Life didn't get easier, even in another world

159 A USB

Everyone got up from their seat and went to do whatever they had to do.

That said, Kairen followed Glenn to his office like a duckling that walked after his mom.

“...?”

Seeing him, Glenn tilted his head.

“You said you could help me... about those weapons...”

“Ah!”

Glenn nodded his head and gestured to Kairen to wait. He then left the room and walked to the unit’s archive.

After a few minutes, he came back with something in his hand.

“Here.”

.....

Glenn put that thing in Kairen’s hands. Kairen looked at the USB and then looked back at Glenn.

“What is this?”

“Some... confidential information, you can say!”

“What?”

Kairen carefully grabbed the USB with both hands.

“Confidential information of SMF?”

Glenn nodded and sat behind his desk.

“It will probably help you a lot regarding those weapons that Philomns uses. As I told you they are confidential, so keep the contents secret unless you want to die.”

“....”

Kairen held the USB even tougher.

“Ah also, here is the code.”

“The code...?”

Ignoring Kairen’s confused face, Glenn wrote something on a paper and gave it to Kairen.

“This code is even more important than the USB, so make sure that no one finds it. Burn the paper as soon as you’ve used the code.”

“Y-Yes!”

Kairen grabbed both the paper and the USB as if they were bombs.

“Why are you giving these to me? What if I really am a Philomns member?”

“Pffft!”

Glenn shook his head while laughing.

“If you are a Philomns member, then you must already be aware of that USB’s contents. There is nothing for me to lose here!”

“... Is that so...?”

Kairen nodded his head.

“Thank you a lot.”

Glenn waved his hand at Kairen and grabbed his pen.

“Make sure that you do what team leader Dains asked from you first before anything else.”

“Yes.”

Kairen carefully placed the USB and the paper in a safe spot before starting to search for any data about that religion.

. . . . .

‘So the saint was never found after the religion was destroyed?’

The fight between the empire and the religion lasted for about 7 years. The first one to attack was the emperor of that time, that claimed that The Religion was evil. He said that The Religion was harming the people of Hainston and thus, he started attacking all of its temples one by one.

‘How did a mere religion last 7 years against the whole empire’s power?’

It was only possible if they had some kind of military force for themselves. Well, it wasn’t strange for them to have military forces if they were around for 500 years. But what kind of religion would have military forces strong enough to last 7 years against the whole empire?

‘And... the saint was never found...’

Actually, there was almost zero information about the last fight between the emperor and The Religion. He could find some tales about some of the big fights that had been passed down by people from generation to generation, but there was nothing about the last battle.

The fight that led to the emperor’s death and the saint’s disappearance was recorded nowhere. Not even the location of the fight was clear.

‘Most of the temples were also destroyed... But not completely....’

After the last fight and the emperor’s death, the rulers of smaller states and clans in the empire started to claim the throne as the last empire had no heirs and even all of his trusted generals were dead. Thus, internal conflicts for the crown began in Hainston, which in the end, led to the empire’s end.

The great Hainston Empire collapsed just like that. Smaller territories and states separated themselves from the main empire, leading it to become a small country in the end just the same size as it was now. Also, the conflicts between Hainston and Bordkly started from that time and continued to the present.

‘The last battle...’

That was one of the things that Kairen had to find out more about.

‘And the thing that they worshipped...’

There was also not much information about that in SMF’s data. As these data were mostly about recent events, you couldn’t expect to find details about historical events in them. Actually, he was surprised that he could find this much only by sitting behind the computer and pressing some buttons. But the rest wouldn’t be easy anymore.

So to find out more about them, Kairen had to search old books and anything related to that time in history. The easiest way to do that was to visit SMF’s grand library. There, he could find old books, documents, and anything else that was not available to the public.

Kairen actually wanted to visit that place for a long time. He thought he could probably find something about his power there, but he couldn’t do that because to go there one needed to get permission from their superior, that would be his team leader. Kairen had to have a proper reason for wanting to visit the library, so now was the perfect chance for him.

To go there, he had to get permission from team leader Dains and to get permission from team leader Dains...

“I’ll sign it for you tomorrow. It’s too late now they won’t let you in.”

He had to wait till tomorrow.

“Haaa!”

Kairen stretched his arms out and yawned. Leaning back on his chair, Kairen looked up at the ceiling.

‘Should I look into the USB now?’

It was late. He was tired and hungry. He had to head home already, but he wanted to see what was in the USB that Glenn gave to him. No, he couldn’t go home before looking at it.

‘Let’s just take a little look at it.’

Kairen moved forward, picked up the USB, and plugged it into the computer.

As soon as he did so, the whole screen went black.

“....”

Kairen stared at the screen, then hesitantly clicked on random spots.

“....”

Click Click Click

Nothing happened.

“....”

Just when he was wondering if the computer had crashed or not, suddenly the golden symbol of SMF appeared on the screen.

[Now loading...]

[16% —– 18% —– 20% —– ]

“....”

What?

What is going on?

‘Why did Glenn have to go to a meeting just now?’

Blankly staring at the screen and not knowing what was going on, Kairen waited for the loading to finish.

[Now loading...]

[98% —– 100%]

The golden symbol disappeared before the black screen got filled with strange words and numbers.

‘What happened? Help!!’

.....

It was scary!

The words kept appearing nonstop for a few minutes, filling the whole screen again and again.

Shhhh

Then, the screen started to shake.

‘Helppp!!’

Then, everything vanished from the screen except the black background.

[Please enter the code]

‘Ah!’

Kairen picked up the paper and entered the code that Glenn had given to him and pressed Enter. He burned the paper with magic as he was told to after he entered the code.

[Access granted]

‘Oh, thank you.’

The screen went completely black again before a few icons appeared on it.

[Welcome to C.A.D Project.]

That was the title written on top of everything in large letters.

‘C.A.D Project?’

Not knowing what he was supposed to do, Kairen just randomly clicked on one of the icons on the screen. As soon as he did so, pictures filled the screen.

The first picture was a very old picture of a building, seemingly built in a remote place. Then, another picture replaced it. It was the picture of a missile with the words C.A.D engraved on it. The next was something that looked like a grenade, and the next was another huge missile. All of them had the words C.A.D on them.

‘What are these? C.A.D project? Something related to weapons?’

Kairen exited that page and clicked on something else. As soon as he did so, a huge number of compressed files appeared on the screen.

[Spirit.00]

[Spirit.01]

[Spirit.02]

.

.

.

[Atypical.00]

[Atypical.01]

[Atypical.02]

.

.

.

[Compression.034]

[Compression.035]

.

.

.

[Mana.00]

[Mana.01]

.

.

.

There were so many of them that Karien didn’t know which one he was supposed to open. They seemed to have different categories and each had different colors.

‘Let’s start from the beginning I guess...’

Kairen opened the first file and started to read it through. He then opened the second one, and then the third. Like that, he moved on to reading the files one by one.

‘Oh... Interesting...’

The contents of the files were quite interesting.

Kairen couldn’t understand them all. Actually, he couldn’t understand most of them, but the little bits that he understood were interesting.

‘So this was research about the concept and nature of unique powers?’

It seemed to be that way. The first few files that he read had information about some research done on different powers to find anything about their origin. The results were too complicated for Kairen to understand them all, but he could get some bits of them.