Original Prosthetic 00

The day after the Iron Blood incident, Ryu Hwi searched for information on S.E.N from his hideout.

But even with YggON's power at his disposal, nothing of use turned up.

"Shut it. I'm fine the way I am."

Ryu Hwi leaned back in his chair.

He had brought down Iron Blood, but it was still too risky to stroll out of the hideout just yet. Too many people were gunning for him these days — moving around carelessly was out of the question.

More than anything, he needed to figure out what 'S.E.N' actually was, the name Crow had dropped on his way down.

"Damn it. And this is supposed to be when I focus on conquering the Tower…."

Knock knock.

Just then, someone rapped on the door. Without even checking who it was, Ryu Hwi said, "Come in." After all, there was exactly one person besides himself who knew where this hideout was.

"Hey there~."

Someone pushed the door open and stepped inside. The moment Ryu Hwi saw who it was, his brow creased.

"Wolya?"

"Who else would it be? Obviously me."

Wolya changing her appearance was nothing new. But unlike all the bizarre getups she'd worn until now, today's prosthetic body was almost disturbingly normal — and her outfit was striking. A traditional garment from 'the East', one that survived only in old records, fitted to an appearance that caught the eye in its own right.

"Hard to believe you still have costumes like that lying around… Where do you even get this stuff? And where did the old-man voice go? You're talking differently too — is this another personality?"

"Well, yes. Running the 'Wolya' persona in this body would cause all sorts of complications. To keep things simple, just call me Wolya. Or 'Unit 0', if you prefer."

She called herself 0-ho — Zero.

"Anyway, seeing you react like that to my prized prosthetic is honestly a little hurtful. So? What do you think? Well?"

Zero swished the hem of her traditional robes.

"Annoying. Stop waving your sleeves around."

Ryu Hwi made no attempt to hide his exasperation. Apparently disappointed by that reaction, Zero pouted and dropped herself onto a nearby chair.

"Strange. By universal human aesthetic standards, this face is objectively above average. And you don't react at all."

"It's a manufactured face, so who cares."

"Not quite. This is my original prosthetic, '00' — made with obsessive care, modeling what my body would look like had it grown up healthy and whole. So there's no artificial tweaking anywhere, voice included."

"Original Prosthetic 00?"

"A dream. A fantasy. A lingering regret."

Zero had lost her flesh-and-blood body through circumstances beyond her control. Original Prosthetic 00 was her unreachable hope, and her despair.

"That's why it's the highest-performance of all my full-body prosthetics. I treasure it, so I rarely bring it out."

"Then why did you bring it out now?"

"To show off my beautiful body, obviously?"

Zero swished the robes again.

"Annoying. I've seen enough. If that's all, go home."

…

When Ryu Hwi showed absolutely zero interest, Zero let out a sigh.

"Kidding. Things got dangerous this time, so I need to run a precautionary maintenance check. 00 has built-in diagnostics, and it's highly compatible with my brain, so I use it to relax like this every now and then."

"Wearing 00 counts as relaxing? Then why not just wear it all the time?"

"Well, I could, but…."

Zero's voice trailed off.

"When I wear 00, I feel empty."

"…I see."

Ryu Hwi understood what she was getting at. A prosthetic built on the assumption of a grown-up self — the more faithful the replica, the deeper the hollowness. No matter how perfectly she imitated it, it was something she would never hold in her hands again.

Ryu Hwi rose from his seat. He and Zero had both lost a great deal. He could sympathize, to a point — but sympathy wasn't grounds for opening his heart. He still didn't trust Wolya. Still didn't trust Zero. Theirs was, at bottom, a partnership of convenience, a collaboration in service of 'the objective'.

And yet….

"I suppose I can treat you to a cup of tea."

For the sake of the person wearing that lonely expression, one cup of tea was a small price to pay.

"Delicious."

Zero's face flickered with surprise after her first sip of the tea Ryu Hwi had brewed.

"This isn't instant, is it? Where did you learn to do this?"

"The person who taught me had impossibly picky tastes. I learned thoroughly."

The one who had taught Ryu Hwi how to prepare tea was his mother. Her palate was so demanding she'd scold him over a single degree of temperature difference.

"Though I never once got a passing grade."

In the end, right up to the last, he never managed to brew tea that satisfied her.

"Well, it's good. I like it."

"Did you misconfigure your prosthetic's taste sensors?"

"I genuinely don't understand you. I pay you a compliment and you respond like that."

Zero took another sip. A quiet stretch of time drifted by.

The Entertainment District never slept — noise and commotion day and night — but here, it all felt like it belonged to some other world entirely.

Which was the problem….

"Let me fill you in on the Iron Blood situation."

Because the two people responsible for throwing ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the Entertainment District into an uproar were the very two people sitting in this room.

"Iron Blood is finished. They'd kept things more or less cozy with the district police all this time, but sweeping taboo items under the rug was beyond even them. Ryu Hwi — why do you think taboo items are taboo?"

"Because they threaten social order?"

Ryu Hwi gave a noncommittal answer. There were several classes of objects designated 'taboo items' in this world, but he'd never had occasion to deal with any of them.

"Plenty of things endanger social order, no? But they aren't all taboo items. And some things get designated taboo even though they look perfectly harmless."

"Oh?"

"The reason taboo items are taboo is simple: a Diamond declared them so."

"What? They're taboo just because a Diamond said so?"

"It doesn't matter what the thing is. If a Diamond says no, it's no. Even the rotten cops can't just wave through something the mighty Diamonds have designated 'taboo' — because a Diamond's word is absolute."

Unassailable authority. Absolute beings.

"Get it? That's the kind of existence you're aiming for."

It was Zero's way of offering advice — her intention being to show him just how absurd his goal was. But….

"That sounds incredible."

All she managed was to fan the flames.

"A position where you can do whatever you want, to anyone, on your own terms? Sounds like something worth climbing for."

"Right. Of course you'd say that. You're that kind of human."

Zero sighed, looking half-exhausted.

"Anyway — every CCTV in the buildings at the time has already been doctored. And since those men were deep in digital narcotic addiction, nothing they testify will be taken seriously. There's no way we'll be tied to any of it."

A clean cleanup. Ryu Hwi had no desire to stir up trouble over this right now anyway. What he wanted was to focus on the game labyrinth.

"Which leaves just one problem…."

"S.E.N."

Ryu Hwi named it aloud. Until Zero arrived, he'd been trying to figure out what on earth 'S.E.N' even was.

YggON naturally assumed Zero wouldn't have any useful information either.

"There's a rumor drifting around the back alleys of the Entertainment District. That an 'organization' called S.E.N exists."

…

YggON was briefly at a loss for words.

[Anyone can claim there's a rumor…]

"I'm connected to the district's underworld myself, so I hear all sorts of things. S.E.N — an organization of unknown identity, one that no one, anywhere, knows the full extent of. The only thing currently known about them is that they hold Yggdrasil items in massive quantities."

…

With nothing to contribute, YggON meekly shut up.

"How did anyone figure out they have so many Yggdrasil items?"

"S.E.N appears out of nowhere and makes an 'offer'. They ask you to do something, and if you handle it, they pay a reward. Or sometimes they hand you the power to solve the problem upfront."

A reward. Power. In the context of that story, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠it wasn't hard to guess what form those took.

"Yggdrasil items?"

"Most of the Yggdrasil items Iron Blood owned probably came from S.E.N too. And among them were outright taboo items."

S.E.N.

Suddenly, Ryu Hwi thought of Linpel Darius. When Linpel had attacked him, he'd been carrying a Yggdrasil item. Could Linpel have been acting on S.E.N's orders as well?

And if so — what was S.E.N's objective? By what means had they amassed so many Yggdrasil items? And why were they targeting Ryu Hwi?

There was no way to know. Not yet.

"In any case, I doubt S.E.N just backs off and disappears. Whatever their purpose is, the odds are high they'll come after you again."

Zero was right. Being a target for an enemy whose face he didn't even know — a real headache.

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

Ryu Hwi thought for a moment.

"In that case, I need to get back to Bronze. Fast."

First, become Bronze. Nobody pays the slightest attention to an Unknown. He had to become someone others couldn't so easily trample — starting with Bronze. Then, as soon as possible, climb toward Silver, Gold, and beyond. Conquering World of Phantasm was the means to that end.

"Well, I approve of the plan to clear World of Phantasm as fast as possible. Until you break that game labyrinth, nothing else can move."

Zero shared his opinion.

"I do have something in mind, but it's not finished yet, so I'll tell you later. For now, put your back into the conquest."

Zero wore a mischievous expression. Since he couldn't have cared less what she was scheming, Ryu Hwi gave a light nod.

Floor 2 of the Tower of the Demon God in World of Phantasm. Ryu Hwi scanned his surroundings.

A sea of trees where no sunlight reached. Even craning his neck upward, the sky was swallowed whole by the dense canopy overhead.

"While I'm at it, let's hit the random box after I break through to Floor 10!"

"Shut up."

Ryu Hwi had burned every ticket he'd earned on Floor 1 on random box pulls, and the results had been devastating. So devastating he refused to even talk about it.

His current balance sat at roughly 37,000 RP, and for the time being, skill upgrades were on hold.

"Let's go."

Ryu Hwi pushed deep into the forest. He had no time to be stuck on a mere Floor 2.

And then….

A single gamer was demolishing, floor by floor, everything the rest of the gaming world had spent years building.

Ryu7017. Ryu Hwi.

Shattering every record through Floor 9 solo and arriving at Floor 10 alone, he left the other Phantasma with no choice but to acknowledge him.

Having finally reached Floor 10, Ryu Hwi looked up at the sky. Still a long way to go — his goal was to clear this tower, all the way to the top.

Floor 10 of the Demon God's Tower. The place gamers playing World of Phantasm called one of its great barriers.

The Floor 10 boss, Giga Minotaur, crushed gamers beneath the sheer force radiating from its ten-meter-plus mountain of a body. The strategy itself was long since established ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠— but executing it demanded considerable skill. And going up against it solo? That was harder still, needless to say.

Until now, no one had ever soloed Giga Minotaur.

Not yet, at least.