S316

Society Protocol Season 3 Episode 16 Finale

Rocket

Mi-hee's mother was warming herself by the campfire. She had climbed up and down the mountain, been startled by a snake, and even injured her leg after falling down. Although she was in pain, perhaps because she had eaten, she felt drowsy and was about to drift off to sleep.

It was then that she heard footsteps in the distance.

Someone had come, drawn by the smoke from the campfire. At first, she thought it was Mi-hee, but then she heard the sound of footsteps. Mi-hee's mother tried to leave the campfire behind and run into the forest, limping. However, she kept falling down.

The people were walking around carrying things like pickaxes and sickles.

They were people who vaguely knew that there was a prayer retreat nearby and that cultists were hiding in the vicinity. However, they could not act directly or openly. It was because they were afraid, too.

That is why they were walking around with aluminum foil wrapped around their heads and covered with hats or cloths.

They looked just like farmers dealing with defeated soldiers.

Mi-hee's mother was discovered by them.

However, being human themselves, they had no intention of harming the woman with the injured leg.

They had a code to identify their enemies. It was to curse God.

But this woman looked so pitiful, hiding alone and eating something that didn't even look like food.

So the strength drained from the hand holding the pickaxe.

They didn't want to kill even a woman like this. No one spoke first, but they simply didn't feel the urge to kill. Besides, hadn't the broadcast said not to harm women and children? They intended to just leave her alone and go back.

But then it happened.

“Father God, please save her. Father God, please get rid of those demons, those demons. Please protect me, protect me.”

The grip on the sickle tightened. The men, who had just intended to leave, had now become demons themselves.

Mi-hee's mother began to run away, limping to avoid them.

The men simply watched her, contemplating what to do. Then, they met each other's eyes and began to walk.

It was because they were reminded of their own deceased family and siblings. Smoke was visible to Min-hyuk as well. Smoke was rising from the spot Mi-hee had pointed to.

It looked dangerous, even to him.

‘To think people on the run are lighting a fire.’

As the plane flew slowly, the bonfire came into view. And several people were visible. In front of them, Mi-hee’s mother was seen crawling away.

“Mom.”

The moment Min-hyuk heard Mi-hee’s cry and turned his head to check, a pickaxe pierced Mi-hee’s mother’s neck.

“Mom.”

Bleeding and coughing, Mi-hee’s mother’s prayer shifted from begging to be saved.

“God the Father, please protect our Mi-hee. Cough. Mihee.”

A sickle was embedded in Mi-hee’s mother’s back.

It seemed Mi-hee’s mother had now passed away.

Min-hyuk pressed the vertical take-off and landing button and held the plane in mid-air.

He couldn’t decide what to do.

It was then. The men were waving their hands toward the plane, believing it was on their side.

In their hands were blood-stained sickles and pickaxes.

Min-hyuk pressed a button on the control panel without realizing it.

However, the machine guns from the plane opened fire. All the men were shot and fell to the ground.

It seemed like they could have ground it if they had tilted it slightly. Had they arrived just a few minutes earlier, this tragedy could have been prevented.

As that thought crossed Min-hyuk's mind, his heart ached.

As the plane tilted and came to a stop, Mi-hee stepped out of the plane. She approached her mother.

Her mother was still alive.

“God the Father, please protect Mi-hee. Ah. It’s Mi-hee. Thank goodness. You must live.”

As Mi-hee’s mother breathed her last, Mi-hee sobbed and hugged her mother tightly.

Min-hyuk asked Mihee.

“Shall we take her with us?”

“No, let’s bury her at the prayer retreat. If you’re okay with it.”

Min-hyuk lifted Mi-hee’s mother, who was still warm. Her body felt incredibly light.

God had long since begun the work that only He could do.

However, God’s system was bound by physical phenomena, so He had to handle everything within those limits.

The same was true for God.

Now, the results of the work He had prepared in advance were coming to fruition.

The solar system is organized around the Sun. Several planets exist within that solar system.

This was a fact already known to humans.

However, the existence of an asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter was something unknown to humans who had no interest in it.

There existed places where such small asteroids, measuring a few hundred meters in size, floated like clouds.

One must cross the asteroid belt to reach Jupiter.

In the asteroid belt, there were sometimes objects that rushed toward the Sun.

These were called meteoroids.

No one knew why they were suddenly being pulled by the sun. But surely, it was all moving according to God's will.

In the end, God decided to do what only God could do.

The object chosen by God was the dwarf planet that humans call Ceres.

It was too large to be called a simple asteroid, it was spherical, and it possessed gravity.

However, it was not large enough to be called a planet.

Therefore, it was given the name "dwarf planet."

Ceres has a diameter of about 1,000 kilometers.

This is roughly the same distance as from Mt. Baekdu in North Korea to Mt. Halla in Jeju.

So, you can imagine it as a giant sphere the length of the entire Korean Peninsula.

God did not send it aiming at Earth.

He sent it toward the Sun.

As it was drawn into the Sun, it could have accidentally collided with Earth.

One could not hold God responsible for that.

It was similar to hitting a baseball with a bat and having a passerby get hit.

Although he felt sorry, he did not need to feel a great moral responsibility because it was not done intentionally. And since it was a world created by God, the owner could not be held accountable simply because a single star exploded and vanished.

Devils like dust, capable of surviving even if a star exploded, could simply find their own way to survive.

God chose Ceres and gently pushed it toward the Sun.

It was not long before observatories around the world realized that the same thing was happening.

Ceres had already been heading toward Earth for a long time, and its speed was increasing tremendously.

For God, Ceres’s departure was a moment, but for humans, it was months.

The serpent instinctively predicted that such an event would occur.

Now, the rockets prepared to launch simultaneously.

Fifty contained the genes of plants, animals, and humans, while the rest consisted of devices designed to create an environment where humans and animals could survive to the bare minimum.

And the remaining fifty rockets were all filled with weapons possessing explosive power far greater than anything humans possessed. Because the direction of arrival could not be determined at what point in time the Earth was rotating,

preparations for the launch were made across the globe; however, as Ceres drew closer, the direction and time were determined.

The Sons of El, a type of evacuation capsule rocket containing the future of humanity and Earth's life, was to fly in the opposite direction from which Ceres was approaching.

When the position of Northern Europe was determined to be exactly in the opposite direction as the Earth rotated, the Sons of El were launched first. Other rockets on Earth were also launched when the Earth's rotation direction headed toward a similar position to the rocket launched first.

In this way, all 50 rockets were launched.

The launch was a success. It seemed as though all the rocket experiments, exploration rocket launches, and satellite launches up until that point had been prepared specifically for this day.

The seeds and embryos would return to Earth 84 years later, which is one year of Uranus.

If nothing happened on Earth, a massive parade to welcome them might take place 84 years from now.

Or, they might arrive alone on an uninhabited Earth. However, all these descendants of El were only valuable as long as Earth existed.

They were beings that could not survive for even a few seconds on any planet other than Earth.

Therefore, even if humanity, animals, and plants were annihilated, Earth had to remain alive.

However, look at God's actions.

He is sending a massive boulder 1,000 kilometers long flying.

The Earth will split apart, its inner core will burst, and lava will flow out.

The Earth's magnetic field will be completely shattered, and its rotational and orbital paths will change.

Even the slight difference in angle between summer and winter causes significant temperature fluctuations; if the Earth deviates from its orbit,

it was impossible to know if the environment would remain habitable for living things.

Whether it became colder or hotter in the current environment, it was all the same.

The current environment was the most perfect.

This was because all living things had evolved their bodies to fit the Earth's current environment.

The serpent had to protect the Earth.

It loved humanity, but more than that, it had to protect this Garden of Eden.

Eden is not a place where only humans and animals live.

It was because the serpent also had to live there.

To prepare for this attack, God had the serpent eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

If they had acted before or after that, at this very moment when a giant comet is hurtling toward Earth,

they would not have been able to launch their seeds into space, and weapons capable of detonating an approaching planet,

could not have been invented by anyone other than humans.

And there would have been no way to launch that bomb into space to blow away something like a baseball thrown by that giant god.

All of this was due to everything the serpent did to humans—eating the forbidden fruit and supporting and sponsoring them.

It was to prevent the Earth from exploding.

The serpent knew in advance that all these things would happen.

And it found a way to solve the problem.

And it knew how to utilize the area around the main god and all surrounding resources to the fullest.

Following the serpent's instructions, it was launched toward the approaching asteroid—no, a dwarf planet.

It was written on the surface of the rocket:

“Messiah”

The name of the rocket was Messiah. A total of 50 rockets were prepared. They would be detonated as far away from Earth as possible.

No one knew what impact would befall Earth.

However, they would continue firing the prepared rockets until Ceres exploded and turned to dust. Messiah had up to 50 rockets prepared.

The Serpent used humans to protect the Earth it inhabited.

The Serpent's choice was right.

At the very moment he seduced the human woman.

Min-hyuk dug a hole to bury Mi-hee's mother and tore down the curtains from the chapel to spread underneath.

Then he laid Mi-hee's mother down.

Mi-hee brought one of the choir robes and wrapped it around her mother's body.

She then covered her face with a handkerchief.

Min-hyuk scooped up soil with a shovel and poured it over Mi-hee's mother's body.

Mi-hee stopped him from covering her with wood.

"Mom said that humans are born of the earth and return to the earth." Mi-hee didn't just cry. Together, they built a grave for her mother out of earth.

As Min-hyuk and Mi-hee built the grave, Mi-hee prayed for her mother.

Then she looked up at the sky. The day was still clear, and it felt as though the war had never happened.

It was then. Far away in the sky, a massive explosion was taking place.

Even though the sunlight was shining, the light was visible. And then a second explosion occurred.

A long time passed, and it was when Min-hyuk and Mi-hee were walking to board a plane.

A tremendous roar erupted from the sky. It was something they had never heard before.

Min-hyuk hugged Mi-hee and ran to the basement of the prayer retreat.

Gasping for breath, the two looked at each other.

And then, Min-hyuk kissed Mi-hee on the lips.