Chương 156: Chapter 155: A Conversation in a Wheelchair, and the Ghost of an Administrator

Heavy rain lashed against the reinforced glass of the 120th-floor conference room, blurring the whole of Seoul below into a smeared sea of light. Inside the soundproofed room, the only sounds were the wheelchair's casters creaking against the ebony floor and the faint rising steam of chrysanthemum tea. Professor Kang Min-Jae rolled himself up to the edge of the glass table, facing Lucian. In the corner, Eleanor sat at a small desk, a quill in hand, carefully recording the meeting minutes on a sheet of vellum.

Lucian set his teacup down and laced his fingers together.

"Professor Kang. Vance Earth Holdings' board and Korean counsel have prepared a funding offer for your philosophy institute. It does not require you to withdraw your public criticism." Kang Min-Jae didn't look at the agreement. He reached into the pocket of his old wool coat and pulled out a square magical disc — a glossy black piece of pre-war magitech — and set it down on the glass table with a sharp click. Ting! The Unified System V2.

0 panel opened in front of Lucian: [LEGACY MAINTENANCE OPERATOR RECORD DETECTED] ● Source: encrypted old-network log unlocked by the presented credential. ● User: Kang Min-Jae. ● Access class: limited legacy maintenance operator. ● Status: revoked after repeated unauthorized interventions. [ARCHIVAL NOTE:] ● Credential lineage traces to the old maintenance network descended from the founder's architecture. ● Recorded scope: one isolated legacy habitat.

Lucian studied the metal disc, fingers tapping lightly against the table.

"So somebody handed you a maintenance key once. And then took it back." Kang Min-Jae leaned back in his wheelchair, running his scarred, bony fingers along the edge of the disc.

"Decades ago, I was young too. That disc was an access path into the old maintenance network — limited, temporary, one isolated legacy habitat to look after. The people living in it were real, Lucian. Autonomous. Not an experiment I was ever entitled to run." The old professor's gaze drifted through the rain streaking the window, his voice low and heavy, like the sound of collapsing earth.

"I pushed too much through one control point. I automated essentials, made every difficult decision for institutions, and trained people to wait for my systems instead of repairing their own." Kang Min-Jae turned and looked Lucian straight in the eye. Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

"Do you know what that habitat looked like a generation later?" Lucian said nothing.

"When the later infrastructure failures came, the schools had lost the expertise, the local institutions had no redundancy left, and recovery stopped being possible for whole regions. The population fell. Communities that had once been able to rebuild themselves could no longer coordinate without the system that had been carrying them." Kang Min-Jae braced both hands on the glass table, biting off each word.

"You think you're saving this world by optimizing its power grid and turning dungeons into a rock-collection assembly line?" Lucian picked up his cup of chrysanthemum tea, took a sip, and set it back on the saucer with a soft click, answering, utterly unbothered:"No. I'm just profiting off currency spreads and selling household goods. I'm not some superhero savior going around rescuing people." Kang Min-Jae's hand slid off the edge of the glass.

He'd come prepared with a two-hour moral speech to expose the hypocrisy of a self-styled Savior — but the person sitting across from him was a ten-year-old talking about money as bluntly and casually as a fishmonger at the market. He took off his reading glasses.

"You... you genuinely don't have a single noble ideal for humanity's sake, do you?" Lucian arched an eyebrow.

"Can an ideal pay off the World Tower's three-thousand-gold electricity bill?" In the corner, Eleanor lifted a silk-gloved hand to hide her smile. She carefully crossed out a line in the minutes, shaking her head slightly. Kang Min-Jae studied Lucian's flat, utterly unashamed expression for a long moment. Then, all at once, the old professor let out a long breath, his thin shoulders sagging. He slid the square magical disc across the table toward Lucian.

"Mr. Vance. I thought you were an arrogant tech-tyrant looking to tame humanity. I was wrong. You are a merchant — and a merchant can still build something too central to survive his own absence." Kang Min-Jae turned his wheelchair toward the door.

"Your systems can keep people alive. They cannot be the only place expertise and recovery capacity live."

"If every emergency ends at your desk, you have not eliminated fragility. You have concentrated it. I am not asking you to abandon protection — I am asking you to notice what your protection is replacing." The conference room door opened. The old professor's wheelchair rolled slowly out into the empty hallway. Lucian looked down at the black metal disc on the table, then up at the storm covering the Seoul night sky.

For the first time since he had set foot on Earth, Lucian saw the operational problem clearly: a system whose entire failure tree ended at one person was badly designed. Buzz... buzz... buzz! The smartphone on the table rang, insistent. Lucian tapped the speaker button. Evelyn's voice came through fast and clipped, over the rattle of mechanical-keyboard typing.

"Lucian! Big trouble!" Evelyn was out of breath.

"Several major Hunter Guilds, backed by outside investors, are mobilizing around Jeju Island. They are disputing Vance Earth Holdings' contracts and demanding control of the national dungeon gate. The government and Association have established a temporary no-fire perimeter while they negotiate." Lucian tucked the magical disc into his coat pocket and rose unhurriedly, straightening his tie.

"Boycotting clean energy to go back to the days of raiding and pillaging?" The ten-year-old's expression cooled.

"Evelyn. Do not engage them. Freeze disputed contract enforcement, get me the alliance dossiers, and start with Titan." He looked over at Eleanor.

"We will find out whether these people are enemies, or whether they are trying to protect something we failed to see."