Life Mission

Cha Jun Sung is meeting Jigneon in a place that doesn’t exist in the world. It isn’t the world they live in or the world where the missions take place.

They could say that it is earth and just the dimensions are different. He found out recently, but this place is a world outside this world of the three worlds, meaning they are out in the universe.

Jigneon gave Cha Jun Sung a lot of information. Where they are and how the world turns out hundreds of years in the future – it was like listening to history.

But he didn’t give any direct information regarding Life Mission.

With the bits of information however, he was able to get a worldview with the source of the processes and results.

Ordinary Lifers have a repeated pattern of killing mutants for points and buying gear, but Cha Jun Sung is different.

‘What is the true goal.’

It is the one question that he can’t resolve even after 10 years.

Even Cha Jun Sung who knows a lot of information, could not guess it.

He knows that the first and second worlds are locations for experimenting. They cultivate and match them up in fights to show which is stronger.

If they show it?

After that?

They must be trying to prove it because there is somewhere to use it.

He can’t tell whether they are in pursuit of extreme machines with science or something to create biologically transcendent humans.

The most mysterious thing is that they are trying to create combat weapons.

It is obvious why they want experiments like this.

This is now the only thing that Cha Jun Sung is curious about Life Mission.

One more thing could be Life Mission’s end.

There’s nowhere to go once level S missions are complete. The experiment is over.

Will everything go back to normal once it’s over?

Too much has occurred for that to happen.

The people who died? The newcomers? The equipment spread out everywhere?

Woong!

Cha Jun Sung’s thoughts are shattered.

Jigneon comes out of a gate that appeared with the resonating sound. It isn’t a hologram. It is him in person.

Cha Jun Sung only nodded while in a seated position. Jigneon responded similarly. They do not have a relationship to exchange formalities.

“Why did you call me?”

“I had some business.”

Jigneon responded indifferently to his blunt tone.

“What business is it?”

“Take a look at this.”

Zing!

When Jigneon moved his hand, a hologram formed and split into hundreds. It has a photographic technique similar to that of the Universe Eye.

They were watching active Lifers in it. It was like watching a sci-fi movie.

Cha Jun Sung watched the hologram without speaking. Lifers killing mutants and Lifers being killed by mutants. That is the reality.

Though his human emotions had been lessened after becoming a mutant, it isn’t a pleasant scene for him to watch. He is incredibly uncomfortable.

“What is it? Are you reminding me that Lifers are experimental specimen?”

“I won’t deny what we’ve done, but we didn’t have evil intentions like that. I have a different reason for showing you this. Look. You can see it, right?”

Life Mission’s wide range satellite is incomparable to the Universe Eye and Lifers can’t avoid it unless they are making a great effort to hide from it.

On top of that, if they buy a battlesuit from level C advancement, devices to watch Lifers like location tracking are attached.

“Yes.”

“This is normal. But the thing is... there’s something that isn’t.”

Woong!

The hologram channel changes.

This time, it doesn’t divide. It only shows one. The strange thing is that the screen doesn’t show up clearly.

“Is it broken?”

“It’d be weird for a technology that transcends dimensions to have errors, but it would be better if it was broken since we could just fix it.”

“Then?”

“To borrow the terms you people use, it is like a bug.”

Cha Jun Sung had a blank expression.

A bug in a satellite? But why is he showing him this? Is Jigneon’s business related to that?”

“It isn’t a problem with the satellite.”

“Just come out with it. I hate when things are dragged out.”

“Something is disturbing missions. It seems like a Lifer, but we can’t control him because he isn’t registered in Life Mission.”

There is a block in the satellite view when they try to watch the unidentified Lifer. It isn’t able to function because of a type of radio interference.

Several videos saved in the hologram are played back sequentially.

This time, it is clear with HD quality. It isn’t hazy.

“Look around carefully. This is a reproduction of the situation at that time. It won’t be a 100% match, but it can be a reference.”

It boldly took out small things. It was only filled with the big factors.

“He’s a swordsman.”

“Yes. He uses a sword like you do. Most of the battle trail has been erased, but we successfully reproduced it because weak parts were left.”

A sword was the main weapon of the Lifer in the video.

Cha Jun Sung felt a strange interest and familiarity at the same time. He somehow feels similar to him.

‘The way he uses his booster too. This is weird.’

Cha Jun Sung saw the Overbooster in his movements, but he wasn’t able to come to the conclusion that it was his future self. It was beyond his thoughts in the first place.

Dead mutant’s presence was expressed in the unidentified Lifer. It is because the difference between whether they could get a grasp on it or not was clear.

“Start here.”

“Huh? Benukiz?”

“I’m sure you were wondering why there aren’t any missions. He killed all of them.”

If the battles until now had ended easily, the battle with Benukiz had dragged on for quite a bit.

But the win ultimately went to the Lifer.

Not long after Benukiz died, Narsiel and Vanessa arrived.

Cha Jun Sung felt like they were untangling a thread.

‘That’s why they asked if I killed her.’

He went after Odelia at around the same time. There were many suspicious points like their use of the sword, so they had no choice but to think that.

“It’s the last.”

“Ah...”

Cha Jun Sung let out a groan. The Queen of Evil mission that had disappeared 5 years ago. Evil Queen had been fighting with the unidentified Lifer.

“For reasons we can’t figure out, Evil Queen fought with 50 to 60% of her strength. Let’s just say it was half. It was extremely fierce.”

Even half would be stronger than level 8s like Red Eye.

Cha Jun Sung couldn’t take his eyes off the video.

In the end, Evil Queen collapsed. It took a long time and he seemed to have been wounded, but he won.

To think that a Lifer like that exists. He is impressively skilled.

“It wasn’t enough that he ruined levels A and B, but he also ruined level S. It’s a proper bug. We need to catch him but as you can see, we can’t because of several issues.”

“The inability to track his location and ability.”

It is a situation in which they can’t track him with their satellite. Even if they could, the conditions aren’t that they could control or kill him. They barely found a trace of him in South America and sent 500 special cyborgs, but they were all reduced to scrap metal in less than an hour.

“500...”

“They were fully armed.”

Fully armed special cyborgs are similar to top level 6s. If there were 500 of them, level 7s and 8s would not be able to take them on so easily.

But that is a meaningless number since he has killed a level 9.

“Can’t you catch him yourself?”

“Of course we tried, but he warps dimensions and adjusts time. If you get trapped inside for 1 or 2 seconds, half a day passes outside.”

They can’t tell how he is avoiding the satellite’s monitoring network and controlling time, but they suffered under this ability and power multiple times.

“Are you telling me to catch him?”

“It isn’t something we can ask of other level S Lifers, isn’t it? Explaining would be tricky, too. Honestly, it’s easy because there’s nothing to hide from you.”

Cha Jun Sung understood. He thought it might be fun.

“Why didn’t you tell me before? Why now?”

“We thought we would soon catch him back them. We didn’t know it would drag on for so long like this.”

They began tracking him in earnest 5 years ago, and they still haven’t been able to catch him.

The supervisors wanted to hurry up and get rid of this bug.

“We’ll give you a big reward.”

“I have more than enough points. The same goes for gear. I don’t need it. You said the reward would be big? Release my entry restriction.”

“Impossible!”

Jigneon rejected the notion bluntly.

There are things they can do and things they can’t. Cha Jun Sung can’t go into level S and A missions. There’s no meaning to it.

“What can you do?”

“Whatever my authority permits as long as it doesn’t interfere with the experiment.”

He frowned at the vague answer.

He can’t figure out the standard.

How could he know the extent of Jigneon’s authority?

“Fine. I’ll change it. Tell me the real reason for creating Life Mission and about the dream box in the level S reward.”

Testing Lifers and mutants cannot be the real reason for creating the game. That’s just the way they present it. And the dream box.

They can only get it through level S missions. There’s nothing for him to gain, so he might as well find out about this. He had been curious about it.

“I don’t know about the former, but I can’t get the latter if I can’t complete missions anyway, no? I don’t see how it is disadvantageous for you to tell me about that.”

When Cha Jun Sung pushed firmly, Jigneon made his decision.

It is burdensome, but it was something he could resolve with his authority.

“I’ll ask first. When is your departure?”

“I can go at any time, but the problem is finding him.”

“It’ll be difficult. All traces of him disappear randomly.”

“If I find him, do I kill him?”

“Bring him back alive if you can. There’s a lot we want to ask.”

They need to find out how he got through Life Mission’s system. It is best to get a handle on it if it isn’t the cause of a greater force.

“We’ll answer one of the two questions as the reward. Which do you want to know?”

“I...”

Cha Jun Sung opened his mouth. He might be able to get an answer to all of his questions.