Chapter 140 : Code Human
Chapter 140: Code Human
“Thank you for watching the broadcast until now!”
“Next time, we’ll come back with even more interesting and fun content!”
“‘Well then, hack-bye~'”
-Hack-bye!
-OBNAL
-It was a super fun broadcast
-Good work~
Baek Woohyun and Jeong Nayeon, Cha Seongcheol, and the Beau-tiful Twins all gathered together to offer their final greetings, and at the same time, the broadcast was completely shut off.
As they waved their hands toward the camera, the red light that had been indicating they were live went out, and only then did they let out brief sighs and relax their tension.
Even if it couldn’t be seen, the fact that they were revealing their every move before tens of thousands of people was no small burden.
“‘Thank you for your hard work, Master!'”
The Beau-tiful Twins suddenly bowed deeply toward Baek Woohyun and shouted. The respect they felt toward him was clearly evident from their rigid posture.
That was how deeply this ‘Hack Disciple’ content had impressed them. To be precise, it was the ‘Answer Engraving’ that had finished off the boss battle.
Well, it made sense—he had demonstrated the peak they could reach by controlling their bodies. It was practically like he had slammed down the answer sheet for them.
“You two worked very hard as well.”
“What we went through is nothing!” “It’s nothing compared to what you did, Master!”
“No. If you two hadn’t followed along so well, it wouldn’t have been this smooth.”
Baek Woohyun’s words were completely sincere, not an exaggeration at all.
If the Beau-tiful Twins hadn’t given it their all like now and had fought half-heartedly, Answer Engraving would have been impossible.
Because they had truly pushed themselves to the point of exhaustion, drawing out even their last ounce of strength, that was why [Puppet Manipulation] had worked so perfectly now.
“May I ask what you mean by ‘it wouldn’t have been this smooth’?”
“It’s simple.”
Baek Woohyun answered Cha Seongcheol’s question, who had subtly interjected from the side.
“If they have strength remaining, Awakeners will resist [Puppet Manipulation]. This is an instinctive rebellion that occurs, so it can’t be controlled at will.”
“Is that different from supernatural ability resistance?”
“Similar, but different. Supernatural ability resistance is a force that originates from supernatural abilities and defies phenomena, while what I’m talking about is closer to an unconditional reflex originating from the body.”
“You’ll understand if you experience it directly,” Baek Woohyun added as blue threads extended from his fingertips.
The threads that had once controlled the werewolves and the Beau-tiful Twins—”Wait! Woohyun! Me too!”—bound the arms and legs of Cha Seongcheol and Jeong Nayeon.
And when their bodies slowly moved as he desired, they were able to realize what the instinctive rebellion he spoke of was.
Even though they thought they should just follow along quietly, their hands and feet naturally hesitated, and because the self in their mind and their actual self collided, a subtle delay occurred.
“Ahh. So this is why…”
“I understand what you mean.”
“You two gave it your absolute best, to the point where you had no strength left. That’s why [Puppet Manipulation] took effect so smoothly. You were rewarded in proportion to your effort.”
“‘Master…!'”
Moved by the fact that their efforts had been perfectly recognized, the Beau-tiful Twins’ eyes sparkled.
As the saying goes, one can risk even their life for someone who recognizes them.
They were prepared to follow whatever Baek Woohyun proposed to do. Of course, this was only within the context of ‘Reverse Planet.’
“Then we will” “be taking our leave!”
“Yes! Good work!”
“You worked hard!”
After exchanging some trivial small talk for a moment.
The Beau-tiful Twins were the first to leave, Cha Seongcheol was next, and even Jeong Nayeon, who had been chattering about the next broadcast, logged off shortly after.
A silence that felt all the more desolate because it had been so noisy descended quietly around him.
“……”
Left alone, Baek Woohyun quietly looked up at the sky as always. The blue sky that somehow resembled the ‘other side’ world, yet was clearly different.
He no longer suffered from the obsession that he must return to the ‘other side.’ Through repeated logins, he had realized the fact that he couldn’t go back.
The ‘other side’ had become a place he could never reach again, and now all that remained for him was the plausible fake substitute called ‘Reverse Planet.’
Whether he felt joy or sadness on the day he realized this was something even he himself couldn’t know.
It was the same as back then, when he had wanted to escape from the hell called the ‘other side’ but still logged into ‘Reverse Planet’ saying he absolutely had to go back.
He was still stuck between the ‘other side’ and this side, wandering in search of a secret whose existence wasn’t even certain. How absurd, indeed.
“…Ha.”
After terminating ‘Reverse Planet,’ Baek Woohyun arrived at the personal space he had set up in the past.
In the space decorated just a bit more lavishly than his room in reality, furniture including chairs had also been placed, so he plopped down on one of them.
Since there was no particular need to go outside anyway, he planned to appropriately browse Hypernet from inside. As always, there would be no gains.
‘New information about Anonymous Viewer 62…’
The strange situation occurred when his tracking of Anonymous Viewer 62—he couldn’t even remember how many times he’d tried—came to a futile end.
Baek Woohyun, who had been rummaging through Hypernet via the hologram window floating before his eyes, noticed at some point that a strange tss-tss-tss- sound could be heard.
Since in virtual space, no other sounds can be heard unless you’ve set them yourself, this was clearly an anomaly.
“…!”
‘Could it be the vengeful spirits again?’ As he thought this and turned his gaze from the hologram window, Baek Woohyun’s eyes widened. He even jumped up from his seat.
When he turned his head toward the direction where the sound was clearly coming from, he witnessed the wall distorting strangely as if melting.
The things the vengeful spirits could do were limited to clinging to him and not letting go, so it was absolutely impossible for them to affect the virtual space itself like now.
Moreover, this distortion spread to the surroundings while he watched. It was so fast that it affected not only the walls but even the ceiling in an instant.
After the propagation finished before he could even do anything—of course, even if time had been given, there wouldn’t have been any way to handle it—everything began flowing down as code made of 0s and 1s.
The situation where everywhere except the floor he was standing on was filled with green-glowing codes like the representation of virtual space from a famous old movie!
‘What on earth is this…?’
The codes surged toward the bewildered Baek Woohyun, then with a tss-tss-tss! sound, they clumped together.
Under his wary gaze, what the clumped code mass created was a human form. It seemed to be a moderately tall, thin male figure.
Soon, the code human, who had been looking around, plopped down on an empty chair.
“──, ─── ─────”
“……?”
The code human was spouting sounds that crackled and couldn’t be understood at all.
Baek Woohyun frowned and watched the other party.
He was in a tense state, ready to beat them up or immediately terminate his connection if things went wrong.
“──? ─── ─ ────?”
“What are you saying?”
“──, ㅇ─ Ah, ahh─”
Fortunately or unfortunately, the code human also seemed to have realized that there was a problem with communication.
After a brief muttering that still only sounded like crackling, the ‘words’ the code human spoke began to become clear language.
Although the voice was messily mixed with mechanical sounds, it wasn’t too difficult to understand.
“This is the first time we’ve met face to face like this. Nice to meet you, Baek Woohyun.”
“You are—”
Baek Woohyun stared directly at the code human’s face, or more precisely, at the 0s and 1s that made up the face.
He had an idea of who the other party was.
There had been a person who said they would come to see him soon, hadn’t there?
“—Don’t tell me, Anonymous Viewer 62?”
“That’s correct.”
The code human, Anonymous Viewer 62, answered in a very cheerful tone.
“Anonymous Viewer 62, ‘Reverse Planet’ creator, or the system—call me whatever you prefer. After all, they’re all me anyway.”
“……”
Before the code human who had confirmed his guess far too easily, Baek Woohyun was silent for a moment.
If they had denied it, that would be one thing. But since they suddenly confessed that they had done everything, he momentarily had nothing more to say.
It felt like he had lightly thrown a jab to test them, and they countered with a jab, then threw not just a one-two straight but even a hook.
“…I’m Baek Woohyun. You obviously already know that.”
“Ah, now that I think about it, I haven’t told you my name yet. I’m Isaac. Isaac Goodman. Really, it’s nice to meet you, Baek Woohyun.”
‘Isaac Goodman?’
A gleam of interest appeared on Baek Woohyun’s face.
Among the information he had looked into after returning to this side, there was content about ‘Isaac Goodman.’
Since he had investigated quite deeply, he still remembered it clearly.
”Reverse Planet’s’ core developer. A genius developer praised for having created everything from start to finish.’
For some reason, after the launch, he never showed his face at any official events, so rumors circulated that he had disappeared or gone missing.
Looking at how he appeared before Baek Woohyun’s eyes now, it seemed it wasn’t just a rumor.
“Let me ask one thing first. Why are you in that state?”
Baek Woohyun, having organized his thoughts, threw out a question. A human form made by clumping code together. It was truly odd beyond measure.
This was even more so considering that this person named Isaac had once been the System on the ‘other side,’ and even before that, had been the developer of ‘Reverse Planet.’
It even led to the absurd speculation that a person had become a program.
“Oh my.”
Amusingly, Isaac seemed to have only just realized what state he was in.
Looking down at his own body—though there were no eyes on his face, it could be inferred from him lowering his head—he told Baek Woohyun to wait a moment.
His attitude suggested that this wasn’t his real appearance now, and that there was something else he could do.
“……”
“……”
Thus, after a brief silence, a mysterious phenomenon occurred. The code mass that made up Isaac rippled once, then began to change with a chwa-ja-jak- sound.
The change that started from his head quickly descended to his toes, and sitting in the chair where the code mass had once been was a Western man in his forties.
With brown hair and blue eyes, ‘Isaac,’ whose impression looked sharp due to being somewhat thin, smirked.
“I apologize. I’ve been in code form for so long that I forgot to overlay my appearance.”
‘Overlay his… appearance?’
No, before that, the part about having lived in code form didn’t make sense. How could a person live in code form?
Baek Woohyun, who had been conjuring up various speculations in his head for a moment, soon realized there was no need for that.
If something made him curious, he just needed to ask questions.
The person who could answer was right before his eyes.
“What do you mean by having lived in code form?”
“Exactly what I said. After losing my body, I’ve been living in code form the whole time. Ah, of course, when I was playing the role of the System in the ‘other side world,’ it was the same.”
“What do you mean you lost your body— No. Never mind. There’s no point asking one thing at a time.”
Baek Woohyun’s eyes glinted menacingly.
He had already returned to his state from when he was on the ‘other side.’
To ‘Baek Woohyun’ the test subject and contract killer who had rolled through hell.
“Tell me with your own mouth. Everything.”
“Of course. I’ll tell you everything. That’s why I came to find you directly like this. However, if I start from the beginning, the story will be quite long, so please have a seat.”
Isaac didn’t shrink before Baek Woohyun’s murderous gaze.
Rather, he seemed quite pleased with that appearance, even wearing a beaming smile while speaking.
It was a gaze as if looking at a trustworthy ally.
‘He thinks of me as an ally, is it…’
“……”
Baek Woohyun sat down without a word.
As he nodded his head as if to say ‘go ahead and spout whatever you want,’ Isaac opened his mouth.