Chapter 121 - Throwing A Coin.
Chapter 121 - Throwing A Coin.
"Philomns."
The president said that single word and closed his mouth.
The people in the room looked at each other after hearing that name.
Philomns.
Everyone was familiar with that name.
No one opposed the president's words. There was no reason to do so.
They all knew there was nothing that Philomns wouldn't do. If it was proven that the incident was planned by them, literally no one would be surprised.
It was how things have been for the past few years.
However, there was something else that people were curious about.
Finally, after a few moments of silence, someone asked the question that was in most of the people's minds.
The man looked at the deputy commander and started to talk politely.
"I believe in you and the president's judgment, but there is something that is hard to understand for me. According to your words, you seem certain that yesterday's incident was done by someone on purpose. Am I right, deputy commander?"
The people in the room turned towards the president and the deputy commander as if they were all waiting for their answers.
The president also turned to look at the deputy commander after receiving the others' gazes.
The woman raised her eyebrows and smiled.
"Well, you are not wrong. Actually, I have something interesting to show you."
She stood up from her seat with that smile still on her lips and walked towards a huge white screen installed on the wall. She raised her hand and signaled to her subordinate with her finger.
The man, her subordinate, nodded his head and pressed a button on the projector. A huge picture was shown on the screen as soon as the video was turned on.
Everyone frowned as soon as they saw what was being shown. They looked between the deputy commander and the screen with confused faces.
'What is that?'
Kairen looked at the people's reactions. They looked as if they were shocked and confused at the same time.
What did they see that made them like this?
Kairen was really curious.
'I want to see as well.'
However, there was no way that Kairen, who was supposed to act as if he didn't exist at all, who was supposed to become one with the atmosphere, to turn his head and look at the screen.
Kairen could only roll his eyes and secretly peek at what was being played. He could see a small part of the screen that way.
There, he could see a person wearing a mask and dark clothes with almost all of their body hidden standing in a valley.
It looked like it was a video taken from a CCTV as both the angle and the quality of the video was weird.
"Play it."
After hearing the deputy commander's words, her assistant played the video.
The man in the video stood there and looked around. Then he moved his hand a little bit as if he was throwing something. As soon as he was done, he suddenly started to run. He ran so fast that it was hard to follow him with one's eyes.
The next second, something strange happened.
The picture shook. It was probably the camera that started to shake.
The air in the video suddenly started to glow. It was for a short moment but it was obvious that something shined a little bit in the alley.
And the next moment.
-BOOOMMM
An explosion happened.
The screen went black right after that.
"...."
"...."
People in the room kept looking at the screen, but nothing was shown after that.
"What happened?"
"Who was that man?"
The deputy commander smiled.
"Let's watch it once again."
The video was played once again. This time, the speed at which the video was being played had been slowed down and it seemed to have gone through some editings as some parts were zoomed in and the video's quality was better compared to before.
The person was once again standing in the alley with their whole body covered. The unknown person raised their hand as if to throw something.
The image was zoomed in and slowed down even more at that moment. They could see something leaving the person's hand and falling to the ground. The thing looked like a small coin and nothing special.
Then the person started to run away. Even though the video was slowed down, the man was still running so fast that it was hard to follow. The video didn't focus on the man and instead showed the coin that was on the ground. At the same moment, the coin-like thing started to glow.
The video was slowed down and zoomed in even more. The coin glowed and slowly changed shape. It looked more like it got disintegrated or something like that as it seemed that it was being divided into smaller parts.
The coin glowed for a moment before some thin, white, crack-like things appeared all around it. The crack-like things disappeared almost as soon as they appeared.
And as soon as they were gone, the video started to shake. The coin was completely gone by now and the shakings got worse till the screen became black after the sound of the explosion.
"T-that..."
"What happened?"
"What was that thing?"
People looked at the deputy commander in confusion. She simply shrugged her shoulders.
"That's the exact moment when the monsters suddenly appeared."
"Do you mean that it was what made the monsters attack the city?"
The deputy team leader sighed.
"I can't say anything about that, but that might be the case. No, that is highly likely that it is how the attack started."
Some of the people frowned and some bit their lips. No one had even heard of such a thing before.
"Do you have any profs for what you said right now?"
The deputy commander shook her head.
"Not really. But after examining everything, some disturbances were found on the protection system at the exact same time. It was as if something momentarily prevented the system from working properly. As if it was overpowered by something."
Shucked people looked at each other and started to mumble among themselves.
Among those shocked people was Kairen who was still staring at the screen.
He didn't listen to the people's conversation. He didn't care about them at all. Something else was what mattered more to him.
'Those cracks were kinda familiar...'
Kairen blinked and looked at the black screen.
He had seen those cracks before. Although the video showed the cracks for only a few seconds even in the slowed-down mode, he was sure that his eyes weren't wrong.
He was sure of that. They looked exactly the same as the ones he had seen before being thrown into this world.
Kairen felt his heart beating fast after remembering that day.
'What the hell?'
Kairen didn't get what was happening. Why did cracks appear before the monsters' attack?
Did the cracks cause the monster breakout?
'But they appeared on Earth that day... does that mean that something like what happened yesterday also happened there?'
Did that really happen?
If so, what did the people on Earth do?
They were able to kill them here thanks to people with unique skills, but what about Earth? There wasn't something like that on there?
Wouldn't that mean that his home was destroyed?
'Ah! Stop!'
Kairen tried his best to keep calm and stay composed. He was in the middle of a who-knows-how-important meeting. He couldn't show any reactions on his face. He wasn't even supposed to watch the video, to begin with.
'Keep calm. You are air. Remember! You are nothing but air!'
Just when Kairen was taking a deep breath to calm himself down, another video was played. The deputy commander started to talk at the same time.
"These are some other videos taken by the CCTV's around that place."
The next few videos showed the same thing from different angles. They weren't as good as the first video, but all of them had somehow captured that scene.
The same thing repeatedly was shown on the screen.
The person throwing something like a coin and running away, the coin glowing, white and thin cracks appearing, the ground shaking, and the monsters popping up the next moment.
After the video ended, another one started to be played.
"We tried to track down that person. We looked through all of the CCTV's in the area."
There were a few videos that showed the person running away. The man exited the alley and ran along the streets.
It was obvious that it was a collection of videos taken by various cameras. The quality and angle changed all the time, but the person was seen in all of them.
After a few minutes of running, the person stopped at someplace and threw a coin once again. He then resumed running at a high speed.
The same thing happened a few times. The man ran, stopped, threw a coin, and ran again.
Every time he did so, more monsters popped up.
The people in the room frowned more and more every time they saw monsters popping up after the coin was thrown.
The fourth time that the person stopped and threw a coin, one man pointed at somewhere on the screen and asked.
"Isn't that the teleportation center?"
A familiar building was seen next to the place where the coin was thrown.
The deputy commander nodded her head.
"Yes. The starting point was somewhere around the city center.. The person then started to run in the direction where the Special Military Forces' headquarters is located while throwing that thing in front of every single important place in his way."