Chapter 375
Chapter 375
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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 16
Chapter Title: Saint and Completer (31)
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Ding-!
[Verification result. In the final scenario, your 3rd World emerged victorious against the predetermined destruction.]
“Move the wounded first! What? Where are the ones who aren’t exhausted! At least the living shouldn’t be lying among the corpses! Set up tents around the landed airships! Prioritize the seriously injured for the cabins! The battle’s over, but the war isn’t!”
Ding-!
[Congratulations, Player ‘Professor’. You’ve brought about an ending close to perfection with your excellent play.]
“Sister Certa! Where’s Sister Certa! There are more than one or two survivors in that pile of bodies! We’ve got five saints right here! If they’re alive, we can save them! If they’re just alive!”
Ding-!
[Player ‘Professor’ has met the qualifications. Gedroits’s future prediction model forecasts that the remaining victory chance for the Mutts is near 0%.]
“Saint.... our.... beacon....”
“....Any prayer you’d like to hear? Gregorian.”
“I’ve heard.... enough.... al.... ready....”
“....Latura. Brother.”
[The remaining process is worthless to you.]
“....You’re leaving now? To the north?”
“It won’t take long. With only the Queen left in an empty house, it’ll just be a detour on the way.”
“But....”
[Would you like to move to the Administrator’s Room?]
Ding-!
[Would you like to claim your rewards?]
Ding-!
Ding-!
Ding-!
Ding....
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.
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.
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[Would you like to end the game?]
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Ding- Ding- Ding- Ding.....
“Goddamn thing won’t shut up.”
Crack!
That damn notification sound wouldn’t leave his ears even amid the noise of the northern ice walls cracking or in a blizzard whipping with ice spikes as thick as forearms.
Ding-!
[Player ‘Professor’, all playtesting to verify you in this world has concluded. Across all projects, you are the human closest to ‘Completer’, and your time holds immense value.]
“So what.”
Ding-!
[Player direct control versus leaving it to future simulations. The simulation has recorded every action of the human ‘Professor’ thus far, so it will produce identical results even without your direct play. Thus, further play at this point is a worthless waste of time.]
“....The results might be the same. Results. Sure. But watching it with my own eyes is different.”
To the system, moving solely for the ‘Completer’ project, it was a finished game. But not to him. It was a world he had led, so he had to see it through to the end.
Crack!
And so, forcing his way here to the Queen’s nest.
Splash!
“Thought I was gonna freeze my ass off.”
The elites were dead, the best-raised chamber maids were all dead, the named ones were all dead.
The enemy’s remaining forces were just the lowest-grade zerglings pouring out from the few mass-produced chamber maids.
One day by airship from Tobrun to the north.
One day from the northern outskirts to the center, advancing while oil mages laid down trails of fire.
And half a day at the Queen’s nest, where freshly born Mutts came swarming out.
While his allies who’d come this far drew attention, he’d slipped inside alone. Among the exhausted allies who hadn’t rested their limbs for three straight days, he alone was fresh thanks to the Mutt blood.
The tallest mountain in the north.
In the Queen’s nest that turned the entire mountain into a fortress, a cavern near the summit.
Surrounded by the natural fortress of ice walls and ice storms, it was the Queen’s lair, which should have been guarded by all sorts of elite Mutts.
‘Everything has its pros and cons.’
Thanks to luring the enemy’s main force out completely with their long string of defeats, the final stretch wasn’t so bad.
Boom!
Kicking open the door inlaid with bones of all races revealed a vast chamber glowing with red light.
“....Not quite what I pictured.”
As the Queen who devoured other races to spawn Mutts, he’d expected her lair to be the pinnacle of grotesqueness, rivaling a mad scientist’s lab.
No human specimens floating in opaque fluid, no flesh-pink membranes covering Tobrun, no walls crammed with bone piles or tentacles.
Just a space smoothly carved from granite. Warm, humid air, and white stalactites hanging like a canopy.
And filling one wall of the chamber: the Queen.
Step.
As he took a step closer, a few Mutts hiding in the Queen’s shadow stepped out in unison.
He’d seen them in Thousand Stream Emperor’s footage. The Queen’s guardians, who never left her lair no matter what. Each one had blocked Thousand Stream Emperor’s sword strikes ‘twice’. Quasi-named-grade Mutts, three of them.
There’d been four in the footage, so one must’ve been rushed into production for the swarm.
Behind the guardians emerging in sequence appeared the Queen, like an expressionless giant.
....Slither.
With each step closer, his body felt strangely lighter.
An illusion?
No.
From the Queen’s fingertip slowly pointing at him, the blood flowing from his body was being sucked in.
“Taking back the power you stole from you, huh....”
The ‘regeneration’ that had formed the basis of all his combat power alongside the infection factor was vanishing.
The sturdy muscles and mana nurtured by regeneration. Divine power. Aura—all remained intact. But considering his body, which wielded mutually repelling forces, and his combat style that destroyed itself with overwhelming power.
“Character ‘Professor’s’ battles end here.”
That would be the flow. Like how 1st World’s great chieftain ‘Levit Princess’ met a short end from poison arrow aftereffects, or how history recorded 2nd World’s ‘Hero Levit Clan founder Levit Princess’ sudden death from chronic illness.
After clear, there was no place for the player character in the world. Gedroits wanted a world that changed following the footsteps of great individuals, not one led by them.
“No place for me after this, huh.”
Not the character’s story—his story. If he killed the Queen like this, his 3rd World would end. End. World clear.
Like a character poured with time, effort, and love in an old RPG vanishing with the ending.
Outside that cavern right now, Idrasil and Notum climbing the ice walls against a waterfall of Mutts, Turan and Marca, the Light Church folk who cared for him to a foolish degree, Lucilla far away in the Empire....
He’d be parting from all of them.
“Without regeneration.... I can’t fight like before.”
Large monsters fight on the premise of taking hits. It wouldn’t suit this cramped space against charging foes ignoring defense.
Rrrrrumble-
The monster’s flesh reverted to human form. The regeneration composing his body used its last grains to transform into a great axe with black sheen like its outer shell.
Dash-
Charge, slash, cleave,
Leaving the dismembered guardians behind.
Over the expressionless Queen’s head.
From above, down.
Cleanly.
-Boom!
Dazzling sunlight and snowy wind poured into the cavern exploding along the black afterimage.
Swish-
....Thud.
The Queen’s head, sliding diagonally, fell.
“....Farewell. 3rd World.”
With the north wind, with the Queen’s freezing body.
His vision went white.
Ding-!
[World saved]
A notification he hadn’t seen in ages. Back when logout was possible, the message that popped up right before logging out from inns or camps.
“....Yeah. That’s it.”
Knowing it meant something else, it still comforted him enough to close his eyes.
His consciousness sank into the white light.
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....now loading....
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Splash. Splash. Splish. Splish.
Ruuumble.
Clink clink.
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.
Something hard was propping up his back.
Sounds of something wet touching the ground too.
Amid soft warmth, a clear, warm fragrance mingled.
“Keruruk?”
A voice impossible not to recognize.
“Kkiruk! Saladin? Are you conscious?”
His eyelids felt heavy, like waking after a century. In his blurry vision appeared an orange-scaled, glossy head and large eyes.
Senika. Senika Mar. The younger of the two dragonkin met in the desert.
Looking closer, a blue-scaled lizard was grunting and dragging something from a distance. Not just Senika—Aldar was here too.
“Where....”
“Clear congratulations! Kkiruruk! Kkirururuk!”
Bang!
Before the answer, a small cone-shaped firecracker burst. Scattered colorful vinyl and trailing paper streamers.
“....Over?”
“Yes! The great warrior ‘Professor’ has taken the life of the root of destruction, the evil god ‘Mutation Blood Queen’, and the scenario has ended! Kkirururuk!”
....Plop.
“Yeah. It’s over.”
A sensation like sinking into a plush armchair, strength draining limply from his body.
It’s over. Really.
A mix of emptiness, joy, accomplishment, and awkwardness poured into his head all at once.
Kkik kkik kkik kkik-
“Huff, huff, it’s been, it’s been a while, Saladin!”
Aldar, in small dragonkin form rather than true body, panted greetings. Dragging a fridge-sized object covered in white cloth on a rickety cart, sweating buckets—it perfectly evoked the clumsy little dragonkin from the desert.
But that was a real dragon, after all.
The panting blue lizard form only amplified the disconnect.
“What’s so heavy it’s got a dragon huffing?”
“Kerruk, this has, absurdly massive data values....”
“....Data?”
“Yes. As a newly born dragonkin and provisional administrator, I’ve been learning all sorts from Atlahéva.... Ah, World Tree and Atlahéva are away for a bit. The ‘Branches of the World’ are growing at insane speed right now, so they went to check. The machine tree that only spread sideways for years is shooting straight up, and World Tree was thrilled.”
Flutter!
Having caught his breath, Aldar yanked off the cloth covering the cart in one go.
A slightly worn armchair and table. An ancient CRT TV and VCR.
And beside it, what Aldar had dragged.... a large....
“Vending machine?”
A large.... uh.... vending machine.
White cubic body, transparent display case on top.
Buttons for each product. White lighting. Faint red [SOLD OUT] signs, and even a coin slot.
“....Something to drink?”
Pointing at the out-of-nowhere vending machine, Aldar shook his head vigorously.
“No! Well, the exterior matches Creator ‘Andrey Gedroits’s’ tastes.... but this is the ‘Reward Vending Machine’ prepared for users who’ve cleared each world!”
Rrrroll-
The vending machine rolled forward with his proud voice.
As he doubted his eyes reading the ‘product’ names on it, Senika beside him offered a teacup.
“Kkiruruk! It’ll help you calm down!”
“Ah, yeah. Thanks....”
Clink.
He couldn’t finish the thanks.
Beneath the lifted teacup sat a small coin.
“Just select what you want!”
The coin, engraved [1 Coin] on both sides, looked perfect for the vending machine’s slot.
“....What I want?”
“Yes. One world, one coin. The Creator insisted this rule must be kept no matter what.... Atlahéva said.”
What he wants. Choose one of these.
Unable to believe it, he scanned the product list over and over.
[Gedroits’s Game, Time Multiplier Adjustment Authority]
[Gedroits Company. Drone Center Administrator Authority.]
[SOLD OUT]
[SOLD OUT]
[Manned Spaceship Base, ‘NEXT SPACE’ Coordinates and Security Key]
[SOLD OUT]
The products lined up in sequence. And.
[Coordinates. Gedroits’s Server Room.]
A product glowing with clear blue light, inexplicably there.
“The last item was supposed to be locked.... but due to that ‘error’ issue, the admins unlocked it.”
“It’s been open since the moment 1st World cleared, all the way to now.”
“The Completer candidates just chose something else.”
“You’ve been granted the same qualifications and chance as them.”
Kkiruk.
Kkerruk.
“Choose!”
“Take what you want!”
At the two hatchlings’ machine-gun words, his coin-gripping fingers trembled.
Before him lay something treated as humanity’s goal-level prize.
Gedroits’s server room. The place where the era’s top scientist was said to have secluded himself with his countless technologies, along with authority to wield GG—the game close to a human modification program—as he pleased.
Its coordinates, right now, within arm’s reach.
As the word ‘end’ brushed his mind and the round coin in his fingertips turned toward the slot.
....Splash.
From somewhere in his chest came a sound like stepping in shallow water.
As the game neared its end, traces of someone who’d gone quiet as if vanished.
It grabbed his fingertips.
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