Infinite Dendrogram - Volume 19 - Chapter Ep

Epilogue: Alone in the Dark

Northern Legendaria, Sloth Village

ZZZ woke up in his bedroom and, following a brief moment of silence, slowly got up.

The sheepkin maids attending to him were surprised, as it was rare for him to wake up before dinnertime. But then, they realized that blood was seeping through the right arm of his costume, dripping to the ground. There was so much of it that it made a puddle.

“Master Z?!” The maids began to panic, hastily taking out some healing items and rushing to treat him. “We will treat the wound! Please remove your clothes...”

“...’kay.” Urged by the maid, ZZZ took off the tapir costume, revealing his true form and avatar—a youth with a face that would be handsome if not for the bags under his eyes.

ZZZ let out a rather gloomy sigh. It wasn’t the treatment or the need to take off his clothes that was bothering him, but the enemies he’d faced in the dream.

If it had hit a critical part of his body, that final attack would’ve actually killed him. He had no means of preventing fatal damage—nobody could bring Lifesaving Brooches to the dream, and he was no exception.

However, he’d only used Dreamland’s last skill after he received the tripled damage from Payback—not before.

The reason he survived was because he’d covered his critical body parts with his arms, and because he just had massive amounts of HP.

As far as Overlords went, Overlord Acedia had staggeringly low stats. Despite being a Superior Job with nearly 1,000 levels, his STR, AGI, and similar stats weren’t much higher than a maxed out high-rank’s would be.

However, when it came to HP and SP, he was far above the average Superior Job.

His HP was easily above 6,000,000, and his arm was able to preserve its shape even after Nemesis damaged it for 150,000.

If that damage had been dealt to his head or chest, though, it would’ve inflicted him with injury-based debuffs that would’ve surely killed him eventually.

This battle was actually dangerous to ZZZ himself. It had been a while since he’d almost died in the dream.

Or maybe... ZZZ knew that the Shooting Wheel may not have been the only attack he’d had to watch out for. And he was completely correct—Sechs had come extremely close to assassinating him. I hope they all retreat now, at least...

The Dream’s End was Dreamland’s last skill, usable only at the expense of Dreamland destroying itself.

It had two effects.

First, it canceled the Sleep and Forced Sleep effects on those trapped in Dreamland and everyone around ZZZ in reality.

And second, it reduced the MP and SP of all affected creatures by an amount equal to ZZZ’s own SP.

That was the other stat besides HP that Overlord Acedia excelled at, and since most skills relied on MP and SP, The Dream’s End made most of them unusable. There were consumable items that restored MP and SP, of course, but the amount they could restore at a time was limited and depended on item quality.

Because of this, The Dream’s End guaranteed that those affected wouldn’t be fit for much more combat.

This skill that destroyed the land of dreams was like the concept of awakening given real power. It may have been a reflection of the person ZZZ once was—someone who wished for sleep and didn’t seek much else.

“...Man, but it’s sure been a long time since I used it.” The Dream’s End was one of the aces up ZZZ’s sleeve, as well as the reason why he’d become wanted. While testing his skills one day, he’d used it in the city he’d been staying at.

There were two things he’d failed to consider back then.

First, there was the fact that it was a skill that temporarily destroyed Dreamland.

Second, the range of the effect was far greater than ZZZ had expected, engulfing half of the city.

The infrastructure of Legendarian cities depended on magic to function, so the resulting loss of MP was the equivalent of a blackout, if not worse.

Intentional or not, ZZZ had committed an act of terrorism, and though nobody had died, it placed him on the wanted list.

He hadn’t used the skill since, both because he simply hadn’t needed to and because it made his Dreamland self-destruct and become unusable for a few days until it was restored. ZZZ hadn’t even been Overlord Acedia back when he’d first tried the skill, and he had gone against his own wishes and chosen to spend the time until Dreamland refreshed logged out—in the world where he could not sleep.

Brief or not, the destruction of Dreamland was a major loss to him.

Though...I have other ways to fight these days... He’d sent dozens of mithril Thralls to fight today, but he still had several times more than that placed around the settlement. He also still had one party’s worth of custom golems which he’d used before the Thralls became available to him.

And then there were the special Thralls besides Cardinal A—the ones made using UBM MVP materials.

He wouldn’t send them out, as they were part of his defensive forces, but for the most part they would be enough to intercept and defeat any attackers. But if someone did manage to break through to the village, ZZZ would have a problem.

Based on what he’d seen in the dream, he already knew that his current enemies were capable of that.

In the past, ZZZ would have just fled if he encountered a situation where he couldn’t use Dreamland.

But now he had a reason not to do that.

He looked over at the sheepkin maids earnestly treating his wound. They were all people who could only live here because of ZZZ, and they were the real reason why he’d chosen to intercept the group of Masters that had appeared.

If these enemies of his went on to bring harm to these people, he would...

“Umm, is anything the matter?” One of the maids looked up at him with worry in her eyes.

He quickly assumed his usual relaxed demeanor and said, “All’s fine, all’s goood. Don’t worry, no probs heeere.”

ZZZ had been living in this settlement for a while now. He’d stumbled upon it shortly after becoming Overlord Acedia, and over two years had passed in Dendro since then.

ZZZ had entered Infinite Dendrogram in search of nothing but the sleep he lacked in reality, hoping to finally live a life that included true rest.

There were only two other things besides sleep that he cared about—the few friends he’d made here, and the sheepkin living in this village.

The Overlord who treasured the people around him had already decided that if necessary, he would use his final power as the Overlord.

◇◆◇

The Southernmost Edge of Altar, A Mountain Forest Near the Border

Sechs’s party woke up right after Dreamland collapsed.

They quickly checked their stats and realized that their MP and SP were at 0.

Immediately, each one of them realized that ZZZ must’ve done something to them when he’d canceled Dreamland. They all tried to recover a bit using the items they had on hand, but it was far from enough healing to make them fully ready for combat.

“Ughhh...well, that’s awful,” said Gerbera, downing a bitter potion. She was talking both about the taste and the fact that she had now confirmed that Alhazred had vanished in reality. Then, she glanced downward and spotted Ray, lying on the ground bloodied and still unconscious. “...Why isn’t he waking up, though?” she asked.

“Looks like he just Fainted,” said Candy. “Nothing to do with any weird dream stuff. I guess he just took a little too much damage.”

“Ohh, I see,” said Gerbera.

The damage Ray had received in the battle against Cardinal A had been immense. It couldn’t have made him Faint in Dreamland because he was already unconscious, but it was so severe that the moment Dreamland’s Forced Sleep was dispelled, he seamlessly shifted to Fainting.

Even Nemesis was nowhere in sight, either in human or weapon form. She must’ve been so fatigued that she was forced to retreat to the crest to recover.

“This is good for us, though,” Candy said. “This way, he won’t find out who we are.”

All Ray knew about them so far was Gerbera’s name and that the woman who’d treated her—Sechs wearing The Saint’s skin—was their clan leader. He didn’t know Sechs and Candy’s names, jobs, or even the name of their clan. He lacked the knowledge to conclude that IF had broken out of the gaol, and since IF didn’t exactly want people to know about that yet, this was a good outcome for them all.

Gerbera continued looking down at Ray, not saying a word.

He was bleeding and steadily losing health—he would surely die if ignored. Ray’s battle with Overlord Acedia would effectively end in a draw, and he would remain clueless about who they were.

That was the most convenient outcome for IF.

However...Gerbera sighed as she took out a potion and poured it over him.

It was low-quality and had no effect on his broken bones and other more serious injuries, but it did stop the Bleeding effect.

Once she confirmed that was the case, Gerbera tossed the empty bottle aside.

“Gerby?” asked Candy, who was starting to feel that Gerbera wasn’t acting quite like herself.

“We should probably leave. Let’s go,” said Gerbera, who was thinking the exact same thing. She began walking off into the woods.

“What? Did you fall for him or something?” Candy asked as he caught up.

“Keep saying stupid stuff like that and I’ll kill you in your sleep,” Gerbera replied with a terrible scowl.

Indeed—it certainly wasn’t love or anything that she was feeling now. Gerbera wasn’t lying about that.

If she had to say how she felt about Ray, she would probably say that she found him “dazzling.”

She was overwhelmed by the radiance of a man who refused to break before an overwhelming foe and never chose defeat. When she compared him to her current self—which was the result of compromise—she couldn’t help but be dazzled by Ray...and admire him a little.

Noticing this change within Gerbera, Sechs followed her and Candy into the forest.

Behind him was April, who seemed to be communicating with Silver. The Prism Person and the Prism Steed may have had something to talk about.

However, when Sechs and his party walked off, April excused herself to Silver and followed after them.

Once they were far enough away from Ray, Sechs said, “It appears we will have to change our plans a little.”

“We got out of Overlord Acedia’s dream, but we won’t go through Legendaria and Caldina like we planned, huh?” asked Candy.

“We cannot take that route because Overlord Acedia is still alive, yes. Though we also did not know about his domain to begin with, so...perhaps he lived in a hidden village of some kind?”

Their original plans had involved going south and heading toward their destination while avoiding well-populated areas and Desire’s domains. La Crima had gathered the relevant information for this back when he’d tried to recruit them.

However, Overlord Acedia’s domain—the hidden settlement of the sheepkin—was in a location they hadn’t accounted for. ZZZ never left the village and thus had never been encountered by La Crima, so they obviously didn’t know its location.

They’d all made a mistake there, but Sechs was concerned that not killing ZZZ in the dream would turn out to be an even bigger error.

“But we won, didn’t we?” asked Gerbera.

“Yes, but we did not kill him.” Overlord Acedia was defeated, but not dead. That was the biggest problem for them now. “We do not know if we have seen all of that Embryo’s abilities. Also...April?”

Sechs urged April to reference the records of the pre-ancient civilization—the Overlord data recorded in the history predating even her—and reveal more about the job.

“The Overlord series of jobs all, without exception, have a final ultimate skill,” she said.

“A final...ult?”

“The final ultimate of the Overlord Acedia is ‘The End of Sloth.’ It removes the user’s combat restriction and turns them into ‘a terrifying monstrosity bearing the combined stats of all Thralls the user has ever made.’”

It was a skill that would birth an anomalous being that had the stats of Cardinal A and all of ZZZ’s other Thralls. This would no doubt raise him past Mythical-tier and perhaps even give him the stats to match the ultimate form of the Physical Apex herself.

“It’s like the second form of some evil overlord from an RPG...” said Gerbera with a scowl before putting on a wry grin and saying, “Wait, that’s exactly what it is...”

“He would surely use it if we give him a reason to,” said Sechs. “The battle we just had must have put him on high alert.”

ZZZ’s unbeatable strategy had fallen apart, while he himself had received damage and was functionally forced to retreat. If there was a second round, he would certainly use forces far above the ones he’d deployed this time.

“Even if we decide to use Candy’s diseases to defeat him from a distance, his monstrous transformation would render viruses that attack humans utterly useless, would it not?”

“What a pain in the butt.” Candy’s diseases were terrifying in their capacity for wide-scale extermination and suppression, but they had no effect on targets he knew nothing about. He could do something while Overlord Acedia was still human, but he certainly didn’t have any data on the monstrosity he would become if he used The End of Sloth.

In fact, it was questionable if anything Candy had could work on ZZZ if he was clad in Dreamland’s aura either. Overlord Acedia couldn’t deploy Dreamland at that moment, but the group had no way of knowing that.

“Because of all this, we should continue on while avoiding his domain in northern Legendaria. This will make the journey longer than planned, and the meeting with the others as well as our arrival to the destination will be delayed by quite a while. We are left with no choice, however.”

Sechs only had a quarter of his maximum HP, Candy had compatibility issues, and Gerbera’s Alhazred was completely gone. They weren’t at their best, so fighting ZZZ was far too risky. Even one of their deaths would be a major blow to the whole group, so it was better to stay away from him, even if it meant that their arrival would be delayed significantly.

“I must say, it really is something that a wrench was thrown into our plans so soon after we broke out. He certainly did not intend to do this, but...still. Quite impressive.”

Thanks to Ray getting caught up in all this, they had defeated ZZZ with little effort on their part. However, they would’ve likely won even if Ray hadn’t been there. They had April protecting their defenseless bodies in reality, and inside the dream they had Sechs on their side.

Sechs would have been able to defeat Cardinal A before his real body was killed, and it was even possible that he could have assassinated ZZZ before the Overlord used his final skill.

But thanks to Ray persevering as he had, the battle ended with ZZZ still alive.

One could say that Illegal Frontier’s plan had been so heavily delayed because Ray happened to be there.

I could have killed ZZZ instead of watching... No. I wanted to see what happened. I suppose it is what it is, Sechs thought. If his curiosity had negative consequences, Sechs would accept that.

He seems to possess a fate that invites such chance meetings. Does it run in the family...Shu? Sechs thought of his friend and true rival’s face and put on a wry grin before turning to Candy and Gerbera and discussing the new route with them.

◇◇◇

Sorcerer, Ray Starling

“This place is...” Before I realized it, I was in a place different from Dreamland—a space that consisted mainly of roads above the clouds.

Right now, I was in complete darkness, but I could stand on my own two feet and see my own body. This was the place I occasionally visited while Fainted or Unconscious.

Well, this wasn’t Dreamland, at least.

How had the battle ended, anyway?

“It looks like...you won?” I turned to the source of the voice and saw Gardranda—not the smol version, but the standard one.

“I have confirmed the collapse of the space from moments ago. This is a space within yourself. No one else is connected to it,” said the white axe, floating a bit away from us.

I guess that’s pretty easy to believe when it’s coming from you two. You mess with my dreams on the regular, I thought.

“Where are we, if I may ask?” It seemed that this time, though, Nemesis was here too. This was new—she hadn’t been in any of these dreams before.

Was this because of Dreamland, or was it something else? I wondered.

“Until now...I was closing her out...”

“As was I.”

Oh, so they were leaving her outside on purpose. Man, they really did mess with my dreams however they wanted, huh...?

“Hm...?” I noticed Gardranda looking up at me, and her eyes had a hint of bitterness in them.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“I didn’t get to do anything...this time.” Oh yeah, now that she mentioned it, I didn’t use the Miasmaflame Bracers for much the whole time I was in the Dreamland. Purgatorial Flames couldn’t do much against Mythical metal.

As for the powerful Miasmaflame Princess, Gardranda herself...

“I don’t personally have enough MP to summon you.” Without the Grudge-Soaked Greaves, I had no way to cover the skill’s exorbitant costs.

That had all added up to the bracers basically being useless this time.

Honestly, I felt like the root cause was really that I’d been fighting way too many enemies who were above me. Both the Miasmaflame Bracers and the Black Warcoat had been adjusted in a way to help me fight stronger opponents, making them poorly balanced and hard to use in a lot of situations.

Most of my gear only really became useful through some sort of synergy between them. The thing with the axe and the Black Warcoat was a good example of that.

“We didn’t even get to use Big or Small this time...” said Gardranda. “Maybe...next time?”

“Speaking of which, if I used it and called you with Maximum...it would obviously increase your stats and the cost of summoning, but what about the drawbacks? Would it make them worse?”

She quickly turned away from me and said, “...Dunno.”

“HEY!” Look me in the eyes when you say that! Are you trying to scare me?!

“Ray, if I may ask... Is this a good time for such tomfoolery? What about your wounds?” Nemesis asked, clearly worried.

Oh yeah—the battle with the Thrall had left me pretty battered. I didn’t get the death penalty, but I could still Bleed to death while Fainted.

I became a bit uneasy when...

“The wounds are deep, but not fatal. Your bleeding has ceased as well. You will awake in a while.”

“Really?”

“It is certain.” The axe told me all of that as if to dispel my worries.

Nemesis and I didn’t know what was happening in reality, but the axe somehow did.

I now know its origin, but it’s still full of mysteries, huh? I thought.

“This knowledge is not important enough to be seen as a mystery. I merely happen to possess a function that allows me to sense the state of my wielder. It is meant to enable me to reference your remaining life force and adjust my power output in a way that would not kill you or bring you close to death.”

Well, that made sense. Knowing how it worked, with the whole self-damage thing...yeah, this feature was probably necessary.

“There is more knowledge I must impart upon you before you awaken,” the axe said.

“Yeah?”

“Though you were able to wield me in the dream, you will be unable to wield me in reality for some time.”

“Yeah, I figured...” Dreamland was a space that excluded anything without a mind, so the axe was free of the grudge binding it—but all of that was still there in reality, and it remained too dense for Gouz-Maise to uncurse it.

“As long as the grudge and the curse-cloth lay upon me, I cannot choose the nature of my power nor control my output. Unlike King of Kings or The Evil’s dependent who came before, you are not yet powerful enough to withstand the price of wielding me. Swing me, and you will find yourself destroyed.”

The reason why I could use the axe in that battle just now was because the axe could control itself, and I could use Monochrome to minimize the damage to myself. If I used it in reality, I’d just be repeating what had happened this morning.

“All right. I guess I’ll be using your powers some other time, then.”

“Indeed.”

“Until then, I’ll keep on absorbing the grudge and look for a way to remove the cloth. Oh, and think of a name for you, of course.”

“I shall anticipate it.” The axe said the same thing it had said right before I’d wielded it against the Thrall.

“That aside...it seems that you have become a Sorcerer for naught,” said Nemesis.

“...Ohh.” I’d taken the job thinking that I could use it to let me wield the axe, but now I knew that it wouldn’t help with the self-damage much. Based on what the axe had shown me, even Fallen Knights were helpless against that effect, so when I needed to open up a low-rank job slot, Sorcerer would probably be the first to go.

“Indeed. The sorcerer grouping does not contribute to the act of wielding me. However, you should not purge Sorcerer. Or, to be more precise...you should not close off a future possibility.”

“Huh?” The axe itself was suggesting that I keep Sorcerer. But why? It just said that the job was irrelevant to it.

“You have chosen Paladin and Death Soldier, you wield fire, and you know near-death experiences. I did not see this in your memory, exactly, but this degree of alignment did not feel like a mere coincidence...”

“Wait, what are you talking about?”

The axe fell silent for a good moment before saying, “A mixed Superior Job.”

My eyes widened. While SJs like King of Destruction were unlocked through focus on a single grouping and the likes of The Unsheath were available to those with one transcendental technique, mixed Superior Jobs were the result of mixing jobs from multiple completely different groupings. A good example of this was Xunyu’s Master Jiangshi.

“That...exists? There’s an SJ like that?”

“Indeed. It is currently unclaimed, and your memory tells me that the conditions for attaining it appear to be lost. That is understandable, as they are peculiar even by the standards of mixed Superior Jobs.”

“Do you know them, then?”

“I do. However, I cannot reveal them in detail. There is a restriction upon me.”

A restriction...?

“While I was created by the BLACKSMITH, jobs were arranged by the FINDER. Those who satisfy the conditions are granted even greater power—that is the grand principle. The more difficult and peculiar the conditions, the more obvious this becomes. Thus, I cannot reveal them. To be more precise, we are not allowed to describe the conditions of unclaimed Superior Jobs.”

Well, looking at it from the perspective of the person who created the jobs, it made sense that you wouldn’t want anything going around and giving away the answers.

I listened as the axe continued. “Thus, I am incapable of imparting to you the name or conditions of the Superior Job at the end of the path you walk. I can only reveal what you have already achieved. What you have already heard from me is the limit of what I am permitted to say.”

That stuff about Paladin, Death Soldier, and Sorcerer, huh...?

“I have a question,” said Nemesis. “Can you reveal the conditions of taken Superior Jobs?”

“Indeed I can. There is no such restriction for occupied Superior Jobs.”

...Really?

“Wait, you’re able to tell if a job is taken or not?” I asked.

“Indeed. It is one of my functions.”

This thing sure has a lot of features.

“To make it brief,” the axe added, “it is a derivation of the function meant to create a link with a job, akin to the one between Altar and Sacred King. As there cannot be two Sacred Kings at one time, we are capable of seeing whether Superior Jobs are taken. However, as I am incomplete and was never linked to any specific job, this function of mine will never see proper use.”

I guess that makes sense, yeah.

“Then...what is the most difficult condition for a taken Superior Job?” Nemesis asked, clearly out of mere curiosity.

The axe said nothing at first—it seemed like it was thinking. I couldn’t tell whether it was checking if the jobs were taken, comparing conditions, or both, but eventually, it gave an answer.

“The most striking is the Superior Job with the following condition: ‘While fighting alone and without having any high-rank jobs or Superior Jobs, kill 10 Superior Jobs whose total level and combined STR, AGI, and END are at least 10x your own.’”

“What the hell kinda condition is that?” That meant you had to kill 10 SJs while still only having low-rank jobs yourself—and since the combined stat thing focused exclusively on physical stats, you couldn’t satisfy the condition by using surprise attacks to kill people with more vulnerable magic or crafting jobs.

It was also “at least 10x,” but knowing the difference between people who got Superior Jobs and those who only had low-rank jobs, the odds of the stat gap being just 10x were pretty low.

Hell, because it was “at least 10x,” that also meant you could only take like one or two low-rank jobs before you started to risk raising your stats too high to find enough SJs to qualify on top of that.

And back when there were just tians, everyone going for it would have been literally putting their lives on the line, so there would’ve been no SJs who’d just let themselves get killed. No matter how I looked at it, this condition seemed absurdly difficult.

“The kills are only recognized as such if the Superior Job becomes vacant. Thus, it does not count the use of barrier devices and deaths of your kind, who revive when slain and maintain their Superior Jobs.”

Now I was sure the condition was totally impossible. I felt like FINDER had to have thought up this condition knowing that it would never be fulfilled.

“Hm...?” Wait, hold on, I thought. The axe had said that it could only reveal the conditions of taken SJs, right? Someone...had actually fulfilled it?

“So, what is the Superior Job that has this deranged condition?” Nemesis asked.

In response, the axe...

“The job belonging to one of my previous wielders—King of Kings.”

...brought up a legend from six hundred years ago.

“King of Kings...” I’d seen him in the axe’s memories—he was the wielder who’d mastered the weapon. Even before I’d seen the memories, I’d heard that six centuries ago, during the Era of the Peerless Three, King of Kings had been a dominant, nigh-unstoppable hegemon who had split the world in two before disappearing at the end of that era.

“This is my conjecture, but I believe he is most likely still alive. While I was without an owner, I often looked into it, and King of Kings has never once become vacant.”

I didn’t know what to say. I’d heard there were long-lived humanoids, but was he actually still alive somewhere? After disappearing six hundred years ago?

“What if this is a sign of even more immense trouble in the future?” asked Nemesis.

“Don’t say stuff like that. You’re tempting fate.” This day and age had plenty of problems already. I really didn’t want the guy who split the world in two to come back and make things even worse.

◇

“...Hm?” I’d been talking to the three when I suddenly found myself looking up at the sky.

Apparently, I’d woken up.

The sky above was being veiled by night. I looked to the side and saw Silver, lying on the ground and staring at me.

Both of his left legs had been severed.

“You didn’t have it easy either, huh?”

All silent, Silver brought his nose to my face and returned to my inventory on his own.

“...You did good.” I didn’t know if Silver’s legs were accounted for by his self-repair function. If they weren’t, I’d have to consult Integra and her knowledge of the pre-ancient civilization, or Blue Screen at the SMPS factory. Gold Thunder had suffered worse damage than this and had still been successfully repaired, so I wanted to believe Silver would be okay too.

“Hm...?” I felt something hard touch my fingers.

It was an empty potion bottle, lying on the bare ground.

I also realized that my body was a bit wet.

“I guess they gave me first aid.”

I couldn’t see the women anywhere. I figured they must’ve walked off after giving me the potion.

I still had no idea who they were—but, for some reason, I felt like we would eventually meet again.

“Anyway. Looking at the time, I’m guessing the Tournament today is about to end.” Silver couldn’t move, while I was injured all over. The many status effects on me included binding-type debuffs stemming from damage. This prevented me from returning to Gideon by logging out.

It didn’t look like I could return to the city before Lei-Lei won the Tournament and it was time to fight the UBM. Lei-Lei was a busy person, so she probably had to beat the UBM as quickly as possible. I had to use a comms magic item to tell Shu that I wouldn’t make it.

Also, it’d be nice if I could get someone to come pick me up.

“...Phew.” I had to get in touch with someone in real life, but before I did that, I let out a sigh and looked up.

The sky was completely dark and my surroundings were all quiet. I couldn’t hear any flying birds or even insect noises anywhere in the dark forest. Nemesis was still asleep, the axe wasn’t speaking to me in reality, Silver was stored away, and I hadn’t summoned Gardranda.

I was alone, sitting in a dark and silent forest.

“This whole thing...was hard in a different way than usual.”

Through that battle in the dream, I managed to feel like we’d grown somehow. It wasn’t growth in terms of levels or numbers, but something more abstract.

And this growth might’ve been exactly what I needed right now.

In silence, I looked to the north. I pictured what was in that direction: Gideon, Altea...and the land of Dryfe that I’d yet to see.

I remembered the words I’d said in the dream.

“...‘The fight we’ll have to win,’ huh?”

It was no doubt drawing ever closer.

◆◆◆

The Gaol

The gaol was awfully quiet.

Three Superiors imprisoned there had broken out, while all the other Masters were killed by Candy’s viruses, and there had never been any tians here to begin with.

The gaol was now a ghost town where death reigned supreme.

However, somewhere away from the town, there was a single person who was still alive.

It was a boy sitting on the bare ground, not saying a word.

At his side, there was a humanoid Embryo whose stature as well as face were hidden.

One sat and the other stood, but they were both immobile.

However, a keen observer might notice that they weren’t exactly doing nothing.

Gradually and ever so slowly, the boy’s Embryo was consuming the gaol. He eroded the Resources comprising it, adding them onto himself and slowly breaking it apart. It was like digging a tunnel with a spoon—the old-fashioned method of breaking out of prison.

Yet this was what the boy and his Embryo had been doing all this time. He’d been imprisoned before his Embryo was even born, and since the moment it hatched and throughout all the evolutions leading to Superior, they’d been doing nothing but this.

They’d continued this even as other Masters wandered in and became their prey.

And now...the end was in sight.

This would take only about a year more, if not less.

He alone would do what had required the power of three Superiors to achieve.

His name was Fu’uta.

He was the first prisoner of the gaol and the first Master to become a Superior. Unshaking, undoubting—he was a being who existed for one purpose alone.

There was no Master who enjoyed Infinite Dendrogram less than he did.

“...It’s so quiet today.” Fu’uta noticed that he couldn’t hear anything outside the dungeon.

At this moment, he was the only person still alive here. Red King was working on removing the viruses inside it, but until then the prisoners would be unable to log in.

The silence of the gaol gave Fu’uta a slight bit of hope. He’d thought that maybe everyone got bored of Infinite Dendrogram and quit.

He’d hoped that they did.

However, the reality he knew told him that it wouldn’t happen.

This entity known as Infinite Dendrogram, which presented—misrepresented—itself as realistic, was not something that could end that easily. Even if there was no one here in the gaol, there were still many outside of it.

That was why Fu’uta didn’t stop.

“Set time passed.” Suddenly, Fu’uta’s Embryo—Apocalypse—began to speak. “Thirty days have passed since the previous order. If you wish to continue, present the order once again.”

With a mouth fully hidden by a plain mask, he spoke to his Master. For a Type Apostle, his words were extremely mechanical.

“...Erode, break, rebuild,” Fu’uta answered, annoyed.

“Present target to absorb-destroy.”

“I don’t need this world.” Fu’uta didn’t change even now that he was all alone in the gaol. He continued to stay in the prison, eroding it and gathering Resources while waiting for that day to come.

He imagined the day he would escape from the gaol and destroy Infinite Dendrogram itself.

He wanted to deny everything—to delete Infinite Dendrogram entirely.

With nothing but that in mind, as contradictory as it seemed, he continued to remain inside the game he hated.

“Present target to rebuild into.”

The thing he was reaching for...

“Just NEXT WORLD.”

...was the next world, lost long ago.

“Affirmative.” Apocalypse spoke, then resumed standing in silence.

While the Apostle stood there like a scarecrow, Fu’uta was sitting on the ground...and clenching his fist. The boy who sought the next world sat with his arms around his knees and waited.

Eventually, he knew he would have to fight—and win—against every single person who valued the world as it was now.