HACKED 120

Pantheon Floor 10, Central Command Room.

“Haah….”

Mountain Hero opened his eyes with a sigh that sounded like a groan. Focus was blurred in his eyes, which usually shone sharply. His irises had also sunken into a dull, murky color.

Black bloodstains were visible here and there on the pristine white floor of the command room. Naturally, they were shed by Mountain Hero himself. From his hair down through his clothes to his shoes, there was not a single spot untouched by blood.

Ever since he was confined in the command room after resisting the fake Master, he had not been able to take a single step out of this place.

His contamination level was 0. While his health hit rock bottom, his contamination level had not accumulated at all. It was a natural result. He had been excluded from every mission, including combat and resource exploration.

They might as well have killed him if this was the case. However, the fake Master never killed him.

‘That rare thing, an anomalous entity. Good! Very good. The Legion will be pleased as well.’

According to that bastard’s words, Mountain Hero was an ‘anomalous entity’. He didn’t know what that meant, but he had been imprisoned here, barely keeping his life, under the pretext that they ‘couldn’t afford to lose a rare research sample’. Like an experimental animal trapped in a cage.

While he lay sprawled in the command room, alternating between a coma and states of hazy consciousness, the reality of the Pantheon was steadily deteriorating.

The strongest among the Incarnations, Mountain Hero, did not show himself, and the low-rarity Incarnations were purged and swept away. The remaining Incarnations had to work several times harder to cover their share.

The resources that everyone risked their lives to earn while their contamination levels hit 100 were not used for their recovery or reinforcement. They were all sent elsewhere through a hyper-dimensional gate.

Mountain Hero knows that the fake Master is a collaborator of the White Paper Legion. Therefore, had he seen that sight, he would have naturally known where those resources were going.

But because the others did not know the identity of the fake Master, they only harbored doubts. They couldn’t even voice those doubts aloud. To do so would mean facing a gruesome end at the hands of the New Master or the informants the New Master had planted throughout the Pantheon.

Mountain Hero tried to lift his fallen body. But even that was not easy.

“Cough! Ugh.”

A black energy laced with ominous noise was entangling his limbs. He, a 5-star Incarnation, could not help but be rendered helpless; he didn’t have the slightest clue what kind of ability it was. Was this also the essence of technology developed by the White Paper Legion or whatever?

Because of this, Mountain Hero could not even commit suicide. His sword, which was practically one with his body, lay rolling on the floor some distance away, caked in thick, pitch-black blood. It was miserable.

He could not leave this place, he could not kill the fake Master, and he could not even take his own life. Being non-human, he didn’t strictly require sleep or food. The only option given to him was to think.

For an unfathomably long time, Mountain Hero thought and thought again. Most of those thoughts were about UserMyeong808.

He missed UserMyeong808 intensely. The memories of the one he could never see again were increasingly beautified and overwritten. He couldn’t bear the loveliness and yearning he felt for the person who had left after giving only a single fragment of clumsy affection.

At the same time, he hated him more than anyone. Even more than the fake Master who created this situation.

If Mountain Hero were given the chance to kill exactly one person between the fake Master and UserMyeong808…. He would likely—it was a conclusion hard to believe even for himself—kill UserMyeong808 instead of the fake Master. He hated him that deeply.

UserMyeong808 knows nothing. Not that the Pantheon has become a pandemonium, not that Mountain Hero is suffering such humiliation, and not that he is thinking of him to the point of madness.

Perhaps UserMyeong808 has already completely forgotten him, the Incarnations, and this Pantheon. He might be having a joyful time laughing and playing with others somewhere else.

Only Mountain Hero is left behind, struggling alone without even realizing he has been abandoned. Like a dog wagging its tail at the back of a Master who has discarded him and left.

‘This is too much of a loss.’

Mountain Hero let out a laugh mixed with self-mockery. Yes. No matter how much he thought about it, this was a losing deal.

What was the use of this. This bizarre and pitiful one-sided love, poured out unilaterally toward someone he didn’t even know was real or not.

Adoration offered to a god would be better. In the sense that they are formless, in a distant place beyond reach, and do not reciprocate no matter how much affection and loyalty are offered, a Compiler and a god are no different. But a god, at least, does not subject their followers to the torture of false hope.

Before that… can this emotion even be defined as love? Can this mass of excrement, mixed with all sorts of filthy emotions, truly be love?

‘No. He loves me. Out of all these many Incarnations, he loves me the most, he definitely said so. And I, I also….’

Mountain Hero decided to believe in love. Even though he knew it was a self-rationalization and defense mechanism bordering on brainwashing, he had no choice.

That he loves UserMyeong808, and that UserMyeong808 also loves him. That he is enduring all of this because they love each other—if he didn’t think at least that much… he felt like he would go insane.

“Love is….”

Mountain Hero muttered as if to himself. A sound like metal grinding came from his voice, which was cracked to its limit. His throat hurt as if it were tearing.

He stopped speaking and slowly closed his eyes. The words he couldn’t finish lingered at the tip of his tongue.

‘…a shackle.’

Love is a shackle. A shackle more terrible, persistent, and cruel than any other yoke in the world.

The moment he defined it as such, a distortion was born deep within his soul.

Status Abnormality: ‘Love Suicide (Double Suicide)’

: The destination of the most ruinous and blind love.

It was a phenomenon that Compilers called a ‘Status Abnormality’.

˙✧˖°🎮 ⋆｡˚

Whether it had been a few days or a few months. After a long time, the door to the Central Command Room opened. The fake Master stepped inside the command room.

Most tasks could be handled with the terminal for the Compiler, but he had to visit the command room personally once in a while. This was to use several functions that could only be accessed through the main panel. And that time was right now.

He saw a black mass fallen in that inner corner. It was Mountain Hero. He thought the guy had resisted quite violently at first, but since his health hit Deadly, even his biological reactions had become almost invisible.

“I see you’ve managed not to die yet. Your life is certainly persistent. I suppose it’s because you’re a 5-star.”

He walked across the command room and stood before the panel. He intended to use ‘Logout’ for once.

‘Logout’ was an extremely special and important function. It was the only way for a Compiler to leave the Pantheon and go elsewhere.

Of course, logging out didn’t mean one could wander the outside world freely.

The Narrative Compilation Union is not a formal army, but it is a group equipped with combat power. Therefore, Compilers are treated equivalent to officers, and Incarnations are treated as soldiers or weapons belonging under the Compiler.

Every Compiler has the duty to be stationed in the Pantheon at all times and the duty to maintain confidentiality. It is the same logic as a soldier not being able to take leave or go out as they please, and not being able to leak military secrets to civilians.

Therefore, even if one logs out, the extent of it is visiting the Union Headquarters building or walking around the shopping districts and social spaces prepared by the Union for Compilers. Even that requires going through a complex procedure to receive approval from the Union, and the slightest violation of the permitted period results in severe punishment.

‘But I am not part of the Union.’

To be precise, he belongs to the arch-enemy of the Narrative Compilation Union, the White Paper Legion. He is a spy disguised as a Compiler.

‘Stupid Union bastards. What’s the use of hiding the logout function in the main panel? They should have made the security more thorough.’

He had already finished hacking the entire system of this Pantheon. Fearing that the Union might realize something was wrong with this Pantheon and invade, he blocked the gate function and deleted all input coordinates. He had long since changed the destination reachable through logout from the Union Headquarters to the White Paper Legion Headquarters.

‘It’s been a while since I filed an in-person report to the Legion. Everyone will be surprised when they hear of my achievements.’

He operated the panel with a satisfied heart. However, in that moment, a chilling presence brushed the back of his head.

Swish!

Reflexively, he ducked hard. A black trajectory was drawn like a crescent moon where his head had been. Had he been just a little later, his head would have had a sword mark to go along with the spiral hole.

“Wh-what….”

He looked back, trembling.

“……”

Mountain Hero, whom he had thought was no different from a corpse—who certainly had been unable to even find consciousness until a moment ago—was holding up his sword with eyes devoid of focus.