The Scent of Fresh Money

Countless developers were racing one another to churn out new game labyrinths, and a Platinum-rank man known simply as Q watched the current of the era with keen interest.

Going by appearances alone, Q was an utterly unremarkable man — the kind you'd pass on any street corner. He didn't fit the Platinum rank at all; he radiated the worn-out air of a corporate drone ground down by life. The dark circles pooled under his eyes and the hollows of his cheeks only cemented the image.

From his looks alone, no one would ever guess that he was the man whispered about even among Platinums under the sinister nickname of the Evil Spirit.

Ever since the downfall of Steebro Latia Duke, the Platinums had grown quietly cautious. Until just recently, Q's world had been thick with the corrupt, festering stench of money he so adored — but now a wind from somewhere had swept the rot far away.

"Pathetic, really."

Q considered his fellow Platinums pathetic. Was this not the perfect opportunity to seize wealth and glory? Why on earth would they turn their noses up at it?

The call came from his butler while Q was leisurely watching the scenery beyond his window. Like everyone living in this era, Q's greatest interest was game labyrinths. He never played them himself, but he was never lazy about gathering information on labyrinths or on gamers.

Those around him speculated that he might be planning to muscle into the labyrinth industry, but Q denied it. What interested him wasn't the labyrinths themselves — it was the value they would generate.

Money. The game of hoarding money and power. It was Q's favorite amusement, and the goal of his life.

"Jucheongwang, is it? And what kind of labyrinth is it this time?"

"Yes."

Jucheongwang was the game developer Q had his eye on most closely. There were several reasons, but the biggest was the smell of money that practically rolled off them — and not the rot-corrupted stench, either, but a sweet, remarkably fresh one. Q liked the smell of festering money well enough, but he liked the smell of fresh money too. To be precise, what he enjoyed above all else was the moment fresh money began to rot.

"Hmm?"

As he reviewed the information on Legend of Lambda, Q's eyes glittered ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠with interest.

"So Loki chose them? Good grief — I can hardly sit idle either, then. I'd better start working some angles before my departure runs any later. What do you think?"

Q turned his head toward a corner of the room. There, a man stood motionless as a doll.

"Hm? Gabriel."

"……"

Even at Q's question, Gabriel kept his mouth shut.

"Not planning to answer? That's an awfully cold reception for the man who saved you."

Only then did Gabriel sigh and open his mouth.

"If I must say one thing — are you confident you can handle him?"

"UR? Handle it how, exactly? Try to use him carelessly and you'll only get played in reverse."

"That is my answer."

Q nodded as though he understood ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠perfectly.

"Then I suppose I'll think of a different way."

There was no need to rush. His game had only just begun.

Gabriel watched in silence as Q cackled to himself.

Meanwhile, there was another party taking a keen interest in Jucheongwang's rise. Tiamat, supreme head of Enuma Elish — the organization that ruled the entertainment district from the shadows — had been watching the company just as carefully.

Unlike Q, she boasted an extravagantly flamboyant appearance. Every ornament draped across her body glittered, and her feather-trimmed fur coat carried the gaudy flashiness of a woman come into sudden fortune. It was a look that might have suited someone ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠else — on her, it fit so poorly it bordered on comical, and laughter came unbidden to the lips.

But no one had ever laughed at her. Anyone who had was no longer among the living.

More than a third of the entertainment district already lay within Enuma Elish's sphere of influence. If she wished, Tiamat could rule the entire district — but she deliberately stopped at a third. If she devoured it completely, the struggle of violence she so loved would simply vanish. The district's factions now clung to a delicate balance, united against Enuma Elish, and no one knew that the equilibrium existed only because Tiamat allowed it.

"So Wolya is here."

Tiamat's interest in Jucheongwang stemmed from the presence of Wolya. Back in her days living in the entertainment district, Wolya had rubbed shoulders with all manner of big players. Tiamat had taken her for a fearless human — but then, she had the ability and the gall to back it up. What's more, Tiamat had rather liked the fact that one of Britra's test subjects had clawed her way up from rock bottom to reach this point.

The mysterious deaths of the imprisoned Iron Blood cronies had all been Tiamat's handiwork as well. She'd left them alone at first because their posturing amused her — and then the fools had gone and touched Wolya, whom she cherished. The price was their lives.

Crowley must have been pulling strings from behind the scenes. Arrogant bastard...

As long as their courses of action differed, the two of them were bound to collide somewhere, sooner or later. If anything had actually happened to Wolya, Tiamat would have declared war on Crowley without a second thought.

"So even Loki has begun to interfere."

When she examined the information on Legend of Lambda that Jucheongwang had released, Tiamat caught traces of Loki's scent woven throughout.

"So there's talent of that caliber, is there?"

Wolya weighed on her mind, but the existence of the UR master weighed far more. Tiamat watched the video Ryu Hwi had uploaded recently, her tongue slowly licking across her lips.

Legend of Lambda. Ragna had handled the planning, the worldbuilding, and the design all on his own. Combined with elements borrowed from Loki's blueprints, the finished product had come together.

The sapling read the source without a hitch, but a problem emerged during the completion process — and a preposterously serious one at that.

Of course he understood.

They'd been burned once during Super Gemini, and here they were getting burned again. 5555 was throwing a fit in the corner while Bisque and Noir sweated bullets trying to hold her back.

"So why the hell does that damn tree keep rewriting other people's games however it pleases?!"

Yggdrasil took the content of any game it liked and expanded it with wild abandon. That might not sound like a problem — but to the people who wanted the labyrinth to come out exactly as they had envisioned and demanded it, it was an offense they simply could not overlook.

"Whoa, this is incredible? So this is how it works!"

Ragna — the very man who had conceived the project and formed its core — was delightedly gazing at the expanded world. The reason was simple.

"If everything turned out exactly the way I planned it, I wouldn't be able to enjoy playing it myself, now would I?"

He was a planner, yes — but he was a gamer first.

"Gamers are flooding in the moment the release information went live."

Noir clicked her tongue as she monitored the labyrinth in real time. Ever since Yggdrasil 2.0, information on a game labyrinth was made public the instant it was created. Every gamer connected to Legend of Lambda right now was one of the ones who had come charging in the moment the intel dropped, heedless of anything else.

Ryu Hwi watched the scene for a moment, then turned to Ragna.

"Ragna, I'm leaving the broadcasts and videos for Legend of Lambda to you."

"...Sorry, what? You're sure about that?"

Ragna's face went slack with surprise. He'd assumed Ryu Hwi would be uploading the playthrough footage himself again this time.

"You planned it yourself, so you can cover it in more detail than I can. Besides, I already know limited play suits me about as well as a suit of armor. And..."

He turned to 5555.

"5555, my exclusive difficulty is implemented, right?"

"Like Capsule could pull off something I can't? I tuned it to a nightmarish high difficulty — the kind that makes you wonder whether even you can clear it."

The Lunatic Hell broadcast for City of the Demon God had earned considerable praise, and Ryu Hwi had been satisfied too, since it let him flex his full strength. So he had requested that same insane difficulty be built into the new labyrinth as well.

"I still don't get why you'd ask for something like this. You could just, you know, not use bugs."

Bisque, who had endured untold grief from the sudden ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠difficulty implementation, glowered at Ryu Hwi and grumbled under her breath.

"It toggles ON and OFF whenever you like, so use it however you want. Oh, and..."

5555 sent over a file.

"It falls well short of the skill you actually asked for, but it should have the power to guard your mind."

A mental-resistance type skill. With Intuition's level climbing, it was essential to acquire in order to block the side effects that were bound to follow. Since there was no telling how the Random Box would implement it, its true potency remained an open question.

Oh, shut up.

He was loosening up lightly ahead of converting into the labyrinth when 5555 beckoned him to follow. He did, and once she confirmed no one was around, she peeled the paper bag off her head.

Beneath it was the face of 00.

"You're 0-ho?"

"I've been running the 00 frame since yesterday, but the personality switched over just now."

"Why are you using 00? You said you hated wearing it as much as possible."

0-ho had clearly said that using 00's prosthetic frame left her with feelings of futility and hollow emptiness.

"There's something weighing on me, so I'll be using 00 for the time being."

"Something weighing on you?"

0-ho gave a small nod.

"Why I knew the keyword 'Divine Comedy' in the first place."

"Ah..."

"Hecate of S.E.N was dead certain I'd remember that keyword. Which means they know things about me that even I don't. I've been turning over the reason why."

He listened to her in silence.

"Britra's experiments scrambled my personality with a tangle of souls caught up in the accident. Freyja had to have been among them."

"So you're saying Freyja's soul is mixed into you, and it was that soul which recalled the keyword 'Divine Comedy'?"

"Probably."

He realized what she was driving at.

"You think that if you keep using 00's body, you might be able to awaken Freyja's soul?"

"When I was inspecting 00's body, remembering 'Divine Comedy' almost certainly wasn't coincidence."

Just as Noel had said, that soul was desperately unstable. A handful of the weaker personalities had vanished from a single mental shock alone — as if the souls that had been forcibly stitched on had simply melted away. If Freyja truly resided within 0-ho's soul, and that soul were to awaken?

"Isn't waking up Freyja's soul dangerous?"

"Who knows. Dangerous, sure — but it might be no trouble at all. It's worth experimenting."

"You'd stake yourself on a mere possibility? What's driving you to go that far?"

"Are you worried about me?"

Heat flashed up his neck for an instant.

"Yeah. I am. If a rare, useful talent like you evaporates for nothing, the loss is no joke."

"Hahaha. My usefulness won't drop that easily, so rest easy."

0-ho exhaled a light sigh. Her eyes seemed to be gazing somewhere far away — somewhere far from here.

"I'm hollow. There's nothing at the root where I should be standing. That's precisely why I hated wearing 00's body. I must find my own self disagreeable, I suppose."

The sole human to walk away alive from a tragic accident. Her soul had been churned into a jumble, leaving even her unable to say who she was. For a woman living without anywhere in the world to plant her feet, this entire reality might well have felt like a dream.

"Only now, at long last, can I bring myself to try and find my origin. Even if it turns out that I become S.E.N's Freyja, it won't matter."

"Why not?"

"Because S.E.N's Freyja would surely decide that playing with you is the most fun of all."

Just as the woman standing here did now.

"Fine. Do as you please."

"The CEO's sign-off came through too, so shall I do just that?"

0-ho pulled the paper bag back over her head.

"Oh — and one more thing. You'd better be careful when you play Legend of Lambda."

"Why?"

"Loki's blueprints are riddled with unknown territory. I've experimentally folded everything I could adapt into Legend of Lambda, but there's no telling what it might set off."

She'd run the simulations over and over to verify it. And yet 0-ho felt a strange, gnawing unease — because it was the blueprint of an S.E.N being.

"Be careful with the data collection for completing DQ."

Dragon Qualia. The finished form of the game labyrinth that Jucheongwang was now aiming for.

"Well then — shall we begin?"

Legend of Lambda. Ryu Hwi dove headfirst into the new game labyrinth.