Remain Human

Remain human.

“Human” — a word loaded with more meanings than one.

Loki's warning could be heard as a simple plea not to abuse the ᚨᛒᛇᛋᛋ skill, or as something else entirely.

When the playfulness returned to Loki's voice, an ominous feeling crept over him.

"......"

The 'hidden treasure' Loki spoke of was almost certainly the key to the skills.

Orochi waited in silence for Loki's words.

"......"

With those final words, Loki's voice fell silent. The Dragon King's Orb lost its light and reverted to an ordinary crystal sphere.

Ryu Hwi examined the item's information once more.

So it turned into a vendor-trash item.

Items that came with descriptions about selling were, by definition, items meant to be sold.

The orb's inherent value was gone, but throwing it away outright felt like a waste, so he slipped it into his inventory for the time being.

Orochi stood still for a moment, then turned back to face Ryu Hwi. Shortly after, the data Orochi had promised came through to him.

"A promise's, payment.... I sent, information, on special, events, and, unique, monsters, that I, know of."

"Well, I'll take it gratefully."

Now that he knew Mental Tolerance lay somewhere in the 'Seven Temples,' information like this was little more than a bonus.

"I will, aim, to strengthen, the power, of S.E.N."

"Figured as much. But me, I'm going after the Mental Tolerance skill."

Loki had said only one of the two could be obtained.

It also meant that the temporary alliance with Orochi had come to an end. It might even have ended in a fight right then and there, but Orochi showed no sign of intending to battle Ryu Hwi.

Orochi turned toward the entrance.

"I have, no intention, of yielding. The next, time we meet, we are enemies."

With that, Orochi used a teleportation spell and vanished to somewhere far away.

[It seems your objective for the time being will be the Seven Temples.]

"Some of those places had entry restrictions, though."

[The temples are managed by the residents of the game labyrinth. The nearest temple is currently administered by the guild in the village you've claimed as your base.]

Ryu Hwi recalled the temple he had passed on his way to this village.

Every time he'd tried to enter, a warning reading 'Entry conditions not met' had flashed up and barred his approach, leaving him no choice but to walk on by.

To think that place was connected to Mental Tolerance.

"Guess I'd better find a way in."

Ryu Hwi set his feet in motion, made his way to a spot with no ceiling overhead, and used Fly - Luora. His whole body was swallowed by light, and in an instant he was transported to the nearest town.

"Let's check in at the inn first. And it's about time the Shuffle Shop opened up anyway."

Having checked into the inn where he'd be staying for a while, Ryu Hwi headed straight to his room.

Getting information on the temples would require raising his guild contribution, so he'd need to stay at least ten days. Having organized his thoughts, he decided to wrap up today's tasks.

"DQ Random Box."

He ran the DQ Random Box at once. After a production sequence unlike that of the standard Random Box, the results came spilling out immediately.

"Well, what do you know — plenty of skills this time."

[You only managed three spells and techniques, if I recall, all the way to level 27.]

"Oh, shut it. I pulled the Thunderbolt line — top-tier magic — so we're good."

Ryu Hwi's luck remained strange here as well. He had suddenly pulled Thunderbolt - Megaden, a supreme-grade spell line whose acquisition method hadn't even been discovered yet, while going an eternity without drawing any other spells or techniques at all.

"Demon-God Slash is a technique that lands a guaranteed hit even on high-defense opponents, and Guilling Slash is a two-stage quick-draw slash... Yeah, these should come in handy."

[Flame - Fiora is a lower-order spell in the flame line. Silence - Majilens looks useful, though. It can seal away every spell — allies' and enemies' alike.]

That wrapped up the DQ pulls.

Checking that the time had come, Ryu Hwi opened the Shuffle Shop. He bought one set and immediately inspected its contents.

Lv 2UP — Banana Trap — Guardian of the Azure Sky

Lv 2UP was a duplicate, and Banana Trap was, well, a gag trap card.

"Guardian of the Azure Sky?"

A card caught his attention enough that he pulled up its details.

"Some kind of last-resort superweapon card just showed up."

[Setting aside the absurd activation conditions, isn't this hopelessly over-balanced?]

Honestly, since he almost never burned through his entire Shuffle Gun deck mid-battle, he doubted the situation to use this card would ever come up — but if it ever did, turning the whole tide was well within its power.

[How would you like to configure your deck?]

This was Ryu Hwi's current deck configuration.

He was weeding out the low-frequency cards as he went, while slipping in the new arrivals on a trial basis. Personally, he'd have liked to run more trap cards, but the trap line simply refused to drop for him.

Banana Trap looked, no matter how he squinted at it, like a novelty gag item — but for now he swapped it in for Mine Field.

With things roughly squared away, Ryu Hwi logged out on the spot.

0-ho, running on 5555's personality, was in the thick of combing through DQ's source code.

DQ, built by XENIX from the blueprint, was saturated with source code of a nature that defied proper analysis with current technology.

How on earth did XENIX make something like this?

Bisque had been running simulations of her own, tearing into the source from every angle she could think of, but pinning down how such a colossal volume of data had been crammed into such a limited source proved impossible.

"Sounds like you're all suffering in there."

Ryu Hwi, having logged out and taken in the state of the development room, gave a wry smile.

He didn't want to interrupt, but there was something he had to do now.

"0-ho."

At ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠his call, 5555's personality switched to 0-ho in an instant.

"Need something?"

"Got a minute to talk."

As it happened, she'd been wanting a short break anyway, so 0-ho scratched her head and rose from her seat.

"Bisque, I'm taking a quick break."

"Okay, sure — GYAAAH! Another error!"

Accompanied by Bisque's shriek, the two of them left the development room.

Seated on the sofa in the lounge, 0-ho took a sip of her tea. After hearing the broad outline from Ryu Hwi, her expression turned complicated.

"So — a way to lure out Vritra, huh."

Vritra.

The being who had trampled the lives of 0-ho and the countless souls mingled inside her.

Ryu Hwi had his own business with Vritra, of course, but where that monster was concerned, 0-ho came first.

"What do you want done to Vritra?"

"I want him dead."

0-ho answered without a beat of hesitation.

"No — dying alone isn't nearly enough. I want to make him feel a hundred times the pain I felt, and then die."

Woven into the flat, matter-of-fact delivery was a thick, settled thread of killing intent.

"Ryu Hwi. I have a favor to ask."

"I can roughly guess, but go ahead."

"Bring Vritra to me alive."

Ryu Hwi was hardly the man to miss what that meant.

"That's a harder request than killing him. Well — fine. If we're doing this, first we need to find what Loki hid inside DQ."

"I'm still decoding the DQ source. I'll tell you the moment I turn something up."

"Yeah."

Ryu Hwi raised his cup to take a sip of tea.

[Master.]

At that moment, YggON called out to him.

[I am detecting a strange energy reaction.]

"What?"

Ripples trembled across the tea in his cup. At an unusual presence he could feel from somewhere, Ryu Hwi held his breath.

He knew this feeling. It was the aura that appeared when an S.E.N unveiled its Field — and it was close by.

Had an S.E.N launched an attack? He swept his ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠surroundings urgently —

No.

Ryu Hwi realized his mistake.

It wasn't coming from elsewhere. The source of this piercing energy that lanced through his entire body was standing right in front of him.

When Ryu Hwi saw the golden ring surfacing in 0-ho's eye, he froze in shock.

"0-ho, you—!!"

"Huh?"

0-ho's face went stiff with alarm. The ring in her eye vanished, and the skin-pricking pressure melted into the air in a heartbeat.

"0-ho, what did you just do?"

"What did I do? What are you talking about?"

0-ho looked utterly baffled.

Is she pretending not to know? Or does she genuinely not?

The golden ring that had surfaced in 0-ho's eye moments ago was, without question, the hallmark of the S.E.N and the ᚨᛒᛇᛋᛋ as a whole.

Ryu Hwi glanced over at YggON.

[I recorded it. Shall I send you the video data?]

After a brief moment of deliberation, Ryu Hwi decided to send the data to 0-ho.

When the data arrived out of nowhere, 0-ho made a puzzled face.

"Video data? Out of nowhere? Why?"

"It's footage of you, just now."

"What? There was no camera indicator — how did you even... wait, why are you giving this to me?"

"Stop stalling and look."

"What on earth—"

Muttering under her breath, 0-ho checked the video as Ryu Hwi told her to.

"......?!"

Shock settled into both of 0-ho's eyes. The look of someone witnessing something she could not possibly believe.

"My eyes... what is this? What is this thing?!"

Ryu Hwi had already given 0-ho a rough explanation of the traits of the 'S.E.N.'

The rings of light that surfaced in their eyes. 0-ho knew perfectly well that this was the signature of an S.E.N.

"I— I—"

0-ho was badly shaken. He had never once seen her this flustered before.

"No way. Me. I'm..."

Hyperventilation.

Her body was a full-body prosthesis — it should have maintained a stable state at all times. Which meant she had taken a shock severe enough to inflict a critical error in that computation.

"Pull yourself together."

Ryu Hwi gripped the shoulders of the panicking 0-ho. He felt a cold that carried no pulse of life.

"Breathe, first. Take a slow breath in. Hold it a moment, then let it out."

0-ho followed his instructions. After a little while she finally managed to steady herself — her breathing calmed, but her hands kept trembling as though gripped by fear.

"Why would something like that appear in my eyes? Ahaha... this is strange, my ocular functions are all normal. Maybe I should swap out the eyes? How much did those new prosthetic models go for again?"

Still flailing in confusion, so Ryu Hwi took both of her hands.

"Calm down. You already knew there was a possibility that Freyja's soul resides in your body, didn't you?"

"I knew! I knew, okay...? I was just, caught off guard."

0-ho had suspected that the soul of the S.E.N known as Freyja slept within her.

But the moment that 'omen' manifested so unmistakably, she couldn't keep her composure.

For an instant, it had even felt as though everything she was was being swallowed whole by the existence called 'Freyja.' If she had to sum up what she felt in a single word, it would be fear.

"Panicking over something like this... hah. And here I thought I'd braced myself."

"Your hatred of Vritra must have stimulated Freyja's soul. You calmer now?"

0-ho gave a small nod.

Freyja had fallen to Vritra. Treated as nothing more than a lab specimen, she had met her end amid roaring flames alongside countless human beings.

That rage would still remain, unextinguished.

"Apparently my life carried more obsession in it than even I realized. The moment I thought everything I'd built was going to be devoured by Freyja, this happened."

"Well, anyone would react that way."

"And here I was, bragging I was ready to bring Freyja out whenever — only to end up like this. Haha... I'm a joke. Sorry. You got an ugly look at me."

"Honestly? You seem better than usual."

"That's just cruel."

0-ho gave a bitter smile.

Seeing her considerably calmed, Ryu Hwi let out a breath of relief.

"So — Freyja really is inside me. No doubt about it now."

It was a fact she could no longer deny even if she wanted to. That a part of the S.E.N Freyja was blended into 0-ho was now certain.

"If you're convinced, then there's no putting it off any longer, is there. I'll have to verify it."

"Verify it?"

"Up until now I've avoided proper 'game labyrinths' as much as possible, and only ever connected to makeshift mini-labyrinths in spaces I control — the 'development room,' the 'broadcast studio,' places like that."

She had, all this time, shown an aversion to being directly Converted into a 'game labyrinth.'

"Ryu Hwi. Take me with you into DQ. I'll go in through a direct Conversion — on the 0-ho personality."

"I can't promise nothing will happen to you."

"I know."

0-ho met Ryu Hwi's eyes and smiled.

"Figuring DQ out from the source alone was always going to be a losing battle, so checking it firsthand is the right call anyway... and more than that."

0-ho placed a hand over her own chest.

"Before I avenge myself on Vritra, I want to confirm the roots of my own soul."

0-ho steeled her resolve to reach toward the soul of 'Freyja' sleeping within her.

Even if, in the end...

it meant her own existence was erased.