Etranger - Chapter 199

“Can you tell me what are your thoughts?” Siluone asked.

“It’s clear that things are abnormal. This is crazy,” Nakun answered as he shook his head.

“It’s the first time I’ve ever seen the termination deadline clause become so unstable. I’ve never seen such a vibrating pattern…” Satan commented.

“What’s the condition of the Nectar and their cells?” Nakun asked.

“Their evolution is running rampant. With their level of internal activity, the performance of the best-quality nectar would be more than five times higher than average. I’ve never seen anything like this,” Siluone answered.

“But what the hell is going on? Isn’t it too different from the order and results we have?”

Siluone looked at Nakun, who was shaking his head. Suddenly, Nakun and Siluone felt an aura next to them and turned their eyes to Satan.

Satan was staring at every scene with her mouth tightly shut. Nakun narrowed his eyes.

Satan’s eyes had caught his attention. Satan was starting to tear up.

“What did you see?”

“Did you find something?”

Nakun and Siluone asked at the same time.

“Shush…”

Satan put a finger up to her lips. She continued to stare at the screen for a while.

The corner of Satan’s mouth slightly rose the more she observed the data. Then, Satan turned to look at the others.

“I want to see more data,” Satan said with a cold demeanor.

“What data?”

“All the test data for all summoners brought in from Episode 285. You have it, right?”

“Yeah, sure.”

Siluone took out the data Satan wanted out of the materials classified from Area 1 to Area 40 and uploaded them onto the screen. At Satan’s request, the batches of data on the other summoners from Episode 285 showed on one side while the first experimental data collected on San and Biyeon was visualized on the other.

The collected data on San and Biyeon was vast. The data was emerging and illustrated through visualization one by one.

From when they were first summoned, when they first reached the limits of their physical body, their first battle in the Pian, when they were poisoned, when they ate salt, when they first drank nectar, when it was presumed they achieved Awakening… There was also data that Dite had collected and sent after San and Biyeon had escaped from Pian, when they were caught by Siluone, and when they received regular inspections.

On the other side of the split screen, data on the other human summoners from Episode 285, which was serving as a comparative template, were emerging. This comparison had been done hundreds of times.

Previously, Siluone and the others hadn’t found any differences. What did they, such supreme beings, overlook?

“Now let’s categorize their status and apply names to them,” Satan said.

“What names?”

“Names that only humans know,” Satan replied as she laughed coldly.

“At the timestamps of 3452 and 8563, try to extract the EEG states of 45, 48, and 106 and the physical state data at those times as well. Also, bring up the corresponding timestamps to the comparison group, the other summoners from Episode 285.”

Siluone uploaded the video and data at once and filtered the data. After staring at the material for a while, she had to swallow a bitter laugh.

“This is quite tricky. The timestamps you pointed out are where we have two data feeds overlapping. Does it seem like they’re inflection points when they develop from one state to another? This is an unstable feed of data due to the boundary condition, so there’s no accurate measurement and data from those exact points.”

“We just need to calculate. Why don’t we try to figure out the difference first? From before and after they crossed whatever threshold or boundary. The formula is…”

This time, the results calculated from the data with new variables and applied conditions floated atop the screen. The three looked at the newly constructed results in total silence.

Satan tilted her head. The operation was repeated. New timestamps and events were selected, and the operation was repeated.

The work took a very long time.

Nakun and Siluone were looking at Satan with bitter expressions on their faces. They suddenly remembered that Satan’s other name was ‘The Naming One.’

She was a being who had insight into the nature of things and the ability to name them. However, in reality, Satan didn’t like the nickname. This was because the nickname was a misnomer.

According to Satan, there was an ‘Original Being’ long before the dragons were even born. The first human was a woman. The woman gave a name to the world, allowing the world to ‘exist’ and for the concept of an ‘individual’ to be defined.

Then came the second human, a man. With his birth, ‘relationship between individuals’ took form in the world. Thus, the man possessed the power to name the ‘relationships’ that would come after him.

It was said that ‘existence’ representing matter and ‘relationship’ representing logic were created in this way.

Later, as ‘relationship’ became ‘power’, and that power dominated the ‘existence,’ or nature, that preceded it. Once this dominance over nature occurred, everything began to change.

In the world of dragons, there was also an unconfirmed legend that this development ultimately severed the relationship between the Creator and the ‘Original Being’.

Soon, Satan finished her analysis.

Her expression seemed to show that she was somewhat satisfied with her results.

Satan divided the recalculated data into several groups and pointed to one of the groupings.

“Let’s call this state ‘hope’. It’s probably not very far off from what it actually is.”

“Hope?”

“Yeah, if I’m right, that’s the first step in lowering the entropy of the physical and logical world. ‘Hope’ aligns the direction of one’s thought. It gathers forces in one direction, strains the body, and prepares it to focus on a goal. In short, hope is the first key that the logical world uses to knock on the door of the physical world. If you compare it to a reproductive act, it would be called foreplay. The groom approaches with hesitation while the bride fearfully awaits. Among us, I never feared it.”

“Is that hope?”

“And move the data set of timestamps 2098 to…”

Following Satan’s instructions, Siluone organized the flow and sets of data.

Once everything was clearly arranged on the left side of the screen, and the calculated data of the other summoners, who were being used as comparative samples, were arranged on the right…

“Ah-”

“Oh!”

At last, shouts of exclamation erupted from Nakun and Siluone’s mouth. Although not perfect, there were patterns that could explain the situation.

The data clearly showed that the two people, San and Biyeon, and the other samples were clearly different…

“Hope… that condition has never been weakened. The component of ‘hope’ in the other summoners almost all collapsed early on…”

“Trust… the data shows a marked difference. There’s no similar sample compared to those two. It’s almost indescribably unique…”

“Courage… an unstable quantitative measure for human beings… I didn’t know that it could be a distinct quality from ‘strength’…”

Nakun and Siluone exclaimed sincerely. Clearly, according to Satan’s classification system, the human mind was reassembled and showed a completely different picture of the data than the picture Siluone created through her common sense.

For Siluone, understanding humans through this system of classification was a first. Dragons had been studying humans for a long time in the process of nurturing humanoid individuals, the sages. However, there was a critical limit to their understanding.

Their creations may be able to imitate human actions, but not human minds. The human mind was a true contradiction. Cause and effect did not always match.

Though the summoners were all put under the same conditions, different data results came out. In short, all their previous modes of analysis and the results obtained from them were trash.

According to this new classification, the conditions of San and Biyeon looked completely different from any of their Episode 285 predecessors. It really was a huge difference.

Where did this difference originate? Figuring out the difference was the crux of the matter. Everyone gathered in Siluone’s nest grew nervous.

The three felt as if they had unknowingly stumbled onto a secretive space that only the Creator was supposed to know. The human spirit, its frantic, chaotic existence. The unknown. They felt they were seeing the true ‘creative space.’

“Are those patterns the cause of the anomaly?” Siluone asked quietly. her self-esteem had fallen tremendously with the realization that she’d been looking at the data all wrong.

Satan nodded.

“There may be more, but the ones I saw now are probably the most important reasons.”

“They become even stronger?”

“Perhaps…”

“Is the termination deadline coming to an end? Have they resolved it?”

“It’s definitely wavering and exhibiting instability, but it may not be completely dismantled. I don’t know yet.”

“The Nectar?”

“I don’t know about that either. The nectar within them appears to have gone through a few stages of evolution and seems to be astonishingly strong. However, the Nectar hasn’t been able to take over their consciousness. It must mean that the two have very strong spirits. One dimension? Possibly more. Hmm… I don’t know how and why they have such a spirit.”

“I can clearly see now that they’re different from the others. But on what basis did you derive the timestamps?” Siluone asked. She wanted to know what critical vantage point or perspective was used to understand which data and timestamps were chosen.

“It follows the overall code of ‘rebellion’.”

“A code of rebellion?”

“Things that defy nature, reject the existing order, and refuse to follow the status quo. The ‘rebellion’ component is the main culprit that excites and confuses the human mind. Those two don’t have a stable state. They’re in a constant state of ‘rebellion’. It’s the most diametrically opposed attribute to your sages.”

“I still don’t understand. Is that what makes them so different? Just that? As you said, isn’t ‘rebellion’ common to other humans as well? Are you sure there aren’t any contradictions in your logic?”

At Siluone’s objection, Satan grabbed her waist and laughed. She was obviously laughing in ridicule.

“You guys conducted research on humans for a long period of time, right? Then why didn’t you recognize something as simple as ‘rebellion’?”

“That’s…”

“‘Hope’, ‘Trust’, ‘Courage’… These are common words in the human world that are nothing special. But the truth is that they are almost extinct names.”

“Names that have become extinct?”

“Extinct names, concepts, ideals, labels… keep in mind, extinction occurred in every Episode without exception. Few humans have truly experienced an ideal state during their short life cycle. If there were such human beings, it would have been difficult to even observe whether such an event had occurred because the data would be insufficient and the duration too short. Do you understand? Why couldn’t these two be properly analyzed? Because there weren’t many samples to compare them with. Come to think of it, that means there’s a large underlying issue with the Summoner Program as well.”

“…”

“Hope, which originates from the state of mind of anger over the status quo and denial of reality, is quite common. But it’s rare for ‘trust’ in a constant state of extreme pressure, distrust, and anxiety. And the ‘courage’ to not lose control over one’s mind and body in the face of extreme fear is equally rare. Do you see any common ground?”

“Is it because these properties are very unstable? And the duration is too short?”

“That’s right. In the logical world, these states only exist fleetingly. However, they’ve been able to retain these properties for prolonged periods of time. They’ve unleashed a tremendous ‘will’ to just get to a normal state. It’s the same phenomenon and principle in the physical world when a high-energy hadron releases energy when it decays. Have you ever heard of a nuclear bomb? That’s what they’ve become. The bigger problem is that these two developed the ability to contain all these properties and recreate the properties daily. This is the main problem. There’s no way of predicting where the situation will go next.”

“Then… won’t…”

Nakun prevented the words that were wanting to rush out of his mouth. Memories of a certain race from one cursed Episode jumped into his mind.

“Besides, the Nectar you inserted in them is adapting to their new environment. We don’t even know what it will become. If the Nectar is what we understand it to be, I’d say it’s become a super-class Nectar, and if their ability to resist that form of Nectar is this strong, then their existence is like a vaccine against Nectar itself…”

Satan chewed on her lips without continuing. Siluone and Nakun listened to Satan and were aware of the seriousness of the situation. Siluone soon asked, “So, bioanalysis is necessary?”