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The one who even defies death.
Shin El, true to such a title, had no choice but to depend on life support systems, yet he stubbornly refused death.
Was it out of fear of dying?
Or was it for some greater cause?
It was impossible to know what exactly drove Shin El to cling so desperately to life, but one thing was clear—Shin El was still alive, even in that state.
In a way, his tenacity toward life was almost admirable.
"Shin El, I have a question for you."
Shin El's eyes, lying on the bed, trembled faintly.
He was conscious, but clearly incapable of moving on his own.
That's why the reply came—not from his mouth—but from elsewhere.
["…Carl Marcus, is it. If it's you, then you certainly have the right. No… anyone living on this land probably does."]
Too frail to speak directly, Shin El used a voice-generation system connected to a brainwave detector to communicate.
Though artificial, the voice was indistinguishable from his original.
"Were you expecting me?"
["Hard to say… Honestly, I'd call it a meeting I would've rather avoided, if possible. But what can I do? You've become a being that can no longer be stopped. I'm just grateful you didn't cause any meaningless sacrifices along the way."]
It wasn't unreasonable for Shin El to feel that way.
Indeed, I had made it to the El family residence by subduing all of White Line's forces and special units without inflicting so much as a scratch.
Unless Ark declared war on me as a whole, stopping me at this point was realistically impossible.
"I see."
["But it doesn't matter. This too is part of the process that will eventually lead humanity to its destined end."]
Now I had to know.
What had they been hiding all this time?
What could possibly justify all the sacrifices made?
"What exactly is Project Noah?"
["Project Noah… So, you wish to learn of the original sin."]
That word again—sin.
Whatever secret Project Noah held, I had to learn it now.
Even if doing so would lead to a certain end.
"You're already aware of the outside situation, aren't you? There's no more time to delay."
["Do you believe the truth about Project Noah could be the key to solving this?"]
"At the very least, it could offer a choice."
The Kronos Union and Church of Morte had joined hands and raised an army against Ark.
Why had they done so?
Why must they do so?
The true reason lay hidden within Project Noah.
["A choice… yes, that's true. That too is a right of existence."]
"What do you mean by that?"
["It means you have the right. No—must have the right. After all, you are the ones who will truly inherit this world."]
Shin El's eyelids flickered.
["Project Noah is the greatest invention in all of human history. And simultaneously, the most horrific original sin."]
The wires in Shin El's bedroom began to wriggle, and soon holograms began to emerge around us.
The holograms displayed Ark.
But not the current Ark—it was the Ark I had once seen in a vision of the past.
["The background behind Project Noah is simple. Humanity, having arrived on this planet, was forced to survive in an alien land teeming with dangerous predators. To survive, they had to acquire resources while evading those predators."]
The hologram showed people within Ark.
The interior, far more primitive than what we knew now, made one question if it was truly Ark at all.
["Every single day was a desperate struggle for survival. Not only because of beasts and monsters, but simply because surviving on an alien world was hardship in itself."]
People in the early, unsegmented Ark moaned in hunger.
Just as Shin El described, the daily life of those in the past was a fight to survive.
["Yes… it all began simply as a matter of survival."]
Why was it?
Somehow, Shin El's voice—filtered through machines—sounded faintly bitter.
["Back then, Ark needed something special to ensure survival. It had its own ecosystem, but due to the long voyage, even that ecosystem had begun to collapse, and resources were nearly depleted. And naturally, the first to die off were those already oppressed within Ark. Yes, the prisoners in the tail section."]
"So, the answer to that was Project Noah?"
["That's right. The prisoners in the tail section, desperate to survive, pooled together all their knowledge and technology and barely managed to create a single project. That was Project Noah."]
"Then what exactly was Project Noah?"
The surrounding holograms briefly dimmed into darkness.
And then, like a spark being born, a light flared from within that darkness.
["Creation of existence from nothing."]
Even though the voice came through a machine, a chill ran down my spine.
Project Noah.
The secret I had been chasing for so long… and the truth I was now facing was far more shocking than I ever expected.
["That's what Project Noah was designed for."]
"…Is that even possible?"
Creating something from nothing…
I wasn't a scientist, but even I knew that sort of thing belonged in the realm of gods.
Could it even be called technology?
Wouldn't miracle or magic be more fitting?
'Now that I think about it…'
Suddenly, the impossible phenomenon of my infinite bullets came to mind.
Couldn't that, too, be considered true creation from nothing?
["Strictly speaking, it's impossible. But even so, Project Noah succeeded in producing something that came remarkably close."]
"…Something close?"
I recalled what Carmen—the Messiah of the Machine Cult—had said.
That after the implementation of Project Noah, Ark's total output drastically increased.
「"One of the most interesting things is the data on Ark's total productivity."」
「"Productivity?"」
「"Yes. As you know, Ark has limited space, and naturally, the resources within are also limited. Output should have decreased, not increased. But from the estimated time Project Noah was launched, Ark's productivity spiked. It was clearly unnatural."」
「"That is suspicious."」
「"Exactly. So I analyzed data from Ark's primary industries—mining, agriculture, forestry—but found no cause for the increase."」
「"That's not all. I also performed a complete audit of every field. And I discovered something else."」
「"At the time, Ark's productivity data had been manipulated. Or rather, the total productivity remained the same, but the source of that production had been altered."」
「"What does that mean?"」
「"It means that the increase in productivity didn't come from Ark's industries, but from outside sources."」
「"Then resources flowed into Ark from elsewhere?"」
「"That would be the most logical assumption, but there's no record of such quantities of materials moving in or out."」
「"So materials that could drastically boost Ark's productivity… appeared from nowhere."」
「"That's what the data suggests."」
Carmen's analysis was correct.
Project Noah had drastically increased Ark's productivity.
'…But how?'
Shin El had said they attempted to create matter from nothing through Project Noah, but failed to fully implement it.
But if they had failed, then how could Ark's productivity have increased so explosively?
No—it meant that, as Shin El said, Project Noah had partially succeeded.
["You have a lot of questions. That's good. It means you're thinking."]
"Did Project Noah… succeed?"
Shin El smiled.
Or rather, the voice behind the machine did.
["Tell me, do you know anything about nuclear power?"]
"…Nuclear power?"
["Yes. In nuclear fission, 1 gram of uranium fuel produces about 1.5×10^7 kWh of thermal energy. In nuclear fusion, 1 gram of hydrogen produces over 6×10^14 kWh."]
The hologram displayed fission and fusion.
Splitting and merging.
Contraction and expansion.
All spiraling into explosive force.
["Project Noah was the same at its core. Like uranium or hydrogen—take something vanishingly small, and obtain something immeasurably larger. That was the essence of Project Noah."]
Shin El's voice continued.
["So then—what do you think was used instead of uranium or hydrogen in Project Noah?"]
The hologram glitched with noise.
It gave a sense of looming dread.
["In the past, special relativity proposed a theory—under certain conditions, energy could be converted into matter. And before long, humanity proved it true."]
The hologram cast a shadow of darkness.
There was nothing there—yet it felt as if something was watching.
["Later, brilliant scientists proposed even more radical theories. One of them suggested that not only energy—but information could be converted into matter."]
"…Converting information into matter? Is that even possible?"
["It was thought to be impossible. But we did it. Project Noah made it possible."]
The darkness in the hologram stirred.
It trembled, as if heralding the birth of something.
["Once the technology was complete, all that remained was implementation. But the creators of Project Noah struggled at first—they didn't fully understand what form information actually took. Information was a concept unlike anything we had faced before."]
That made sense.
Even I, listening now, couldn't clearly define what information was.
["But eventually, they found it—the massive repository that contained the information of every living being."]
The hologram revealed something.
It took countless forms.
Human, beast, monster, and more…
I knew of only one thing that encompassed such diversity.
"No way…"
["Yes. What we now call ether."]
Now I finally understood.
What Project Noah was.
And why all of this had happened.
["Project Noah was a technology that converted the informational essence of ether into physical matter and energy."]
The deep, dark secret that White Line had hidden all this time—was finally revealed.
===BREAK===
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