382. Distortion
382. Distortion
***
After logging out, Serin immediately connected the Another World device to her PC. She then found the raid file she had recorded just yesterday and began transferring it to the PC.
Ding!
Watching the notification saying it would take roughly two minutes, Serin slowly ran a hand through her hair. There was still something she needed to discuss with Sua before the stream.
Namely, the NewTube video that would be uploaded for the Five Million Project.
"Anyway, what does she mean the video got distorted?"
Even as she looked back at the message Sua had sent, she couldn't figure out what it meant.
Sua.
[Serin! You recorded yesterday's raid, right? Could you check the footage and send it to me? Everything else in my recording is fine, but during Phase 5 the video is completely distorted and messed up, so I don't think I can upload it... I swear, when I first checked it yesterday my heart just dropped.]
Wondering if something had gone wrong with the recording, I sent a reply saying I'd take care of it. Right after, I looked at the new video icon that had appeared on my desktop.
Since I had recorded nonstop yesterday, the entire raid from start to finish had been captured in one go. That was why the recording was so large that the transfer alone was taking minutes.
After waiting about two minutes, the transfer completed, and I clicked the video to check it first.
Click.
As the video began playing, I started going through the timeline from the beginning, one section at a time.
I had wondered whether my own recording might also have strange distortions like Sua had described. But the footage I checked was mostly clean and well-recorded.
"...Seems fine?"
If anything, the more I watched, the more fascinating it felt, even though only a day had passed.
So this was how yesterday's raid had gone. I found myself gradually drawn in without realizing it. Even though I was the one who had actually run the raid, the footage was genuinely entertaining to watch.
Click.
As I was clicking through the next timeline sections in order, I soon had no choice but to pause the video.
"Even Phase 4... was recorded."
Because Cecilia's figure was clearly visible on the screen. And that alone stirred up complicated, subtle emotions... welling up in my chest.
The fact that Cecilia had sent the Imperial Elixir as the final reward also felt like consideration, and along with gratitude, a sense of guilt rose up strongly.
Then I remembered what Belua had said to me yesterday after everything had ended.
—Her Majesty the Empress is searching for the Grand Duke.
At Belua's words, I... had said I couldn't go back. In the end, that was the answer I'd given.
Thinking about how Cecilia would feel after receiving that message... my own heart felt heavy too.
I couldn't know how time flowed inside Black Ark after I had fallen into this world, but everything felt tangled up in complexity.
Like a massive skein of thread so knotted and twisted that I couldn't even begin to untangle it. The situation had already become hopelessly tangled.
Because I had already adapted to this world beyond measure.
I knew Another World wasn't just a game. And Black Ark, connected to that Another World, should also be seen as another world entirely.
There was likely no way to return there, and even if there were, the desire to go back had nearly vanished.
"Hah."
As various thoughts crossed my mind, I immediately shook my head.
Still, I knew that Another World and Black Ark were connected, even if only slightly. Even if I couldn't go back, I would still be able to meet her again. I didn't think things were entirely hopeless.
"Right. I can meet her again. Right. So..."
I shook off the lingering attachment that threatened to resurface for no reason.
Maybe it was because I had received the Imperial Elixir as today's quest reward. Just seeing Cecilia on the screen made guilt well up. I hesitated for a moment, but decided that even if I sent the video to Sua, I couldn't send the contents of Phase 4.
Just a little while ago, I had gone on at length calling it a hidden quest and had somewhat dispelled the two people's doubts, but Phase 4 was a completely different story.
Because the video contained me exchanging words that no one else could possibly understand.
After gazing at Cecilia's figure on the screen for a moment, I forced myself to move on to the next timeline section.
Click.
That was how I reached the Phase 5 timeline.
The beginning showed me taking the elixir Sua had given me. Then the moment I faced Zervallua. Then when I joined up with Arianne and Belua.
As the video played without any issues, I began to wonder if something had actually gone wrong with Sua's recording.
Click.
As I moved to the next timeline section—
"......"
Staring at the screen, I was speechless.
Along with an eerie, unsettling sensation that made my whole body break out in goosebumps, I doubted my own eyes for a moment.
The BaTalk message Sua had sent saying the video was distorted... the reason behind those words...
Only now could I finally understand.
Click. Click.
I frantically skipped through the video to check. The footage really was 'distorted,' just as Sua had said. The strange distortion obscured the figures that appeared on screen, making them impossible to see.
It was mostly my own figure in the video that was affected, and near the end of the footage, Yujeong's figure also gradually became blurred by the strange distortion.
"...What the hell."
I started to speak, then just felt like my breath had caught in my throat.
That both my recording and Sua's recording would coincidentally develop problems at the same time? That everything else would be fine, but the same anomaly would appear only in Phase 5?
'That's absurd.'
There was definitely some cause behind this. That was the reasonable way to see it.
Feeling immense confusion, I needed to find out why this wavering was occurring in the video. First, I had to find the reason.
Click. Click.
Going through the entire Phase 5 footage section by section, I began searching for the cause of the distortion.
......
After some time had passed, I was able to find the cause of the distortion.
When I went through the timeline minute by minute to determine when the video had started becoming strange, the clue actually came easily.
—Devour.
The moment Zervallua used Devour.
No, to be precise, from after Devour had "succeeded," the video had begun to warp strangely, producing the wavering effect like a distortion.
Right. From the moment Sua had been devoured by Zervallua.
That was why I had brushed it off lightly after talking with Sua on the phone yesterday. That nothing had happened, that it couldn't possibly affect reality.
"......"
At some point, I had bitten my lip hard enough to draw blood while checking the footage.
The characteristic metallic taste lingered in my mouth. But I focused on that pain instead, and while it helped me grasp the truth, I soon ran into yet another question.
Was it correct to say the wavering began right after Zervallua succeeded with Devour?
Or should I say it began after I awakened my Divine Blood—after I called Cheon Ryuhwa to me?
Considering the possibilities, I couldn't overlook the latter either.
The timing overlapped too intricately for me to jump to a conclusion.
The moment the wavering appeared in the video was right after Sua had been consumed by Devour, but it was also the moment I awakened my Divine Blood.
"...Hah."
I let out a shallow breath and looked again.
After succeeding with Devour, Zervallua evolved, and the battle grew even fiercer. Then, not long after, the second anomaly point.
The distortion began appearing mainly around my own figure, warping the video. And then there was the moment when even Yujeong was engulfed by the distortion.
Tap.
I paused the video at that point and became certain of one thing.
That Zervallua's Devour was indeed the fundamental cause of the wavering in the footage.
Yujeong hadn't been completely taken by Devour, but after being affected by it, the strange distortion had begun settling around her body as well.
"Those struck by Devour are engulfed by a strange wavering."
I spoke as if certain, but ironically, I then arrived at another question I couldn't understand.
'Then why is my figure, who was never struck by Devour, engulfed in the wavering?'
That was the question I couldn't explain no matter how much I checked the footage.
I had definitely not been struck by Devour.
The video showed Cheon Ryuhwa locked in a bloody battle with Zervallua. Her figure was captured there.
Even though she shouldn't have known anything about Zervallua, she seemed to perceive Devour instinctively. She completely shut down that moment, not giving even the smallest opening.
—BOOM! BOOOOM!
In the playing video, explosions continued to ring out, and the ground burst apart from the aftershocks of power.
Experiencing it indirectly through Cheon Ryuhwa's memories and watching it on video like this were completely different sensations. In the process, as if unable to withstand the immense power, my entire body was nearly wrecked, heading toward a wretched state.
Even so, Cheon Ryuhwa showed not the slightest hesitation. With a resolute expression, she simply kept crossing swords with Zervallua.
And the three people supporting Cheon Ryuhwa. Among them, Yujeong was relatively composed, but the two who kept glancing at me couldn't hide their shock.
Arianne and Belua's horrified gazes as they watched Cheon Ryuhwa. Watching it on video, I could feel the emotions they had felt.
"They're more wary because they sense strong power."
They must have felt just how vast the gap in power was between the evolved Zervallua and me.
And yet Cheon Ryuhwa, wearing my face without the slightest agitation, must have seemed incomprehensible in and of itself.
And just how strong an inner self Cheon Ryuhwa possessed—I couldn't even begin to guess.
And at this moment... I became obsessed with one possibility.
"Cheon Ryuhwa. She herself is... foreign to Another World."
I murmured it without thinking, and was startled even by my own words.
But.
'Could it be that Another World's system judged Cheon Ryuhwa's existence that way?'
I had learned today, after asking Sua and Yujeong, that Zervallua had never once used Devour in this Another World.
They had said they only learned yesterday that Zervallua even had a trait called Devour. They had expressed that confusion to me.
"...If that's the case."
Zervallua's Devour was expressed by the Another World game as this kind of distortion. That was why Zervallua's evolution had triggered a quest mid-raid—because to Another World's system, it was close to "something" utterly intolerable.
And Cheon Ryuhwa's figure, which had matched such a Zervallua blow for blow, must have been equally intolerable in the judgment of Another World's system.
My existence was so close to the inexplicable that it produced a distortion rivaling Zervallua's Devour.
The system had judged it that way, and that was what caused the distortion.
"Is my theory right?"
I murmured, and while I wasn't yet at a stage where I could be certain, my intuition told me the likelihood was high.
Come to think of it, back when I had faced Daji and called upon Cheon Ryuhwa, the sudden end of the stream had also made no sense.
At first I had wondered if it was a bug, but thinking about it now, there were too many suspicious points to dismiss it as coincidence.
As my thoughts gradually fell into order, a suppressed sigh escaped me.
The more I learned, the more it felt like incomprehensible, abstruse questions were seizing hold of me.
—Virtual reality.
Even in this world, virtual reality was practically an unknown system.
Another World was simply showcasing it independently.
It had already been nearly three years since Another World's release. Aside from Another World, no other game company had been able to implement technology on that level.
That was why Another World was still regarded as a game ahead of its time.
As I continued piecing my thoughts together like assembling a puzzle, one piece at a time—
Suddenly, the image of the two people who had looked especially tired today came to mind.
And the moment my thoughts reached the fact that both of them had been affected by Zervallua's Devour—
"...!"
After that, I stopped thinking about the stream.