Maintenance (1)

What's this?

A new trait, gained after I absorbed Muriel's essence. I had never seen its like before — a type that had never existed at all.

It absorbs equipment abilities.

The psychic organ I'd acquired back in my Juvenile days had also been a trait that never appeared in the game, but this was on a completely different level.

This trait throws every rule about the Amorph straight out the window.

Amorphs, Outspacers, and Metallic Gremlins all possessed outstanding physical capabilities or powerful utility abilities, but they shared one crippling handicap: they couldn't equip gear. Even if you went through some elaborate workaround to make use of equipment abilities, it was limited to common gear and consumables — Unique-grade equipment was simply out of reach.

But with this trait, even a Unique-grade item could be converted into a trait and wielded. Only one at a time, granted, but still.

There's never been a precedent for anything like this.

In the game, killing a player never granted you some special new trait. Kill a gene-modded human and you got the biological genetic essence in their body; kill a Cultist and you got traits related to psionic power. That was the extent of it. I had devoured countless players by now, and never once received a trait that deviated this far from the established pattern.

I checked the translucent textbox again.

Beneath my list of held traits, a new category had appeared, marked with an asterisk: Mark of a Formidable Foe.

Mark of a Formidable Foe?

When I turned my attention to the asterisk, a new ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠message surfaced.

Going by the explanation, the Plunderer's Amorphous Polyhedron — a Mark of a Formidable Foe — belonged to an entirely new classification, one that set it apart from ordinary traits like those governing the body or psionic abilities.

The "mighty prey" it mentions must mean players.

Muriel's own perk was the ability to obtain a symbol from another species and modularize it. Equipping the symbolized module changed her species.

That's how she could be a cyborg and still draw on the Cult's power at the same time.

The Plunderer's Amorphous Polyhedron devoured equipment and converted its unique ability into a trait. In that sense, it had something in common with Muriel's perk of modularizing another species' traits and equipping them.

Presumably, if I hunted many different kinds of "mighty prey," I could obtain wholly different varieties of Mark traits.

So it's a war against the other players, then.

When I'd interrogated Muriel, I'd asked her whether there were other players besides us. By her account, only two players ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠shared her purposes. Counting Mother of the Sky and myself, the players she knew of came to seven.

She said there used to be more, though...

How many remained now was unknown. A war had broken out between the players long ago, and many had died.

The fact that killing other players grants a special reward must have spread around back then.

By the time Muriel arrived in this world, the war was already over, and the surviving players had formed factions among themselves. There were those who wanted to adapt and live out their lives in this world; those who hunted other players for their perks; those who treated this place as a game and reigned over it like tyrants, and so on.

They all crossed over at different times. That's why.

Muriel had arrived three years ago; Mother of the Sky, more than ten. Among the players Muriel knew, one had lived for over a century.

Each of them survived in their own way, so it's no surprise they split into factions.

What puzzled me, though, was that despite all that time, no one had ever seen the ending.

The war of the past was probably fought between players trying to reach their endings.

If the Amorph ending was Ascension, then other species would have unique endings of a similar category. And to reach those endings, you had to fight and defeat the players of rival species — ones at roughly your own level.

To put it precisely, you had to eliminate the ruling hierarchy of the enemy species.

For example, both Mega Corp and the Star Union had ending triggers that included seizing the other's leadership. A player who had risen to Mega Corp CEO had to fight and destroy the Star Union's Great Leader to reach their ending.

In the game, the seats of each species' leadership — CEO or Great Leader alike — were almost always occupied by players, which meant these objectives were effectively a mechanism for forcing players into conflict with one another.

So during that old war, someone must surely have fulfilled those conditions. Yet going by Muriel's words, no one seemed to have actually seen an ending, even now.

Is there something else I don't know about?

This was reality, so I couldn't rule out the possibility that players simply never climbed high enough to unlock their ending triggers. Unlike the game, death here was final. Even players with the strongest nerves would be forced to move cautiously.

I'll have to ask Mother of the Sky about this.

She had survived far longer than Muriel; maybe she knew something.

Either way, I'll likely end up at odds with the other players before long.

Muriel had sent a distress signal to her companions before I captured her. Her allies' hostility toward me was, at minimum, a certainty. And the players who stood opposed to Muriel's allies would learn of my actions through some channel or another. Depending on which faction they belonged to, they would either treat me as an enemy — or try to use me.

The postscript said it plainly: the whole universe would have its eyes on me.

How exactly the players would approach me, I couldn't say yet.

One way or another, I have to get stronger.

Only then would survival favor me — and only then could I keep anyone from making a puppet of me. From the Transcendence system to hunting players, whoever had sent me here was doing this for some purpose of their own, but uncovering that cause and reason was, in the end, a privilege reserved for those who stayed alive.

Finally, I checked whether any new messages had arrived, but beyond the asterisk's commentary there was nothing more. In a situation this starved for information, grinding my gears further would be nothing but wasted time. Far more productive, for now, to think about how to put my new ability to use.

The Plunderer's Amorphous Polyhedron can turn any piece of equipment's ability into a trait.

And no single piece of equipment could be converted more than once.

With mass-produced gear, I could draw out the same ability again and again from fresh units — but Unique-grade items were different.

If it's one of Muriel's pieces...

I picked up the High Priest's Golden Spear and the Harmonizer where they'd fallen. Beyond those, the Thunder God and the Blood Reavers were still at the camp.

I didn't know what form an equipment's converted ability would take. But judging purely by what the items could do, every one of them would serve me well.

The Golden Spear would make my strength effectively boundless; the Harmonizer would secure me five chances at absolute evasion. The Thunder God could shore up my lacking ranged and anti-air capabilities, and the Blood Reavers would amplify my battlefield dominion to another tier entirely.

Should I experiment on something else first?

Best to swallow some random gear from the camp and see exactly how the conversion worked. I picked up a spear and the Harmonizer and was about to leave — then a thought struck me, and I stopped.

......

I gathered nearby stones and piled them over the spot where I had been standing. Having raised a small cairn on the open ground, I walked away.

The Guide — sacred star of the Cult.

It was the spiritual homeland of the Cultists spread across the entire galaxy. In truth, the Guide had been desertified ages ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠ago, planet-wide, and was by no stretch of the imagination a pleasant place to live. Without the Cult's superlative psychic technology, it would have been abandoned long ago.

Ancient cities stood scattered atop the red sands blanketing the planet. One of those cities was called the Prophet's Stone.

The Prophet's Stone was the oldest of them all — so ancient that even the road-side monuments lining its streets had stood for tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠of years. Past ivory buildings adorned with purple ornamentation, a single colossal tower rose at the city's heart.

On the tower's uppermost floor dwelt the most noble of the Cult. A male Cultist with stag horns passed down the long corridor and opened the door to the prayer chamber. Inside, diamond-shaped gravestones threaded with countless wires lay toppled across the floor.

"......"

The male Cultist snapped his fingers without a word. Two of the gravestones lit up and rose into the air.

"Long time no see, everyone!"

A girl's voice flowed from one of the gravestones — bright and bubbly, like an anime character's, and utterly at odds with the chamber's gloomy atmosphere.

"I'm busy, so get to the point, Jason."

The voice from the other stone, by contrast, evoked a stern middle-aged man.

Jason made no reply, waiting for another gravestone to activate. Several more seconds passed. None of the stones stirred.

With only two stones active, the male Cultist called Jason heaved a sigh.

"...I said it was urgent, and only two of you show up?"

"That's because you explained it like a total dumbass, oppa. If you'd actually said it properly, more people would've joined."

"You little sh— no, wait. Hold on. You showed up, so what the hell was the chuuni Japanese bastard doing that he couldn't? He's the most important one here."

"The Old Man's been swamped with the civil war lately. I haven't heard from him in ages either."

"Fuck. Maybe I should've gone Mega Corp from the start. Sleeping with married women's one thing, but this place is just too damn boring."

As Jason traded words only with the gravestone carrying the girl's voice, the middle-aged man's voice cut in.

"I have no time to waste. Enough chattering — explain in detail. A new player has arrived, has he not?"

"Yep! Spill the details already. Muriel — why'd she suddenly kick the bucket? None of us go around hunting players, remember?"

"A player we don't know killed her. An Amorph player."

The moment the word Amorph left Jason's mouth, the chattering gravestones fell silent.

"...Jason-oppa, jokes like that aren't funny."

"Tch. So little time left before my address, and you've wasted it on nonsense."

"Shit, I wish I were lying."

"Are you serious? A real Amorph?"

"Absurd. The Amorph is extinct."

"That's what I was told before contact with Muriel was cut off. She said a Wolf player and an Amorph player were coming after her."

Jason transmitted the recorded communications to the figures beyond the gravestones. A moment later, their fury erupted through the stones.

"What the actual fuck! Those bastards went extinct ten years ago — why the hell are they back now?!"

"Fucking hell... Who was in charge of the cleanup last time, again?"

"Beom-ho, probably."

"Beom-ho! I told you we should've killed that bastard in advance — he never lets anything go!"

"And you could've managed that, how? You never beat him once in the game, remember?"

"Both of you, shut your mouths! What's done is done; assigning blame now is pointless. If the one who killed Muriel is an Amorph, then the answer is already decided."

"Right. Up to Rank 40, there was only ever a single Amorph player. And frankly, only that guy would have the chops to take Muriel down in the first place."

At Jason's words, the gravestone with the girl's voice lit up again.

"Whoa, whoa, hold on! That, that whatchamacallit — the Rank 5 guy doesn't have friends! There's no way someone like that was hanging out with sis Seoa!"

"Agreed. The probability of the Morph-fucker possessing companions converges on zero."

"Muriel took a commission from me to capture Choi Seoa. My guess is the Morph-fucker crashed their fight midway."

"Just as expected. Entirely in character for the Morph-fucker. A convincing explanation."

"Haaaah... you've got to be kidding me. I was just thinking my luck had turned because equipment development was going so well."

Only now did the ones beyond the gravestones understand why Jason had summoned them.

"You intend to hunt him down?"

"Obviously. Leave that bastard alone and he'll kill every last one of us."

"Maybe if it were the Old Man, but not me. I'm head of my house, so I don't even count toward the Amorph's evolution conditions."

"You think Muriel kept her mouth shut about you before she died? If I were the Amorph, you'd be at the top of my list."

"Nnngh... that useless, good-for-nothing bitch Muriel, I swear..."

"Silence! So what exactly are you proposing?"

"I was thinking we all go and take him ourselves. What do you say? Honestly, sending underlings doesn't inspire confidence, and besides..."

Jason considered. The beings gathered here were, quite literally, people who could bend the entire universe to their will in real time. It would be no exaggeration to call them existences standing beyond the heavens themselves. Could such beings, assembled together, really struggle to capture a single Amorph?

But the thinking of the people beyond the gravestones diverged sharply from his own.

"Oppa, are you insane?! You want us all to hold a group funeral? Without the Old Man, if just the rest of us go, we're all dead!"

"I object as well. If I die, the Star Union collapses outright."

"Hey, hey, hey! You're both talking nonsense! I'm not saying this because I alone want to survive — with our combined strength, we could easily—"

"Spare me the bullshit. You probably don't know this, oppa, since you were never paying attention, but that Morph-fucker used to crack rankers' skulls open back when he was still a Young Adult."

"I've heard that more than a few Cultists failed to reach their endings because of him. You of all people should know that, Jason."

"Exactly. I have absolutely zero intention of paying tribute in essence to the Wall of Lamentation. If you're in a hurry to die, oppa, go die by yourself."

"Concurred. If a purge is truly what you want, go alone. If you'd like to leave a last will and testament, record it now — once you're there, you won't even get the chance."

"......"

The gravestones talked over him, cutting Jason off mid-sentence. Faced with reactions that made them look like trauma survivors reliving a nightmare, Jason found himself with nothing left to say.