Eight years ago, the cooperation operation between the UN and South Korea was a half-hearted success.
The complete eradication of the members of Valpurgis deserves praise.
However, the resulting explosion of the Bafwadai Bridge ultimately caused numerous casualties.
Officials who concealed this fact for fear that the blame would cover the merits were currently imprisoned in the Seoul Eastern Detention Center.
Among them was Major General Won Seok-hee, a graduate of the 74th class of the Military Academy, who was dishonorably discharged from his position as deputy chief of the ROK-U.S. Combined Forces Command.
A visit request from the National Police Agency had come in.
“This morning, something like this was found on the body of a Japanese terror victim. Can you find out anything?”
The police officer tossed several photographs onto the desk.
Holding one of them, Major General Won Seok-hee snapped irritably.
“Hey, police officer. If you just throw a photo at me with this little effort, how am I supposed to respond? You should at least tell me what this is and where on the body it was found. Ugh, it’s so frustrating!”
Wearing a prison uniform, Major General Won Seok-hee squinted through his glasses with dim eyes.
Eventually, the youngest police officer sat across from him to manage the bald gentleman’s eccentric temperament.
“So, sir. This was embedded in the victim’s skull.”
“In the skull? Where in the skull?”
“Count the number of sticks once.”
“One, two, three, four, five… a total of nine.”
“With nine sticks all embedded in one skull, are we really in a position to pinpoint their locations? You can consider them roughly evenly distributed.”
“Hmm…”
Major General Won Seok-hee set his glasses down again, moving the photo away from his eyes.
It wasn’t something like a needle or a surgical pin.
The thickness seemed to be about as thick as a stout thumb.
The length of the white sticks was nearly comparable to a human forearm.
An object whose use was entirely indeterminate.
While retracing his hazy memories, another police officer discreetly informed the Major General.
“Didn’t several victims d*e inside a capsule during the South Korean Valpurgis incident? I heard they all had square holes drilled on the sides of their heads. I came to ask if this relates to that.”
“Ah, yes! Exactly the same! It was just about this size.”
Major General Won Seok-hee snapped his fingers in an excited tone.
“…!”
“I don’t know about other places, but the hostages’ bodies from the Seoul Research Institute had exactly this shape. At first, I thought some psychopath drilled or screwed them, but looking at the shape, it doesn’t quite seem like that. The National Forensic Service even said they didn’t know what it was… So, I believe it ended up being inconclusive.”
“Were there any other distinctive features? I think this could be a really important case.”
“I only saw it in photos, so I can’t say for certain. Valpurgis has been a bit quiet lately; did something pop up across the East Sea…?”
“Yes, it seems somewhat similar.”
“What? Really?”
Japan was in an uproar.
The victim was revealed to be an entirely ordinary business administration student attending Showa Women’s University.
At the time of the tragedy eight years ago, she was just 20 years old, a very young second-year university student.
The body, brutally mutilated with nine holes in her skull, seemed like something out of a m*rder mystery novel.
According to testimonies from Katsuhuta School students, body parts soaked in a liquid potion filled with residue were already in an advanced state of decay upon discovery.
The overpowering public authorities in Japan swiftly apprehended those involved in the case.
No matter how tightly bonded by strong friendships and steadfast religious beliefs the criminals were, they could not withstand the near-torturous pressures.
Ultimately, the bishop of Aleph, Aoyama Yoshinobu, was arrested, causing the removal of the pivotal figure.
Moreover, the fact that all the people who instigated the incident were elite members of society—doctors and doctoral candidates—aroused even greater sighs of dismay.
Two students from the Tokai University Medical Department and Keio University’s Applied Engineering Department, who had been guarding the capsule, revealed their motives.
“It’s called ‘phowa.’ You’re probably going to ask what that is! When a person dies, their consciousness leaves through the nine holes of the body, and these nine holes are the gateways to reincarnation. By performing the phowa method, the crown chakra opens, allowing the consciousness to travel through that passage into the Pure Land. We attempted phowa on her, and the woman must have safely reached heaven as she contemplated the original form of Amitabha.”
“Valpurgis? Ha…! While we did receive assistance, they are hardly worthy of being called a proper sect. They are foolish humans, degrading the spiritual level of humanity. Why does humanity not create a western Pure Land and attempt to return to paradise?”
Phowa, Pure Land, western Pure Land.
They aggressively spread grotesque ideologies derived from Tibetan Buddhism to the public.
Knowing that they were almost certain to be sentenced to d*ath, they pursued an enlightened state.
In the end, a furious reporter, disillusioned by the meaningless interview, posed a new question.
“Do you feel any guilt towards the victim? What was the reason for guarding the capsule for eight years? Where did you get the funding?”
“Since she has attained enlightenment and become a Buddha, this woman is now a living Buddha. Has the reporter seen a monk leaving the temple renounce the Buddha?”
“Ah… I don’t really know, but… where did the funding come from?”
“It was received in the spirit of sharing enlightenment with others. I personally recommend that even our foolish reporter should experience acceleration magic someday.”
With a gaze filled with madness, the reporter slowly backed off, lowering the microphone.
The man faintly curled the corners of his mouth and leisurely advised the reporter.
“It seems you really can’t believe it. I understand. It’s hard to grasp enlightenment with an ignorant mind. Let me interpret and distort it for you in your poor language.”
The reporters’ flashes erupted around him.
He instinctively sensed the right moment to deliver an important statement.
“Our Aleph was ultimately conducting research with the goal of abandoning the physical body and returning to the virtual reality. For follow-up research, we were preserving the physical body, but all low data has been handed over to Miss Ophelia.”
“Ophelia! Wait a minute, aren’t they the ASI production company in the UK?”
“Quickly contact the journalists from the international department! This is definitely something big!”
“Hahaha!”
He bursts into laughter, watching the panicked people around him.
The photo line was in chaos.
Detectives discreetly grabbed his arm and led him into the building.
Yet, as if in a last act of defiance, the perpetrator added a final comment.
“Yes, that’s right, Asaneko Adele! She is the proof of a living Buddha! d*mn ASI! Did you all know she once was merely a human? Hahahahaha!”
When anything strange happens in world history, it seems handy to look at the UK.
It took no more than two days for all the people at Ophelia’s legal team in the UK to submit their resignations and flee.
Under normal circumstances, they might have been thrilled to receive rewards for exposing false rumors.
However, the legal chief, who had been troubled over the recovery case involving Adella, spontaneously resigned without even showing up.
Unpleasant rumors were bound to spread within the company.
“If it turns out that Ophelia is really connected to Aleph?”
“If you look into it, isn’t this a black company?”
“If just showing up at work is ruining my life in real time?”
If this ended up tying into Valpurgis somehow, the company would undoubtedly fall into ruin.
Ultimately, Ophelia tossed away the helmet of safety known as the law, half by choice and half by compulsion.
It was only natural for countless beasts to come rushing in to tear them apart.
The start was the UK National Crime Agency and the Metropolitan Police of London.
Ophelia recalled all the ASI products she lent out and began an investigation into ethical crimes.
Investigators found the ASI product that was uniquely uninsured against intellectual property rights suspicious.
They ultimately found the entity ‘bfa41d67c7.’
“It’s best to bill immediately. Where is the reference coordinate for this ASI? Where did you hide the server?”
The English detective grabbed him by the collar.
“Go to hell. You can file a request for information disclosure.”
The CEO of the detested nation gave them the middle finger.
A punch flew at the CEO, who chose to d*e rather than commit s*icide.
“Cough! Do you think you can just beat an innocent person and get away with it? I’ll spread it all in the media!”
“As long as you don’t use magic, you’ll be fine.”
“What’s the law about that?”
“Our country’s laws are originally like that. If you hate it, run for the National Assembly.”
“d*mn…!”
Of course, this was a lie.
But sometimes, instilling excessive fear could be the best medicine.
“California Redwood City, Ophelia Data Warehouse Merger Management Center. Contact the FBI and request a cooperation for the investigation.”
*
[Critical Bug Report: 2045-08-30, 2:05:35 PM]
[System Format (REUNION-3): 2045-08-30, 2:08:37 PM]
“Only to see that it’s been neatly formatted…”
The conclusion of the swiftly progressing international investigation was painfully anticlimactic.
“Can one truly continue living in virtual reality after dying?”
The question that had stirred the world would forever remain an unsolved mystery for humanity.
“Was Aleph’s experiment truly successful?”
An FBI investigator junior asked innocently.
“Oh, come on, that’s a joke. People say that because they can’t learn. It’s physically impossible. The moment virtual reality technology emerged, it was rigorously proven, and now you’re bringing it up again? Should I explain why, as a Caltech alum?”
“Why wouldn’t it work?”
“To put it very simply, humans have been interacting with the world since birth. It’s all about this aura heart. It’s like being born with an umbilical cord.”
“An umbilical cord? What is it connected to?”
“The original branch and the additional branch. And the mana main vine. The amniotic fluid contains mana within the placenta we call Earth, and what happens if you suddenly cut the umbilical cord?”
“You’d d*e.”
“That’s pretty much the basic principle. Or there’s a more intuitive proof. The open world itself is a concept expanded from mana main vines, so the very idea of dying to enter goes against logic. To exist in virtual reality, you need an aura heart, and d*ath signifies the stopping of the aura heart. Therefore, the proposition that all humans existing in virtual reality are not dead stands valid. Okay?”
“So, what about the opposite?”
The junior investigator asked again.
“The opposite?”
“Creating a consciousness modeled after a human in virtual reality from the very beginning, then creating a body modeled after a human, and putting that consciousness into the body.”
“Of course, that’s…”
The junior’s scope of what constituted a body was too broad.
Could it genuinely be called human without an aura heart?
Could a body made entirely of machines, like in cyberpunk movies, even be considered a body?
It was a conversation about a future too distant, but the senior couldn’t deny it.
“Unless humanity perishes, it might someday become possible.”
Once the proposition is established, the converse could be assumed, but knowing the inverse was impossible.
While sharing philosophical questions, investigators rummaging through the data center log files rushed over.
“Senior! The bfa-whatever reference coordinate location changed once!”
“What? Is that true? The original?”
“No, not the original, but it’s certainly an ASI entity that was formatted once… It seems to have been restored incompletely somewhere in between.”
“That can’t be! If it’s Reunion Level 3, it should have disappeared without a trace! Did they make a backup or something?”
“Chandra, can you tell us the IP?”
“184.85.235.194.”
“235, 194… That’s South Korea.”
South Korea, and Seoul.
You can’t ascertain the reference address solely based on the IP.
But if one recalls ‘Adella’ before the Aleph follower is dispatched to the prosecution…
The entity’s ownership undoubtedly lies with Noname.
All the investigators thought in unison.
“Let’s clock out for today.”
Unless Korea becomes the 52nd state of the USA, this case was beyond their jurisdiction.
![[TS] The Protagonist is Conquered](https://i3.wp.com/novelhitam.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/1743806812-5548-TS-The-Protagonist-is-Conquered.png?resize=85,105 "[TS] The Protagonist is Conquered")
