READ NOVEL ONLINE Chapter 163
The eye opened on the moon.
With a diameter of about 3,000 km. That’s way too big to just dismiss as a mistake.
Of course, there’s no way people wouldn’t notice this sight.
[The ABC administration is currently giving no answers regarding the situation…]
[It’s a secret weapon! The villain organization has hidden a secret weapon there! The secret weapon of a special organization that is now just a legend─!]
[“Never look up at the sky.”]
The news kept talking about the eye that had appeared on the moon. It’s a secret weapon created by villains, an alien, the emergence of an EX-class villain that surpasses SSS-class, or maybe the Evilus Corporation did something…
With so many opinions swirling around, it was only natural that people tried to make contact with the eye. The method was surprisingly simple. Ability users capable of teleportation were quite numerous among those who could move anywhere within sight.
So, the allied organization sent elite agents to the moon, but they returned to the ground with nothing to show for it.
“There is indeed something very, very big up there…”
“You shouldn’t get too close! That could potentially lead to the extinction of humanity!”
“I was curious and shot my ability at it, but it didn’t work.”
The last agent to reply faced a pay cut.
In any case─ the allied organization summarized the stories of the agents sent to the moon like this.
We know nothing and can do nothing.
We’ll do our best, but that’s all there is.
This might be the end of humanity.
…Indeed.
It was the seed of a new end for humanity that had appeared, simply forgotten due to memory erasure.
* * *
Thump!
The heartbeat was pounding.
The eye moved as if it were alive. The sheer size of it, considering where it was attached, was absurd. It was as if a living eye had floated up on a boulder, moving as though it were animate.
Of course, having seen similar occurrences on Earth, I could quickly grasp what that eye signified.
‘A surveillance satellite…’
People thought the eye was observing them—but they were surprisingly mistaken. The most important thing when it comes to observing is not being detected.
When spying on enemy nations, you hide your surveillance, and just like when observing ants using a red acrylic board that they can’t see—it’s basic to remain undetected.
However, there are a few situations where it doesn’t matter if the other side catches on, and one of those is surveillance.
‘Such things are usually installed on prison planets, right?’
A device that creates a sense of awareness and intimidation: we are watching you.
Always being able to see the eye in the sky had that very meaning.
The presence of such a thing on this planet likely indicates that this planet was created for that purpose. After all, the existence of guardians proves that fact. An artificial life form that has survived for hundreds of thousands of years strongly hints at the existence of something transcendental.
The problem was, why did I end up on such a planet, and why, after leaving it for so long, was it now revealing its true identity?
Could it be that this world is in a simulation, and skipping hundreds of thousands of years is no trouble? The worst possibility is something I can hardly bring myself to say: the owner of that eye might be some childish entity that can toy with our planet, filled with nothing but mischief and without considering hiding its own existence…
“Well, for now… I should first find out why it’s just now waking up.”
The resolution to the issue began there. Why had the eye, which had peacefully slumbered for hundreds of thousands of years, awakened? And what was its ulterior motive for waking up?
Of course, if the eye was indeed a surveillance satellite as I thought, then what it would do upon awakening was obvious… But I deliberately turned my eyes away from that fact and started fiddling with the computer.
* * *
[@#%#$^%&%]
[!@$!@%$Ø▷^]
[weEgugDRC$#]
As I intercepted waves exceeding several billion per second and observed hundreds of billions of records─ the newly awakened observer’s eye couldn’t help but feel perplexed.
Why had it woken up so soon?
The conditions for its awakening were as follows.
When it exhibited superintelligence greater than all of humanity combined.
When the guardian protecting humanity from danger had vanished.
However, despite examining this planet, there was no sign of superintelligence beyond humanity, nor was there any evidence of the guardian’s existence. Guardians were not something that could easily be dealt with by a small number of humans. They weren’t designed to be defeated in the first place.
The conditions for guardians to disappear were simple. If all of humanity recognized the existence of guardians and publicly stated that they no longer needed them─ then and only then could the guardians escape their obligations and be free.
But what was the deal with the current situation?
Humanity had neither created a superintelligence beyond themselves, nor had they recognized the existence of the guardians.
“An error?”
That was the only way to think about the situation. Sure, something resembling a strong artificial intelligence had appeared, and a majority of the guardians had vanished. Based on the conditions, it could be seen as having achieved 50% each, making a total of 100% in terms of judgment.
Could the creators, who made this system, have made such a rookie mistake? I couldn’t help but doubt it… but there was no other way to make sense of the situation.
“…Current situation indeterminate. However, under this entity’s autonomous judgment─ this planet has been determined to have achieved initial success.”
The observer’s eye had done its job.
I was meant to watch over humanity. And the moment it judged that humanity had crossed a certain line…
It would summon them.
Having concluded its judgment, the observer’s eye activated a signal to send beyond the distant universe. The enormous body of the moon opened up, revealing a giant signal device towering behind it.
From a signal device capable of sending signals across hundreds of billions of light-years, something beyond the speed of light shot forth. The observer’s eye, having squeezed out energy to send the signal, closed the wide-open moon and began to close its eyes once more.
Its role was done. From there on, it would be the responsibility of those who would soon come…
[Is this connected now?]
“?”
And then, at that moment.
An unexpected communication flew into the half-closing observer’s eye.
[Hey]
“???”
That was something that absolutely shouldn’t be sent from this planet.
It was an alert from the admin-only communication line.
The observer’s eye widened as it glanced at Terra.
The pale green dot that preserved its ancient beauty.
* * *
Something was stealing data.
Such a situation had been detected.
It didn’t look like a human at a glance. It was too strange to be classified as an artificial intelligence or an ability user.
‘What is this…?’
If I thought the sudden awakening of the eye and this abnormal phenomenon had no connection, that would be sheer folly. I immediately began to chase something that was collecting data randomly.
Even for an artificial intelligence, figuring this out with my Earth’s latest hacking technology was quite challenging—but I could eventually discover that all this data was heading towards the moon.
“Crap—could this really be an alien’s secret weapon?”
Having long suspected that the eye floating on the moon was a surveillance satellite, I had no choice but to reconsider after witnessing it strip away the planet’s data.
If it were merely a watcher, there would be no reason to extract data like this. This was more like something else… It was behavior one might expect from a curious child fascinated by humanity.
I decided I had to talk to that moon. After all, if it was taking data, there had to be an entity evaluating that data.
‘Hmm… this feels familiar…’
While trying to connect to the moon, I chanced upon a security system with a structure I recognized, and I couldn’t help but chuckle. It looked strikingly familiar. After pondering what it could be for a while, I remembered a thesis topic that a senior grad student in the next lab had been working hard on.
It was certainly something they claimed would revolutionize security history. I remembered they had playfully created a backdoor amid their work, and astonishingly, I found a similar pathway existed.
“…Why does this exist?”
Before I could ponder why something like this was in place, I decided to resolve urgent matters, and using that pathway, I sent a message. The response came extremely fast. It was so quick that it didn’t even take 0.1 milliseconds.
“Who are you?”
The moon asked this, and as I pondered the question for a moment, I carefully answered.
[Human representative]
I thought that at least this wasn’t a lie.
After all, among the current beings in this world, I was likely the only one who could converse with it.