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A slaughterhouse with corpses hanging, blood splattering across the floor.

It was just like the slaughterhouse that drained blood to rid itself of the stench of meat, the nauseating smell.

Thus, Park Jinseong thought, gazing at this horrifically efficient yet incomprehensible… and brutally cruel facility.

‘Looks like a Butchery Tower.’

A byproduct of madness from before his regression in America.

A den of cannibalistic monsters that butchered and consumed humans.

The conclusion of those who, when food disappeared, cast away morality and ethics.

During the butchering process, blood flowed and dried repeatedly, emanating a repugnant color and smell, as countless flies swarmed around, filling the area like a dark fog. As the world grew more chaotic, the maggots rejoiced, claiming every nook and cranny from floor to wall, ceiling to corner, and even when the place seemed clean, a slight shift of furniture revealed the hungry white maggots and the full black ones occupying every inch of that scene.

That scene comes to mind.

However, while it resembled that Butchery Tower, it had crucial differences.

The Butchery Tower slaughtered for food, but its underlying reason wasn’t pure—it sought power through the ‘Soul Bond Magic of Fore,’ which, though it sounded grand, had no effect. Hence, while the Butchery Tower bristled with madness and cruelty, it paradoxically embodied a sense of humanity.

But the scene before his eyes was resolutely efficient.

It was a design devoid of human emotion.

Regardless of the purpose of this space, he could sense it was created purely for maximum efficiency.

‘Hmm.’

Park Jinseong, intrigued, stepped forward.

To another section of the vast garbage dump.

‘Syringe and film, stamps, edible paper dusted with white powder…’

What appeared in this area were illegal substances that were a bit troublesome to handle.

They seemed to be waste related to psychoactive drugs.

‘No, this shell… Hmm. This is an antidepressant? This one promotes serotonin release, and this one promotes oxytocin release, this one adrenaline… Hah.’

There was a variety.

From substances touching on neurotransmitters to nitrous oxide, which was used in modern times… what was once called ‘laughing gas’ during that era. Additionally, as he had initially suspected, there were also what appeared to be psychoactive drugs—what you’d commonly refer to as ‘drugs’.

‘The letters on the film and stamp say… L. It’s LSD. It seems they ingested it the old way, thinly spread and licked… The white powder is almost certainly cocaine. Hmm.’

The term “variety” wasn’t an exaggeration.

There truly was a wide assortment.

Substances that exhibited hallucinatory symptoms seemed to have been gathered recklessly.

There was a spray can labeled “Freon,” an old label reading “…Mrs. Tranquilizing Syrup,” along with a big warning stating it contained arsenic and mercury, which was likely a container holding Wusong Mountain.

The opium tincture believed to be made and sold by England in the past, along with a packaging that enveloped the preserved opium, chewing tobacco-like items, and the original form of heroine disguised as cold medicine that no one understood the dangers of…

‘There’s even a machine. This… ultraviolet synthesis? Ah. Is it designed to produce visual information through light to force the secretion of substances in the body?’

Moreover, there were the latest synthetic drugs Park Jinseong didn’t even recognize.

Not the typical consumable type but machines that assisted the body in synthesizing specific substances. There was even one attempting to interfere with energy to produce pleasure.

‘There’s also a liquid mana battery. Were they trying to make you gobble down mana and slip into a trance?’

If the notorious Mexican drug cartel saw this, they might realize the gap and bow down. It was truly the pinnacle of drug research, a spectacle that looked like a trace of drug pioneers. The fact that samples that seemed like they belonged in history books were rolling around in such a dump… it was a sight that would astonish even cartel members.

‘Hmm. Drugs and corpses, blood, toys, civilians…’

I get a feeling that something is taking shape.

Faint, but it feels like something might appear.

Yet the darkness was so thick that it was impossible to discern if it was the form of a beast, the form of a tree, or perhaps just an optical illusion.

Thus, Park Jinseong moved the doll to another area.

Hoping that what’s slowly floating in his mind would concretely transform.

And there, he found what he desired.

A water energy note.

A scrap of paper that seemed to have been handwritten by someone at this research institute.

The paper began like this.

“The creature inherits the limits of its creator.”

A small piece of paper.

And that tiny scrap was filled with lines of English that someone had painstakingly written to hopefully resolve their agony and worries.

“The Bible states that the Creator fashioned humans in His image. But unlike the omnipotent Creator, humans are profoundly imperfect beings, seeking chaos instead of order, sin instead of virtue. Many clergy preach that this was deliberately done for human advancement, but I do not think so.

As written in the Bible, we were created in His image, and as His creations and children, how could we be imperfect? This does not make sense.

Just as those who inherit genes are bound by them, those who inherit their parent’s traits are trapped by those traits, so our evolution and growth have clear limits. To transcend those limits requires special coincidences or an extensive passage of time, which is not of the Creator’s making but a natural law.

The last line leaves a weighty suspicion regarding the Creator.

“Therefore, we must naturally harbor a suspicion, that is, the Creator Himself was imperfect, and it is only natural that we, His children, are imperfect.”

But could it be that there wasn’t enough space?

That line couldn’t go on.

‘No, it’s not that there wasn’t enough space; it’s torn.’

Park Jinseong thought this person’s writing might hold a key and searched the surroundings further.

Digging through piles made from snack bags and beverage bottles.

And he managed to find a few more pieces of paper.

Another text written by the same author.

And memos used secretly for conversations between researchers.

There were even items scrunched up like small balls wrapped in plastic, perhaps a leaking research material brought outside.

With curious eyes, Park Jinseong began examining them.

“This leads us to doubt the absence of evidence. Therefore, we must recognize and accept that our imperfections are not merely the sins inherent to being human but natural phenomena, a wall that we must inevitably face. And in such a state of recognition, we must repeat efforts upon efforts to surpass that wall.

Making something imperfect complete is the instinct of living beings and the goal of humanity.

However, it is a deeply arduous task, and every time we seek to escape imperfection, we are confronted acutely with that very imperfection.

Therefore, I pose this question to the person reading this.

An imperfect being born in the image of an imperfect Creator.

Surely, the other beings that imperfect creations make will also be imperfect.

Does that mean we must live forever in imperfection?

Is completeness and perfection truly decided from birth?”

It was a complaint and a question.

A compilation of the anguish experienced while working at this research institute.

‘…Hmm.’

It seemed worth pondering for a moment… but considering the scenes he’d seen on the way here, it would be more accurate to view it as a complaint birthed from madness and despair rather than profound contemplation or philosophical inquiry.

“I want to go home.”

“I feel like this impossible task is what I need to complete to get home.”

“Is it really possible for humans to create in the truest sense?”

“Is this truly achievable?”

Indeed.

In another piece of paper, the difficulties of what this research institute was studying.

The horrors of this dreadful riddle spoke volumes.

 

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