UPGRADE COMPLETE! 3
Data pads lay scattered around Ash, and all at once they pulsed with green light — the signal that the optimization was complete.
Seated cross-legged in the modification pit, Ash rose slowly and pulled the cables from his body one by one. With a series of soft clicks, the connection ports along his new ink-black chassis sealed themselves shut, one after another.
It was a premium product, no question about it. Even the external armor plating that concealed the ports spoke of a grade of craftsmanship far beyond his old body.
"Mmnh…"
The noise stirred Akina, who shifted in her sleep. She had passed out on the makeshift cot tucked in the corner of the workshop, and no wonder — she'd poured a day and a half straight into the replacement work. The exhaustion was written all over her.
Saying nothing, Ash stepped down from the pit as quietly as he could. His new legs bore his weight with perfect balance, steadier than anything the old pair had managed. He watched the sleeping girl for a moment, then headed for the rest stop's back lot to test his rebuilt body — only a single day remained before his promised date with Ifrit, and he meant to make the most of the time.
Past midnight — or perhaps the small hours of dawn. Cold air seeped through the steel of his skin.
"Good."
Whether it was the crisp chill he found to his liking, Ash let out a short breath of admiration. Then he drew the steel blade he carried with him always, as much a part of himself as his own frame.
Every motion flowed as naturally as water. It was a strange experience, no matter how many times it happened — his torso and right leg had been entirely replaced, yet he felt no sense of unfamiliarity whatsoever. No doubt that was the fruit of Akina's considerable skill, fused with the forced synchronization of his Neuro Heart Method. Everything felt smooth and effortless, as if the body had been his from the very beginning. If anything, it felt lighter than before.
Which left Ash feeling oddly adrift. It was the sensation, he thought, of a man who had undergone Hwangeoltaltae — the shedding of an old skeleton for a new one, death and rebirth in a single breath. Absurd, of course, to speak of marrow-changing rebirth in a machine's body. But could any metaphor better capture what he felt right now?
A low chuckle escaped him. "To put it precisely, I suppose this was a partial rebirth."
He squared the blade and set the Neuro Heart Method in motion. Brain-force surged up along the freshly installed artificial neural matrix, welling forth like spring water finding a new channel.
"Hoh?"
The differences announced themselves at once. First, no more sparks spat from his joints — proof of how much sturdier the replacement neural network had become. With no leakage, his energy efficiency climbed, and that faint, nagging resistance he'd always felt whenever he drew on his power was simply gone.
The second change was his maximum output. The new chassis served as a reservoir of power so vast that the old body couldn't even be compared to it.
And the third, of course, was the KERS.
Text bloomed in the corner of his optical sensors, announcing the KERS system's activation. This remarkable technology harvested energy from his every movement without pause, and it was self-evident how dramatically it would extend his endurance in battle.
His optical sensors glowing bright, Ash began to swing the blade in earnest. Sword forms steeped in the lofty artistry of the Kunlun Sect unfurled from his hands.
The swordplay poured on without pause — fluid as a stream at one moment, a raging storm the next. Sometimes he employed the subtle mechanics of the Dragon-Shaped Stance and the Soaring Dragon Axe Formation, ranging freely across every corner of the empty lot.
And with every escalation of his movement, the KERS recovery rate climbed.
On his first expedition, a single technique had drained his power in a flash. Now it was an entirely different story — and the difference stirred a peculiar delight in him.
"Excellent!"
The electronic voice that burst from him unbidden carried not a shred of falsehood. This sensation was utterly unlike anything before.
From the moment he had awakened in a body of steel, Ash had never once been free of the pressure of limited power. A finite charge — it was an invisible shackle constraining his every action. He'd had to be deliberate even about a single technique, and a continuous chain of linked strikes had been nothing but a dream. Maximum efficiency, minimum movement — that had always been the law of his existence.
Not anymore. Abundant power, backed by the KERS, gave him a taste of freedom.
Ash regripped his blade. His cyan optical sensors flared brighter than they ever had, and then, harnessing the subtleties of the Cloud Sea Shadow Flight, he launched himself into the high sky — a lightness technique infused with the Neuro Heart Method, a leap powerful enough to clear the rest stop's rooftop in a single bound. The old body could never have dreamed of it.
Rising through the air in a spiral, the new-model torso twisted at the waist and swept its blade. The Gore-Tex duster he wore caught the rotation and snapped out around him like wings.
The strike did not end at one. His airborne body seemed to freeze for an instant — then three sword beams burst forth simultaneously, stitching arcs across the empty air.
A chain of linked strikes embroidering the void. Sword dance was the truer name for it.
A humanoid performing a sword dance in the midnight yard — one could dismiss it as a mere trick of a cold steel frame, yet the scene possessed a haunting, quiet beauty all its own.
The KERS self-generation efficiency had skyrocketed. So it was true, then — the faster he moved, the more it reclaimed. By the time the linked strikes finally ceased, Ash's total power expenditure had yet to reach two percent. Compared to the old body, that was efficiency improved tenfold and more.
He touched down on the ground of the empty lot. Not a sound.
"…Haha."
What Ash felt went beyond satisfaction — it bordered on euphoria. A tingling pleasure washed over him, like a man recovering something he had forgotten he'd lost. The dormant instinct of a martial artist, stirring awake after long slumber.
At this level, he felt he could cut through whatever dangers the Nexus reclamation operation might throw at him.
He was gripping the blade hard again, savoring the feeling, when the storm-like momentum scattered in an instant.
Because something had surfaced in his mind.
The girl called Nangrang. What had that vision been? Who was Nangrang? How did he know that name at all? And why — why did his chest ache with a dull hollowness every time the name crossed his mind?
Ash set the blade down and connected to his main core system, attempting to access his memory storage. It was useless. The message [ERROR CODE: 88X1_FRGMNT] repeated over and over; the footage from that time could not even be played back.
A truly strange affair.
Ash pondered briefly, then shook his head, deliberately brushing aside the musings that skimmed the edge of his main core. Barely a day remained before the Nexus reclamation battle — if he let an unsolved riddle distract him from his readiness, the price would be a gruesome one.
All things have their order of priority. For now, I must devote myself to preparation.
Ash took up the steel blade once more, and swung it with all his might — as if to pour the rising stray thoughts into his swordplay and fling them away. The midnight sword dance went on. And little by little, the girl with the red smile grew fainter.
The first time and the second are never the same — or so they say.
The next day, Ash and Akina arrived at the Central Hub. Even at the earliest hour of dawn, the place was packed shoulder to shoulder — but unlike last time, the two of them didn't waste a glance on their surroundings. Their first expedition as a pathfinder team had left them with more than credits; it had left them with experience, shallow as it still was.
With footsteps that were already becoming familiar, they pushed through the crowd of pathfinders and reached the gate.
"Akina Greenwood, Ash Blade, correct?"
Timeman's voice was as mechanical as ever.
Through the gate, the pair headed not for the hangar where the limousine had waited, but toward Halloween Entertainment's dedicated pit stop. Floating music grew steadily louder as they approached — this direction, at least, was certain.
"Oh! There she is! Unnie!"
Akina waved, and Ifrit — dressed to kill as always — turned her head toward them.
"Oh! You made it!"
She greeted them with heart-shaped laser beams flashing in her LED eyes, and Dullahan, standing beside her, gave a light wave of his hand. Text flickered across his visor:
"Damn, kiddo. Nice gear?" Ifrit whistled, pointing at Akina's ballistic chest rig.
"You bet! I'm a proper pathfinder now, after all!"
"Good. Very good."
Her gaze slid naturally to Ash. Unlike Akina, Ash's outfit was no different from before — a steel blade and a black expedition suit. That was all. But then, the body itself had changed, so it would be a stretch to say nothing had.
"And you… really went all in on the upgrade, huh?"
"I merely made the necessary preparations."
"Just in case — if you need to charge, do it here. Don't go plugging cables into other people."
With that, Ifrit rapped her knuckles against the armored vehicle parked behind them. Apparently that was the ride they'd be taking this time.
"Ah! Boss lady! I told you to stop hitting me! It's barely been out of the shop!"
The vehicle spoke.
"Shut it. And you, get out here and say hello. This one's the guest member coming with us."
At her words, the vehicle's rear hatch opened with a heavy clunk, and a boy emerged from inside — a skinny kid in a leather jacket. But what caught the eye was something else entirely: a helmet shaped like a ripe pumpkin, orange LEDs glinting behind its painted eyes and grotesque carved grin.
"Ugh, seriously! What kind of hello—"
The grumbling boy's gaze snagged on Akina. He went quiet for a moment. A short silence later, he spoke in a baritone far too deep for his frame.
"Hey there. Name's Jack O'Lantern. Assault, ROA division. So… how old are you? You're actually really pretty. Are you an idol trainee, by any chance? Got a boyfriend? If not—"
Before anyone noticed, Dullahan had sidled up and smacked the back of the pumpkin head. It wobbled back and forth. Text scrolled across the visor:
"Hey! Don't hit my head!"
Then Ifrit, who had closed the distance in a blink, drove a kick into Jack O'Lantern's knee joint.
"Owowow!"
"I said say hello, not flirt."
"Ow, hold on! That actually hurts! Bone! You hit bone! Don't you know your body IS a lethal weapon, boss lady?!"
"Lethal weapon? To a kid who's cute and adorable? An idol?"
"Cute my ass. These days I'm basically washed up anyw—AGH! Okay, okay, it really hurts!"
The comic pummeling continued for a while. Meanwhile, Ash spoke up — at some point, he had wrapped one arm around Akina's shoulders.
"Miss Sohye."
"Hm? Yes?"
"It would be wise not to keep company with that pumpkin-headed gentleman."
"Why not?"
"…He is a stranger to you, is he not? One must never grow careless in one's vigilance."
"Okay. But, ahjussi?"
"What is it?"
"What's 'flirt' mean?"
Ash did not answer.
While that little sideshow played out, the music that had been flooding the Halloween pit stop gradually died down.
"Happy! Halloween! Announcing to all idols of the pit stop!"
A familiar voice. Chatterbox — the marquee DJ of Halloween Society.
Dullahan and Ifrit, mid-pummeling, froze.
"The festival you've all been waiting for and waiting for — Sanctum's greatest celebration, the Halloween Festival, is about to begin! Idols scheduled to participate had better finish their preparations now!"
The moment the words left him, every screen in the vicinity switched to a dazzling poster. The words HALLOWEEN FESTIVAL bloomed across every corner of the pit stop, backed by slickly edited footage of the company's idols in full combat.
It was a sudden change, but Ash and Akina didn't startle — Ifrit had briefed them in advance.
"The reclamation op departs disguised as the Festival. If most of the idols suddenly mobilize to the same location, the other Societies will smell a rat — obviously."
In its ordinary sense, the Halloween Festival meant a mass expedition: idols descending on a designated zone to churn out content of every variety — grotesque hunting, punishment missions, snuff footage, that sort of thing. This operation exploited exactly that. To every other Society, all of it would look like business as usual, a festival like any other — when in truth it was a covert campaign to seize a Nexus Port that only Halloween knew existed.
"Alright! That's all preparations complete! All idols participating in the Festival, depart for your assigned positions immediately! Everyone say it with me — Happy! Halloween!"
Before Chatterbox's shout had even finished, the pathfinders preparing in the surrounding pits raised a roar of cheers and scrambled into their respective vehicles. The music booming through the air grew louder still, and the surroundings filled to the brim with festival fever.
Ifrit clapped her hands together with a crack.
"Alright! Let's enjoy the festival! We're moving out too!"
"Let's gooo!"
"Miss Sohye. Shall we?"
"Yes!"
Following the three of them amid the clamor, Ash and Akina boarded the armored vehicle as well. A short while later, the vehicle carrying all five roared out of the Central Hub on a thunder of engine noise.