The Shattered Shell: Vivian's Diagnosis

So because I'd used every function I'd selected, it was unlocking new slots for me? I agreed, if only to find out what the hell that was supposed to mean.

The list of disadvantages I'd already equipped scrolled up in front of my eyes. I had the whole thing memorized — I didn't need to look. But what appeared after that caught me off guard.

The advantage and disadvantage system from character creation had opened back up. I could pick more. Which meant if I took more disadvantages and earned more points, I could grab new advantages on top of what I already had.

I opened the disadvantage list with that in mind.

How the hell am I supposed to take any of this now that it's real?

I shook my head and killed the window. I'd played this game enough to know plenty of ways to cheese the disadvantages — but that was when it had been a game. Now that it was reality, Starvation Constitution and Extreme Muscle Loss alone were already more than I could handle. And it wasn't as if there was some advantage I desperately needed right this second.

Park it for now.

I closed the system window without a shred of regret. What mattered right now wasn't the window floating in front of my face. It was the client sitting there, waiting to test the thing I'd just fixed.

But this woman — whatever happened to that overwhelmed look from a moment ago? She was just sitting there in a daze, doing nothing, staring at her prosthetic.

"...Doctor?"

When I tossed the word out, Vivian's shoulders flinched. She lifted her head slowly, and a strange anxiety and fear were stirring in those blue eyes.

"...I'm a little afraid."

"Of what?"

"When I found out the thing that had been tormenting me for years was a defect in the prosthetic, I felt like I'd been saved. But..."

Vivian wrapped her other hand around the prosthetic's wrist.

"What if my rank still doesn't rise even after a perfect repair? If I still can't break through this wall even after the mana leak is gone... then what do I do?"

I listened, and nodded.

"So you're scared because if that happens, you'll have no excuse left, and you'll have to face your actual talent head-on."

"...Yes. That's uncomfortably on the mark."

I folded my arms.

"It's not an impossible scenario."

"...I know."

"But Doctor. For the past several years, you've held your ground in the Upper Layer wearing a defective product that leaked mana like a sieve. That means you kept using magic even while your mana was draining several times faster than anyone else's, even while your fingertips burned with pain. Do you understand what that means?"

Vivian's eyes, fixed on me, began to widen.

"You've been running a marathon with dozens of kilos of sandbags strapped to you. And I just cut those sandbags off."

"Ah..."

"So now all you have to do is run. I can't guarantee how far you'll go. But you're lighter now. You'll go a lot farther than you can right now."

Watching the corners of Vivian's eyes start to well up again, I panicked.

"Ah... no... I... I wasn't trying to make you cry again, you know."

Vivian shook her head.

"It's not that. I just... it felt like it had been a long time since I heard something kind. It's not the kind of thing you tend to hear in the Upper Layer. Thank you. That actually helps."

The Upper Layer... just what kind of place was it?

While I was turning that over, Vivian flexed her wrist and spoke.

"Alright... well then. Shall we start with why I came here in the first place?"

"Sorry? What purpose?"

"What were you calling me until just a moment ago?"

"Doctor... ah."

Right. She'd originally come at old man Gordon's request to check my physical condition.

"The way I use this prosthetic is for examining patients, originally. If I use it like this, we'll know whether the mana is still leaking, won't we?"

"That's a fair point. What do I need to do?"

"Just sit comfortably and roll up your sleeve for me, would you?"

I sat back as she'd asked ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠and rolled up my sleeve. Vivian took my wrist, a little shyly.

"...I'll begin, then."

Vivian looked at the man's outstretched hand. Maybe it was the storm of everything she'd just been through. This was the man who had pulled her out of the curse that had been tormenting her, and then gone and comforted her on top ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠of it — and somehow, taking his hand made her a little embarrassed.

Get a grip, Vivian. The man in front of you is a patient right now.

She caught herself, and carefully closed her fingers around his hand. Then she drew a deep breath, pulled up her diagnostic magic, and began to examine his body.

Perhaps because the prosthetic's defect was gone. Mana clearer than anything she could compare to the past unspooled smoothly through the diagnostic spell, and the very sensation of unfolding magic felt completely different from everything that had come before.

And in that exact moment—

"...Ah."

Vivian couldn't help the sound that escaped her. The body of the man in front of her, laid bare by the diagnostic magic, was catastrophic.

The heart, and the blood vessels branching from it, were riddled with holes — mana leaking from them in tattered streams. The dantian had been crushed until it had no form left at all.

And that wasn't all. Trace after trace turned up that was far too deliberate, far too grotesquely artificial, to write off as injury from disease or accident.

There are traces of mutation designed to make muscle growth fundamentally impossible. And traces of forcibly, grotesquely inflating the caloric demand of the body.

To Vivian's eyes as a magical doctor, this man's body was the record of someone who had deliberately driven a human life to the absolute brink of survival. As if they had snapped his wings so completely that for the rest of his life he would never again look up at the sky of the Upper Layer and try to crawl his way back.

He's been... living in a body this thoroughly destroyed?

Having seen that far, Vivian found herself examining the traces inside the heart before she quite realized she was doing it.

...Four magic systems.

Emission. Detection. Recovery. Precept. Four systems of magic were engraved into the heart. Factoring in that the heart itself had been destroyed, he had surely known even more. Considering that people generally only used two ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠or three magic systems, this was exceptional.

Having confirmed that much, Vivian checked the color of the man's hair and eyes. A deep, dense black, in both — nothing like her own cerulean hair and blue eyes. The mark of Gaon Mega City's 1st District, the very highest layer: the bloodlines of the three mega-corporations.

That was when Vivian felt the puzzle pieces in her head click into place.

Someone who was driven out of the very top, for some reason.

It happened often enough in the Upper Layer. The losers of a power struggle had their dantian — or their heart — shattered, and fell to the lower levels.

He looks too young to have been driven out by a power struggle himself...

He had probably been made to share the consequences of his parents' defeat.

I was only affected by a faulty prosthetic. This man was driven out of the very top. And not even for his own mistakes — for his parents'.

She couldn't even imagine the despair that would have come with that. Just imagining a fall from the Upper Layer to Under Sky, the middle town, was already this painful. Just the thought of never being able to raise her rank any higher was already this painful.

This man will never be able to raise his rank for the rest of his life.

Having confirmed that much, Vivian felt ashamed of everything she had said to him only moments ago.

I was despairing as if I'd lost the whole world over one broken prosthetic, blaming my own talent...

The man in front of her had everything he'd held from birth unjustly stripped away, and even his body had been butchered so that he could never raise his rank for the rest of his life. And yet he had sat there with a calm face and told her she'd taken the sandbags off, so all she had to do was run — comforting her.

"...Hah."

Vivian gripped the man's gaunt hand and bit down hard on her trembling lower lip. Shame rose in her, and with it a grief she could not bear as a fellow mage.

At that moment, Vivian made a decision. She would do for this man whatever she could — as much as he had done for her.

"...Doctor? What's with the look on your face?"

Watching the man ask, clearly not understanding, Vivian gathered mana from her heart.

"Stay still. This will be a little... no, quite hot. Please bear with it."