“Ahh, peace and quiet at last…”
After the humiliating travesty from earlier finally concluded, I returned home and once again began my cycle of lengthy naps and lazing around that made up my everyday life.
I staggered myself awake, somehow emerging from my naptime to find myself on the sofa in the Blackhazel manor living room.
Still half-asleep, I could barely make out our ‘newly purchased’ wide-screen TV up on the wall broadcasting some news report I couldn’t comprehend.
Well, according to the subt.i.tles at the bottom, apparently they were holding a press conference for the multi-national medical corporation named ‘Lilim Medical’, or something like that.
「Look, look, camera people! Thank you for coming to Baekryeon’s conference, even though you’re all so busy!」
Seated on the conference table was a smiling girl of tiny physique, no more than fifteen years old, clad in snow-white clothes.
The girl’s name was Baekryeon.
An unparalleled genius that graduated from Johns Hopkins medical school at the age of thirteen, and took the position as the overseer of the giant Lilim Medical corporation at the age of sixteen.
The sole leader of medical technology development in Lilim Medical.
「And! And then! But really, it was… Not that… So it was like that! Hahahaha! 」
That’s what she was, but the way she rambled on about rather mundane things like these in a press conference solidified her image as a pop idol somewhere, rather than as a leader of a corporation.
The press conference was being de-railed so much, that if there wasn"t a subt.i.tle below saying it was just that, anyone would think it was a comedy sketch.
Compared to the sharp charisma and overpowering force Maria exerted to lead her own company, this press conference seemed to be couple of arrows short of a quiver, to say the least of it.
Lilim Medical.
Controlling all three branches of the medical database network,「Information-theoretical fundamental information research」, 「Psychological application research」, 「Technology theorem-a.s.sisted Life Science research」, Lilim Medical alone stands as the sole dictator of all medical corporations and maintains its superpower monopolization.
It’s true that Blackhazel Corporation maintains a considerable military exertion on the world, but from an economic point of view, Lilim Medical’s monetary advantage and profit derived from its control of the medical world is perhaps many times greater than that of Blackhazel.
As a researcher with rather eccentric talents, this prodigy resembled more of a mad scientist than anything; such was this individual called Sunwoo Baekryeon (鮮于白蓮).
She was the de facto leader of this colossal organization, her authority based on the very foundation of the corporation’s power.
In research, those blessed with gifts and talents may devote their entire life for one or two revolutionary discoveries that not even a team of ordinary scientists could hope to uncover in their lifetime; to Baekryeon, such discoveries held about as much significant as writing down ‘familiar with word processing programs’ on a resume; a grain of sand next to her vast beach of otherworldly giftedness.
It would not be wrong to say that she could be the only one that could be rivaled to Maria Lunalady Blackhazel, as her sole oppression.
Though, in the end, talking about all this won’t really do anything for me. Like a third tier actress, knowing about the movie and the characters inside them was all I could do.
Now, what was I doing again now?
Chuckling at myself for even thinking about such silly monologues, I again turned my attention to the TV screen.
And then,
「He-ey! Head of the Blackhazel family, you listening?」
What bluntly sounded through my ears was a surprising addressing of a familiar t.i.tle.
「So what I"m saying is, this is my declaration of war to you.」
Er, what now…?
I wasn’t really sure what was coming out of the TV now.
「It’s so I can get back my precious ‘brother’ you took from me. Yep, I’m saying this as his one ‘true sister.’ ♡」
Whoa, they were talking about me on TV.
Staring surprised into the TV, confused by the rather sudden development of things, I noticed the camera focused onto Baekryeon started to shake around.
I guessed that even the staff filming all this nonsense got tired of treating a press conference like a gossip corner and decided to put a stop it.
Just when I was thinking something like that:
An ear-piercing scream ripped through the air.
The camera angle skewed momentarily, and rotated to reveal the origin on the scream.
It seemed the situation was taking an unexpected turn for the worse.
Clunk, clunk.
The off-focus camera shook a few times, and what appeared was the appearance of various camera crews from other broadcasting companies, gathered here and there inside the conference room.
But something was wrong.
Everyone was trembling like an epilepsy patient, clutching their wrist in sheer agony.
It seemed like some kind of a biochemical activity was taking root right on their skin.
In the blink of an eye, the skin and flesh of everyone blackened and corroded away.
Eroding and festering, their flesh transformed into blood-red mucus, dripping away from the body it once was home to.
“T, this…”
Even I wasn’t sure what I could make of this unprecedented carnage before me, and all I could do was continue staring open-mouthed in astonishment.
The flowers of h.e.l.l continued to bloom.
The biological monstrosity of mysterious origin moved from wrist to torso, from torso to head, until the victim was completely engulfed with it, eating away everything with destructive touch.
The number of people afflicted grew from one to two.
Two to three.
Three to six.
The news conference was transformed to the burning h.e.l.ls itself.
Just what could even come close like this to fracturing the boundary between our world and nightmare?
Pure grotesque abomination.
The victim’s bodies dissolved away to nothing but pus-filled pools and decomposing flesh. Like inside a blacksmith hearth, all that was exposed was melted away by the intense heat. The sheer absurdity that was happening before my eyes was like a devil’s trick being played before me.
“Aha, ahahahahahaha!!”
There was just one person who seemed to not be fazed in the least amongst the chaos.
To describe the person as unfazed… No, that wasn’t it.
That person was just unaffected by the sheer impossibility of the situation.
The fact that someone could even appear unsurprised at this situation, that in itself, would approach close to insanity.
Yes.
She – A small girl called Baekryeon – was definitely moonstruck, gazing around the mayhem unfolding. Like a child before a circus in town, she could not stop herself from letting out maddening cackles and shaking her shoulders in laughter, the emotion inside her simply unable to be contained.
“W, what…”
Faced with this enigmatic scene before me, I could do nothing but retain my astonishment.
Just what was going on here?
Was it all some badly-planned out reality TV show of poor taste going haywire?
And did the master of Blackhazel have anything to do with this?
A declaration of war…?
Standing amidst the poor unfortunate souls descending downward into h.e.l.l, consumed by the unidentified biochemical terror – only the girl maintained her cool, walking serenely through the carnage.
Donned in a snow-white karaginu, her sleeves trailed behind her.
She walked with such certainty and solidarity, perhaps to demonstrate the absolute immunity she had from the mark of death that spiraled around her.
Certainly, her appearance was twisted and devoid of ethics, but it also possessed a luring beauty of temptation that was hard to define, something that couldn’t be settled with a normal guideline.
「Erm, Onii-chan. You’re looking at me from where you are right now, right?」
Shiver.
The girl’s pupils were directed right to my direction.
Even merely transmitted through a camera lense, the girl’s eyes carried with it a strange illusion that they were present right before me.
「You see, just the fact that Onii-chan is looking at Baekryeon right now, is making Baekyeon’s special place down there shivering with antic.i.p.ation ♥」
Amongst the pile of corpses around her, already decayed beyond recognition, the girl nonchalantly smiled through the camera.
「So, Baekryeon will make a promise to Onii-chan right here.」
Beyond the camera she was looking at, to no one else but ‘me’.
「From the master of the Blackhazel, I’ll get back Onii-chan.」
The camera stand snapped, unable to withstand the camera’s weight, and the camera lifelessly tumbled the floor, and with it the broadcast came to an end.
The fact that an unprecedented biological terror was carried out on live was puzzling me enough, but the one that that was eating me away was this:
That child, she said…
The one and only ‘real little sister’…
◇ ◆ ◇
「An unprecedented, first-in-the-world ma.s.sive biological terror unfolded on the Lilim Medical conference broadcast」
「A ma.s.s-scale lethal bacterial attack by a mysterious terrorist group, motives and reasons unknown」
「A plot by the third party to foil the plans of Lilim Medical? The question deepens」
「A genetically-engineered bacteria of military usage leaked from Banders.n.a.t.c.h research facility?」
After the broadcast, the news media exploded.
The alarming flood of articles, news, and broadcasts of absolute torrential amount; the absurd speed the news poured out with was enough to convince me to re-define the definition of what haste meant in the media business.
But while this disaster was filled to the brim with questions and mysteries, all the news agencies in the world had one unified question about the terror:
A biological terror devised by the third party designed to cripple the Lilim Medical, using an imposter Baekryeon.
Erm, well, it’s not that I’m too stupid to make heads of what’s going on here. But what I am wondering about is why a straightforward and to-the-point incident like this has to be made so complicated with all these explanations and theories.
“It’s simple. Surely, in a short story, Lilim Medical is exercising some form of pressure on the news and the press to their benefit.”
And that was Maria’s sound explanation.
Maria, since storming in the manor right after the incident, has been maintaining a stony pokerface ever since.
It’s as if she herself was preparing for a war to start.
“The press is, after all, merely a puppet to dance to the whims of those with a higher chain of authority. The system of sponsorship and dependence they operate as ensures their obedience and servitude to the sponsors.”
Maria uttered as she skimmed through the rapid headlines pulsating through the TV screen.
“The idea of a news agency of justice, fighting against the oppression of authority, is a mistake of sort only committed by a weaker power of authority who allows such rebellious acts to surface. In the same token – It is clear they are a ‘pro’ at this.”
Was she saying that they wouldn’t allow any acts of defiance or unveiling of the truth, a profession in that regard?
“Lilim Medical is a corporation that manufactures everything from innocuous products such as cold pills and serotonin, to a product of high technology such as Antisense RNA and genetic treatment, and they exercise absolute monopolized power over those medical products and their benefits. In a world where the press are nothing more than a parasite clinging onto the higher-up for a bone to be thrown their way, wouldn’t you say that their disobedience is simply futile, Onii-sama?”
This seems to be another one of those insights into the workings of the world that civilians can’t hope to understand. Not really a pleasant bedtime story, that’s for sure.
“It is a war.”
“Er, war now?”
As I expected, what Maria came up with was something of unimaginable magnitude. I couldn’t even begin to comprehend the weight of it.
“It is so. This is surely a declaration of war to us, with intention of provocation rooted within every inch.”
She didn’t raise her voice or act out her temper. But within her voice I could detect a frigid aura that crystallized the very air she was surrounded in with glistening malice. One would wonder if the season would suddenly change to winter if they were to sit and listen to her along with the frost settling down; the dominating nature of Maria carried with it such weight.
“If there is an opposition – it is our policy to crush their bones and rip apart their muscles until the threat is no more.”
Incinerating rancor, cased in a cage of ice.
As I look at Maria and listen to her sharpen her hatred against the threat, one important matter that has been on my mind that I forgot resurfaces in my mind.
“Erm… But the thing is, Maria.”
“What do you mean?”
Just looking back at Maria engulfed in an aura that might as well have engulfed me along with it was frightening enough to stop my tongue from putting out a single word.
“What I’m getting at is, remember what that kid said over the broadcast?”
“…”
Maria silently listened to what I was saying, her eyes barely open in thought.
It was a pressure of sort for me to go on.
“Continue.”
“What that Baekryeon kid called me earlier, she kinda called me ‘Onii-chan’…”
I stuttered through the end, just keeping myself occupied observing Maria’s reaction.
To my surprised, Maria only sat in silence, avoiding herself from continuing the conversation further.
Sitting amidst the awkward silence, we sat in the quietness for while a while, before my head got the better of me and started to mutter out something.
“Erm, you know what she meant by that? An explanation would be good…”
“If you are concerned about that,”
And then, cutting across my curiosity, Maria slowly began to speak.
Just what was she going to say?
Faced with an incomprehensible face of facts, all I wanted was a simple direction of where the situation was heading.
If it was that complicated to even begin to explain, just what kind of ‘truth’ could it relate to?
Holding back my torrent of thoughts and questions, I turned my attention to what Maria was about to say. And then, her red-as-cherry lips slowly opened and uttered out a single response:
“Forgive me, Onii-sama.”
“Er, wha…?”
Even before I could make out what she had said to me, I was suddenly attacked from behind.
My sight extinguished rapidly following the hit.
Just like that, while my conscience was fading away into nothingness, what flashed before my fleeting vision like an image upon a 90’s TV set was no one else other than my very own exclusive bodyguard I used to call ‘this brat Lily’.