Director Park showed no consideration for the child’s short legs. If anything, he would walk ahead, and whenever the child began falling behind, he would simply stop and watch as the child came hurrying after him, panting for breath.
“His stamina seems weaker than other children his age…… Well, I suppose that’s only natural if he’s spent his whole life confined.”
The farther down they went, the more noticeably dense the security became. They had to undergo five separate body searches just to pass through a single corridor, yet no one complained that it was troublesome or showed even the slightest irritation.
If anything, when the guard conducting the final search told them there would be no more checkpoints from here on and they could simply continue straight ahead, the researcher’s lips twisted ever so slightly.
Director Park did not miss it. He grinned silently and asked,
“If you’re frightened, you can stay here.”
“……No.”
“Then shall we go?”
“Yes.”
After hearing something like that, there was no way he could disgrace himself by saying he could not go and backing out. The researcher forced his expression to remain calm, straightened his back, and followed behind Director Park.
Yet despite the way the guard had spoken as though they were practically there already, the stairs continued for a long time.
With every floor they descended, the air grew noticeably colder.
It was not simply because the temperature was dropping. Every breath felt as though a noose around his throat were tightening little by little, while at the same time he felt as though he had been plunged into a deep water tank and was drowning.
The researcher knew that fear had soaked into him, yet he could not make himself stop.
Just what could possibly be down there for security to be this extreme?
The moment the researcher swallowed dryly and stepped onto the final stair—
AAAAAAH-
A grotesque sound seeped through the thick iron door.
It was so unfamiliar and chilling that there was no proper way to compare it to anything.
He knew that, with Director Park himself present, whatever was inside must have been restrained as safely as possible, yet his legs still trembled uncontrollably. Biting hard into the inside of his cheek, the researcher merely looked down at Director Park with deliberate confidence, as though he were not frightened at all.
Still trying to protect his pride.
Director Park mocked the researcher inwardly and raised his hand.
The moment his palm touched the panel beside the door, a short recognition tone sounded—
BEEP.
A dry mechanical voice announced that his identity had been confirmed.
CLUNK.
The enormous door opened smoothly inward as though splitting apart.
The researcher, who had instinctively held his breath, faltered at the unexpected sight and looked around.
The corridors they had just passed through had been bleak and damp enough to make him feel as though he were walking straight into a tomb.
And yet the interior of Building M looked more suited to relaxation than experimentation.
Soft orange lighting.
A plush rug.
Sofas.
Even neatly arranged snacks in one corner.
If not for the people bustling around beyond the glass wall, he might genuinely have mistaken the place for a lounge rather than a laboratory.
Why had they made it like this?
Though puzzled, the researcher struggled to maintain his composure outwardly as he followed Director Park farther inside.
More than ten researchers were moving around at their respective stations.
Some were checking data.
Some were transporting samples.
Others sat together with grave expressions, speaking in low voices.
The quiet conversations and sounds of operating equipment were familiar even to him, yet everything was arranged with such excessive calm and order that it gave him an inexplicable sense of aversion.
“Right over there is the key subject of our ‘Boundary Waters Observation Project.’ Let’s go closer and take a look. Kid, you’ve never seen a tank that big before either, have you?”
Only after hearing those words did the researcher realize that the innermost wall of the laboratory was not a wall at all, but an enormous water tank.
The scenery beyond the tank that occupied the entire side of the room was almost completely dark.
Light from this side should clearly have reached into it, yet almost nothing could be seen.
As the researcher wondered why, he suddenly understood why Building M had been isolated so deep underground, and why the corridors leading here had been so damp.
It was not that a tank had been installed inside the laboratory.
The laboratory had been built inside this enormous tank.
At the same moment, the fear he had thought had disappeared came crashing back.
What could possibly be in this place that required a tank of such enormous size?
There was not even an ocean nearby.
Nor was there a river or lake.
As the researcher clenched his fist, remembering the grotesque sound he had heard before the door opened—
The water beyond the tank shifted unnaturally.
Something slowly approached.
Calling it merely a monster somehow felt inadequate.
The first thing that caught his eye was its tentacles.
Yet they were nothing like the slick, limp tentacles one would normally imagine.
They did not taper toward the ends.
Instead, they maintained the same thickness from beginning to end, and they looked smooth and solid, like polished marble.
Even as they writhed beneath the water, they resembled carefully sculpted works of art.
And attached to them were things that looked like flowers.
Rounded, tightly curled masses overlapped one another in layers, filling their surfaces, while their centers were slightly open and emitted a faint glow.
Their texture looked completely different from that of the tentacles.
Even without touching them, simply looking was enough to make them seem like soft tissue that would yield beneath the slightest pressure.
They swayed almost imperceptibly with the movement of the water, making them look as though they were breathing.
After taking in that much, the researcher slowly raised his gaze.
At the central part of the creature, which he was not even certain could be called a head, fins resembling the tail of a betta gathered together in a shape reminiscent of a jellyfish’s bell.
But upon closer inspection, it was not actually a single mass.
Countless thin, fiber-like tissues were scattered there without touching one another, creating only the illusion that they formed a single whole.
And lastly, beneath them were branches growing from an indistinct torso.
They looked somewhat like coral.
Or perhaps tree branches.
They had no fixed color, but shimmered strangely, as though swallowing light and then releasing it again, each branch displaying a different hue.
That thing is really a monster?
The researcher was speechless, his mouth hanging open.
He had never seen a creature so beautiful.
If humans from several hundred years ago had encountered that being……
They would surely have worshiped it not as a monster, but as a god.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?”
“……Well, it is somewhat surprising.”
Only Director Park’s voice brought the researcher back to reality.
He answered curtly, but he could not hide the tremor at the end of his voice.
“It’s still a juvenile, so it’s a little smaller than a human right now, but the adults grow about as large as a decent-sized building. Give this one a few more years and it’ll become like that too. Just imagine how magnificent it’ll be then……. Ahh, these days, watching this one is what keeps me going.”
“……How did you capture it?”
For the first time, the researcher, who had been trying desperately not to show emotion, stared at him in shock.
Director Park crooked one corner of his mouth and raised an eyebrow.
Then he burst into cheerful laughter.
“Hahahaha! I know what you’re thinking…… Come on, it’s nothing like that.”
Director Park continued leisurely.
His eyebrows drooped as though he were apologetic for causing such a misunderstanding, but anyone could see from his expression that he was enjoying the researcher’s bewilderment.
“We were lucky enough to find it inside the belly of a dead adult. It was in the form of an egg, but it wasn’t intact, and the shell was soft, so we had quite a difficult time getting it to hatch.”
“…….”
“When it was first born, it was only about the size of a small dog. It’s hard to believe it’s already grown that much.”
“……How long has it been since it was born?”
“Five years. We estimate it’ll take at least thirty years to reach adulthood.”
The monster, which had been pressed against the glass wall as though observing the inside, gently waved its tentacles and descended.
Was it going somewhere else?
Just as the researcher swallowed his disappointment, the creature suddenly came back up and lightly tapped the wall of the tank.
TAP TAP TAP.
A few cute little sounds rang out.
Then the torso enclosed by the coral-like branches split wide open.
AAAAH-
The sound he had heard outside the laboratory emerged once again.
Now that it was closer, it was much clearer.
And that made it even stranger.
It sounded completely different from when he had heard it through the wall.
A skin-crawling scraping noise, like fingernails dragged across a chalkboard, bored into his ears.
It felt as though something were not merely scraping thinly along the inside of his eardrums, but stabbing straight through them.
Yet the moment he raised his hands to cover his ears, the noise softened and unraveled into a clear, beautiful sound.
It felt as though he had heard it somewhere before, yet he could not remember what it was.
The only thing left inside his mind was comfort.
Instinct told him that he must not listen any longer.
And yet the researcher simply held his breath and focused on the sound as though entranced.
Meanwhile, a woman inside what appeared to be the control room exchanged glances with Director Park.
When Director Park nodded, she pressed a button.
At the same moment, the section of floor nearest the tank silently slid apart to either side.
The monster entered the laboratory through the opening.
SPLASH!
Water sprayed in every direction, soaking and dirtying the floor, but no one paid any attention.
Nor did anyone seem surprised that a monster had entered the room.
Instead, they merely looked back and forth between the outsider and the monster with fascinated eyes.
“Little one, would you like to hold that man’s hand and go in there?”
While the researcher stood there in a daze, Director Park approached the child, lowered himself to meet his gaze, and whispered.
The child followed the direction of Director Park’s long outstretched finger with his eyes, then nodded without showing any particular reluctance or fear.
Even if he had not understood the words, he seemed to have grasped what Director Park wanted.