The Divine Comedy's Asgard

Divine Comedy's Asgard.

Ever since Yggdrasil had become 2.0 and the vast majority of old game labyrinths had been shut down, a strange handful of them had somehow remained in operation. Every single one was a worthless husk of a game, which was exactly why so many people found it odd that they hadn't been terminated along with the rest. A few gamers had even uploaded exploration videos, but the labyrinths were so mind-numbingly boring that the videos never gained any real traction.

Then there was the keyword 5555 had recalled the moment she touched 00's body: Divine Comedy.

Whether that Divine Comedy had anything to do with Divine Comedy's Asgard was impossible to say. So before connecting to it, Ryu Hwi gathered every scrap of related information he could find.

"Pentagon... I've heard that name somewhere."

A lot of those names rang a bell. They were masterpiece game labyrinths still talked about reverently today, more than two decades later.

"So a company that churned out masterpieces suddenly put out garbage? That's what you're telling me?"

"Peculiar" was putting it mildly. If he dug through community opinions, plenty of people claimed Pentagon's old labyrinths would still hold up in the current 2.0 era — that was how far ahead of their time they'd been. Why would a company that brilliant suddenly produce a flop and collapse overnight? And if all the other masterpiece labyrinths had closed their doors, why was Divine Comedy's Asgard the only one left standing?

"There's also a theory that Pentagon's bankruptcy was one of the reasons Ratia began to wobble afterward," YggON added.

"Hmm. Something stinks here. Best way to find out is to go see it with my own two eyes, right?"

He moved without hesitation.

Divine Comedy's Asgard. A relic of the pre-2.0 era — a game labyrinth twenty years past its prime.

The instant he stepped inside, a blinding white expanse stretched out before him. Pure, empty whiteness. Not a single other thing was visible in any direction.

"...?"

He waited. Nothing happened.

"However what?"

A game labyrinth that broke the moment it started. It was a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠first, even for him. Suddenly he understood exactly why this place had been written off as garbage.

"How do I get out of here? Can I just log out and come back in?"

"Administrator of the Divine Comedy?"

A game labyrinth with a manager-class AI. He'd heard such things existed from time to time, but this was the first he'd actually encountered one.

YggON continued, as if to correct his train of thought.

"Ah."

He remembered — the GM-type AI that YggON had spent so much effort sneering at as its own budget knockoff. He considered logging out and reconnecting, but since he was here anyway, meeting the management AI would probably be more useful. So he waited quietly for it to appear.

Ten minutes passed, and the management AI showed no sign of showing up.

"YggON, exactly how long do I have to wait for this thing?"

"You don't know?"

"What a trainwreck."

If even the management AI was this much of a mess, no wonder the labyrinth itself didn't function. Besides, could the AI of a game abandoned for this long even be running properly? Maybe he was better off just logging out and reconnecting.

When another thirty minutes crawled by without results, he made up his mind to do exactly that.

"Oh?! A guest in this world? Well, what do you know."

Then, without warning, a boy appeared in front of him.

"?!"

Even Intuition Lv3 hadn't sensed the boy's presence. Instinctively, Ryu Hwi backed away, putting distance between them.

Black. Black hair, black eyes, black clothes — every stitch of him black. The only white was a necktie slung carelessly around his throat. His features were so androgynous that at a glance it was hard to tell boy from girl, yet somehow Ryu Hwi knew: this was a man.

Wary, he equipped his Shuffle Gun.

"Hm? What's that weapon? It doesn't exist in this world, does it? How on earth did you bring it here?"

"......?!"

The boy was suddenly right beside him, fiddling with the Shuffle Gun. Again, Ryu Hwi hadn't sensed his presence at all. Again, Intuition hadn't reacted.

Which meant—

'A being that even Intuition Lv3 can't detect?!'

He slapped the boy's hand away. The total absence of any sense of danger only made his skin crawl more. The boy was standing right in front of him, and yet he might as well not exist at all.

"Oh, wait — are you the master of 'UR'? I heard about you from Hecate, but you got here faster than I expected."

The instant the name Hecate left the boy's mouth, Ryu Hwi leveled the Shuffle Gun at him. The boy threw both hands up in flustered alarm.

"Whoa, wait! Wait! I'm not looking for a fight!"

"Who are you? What's your relationship with Hecate?"

"Easy, easy. I'm the one in charge of managing this Divine Comedy's Asgard."

"You're the management AI?"

There was nothing about him, from any angle, that looked like an "AI."

"Hm? Ah — right, I did tell the gamers who ran into me that back in the day, but I don't really care for being called an AI. If we're introducing ourselves properly..."

The boy pulled his loosely hung necktie tight and went on.

"System Engage — Field: Loki."

The moment those words — words that could never be ignored — spilled from his lips, the white world transformed in a heartbeat.

The space that had been nothing but white changed in a single instant.

"Welcome to my world. My name is Loki."

A rainbow-forged bridge unfurled across land covered in green, and a palace of gold revealed its majesty above it. But the glory lasted only a moment. As if hundreds of years had swept past in the blink of an eye, the vegetation withered and twisted, and the golden palace collapsed ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠into ruin. A landscape that must once have been magnificently, impossibly beautiful was reduced to a desolate, light-starved husk of itself.

A ruined ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠palace. Withered, contorted trees. A world stained red as though drenched in eternal dusk.

The "master" of this world smiled a mischievous smile.

"I am the master of this 'Divine Comedy's Asgard.'"

Looking at that utterly carefree, playful face made Ryu Hwi's irritation flare.

"S.E.N?"

"Uh... ah... hmm, well, yes. I'm S.E.N, technically."

Why did the man sound so noncommittal about it?

"I am S.E.N, but there's no need to treat me as an enemy. We may share the same ideals, but we all act however we please. And judging by the look of you, you've got Intuition, don't you?"

Loki had seen straight through him.

"No wonder Crowley can't stand you. That guy tried every dirty trick under the sun to get Intuition and never managed it. Gamers like you stir things up even without it, after all."

Loki gave the ground a light kick with his foot, and a staff sprang up out of the earth.

"I get that you've been dragged through hell by Crowley and the other S.E.N's little games — but you don't need to treat me as an enemy too."

Ryu Hwi thought of all the chaos wrought by Crowley and Hecate, and by Linfel and Asea, who had become beings of the Abyss. There was no way in hell he could take Loki's word for anything.

"Oh, come on, trust me a little~. S.E.N can enjoy things however they like; as for me, I'm perfectly satisfied lazing around or occasionally playing with other gamers. Would I really be sitting alone in this dreary empty space counting the years otherwise?"

When Ryu Hwi still refused to lower his guard, Loki furrowed his brow.

"You really are suspicious of everything. Judging by your reaction, your Intuition is only around level 2 or 3, huh? I'd strongly recommend raising it first. As you are now, you can't stand up to the S.E.N."

Loki looked like he was giving the advice in earnest. But Intuition carried serious side effects. Level it carelessly and—

"Oh, right. That whole issue. My bad, I forgot. Don't raise Intuition right away. Learn the Mental Tolerance skill first. With Mental Tolerance, you can block Intuition's encroachment on your mind."

"......?!"

Loki had just freely handed over the very method for countering Intuition's side effects.

"That should earn me a little trust, shouldn't it? Quite a few of us in S.E.N actually want to get along with humans. Oh — but whatever you do, don't trust 'Great Sage Equal to Heaven.' That one is genuinely the trash of all trash; deceiving people is as natural to him as breathing."

And now another S.E.N member's name had come up. At this point, Ryu Hwi was beginning to wonder just how many of them there were.

He decided to at least hear the man out.

"So S.E.N is managing the game labyrinths?"

"Hmmm, well, I suppose I can tell you the truth. As a matter of fact, the game labyrinth you humans call 'Divine Comedy's Asgard' doesn't exist."

"What?"

"There's just a massive space somewhere deep inside Yggdrasil, and I used the 'Field' I'd spread through it to... imitate a game labyrinth, I suppose you'd say? Anyway, something along those lines. Yeah."

Every Field Ryu Hwi had experienced until now had been a spatial domain centered on a being of the labyrinth — a world dyed in its owner's color so that they could unleash their full power. Loki's Field went a step further: it had implemented the entire world known as a game labyrinth.

"No, no, it's really not that impressive. I'm well aware Divine Comedy's Asgard is famous for being a flop."

Loki seemed to know exactly what people thought of the place.

"I designed it hoping people would come and have fun with me, but I guess it just never suited the humans of the Human Realm."

Loki slumped his shoulders and sighed.

"You're my first guest in nearly two hundred years."

"What the hell is going on here? Divine Comedy's Asgard was obviously a game labyrinth built by people, wasn't it?"

"You really came here knowing nothing? Hecate really didn't explain a single thing, huh. Okay, so... the company that made this game labyrinth was Pentagon, right?"

Ryu Hwi gave a slight nod, never taking his eyes off Loki.

"Every single member of that company was S.E.N."

"......?!"

Without warning, without any context, Loki dropped an absurd truth into his lap.

"Pentagon was a company the S.E.N created as an experiment — they wanted to try their hand at building game labyrinths. But eventually they got bored and threw the whole thing away. So before they quit, I asked them to build one labyrinth where I could stay in peace. And that's this place."

Loki pointed down at the ground beneath his feet with a finger.

YggON grumbled in open disbelief. Ryu Hwi felt much the same. It was like standing there completely unprepared while the other side tossed the answers into his hands at will.

But the thing he actually wanted to know wasn't that.

His reason for coming here—

He had come here to chase the clue buried in Hecate's parting words.

Why would his 'partner' know the keyword? If the experiments at Saint Yggdrasil Hospital were only a fraction of the whole, what was the true substance of those experiments? And Crowley had said it too — that the heart of the 'human experimentation' was S.E.N.

The purpose behind the experiments that had sacrificed his mother, along with countless others. What was it that S.E.N was plotting?

That was what he had crossed into this place to find out.

"I have a fair idea what you want to know."

Loki rose back onto both feet and spun his staff in lazy circles.

"The S.E.N rarely interfere with one another. I don't know what Hecate was thinking when she dropped that hint about the 'keyword' — but there are things in this world better left unknown. Besides, that path is also for your 'partner's' sake."

"So you have no intention of answering?"

"What I value above all else is the human spirit — the power that wells up from a strong will, its sheer sublimity. Nothing in existence delights me more. All I want is to know your resolve."

Loki flung his staff into the air and clapped his hands lightly, and the staff transformed into a pair of dice.

"If you have the resolve to reach the truth by whatever means necessary — then challenge my game."

"So in the end, that's all you S.E.N ever amount to?"

All the rambling and posturing, and it always circled back to the same thing: play with me. That, precisely, was why they were beings who chased the 'pleasure of the soul.'

"Didn't I tell you? I'm the type who's perfectly satisfied just playing alongside other gamers. Entertain me, and you'll get what you're after."

"And if I can't?"

"Then you lose everything. So — what will it be? Do you have the resolve to challenge Divine Comedy's Asgard?"

"Bring it on. I don't know how great this game labyrinth of yours is supposed to be, but I'll clear it before you know it."

Not a flicker of hesitation. His resolve had been settled a long, long time ago.

"Whoa — this human doesn't hesitate at all?!"

If anything, it was Loki who was caught off guard.

"Terrifying. Humans like you are the scariest kind. But you're also my favorite kind."

Loki threw the dice.

"Your GM is me — Loki! Let the Divine Comedy's Asgard, Twilight of the Gods, begin!"

The game had begun.