Compared to his build and height, Sawon had a small, lean ass. Because of that, he could feel the volume of what he was sitting on even more distinctly.Big. It was big. It really seemed about the size he had seen in the dream. But being big and being hard were different matters.The dick under him, between Ji Hayeon’s legs, was only half hard. There was no way for Sawon not to notice.“Uh…… Chief. That…… uh—”In the moment when he let his guard down, Ji Hayeon flipped the situation. Sawon’s body turned, and Ji Hayeon trapped him in his arms.“I told you to stop.”“Sorry. Got it. I’ll stop.”Ji Hayeon got up in one motion and went into the bathroom. The door slammed shut with a bang.Maybe I went too far with the joke…….***For something put together in a rush, the lab was fairly well structured. They had split a wide, open-plan office in half with glass walls, which made it look a bit like an interrogation room at first glance.Inside, Metena readers were set up on all sides, and in the center stood a large analyzer made of glass tubing. Floating in the middle of the rippling blue liquid inside the glass cylinder was that same leaf.“Are you sure this finishes today?”“It’s almost done.”Standing in front of one of the readers, Ji Hayeon answered. He seemed to be trying hard to act like usual. But since what had happened on the bed, he hadn’t met Sawon’s eyes once.Naturally, Sawon hadn’t said a word about Ji Hayeon’s erection. He hadn’t teased him about it either.His reaction was strange. He didn’t really seem angry, or offended, but he couldn’t hide his awkward, distant attitude, which made it feel very much like he was……Embarrassed?Leaning an elbow on some nearby piece of equipment, Sawon slouched.Well…… plenty of guys pop a tent during a nap. You can just let it go. Is it really something to be that embarrassed about?“Don’t touch the equipment.”Somehow, even without turning, Ji Hayeon managed to warn him.“Yessir.”Sawon straightened up quickly.Click, click.The device whirred, and a hologram display began to rise in front of the reader where Ji Hayeon stood. Sawon gave the dense lines of numbers, letters, and formulas the most halfhearted glance. Ji Hayeon, on the other hand, stared at it like he would bore a hole through it.“Is that the result?”Nodding, Ji Hayeon rubbed his chin. Then he stayed silent for a long time.With his arms folded, his expression grew steadily more rigid. Sawon walked over.“Why? Is it something serious?”“……Probably.”“What do you mean, probably.”“It’s just my hypothesis.”The hologram document, which had seemed like it was going to scroll forever, finally stopped. Looking from Sawon to the document and back, Ji Hayeon frowned. Then, as if he’d made up his mind, he spoke.“How much did they share with you about the research on the 43rd floor?”Director Kwon had given him three things: the outline of what the research was, its current progress, and why the research had to be done.‘The number of Awakened has been dropping lately. At this rate, the number of hunters is going to plummet exponentially.’At Sawon’s answer, Ji Hayeon rubbed his chin again.“Then they didn’t tell you anything about the raw-form properties.”“What’s that?”“The raw Metena.”There were two ways to obtain Metena in its raw form: the soil of Hinari, and Deater hearts.Refining that raw material allowed them to extract Metena with either intellect-type or stamina-type properties. Metena extracted from the raw material was then tailored to its type and used to make Amplifiers for Awakened, sealing devices, or various other tools and drugs.Looking at him, Ji Hayeon went on.“The ratio of the Metena that gets extracted used to be almost identical. Fifty percent stamina-type, fifty percent intellect-type, split right down the middle. But at some point, that balance started to break. The proportion of stamina-type Metena has been rising sharply. Last year’s extract was something like eighty-seven percent stamina-type. This year might go over ninety percent.”“Isn’t that really bad?”“It’s serious. And the new sealing devices require more intellect-type Metena as material.”“Hm.”With his arms folded, Sawon tapped his forearm with his index finger. Pointing at a spot in the document, Ji Hayeon asked:“Do you know anything about ecological equilibrium?”“The one with the pyramid drawing?”With a dissatisfied look, Ji Hayeon kept scrolling the hologram document.“Put simply, you can think of it as nature trying to maintain a stable state. If some factor makes a particular group of organisms increase, you get imbalance, right? Then nature goes through a recovery process to return to balance. I tried assuming Hinari has its own sort of ecosystem, too.”“Hm. So if the proportion of stamina-type components in the raw material suddenly goes up……”“Then intellect-type Metena drops in relative terms. To push things back toward the equilibrium point, something might happen. It might be an extreme leap, but when you think about how the newly appeared mutated Deater was using intellect-type Metena…… it’s not a ridiculous hypothesis.”The Metena that flowed through ordinary Deaters’ bodies had properties similar to the raw material. The fact that relatively intact Deater corpses could be used for raw extraction was the proof of that. Sawon took the conversation back to the starting point.“Then why did the stamina-type component in the raw material suddenly go up?”“That might be the root cause of the mess we’re in now. We won’t know for sure until we get more analysis, but……”Ji Hayeon started biting his fingernails. Reaching out, Sawon pulled his wrist down.“Hey now.”Catching himself, «N.o.v.e.l.i.g.h.t» Ji Hayeon quickly dropped the hand he’d raised. This time he tormented his other nails by pressing his thumb across them. He jerked his chin at the hologram.“And that leaf. The results I just saw say it has one hundred percent intellect-type Metena. It’s hard to call it coincidence when all the circumstances line up this neatly, front to back.”“To restore ecological balance, mutated fissures appear, and Deaters with intellect-type Metena are born…… But how the hell did those guys cross over all the way into our room?”Walking to the central analyzer, Ji Hayeon pressed one of the buttons on the panel. A thin, tweezer-like metal implement rose inside the broad glass cylinder. The metal, shaped like a pair of forceps, plucked off a piece of the leaf.“Hey—hey, can you just rip that off like that?”Ignoring him, Ji Hayeon pressed another button as if he were manipulating tweezers. The metal disappeared into the lower part of the cylinder.Soon afterward, a square recess at the base slid open like a sliding door. Inside was a small glass vial containing the leaf fragment.Carrying it over to one side, Ji Hayeon tugged on Sawon’s wrist to bring him along.When he placed the vial on a large device that resembled a microscope, the machine spun to life and an enlarged image of the leaf fragment appeared on the screen.“Look at this.”“What the hell is that…….”The fragment wasn’t a single piece. Countless spores were linked together into one mass.“Their first mutated form might be something like this. If they were tiny spores like this, they could have slipped through when the fissure opened and we never would’ve noticed.”This time, even Sawon couldn’t help thinking hard. The anomalies were tangled together in a way that felt intertwined and not, both at once.“There are still a lot of questions. It’s still unclear why mutated fissures don’t show any wave readings…… We haven’t even touched the raw material we brought back this time because we’ve been prioritizing this. We have to check the brain-type Deater, too…… I wish the Institute would hurry up and get restored.”Just as Ji Hayeon started chewing on his lip—Beep beep beep beep, beep beep beep beep.An alert sounded from Sawon’s communicator. When he checked it, it was a black sphere alarm.The location wasn’t far from the Central Hunter Bureau. It was also close to where yesterday’s mutation had erupted. Ji Hayeon asked:“Could it be another mutated fissure?”“Who knows…….”From the occurrence coordinates alone, you couldn’t tell if it was a mutated Heukgu or not. But Sawon had a way to check. He looked down at his wrist.“Nine’s quiet, and I don’t feel anything either. So it’s probably not a mutated fissure. Still, just in case, we should have someone confirm it.”For his second method, Sawon used the fast-contact line to place a call.[Connecting to comm line CODE 17.]A moment later, Mok Geonho’s voice came through.– What.“Who’s deploying to the coordinates that just popped up?”– And how do you know it’s our team going. Seo Hansu’s going as lead.“They haven’t confirmed if it’s a mutated fissure yet?”– They’ll report back as soon as they check on site.Ding.An elevator chime sounded over the line.“You go.”– It’s not my assignment.“Go see if it’s a mutated fissure or not and report straight back to me.”– You could go check yourself.The fastest way would be for the two of them to go personally, but Sawon had his reasons not to expose Ji Hayeon.“You didn’t see it yesterday? How the Deaters all went for the Chief?”– Leave the Chief there and you go!“Hey. I’m still Chief’s guard, and more importantly, we’re already one body. I don’t move without my guy, so hurry up and get over there. Deploy Mok Geonho!”– Ah, you crazy bastard. You’re exhausting.Grumbling, Mok Geonho still did as he asked. Just as Sawon let out a breath of relief—“Kkii.”Nine’s voice sounded from behind him.Nine’s voice, which should have been on him…… from behind?Reflexively, Sawon checked his hands and feet. One of the protective pieces that should have been encasing his limbs—the one on his foot—was missing.No way…….He turned around. Nine was holding the glass vial on the microscope device, tilting it and peering inside.“……Hey! Nine!”

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