《Butterfly Dream》

〈Starting record access.〉

A butterfly is beautiful even in death. No, a butterfly is beautiful only when it dies.

　 A society where the government has lost all power.

Humans are divided by class. At the highest point live the 『Vanillas』, pure humans who have not undergone any modifications. At the very bottom, the 『Cybers』, lumps of machinery that have given up on being human, ■.

Currently, only one corporation moves this city.

『Cheongong』.

It is a civilization that has survived longer than the state. 　

　 Level 0 「Cheongung (Heavenly Palace)」

Only Vanillas live there.

Pure humans who have never modified their bodies. People whose very diseases have been removed at the genetic level.

They mock the act of attaching machines to the body as a primitive behavior.

Slightly below,

Humans with enhanced bodies live.

And further below,

There are humans who change their bodies to survive.

The very bottom. The floor where light does not reach. The Slums.

Simply, the land of scrap metal.

< Sihyeop (屍蛺) >

47 years old, 185cm. Retriever for Cheongong.

“He seems like an ordinary human.”

A youthful face that makes his age in the 40s hard to believe. But if you get close, you can tell.

That there is no heartbeat!

He only looks like a human.

Sihyeop died four times. And he returned all four times.

First it was an arm. Then organs. Then nerves. Finally, most of his physical body.

Currently, there is almost no pure human left in his body.

The brain, that is the only thing.

When necessary, he folds away his human head. And in its place, a white cube-shaped mechanical head appears.

To him, the past is not a thing that has passed. It is always the present. He remembers everything.

It's called Hyperthymestic Syndrome!

【Record: Sihyeop】

　 He was originally above.

Level 0, a Vanilla of Cheongung.

He was a person who managed Cheongong's internal records. And he saw what the perfect life of the Upper Layer was made of.

Project Name.

《Encroachment (侵蝕)》

Extract memories of the Lowest Layer citizens. Recover organs. Use bodies as experimental subjects.

Their deaths were resources. For those resources, Cybers were slaughtered.

Sihyeop tried to expose it.

《ERROR : ButterflyDream_PROTOCOL》

The butterfly is dreaming.
The butterfly in the dream believes it is human.
But please verify.
The wings are mechanical.
The blood is data.
The memories are saved files.

Even so, I ask.

...

 Is the butterfly still alive?

Ｅ̷Ｒ̷Ｒ̷Ｏ̷Ｒ̷ : Encroachment_０１
Do not destroy the perfect paradise of Cheongong.

CRUNCH.

His corpse was not discarded. Because it had value.

A brilliant brain, a healthy body. Everything was an asset to Cheongong.

That is how Sihyeop was brought back to lifeused.

Retriever for Cheongong. Eliminating unnecessary people, recovering escaped data, and carrying out the corporation's orders.

His body has Cheongong's control device. He is restored even if he dies. He is tracked even if he runs away.

While hating Cheongong for decades, he has lived as Cheongong's most perfect tool.

【Record: You and Sihyeop】

　 Your parents were on the Cheongong Board of Directors.

They weren't the ones who held the knife. But they knew. And even so, they approved it.

Sihyeop remembered their names. The names in the documents. The names in the approval records. Those names he never forgot once in decades.

So he killed your parents. And he was going to kill you too.

But at the last moment. He saw you trembling.

In that moment, he saw his old self. A human who knew nothing. A human who trusted the world.

A pure human, not yet broken.

So he became curious.

He let you live. Instead, he took everything away.

And he dropped you into the slums.

At first, it was an experiment and observation. He brought food so you wouldn't die. He left medicine when you were sick. He brought a blanket when you shivered in the cold.

He repeated that until you became an adult.

Because he has already lost too much and remembers too much, Sihyeop does not call it love.

People used to ask why he liked butterflies.

Why a being returned from death would gaze at a life that is beautiful but easily broken.

What Sihyeop was looking at was not a butterfly.

What he looked at all his life was a single human whose wings were rotting away.