Chapter 292

He felt, unexpectedly, a faint nostalgia.

When he was seven, before his family had fully moved to the United States, he had once visited one of the Vile Group’s research institutes in Korea with his mother and brother. The place had exuded an almost obsessive fastidiousness—a desire to control every variable. The sterile atmosphere and distinct laboratory scent from that day had stayed in his memory ever since.

The Institute for Large Mammal Conservation carried a similar air. The researcher who had met him led Baekgyeong into a small conference room. Frosted glass sheets blocked the view from outside.

They sat facing each other across a white table, silent for a moment. The woman’s expression was complicated. She had hurried him inside after realizing too late that his explanation—using a French surname because he was adopted—had caught her off guard. Now, her face showed regret at having acted too hastily.

Whether she regretted it or not, Baekgyeong pressed the power button on his laptop and opened a text file. He spoke without preamble.

“What exactly was the missing researcher Dexter Baker working on?”

The researcher’s expression tightened at his abruptness—he hadn’t even exchanged names properly—but she composed herself and answered with visible seriousness.

“Actually, about two months before you came, a journalist had scheduled a visit. We waited, but never heard from her.”

“Tessa Spencer, the journalist.”

“Yes, that’s right.”

Hearing the name seemed to soften her slightly. She exhaled, then began to speak, her tone filled with unease and regret, as if confessing something heavy.

“If I hadn’t contacted her, she might still be alive.”

Baekgyeong understood then why she had so readily agreed to meet when he’d called asking about Dexter Baker’s disappearance. She had already been trying, in her own way, to find her missing colleague—by reaching out to the press.

Perhaps she believed Spencer had crossed Langford Bridge because of her. A vague guilt hung over her face.

“Don’t misunderstand. Spencer {N•o•v•e•l•i•g•h•t} didn’t come to Helso because of your tip.”

He only wanted to correct her misconception, but she took it as reassurance. The gloom on her face lifted slightly.

Baekgyeong felt sorry for the kindness in her gaze, but he wasn’t here for that. The man named Dexter Baker meant little to him.

“Have you heard of a lab called CellGuard?”

Her face went blank.

“CellGuard?”

She looked up, eyes narrowing as if trying to search her memory, then shook her head.

“First time I’ve heard it. Does ‘cell’ mean biological cell or battery cell?”

“Biological. Founded in 2012.”

“Hmm. Still doesn’t ring a bell. From the name, I’d assume a pharmaceutical-affiliated lab doing vaccine or immunology research.”

There was no point pressing someone who clearly didn’t know.

Deciding to return to his original goal—the disappearance of the Asian-elephant geneticist—Baekgyeong opened another memo file on his laptop. It contained the questions that had occurred to him while reviewing Spencer’s materials.

Connection between Hybris and the Asian elephant?

Could the elephant genome contain clues to alpha longevity or reproduction?

Did Hybris intend to use Siron as the key to completing Baker’s experiment?

After all those branching doubts, one fundamental question remained.

“What exactly was Dr. Baker researching?”

His tone came out harsher than intended. The researcher flinched slightly, blinking before collecting herself.

“He was analyzing the genes of Asian elephants.”

A predictable answer. Baekgyeong was about to press further, but she spoke first.

“To be more precise, he was researching how to resurrect an extinct mammal using the body of an Asian elephant.”

Baekgyeong inhaled sharply. He met her eyes, searching for any sign of jest, then exhaled slowly.

“Mammoth?”

“That’s right.”

He leaned back, eyes closed for a moment. So Hybris had abducted a scientist studying mammoth resurrection. What could they possibly want with that?

He rubbed his forehead, releasing a weary breath.

“You’re not joking, I hope.”

“I know it sounds absurd.”

She smiled faintly, pulling her chair closer to the table.

“Mammoths and Asian elephants are very close relatives, evolutionarily speaking. They split from a common ancestor only about six million years ago. Their chromosome counts are the same, and most of their genes are nearly identical. In theory, they could interbreed.”

Her calm explanation drew Baekgyeong’s full attention.

“But in practice, differences in hormones, immunity, and metabolism make both natural breeding and artificial insemination impossible.”

Typing notes, Baekgyeong frowned.

“Even if interbreeding were possible, the mammoth’s already extinct, isn’t it?”

“True,” she said, smiling with quiet pride.

“But preserved samples of frozen mammoth tissue still exist.”

She seemed amused to see him lower his arms, his crossed posture loosening.

“Dr. Baker and I, along with our team, obtained mammoth tissue samples and analyzed their DNA. Much of it was degraded, so we couldn’t recover the full sequence, but we did identify the key traits that made a mammoth a mammoth—long fur, cold resistance, small ears.”

Baekgyeong listened, intrigued but uneasy, wondering what connection this could have to Siron. The woman continued.

“We then replaced certain sequences in the Asian elephant genome with mammoth DNA—cutting and splicing precisely. Mammoths and Asian elephants differ by more than seventy million base pairs, so editing a few wouldn’t make an elephant become a mammoth, but it would yield a new elephant carrying mammoth traits.”

Her eyes shone. Pride and excitement trembled beneath her voice.

Even so, Baekgyeong asked the question that still bothered him.

“Let’s say you can edit DNA. What do you do with it?”

Her expression hardened instantly, as if shocked that a science journalist could ask something so basic. Baekgyeong, unbothered, pressed again.

“What exactly do you do with the edited DNA?”

She looked at him quietly, suspicion flickering in her eyes.

“First, there’s the ethical... obstacle to solve.”

She swallowed dryly.

“We take an Asian elephant cell, edit it with a small segment of mammoth DNA, then inject the cell’s nucleus into an egg cell to create an embryo.”

“Embryo? What exactly is that?”

Her face stiffened again. She stared at him, thoughtful, as if reconsidering who he was.

After a pause, she spoke slowly.

“When we give an electric pulse to the nucleus-transferred egg, it begins to divide. That’s the first step in creating life. Those first dividing cells are called an embryo. Understand?”

Baekgyeong nodded and set his hands on the keyboard. She went on, still watching him warily.

“If that embryo is successfully implanted into a female elephant’s uterus, it could result in the birth of an elephant carrying mammoth traits.”

“Female elephant?”

He typed her words, uneasy.

“Yes. But it’s never been attempted. Asian elephants are endangered, and ethically, we can’t harvest their eggs. Even if we could, there’s another problem. Embryos created from edited genes have very low implantation rates. For example, the cloned sheep Dolly succeeded only once out of 277 embryos. So just as chimpanzees can’t reproduce with humans, embryos containing mixed-species DNA have an even lower success rate.”

The more she explained, the more confused Baekgyeong felt.

Alphas and betas couldn’t reproduce together.

Dr. Tigri had hammered that fact into him. The same principle applied to Asian elephants and extinct mammoths.

But Dr. Baker hadn’t tried to recreate the entire mammoth genome—only to splice fragments, like changing a few words in a long novel, inserting them into the elephant’s somatic cells to call back an extinct creature.

Still, if an elephant carried a few mammoth traits, could that really be called resurrection?

Likewise, if one replicated humans, stripping away the flaws of alphas while keeping only certain traits—would that still be an alpha?

And above all, this plan contained no role for the omega Hybris had worked so hard to capture.

Only female elephants. Only women’s sacrifices.

“Christ, this is insane.”

Baekgyeong slid his glasses down and pressed his fingers against his tired eyes. Even if Hybris was a psychopath cult, they had to know this plan was impossible.

Yet he couldn’t shake the suspicion that the abducted women had been used for some other form of experiment.

He lifted his hand from his face. The researcher was studying him closely, a glint of realization and excitement dawning in her eyes.

“You’re the youngest son from a pharmaceutical family, aren’t you?”