.
He tapped his card to clock out and brushed past me. Taking advantage of that moment, I swiped the card from his pocket. He didn’t notice the card that had so easily come into my hands as he took the elevator up.
I tapped the stolen card and put it in my pocket. The reason the researcher didn’t notice was simple.
He couldn’t see me. I had asked Zenon to create a barrier with invisibility. Only an S-class like him could add other functions to a barrier.
I was anxious because of what happened yesterday, but fortunately, it seemed he hadn’t done anything to me. The opaque door opened, revealing the bright interior.
Those who momentarily looked at the suddenly opened door seemed to think it was a malfunction and didn’t pay much attention.
I could hear conversations among the researchers in white lab coats walking through the corridor.
“Has it manifested?”
I was passing by, but at the word ‘manifested,’ I observed them. They were walking hurriedly somewhere. In response to the man’s question, the woman sighed.
“No, it failed again this time.”
Her steps became rougher with her emotions. As she walked, stomping on the ground, the man’s expression also darkened beside her.
“We’ll need to increase the amount.”
The man wrote something down on the chart he was holding. It seemed to be related to the failure.
I hoped it was just a baseless fear, but their conversation made me form a hypothesis. If this speculation was true…
I couldn’t guarantee Alice’s safety either. What would happen to ‘Alice’ then?
In fact, since the records Fenil found were from the past, I couldn’t be certain if he was still alive. I just believed he was.
‘Alice’ remains intact with that faint hope, but if that hope turns to ashes, ‘Alice’ collapses.
The Regeneration ability cannot regenerate another person’s body. And abilities that can interfere with life and death have long been considered urban legends.
Anxiety that climbed up from my toes reached my fingertips. I hesitated. Should I grab this door? Wouldn’t it be better to repeat the process of searching rather than facing the truth?
If I fail to infiltrate now and say Alice isn’t here, the organization will be maintained. The Boss will still be in his usual place. He will return greetings when greeted. Such an ordinary daily life would continue.
Even if he didn’t give me his heart, wasn’t I satisfied with just that? Do I have to lose even that satisfaction?
It was the stability I had barely found after being in the abyss. If Alice was dead, I would have nothing left.
It would be better to play it safe rather than choosing a path with such a harsh future.
But despite these thoughts, I couldn’t stop my feet.
The Boss had lived tied to Alice for over 10 years. Thinking of him, I simply couldn’t pass this by.
Even if the result was death, I had to untie that string. Even if I couldn’t see him anymore, he was more important than my feelings.
With trembling hands, I grabbed the doorknob. The cold chill reminded me of reality. There was also the possibility that Alice was alive somewhere, even if not visible.
It was too early to declare death based on invisibility. When I thoroughly searched the 11th basement floor, then I would know.
So for now, it’s okay. I kept repeating those words to myself. As if brainwashing myself, repeating that it was okay gave me the strength to open the door.
*Creeak*—
With one step forward, the door opened with a faint noise. At that, the two men in the control room turned around.
“What’s that?”
“Is it the wind?”
A man approached, seemingly trying to assess the situation of the suddenly opened door.
“There’s nothing wrong…”
The gaze that had been scanning me up and down was withdrawn. Having decided it was just the wind, he returned to his seat.
“Seems like the door is broken.”
“Really? Well, who would come to a place like this anyway?”
“Let’s just finish what we were doing and go.”
Not hiding their annoyance, the two continued filling out their charts. I turned my gaze away from them. Now that I wasn’t discovered, it was time to uncover the secret of the 11th floor.
This place had a similar structure to the control room where I worked. However, there were noticeably fewer monitors than there. It seemed to only manage surveillance cameras for part of the 10th basement floor and the 11th basement floor.
I approached closer to look at the screen in detail. The blurry screen gradually became clearer, and the situation came into view in detail.
And as soon as I saw it, I stopped breathing.
I quickly rolled my eyes. The situation was the same on other screens I looked at, just in case.
The monitors showed people of various ages confined in rooms. The rooms were similar to a standard studio apartment, but what was happening inside them was far from ordinary.
Some were restrained on beds, while others were repeatedly banging their heads against walls while having seizures.
There were quite a few who had fainted. What they had in common was that they all had needles inserted into the backs of their hands. These needles were injecting a blue liquid into their bodies.
No matter how I looked at it, this liquid didn’t seem normal. I recalled the conversation between the researchers before entering the control room.
“……”
The 11th basement floor was a human experimentation lab.
They must have been researchers conducting these experiments. The failure they mentioned earlier referred to the experiment’s failure.
Information that was hard to accept flashed by in the slowly flowing time. The scene reflected on the monitor was imprinted in my mind like a photograph.
The photos began to gather slowly. The gathered photos pointed to the direction of this experiment.
What Peace wanted to obtain through this experiment.
The answer came immediately without needing to think. Someone whose hands and feet had changed into deformed shapes. Someone emitting steam as if burning. Even the researchers who were talking about manifestation.
All of this pointed to one thing.
Superpowers.
Peace was conducting human experiments to create superhumans.
I felt like I was going to be sick. I barely suppressed the urge to turn away and rush out of the room.
Human experimentation is not allowed by anyone. This is too obvious. People experimenting on people… Although I shouldn’t be the one to say this as a member of an organization, this was a more horrific crime than any other.
And to think that Peace, an agency that protects citizens, was experimenting with human lives—it was unbelievable.
Thinking about Peace, he naturally came to mind.
What would happen if Ben found out about this?
If he learned that Peace, which he believed in so much, was leading human experiments, could he remain calm? It wasn’t just Ben. This was an act of deceiving all those who had believed in Peace until now.
To think they would try to artificially create superhumans. What did Peace intend to do with superhumans? Countless papers had been published about superpowers, but none of them had reached a proper conclusion.
Superpowers had been around for 100 years. That time is far too short to study an unknown power. Moreover, since humans possessed this power, there were limitations to investigation.
In the beginning, when only a small number of people manifested powers, they say experiments were conducted secretly, but currently, 20% of the population had superpowers.
It was natural that as the minority became the majority, voices grew louder. People did not approve of inhumane acts like human experimentation, and the experiments naturally disappeared.
That’s why I thought that currently, research was being conducted without experimenting on people, using other methods instead. But to think it was still ongoing…
