A faint light is visible, a soft green glow.
It seems cold, and yet there is warmth within it.
I have no sensation in my body.
...Am I dead?
Well, with wounds like those, it wouldn’t have been strange if I had died.
Still, if there’s a next life, I’d like to do better—
Beep-beep!
My consciousness, which had been drifting dimly as if through fog, became clear.
At the familiar mechanical sound, I opened the eyes I had been keeping shut.
The white lamp made me frown without thinking.
But before long, a shadow fell over my eyes. The cause was something I knew well.
“...Eosollujeun?”
Beep-beep.
Eosollujeun’s mechanical hand waved over my eyes.
Apparently, this place wasn’t the afterlife. But I still had no sensation in my body....
In that strange situation, I turned my head this way and that, trying to figure out what was going on.
Before long, I found the cause of this state of affairs.
“Holy water....”
The liquid inside the holy water container had gone down by a small amount.
When I looked down at both arms, which had been burned before, I could see the flesh healing slowly, but surely.
“Eosollujeun, did you sprinkle holy water on me?”
Whirr.
Eosollujeun nodded its arm up and down as if to say yes.
Seeing that stirred a faint ripple of emotion within me.
In truth, Eosollujeun had saved me before, too. From the pack of cyclopes.
And this time, from the attacks of a fighter craft that had been difficult to deal with.
Twice now, it had helped me avoid situations where one wrong move would have left me unable to do anything but die.
If I didn’t feel grateful, I wouldn’t be human.
“...Thank you.”
Whirr.
As if to say there was no need for such words, it gave me one light tap, then rolled its caterpillar tracks away toward somewhere else.
Seeing it pass beyond the hatch and go elsewhere, I wanted to follow as well, but....
“Pii?”
“...Can you help me sit up?”
Right now, I was in a state where even moving a finger was hard.
At my words, Jui tried things like biting my clothes and moving, or crawling under my neck to lift me up, but....
“Pihii....”
“Am I that heavy...?”
Unable to lift me, Jui flopped flat on the floor of the submersible.
The sight of its stubby legs not reaching the floor because of its plump body was quite cute.
In any case, as I stared blankly at the ceiling, I remembered something I’d forgotten.
‘The Gallery!’
That’s right, the Gallery had been shut down for some reason while I was in the city.
Naturally, the broadcast I’d been doing had been cut off as well, and the help from the registered users had stopped.
With a half-disbelieving feeling, I opened the Gallery.
[Truth-Seeking Gallery]
-I was dead for 6 hours
-The reason a lunatic is showing up right now
-A❗️ja❗️ja❗️jat❗️
-The mods abandoned the Gallery
-The Gallery went down for a bit
Fortunately...? It was working properly.
It was a relief that it hadn’t been closed yet.
‘I’m certain Information Concealment happened on the target when it was shut down....’
Information Concealment—naturally, it was a magic difficult for people on the surface to use.
It was also fairly high-ranking magic, and its casting time wasn’t particularly short either.
That meant Information Concealment was, in other words....
“...Related to me?”
To be precise, it was probably related to the ancient era.
To apply Information Concealment to a Gallery visible to everyone, at the very least, one would need technology from the era known as the Vanished Era.
It definitely seemed like an investigation was necessary.
If the connection was cut off like this again in the future, the possibility of something unfortunate happening was far too high.
And the person most suited to ask about something like this was....
“The head admin, the Coordinator.”
At the same time I had that thought, an alert popped up saying that a message had been sent to me in a one-on-one chat window on the Gallery.
The other party, naturally enough, was the head admin.
Coordinator: Aurora-nim, if you see this, please reply immediately.
Aurora: Yes, I was just about to ask what happened.
The reply was typed after a slight delay.
Coordinator: This incident was... of a kind I could not prevent. It may sound like an excuse, but this is the truth.
He couldn’t prevent it. The highest authority in the Gallery couldn’t.
Well, honestly, it wasn’t as if I couldn’t understand. The head admin was only the highest authority within the Gallery; once you went outside the Gallery, there were beings above him.
Aurora: I think I roughly understand. Someone related to the deep sea, and with authority higher than yours, shut down the Gallery, right?
Coordinator: ...You have good instincts. Yes, to state only the conclusion, that is correct.
If that was the case, I had no reason to get angry.
It was simply like a natural disaster had occurred.
Coordinator: Thank you for understanding. It may not be much of a reward, but... I will tell you one thing.
Now is the time to enter the center.
With those words, the conversation ended.
“The time to enter the center?”
It was a cryptic phrase.
Since he hadn’t explained the destination, I couldn’t even begin to guess what it meant.
“For now... I should remember it.”
After all, it was nearly verified fact that the head admin was also a figure related to the deep sea.
Not remembering it would be my loss.
Ah, come to think of it, I’d forgotten to write a post on the Gallery saying I was alive.
I immediately used the write function and made a post.
-Aurora: I’m not dead yet.
I looked at the Gallery and you’re burying me alive, but I’m not dead yet;;
ㄴTruth Scholar: I was worried. Sincerely.
ㄴWhat? Aren’t you a ghost?
ㄴKyaaak!! It’s a ghost post
ㄴ1. There is no user named “Aurora” in our Gallery. If you see a user with that name, scatter the images you’ve painstakingly collected.
Comments immediately poured in, but I just passed over them.
It wasn’t that I wasn’t curious about the comments; it was just that my body was finally starting to listen to me.
“I should find Eosollujeun.”
Eosollujeun, who had gone out a few minutes ago, still hadn’t come back, so I had to find it.
If, truly if, Eosollujeun disappeared, I felt like it would be hard to endure life in the deep sea.
When I passed through the hatch, I saw the marks of caterpillar tracks.
Over a sunken pit, that is.
Patter.
Sand fell from my head.
Now that I thought about it, I had been in the city, but I’d opened my eyes inside the submersible.
“...Ah.”
It had brought me here. From the city all the way to the submersible.
Somehow, my feelings seemed to grow complicated.
Feeling that subtle emotion, I walked along the caterpillar tracks.
After a short while, I was able to find Eosollujeun.
Eosollujeun was dragging something over from the distance.
“What... is that?”
Because it was far away, it was difficult to make it out properly.
I walked with quick steps, and once I reached a distance where Eosollujeun could recognize me, I could finally see it clearly.
“That’s... a fighter craft, isn’t it?”
That’s right. What Eosollujeun had been dragging was the fighter craft that had driven me into a deathtrap.
Beep-beep! Beep-beep!
“Huh? Why?”
Beep-beep!
“Why did I come out...? To look for you, of course....”
As soon as Eosollujeun saw me, it let out a warning sound and pushed me with its mechanical hand.
It looked just like someone waving their hand and saying, What is a sick person doing moving around?
“No, but I need to move a little....”
...Whiiirr.
Perhaps my answer displeased it, because Eosollujeun moved its mechanical hand as if glaring at me, then began moving again to drag the fighter craft.
I walked beside Eosollujeun as well and pulled the fighter craft.
‘Now that I think about it, I still haven’t scanned it.’
The moment the fighter craft had appeared, I had gone almost straight into battle, so I had never checked it with the scanner.
I took out the scanner hanging at my waist and immediately began the scan.
Mana rippled, passing over the fighter craft’s entire body as though examining it.
And information began to appear.
-Barreleye Fider
-A creature meant to cover the shortage of reconnaissance personnel from Sector N02█ to Sector N02█. When damage such as destruction is reported, it moves to the corresponding location and searches for the target. Due to its unusual internal structure, it is a creature used extensively in bioengineering.
Reading the description, I could understand why I had been attacked.
In other words, my mistake had begun with breaking the door.
...It seemed my guard had been too lowered.
All I could handle were cyclopes, creatures at the very bottom of the hierarchy, after all.
From now on, I had to act more meticulously, more perfectly.
As I thought that, we had arrived at the submersible before I knew it.
Perhaps Eosollujeun had used quite a bit of mana, because it stayed by my side for a long while.
While holding hands with Eosollujeun, I looked at the Barreleye Fi... no, I’ll just call it a bio-fighter.
Looking at the bio-fighter beside me, I could see quite a few useful parts.
Needless to say, there was the engine attached to the bio-fighter, and the transparent biological tissue like a glass window was quite sturdy.
This time, I smelled the scent of a jackpot.
After a brief rest, I immediately placed the scanner on the fabrication machine.
Then, as the information on the bio-fighter I had just scanned flowed in, various items were unlocked.
More than twenty blueprints were registered all at once.
Among the blueprints, there were some that seemed like they would help me immediately.
And naturally, there was one blueprint that caught my eye the most.
A blueprint that gave off the strong impression it would help me hunt the Reaper.
[Combat Support Acceleration/Deceleration Device]
- Makes acceleration and deceleration more convenient in combat situations. Can be charged using mana.
As the name suggested, this assisted with acceleration and deceleration.
It was worn on the arms and legs, and by using mana, I could accelerate in the direction I wanted with the engine.
Now, it was time to get stronger.
But gold and diamond are in the materials?
...Where am I supposed to get those?
“Son of a—.”
Time remaining until the Reaper changes sectors: 2 days.