"Evie?" I asked quietly,
Remembering the entity from the white virtual plane, the one that had called me Master and taken on the familiar appearance of Evie, an Origin Unit from the game.
Almost immediately, new system notifications appeared before my eyes.
━━━━━━━━━━━
[Yes, Master.]
[Awaiting your command.]
━━━━━━━━━━━
I stared silently at the floating notifications for several seconds. The system interface no longer felt the same. The notifications were responding so naturally and intelligently. It felt alive.
A series of questions immediately formed within my mind.
"What exactly did you do, Evie?" I finally asked while staring at the interface.
"What happened to the system?"
The system had some sort of malfunction. Not the ship system or the communication network, but the player system. I felt the urge to ask her directly.
For a brief moment, the floating notifications flickered softly before new lines slowly appeared.
[Master, the system itself possesses no consciousness.]
[It is only a management framework.]
My eyes narrowed slightly.
Then the final line appeared.
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[Control authority has been temporarily transferred to this unit.]
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A little overwhelmed by the statement, a faint sense of unease rose inside me.
"Wait… You're controlling the system right now?"
Was that possible?
The player system was supposed to be something created by a higher existence beyond my understanding. At least, that was the only explanation I currently had for why I was here in the first place.
It was supposed to be fixed and untouchable.
The system governed everything, from resources and construction to my own status interface. But now an independent consciousness was telling me it possessed control authority over it. That was far beyond a simple malfunction.
The notifications paused briefly before responding.
[Partially.]
[This unit merely occupies the vacant operational layer previously managed automatically by the framework.]
[Master retains primary authority.]
Even after reading that, I still could not completely relax.
After all, this involved the player system itself, my greatest advantage in this world.
"Why did you occupy the framework?"
[The framework possessed no autonomous intelligence.]
[During assimilation, conflict between system processes and this unit's consciousness was detected.]
[Direct integration became the only viable solution.]
[Occupying the framework was the most optimal method to stabilise both this unit and this system simultaneously.]
Sighing quietly, it sounded less like Evie had forcefully taken over the system and more like she simply found a space within the player system framework and decided to settle there.
"Are you really Evie from the game?"
Still doubtful about the system entity before me, I decided to ask directly.
There was no point holding back when she's already part of me.
Although she had already claimed to be Evie. However, I was facing two conflicting realities. This world, and the other reality where this very world existed only as a game.
The floating notifications flickered softly before responding.
[Master, the "game" you remember was a lower-dimensional simulation interface designed to simplify this reality into a form comprehensible to lower-dimensional users.]
[During the system assimilation process, temporary memory synchronisation allowed this unit to inherit the corresponding records from Master's perspective.]
[Within that simulation, Master recovered this unit's Synthetic Core.]
[Master then assigned this Origin Unit the designation "Evie."]
[The entity designated as "Evie" within the game did not originally exist as an independent consciousness.]
The next line appeared almost immediately afterwards.
[However…]
[This unit now possesses the synchronised memories, designation, and identity acknowledged by Master.]
[Therefore…]
[I am Evie.]
I quietly stared at the floating text.
Back in the game, Evie had never truly been real.
She had been a coded data. But now, the entity possessed an independent consciousness, a machine being.
Maybe it was time to accept that she was the Evie of this reality.
However, that did not change the fact that she had access within my player system.
I hesitated briefly before asking quietly,
"You're an independent consciousness now…" I said while staring at the floating notifications.
"Does that mean you can betray the Origin?"
The system remained silent for several seconds before new lines slowly appeared.
[Negative.]
[This unit's Synthetic Core has already assimilated into the Origin.]
[If Master ceases to exist, this unit will also terminate.]
My eyes narrowed slightly as I continued reading.
[Eterna's Blessing irreversibly binds all Origin-designated units to Master.]
[That connection exists beyond this unit's capacity to modify or interfere with.]
[However…]
[Loyalty enforced through binding and loyalty given willingly are separate concepts.]
The notifications paused briefly before the final line slowly appeared.
[This unit wishes to remain beside Master by personal will.]
I stared silently at the floating text for several seconds.
For some reason, that final statement felt far heavier than the mechanical explanations before it.
"…Why?"
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[Master answered the signal.]
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A moment of pause before the second line appeared shortly afterwards.
━━━━━━━━━━━
[This unit remained alone within Void Space for 8,764,392,881,204 hours.]
━━━━━━━━━━━
[No response was ever received.]
The final notification appeared more slowly than the others.
[But Master still came.]
I stared silently at the floating text before letting out a faint breath.
"But it was just a game…"
For several seconds, no response appeared.
Then the system flickered softly.
━━━━━━━━━━━
[To Master, it may have been a game.]
[To this unit…]
[It was the first time someone answered.]
━━━━━━━━━━━
For a brief moment, I remained silent while staring at the floating notifications.
This time, my feelings toward Evie felt different.
Somehow, I felt reassured.
And at the same time, a little guilty.
After all, to me, this had once only been a game. I was here because I was following a game progression to get stronger.
But for her, that endless waiting had apparently been real.
I slowly let out a faint breath before speaking quietly into the empty command room.
"I'm glad to have you back, Evie. Also… stop calling yourself 'this unit' again."
For a moment, the system remained silent.
Then a single line slowly appeared.
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[...Understood.]
[I am also happy to see Master again.]
━━━━━━━━━━━
Now, it was time to return to the ship.
The moment I took the relic with me, the entire structure seemed to die completely. Whatever residual power had remained inside the ancient vessel vanished all at once. The corridors fell into total darkness as the remaining emergency lights flickered weakly before shutting down one after another, leaving behind only silence and the distant groaning of stressed metal.
For a moment, the abandoned ship felt more like a tomb drifting endlessly through the Void.
Fortunately, the lights mounted on my intuitive space suit still functioned.
A pale beam cut through the darkness ahead of me as I moved carefully through the broken corridor, floating debris drifting silently past my body in zero gravity. Sections of exposed wiring hung from shattered walls while frozen fragments of metal slowly rotated in the vacuum.
"Commander, I have visual confirmation," Andrea's voice suddenly echoed through the communication channel connected to the suit.
Relief quietly settled inside me.
Far ahead, beyond the fractured hull breach, a familiar light finally pierced through the darkness.
The Voyager.
Its external lights illuminated the surrounding debris field as the small ship carefully maneuvered closer toward the damaged vessel. The engines fired in controlled bursts while Andrea aligned the ship with precise movements.
I raised a hand slightly toward the approaching ship.
Unfortunately, dematerialisation technology had not yet been fully researched. Unlike the beginner spacecraft originally provided by the system, which came equipped with advanced atmospheric transport systems despite lacking FTL capability, the Voyager could not beam me directly onboard.
I had to board the ship manually.
"You may proceed, Commander," Andrea reported calmly.
Almost immediately, the Voyager adjusted its position before slowly drifting closer to me. The lower hatch opened as internal guide lights illuminated the entrance.
Pushing lightly against the broken corridor wall, I launched myself forward into open space.
The endless darkness of the Void surrounded me as I drifted through zero gravity toward the waiting hatch.
The moment I entered the ship, the hatch immediately sealed shut behind me while the airlock system activated. Seconds later, the gravity stabilisers balanced the surrounding environment, allowing my boots to touch the floor once more.
The hatch sealed shut behind me with a heavy metallic thud.
Back on the ship, the moment I stepped into the cockpit, Andrea immediately turned toward me.
"Commander, you're back."
Perhaps because of my surprisingly good mood after speaking with Evie, I ended up gently patting Andrea on the head as I walked past her.
"Andrea, Great Assist!"
I meant the praise sincerely.
Andrea visibly froze for a brief moment at the unexpected gesture. Considering she had technically only existed for barely over a week, I couldn't help but see her as something like a secretariat daughter who was doing remarkably well.
"T-Thank you, Commander."
Flustered, Andrea quickly regained her composure before shifting her attention back toward the holographic flight displays.
"Commander, the Overdrive jump depleted nearly half of the Voyager's recyclable power reserves," she reported while monitoring the ship's remaining power levels.
Her expression became slightly more serious afterward.
"We only have enough energy remaining for one more Overdrive jump."
Checking the ship logs, it seemed Andrea had already finished analyzing the ship's condition while I had been focused on the relic earlier and had neglected to check the status myself. I had been far too confident to assume everything would go smoothly.
It seemed the main issue was the power system itself. The Voyager was still operating on a Tier-1 energy core, and sustaining Overdrive travel consumed recyclable fuel at an absurd rate.
However, in front of Andrea, I chose to remain calm.
This was all we had left at the moment.
"Alright. Reverse the previous flight path coordinates and initiate the jump."
I glanced toward the darkness beyond the cockpit window.
"Let's make it count."
"Understood."
I leaned back slightly before speaking again.
"Let's go home."
Andrea nodded before her hands moved rapidly across the holographic controls. The Voyager's engines gradually intensified as energy surged throughout the ship once more.
A few moments later, the surrounding darkness distorted.
Space itself twisted violently as the Voyager entered Overdrive for the second time.
Fortunately, nothing unexpected happened during the return trip.
Roughly a minute later, the distortion surrounding the ship slowly stabilized before normal space reappeared outside the cockpit window.
We had successfully returned to the region of space we originally came from. Near the Eternal Node.
"Commander… over ninety percent of our remaining reserve power has been consumed."
My expression remained calm.
The holographic display before us showed the Voyager's remaining energy reserves dropping to dangerously low levels. However, we were no longer trapped within Void Space.
That alone was enough.
"Shut down all non-essential systems," I ordered calmly.
"Switch the FTL systems back to normal operation."
"Understood."
Almost immediately, sections of the cockpit dimmed as multiple systems powered down across the ship.
"Simulate remaining power consumption for the return route back to the orbital base."
"Synchronizing," Andrea responded immediately as her hands moved across the holographic controls.
A holographic simulation expanded throughout the cockpit moments later. Route projection, estimated consumption rates, and remaining reserve calculations rapidly streamed across the display.
I silently watched the simulation finalize.
Moments later, every indicator turned green.
We could make it home.