Urare's Grace
Every face began to shine as bright as the sun.
Static crackled into being across their bodies, racing over skin and cloth until it spilled from their feet. In an instant electricity surged through the entire metal scaffold, and the structure flared white.
Minel snatched Chori up with both hands.
Tssst!
Tssst-tssst!
Dozens of people generating lightning at once pushed the output to a level that rivaled the Shocker they had faced on the 2nd Floor.
Minel and Hina stood on the iron plating, but their immunity to electricity left them unharmed. Minel ran the numbers at once.
Could he fight dozens of people armed with superhuman strength and still keep Hina and Chori safe?
The answer came easily.
"Chori. House!"
Unlike the time they had been surrounded by Sludge, a wall stood right behind them. Chori snapped back to focus and pressed both palms to the surface. The outline of a door took shape; Chori flung it open and darted inside.
"The apostate is escaping! Seize them!"
The old man roared and charged Minel first. The rest of the cultists surged after him.
Boom!
When they stamped their feet together, the whole scaffold lurched and swayed. Hina, halfway through the doorway, went sprawling. Minel caught her hand with one arm, hauled her upright, and drew Noise with the other.
The old man and the cultists stared straight into the muzzle without slowing at all.
Do I have to kill them all?
If I start slaughtering people too easily, the Wildness will climb.
Bang—! Bang—! Bang—!
Noise spat round after round, punching massive holes through the scaffold. The metal tore open like styrofoam, and people tumbled through the gaps in a rain of bodies. Even so, some of the zealots kept coming, weaving around the holes. The old man led them.
"Judgment!"
The closer he came, the more the lightning pouring from his face bleached everything white. Minel yanked Silence free and carved a wide crescent through the flooring of the scaffold.
Shiiing—!
The cleanly severed structure began to collapse. The cultists instinctively drove their heels down hard.
Boom—!
They meant to close the distance before it fell. The irony was that their stamping only made the scaffold drop faster, and the followers behind them spilled off into empty air.
Minel recovered Silence and thrust at the old man. The blade flew on a perfect line for his skull; there was no way to dodge.
And yet—
The old man flung both arms forward and clamped them around Silence's blade.
"Judgment… upon the apostate!"
He even snapped his waist and brought both feet up, hanging from Silence with his entire body. Fortunately his weight was slight; Minel never lost his grip.
"Minel! Hurry and get inside!"
Minel seized Silence in both hands and swung hard, trying to fling the old man off. The man stuck fast, baring his teeth in a grin.
"…"
Perhaps it was the force of that swing with a body still clinging to the sword, but now the section under Minel's own feet began to give way. He had no choice. Still holding Silence, he launched himself toward the open door in a long jump.
By then the collapsing scaffold had struck the floor of the space.
Kuuuuung—!
Kuuuuung—!
Section after section slammed down, filling the chamber with thunderous noise. The cultists who fell with it displayed strength far beyond any human limit, batting aside plummeting steel beams with their bare limbs.
The moment Minel crossed the threshold, Chori slammed the door shut. The last thing he saw was the falling scaffold pouring over the generator and smashing everything to pieces.
"M-Minel!"
Minel understood exactly what the panic in Hina's voice meant. A heavy weight still hung from Silence in his hands.
"Judgment upon the apostate!"
He saw it now: the old man's arms and legs had frozen solid to the blade from Silence's cold. Yet the man seemed to feel no pain at all. He only ground his teeth and glared at Hina.
Minel set his stance and swung Silence, slamming the old man into the wall. The ice locking his hands and feet shattered, and the body dropped to the floor with a dull thud.
Unconscious?
The thought had barely formed when the old man jerked his head up.
"Judgment!"
Lightning began to gather across his face once more. Alone, though, it barely rose above the level of static.
Minel sheathed Silence and stepped closer. The old man rolled his eyes and lunged.
Minel caught the arms that seized him and felt the same monstrous strength that had clamped onto Silence earlier. It was a force nearly equal to his own after scoring in the 950s at the Arcade.
A deep yellow light poured endlessly from the old man's eyes—more than enough to have turned him into a monster long ago.
"A-Are you all right?"
"The strength is about the same. But…"
Minel moved with fluid ease and drove the old man straight into the floor. The body hit with a wet slap; a moment later both wrists were bound completely under Minel's control.
"All that's left is instinct."
As if to prove the point, the old man began to foam at the mouth and mutter without end.
"Judgment… upon the apostate! Judgment… upon the apostate! Judgment… upon the apostate! Judgment… upon the apostate!"
He heaved and thrashed, straining with everything he had to break free of Minel. Each time Minel answered with precise counters, until at last the old man could use neither arms nor legs.
Once the situation settled, Chori let out a long breath.
"Haa… The 3rd Floor is such a strange place. Can't we just go back to the 2nd Floor now?"
"…"
"…"
Neither Minel nor Hina could answer. Their goal was escape from the Backrooms; descending to the 2nd Floor was not an option. Reaching the 7th Floor and securing an exit ticket would mean a parting sooner or later…
Focus on what's in front of us for now.
Minel drew out the Backrooms Codex. As expected, no text appeared.
"So a person is still a person."
In that same instant the old man's face went ashen. He cast terrified glances in every direction, then began to shake violently.
"U-Urare's g-grace… Urare's grace is… g-gone. H-How… how can this be… how can this be…"
Fear swallowed him whole. The lightning vanished from his face, the superhuman strength drained from his body, and even the yellow light that had filled his eyes disappeared completely.
"The Wildness is gone."
"Don't lower your guard."
The old man's eyes were vacant, as if staring at distant mountains. Drool ran from his mouth; his whole body shuddered like a man in seizure. Minel eased the pressure in his arms a fraction. Even with less than a tenth of his strength, the old man could not pull free. In the end Minel released him entirely.
Still the old man could not control his own body. He curled into a tight ball and mumbled through a violently trembling jaw.
"Urare's… grace… please… Urare's grace…"
Hina regarded him with narrowed eyes, then began to study the interior of the house Chori had made. Minel watched her.
"Figure something out?"
The house was built like the emergency corridors of the 2nd Floor. Hina spoke quietly.
"From what the old man said, I think 'Urare's grace' means electricity."
"…"
"There are power lines on the 3rd Floor. When they talked about baptism earlier, it also seemed to mean the electricity running through those lines."
Minel calmly examined the old man. Putting Hina's observations together, he thought he understood the condition well enough.
"This is withdrawal."
"What? Withdrawal?"
"He's addicted to electricity."
"Electricity? How do you get addicted to electricity?"
"Hard to say."
Then Hina's eyes went wide with realization. She stepped suddenly closer to the old man. Minel almost warned her to be careful, but a strange certainty burned in her gaze.
"Wildness… it feels a lot like getting drunk, doesn't it?"
"It does."
"Earlier it looked like taking a lightning hit built up Wildness. What if the real addiction is to the Wildness itself?"
Minel rested his chin on his hand and thought. Beside them, Chori asked,
"What's addiction, Hina?"
While Hina gave a short explanation, Minel finished his own reasoning. He lifted the old man with one hand, rose, and walked to the entrance. Hina called after him.
"Minel?"
"Let's test your hypothesis."
He shoved the door open with a clatter. The space beyond was pure devastation.
The chamber was a slaughterhouse of wreckage. Shattered girders and twisted pipes carpeted the floor. Black liquid seeped between the scattered metal shards, forming thick, viscous pools. Rust and soot mingled in a stench like a factory abandoned for decades. The walls were cracked and gouged beyond recognition. What little of the scaffold remained groaned as if ready to fall at any second; broken plates of iron dangled and clanged. Debris jutted up like twisted fingers, and between them people writhed in the grip of withdrawal, clustering near every wire that still leaked current.
None of them seemed aware of anything around them. The old man was the same—lost in terror, noticing nothing.
Minel leaned just far enough out the doorway to scan the area. Within sword's reach hung a single power line. He drew Silence at once and nicked the end of the cable.
Electricity raced along Silence, through Minel's body, and into the old man he held in one hand.
"Ugh-huck! Huck! G-Grace… g-grace…"
The old man gasped in ragged bursts; his eyelids fluttered wildly. When his gaze finally found Minel holding him, a faint thread of reason had returned to his eyes.
When a person is addicted to something, reason barely functions. They are always drowning in either savage pleasure or crushing lethargy. Yet for one brief moment they can display a clarity no ordinary person could match—exactly when they are trying to obtain the thing they crave.
"G-Grace… please…"
"Answer my questions. Then I'll give it to you."
The old man nodded so hard his neck looked ready to snap.
"First—what's your name?"
He blinked. The answer would not come; his face twisted with the effort. Minel lifted Silence a fraction. The current flowing through his body cut off, and the old man's pupils blew wide.
An addict's will is formidable. From the wreckage of his memory he finally dragged his own name free.
"Aisil! It's Aisil! I'm Aisil!"
A tiny difference. But the old man's voice had changed. It was no longer the ranting of a zealot, nor the fury of a man drowning in Wildness. Minel recognized it at once as the man's true voice.
When the addiction is severe enough, a little of the substance is what actually restores the mind. Minel set the tip of Silence against the line again. Current returned; the old man's eyes sharpened, and yellow light began to well once more. Minel watched those eyes and regulated the flow—clear enough to think, never enough to build Wildness.
"How did you get here, Aisil?"
The old man—no, Aisil—leaned on the electricity Minel supplied and began, piece by piece, to recall a past he had completely forgotten.