Latia Shock
"By the way, you know an awful lot about World of Genesis. With Platinum-rankers covering it up so thoroughly, hardly anyone's ever heard of it."
Zero gave a light shrug.
"A fool who fell all the way down to Silver has to pick up a few tricks if he wants to survive on his own."
"I'd find that story fascinating, given how uncertain my own future looks — but let's carry on for now. That treasure had a trap hidden inside it."
"What kind of trap?"
"A trap where ownership passes to the next person whenever the current owner is defeated."
"What a horrifying trap. I can guess how the 'great disaster' happened, then."
The False King's treasure had passed into the hands of the doll's creator.
And that was when the others bared their desires openly. To them, the creator of the doll — a man who had always strived to do what was right — had been nothing but an obstacle.
They had intended to kill the creator from the very start, using this incident as their cover.
Ambushed, the creator understood everything at last, and despaired.
And when the blades of the others finally pierced through the creator, the treasure went berserk.
Leaving devastation in its wake, the treasure vanished without a trace.
The ones who had orchestrated the incident scrambled to bury it, and the world called 'World of Genesis' was consigned to oblivion before it ever got its moment in the light.
"The doll did everything it could to learn the truth. Why did the creator die? And the answer truly did come to it by pure chance."
Gabriel tapped his own head — the spot where his SEED was implanted.
"This account belonged to the 'creator.' When World of Phantasm launched — built on recycled World of Genesis data — the 'Creator's Legacy' appeared before it."
"A legacy... you mean."
"The False King's treasure. The treasure had gone berserk before the creator died, so its registered owner remained the creator. The legacy that appeared before the doll delivered what the creator had left behind before his death. And for the first time in its existence, the doll understood 'emotion.'"
The name of that emotion was...
Rage.
The eyes of the man once called the Cold Snake flooded with violent hatred and fury.
And the target of those eyes was none other than Steebro Latia Duke.
"You've been gracious enough to listen to what I 'already know' all this way. No need to check — you're watching from somewhere, aren't you, Ryu Hwi?"
Zero flinched.
"I'm not sure what you mean..."
"Pretending not to know, are we? Well, no matter. Ryu Hwi, watch this together with Zero."
The sight of a rotten pig's ruin.
Steebro Latia Duke was, for all intents and purposes, the embodiment of this era.
He had pioneered and developed the age of Yggdrasil from the very front lines — and he was also the man who had brought corruption with him.
His bloated body and rotting mind had never truly grasped the shift that was 'Yggdrasil ver 2.0.'
He still believed Latia Soft would dominate the era as it always had, with himself enthroned above it all.
"Ladies and gentlemen... allow me to present the next-generation game labyrinth that will lead us all forward!"
A lavish party, with mass media outlets swarming the venue by invitation.
Taking care not to inconvenience any of the other Platinum-rankers at the party, Steebro rotated his recording equipment into position for the broadcast.
He swept his gaze across the assembled guests, then clapped his hands.
Latia's staff came forward carrying a glass tube in which a small tree had been planted.
A sapling of Yggdrasil — inject a data source into it, and the construction of a game labyrinth would begin on the spot.
Steebro had commissioned his production team to deliver the most dazzling 'opening' imaginable.
Even if the actual quality of the game labyrinth fell short, he figured a dazzling opening would paper over it and buy him time.
"We will now inject the source!"
The developers carried out a box containing the 'source' of Aint.
An entire game labyrinth's vast source code, packed into a square black box no larger than a human palm.
The moment a staff member set the black box into the slot before the sapling's glass tube, the whole box lit up as countless 'characters' burst forth into the air.
The floating characters whirled round and round the sapling.
People held their breath at the radiant, magnificent tableau the letters wove through the air.
Gabriel, meanwhile, quietly exhaled a sigh.
"Yggdrasil's sapling — the labyrinth generator bestowed by the 'King'... a symbol of a bygone age now, is it?"
It was a 'token' granted to Latia Soft for spearheading the frontier of labyrinth development before anyone else — but Latia had deliberately fostered the misconception that no game labyrinth could be built without their seal of approval.
Steebro Latia Duke, holder of the Platinum rank, and the 'sapling' that radiated the King's authority.
No one possessed the gall to defy them.
Latecomers trying to break into labyrinth development all paid homage to Steebro and Latia, and so the development of game labyrinths naturally settled into Latia's monopoly.
"Ryu Hwi, what do you make of that?"
"I'd appreciate it if you stopped using me like a speakerphone? Hold on."
Zero scrunched up her face as she relayed Gabriel's words to Ryu Hwi, who was connected from somewhere across the way.
Not that relaying was necessary — Ryu Hwi was watching through the visual feed shared with Zero anyway.
The answer came back immediately.
"To think he still believes a show like that can win people's hearts — what a pitiful old man who never left the past behind, apparently."
"Pitiful indeed. He's nothing more than a has-been pile of grudges."
Zero's eyes, fixed on Steebro, were every bit as venomous as Gabriel's.
"On this point, at least, your opinion seems more correct than my partner's."
"So you're not just some follower trailing after Ryu Hwi..."
"We're partners. A relationship built on mutual benefit."
"Is that so? Well, good for you — you seem like the type who'll enjoy what's about to unfold with a smile on your face."
At last, the sapling finished reading all the data contained in the box.
The newest game labyrinth Latia Soft was unveiling to the world.
Every eye in the room converged on it.
The test footage of the game labyrinth Latia Soft was finally revealing after its long silence unfolded in real time.
The dream that Steebro and Latia would lead the world forever.
That dream...
"Wh-what's going on?! What's the problem?! Fix it, now!"
Steebro hectored his developers. They scrambled, opening their dev consoles and adjusting settings, but nothing improved.
Watching the scene, Gabriel snorted.
"That pig was proudly presenting it as 'the next-generation game labyrinth to succeed World of Phantasm.' Looks like his eye for labyrinths has finally rotted along with the rest of him — showing off a child's toy like he's proud of it. I knew his time had come."
"......"
Zero stared at the scene in silence.
"Five weeks. Five weeks, with development in complete shambles — there was no way Latia could finish a labyrinth in that span. And they had the gall to bring in a hollow shell that couldn't even be constructed, just to show it off... hmm?"
Something happened that even Gabriel hadn't anticipated.
The leaves of Yggdrasil's sapling — the one bestowed by the King — withered and shriveled.
The hall erupted into confusion at the sudden turn.
The mass media forgot that Platinum-rankers were present and fired off flash after flash.
SEED-installed apps, auxiliary recording gear — everything was deployed to transmit this very scene across the globe in real time.
The sapling that had been perfectly healthy mere moments ago began to wither — from its leaves, then down its trunk, all the way to its roots.
"Wh-what in the..."
[It's been abandoned, Master.]
[That sapling has been connected to Yggdrasil all this time, absorbing endless streams of data. Having recklessly gulped down even the foulest of it, Yggdrasil came to regard it as a 'part it no longer needs.']
"I thought that sapling was required to make game labyrinths? That's what we were all taught..."
[You can make a sapling anywhere, anytime, Master. Snap off a single branch of Yggdrasil — it stretches across the entire world — and there you go. They simply buried that fact to keep their monopoly.]
"Garbage, the lot of them..."
The kind of people who, to line their own pockets, picked exclusively from the menu of rotten deeds.
The stench was enough to rot his nostrils clean off.
[For the record, Master, Yggdrasil ver 2.0 should have been rolled out long ago. Body Conversion is one of 2.0's foundational technologies.]
"Wasn't there an update entry unlocking 'Human Realm <-> Labyrinth Conversion (Beta)'? Wait — doesn't that mean one of my perks just evaporates?"
[Master's Conversion is precisely the 'Human Realm <-> Labyrinth Conversion — YggON (Beta)' feature, so it remains fully differentiated, kkk. There are many upgrades still to come, so do look forward to them.]
An upgraded Conversion. Hard to picture what that would even look like.
"So anyway... these trash heaps sponsored human experiments just to get their hands on Conversion tech early — tech that would have unlocked on its own if they'd simply left well enough alone?"
[Precisely, Master. Human greed truly knows no bottom. I struggle to see how they differ from cockroaches.]
Among the victims of those experiments had been Ryu Hwi's own mother.
Part of him wanted to drag them through a living hell right now — but the very men who had once ruled an era were digging their own graves, all on their own.
"The sapling bestowed by a Diamond withered in front of the entire world. Latia's symbol itself just collapsed."
Latia's scandals had been erupting one after another lately, and World of Phantasm — their very lifeline — had fallen apart as well.
Their last hope, the 'new release,' hadn't even rendered properly, and now the Diamond-blessed sapling itself had withered to a husk.
"It's over."
That was what everyone watching the broadcast thought.
Steebro Latia Duke — the legend who had led an entire era — was finished.
"No, no! Something's gone wrong here! There's no way the sapling would wither! This is someone's conspiracy! I — I am Steebro Latia Duke!"
Steebro Latia Duke screamed like a beast in its death throes.
"Kill those cameras! Who authorized you to film?! Turn them off — NOW, I said! Something's gone wrong here! Aaaargh!"
A struggle grotesque beyond description.
The instant Steebro Latia Duke accepted that he was finished, he seemed to age a decade or more in a heartbeat. Even the thin strands of hair he had left fell away entirely.
"I — I am Steebro... I am Steebro Latia Duke!"
He tried to force himself upright and collapsed to the floor. He was so grotesquely overweight that he couldn't move properly without his assistance rigs — standing up unaided was simply impossible.
"This is a dream! A dream...! AAAAAARGH!"
"No more need to look at that revolting pig."
The rage the doll had carried within it.
Gabriel, who had deliberately drawn near to Steebro and fawned over him for years — all in search of a way to end him — quietly exhaled.
At long last, that wish had come true.
It seems Yggdrasil wanted his end as much as I did.
Had Yggdrasil not upgraded its version at such a convenient moment, he would have had to resort to far more cumbersome methods.
And the one who had engineered this entire situation...
Ryu Hwi. Is he a messenger sent down by Yggdrasil itself?
A ludicrous fantasy, even to his own ears.
No. He's another monster — one born of me and Linzea. Someday, he'll come to finish me off too.
He had gotten what he wanted.
What he was supposed to live for now, Gabriel no longer knew.
Quietly waiting for the day Ryu Hwi came for his head didn't sound so bad.
Not that that monster will ever be satisfied with just... hmm?
Gabriel's gaze drifted toward 'Zero.'
She was still glaring at Steebro.
The light in those two dark eyes did not look remotely satisfied with just this much.
So there's a monster on this side as well.
A drama of vengeance wrought by the enraged.
Revenge had birthed new revenge, which birthed yet another.
And the result was the birth of fearsome 'monsters.'
Two of them, no less.
Gabriel's revenge had reached its conclusion, but the vengeance of these monsters clearly wouldn't stop here.
It would go on — surely, inevitably — until it devoured this entire society.
Until every piece of garbage in this world had been ground underfoot.
And so the event that would come to be known as the 'Latia Shock' drew its curtain.
The end of an era.
The beginning of a new one.
And then...
"Steebro certainly made an ugly exit, didn't he?"
A man in a poorly fitted suit grinned as he watched the broadcast. The same man who had once sold 'information' and 'Yggdrasil Items' to Linpel Darius.
"Everything comes to an end eventually. I did want to see what I could do about that 'UR' before things reached this point..."
The man knew of the 'UR's existence.
On his retinal display, data on 'Ryu Hwi' glimmered into view.
"Shall we sit back and observe for the time being? Everyone concurs, I take it? Ah — call it a 7:3 split, with observation taking the lead for now. Not that I have any intention of staying on the sidelines myself."
The man caressed the watch on his wrist.
In an age when an internal SEED was the baseline, a wristwatch was worth little more than an accessory.
On that watch face, a small inscription flashed.