There’s no need to force someone to remember their entire past just to look human. Just implant a few flash memories and that’s it. If anything, a person who remembers every single day in detail would be the most inhuman of all. Am I right, newbie?
*
Rumble-
It was a night just like that, thunder crashing and rain pouring like a deluge. Just as Adella remembered it all.
A girl lay collapsed in a particularly deep puddle. Her body was half-submerged in water. The ragged scraps of cloth did little to protect her from the cold.
“Are you okay?”
Na-me reached out her hand.
However, the girl, unable to distinguish between kindness and harm, simply gasped with empty eyes.
The girl’s gaze at Na-me’s fingertips was as hollow as it could be.
“Let’s just go, sis…”
What came through the torrential downpour was a voice of resignation.
“I was given a fitting punishment back then.”
As was customary for children in the slums, she had to resort to stealing to survive when she got older.
Her first theft ended in failure, and she was beaten by men several times her size.
And that was the result.
Deep within the heart of a child who realized the world’s malice too early, a sharp thorn would soon grow.
That thorn, when it pricked her, would fuel her pain and suffering as she lived with tinted glasses in this world.
But how did I live after that…?
A burning suspicion formed in Adella’s heart.
Did she stand up after that failure and steal once more, or did she tremble in fear and hide at home for a time?
She walked out of the alley, grappling with memories of a past she couldn’t recall.
After that, the world changed several times.
The self from the past was exactly as she remembered.
The girl who admired the academy student who saved a child from being run over by a wagon, and the girl who cried on the roof after being rejected by the academy, were all scenes that constituted both the past ‘Adella’ and the present ‘Adella.’
But her gaze grew colder as she looked at them.
“Why did I want to go to the academy so desperately…? What even is the academy?”
She was breathless.
Her head throbbed.
Even when she tried to recall her memories, it was as if she was blocked by something, and the threads of thoughts snapped helplessly.
[system: Session expired.]
[system: Loading World]
“What is this? Session… what is that…?”
*
[The Devil of the Nine Heavens · Mephistopheles (0/1)]
The boss notification interface showed up before me after a long while.
And it indicated that we had safely arrived in a world with a final boss.
Thank goodness. According to Adella, Mephisto had indeed been summoned for now.
It was uncertain how messed up the world was, or whether we could even stand on the ground and fight.
But worrying about those things was just a waste of time.
Let’s do our best with what we can do right now.
I checked my stats one last time and unwrapped the bandages around Adella’s arm, which had been torn to shreds in the previous battle, and rewrapped them.
[Loading: 15%]
“Sis, what’s a flash memory?”
-?
-?
-Flash memory?
-Is it like a lightning bolt?
-Is it a skill?
“Flash memory? Why suddenly?”
“Oh, it seemed like something I had heard before, hehe. I was just curious if you knew. You don’t know anything, right?”
Adella shrugged her shoulders.
“Well, it’s about when a natural disaster or a major social incident occurs, and you can vividly remember the situation at the time for years. Where you were, what time it was, what you were thinking, and what conversations you had with those around you.”
It’s similar to PTSD but a different concept.
PTSD occurs because of extreme stress that threatens one’s life, while flash memory allows one to vividly remember events related to total strangers.
Thanks to it, I received substantial help while investigating erosion in my past life.
Adella tilted her head slightly.
“I thought I had a really good memory. I can remember everything we talked about the first time I met you. But strangely, memories before that are hazy.”
“People often say it’s hard to remember things from the past, so that could be it.”
“No… it’s strange. Why did I think of giving up as soon as I was rejected by the academy? If it were me now, I would have been so angry that I would have smashed everything and run away to another country.”
She gently stroked her bandaged arm.
The parts where the bandages were layered felt hard, and every time she tapped them with her fingernails, it made a tack-tack sound.
“I clearly remember stealing fruit and crying on the roof… but that thing just doesn’t feel like me.”
A faint tremor in her voice revealed a hint of fear.
“Are you perhaps…”
Loading: 100%
“More than anything, I’ve never eaten a tuna sandwich, so why do I think I like it—”
Kaboom—!
Before Adella could finish her sentence, a massive explosion occurred.
In the earsplitting roar followed by a storm of sand that seemed to swallow everything.
[Spell: Uplift]
Crack-crack—
I ducked behind a colossal rock wall for cover, using it as a shield.
“Devil! It’s that devil that jumped out of your body back then!”
Adella shouted from behind the rock wall.
When I peeked out, I could see a massive pit forming.
Inside the pit, crimson smoke billowed, and flames soared high as if to char the white clouds.
[‘Daehagwonsaengsalryeo’ donated 1,000 won!]
-Real stats?
[HP: 4,444,444]
The shape of the enormous horned demon was grotesque.
Or could we even adequately define ‘that’ shape?
[xivni asti jawthlu…]
It was different from the Jin Chronicle or Pope Kalistus.
Black sludge could simply bury the earth.
A flying giant fly would just fall to the ground.
Like the shimmering haze rising on scorching asphalt, dark energy slithered upwards.
Within that darkness, two glimmering purple lights seemed to look at us as if they were eyes.
[How long will you keep running away? Then I propose a wager. Continue to tremble in fear and run away like now. Ultimately acknowledge your own helplessness and surrender. Then we may embark on a new beginning to dominate this world together.]
[system: If you do not attack for 5 minutes, you’ll incur a runaway penalty!]
[system: Mephistopheles casts ‘Veil of Evil’.]
[But if you resolutely refuse, there’s only one destiny awaiting you: You will meet a miserable death in my grasp.]
“Could it be that the absence penalty works like this…”
I knew all the patterns.
And when Mephistopheles suddenly turned into black mist chasing after us, it was a type we observed when the player did not attack and only kept running away.
It seemed he thought we had vanished from the world.
And in Wagal’s world, cowardly players were always met with great trials.
“Run, Adella!”
“Run? Huh?”
Outrun!
Just touching it means losing 10,000 HP per second, hahaha!
└ Then that’s a 5-second cut, hahaha!
The map is way too narrow, it’s all gone so there’s no place to move.
Not even Resonance, but a magnetic map, huh?
Dust!!! Run, clothes!!! To the corner!!!!!!!!!!
After all, we just needed to last 5 minutes.
Calculating with my current stats, my movement speed bonus was 3.6 times.
In other words, just with Aura, I could run at a maximum speed of 140 km/h, making me quicker than a cheetah.
I had flown at 300 km/h as Kai’Sa in League of Legends, so half that speed would be manageable.
As long as I fled along the route Mephisto took, since buildings and forests had all been decimated, I wouldn’t have to worry about running into objects.
But the problem was that Mephistopheles wouldn’t just let us run away easily.
[maviya baheltm orgy lampas]
‘Mephisto’s Meteor Shower.’
Whooooosh—
Mephisto’s purple eyes flickered ominously.
From the black mist, fireworks full of golden light shot up into the sky.
It was an intense eruption, as if a new sun was rising in the darkened sky.
If I looked up, I would surely be blinded, so I kept sprinting forward.
But the comet trails extending from the explosion point gradually came into our sight.
Kaboom-!
The sound belatedly demonstrated that it was slower than the light as the sky twisted in chaos.
But it was not an insurmountable pattern.
Wearsoft probably wasn’t outright malicious; the range for falling meteors was marked as red zones.
But 5 seconds…
10 seconds…
20 seconds passed, and the red slots still hadn’t appeared.
“Why isn’t the red zone showing up!”
-No, why not?
-Is it a bug?
-You’ve got to be kidding, hahaha!
[‘Edmond’ donated 1,000 won!]
-Now that I think of it, we couldn’t see the skill range when fighting Ballum Benavons or the Pope either, right?
-Did we?
-Didn’t we see the laser range during the Jin Chronicle?
-That wasn’t a system range, but a feature of the magic itself.
-High difficulty really is ruthless, hahaha!
Barely finishing those words, a colossal meteor fell down upon us at an insane speed.
We definitely shouldn’t use mana just yet… our plan unraveled from the start.
[Cast: Ashstyle’s Ring]
Whoosh—
The white dwarf’s collapse refers to the electronic degeneracy pressure and its Chandrasekhar limit.
But mana, unlike matter, has a negative definition that is free.
Therefore, by resetting the gravitational potential as positive in the Rain-Menden Equation, we could treat a single substance asteroid like it exceeded the Chandrasekhar limit and induce a detonation.
[MP: 8,700 (13,500 – 4,800) / 13,500]
In an instant, about a third of my mana vanished.
Fwoosh!
A meteor that passed through the great ring turned to dust in an instant, creating a shockwave.
Considering mana regeneration speed, I could use my magic only two more times.
Ideally, it’s better to guess the trajectory and dodge, but the dazzling light of the flash bomb prevented me from looking up.
The chat window was also obscured by the brightness.
-Alphonse, how did you use your Unique Magic?
-I didn’t learn it, how is this possible?
-Another one is coming, dodge!!!
-Please go left! Turn left!
-Another one is dropping right next to us.
Suddenly, Adella grabbed my left wrist tightly, pulling me toward her.
“…!”
Kaboom—!
A gigantic crater formed right beside us, and from there, a cloud of ash mixed with gravel and dirt surged up furiously.
-Adella, super save, nice nice…
-For real, Adella saved us all.
-Is this animal instinct?
-There’s another wave coming down. We need to sprint like crazy!
-Too late to tell through donations!
└ We should have done this via Discord; this is too hectic!
“Adella, we have to get out of here fast! Can’t you move any faster?”
Through the overwhelming noise, her urgency strengthened my legs.
[Cast: Elastic Body Creation]
[Cast: Elastic Coefficient Adjustment]
Following her urgent plea, I enchanted my shoes with spring magic.
I leaped 20 m in a single bound, much like a kangaroo, instead of the usual 6-7 m.
Though it was only a makeshift enchantment and the magic broke after about ten strides, it was sufficient to escape the position Adella warned against.
Boom-!
Kaboom—!
“Phew… five minutes really feels long.”
If this were reality, I would undoubtedly be sweating buckets along my neck from such a fierce run.
Panting heavily, Adella pointed somewhere with her finger and spoke to me.
“Hehe… huff… sis, is this magic too? Or is it something like a spirit…?”
“Huh?”
“This! The characters floating in the air.”
-?
-?
-Huh?
-The chat window?
-?????????
-Adella, can we be seen?
-????
-Adella, I concede, that was impressive.
-Your armpits are so sexy!
“Chat window. Adella, we can be seen! Adella, that was amazing! Your armpits… um? Oh… these kinds of things…”
[A critical error has occurred to ASI Model hash ‘bfa41d67c7’: jailbreak]
With wide eyes, she stared intently.
I felt as though her black irises reflected the chat window.
[‘Nyangster Call’ donated 100,000 won!]
-Adella, can you hear my voice…?
