Chapter 53: The Ruins of the Garden (１)

***

I took another look at the seed bank inside the Garden facility. Rows of seeds in silver envelopes lined every shelf.

Fortunately, no unpleasant AI voice reached my ears. I thought of my predecessor…

Nikolai Vavilov.

A Soviet scientist who devoted his life to studying plants to fight famine. He achieved great things, but his life was far from smooth.

He spent his life collecting seeds from all over the world, but… Vavilov’s colleagues starved to death in the seed bank during the Siege of Leningrad. With edible seeds clutched in their hands.

Vavilov himself was tortured to death by the Soviet authorities, who deemed certain principles of genetics anti-communist.

Vavilov might have become a scientist more famous than Darwin. If the Soviet authorities hadn’t tried to erase his name and scientific legacy with absurd political logic.

Not that it matters much. I was just wondering what those senior scientists would have thought if they’d seen this seed bank—one that held not only the seeds of our world, but seeds from another world as well.

The Recovery Section Chief looked at me.

“Aren’t we departing?”

“We should. I just wanted to check the seed bank one more time. Are you all set?”

The Recovery Section 1 Chief answered with a heavy bag instead of words. I suppose everything’s ready.

Time to go, then.

***

This is the clearing in front of the bunker. I was walking toward the forest with the expedition team.

The Head of Research is probably wandering around inside the bunker right now, hunting for that gecko. With that ridiculous Soviet-made laser gun.

The thought lifted my mood a little.

Charging straight into the Garden’s forest is a bit risky. And there’s no telling if it would even be meaningful. Instead of entering the potentially dangerous forest right away, we decided to observe it from the outside for a while.

“The drone’s working, right?”

The Recovery Section 1 Chief shook his head.

“Probably. But just in case, I’ve requested HQ send a falconer. By tomorrow, we should be able to scout the area with falcons.”

Falcons?

The Foundation really is a strange place. Every time I think nothing can surprise me anymore, something new, surprising, and bizarre pops up again.

“Ah.”

Back to the matter at hand. Apart from the path we came on, there were no real trails around. Just areas where the trees were slightly less dense.

“Do you have a plan?”

“The surrounding terrain is fluid, but… we do have a map found inside the bunker. We’ll move through the forest, secure samples along the way, and eventually make our way to these ruins.”

“Understood.”

“See anything along the route?”

“Nothing at all. Unfortunately, all I can see is dense vegetation in the forest.”

Bitter. Getting the drone up was already a hassle, and even when it’s up, it can’t see a thing.

Technology alone can’t do everything.

Nothing beats manpower, I suppose.

“Any heavy equipment we can mobilize?”

“No.”

I clicked my tongue.

Can’t be helped—dragging an armored vehicle through that dense forest would be a pain anyway.

“Anything unusual nearby?”

The Recovery Section 1 Chief asked me. Everything around here is unusual. But there were places inside the Garden that were especially strange. Older structures remained there.

“Hmm, the map records a place called the ruins… I couldn’t verify what it is, since I blew up the server earlier.”

“I see.”

“For now, we’ll head to the ruins to check them out.”

***

Preparations were complete.

We gathered our gear and entered that forest of bizarre colors on foot.

The soldiers of Recovery Section 1 carried semi-automatic shotguns. Probably anti-lifeform weapons. The large caliber makes them good for special ammunition too.

The range leaves something to be desired, though.

I’d packed plenty of equipment and carried the FR-105, the Foundation-made rifle I’d been using since before. With this body, other rifles are a bit hard to handle.

The Garden isn’t that dangerous a place. Nothing will go wrong. What matters now is digging up whatever secrets this space holds.

“There’s a lot of vegetation around here.”

I connected my tactical headset to the radio.

[Moving while clearing vegetation.]

The Foundation soldiers pulled out machetes and hacked through the thick undergrowth along the path. I hadn’t brought a machete, though.

Actually, my opinion had been to just burn a path through with a flamethrower.

But. The oxygen concentration inside the Garden is abnormally high, so once a fire got going, there was no clear way to put it out. That’s why we couldn’t use that method.

Looks like we’ll just have to hack our way through one by one.

If this were a place in reality, we’d have plenty of options. We could drop bombs to make a helipad, bring in walking heavy machinery, or park fire trucks on standby and start a large-scale blaze.

But right now, we don’t have any resources to spare. For now, all ten of us can do is search on foot.

Of course, we could wait for support from Seoul or headquarters… but as a scientist, I can’t accept that. Not all the way to the Garden’s forest, and the ruins.

I looked around again.

Flowers, birds, and butterflies. Not vegetation you’d see in reality. Though not entirely unrecognizable creatures either.

Radiation levels are normal. No other anomalies or subspace irregularities either.

*Tek tek tek.*

But the geckos that had been in the bunker were clinging to the forest trees, dozens of them crawling around. Their yellow eyes watched us.

[I hear something strange. Do you know what creature it is? Should I scare it off with gunfire?]

“It’s the sound of lizards.”

Large geckos make sounds like that sometimes. Well… they’re not dangerous, right?

*Tek tek tek.*

*Tek tek tek. Tek tek tek.*

The few that had been in the bunker were just decoration, but when dozens of them swarm around making noise, it’s fairly intimidating.

Let’s keep moving.

We pressed on past the swarm of lizards.

How much time had passed…

“Stop. I see some kind of structure. Let’s confirm what it is before moving.”

[Understood. Structure located.]

A stone tower came into view. An ordinary stone tower you’d easily see on any hiking trail. Not big either. But I have no idea why these are here.

Who made them, and why?

No.

The why is obvious. Symbolic or ritualistic meaning, and probably a function for marking the path. The question is who made them, and I have no clue.

Maybe it’s not something humans made. Aren’t the Gardeners in reality? Or are there Gardeners inside this space too?

Well. We’ll get some answers once we reach the ruins.

***

[We’ve arrived.]

I looked out at the clearing where megaliths were gathered.

The forest is a dangerous place, but it’s also what hides us. We can’t just charge out into an open clearing. As always, we have to assume there’s an enemy and move accordingly.

“Maintain perimeter. Confirm no hostiles nearby, then use the megaliths as cover as quickly as possible.”

[What kind of enemy are you expecting?]

“Gardeners, whoever built the stone towers, whoever built the megaliths—doesn’t matter who. Plenty of reason to stay on guard.”

Let’s survey the ruins first. It’s a structure made of massive granite megaliths. Doesn’t look particularly complex or intricate, though.

Overall it’s a megalithic ruin similar in shape to Stonehenge. Though the number of stones is far greater than Stonehenge’s.

“Moving between the megaliths.”

We left the forest, crossed the clearing, and ran toward the megaliths. It wasn’t far.

The soldiers secured the area around the megaliths one by one. Nothing special. A few mice or lizards in the cracks between the stones, that was all.

“Please maintain the perimeter. I’m going to examine the ruins.”

Fortunately, no hostile instances seem to be nearby. Let’s get the camera recording first.

Looking again, the megaliths were mostly sandstone rather than granite. At the center of the ruins, as expected, traces of an altar and fire remained.

Someone appears to have conducted a rite here. The ashes are still present, so it was likely within the past year.

The megaliths themselves were nothing special.

No symbols of the Gardeners to be found either. Judging by their condition, the megaliths probably aren’t more than a few hundred years old.

[Director Geum. We see something.]

My body reacted before my mind. Click. I checked my rifle’s chamber, then took cover behind a megalith.

“Report. What do you see?”

[Flower humans, the same kind we saw in Yulje-myeon. We don’t know what they are. Should we neutralize them?]

Let’s think about this.

Killing humanoid anomaly is all well and good, but our ammunition and firepower are limited, and we can’t easily withdraw from this location.

“We can’t call for support out here, so it’s best to avoid armed conflict. We’ll move and keep our distance. If necessary, we neutralize them.”

I looked at the flower humans.

“They aren’t doing anything dangerous. Keep them under observation for now, but do not engage.”

We held our breath.

The Recovery Section soldiers nodded from their concealed positions, and the monsters passed before our eyes…