Hoarding In Hell [EN]: Chapter 132

132. To My Old Self (6)

The scarecrow was knocked away with a deafening roar.

The scarecrows fiercely raised their stances, as if they would pounce at any moment, but Hyun-woo already knew they had no intention of attacking.

He realized it too late – that they had no intention of fighting.

“You tricked me. You said you were short on parts, right? Maintaining this facility must be quite costly, so shall we go all the way? Is this what you call a toll? Blood money, that is.”

Hyun-woo grabbed his scarecrow, still bound by chains, and began to beat it indiscriminately.

At that moment, a warning siren echoed throughout the corridor.

“Stop it.”

The moment Hyun-woo paused, one of the scarecrows suddenly spoke in that same mechanical voice.

“I didn’t deceive you. I only intended to collect the toll. All I needed was your combat data. It’s been a while since we had an update target. But I didn’t expect your personality to be so awful.”

The scarecrow seemed genuinely dumbfounded.

“We’ve confirmed that you’re an unaffiliated human, so stop breaking things and come with me.”

Hyun-woo stared at the scarecrow for a moment, then, instead of following, he resumed beating it.

The sound reverberated loudly on the floor, seemingly startling the scarecrow for a moment.

Hyun-woo was beating the scarecrow that was already as good as broken.

“I told you it was over. Now you can just follow…”

Hyun-woo shushed, putting a finger to his lips towards the scarecrow. When the scarecrows tried to move, Yerdan growled, threatening the surroundings.

Hyun-woo took his time, meticulously destroying the scarecrow piece by piece, with the attitude of pounding rice with a mortar.

Finally, after even a single piece of the covering became impossible to restore, Hyun-woo stood up with a refreshed expression, as if he had finished his labor.

“……What are you doing?”

When the mechanical voice asked, Hyun-woo spat on the debris on the floor and replied.

“It’s change, you son of a bitch. You can’t recycle it now, can you?”

***

The scarecrow led Hyun-woo to a steel door.

Standing in front of the door, the scarecrow stopped Yerdan.

“Only humans can enter here. Tell your… what is it, pet? Anyway, tell it to stay here.”

“Guard this place.”

Hyun-woo did as he was told. He could call Yerdan from inside at any time if needed.

The steel door had no decorations or handles.

The door slowly began to open as the scarecrow stood in front of it and entered something on the keypad.

A slight chill flowed out from inside. The scarecrow gestured towards the interior.

“Go in.”

“Aren’t you coming in?”

“I told you, only humans can enter.”

It seemed to be a very strict criterion. Hyun-woo stepped inside.

The interior was quite spacious but messy. Dirty papers and trash were scattered on the floor, and it was full of packaged boxes and luggage.

It was completely unmanaged, just like a warehouse.

It was completely different from the corridor, but the air was just as clean, thanks to the constantly running air purifier. It seemed that no one who could manage this place could enter.

And in the middle of the room, there was something clearly out of place.

A rocking chair.

[What are you doing standing there? Did you come to watch?]

A mechanical voice came from the ceiling speaker. Hyun-woo approached the rocking chair.

As he approached the rocking chair, which was facing away, he saw what he had expected.

A pile of bones.

There was a large hole in the skull, and a pistol that appeared to have been used for suicide was lying on the floor. Hyun-woo picked up the pistol and checked its condition.

Only one bullet had been used, and it was not a pistol type used domestically [meaning, not a common firearm in their country].

[Why, is this not what you expected?]

“Is this you?”

[A kind of… what I used to be. Me, with nothing more to learn.]

Hyun-woo examined the skeleton. It was relatively small and slender, appearing to be a woman’s frame.

Hyun-woo picked up the name tag that was lying in the middle of the white gown.

Hyun-woo wanted to know why the owner of this skeleton had committed suicide.

Questions poured out.

Why she had just died without doing anything, even after preparing such a facility.

Whether she had ended her life alone.

Why no one was by her side.

[Why are you crying?]

The mechanical voice asked.

Hyun-woo wasn’t shedding a single tear. But the moment the mechanical voice asked that, he felt the urge to stab his eyes and shed tears of blood.

“Why?”

[What kind of question is that? Ask more specifically.]

“Why did you commit suicide, Yoomin? Why alone, why so lonely? Was there not a single person to protect you?”

The name tag was in the middle of the white gown.

Dr. Yoomin.

She was the owner of this facility.

“You finally got your doctorate.”

***

[First of all, I am not Yoomin. That is the name of that corpse.]

When Hyun-woo regained his composure, the voice began to be heard again from the speaker.

“Then what are you?”

[You can call me Eve. You don’t need to call me by the exact version name. Professor Maria Keller created my initial form, and Dr. Yoomin completed my dialogue module and functions, as the complete facility manager here.]

“What are you?”

[Before Dr. Yoomin modified me, I was called a beginner close combat assistance and high-speed learning artificial intelligence, commonly known as Helper. But before I could be properly used, all the people who could use me died, and my functions were reduced and transplanted into the early Scarecrow.]

“The scarecrows outside?”

[No, those are much more upgraded versions. Both I and the exoskeleton that Dr. Dowonkyung and Professor Maria Keller created were very immature. We had been developing with all our might, but there were limitations.]

“…….”

[In the end, it was Dr. Yoomin who completed both me and the exoskeleton in a complete state at once. Since then, I have undergone 1714 updates through self-machine learning. That’s all. Due to component performance, my resources must be allocated and controlled to fully perform my functions.]

“……Then Yoomin committed suicide because?”

[When Dr. Yoomin finally created what could be called my complete version, she had already lost her reason for existence. People left or died one by one, and finally she was left alone. It didn’t take long to pull the trigger.]

“You said Yoomin made your dialogue module?”

[Yes.]

While creating the dialogue module, Yoomin also created her only conversational partner.

No matter how you think about it, Eve’s tone was not kind or gentle.

Rather, it was harsh and rough, reminding Hyun-woo of someone he knew.

Dowonkyung.

Was she the one Yoomin wanted to talk to at the end?

Could the two have reconciled? Everything was unknown. Hyun-woo didn’t want to imagine the loneliness, isolation, and fear she must have felt.

He didn’t have the confidence to handle it.

After a long silence, Hyun-woo opened his mouth.

“Where did all the people go?”

[Those who went to fight, those who went to save those who went to fight, those who gave up, those who went to find those who gave up, those who left to find a way, those who went to find those who left to find a way. The reasons are various. The number of those who return is decreasing, and finally she was left alone, but she did not leave.]

“Kang Hyun-woo?”

Hyun-woo asked blankly.

“Isn’t there a person named Kang Hyun-woo in your records?”

[Who is that? I am a machine learning artificial intelligence for high-speed learning and facility management. I’m not Wikipedia. Stop asking questions.]

There isn’t one. I didn’t think Yoomin would have omitted any mention of herself.

There were two possibilities.

The tasks I’m doing in Difficulty: Easy were so overwhelmingly insignificant, or it’s a completely separate parallel world.

Hyun-woo wanted to put more weight on the latter. The former was as good as saying there was no hope.

[The reason I accepted you was because you were an unrecorded human. That’s why the update procedure was necessary. Since so much time has passed, I thought you must be a Star’s Kin [referring to individuals connected to celestial entities].]

‘Star’s Kin.’

It must be referring to the Hungry Ones or the Kawaros. If there were any surviving humans, I could guess that most of them would be like that.

Hyun-woo suddenly wondered if he would become like that if he accepted the Star’s proposal.

Hyun-woo suddenly remembered the skeleton near the entrance of the gym.

“You said no one came back? Then who is that skeleton in the gym?”

[I don’t know.]

“You don’t know?”

[It’s not someone who stayed in this facility. Or it could be someone who has deteriorated beyond recognition. Anyway, since he was not a member of the facility, the burial procedure was not carried out. Dr. Yoomin died in a place where I didn’t have access, so I couldn’t recover her.]

The skeleton had a fragment of the ‘Leading Star, Yereul’.

The memory of that time was surprisingly clear.

It may be because it was the moment when he first acquired a fragment of the star.

If he was someone who was wandering around outside to find a way, it wouldn’t be strange if he returned at the end of his failure and met his death in the gym.

‘But at least that’s not me.’

Hyun-woo was rejected as soon as he encountered the Leading Star, Yereul.

It arbitrarily disappointed in Hyun-woo’s values and left, even giving up the fragment. That meant that even if Hyun-woo died, he would have no connection with that star.

‘Come to think of it, Lee Ji-tae……. Lee Ji-tae said he heard the voices of the Leading Star and the Brightest Star.’

That means there’s a possibility that Lee Ji-tae is that skeleton.

He came here to find the Alliance and the person called Teacher, but he found out unexpected information.

But that information was neither light nor useless. At least for Hyun-woo, it was more important information than the identity of the Teacher.

“Teacher, Alliance, Park Hwi-so, Ryu Soo-ah. Do you have any information about these?”

[Park Hwi-so’s combat data is entered.]

“Was Park Hwi-so here too?”

[It’s just randomly collected data. I tried to include data from people who have reached a certain level or made certain achievements as much as possible, for optimal adaptation to combat situations.]

That seemed to be it. Hyun-woo thought of the countless scarecrows standing in the hallway. Each of them was a scarecrow with the combat data of each individual entered, and Hyun-woo’s information was also added there.

“Can I move the scarecrows?”

There was no answer from Eve. She seemed to be thinking. After a considerable silence, an answer flowed out from Eve.

[No. I think that’s the right thing to do, but I don’t have the authority to do so. And the only person who could allow that is dead. The conditions are strict to prevent system authority from flowing to unexpected people.]

“Then that’s it. Tell me any information, knowledge, anything you know.”

[I can tell you any secrets below level 3 at any time. But as I said, I’m not Wikipedia. I can give you combat data, but I don’t have all the information you want.]

“Combat data?”

[I found a lot of problems in your system. Problems that are only found in early models. It can be easily improved.]

Could she be talking about the Battle Helper?

Hyun-woo suddenly remembered the note that Maria Keller created Eve, the prototype of the Battle Helper. This place is where even scarecrows use the Battle Helper.

Then it would be possible to make Hyun-woo’s skills even more perfect.

‘No, but people, even skills, are you saying you can update them?’

It’s a different problem than fixing scarecrows. But Eve said she could do it easily.

[From the beginning, Professor Maria Keller created this technology to be implanted in people. Don’t be a coward and be brave. It’s not difficult. After all, people are not anatomically more complex than scarecrows.]

“No, wait a minute. What are you saying now?”

[I told you to have the will.]

In a feeling where he didn’t know whether to be sad, angry, or run away with his tail between his legs, Hyun-woo decided to entrust himself to Eve’s judgment.

Above all, it is Yoomin’s legacy.

Hyun-woo decided to trust Yoomin.

Even though Yoomin in this world knows nothing about herself.