Chapter 68
Chapter 68
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Translator: uly
Chapter: 68
Chapter Title: The Editor's Dream
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# 68
Crunch!
An indescribable pain surges through me.
It stings and burns.
I can feel the scorching heat in my arm, like it's drenched in oil and set ablaze.
My breath catches in my throat, and blood wells up.
“Wheeze...!”
A far more violent rejection than I'd anticipated.
'I miscalculated.'
Greed is greed, after all.
This is impossible.
I can feel it clearly.
To put it in words, it's like I've exceeded my body's 'absorption limit.'
The vessel overflowed, and all the alien factors I'd absorbed up to now went berserk under the influence.
I'd vaguely considered that something like this might happen.
But only in theory.
I never dreamed it would hit me like this, all of a sudden.
The better the trait, the higher its information density.
And the higher the density, the stronger its impact on my body.
The more influence it has, the further I drift from humanity— that's just natural.
Up until now, the total information volume from my role as 'Lemon' had been high enough to back it up, so there were no issues. But fusing the entire left arm of the Crimson at once pushed me straight past the limit.
'I shouldn't have tried it now...!'
What if I'd waited longer?
If I'd done it after my body had matured further as a martial artist, or after my abilities had advanced enough to control the Crimson's left arm— it wouldn't have been like this.
So, is there no solution?
I racked my brain desperately.
Using knowledge from the original story and from Lemon, anything to get past this crisis.
Honestly, the simplest solution is separate.
Just cut off the fused left arm.
That would solve everything without a second thought.
After all, there's no way to stop the runaway fusion without amputating it.
But.
'I can't do that.'
My greed hasn't fully subsided yet.
I can't give up on this now.
This is the Crimson's left arm.
A complete one, severed intact.
When will luck like this come again?
A year? Two?
No, it might never happen again, even in ten years.
Then, as time passed.
I finally found one path.
"...For now, I need to relax a bit."
I lifted my head.
The unfamiliar pain is still there, unrelenting.
If anything, the contamination spreading from my left arm to my torso is making it worse.
Fortunately, the bunker is soaked in alien bodily fluids from the cadets moved to the bunks, creating an environment where the contamination sensors can't function properly.
Still, the presence of such a strong contamination source could cause problems.
I need to move first.
-Are you alright, Master?
"Not alright. For now, wrap my arm so it won't be visible from outside."
R3D3 wrapped my left arm thoroughly.
From the outside, it looks completely like a robot arm.
I gathered the remaining Crimson body parts, wrapped them in cloth to hide them, and quickly dashed through the bunker entrance to the surface.
'This should do for now.'
I pulled out the sealed container from my dorm.
It's a special box originally used to prevent contamination when bringing in other alien corpses— perfect for this.
It was a bit small, so I had to cram them in crumpled, but I closed the lid tight and hid it well.
They won't search my dorm willy-nilly.
Then I stepped outside and climbed to the highest point I could find.
'This place is still intact...'
It's the building with the principal's office.
Heavily damaged from the airstrikes, its former beauty is mostly gone.
But since it's a bit away from the bunker entrance where the defensive lines are set up, it hasn't collapsed.
I made my way to the top of the building and settled in.
-Master. Alien contamination levels are critical.
R3D3 finally voiced its concern, unable to hold back.
My body was a total mess.
Normally, contamination from aliens causes mutations in the body.
Organs twisting, skin degrading, and so on.
Signs of that are appearing all over my body.
If I were a regular person, I'd already be dead from shock, and no one would bat an eye.
In the glass of the building wall, I saw my face reflected— covered in what looked like pockmarks.
"My handsome face is ruined."
-This is no time for jokes.
"You feel bad about it too, right?"
-Beep! Bzzzt!
"Don't worry. It'll be back to normal soon."
I can't say with 100% certainty.
Honestly, the odds of failure seem higher.
But I'm determined to see it through to the end.
A fierce wind howls.
Strong enough that R3D3 has to anchor its legs into the building wall to hold me steady.
The Academy's wrecked atmosphere doesn't look like it'll recover anytime soon.
On top of that, constant explosions have filled the air with dust, turning visibility hazy.
'It's like a full-on dust storm.'
But I read the direction perfectly.
I could picture exactly where the aliens were.
Down to distinguishing the strong ones from the weak, in precise detail.
I could even sense what intentions the bastards were expressing, what they wanted.
Is this how aliens perceive the world?
'Whatever.'
I extended my left arm.
The Crimson's arm, now mine.
It retained its bombardment ability intact.
"Open up."
R3D3 detached from my left arm.
The mottled, inflamed skin.
A left arm that screamed "alien" at first glance was exposed.
The mutation had progressed severely around my shoulder where it connected.
It's still wriggling, trying to spread further.
'Plenty of power source.'
The Blue Devil's Horn.
Up to now, it'd only been used passively for an energy barrier.
But that's just the basics.
I'd never even used 30% of the massive power stored in the Blue Devil's Horn that way.
It had shattered from impacts beyond its resistance limit, but never failed to activate from lack of power.
Now, I planned to dump the whole capacity in at once.
'If I pour it all in at once... it might overload? That's exactly what I want.'
I injected energy for the bombardment, and the arm began transforming naturally.
The bones from shoulder to palm aligned straight, forming a discharge conduit.
The joints and cells covering the bones performed their unique function, rapidly converting the horn's power into bombardment-ready form.
I twisted my wrist slightly.
My target: the Crimson.
Another Crimson drenched in cadet blood was flying overhead, hunting for its next meal.
Roze was running around desperately, but blocking every attack was impossible.
'A bit more, just a bit more...'
I waited patiently.
One shot, that's all I get.
I had to aim for the perfect moment.
As I focused so intensely that even the pain faded.
The moment finally arrived.
“Raaah!!”
The instant the Crimson dove for a cadet, I fired the bombardment.
A sensation like something massive was sucked out from the horn through my left arm, and a crimson beam stretched out long.
The recoil felt like it would hurl my body away.
R3D3 drove its legs deeper into the building's outer wall to anchor me.
'Hit...?'
The Crimson turned its gaze toward me just before impact.
But by the time it noticed, it was already too close.
The Crimson wrapped its body with its one intact wing.
Kreeee!!
The entire wing turned red, generating a thick energy barrier that clashed violently with the beam.
Unable to fly, the Crimson was pushed back endlessly.
Past the defensive lines, beyond where Barton had dug his trap earlier, crashing far away into the ground.
KABOOOOOM!!!
A massive explosion followed.
A swarm of incoming aliens got caught in the blast, vanishing without a trace.
“...Cough! Heh.”
Steam rose from my spent left arm.
Now, I felt no sensation at all.
I shook off my dazed mind, opened comms, and ordered additional bombardment from both fleets.
Without waiting for a reply, I 'connected' to myself.
'I have to channel it all into the left arm.'
The excessive bombardment had damaged it, leaving it staggered.
Now's the chance.
I planned to dualize my left arm from the rest of my body.
Just as I'd designed, I focused on severing the connection point at the shoulder joint and establishing a command system for the left arm.
-Beep! Master's external responses minimal. Moving to safe location for security.
My focused mind sank deeper.
Through my closing eyes, I glimpsed massive combat machines and a cross.
And then.
No more memories.
*
I had a dream.
A dream where my body was engulfed in darkness.
The darkness spread from the fingertips of my left hand, creeping up to my torso and swallowing everything below my neck except my right arm.
It felt suffocating, like being crushed in a vice.
Then, a change occurred.
From my darkened shoulder, a snake-like head emerged.
It stretched up to my neck, coiling around it until it was right in front of my face.
[......]
Our eyes met.
It wasn't frightening.
Familiar, yet utterly alien.
[......!]
Suddenly, I felt like the head was saying something.
No voice came through.
I tried opening my mouth to speak, but same issue.
In the end, I closed it.
And asked inwardly.
'Who are you?'
No answer.
Can't communicate, huh.
But then, the head swelled and vomited something up.
'...A book?'
No cover, no title.
Yet it felt familiar.
I thought of turning the pages, and they flipped open on their own, rustling through.
Strangely, the contents sank into my mind as if I were reading them.
It was my story.
From awakening as Lemon to now.
'...What a hard life.'
That was my first thought.
My story boiled down to one word: suffering.
How did I work so hard?
Even though it was me, it felt amazing.
Then, the auto-flipping pages stopped.
Right where the content cut off.
The last page recorded what happened just before I lost consciousness.
'That was beyond reckless.'
Pure luck.
Nothing else explains it.
No matter how urgent the situation or impatient I felt, looking back, it was insane.
I could've taken it step by step, and it wouldn't have been bad.
So, what now?
The open book stayed still for a while.
The head didn't do much either.
I pondered, then touched the book with my intact right arm.
It felt real.
I couldn't move much, but I could flip pages freely, even edit and rewrite the text.
Some kind of [editing] function?
'Interesting.'
Memories from my days as an author surfaced.
Building worlds, plotting stories, tossing characters into my creation and messing with them as I pleased.
'Karma.'
I tormented them too much, so the protagonist threw me into this world.
Thinking back, it's absurd.
Who did I think I was?
Just some hack author scribbling at a desk— what could I change?
But not anymore.
Things have changed.
Same world, same flow, but a different story is being written.
'And...'
I stared at the book intently and moved my hand.
I want to edit some stories.
Not haphazardly, since it's my life now, but a few to make my situation better.
I couldn't change everything I wanted, though.
Severe edits that would cause big ripples seemed impossible, like there was a limit.
'Is this the extent of what I can do...?'
Then I'll focus it all in one place.
I need to survive first for the story to continue.
I returned to the last page.
And rewrote the story a bit.
In a way that fit the worldbuilding and improved my condition.
Any leftover capacity, I invested in something fun.
'Done.'
I let go of the book.
As if knowing it was over, the head that had been staring swallowed the book whole and sank back into my shoulder.
Then, moments later.
The darkness that had consumed my body slowly receded, gathering into my left arm.
The suffocation vanished.
It moved according to my will, just like my right arm.
'Good.'
Success.
As I thought that, my mind suddenly grew hazy.
'Wha...?'
Before I knew it, the world was brightening.