Agora Nocturna — The Academy of the Black Web

Epilogue: Morning of the Tabula Rasa

Three days later.

Only a few brief lines appeared in the press.

A small news item reported that Professor Baek Seung-hyun, prominent sociologist and education policy advisor, had been placed under emergency arrest following a server-room fire at his institute and charges of illegal personal-data trafficking, and had been transferred to a closed psychiatric ward after exhibiting severe psychotic agitation upon arrest. Police and prosecutors stated that despite exhaustive recovery efforts, every storage drive had melted completely from military-grade electrical overload, leaving not a single line of data salvageable.

That same morning, quiet word circulated among elite institutions in Zurich, Kyoto, Moscow, and Silicon Valley of inexplicable server fires that had wiped out decades of classified research archives overnight.

Outsiders still whispered that Dark Web hackers or a ransomware syndicate must have been behind it.

No one knew what tribunal had convened that night inside the subterranean library of the Black Web, far deeper and colder than the Dark Web ever reached.

The laboratory annex on the outskirts of Seongbuk-gu, Seoul.

Han Do-yun had tendered his resignation and was packing the last of his belongings. Every piece of equipment and ultra-low-temperature freezer on the third basement floor had already been hauled away and incinerated completely by a hazardous-waste contractor.

Carrying a single cardboard box, he stepped out through the annex doors.

Three days of autumn downpour had finally cleared, and razor-crisp morning sunlight shattered across the campus paving stones.

Mid-stride, Do-yun paused and looked up at the old magnolia tree standing beside the laboratory building.

Having weathered late-autumn wind and rain out of season, yellowed leaves and dried flower buds clung to its branch tips; shivering once in the morning breeze, they broke loose and drifted down through the air.

Without thinking, Do-yun counted the fallen leaves one by one as they settled on the ground.

One, two, three... fifteen, sixteen, and down to the final leaf landing squarely atop the toe of his dress shoe.

Seventeen, to the exact count.

Do-yun stooped and carefully picked up the leaf from the tip of his shoe.

The age of arrogant scholars who reduced the entire world to numbers and presumed to read predetermined fates from fetal brains and children's facial bones had ended. Yet this small parting gift left behind by two children who had faded away inside a dark glass cylinder remained the purest, warmest truth—requiring no ethics committee's approval.

Slipping the leaf into his coat pocket, Do-yun walked toward the campus main gate and never looked back.

(The End)