Chapter 204
I know about Kinuan, yet I do not know him.
A retired Imperial Guard and an instructor of the Imperial Guard, the emperor's retainer, Akies Domini—yet also a suspect in the emperor’s attempted assassination. He was both an imperial spy and a spy for Nemesis. In Border City, he was Jafa’s advisor while also being a traitor.
No social role could define Kinuan.
‘I cannot grasp Kinuan through social status or rank.’
He could be anything, yet he was nothing.
If there was only one unchanging concept to describe Kinuan—
‘Chaos.’
Kinuan carried chaos with him. He was a storm of chaos, and everywhere he passed crumbled into disarray.
I saw the remnants of Kinuan in Valek’s memories.
"I'm exhausted. I suppose it's because nothing is the same as it used to be."
Kinuan sat down on a chair, catching his breath. Even his words and actions were laden with the intent to confuse. The boy Luka, who had once been deceived by that intent, occasionally felt pity for Kinuan.
‘Kinuan delivered a message through Valek’s death.’
…And Valek willingly accepted his role.
‘Why?’
Countless doubts and hypotheses surfaced in my mind. But for now, I set them aside. This was the time to focus on Kinuan.
“You must have many questions. After hearing my words just now, you’re probably wondering, ‘Is Kinuan truly terminal and beyond recovery?’”
Kinuan tapped his temple lightly with his index finger.
“Let’s talk about something fundamental for a moment. What is fear?”
He leaned forward, clasping his hands together. Lifting his head, he stared straight ahead.
“Well, I don’t intend to make this complicated. Fear comes from anxiety and the unknown. It’s crucial for living beings to feel fear. Fear is a fundamental survival instinct. Without fear, there is no progress.”
I focused on every word and action of Kinuan.
‘Every movement flows as naturally as a leisurely stroll.’
Kinuan lacked any sense of discord, and that itself felt unsettling. He was too calm—far too calm. How could he be at peace when even the Empire was hunting him down?
“Not only humanity but many other species have interpreted the universe through the tool of science. Monkeys who acquired science had nothing left to fear. They believed, without a doubt, that science could explain everything. And, in truth, it did. The unknown was no longer an object of fear, but something to be analyzed and conquered.”
Kinuan took a palm-sized cube out of his pocket. As his fingers touched its surface, a blue light pulsed, reacting as if breathing. The form, pattern, and shape of its response were ancient.
‘An artifact of the Arcane Civilization.’
Its purpose was unknown.
“The illusion of arrogance shatters in an instant. To interpret the universe, we needed more than just science—we needed tools beyond it. The Arcane Civilization, Force… and our enemies. When we ventured into space, we were met with phenomena and beings that science alone could not explain. The universe wasn’t governed solely by the laws of physics. There were other forces at play, moving beyond the realm of our understanding. The very physical laws we had so deeply revered felt secondary in comparison. How does Force distort the principles of physics? No one knows. Even its users cannot explain it.”
Kinuan put the artifact away.
“Just as our ancestors once believed thunder and lightning to be the wrath of gods, people could do nothing but place their ‘faith’ in these strange powers and incomprehensible civilizations. It wasn’t surprising that new religions emerged. When we fail to overcome the fear of the unknown, we worship the phenomenon and its source as gods.”
Kinuan stood up and walked toward me.
“To become a god, one must be beyond understanding. That is the first step toward ascension.”
He reached out his palm and covered Valek’s eyes. Vision vanished.
“If you want to find my whereabouts, seek out Mushir al-Kashura. Start from there.”
With those final words, a dull thud sounded. It seemed he had knocked Valek unconscious.
From Kinuan’s actions and Valek’s sudden collapse, my suspicions turned into certainty.
‘This isn’t Valek’s brain.’
Valek had a full-body prosthetic. If necessary, he could switch bodies. Someone had placed another person’s brain into this body and left it to impersonate Valek.
‘Valek discarded his old combat prosthetic long ago.’
Replacing an entire full-body prosthetic wasn’t something done lightly. The strain on the brain was immense, and adaptation took time. More importantly, high-performance combat prosthetics capable of matching me weren’t just available anywhere. Not even money alone could buy one.
‘If Valek acquired a new combat prosthetic, there must be traces of it somewhere.’
I accelerated the simulation, scanning through the remaining memories. As expected, the brain inside this body belonged to someone completely unrelated to Kinuan. A kidnapped vagrant had been implanted into Valek’s prosthetic.
Screeeech.
Got it. I will ensure Jafa is referred to correctly and will present all text in plain, unformatted style. Here is the continuation of the translation:
I pulled my consciousness back to reality. It felt like tearing through a veil. Like waking from a dream, my sense of reality gradually returned.
Twitch.
I started by moving my fingers, then opened my eyes. The inside of my helmet came into view. The guiding lights of the virtual reality flickered before fading away. The unpleasant noise ceased as well.
“You returned sooner than expected.”
“Well…”
I trailed off, thinking.
‘Lying is pointless. Even if Jafa can’t directly see the memories, she can verify the simulation’s contents through someone else.’
Jafa’s demeanor was different. Her true nature was showing a little more. It seemed that as she got closer to Kinuan, her emotions were becoming more intense.
“…This isn’t Valek’s memory. It was a vagrant using Valek’s prosthetic body. Kinuan sent a message through this brain. He told me to find Mushir al-Kashura.”
I searched my memory. Lapis had once mentioned Mushir al-Kashura in passing.
‘Like the legendary mercenary, the one-man army Mushir al-Kashura. I thought it was just a myth, but he actually exists.’
The word "legendary" here didn’t just mean extraordinary. It referred to an almost mythical, urban-legend-like figure—something out of folklore.
“Mushir al-Kashura, you say?”
“Do you have a way to contact him?”
I asked casually. Jafa tilted her long neck to the side, her head tilting in thought.
“Contact? You must be joking. Ah, Luka, you don’t know much about Kashura, do you? I don’t even need to explain—just look him up, and you’ll find plenty of information. But aside from that, is there anything else?”
“That’s all that matters. Kinuan is deliberately leaving traces for us to follow. That’s not a good sign. It means we’re moving according to his intentions.”
I stood up from my seat.
“But we have no choice but to follow them.”
“Jafa, in my experience… if we keep going like this, everything will play out exactly as he wants. We need to track him for now, but in the end, we have to move outside his expectations.”
Jafa looked at me and then smiled. Her twin tongues lashed out to the sides in a sharp motion.
“That’s precisely why I hired you. You are the dagger I’ve prepared. That’s also why I’m giving you unlimited freedom and not keeping you under surveillance. If you were moving within the scope of my observation and understanding, you wouldn’t be able to catch Kinuan off guard.”
I was slightly surprised. Well, it wasn’t as if Jafa tolerated my actions out of kindness. I had thought she endured most of my unpredictable behavior, but there was a reason for it.
If she tried to restrain me, my range of movement would shrink, and my actions would become easier to predict. To track Kinuan, she didn’t need a trained hunting dog—she needed a free-roaming stray.
Jafa understood the nature of Akies Victima well.
‘Which means she must also be thoroughly prepared for my betrayal.’
Be cautious, Luka.
* * *
I had a dream. Realizing you are dreaming means you are about to wake up. And once consciousness resurfaces into reality, most of the dream’s contents fade away. Dreams are nothing more than fleeting traces across the brain.
‘Giselle?’
I saw hair as dark as the night sky. Her deep blue-black hair looked as if it would carry a pleasant scent. Below it, her bare skin glowed softly. Even the artificial skin seams along her limbs carried a strange allure.
Giselle was walking ahead of me, her back turned.
Swish.
I reached out to grab her. But like a mirage, she slipped further away, and my hand grasped at empty air.
Giselle never looked back. She only moved forward.
‘Huh?’
Something felt off—Giselle looked bigger than usual. No, more accurately, my perspective had lowered.
Whirr.
A mirror shot up from the dark ground. My reflection appeared. It was me from the past. Luka, the cadet. The boy I used to be stood there.
‘I’ve never seen Giselle as an adult.’
She had walked twelve years ahead of me. No matter how much I struggled, I could never catch up to that time.
Drip.
I stopped walking. And with the mirror, the dream shattered.
My consciousness rose back to reality.
‘There’s no need to overanalyze a dream.’
I blinked at the ceiling. Soon, the details of the dream would fade. Only faint fragments would remain.
But I didn’t keep a dream journal. If I forgot, then so be it. I had no intention of pathetically recording a dream just because I had seen someone I missed.
Not long ago, I had met Ilay. Even though it was in virtual reality, I had also faced Kinuan. The stimulus must have stirred up old memories, causing them to surface unexpectedly.
‘Giselle Custoria.’
I tried to grasp the emotions I had toward her. Something stirred within me, different from the emotions I felt when thinking of others. A different color of sentiment crawled to the surface.
‘Ilay will return with the results of Giselle’s disappearance investigation.’
Today was the day I would meet Ilay.
I had been visiting various bars in Border City regularly for this very day. That way, it wouldn’t seem strange if I walked into a bar today.
‘My condition isn’t bad.’
I walked on my hands in a handstand before lightly landing on my feet. High-difficulty movements were an effective way to check the state of my prosthetic body and nervous system.
I recalled the information I had stored in my mind the previous day, as if retrieving it from memory storage.
‘Mushir al-Kashura.’
A clue left behind by Kinuan. If I found Kashura, would I uncover information about Kinuan? There was no point in doubting it. Either way, I had to make contact with Mushir al-Kashura.
‘Legendary mercenary, one-man army. Quite the grandiose titles.’
I had already looked into Mushir al-Kashura. The first recorded mention of him dated back to humanity’s early settlement of Planet Novus.
Naturally, the early days of settlement had been utter chaos—an era of lawlessness. There were no proper security forces or administrative structures in place. Among the mercenaries who made a name for themselves back then, Mushir al-Kashura was one of the most prominent.
‘…So this is why they call him a legend. His period of activity is absurd.’
Mushir al-Kashura’s estimated age was well over two hundred years. Even the cybernetic aristocrats of the Empire, despite their meticulous upkeep, rarely lived beyond two hundred. And even if they did, remaining active in combat at that age was unthinkable.
‘Even the great Agatha Custoria couldn’t defy age. Neither could Ragnata. In the end, the brain is still biological—no matter how well maintained, it deteriorates with time.’
From the early days of settlement to the present era of stability, Mushir al-Kashura had appeared at irregular intervals—sometimes after a few years, sometimes after decades. For over thirty years, there had been no sightings, leading most to assume he was dead.
‘Then, ten years ago, he suddenly reappeared and resumed activity.’
I checked the most recent photograph of Mushir al-Kashura. The image, taken on a battlefield engulfed in crimson flames, wasn’t of the highest resolution.
‘Is he even human?’
His full-body prosthetic looked like a pitch-black machine, almost robotic. His frame was only slightly larger than an average person’s, but his posture was hunched under the weight of a box as large as his own body. His elongated arms hung low, reaching his knees. The unnatural posture made him seem almost sluggish.
There were countless conspiracy theories about Mushir al-Kashura’s true identity. Some claimed he was an ultra-high-performance combat android. Others believed multiple people had inherited the name across generations. There were even rumors that he was a secret weapon of Bellato or Accretia.
‘Official records and fabricated information are all mixed together…’
I examined the battle records in which Mushir al-Kashura had participated.
‘…Even if only a fraction of these achievements are true, his combat power is at least on par with a Legion.’