Black Badger - Chapter 382



Only Noblemtl

382. Infinite Wait (1)

I went to see the penguins.

Yoon, Ricardo, and Sophia didn’t get close to the penguins because Yoon told them that the penguin habitat was a shit field and smelled terrible.

Carl, I and Amy went to see the penguins. They are the only penguins left in Antarctica when winter comes.

To survive the extreme cold, the penguins huddled together.

It didn’t smell as bad as Yoon had pointed out. It must have been because it was so cold that even the excrement had frozen.

Gentoo penguins and Adelie penguins are said to have an incredibly strong smell.

That’s not the case now.

Ami, who approached slowly, was delighted to see the penguins huddled together tightly.

“There are babies too!”

She grabbed my arm and shouted.

He smiled broadly, but you couldn’t see it. Only his eyes were visible on his face.

“It looks like it was just born!”

Ami didn’t get too close.

He said it was because he didn’t want to disturb the penguins. He said the chicks were just hatched, so they must be sensitive.

“I’m happy… .”

But she was happy enough.

“So cute. The baby fur is so fluffy.”

Ami, whose wish was granted, thanked Bingryong several times.

The dragon greeted him with a graceful smile. Even after returning to the Antarctic base without much trouble, Ami continued to show her gratitude. She suggested that the dragon stay longer at the base. She said she would make him some delicious food.

But Bingryong immediately rejected the offer.

“I think I’ll be a little more lazy. I’ll contact you from within the core when I feel like it.”

At that time, I asked him to review my second request.

“There’s a place I want to go right now.”

And then it disappeared.

I didn’t even say hello. I closed my eyes right after saying that, and when I opened them, he was gone. It was as if he had never been here in the first place.

What a quiet space travel.

“I’m so glad you’re a good person.”

Ami muttered blankly as she looked at the spot where Bingryong had disappeared.

“If not, we might have already been under the dragon’s control….”

That must have been true.

Or else it would be destroyed.

Either way, there would be no answer.

I had sensed its power when I briefly encountered it in Core 15, but when it was up close, the pressure was on a whole other level.

There’s a reason they’re called natural disasters.

Anyway, Bingryong disappeared like that.

We were left alone at the Antarctic base again.

And it was only then that I heard the standby order from headquarters.

“Wasn’t there any mention of how long we had to wait?”

“They say they will assess the situation and give further instructions, but I don’t know how long that will take.”

Yoon answered.

Then he immediately gave instructions. He didn’t know how long we would have to stay, so he told us to hand over three days’ worth of supplies.

Get ready for the rest of the day.

We moved busily. I stuffed the torn bedsheets and blankets into a trash bag as instructed by Yoon. After throwing new bedsheets and blankets on the bed, I helped organize the items.

Then I slept for a while.

I take a nap in the bedroom with my seniors who can’t sleep because they’re nursing the sick.

I woke up in the evening and started working again, checking the equipment and collecting the bamboo.

It was only when we sat down in front of the food that Ricardo, who was on duty for dinner, brought us the news.

“The plague is spreading.”

This was what Yoon told me when he returned from the communications room.

The hands of those who were picking up the dishes suddenly stopped.

Ami asked blankly.

“Plague? At headquarters?”

“Yes. It seems that only those with enhanced bodies are infected. However, it is not yet confirmed that civilians are not infected, so it seems that the infected individuals have been completely isolated. The first patient was Badger, who was held hostage. It is possible that this is not a naturally occurring plague.”

I put down the dishes I had been holding.

Biochemical attack on Kyle’s side… .

It could not be treated as an entirely absurd hypothesis.

The Empire also used to use biochemical attacks. If there were warlocks among the enemy, there was a high possibility of a biochemical attack. Many of the warlocks were similar to scientists on Earth. They did not stop at using magic, but preferred to conduct various ‘experiments’.

If you say that you’re a mad scientist, everyone will understand it easily.

Anyway, it was suspicious that it was a virus and not something that occurred naturally.

Yoon continued speaking while rubbing his eyes.

“Symptoms include high fever, sore throat, chills, etc. You can think of it as similar to the flu. The first patient is currently in the intensive care unit because his condition has deteriorated rapidly. The route of infection has not yet been determined, so he has been ordered to stay here until the situation is more fully understood.”

“Who is the patient?”

Ami asked, holding her breath.

“Who’s in the ICU? Are there any patients who have recovered yet?”

“Rona Navaratte. There are no patients who are cured.”

Ami takes a sharp breath at Yoon’s dry answer.

Ricardo and Karl narrowed their eyes in silence. Only Sophia picked up her fork and poked at the potatoes on her plate.

The senior opens his mouth wide and chews a potato.

Ricardo asked.

“How many patients do you have now…?”

“There are over thirty and growing rapidly.”

It seems to be highly contagious.

The sword asked.

“How do you know that this is a new infectious disease and not the flu?”

“There is no mention of it. We will only be able to confirm it once the order to return is given.”

“You don’t know who got it?”

“They didn’t give me a list of patients.”

“But I don’t think there will be a shortage of medical personnel, as medical staff won’t be infected indiscriminately.”

The sword said.

Yoon nodded and walked over to the table. He sat down in the empty seat next to Ami and picked up his chopsticks.

Then, as if he had said everything he wanted to say, he started eating.

That was the trigger for other people to start having dinner too.

Of course, we talked about the epidemic that was spreading throughout headquarters.

“It’s frustrating because communication isn’t working~… .”

“Did Yehyun give the order? Does that mean Yehyun hasn’t been caught yet?”

“The one who sent the email was Secretary Ye-Hyeon, and there was no mention of the top management being infected. But who knows? Since they only sent the key content, it wouldn’t be strange if someone in the top management was infected.”

“Will you get caught too?”

Sophia looked at me and Kairos and asked.

The one who answered was a missionary.

“I don’t know much about medicine, but at first glance, both cases seem possible….”

“You have to open it to know.”

Yoon said dryly.

“The route of infection has not been clearly identified.”

“Is this a coronavirus variant?”

Amy muttered to herself.

“We must be short on manpower….”

Ricardo also muttered softly. I was thinking the same thing, so I nodded while chewing the octopus.

I was very happy with my veins and stamina returning just a few hours ago.

Something keeps exploding without giving us a moment to rest.

It was unclear whether this was planned by Kyle, or whether the virus, which his own kind were immune to, had entered the core naturally through the hostage.

In any case, considering the current situation, it was clear that this was not a very good thing.

If the development of antibiotics is delayed, power will be drastically reduced.

The timing was very bad because we didn’t know when or how Kyle would attack.

The problem of raw materials hoarding has just been resolved.

A-Tech is probably making core devices that he can use to attack Kyle’s camp.

If the epidemic did not subside, there would be no use in creating the core device. There would be a shortage of manpower, not to mention attacking.

The butterfly effect of the elders’ power struggles is this big.

He made a glum expression and ate the paella.

I know paella isn’t Italian, but it was incredibly delicious even though it wasn’t my country’s food.

“Nothing will be solved by talking here. Anyway, take a conservative approach and plan to stay here for a month at the very least.”

When everyone finished eating dinner, Yoon gave instructions.

“Get ready to wait endlessly.”

That’s what I did.

Everyone was sick of waiting. Combat was originally a repetitive cycle of boring time and deafening battles.

Fortunately, the base was large and we had brought plenty of supplies, so the wait wasn’t hard. We took turns doing what we had to do. After finishing our work, we had the rest of the time to relax.

There were many things to kill time at the base.

Watch a movie and eat grilled pork.

I drank some alcohol and heard the loud noise of the glacier breaking.

I also saw the Aurora.

“So pretty!”

The army jumped up and down with joy.

Sophia is in a daze, and Karl raises his head while removing his balaclava.

Ami was delighted beyond measure as she stood next to smokers looking up at the sky with unlit cigarettes in their mouths.

“I didn’t know I could see the Aurora!”

At mealtimes, conversations are mostly about work-related matters.

Of course, I told my superiors what Bingryong said to Karl.

“Late July, early August?”

The shooter with his arms crossed arched an eyebrow.

“There’s not much time left. It seems like something is about to explode again, so I should tell Yehyun.”

“Isn’t there always a mission?”

Carl Dow calmly retorted.

“It’s likely that it’s just some mundane, routine mission.”

“It can’t hurt to tell me.”

“I told you that the future isn’t fixed.”

As I continued to tell the story, Sophia, who had been growing increasingly pale, turned around to look at Karl.

She seemed angry.

The short-haired badger gripped Carl’s arm tightly.

“I’ll take a vacation then.”

“In movies, people usually lose their lives trying to avoid that fate.”

“It’s a movie. It’s an avoidable future, so shouldn’t we make an effort to avoid it?”

Karl responded with a faint smile, but Sophia did not accept the smile.

She furrowed her eyebrows and snapped.

“You have a lot of vacation time left anyway. You should definitely take it then.”

We also talked about intuition.

“Do you know which sense animals use whose operating mechanism and related sensory organs have not been identified?”

Five days after the leaf veins recovered.

This is what Yoon said while looking at me and Kairos.

When neither of us answered in pairs, the shooter continued speaking dryly.

You probably weren’t expecting an answer anyway.

“It’s self-acceptance.”

“Self-acceptance…?”

“Magnetic field.”

When I asked in a puzzled tone, Kairos smiled and gave me more clear words.

Ah. Magnet.

Yoon said, ignoring me who nodded awkwardly.

“Animals on Earth have evolved to detect only the geomagnetic field, not to generate it. You know, migratory birds. They detect magnetic fields when they move medium to long distances.”

“Aha. So you’re assuming that our sixth sense works using magnetic fields?”

“Rather than that, since all other options have been eliminated, I’m guessing it’s a magnetic field. It’s not visual, olfactory, or electroreceptive.”

I see.

That’s why you were looking so closely at my mastoid process. I thought it might be a sensory organ involved in proprioception.

But what difference does it make if you know how it works?

As the scientists were thinking about freaking out, Kairos leaned forward.

“Doesn’t the proprioceptor need focusing structures like the auricle or pupil?”

“Ah, right. I think the scales on your mastoid bones are there to protect something inside.”

“Has the mechanism of action of magnetoreceptors been elucidated?”

“No. Proprioceptors still remain the holy grail of sensory biology.”

Yoon calmly answered the missionary’s ambitious questions.

“The person who figured it out will get the Nobel Prize. What I mean is, I confess that I don’t know anything about the working mechanism of the sixth sense or the working mechanism of the proprioceptor.”

Kairos, strangely enough, has a part that fits well with the shooter.

With that in mind, I watched with interest Yoon’s conversation with Kairos during his stay in Antarctica.

Maybe it’s because they’re both interested in biology. Surprisingly, Yoon talked to Kairos the most after me and Ami.

I’m just two people having a conversation about something that isn’t interesting.

When the two started talking, I observed them for a while and then went to find Ricardo.

It’s been 7 days since I spent time like that.

The order to return finally came from headquarters.

***

There was no message other than to return via the portal.

We’ll find out when we get there anyway. With that in mind, we left Antarctica right away. After quickly sending the supplies we needed to send, we jumped into the portal.

Center Core is back after a few days.

They said that since Antarctica is a place where even microorganisms die, there won’t be any disinfectant left on the way back.

Disinfectant was sprayed from all directions, making the seniors’ words meaningless.

The official shouted from the control room.

[Please wear a mask!]

There were gas masks placed on the floor according to the number of people.

[Put on a gas mask, a gas mask!]