“An- an Executor?”
The guard’s voice trembled uncontrollably. The men who had been glaring at me with murderous intent only moments ago now forced themselves to look away.
To them, an Executor was not merely ‘some government official.’
Within the setting of Salus, the City of Law, Executors were akin to grim reapers who could claim lives in the name of the law.
I smiled coldly, savoring their bewilderment, and spoke.
“There is such a provision in the laws of Salus. Have you heard of the clause entitled ‘Unannounced Audit of Unauthorized Stockpiles Threatening Public Safety’?”
Naturally, mere street thugs like them could not possibly have known such an obscure legal provision.
I simply believed that restraining my presence alone would not be enough to convince them.
“I-I thought everything had already been settled with the University……!”
“Explain yourself.”
“Eek!”
When I threatened them in a cold, subdued voice, the effect carried by the title of ‘Executor’ finally began to show. They merely trembled and released hoarse noises that sounded like screams.
“How intriguing. Are you claiming that the University stands above the authority of the law? I believe I made myself clear. I have come to conduct an official audit in my capacity as an Executor.”
I walked until I was directly in front of one of the guards, paused for a breath, and continued.
“I will decide whether cleaning is necessary only after opening the lid of this garbage bin. If you cooperate fully with the investigation…… Well, who knows? Perhaps mitigating circumstances will be taken into account.”
I muttered those words and lightly patted the guard’s shoulder.
“Otherwise, you may submit yourselves to summary judgment.”
The guards on either side exchanged nervous glances before finally lowering their weapons and pleading with me.
“P-Please spare us, Executor, sir!!”
“Wh-What do we have to do for you to consider mitigating circumstances, sir?!”
The guards immediately became servile.
Their attitude made it clear that nothing mattered to them as long as they preserved their own lives.
Frankly, they were behaving sensibly.
Had I been powerless, I might have done the same in their position.
“Open the way before my patience exceeds its statutory limit.”
When I delivered a sufficiently convincing line, the guards finally stepped aside.
Beyond the warehouse’s iron doors, which opened with a heavy metallic groan, the sharp scent of disinfectant mingled with the stench of rotting Ink.
* * *
The warehouse interior was far more desolate than it had appeared from outside.
Steam pipes of the sort one would expect to see only at the University were embedded throughout the ceiling, circulating something through the building. A clear liquid the color of the night sky flowed through transparent glass tubes.
‘This is grotesque beyond belief.’
It felt somewhat different from the ‘Sewer Rats’ Warehouse’ I remembered from Gray Judgment.
It was not as though the game had lacked mechanics that altered an area’s interior layout in this manner.
‘…… Something feels wrong?’
The place had changed like a living organism adapting itself to the course of the story.
In the game, the Sewer Rats’ Warehouse had roughly three possible routes.
The first was the most traditional Raider Route. Under that route, it truly resembled a gang’s warehouse, filled with the atmosphere of a bandit stronghold.
The second was the Erosion Route.
In that version, the place became a madhouse where Lawbreakers driven insane by Ink corruption mingled with The Guilty and the raiders after encountering the bosses of the Court.
The third and final one was the White Forbidden Zone Route.
‘A route that opened only after certain conditions were fulfilled.’
However, the requirements for the Forbidden Zone were unlocked only during repeat playthroughs.
More importantly, the probability of the Sewer Rats’ Warehouse being so closely connected to the University at this point was practically nonexistent.
It was absurd enough that an institution like the University would make use of the slums, and the two locations were far apart.
Neither this scenery nor a scenario involving a University researcher permanently stationed here and conducting biological experiments had ever appeared in the original game.
“This seems worse than a faulty patch.”
Under normal circumstances, this area’s boss should have been a revolting creature whose body had become bloated after being poisoned by Ink.
If not that, he should have been a man consumed by greed who ruled as the king of the back-alley raiders.
‘The University Route never appeared, not even in Hardcore Mode.’
I had suspected something along these lines, but who could have imagined that the timeline would change in a direction entirely unknown to me?
The Sewer Rats’ Warehouse was merely an early-game dungeon intended for gathering equipment.
I had never experienced a scenario in which a senior University researcher became involved with a place like this.
……Then again, by that logic, Ravenwood suddenly appearing at my first shelter had also been strange.
‘Hmm.’
I had expected a certain degree of change, but was this not going too far?
Being forced into conflict with the University this early was no different from thrusting my head into a lion’s jaws.
‘……This is exhausting.’
Even so, I could not refuse.
Whether sooner or later, this was a problem that would have to be resolved.
Nevertheless, the inexplicable sense of wrongness continued to gnaw at my mind.
It gave rise to a reasonable suspicion that someone might be forcibly twisting the story.
Otherwise, perhaps the true depths of the world—things that had remained invisible from outside the game—had changed because of the variable known as ‘me.’
“AAAAAARGH!!”
Another scream struck my eardrums.
The Sewer Rats’ Warehouse had originally been spacious, but perhaps the University’s involvement had caused it to shrink. The sound seemed to reverberate through the inside of my skull.
Every step I took filled the space with the sound of the floor scraping beneath me.
SCRAPE, SCRAPE.
The powerful smell of chemicals rose around me, as though the entire facility had been disinfected.
People were suspended inside test tubes filled with greenish liquid.
That was not all.
I also saw people whose limbs and other body parts had been replaced with mechanical components, leaving them looking like grotesque specimens mounted for display.
‘This is a torture chamber.’
Anyone witnessing this sight might have mistaken the genre entirely.
Perhaps the thick chemical odor had been intended to conceal the metallic stench of blood.
‘Hmm. No matter how I consider it, this is suspicious.’
I continued deeper inside, but the place differed from every other facility I knew.
The guards stationed outside were apparently meant to repel intruders, yet despite the University’s involvement, there were no Automatons or similar defenses in sight.
The absence of such basic safeguards filled me with a strange unease, while the red-tinted lights disturbed my thoughts.
Steam erupted several times with a HSSSS― before someone muttered to himself.
“Did I not clearly order everyone to enter the laboratory in clean clothing? I also told you not to disturb me. I believe I mentioned that I would be adjusting the concentration of the Stasis Reagent.”
At the center of the Sewer Rats’ Warehouse, a man quietly filled out a chart while repeatedly mixing reagents, speaking as though thoroughly annoyed.
He knew I was there, but did not bother turning to look at me.
Experimentation appeared to be everything to him, and the eyes behind his glasses seemed to shine with an insatiable hunger for knowledge.
“I find myself wondering why a dog of the Administrative Law Bureau has come all the way here. Should you not be more concerned with resolving the situation outside?”
……It was difficult to determine what sort of person he was from his profile alone.
He continued combining reagent solutions with complete composure and indifference, apparently absorbed in his experiment.
“Do not interfere. We must…… finally free ourselves from Ink. Laws imposed by force have limited utility. Salus must embrace change. This undertaking stands above the law itself, for it exists to advance humanity.”
Despite his words, the laboratory told an entirely different story.
A small pair of shoes that appeared to belong to a child.
Body parts taken from beasts that lived beyond Salus.
Countless other indescribable traces filled the area.
I felt as though my reason might snap.
More precisely, the fragments of things that no human being should ever tolerate were assembling themselves within my mind.
‘This was the man.’
The one Ravenwood had mentioned—the University researcher conducting experiments on the Stasis Phenomenon.
A man who had only ever been mentioned in the game.
Someone I had never properly encountered.
“……Simon Iceberg.”
“Oh, you know about me? For a moment, you became slightly more interesting than my experiment.”
He said so without sparing me even a glance.
Whether he had spoken because he was genuinely surprised or merely because he found my knowledge of him curious seemed irrelevant to him.
“You could at least put some effort into your lies. Ignoring someone standing in front of you like that is remarkably rude, don't you think?”
“This work is more valuable to me than your existence.”
Simon answered casually as he mixed the reagents.
Then he turned toward the operating table behind him, drew what appeared to be a surgical scalpel from his clothes, and cut downward without the slightest hesitation.
A pure white sheet covered the operating table.
However, vivid crimson had spread across its surface.
He repeated the action several times in a manner resembling butchery before extracting something with a pair of forceps.
“It has been extremely troublesome. The city has descended into slaughter and plunder, while the law has already become distorted. The people will continue to lose their minds. What, then, should we do? The answer is simple.”
His busy hands finally stopped, and he snapped his fingers.
“We need only imprison those who have been slowly rotting within the boundaries known as law in eternal Stasis! We will not depend upon clouded Ink. Is surviving within the eternity of a frozen timeline not the truest form of salvation!!”
……He poured out his logic at great length. It sounded reasonably convincing on the surface, yet there was also something brutish about the way he forced it upon me.
Regardless, I had no intention of understanding him.
“To think I would have the honor of hearing the renowned theory of Professor Simon Iceberg firsthand. I am overcome with emotion.”
I applauded lightly as though agreeing with him.
Only then did Simon finally turn his gaze toward me.
“Oh, ohhh……! At last, at long last! Has an Executor who understands me finally appeared? Every last one of them, without exception…… They all ignored the theories I devised. But finally!”
Simon stopped what he was doing, his expression overflowing with delight.
He spread his arms wide, reveling in my reaction itself.
He behaved as though this was the first time an Executor had ever spoken to him that way.
That was probably true.
Most characters designated as Executors or Magistrates valued discipline and principle far more highly than I did.
Even as empty flattery, what I had said made me thoroughly unqualified as a civil servant of Salus.
“However, Professor, you are presently committing a serious violation of the law. Regarding the slums…….”
“How inefficient. I did not expect you to be the same, but it appears you intend to embarrass the person who placed his expectations on you after all.”
Simon interrupted me and released a sigh deep enough to sink the ground.
He casually pushed aside the objects he had been experimenting with and rose to his feet.
“Nothing changes because you speak without taking action.”
He began berating me as though condemning my very existence.
For a brief moment, Simon’s presence was powerful enough to make me feel overwhelmed.
‘How should I answer that?’
I had always considered myself a reasonably articulate streamer, yet when confronted with a statement like that, I could not help considering how best to respond.
What could I say that would be both logical and capable of decisively countering his argument?
“Efficiency…… Professor Simon Iceberg, you are laboring under one grave misconception.”
After a moment of thought, I gave a quiet, incredulous laugh and answered him.
His madness-filled eyes remained fixed upon me, but I ignored them and took a step forward.
“You called ‘stasis’ salvation. You claimed that escaping the clouding of Ink and imprisoning oneself within an eternal timeline represented progress. However, that is nothing more than an escape far more contemptible than the empty theorizing you despise so deeply.”
I pressed forward without giving him even a moment to respond.
If my opponent presented an argument first, I merely had to destroy it with my own reasoning as thoroughly as possible.
“Sophistry! Salus will fall if matters continue as they are. We must change so that we are not rendered obsolete! Why can you not see that? Why do you refuse to understand??”
Simon’s pupils trembled briefly.
I had plenty that I wished to say to him, so I lightly cleared my throat and spoke.
“Very well. I will begin my rebuttal. I will even explain the flaws you have failed to recognize.”
I raised my sword, pointed it at Simon, and spoke.
The System responded.
[Objection initiated.]