HACKED 125

Valkyrie, who had been sitting vacantly as if nailed to the spot, rose to his feet. He even went as far as to personally guide us along the way.

The procedures thereafter were easy.

A new Compiler has been detected. Commencing the power system renewal procedure.

‘Where memory is slaughtered, history does not exist. Where history does not exist, the presence of humanity does not exist.’

Pleased to meet you, Compiler. Activating the Pantheon where you shall unfold the next page.

Power system activation progress… 47%

The Kowloon Walled City District was the type that was larger vertically than horizontally. While the area of each individual floor was narrow, buildings of an unknown number of stories were stacked haphazardly toward the sky without end.

If the problem with our Pantheon was that it was too empty and stark white, the problem here was that it was too pitch-black and filthy.

I could accept the gray dust settling everywhere and the wiring of the mechanical equipment being tangled in a mess. The pipes exposed plainly on the cement walls, and the tangle of square timbers, planks, and tents making it confusing to tell what was a passage and what was an entrance—I could roughly understand those through the lens of industrial interior design.

However, however, why… were food waste and scraps of meat piled up like mountains everywhere? Is there some deep meaning I don’t know about? Can you, like, summon Diablo with that or something? The stench was enough to make me dizzy.

‘By the way, 47%.’

It’s an ambiguous figure. Even considering that a few more percent would have been consumed while I was acting frail and unable to get out of bed.

If it were me, I would never have let the activation progress drop below 50% under any circumstances. Even if it took several days to recover, even if I had to resolve my eating and sleeping while clutching the panel, I would have kept it packed at 100%.

Isn’t that obvious? Who knows when a new merger might begin? If you’re lax and idle and then get hit by a surprise attack… that’s just the day you get hit by a three-set bunker cheese rush and call GG.

However, recalling what <DriedAnchovyLowerEnds> had said, this figure wasn’t entirely strange.

‘Power system damage, even most veteran Compilers can’t stay sane through it. You have to pour in your energy at the risk of your life for every 1% you recover. There are tons of Compilers who get their life force sucked dry to the bottom and die of shock. That’s why the Union suffers from a chronic shortage of manpower.’

I didn’t know it, but… it seems that for other ordinary Compilers, recovering a mere 1% of the power system is extremely difficult. They say there are cases of death from attempting recovery beyond their limits.

Unlike <IsItPresbyopiaCrap>, who had zero 5-star Incarnations and only a few 4-stars, <DriedAnchovyLowerEnds> had a 5-star, so the consumption must have been greater. So, for him, wasn’t this roughly the best compromise between his own life and the safety of the Pantheon?

‘It was like that in the game <No Lifer>, but 5-star Incarnations are just black holes here too. Guys like Kirby of the X-stars.’

I imagined San Gun and Gumiho, transformed into round NintenX characters, opening their mouths wide with a haaaaap and sucking up power like vacuum cleaners.

‘…Um. Paying for a brain that hasn’t seen that.’

It wasn’t cute at all; it was just infuriating. They aren’t even incubi, yet they’re all just thinking about taking turns pinning me down and eating me up, so how could I not be pissed?

There’s something even more infuriating than that. It’s the fact that every single one of these bastards is constantly looking for a chance to put me on the bottom.

‘You call me your master? You call me your husband and boss? Then shouldn’t I obviously be on top?’

A master who is pinned beneath his own possessions, unable to even resist, and blubbering away. Master’s dignity is dead and buried. Although I am hopelessly lacking in physique, stamina, and perhaps skill compared to them, I decided to ignore that fact.

Come to think of it, these bastards… why are they all equipped with a mindset for rebelling against their superiors despite being Incarnations of Korean origin? Where on earth did the Confucian spirit of respecting one’s elders go?

Power system activation is complete.

Transferring command and control authority for all districts from <DriedAnchovyLowerEnds> to <User Myeong 808>.

While I was spacing out with my hand on the panel, the authority renewal procedure began.

Flash!

A strong light colored my vision like a flashbulb going off. A wind blew through the cold, damp concrete buildings. Having experienced it once during the Library District merger, I wasn’t as surprised as last time.

Buildings stacked in layers vertically and horizontally like haphazardly piled Jenga blocks. Between them, black cloths that had been hanging loosely fluttered. Patterns were embroidered on the black cloths with red thread.

‘So those were emblems. They were hung so messily among the dirt that I just thought they were tents.’

The Pantheon of <DriedAnchovyLowerEnds> was conceptual to the extreme, right down to the emblem. A design with a large skull superimposed over flowers and bamboo used in mahjong tiles. Wow, SanX! You know UnderTex.

Watching his pattern being completely erased and overwritten with mine, a certain thought suddenly occurred to me.

I thought I knew what those strange characters filling every corner of this space—appearing to be Hanja but not quite—were.

<DriedAnchovyLowerEnds> is a self-proclaimed 24th-century Earthling. If he was from a cultural sphere that used Hanja, and if these strange characters were the Hanja of a future several hundred years later… and that’s why they look a bit different from the Hanja of the 21st century I lived in. Then it roughly makes sense.

‘The 24th century.’

Was it because I was receiving confirmation for a fact I’d already heard once, or because I had finally adapted to this unrealistic world? The shock wasn’t that great.

‘Should I have asked what the world of the 24th century looks like, or what our country is like…’

I thought about it for a moment, then soon shook my head. There was no need to ask him.

In this world-view—that is, the Earth in <No Lifer>—it was post-apocalyptic dystopia itself. Even if I had asked, I probably would have heard hopeless stories like ‘The White Paper Legion is planting chips in people’s brains to control them.’

Now that the authority renewal is over, I should check one last thing. I pulled the terminal from my pocket.

Please select a management menu.

▷ Command and Control

▷ Incarnation

…

Right, hurry up and pull up the Incarnation list. In order of recent acquisition.

<Valkyrie Leading to Death>

Rarity: ★★★★★

Level: 99

Pollution: 14/100

Health: 72/100

Traits: Demi-god type, Warrior, Myth, Necromancer, Guide, Northern European origin, See more… [Tab]

It’s here… my precious new 5-star.

‘Welcome to the world of the mad moon… no, welcome to the Pantheon of mad Incarnations.’

The pollution and health levels are also very good at this point. I felt a surge of pride like a Trainer who had stuffed a new legendary Poke-mon into a Monster Ball.

For the record, I plan to work Valkyrie so hard and thoroughly that he won’t even have time to think about his former master or former comrades. It is absolutely not because of a lingering grudge for my hand being hit. Absolutely.

‘Authority renewal finished. Confirmed that Valkyrie is incorporated under me.’

It seems my work here is roughly done. Any remaining tasks would be things like moving supplies, but since that’s scheduled to be done by Mister San Gun over there—who picked me clean to the bone and has now reached 100/100 health—it’s none of my business.

But why does it feel like I’m forgetting something? Like I’ve forgotten something very important…

“The environment here is too unsanitary. I will clean up around the entrance at least, so until then, it would be best if you did not come here if possible.”

Agent, who was looking around with a frown on his tidy brow, spoke to me.

From his very appearance, he looked so strict that not even a needle could pierce him, and his personality was also extremely fastidious. He was the type who whipped himself and others equally, forcing everyone to achieve not 100% but 120%.

I was truly glad Agent was my subordinate. If he had been my boss, I would have spent every day repeating the cycle of writing and deleting curses at him on the company messenger while looking at job search sites.

“Really? Do as you like.”

As for me, there’s no reason to stop a fellow who is volunteering to clean up a filthy place.

“Yes.”

Agent bowed his head.

I was about to pass him by without much thought when a memory suddenly surfaced, making me stop in my tracks.

The fake master who had been dead in the central command room of our Pantheon. The necklace hanging from the neck of the headless corpse. I had ordered Agent to pick up that necklace…

‘Ah.’

Why didn’t I think of this until now? Of course, I had been distracted by various things, but I felt like a fool for having completely forgotten it until this moment.

“The fragment!”

I hurriedly turned toward the Incarnations.

“The ‘fragment of the key to the door leading to reality’ didn’t come out during this merger.”