Chapter 389

Calamity (1)

One angel spoke, and asked

"If judgment must fall upon prideful humans, what form of judgment would be fitting?"

And another angel answered

"Most courageous of brothers, the method and timing of that judgment belongs to the eternal and supreme being alone to decide. It is not for us to presume to weigh."

The angel who had first asked spoke gently

"Those words are true. Yet I wished only to share our thoughts. If we discuss this with reverent hearts, no fault should come of it."

At that, one angel stepped forward and proposed

"If we dye their rivers the color of blood, cover the whole earth with vermin, and shroud the sky in pitch darkness, we might punish the mortals' arrogance."

Another angel spoke with fervor

"Or, what of white frost that never melts, and endless winter sent down upon them? The humans would tremble in the cold and repent."

Another angel spoke calmly

"If every breathing thing were turned to lifeless salt, their corrupted breath would cease as well."

Then, the angel who had kept silence the longest of all spoke

"All those measures could well punish the mortals, but they would consume our divine power in the material world to excess, and the intervention would be too direct to say it fully aligns with the Great One's will."

The angel paused to steady its breath, then said, low

"There exists an ability that humans hold most dear, the one they rely on above all else. If we bind and restrict the ability at its very root, the mortals will collapse beneath their own weight without need of any great external calamity. Would this not be the most righteous judgment, delivering the greatest despair with the least force?"

'That thing' was a stone. An enormous, enormous stone.

To describe it a little more precisely, it was a stone carved into the shape of a cylinder narrowing at the top, floating in midair above the ground. Roughly the size of an entire apartment building relocated whole? A mass so overwhelming it was hard to even gauge. The surface looked smooth at a glance, but on closer inspection, it was carved with countless characters.

"..."

"..."

A strange silence hung over the scene. The stone floating in the air did not move. It took no action of any kind. It simply... floated there.

Was that the monster? Was it even alive to begin with? Looking at its appearance, it made sense that no one had noticed anything unusual on Floor 15. If a stone like this drifted through a space that resembled the cosmos, anyone would assume it was a meteorite, not think to call it a monster.

While no one spoke, I quietly extended my mana and probed the massive stone.

"..."

I felt a wave of mana so immense it felt like drowning in an ocean. Even with the Hero trait maxed out, I felt like I couldn't win against that sheer volume of mana. The stone's mana originated from something like a small orb at its center, circulated along the characters etched into the surface, and radiated ominous ripples outward.

It looked like a machine built to spew mana in every direction. If I had to name it... a golem. Yes, golem would be fitting. Either way, it had a mana core and was made of stone, so treating it as a golem seemed reasonable enough.

While I was organizing my thoughts, I realized no one had said a word this whole time. Not the tense silence before a battle begins, but a silence that felt fundamentally wrong somehow. I opened my mouth to give an order, in a hurry.

"...Ah?"

My mouth just flapped open. No proper sound came out.

Why? What was this? What was happening?

I'd definitely moved my tongue. I'd opened my mouth to the shape I wanted, pushed air out at the right force. Talking was the one thing I'd done every day my whole life, so there was no way I'd messed it up. A slip of the tongue means picking the wrong word, not being unable to speak at all.

But no voice came out. More precisely, the voice itself came out, but it wouldn't form into words. Strange. Something... something was wrong.

Thud!

Right then, an Association staff member stomped a foot hard against the ground. The buffers and debuffers, who had been staring blankly at the golem, all turned their attention toward the sound.

"...!!!"

The Association staff member looked like they'd made up their mind about something big. They raised an arm out to the side, high above their head, then snapped it down fast.

Whoosh!

A clear hand signal that any trained group would recognize, one that generally meant "begin attack" or "charge." A gesture that seemed to carry all the urgency and gravity of a desperate decision. The many buffers who'd been watching in silence...

watched...

"...?"

"...Ah."

"...Hm."

They just stood there, blinking blankly at the Association staff member. So what? What was that supposed to mean? The question seemed to hang in the air.

"..."

Why weren't they moving? It couldn't be that they hadn't understood. So were they refusing to fight? Protesting because they didn't want to? No such sign showed on their faces. All I could read in their eyes was pure confusion, bewilderment, and something like embarrassment.

"...?"

Right after, the Association staff member who'd made the signal looked down at their own hand, wearing an expression full of questions too. As if they couldn't understand why they'd just done that.

'No way.'

There was no way they hadn't understood... was there? Had they failed to grasp the meaning behind that hand signal?

If the reason we couldn't speak was because of that golem's influence, and the reason the signal wasn't understood was also because of the golem's influence...

Only then did I realize what that golem had done to us. It had...

It seemed to have stripped us of "language."

What is language? Language is not simply a means of transmitting information. It is a bridge connecting one existence to another, a framework that gives shape to thought, a medium through which emotion is shared.

Through language, "I" can become "we," civilizations can rise, and new meaning can be created. There's a reason people say the history of humanity is the history of language.

Language is not only sound spoken aloud or letters set down in writing. Through gesture, expression, and the light in someone's eyes, we can read more than words could ever say.

Lips pressed tight speak of resolve. Trembling fingertips speak of tension. A warm embrace speaks of comfort. Red means stop, or danger. Green means safety, or permission.

All of it is language. All of it is communication. All of it is a promise.

And that golem had...

'Stripped us of all of it, then.'

It had stripped us of "language."

The moment I fully grasped the situation, the word "catastrophe" surfaced sharp and clear in my mind. This was a catastrophe. Truly, truly a catastrophe.

The golem did nothing. It simply floated there, radiating mana in every direction. The problem was that under the influence of that mana, we'd lost the ability to use any form of language at all. It looked eerily similar to how the Tower filtered content about itself.

If all communication became impossible... what then? How would doctors and nurses treat patients in a hospital? How would surgery even happen? How would a plane land if it couldn't communicate with a control tower? Deliveries? The internet? Would any of it still function?

No... to begin with... could civilization even be sustained? Could the brilliant history humanity had built be maintained at all?

From somewhere far off, faint sounds of things bursting and shattering already reached my ears. The roar of tearing metal and collapsing buildings, people's incomprehensible screaming, shrieks that had lost all meaning. Was this a hallucination? Or was it a sense I'd been deliberately suppressing all along, now unleashed out of control because I'd panicked?

I couldn't breathe right. What do I do? What do I do? What... do I do?

That was when it happened.

Clang!!!

In a world where every sound seemed to have lost its meaning, a sharp metallic ring rose as the one thing that still seemed to carry meaning. An alarm bell that woke everyone from their daze.

It was Choi Ji-won. While everyone else stood frozen, not knowing what to do, Choi Ji-won alone had drawn her sword and was attacking the golem.

"Hup! Hnngh! Hah!"

Along with battle cries whose meaning no one could parse, blue lightning burst from her body like flashes of light, striking here and there. Every time Bung-bung struck the golem's surface, afterimages of mana scattered outward like sparks, but the massive golem didn't so much as twitch. It was the kind of sight that brought to mind the phrase throwing an egg at a boulder.

Clang! Clang! Clang!!!

Choi Ji-won didn't stop. She didn't give up. With everything she had, without rest, she kept striking the golem. There was no meaning to read from her ragged breath, or the sweat evaporating off her skin, or the blazing look in her eyes. But her presence alone seemed to strike something deep in everyone's chest.

"..."

"..."

Choi Ji-won remained the only sound in the silence. Then, one by one, the players began to take their stances. Loosen their bodies. Release their mana.

The buffers and debuffers gathered together, casting buffs on the players and weakening effects on the golem. Every order and intensity they'd planned beforehand had vanished entirely, but one thing was certain, they'd entered a combat stance.

They couldn't communicate. They couldn't exchange a single word.

But at least their will, their will alone, remained intact.

I still didn't know exactly what the golem's ability did. The inability to speak? The inability to communicate with each other? I didn't know. I didn't know, but one thing was certain.

That thing had to be removed. It had to be brought down. Only then could humanity survive. That was why we'd gathered here. Choi Ji-won had simply reawakened that resolve.

There was no solemn glance exchanged in a final moment, no rousing speech to raise morale, no lovers advancing hand in hand.

Silently. Quietly. Eyes fixed on the golem floating in the empty air.

Hundreds of people sharing a single goal charged forward with everything they had, holding nothing back. To smash that damned golem. To keep living. For humanity's future.

Eight hours later.

The stone bore not even the smallest scratch.

Humanity lost communication, and perished in silence.

[You have taken damage.]

[Returning to the moment of entry on Floor 17.]