Life Mission

Borteth doesn’t look kindly at Cha Jun Sung. This wasn’t much different on Cha Jun Sung’s end either.

But the two of them ended it there. It is in the past. There’s no need to fight. In Borteth’s case, he was so busy he could barely take his hands off his work as they were in the last leg of Life Mission.

To Cha Jun Sung’s left, there are tens of thousands of dead mutants trapped inside translucent cylinders.

On the right are Lifers.

There are so many of them that he can’t see where they end.

“As you can see, this is where all of the types of mutants that were hunted in Life Mission are being preserved.”

Even the same species get divided into maximum and minimum. So there are about 5 or 6 males and females for each species. Lifers are preserved by body modifications and level. This is just for research.

What kinds of studies have they been doing?

“If you go in deeper, you’ll be able to see level 8 and 9 mutants and Lifers beyond level A. There aren’t many in the case of Lifers.”

Of course not. Mutant corpses remain inside the mission, but Lifers are taken back to reality if possible as their levels are higher.

The 100,000 Lifers who entered Lord of Bones cleaned up the mission for about half a month.

They hadn’t been able to get Chamma Sword’s body back.

Life Mission officials didn’t move until Lifers were done.

They start moving after Lifers return to reality.

That is why it had been harder to gather Lifer bodies than to get mutants.

“Two sets of genes were found in Evil Queen’s body. It was interesting. They are level 9 when separate, and higher when fused. That’s how we figured out who would be more dominant between mutants and Lifers.”

“Which is it?”

“Mutants.”

Jigneon didn’t hesitate in his response.

Borteth smiles.

He looks happy as though he has won.

“Do you know why there are two Miracles?”

“No.”

“Borteth injected an advanced type A virus into his body and became a level 9 mutant. Gabenu and I pursue different sectors.”

With mutant superiority, Borteth himself becomes superior. His test results came up ahead of Jigneon and Gabenu’s, so of course he is happy.

“I killed Evil Queen. Aren’t Lifers superior?”

This is overreach.

Ordinary Lifers wouldn’t have been able to get the results that Cha Jun Sung got even if they had used the Miracles. On top of that, their bodies would not have been able to withstand wearing double.

“It was only possible for you. But we can get level 10 genes by investigating Evil Queen fusing level 9 genes.”

If they combine them well, the result will be powerful biomarkers.

Cha Jun Sung is one person, but they can replicate Evil Queen’s genes.

Of course it won’t be easy. But there will be progress if they study it.

“We needed a powerful army. We created Lifers because we needed a powerful army, and that’s how the A virus was derived, creating mutants. But there wasn’t a place good enough to test it. If we want to do proper tests, we not only need the location, but we need specimens. This ship’s population is just about a million, so these weren’t conditions in which we could do it here.

Cha Jun Sung felt like Jigneon was going to tell him why they created Life Mission. Why did they make something like this?

“So the dimensions...?”

“Right then, we were getting success in tests opening dimensions. To put it into practice, we opened two dimensions and created an environment where we could hold the experiment.

“If you needed a powerful army, aren’t there already a lot? No matter how many Lifers and mutants there are, a few nuclear bombs would do the trick.”

It isn’t a matter that can be resolved with a few nuclear bombs, but they don’t need to have a leash around Lifers and mutants with their science. They have plenty of weapons to replace them.

“That’s what we would have done if destruction was our goal, but what we wanted was to find a place to breathe, a place to settle in.”

Cha Jun Sung cocks his head. He can’t understand what this means.

Jigneon knew this would be Cha Jun Sung’s reaction, and turned a hologram on.

Then the Gene Institute researchers including Borteth turned their attention to it. Cha Jun Sung felt yearning in their eyes.

The center of a vast universe.

The hologram is recording a clear and blue star.

It is beautiful.

Earth?

No.

It was subtly different from Earth.

“Where is that?”

“Blue Paradise. That’s the name we gave it. Its environment is the same as Earth’s and it’s 10 times as big. You can tell by looking at the nature, but there are various fauna and flora living there.”

The time is coming near. They look like different creatures from the animals on Earth. It looks like they installed a satellite near Blue Paradise.

“Is there no intelligence there?”

“Intelligence? If you’re talking about beings similar to humans, no. But those animals aren’t as simple as they look.”

Each is different, but the outstanding beings boast intelligence similar to that of humans. It is obvious that they are smart even if they cannot communicate.

“Hundreds of years later, Earth’s natural environment gets completely destroyed. We escaped that pollution and are looking for a new home.”

“Blue Paradise? Then can’t you just land there? If they’re just animals even if they’re smart, then can’t you just easily start?”

“Watch closely.”

[Send a special cyborg to Blue Paradise, red zone.]

Woong!

Cha Jun Sung doesn’t know the concept of the red zone, and just watched the hologram.

The gate opened and the special cyborg appeared in Blue Paradise. The heavily armed cyborg began to wander around the red zone. It didn’t take any special actions. It just wandered around.

“What! A unicorn?”

Cha Jun Sung took a breath.

In a lush forest, a unicorn that looks like something out of the Pegasus legend is caught in the cyborg’s radar.

The white maned unicorn is more than three times the size of a normal horse. There’s a horn bigger than a human arm on its head. Intimidating power. It looked more like a god than an animal.

The cyborg and unicorn are at least 500 meters away from each other, but the unicorn sees the cyborg and looks in its direction.

“What kind of eye...”

Red flames burned in its eyes.

It’s big but its general form is beautiful, but that thought changed as soon as he saw its eyes.

Thunderbolts fly out of the horn on the unicorn’s head. It closed that 500 meter distance within moments, and the thunderbolts swallowed the cyborg whole.

Bang!

One hit.

The cyborg evaporated with just one hit.

The thunderbolts coming from the unicorn were reminiscent of natural lightning.

“Do you still think it’s an animal?”

“...”

“Blue Paradise is full of animals like that unicorn. They’re spread out everywhere. Red, orange, yellow, blue, green, indigo, violet. There are various species living in each of the 7 zones named after the colors of the rainbow. There are differences in strength but in mutant terms, they are levels 7 and 8 on average and even some level 9s. That unicorn is about level 8.”

Honestly, Cha Jun Sung thought that one of the big reasons was that the cyborg didn’t take the first hit. He thought that it might have been able to kill the unicorn if it had attacked first.

It is a delusion.

A level 8 would have avoided or blocked it somehow. To think that animals like that are everywhere. What kind of planet is this?

“We might be able to kill the animals if we use weapons of mass destruction, but it’ll also become that much more desolate. There are so many of them that it would become an all-out war, too.”

They had discovered a planet similar to Earth after a very long search. They cannot ruin it. They need to preserve it in its natural form if they can.

“We tried landing a few times, but what do you think happened?”

“What happened?”

“Though they are superior beings, they are animals and have a clear standard of territory. They did not tolerate invasion. This ship was also destroyed. We ran away and got out of there.”

“The reason you created Life Mission?”

“We don’t want to fight with these animals. We just want to live among them. All we have is a population of 1 million. Blue Paradise is 10 times the size of Earth, so it won’t reach Earth’s population of billions even after hundreds of years.”

It can be small.

They could settle down and live there if they were guaranteed territory, but the animals found them wherever they landed and attacked.

It seems they don’t have a concept of coexistence. They just banish outsiders.

“So what could we do? I feel sorry to them, but we need to get land by force if we need to. If we continue like this, we’ll never be able to get off this ship.”

An army is needed for war. An army that can fight the animals.

That’s why they created Life Mission. Lifers and mutants with power like the animals, who don’t have to depend on weapons.

“We’re going to create a mutant army with Life Mission’s information and genes. There is risk of infection or evolution, so we’ll have to adjust the numbers.”

They aren’t going to inject a lot at once, but add it little by little. Even this might take several or even dozens of years, but they it’s okay. It had been more difficult getting here. They just have to get over this last obstacle.

“What do you think? We’ve been saying it’s a secret, but it isn’t much, right?”

Ultimately, Jigneon’s group had planned Life MIssion because they lacked the strength to go up against Blue Paradise’s animals without destroying the planet.

It is impressive in some ways, but it really isn’t much like Jigneon said.

Cha Jun Sung found comfort in the fact that his questions had been answered.

“But your wish. Will you really be satisfied with that?”

“Life Mission will be repeated in the same way even if I go back to the past, and there’s no guarantee that situation will be better. I’m satisfied with that.”

Jigneon nodded and said that he would take measures immediately.

Cha Jun Sung thought hard about something and asked with a dubious expression,

“Could you... put my body back to normal?”

“Your body? Does that mean you want to become human?”

“That’s not exactly it, but I want to know if it’s possible.”

“It’s impossible.”

The response came from someone unexpected.

Borteth.

“Impossible?”

“Yeah. Your genetic composition has been completely changed. A solution might come out if we do years of research, but if we have to say whether it is possible or impossible right now, it is impossible.”

Jigneon took a step back to Borteth in the mutant aspects.

What he says goes. Cha Jun Sung cannot become human.

Cha Jun Sung did not have lingering desire. It is bothersome to cling to something that is impossible.

“I’ll go back.”

“You can stay here until Life Mission is over.”

“I have a lot to do. I need to see my friends, and I have to see my other self. It would be a waste of precious time to stay here.”

Park Jin Hyuk’s group thinks that Cha Jun Sung is dead.

Violet saw him being ripped apart. He needs to explain it to them.

“Do you mean Black Lord?”

“I might never be able to see him again, but I’d like to at least see his face one more time.”

“Alright.”

Jigneon said that he would open the gate for him. There are no longer restrictions on his entry. He can go in and out as he pleases.

‘The end?’

Life Mission, which he had thought would go on forever, was ending.

What will he do now?

Will he be able to live a normal life with the body of a mutant?