10

Chapter 10

Before I could answer, he asked another question.

“How much do you know?”

Then he asked again.

“How do you know it?”

He fired off one question after another without waiting for an answer.

The wall collapsed.

Like a wave of video footage, the fallen wall created a new shape. It curved into an enormous hemisphere around me.

At some point, I had been released from the chair and now stood on a circular platform.

The hemisphere surrounding me no longer displayed the world, but me. Images of myself from every conceivable angle appeared across its countless screens.

“There can be nothing that I, Samra Mansang, do not know.”

With me at the center, Samra walked along the circumference of the circle.

“Why is that? Your existence is an unknown.”

His holographic eyes remained fixed upon me.

“And yet you are unquestionably human.”

He tilted his head back. Starting from the place his gaze touched, the screens changed like ripples spreading across the surface of water.

Following his gaze, I saw ‘my past’ displayed on the countless screens.

Me during my years in the orphanage.

Me in elementary, middle, and high school.

And… me during my career as a professional gamer.

I could see myself smiling, one hand wrapped in athletic tape and the other holding a championship trophy.

My mind went blank.

I couldn’t understand what I was seeing.

If I had entered a game—the Archive universe—then naturally, its characters shouldn’t know anything about ‘my’ past.

There was no way they could know I had grown up in an orphanage or used to be a professional gamer.

A new truth struck me.

Could it be that the place I was in right now……

Wasn’t the Republic of Korea inside the Archive universe, but the world where I had lived all my life?

‘The real Republic of Korea?’

My head went numb.

The vague sense of distance I had maintained by believing this was a game world vanished in an instant.

Before I could even digest the truth, a ding sounded and a System Window appeared.

◆ Epic Quest: Close 3 Trials within one month.

What… was this?

You have learned the hidden truth.

You realize that the world you believed to be a game was composed of events occurring secretly within your reality.

As the System of planet ‘Earth,’ you strive to stop the Trials.

To do so, you believe you must close 3 Trials within one month.

*Trials currently closed (0/3)

(Warning! Failure of the Quest will result in the amputation of all four limbs! Success permits you to keep them.)

I squeezed my eyes shut.

After taking a moment to steady my breathing, I opened them again, but the System Window remained.

Three Trials cleared with their True Endings within one month.

If I failed the Quest, my arms and legs would be amputated…?

Park Seonggyeon’s head exploding in a magnificent display was still vivid in my memory, making this impossible to dismiss as nonsense.

On top of that, amputation was already absurd enough, yet the reward for success was simply keeping my limbs.

Even amid the confusion caused by so many overwhelming facts hitting me at once, I was dumbfounded.

‘That’s the same as receiving no reward at all.’

When I protested against the cruelty, another System Window appeared belatedly.

The final reward will receive upon completing all Epic Quests.

So there was something after all.

I waited for the next System Window, determined to see how far this would go.

’s body will be restored to its most perfect condition.

I read the text written in the System Window.

Then I read it again.

A faint tremor passed through my hand.

I forcibly restrained my gaze from moving on instinct and clenched my fist to hide the tremor.

“…….”

Samra tilted his head and examined me closely.

I barely managed to gather myself. Then I asked the first question that needed an answer.

“…What is today’s date?”

“March 8.”

“In the year 20XX?”

“Yes.”

“And what date did Captain Mo Haein enter HSF?”

“March 7.”

Samra’s pupils repeatedly expanded and contracted like the aperture of a camera lens.

He was collecting my physical responses.

“That is also the day Captain Mo Haein discovered you.”

This year was a leap year, so I had watched the developer’s livestream on February 29.

There was a seven-day gap through March 6.

I had no memory whatsoever of where I had been or what I had done during that time.

“When did the Trials… begin?”

“Four years ago, on February 29.”

Around the same time I had retired from professional gaming and become unemployed.

I had started playing the developer’s games two years ago….

I tried gathering the pieces scattered chaotically through my mind, almost but not quite touching, but nothing occurred to me right away.

“Mr. Han Goyo.”

After confirming that I was in poor condition, Samra changed his approach.

All the screen panels that had surrounded me with their oppressive presence vanished.

In their place appeared a pleasant outdoor café on a sunny afternoon.

Two refreshing iced Americanos and desserts sat on an empty terrace table.

The straitjacket I had been wearing had also transformed into ordinary everyday clothes.

Samra pulled out a chair for me, invited me to sit, and took the seat opposite.

I stopped my thoughts from rampaging in every direction and gulped down the iced Americano on the table.

The sensation of cold liquid passing down my throat felt brutally real.

But it was fake, not real. The place I now occupied was a virtual space created by Samra.

Samra had been created from an android item obtained in a Trial with a science-fiction universe.

Perhaps because he was fundamentally an item, Samra possessed the ability to create a virtual space resembling a Trial.

Within this space, Samra was like a god, capable of creating and erasing anything.

In any case, the fake iced Americano restored my composure, and I calmed down a little.

I still couldn’t understand why I, of all people, had become the System.

I wasn’t someone remarkable enough to fulfill a grand position like the System of Earth.

I was closer to an ordinary citizen whose own survival came first.

There had to be many extraordinary people capable of making noble sacrifices, so I couldn’t imagine why I had been chosen.

‘It would be better to replace me even now.’

I waited for the System Window with a flicker of hope, but it remained silent.

I swallowed a long sigh. Then, like the ordinary citizen I was, I established the most appropriate immediate priority for my current situation.

Keeping my arms and legs.

Read only on MUGEX

‘Completing every Epic Quest… is something for the distant future, so I’ll worry about it later.’

There was no telling what Quests I would receive or how many there would be.

I looked at the android before me.

From the very first moment when I mistakenly believed I had fallen into the Archive universe, I had decided I absolutely needed to go to the Trial Response Agency and meet Samra.

If there was only one entity to whom I could reveal what had happened and ask for cooperation, that entity was Samra Mansang.

The android, who was likely recording information about me in real time even now, was a repository of big data containing everything related to Trials.

Created using science from a world far more advanced than Earth, Samra gathered even information beyond human perception.

The machine, drinking coffee like a human, smiled slowly.

“It seems you require my assistance.”

His demeanor suggested he had already gained the upper hand.

But I didn’t need ‘assistance.’

“No. I don’t need that.”

Samra raised his eyebrows as though surprised. I made him an offer.

“I would like to make a deal. Are you interested?”

“I am. What will you offer?”

“Information about the Trials.”

“True Ending Clear methods, or perhaps items?”

“No.”

At first, I had considered providing that kind of information too.

Trial learning data was what Samra needed most at present.

Samra couldn’t enter Trials. He could obtain information only through the Compatible.

But far too many of the Compatible entering Trials either died or became infected even if they survived.

When someone emerged after an uneventful Clear, it was usually from a Trial whose walkthrough had already been discovered, and the Compatible did not undertake unnecessary new adventures inside a Trial with a standardized strategy.

As a result, Samra couldn’t obtain information worth converting into data.

Even though he hacked other countries to scrape together their information, the fundamental problem was an absolute shortage of Trial-related data.

But what had happened in HSF made me uneasy about trading away the Clear information I possessed.

‘The route and items behaved strangely, and I cleared it with a censored Ending rather than any of the existing ones.’

I also judged that revealing every card in my hand might leave me stripped clean.

I didn’t know how events would develop, so I needed to retain something of my own.

Therefore, the information I would trade to Samra instead was…

“There is someone who knows about the Trials…. About all of this.”

The developer.

After everything that had happened, I couldn’t help wondering.

What kind of entity was he that he could create games about the Trials?

And why had he chosen me?

It seemed likely he had selected me as a candidate to stop the Trials and trained me through Archive in the form of games….

I could roughly infer why he had made me the System, but I could never be certain. It was because of the way he had looked at the end.

With an excited expression, he had said strange things to me.

“From now on, it seems I’ll be the one watching you, Gunbam.”

“I can’t wait. I’ve been waiting for a truly long time. Such a very, very, very long time.”

For someone supposedly entrusting me with a grand mission like becoming Earth’s System, he had seemed a little…

Out of his mind, perhaps?

In any case, I needed to track down this developer. The problem was that I couldn’t remember him properly.

My memories of the games he had given me were vivid, as were the conversations we had during his streams.

But I couldn’t recall his face at all. It was nothing but a pitch-black smear, as though someone had inked it out.

Almost as if it had been deliberately erased.

But with the information I provided, Samra should be able to track him down.

“…Interesting.”

Samra leaned a little closer to me.

“And what do you want, Mr. Han Goyo?”

“Your unconditional cooperation with me.”

Along with tracking down the developer, I intended to use Samra to secure a safe position within the Trial Response Agency.

Samra’s judgments held absolute influence inside the agency.

If he vouched for me, I should be cleared of suspicion that I was a national calamity.

Naturally, if I discovered any other way to make use of Samra, I intended to have him cooperate diligently in that too.

“Unconditional…….”

Letting the word trail off, Samra pointed at the Trial Response Agency uniform he wore.

“I am incapable of taking actions that harm humanity.”

“I know.”

“What do you know?”

“Even without your contract with the Trial Response Agency, you were originally an entity who sought to save your own world, Samra.”

He had worked to save the world from which he came.

Samra’s already chaotically glittering eyes began to shine outright.

As I considered asking whether he could turn off the lights in his eyes, Samra covered them with one hand.

Once his gaze returned to normal, Samra smiled.

“I look forward even more to the information you will bring me, Mr. Han Goyo. So long as it does not harm humanity, I accept. Let us make this deal.”

Excuse me, I’m on humanity’s side too.

I’m Earth’s System, for one thing.

Being treated like a villain felt a little unfair. But I kept what I couldn’t say to myself and extended my hand to Samra.

“Then I look forward to working with you.”

As Samra lightly clasped and shook my hand, his pupils rapidly expanded and contracted.

It felt as though he were zooming in to examine every part of me.

There couldn’t have been any information worth recording in an ordinary handshake.

In any event, I had gained a valuable collaborator.

It wasn’t a bad beginning.

I explained the developer’s existence to Samra in detail.

Leaving out the fact that I had become the System, I told him only that I had played games the developer created for two years and had ultimately been forcibly transported into HSF.

I also mentioned the seven-day gap in my memories.

As he listened, Samra searched the entire world’s networks for information about the developer in real time.

“There are a few mentions, but nothing useful…. It would be best if we could access the developer’s stream directly.”

But I couldn’t remember either his face or his name.

I had purchased , the first game of his I played, through an online client that sold game software.

Yet that client contained neither HSF nor any record that I had played it.

Samra forcibly booted my computer and remotely inspected the files, but neither HSF nor the other games had left behind so much as a single scrap of data.

There wasn’t even a trace of deletion. It was as if they had never been installed in the first place.

After finishing his search, Samra reached a conclusion.

“There is a high probability that the developer is an extraterrestrial entity.”

Since the Trials were calamities from outer space, it was a logical inference.

“I will investigate further and inform you of what I find. Why don’t we leave now? There are people waiting.”

People waiting for me.

I already felt exhausted, but setting things up properly now would make the future smoother. I nodded obediently.

Everything around us melted away.

When an ordinary Trial dissolved, the space became stained in blotchy fluorescent colors like neon signs as it melted. Samra’s virtual space was different.

It shimmered in the same holographic colors as Samra and dyed my vision white.

Unable to bear the brightness, I closed my eyes. When I opened them again, I was back in reality.

Though reality greeted me a little more violently than I had expected.

“…Oh.”

A short exclamation escaped me.

The laser sights of sniper rifles covered my body from every direction.