Chapter 54
Chapter 54
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: Vine
Chapter: 54
Chapter Title: Inside Out (2)
-----------------------------------------------------------------
***
The Professor floated in the water, calmly sorting through the situation in his mind.
‘The game side is sorted out for now. My reputation as a red mutant has spread through Tobrun, and I’ve instilled just the right amount of fear in people.’
The seed he was currently playing was heading in a remarkably unique direction.
For one, large-scale assaults were overwhelmingly rare. The obvious cause was Edeorna’s defeat, which had crippled the Queen’s resource supply. That alone was a massive achievement. In strategy game terms, it was like taking out three of the opponent’s workers right at the start. Thanks to that, the mutants’ advance had slowed considerably... It was predictable.
But the result was the fall of three frontline cities: Pellas, Molludic Castle, and Turan. And they fell much faster than in typical flares. If the cause and effect didn’t match, it meant he was missing something.
‘Mutants are a species that evolve organically based on circumstances. And what determines the direction of evolution is the same for any creature: stress and pressure accelerate it. In this case, the resource shortage must have driven evolution in that direction?’
The world he was playing had many differences from standard playthroughs.
The most noticeable was the mutants’ elite strategy, actively utilizing named units and special specimens.
They required a lot of resources and production time, but when used properly, special specimens yielded several times the efficiency of the investment. The Queen had toppled Turan with a tunnel operation using just a few pale faces at the perfect timing, and was controlling an incredibly valuable target—a sixth-circle mage—with an insomnia crab. She couldn’t mass-produce due to the high-end units, but she was definitely reaping the rewards of her investments.
The existence of the Salvation Cult was worth considering too. A group worshiping mutants? In this insane game, such a religion could emerge naturally. But for it to grow this large in such a short time was highly suspicious.
Thud! Thud!
Hm. Noisy sounds from outside.
Anyway,
‘The surest way for a cult to expand is through miracles or directly showing their object of faith... And these guys believe in mutants?’
The problem was the proof. Even the most ignorant fools wouldn’t call some eighth-grade mutant bought from a black market a miracle. It meant there had been a show convincing enough to implant the idea that mutants were allies. Perhaps the Black Mages or mutants were truly connected. It was still early enough for Black Mages to control the mutant Queen. There were cunning ones among them, so it was best to assume they were scheming.
And the final point: all mutant attacks were concentrated on Lordric. With nearly all of the northern permafrost under mutant control, many nations bordered that territory, yet only Lordric was facing their full force.
‘Thanks to that, other nations besides Lordric are watching like it’s a fire across the river. They see it not as a crisis for all humanity, but as a natural disaster in the neighbor’s yard—and they’re even glad. If Lordric weakens, adjacent nations stand to gain politically in many ways. If support troops are requested, they’ll demand all sorts of concessions before intervening.’
A strategic, political, even religious form of attack. This was absolutely not the dumb mutants he knew from year 124. And the Queen squeezing resources should be growing slower than average, with her intelligence far from developed.
Something was up. Something—whether Black Mages or mutants—was directing this war. And it was a master of dirty tricks.
Once he realized the enemy had a command structure, he’d started countering it. Spreading terror in Tobrun as a red mutant was part of that plan.
The story of a single mutant infiltrating a city, killing a sixth-circle mage, demolishing a tower, and escaping would be great bar talk for the gossips.
The objective benchmarks of a sixth-circle mage and mage tower would inform people just how powerful mutants were, making them wary of the species.
‘If it’s this complicated already, it’s exhausting... Where did it go wrong to create this seed? Should I not have beaten Edeorna?’
He didn’t know. Where it had gone wrong. He hadn’t even gone around beating Black Mages like others, yet the world had turned into this mess—
Thud, thud, thud, thud!
‘But what’s with this noise since earlier? What’s making all this racket?’
Annoyed by the sound disturbing his quiet peace, the Professor opened his eyes to see Corduro’s drone charging full force at the shower booth, now turned into a water-filled tube.
Whoosh—
Splash!
“Puhah! Whew, out of breath.”
As the Professor opened the door and walked out unscathed amid the gushing water, Corduro froze in place.
“M-Master? Are you okay?”
“Whether I’m okay or not, what’s your problem this time? I was trying to relax and think things over.”
“But I thought you were trying to kill yourself again!”
“Kill myself? What nonsense is that?”
“Come on! What lunatic holds their breath underwater for over seven minutes?!”
What?
The Professor’s face turned baffled at Corduro’s words. Had he really been in there that long?
“How... did this happen?”
It seemed the issues needing sorting weren’t just in the game.
***
The Professor dried off, got dressed, and returned to the living room to calm his mind.
‘Seven minutes. Strictly speaking, it’s not superhuman. Breath-holding depends on physical factors, but mental ones are crucial too. Anxiety in water makes your heart race, shortening hold time. Let’s say it was psychological influence.’
But if the psychological and mental aspects had carried over from the game, one unsettling thing remained.
The Professor cautiously called out in his mind, dismissing it as absurd but checking just in case.
‘Hey, parasite.’
.
.
.
‘Parasite! Infection factor! Hey! Idiot!’
... No response, but that only made the Professor more anxious. For some reason, he increasingly felt its presence in his head, like a faintly outlined section.
‘...Hide?’
[Finally calling me by name, shell?]
“Damn it.”
As expected. He’d suspected, but this thing had come along too.
By his common sense, it was impossible. No matter how realistic, Gedroits’s Game was just data and code. Could it really affect reality like this?
[Shell, haven’t we talked about this several times? My take: your learning ability is a bit lacking.]
‘Didn’t ask you.’
[You’re so frustrating. I told you last time too. What does real or fake even mean? I’m not a physical entity—I’m a kind of consciousness triggered by the infection factor. Shutting down the game doesn’t make the emotions or memories from it vanish, right?]
‘This is... like that?’
[Exactly.]
The parasite’s smug tone deepened the furrow in the Professor’s brow.
[Anyway, this place is wild. I knew from your head’s knowledge other worlds existed, but seeing it for real is something else.]
Three fingers on his left hand scratched at his pant leg, nagging him.
[Gun! I wanna shoot a gun! Let’s shoot guns! Guns!]
The Professor pried off his left hand clinging to his leg and sighed deeply.
“Corduro.”
“Yes?”
“I need to visit old man Woojin.”
The Professor decided to treat this ‘mental illness.’
***
Woojin.
This senile geezer was a doctor in Sector 43.
In the wasteland’s harsh life, combat was daily, and finding a wound-free day was harder. The problem: getting scratched by rusty metal without decent antibiotics meant preparing a will and single-shot pistol that day.
That’s why Woojin’s [Woojin Urology Clinic] in Sector 43 was like a meeting square for the 40s sectors—survivors visited periodically.
After two days battling wasteland sandstorms, [Woojin Urology Clinic] looked bustling as ever, with vehicles neatly parked out front.
The reason countless rugged wasteland survivors kept order here was simple.
Whirr—
Whirrr—
Dozens of pre-war auto-turret towers surrounding the parking lot. Equipped with pre-war combat AI, they reacted to nearly any aggressive action. Raise your voice to someone in the hospital by chance,
Whirrr—clank! Rattle!
And you’d face the sharp gaze of auto-turrets installed every five steps inside too.
It stemmed from old man Woojin’s philosophy: if you want a checkup, you entrust your life to the doctor anyway.
‘One greedy old man when it comes to money.’
Well, that aside. If one of the few wasteland doctors died, they’d be in trouble too. For various reasons, Woojin’s clinic was treated like extraterritorial territory.
Whoosh—
“Aaagh!!!”
A dying scream hit as soon as he opened the door.
“Ugh,”
“Urgh, ahh,”
In the long line, injured patients forcibly stifled their groans. Surprisingly, in this hospital, injury groans counted as ‘aggressive behavior,’ so you had to hold them in until entering the exam room.
‘Might get treated by dinner time.’
The Professor set down his backpack at the line’s end, leaned against the wall, and closed his eyes. Placing the bag marked his spot—no cutting, as that caused fights deemed ‘aggressive.’ Someone would wake him when his turn came.
No raids, but crossing the wasteland for two days was exhausting. Noisy with blood and alcohol smells, but safest spot around.
‘A good place to lay a tired body and rest.’
Feeling drowsiness wash over, the Professor slowly fell asleep.
***
[Shell]
.......
[Shell! Wake up! Hey!]
‘Mm... What now?’
[Can’t see with eyes closed, but someone touched your body!]
‘W-What? Here?’
[Yeah! Felt like fingers poking. Wake up quick!]
Heeding the parasite, the Professor snapped alert. Sure enough, a figure crouched before him, staring intently at his face.
“Ah.”
“Oh.”
“Wow.”
A huge muscular bearded man with an even huger iron backpack, and a short, wizened-faced man.
Ian and Bex, who’d been staring at the sleeping Professor crouched in the hospital corridor, grinned broadly as he woke.
“Hey, brother. Wouldn’t come when I begged, but you walked in yourself? Push-pull game?”
“Happen! Long time, brother!”
“W-What? What brings you guys here?”
Still groggy and flustered, the Professor asked. Ian laughed heartily, slapping his shoulder.
“What? What brings us? Wahahaha! That’s our line! We live in 43, you in 47! Reason to come to the hospital—”
Whirrr—clank!
As the auto-turret aimed, Ian’s train-whistle voice turned ladylike prim in an instant.
“...Reason besides getting treated? What else.”
“Injured. A bit, during a deal. This idiot charged ahead blindly, got me too.”
“That’s ‘cause you’re inexperienced. At Usas level, enemies should’ve been dead before reacting.”
The two, sitting beside him bickering softly, extended fists toward the Professor.
“Anyway, welcome to 43, brother.”
Seeing it, the Professor chuckled unwittingly and bumped fists.
“Yeah, good to see you idiots too.”
[Hey! Me too! I wanted to see these guys!]
Unthinkingly extending his left for the bump, its three fingers suddenly flailed, drumming on Bex and Ian’s fists.
“Uh... Happen? What’s that mean?”
“Your hand got issues? It’s shaking like crazy?”
“Ah, well...”
The Professor hesitated, then sighed and spoke. He could tell these two.
“I think I’ve got a mental illness.”
“W-What?!”
Whirrr—clank!
Wham!
As the turret swiveled back, the two gaped, hands over mouths.
***
***