All manner of refuse came pelting down like hail, burying itself in the ground like flags.
Corpses of humans, beastkin, gnomes, and other demi-human races, along with monster carcasses.
Waste oil from magic-engineering machinery, residue left behind after refining Mana Stones, even excrement and food waste.
The land of Mekal Town was swiftly steeped in toxic miasma.
Naturally, the residents did not stand by and watch in silence.
This was the land where they had been born and raised.
Or perhaps it was the land where they had newly settled.
Those born without anyone’s blessing and those exiled for their crimes alike had willingly made this place their home.
They had to protect their home.
The residents fought against the illegal dumpers and the Scrap Merchants who backed them.
But it did not take long for their courage and fury to turn into screams and despair.
The Scrap Merchants used weapons embedded with Mana Stones.
Swords with blue energy raging over their blades sliced through flesh like paper and hacked even bone apart like dry branches.
Shields barely larger than pot lids easily blocked clubs swung by grown men, gathered the force of the impact, and hurled it back at them.
And so the residents were hacked apart and crushed, left strewn across the land like garbage that had been chopped up and compacted for easier disposal.
Their struggle.
No, their rebellion failed.
Mekal Town was reduced to a gigantic garbage dump, and at its center stood a hulking man known as the Scrap Lord, surrounded by dozens of Scrap Merchants who followed him.
But not even they were immune to the magical fallout and toxic fog.
Even breathing was difficult.
The Scrap Lord summoned renowned alchemists, magic engineers, and the highest-ranking Apothecaries and ordered them to solve the air pollution.
All they could produce were Gas Masks and Antidote Potions.
They were not eliminating the toxins, merely finding ways to endure them.
Rather than wait for the scholars to plead, ‘Please give us just a little more time!’, the Scrap Lord chose a physical solution.
He decided to build an enormous tower that would rise straight through the toxic layer of the atmosphere.
The problem was interference from the residents.
Critical materials disappeared, and supply routes were repeatedly cut off.
Eventually, the Scrap Lord gave the architects the bizarre order to use the refuse itself as building material.
Thus, the Scrap-Metal Tower was erected.
Its upper levels were fitted with a massive magical purification device that drew in fresh air from outside and forced the toxic miasma out of the lower levels.
Clean air circulated within the Scrap-Metal Tower.
It was not a satisfying result. Despite ruling Mekal Town, the Scrap Lord was forced to live imprisoned inside the Scrap-Metal Tower.
-Who would look at this life of mine and call me a victor…… Who would call me a lord!
His sanity eroded with each passing day.
Even the defeated residents mocked him from beyond the Scrap-Metal Tower, waving flags and candles.
-O Sewage Lord! Can you hear my voice!
-Scrap Princess! What are you doing hiding like a little girl! The air out here is niiiice~!
-You fucking idiot! You vermin trapped in your tower!
The Scrap Lord accumulated countless titles.The provocations never ended.
-Hey, Scrap Merchants! I heard you suck each other off?!
-I heard you rub Mana Stones against your asses for fun!
-We all know the Scrap Lord invented that! Let us try it too! Share some Mana Stones with us!
Naturally, it was all baseless bullshit.
But it was still irritating to hear.
And all of those cheap provocations always ended with the same conclusion.
-Pissed off? Then come out of your tower, dumbass! Let’s fight!
-You’re too scared of us to come out, aren’t you?! Just jerk off with your Mana Stones, you fucking worm!
-Scrap Princess! Want to borrow mine?! This thing works wonders!
-Come out of the tower and I’ll let you have me too! You fucking idiot! You couldn’t get any even if it was offered to you!
-KHAHAHAHAHAHA! You pathetic bastard~ You can’t come out, can you? Can you?!
The residents wanted to lure the Scrap Lord and the Scrap Merchants out of the tower.
They had already adapted to the toxic miasma…… no, they had resigned themselves to it.
They believed they stood a chance of fighting again if they could do it outside the tower.
It did not matter even if they lost.
Their lives had already been cast down to the lowest depths imaginable. There was nowhere lower left to fall.
Those with no future had nothing to fear.
The crude provocations continued until, at last, the Scrap Lord responded.
-Throw them all out.
He drove the incompetent scholars and architects out of the tower.
He did not simply throw them out.
He had them soaked from head to toe in water used to refine Mana Stones, then hurled them outside the Scrap-Metal Tower.
The scholars and architects, drenched in Mana, rampaged through Mekal Town while making animalistic cries.
By the time they regained their senses, corpses lay everywhere.
Their own mouths and hands were drenched in blood, flesh, and organs.
Their skin had turned a deep blue, and no hair grew anywhere on their bodies.
Every breath they took released toxic miasma and Mana.
Above all else, they had killed people.
They had killed people, and killed people.
They had killed so many people.
They had become monsters.
They could no longer return to their families.
Forced to confront that reality, the scholars and architects were steeped in demonic energy, poison, memories, blood, and guilt until they gradually descended into madness.
-You son of a biiiiiiitch!
-Come out! Come oooooout!
Their madness eventually turned toward the Scrap-Metal Tower.
The scholars and architects now moved not to reclaim their future, but to reclaim their past.
The residents hated and feared them, but still shared their cause.
They had one common goal.
To drag the Scrap Merchants and the Scrap Lord out of the tower.
[And reclaim Mekal Town.]
“…….”
Grid, who had disappeared after spouting some bullshit about being disillusioned or whatever, suddenly reappeared as though none of that had ever happened and began chattering away about the history of Mekal Town.
The overall course of the story matched what was written in the Guide, but the finer details of its background were entirely new to me.
None of this had been written in the Guide either.
‘But seriously…….’
Something this important, why, of all times, did they have to tell me……
“……W-why are you telling me this now? Couldn’t you, wait, until later? Haaah…….”
Deep inside a pit.
I had driven a red shovel into the ground and was leaning against it. My lungs and palms hurt as though they were about to tear apart.
“I lost track of his location because of you…….”
It had seemed too important to merely half-listen to, so I had focused on Grid’s story, only to realize at some point that I could no longer sense the fugitive’s location.
I tried to concentrate and locate him again, but the mutants inside Filth Park were beginning to Respawn, making it impossible to focus my Perception.
In the end, I widened the area I was digging.
But no matter how much dirt I shoveled away, I found nothing but more identical piles of earth, let alone the fugitive.
What made it even more despairing was how hard that earth was. It was absurdly hard. It felt less like shoveling and more like swinging a pickaxe.
“There’s no end to this. No end…….”
I lowered my head with a sigh.
The Luminous Stone attached to my headband illuminated the sweat dripping from me and the piles of dirt soaked through with it.
Looking at myself like this, I was the very picture of a miner.
‘Being a miner isn’t a job just anyone can do.’
Fuck this. I cannot do it anymore.
I leaned my back against one wall of the pit and deactivated 【Mana Manifestation】. The red shovel scattered like mist.
Then I gulped down the Mana Potions Parakel had given me along with the ones I had made myself. I felt a little more alive.
[I rebuke myself for having expected anything from you, even for a moment. You remain woefully inept at using ‘Perception,’ Akkun.]
“……Yeah, it’s my fault. It’s all because I’m lacking.”
[Maintain that attitude you just had, you ignoramus.]
“Shut up. So? What happened next?”
[That brings us to the Mekal Town you know.]
“What? Then this wasn’t actually a new story after all.”
[Then, one day, an incident occurred inside the Scrap-Metal Tower.]
I sighed inwardly and listened to the rest of the story.
[After the scholars and architects went berserk, the residents quieted down. The Scrap Lord quieted down along with them.]
These days, he never took so much as a single step outside the tower, merely living like a pig, stuffing himself with expensive food, sleeping, pissing, and shitting.
On the other hand.
[The Scrap Merchants are not afforded such a life.]
To prevent the possible emergence of another rebel force, they patrol every corner of Mekal Town each day, armed from head to toe in all manner of magic-engineering equipment.
Naturally, they are forced to witness the lives of the residents.
Their desperate, impoverished lives, and their deaths as well.
“What, did they start feeling guilty or something?”
[Their emotions were more complicated than that single word suggests, but you are not far from the essence of it. Some of the Scrap Merchants begged the Scrap Lord to at least allow the children into the tower.]
“How did he react?”
[────.]
“Right. Stupid question. Of course he didn’t even pretend to listen. I know.”
[He executed them.]
“…….”
[Only one man survived that large-scale purge. Although he agreed with the opinions of those who were executed, he never voiced them himself.]
Grid tilted the screen toward the ground.
[That hypocrite’s name is ‘Cain.’]
“Cain…… So he stole a Mana Stone and ran away to get back at the Scrap Lord.”
[Correct.]
“But…… wait. The order of events doesn’t make sense. Cain only escaped yesterday. How do you know about it?”
Grid was an entity who had lost their Administrator Privileges roughly three months ago and fallen to rock bottom.
Events that happened before then would be one thing, but there was no way they could know something that happened only yesterday in such vivid detail.
[Cain’s escape occurred six months ago.]
“What are you…… What?”
[The outcome was Cain’s defeat. The Scrap Lord imprisoned Cain afterward. From then on, he fed him only enough to keep him breathing and beat him only enough to keep him from dying. Personally, blow by meticulous blow, with the utmost care.]
……I understood why he had done it.
That was the only way Cain could serve as an example to the other Scrap Merchants.
But if the bastard was that cruel, why had he allowed Cain to escape again?
As far as I could tell, there were only two possible answers.
“The Scrap Lord must be the biggest fucking idiot alive.”
Grid did not answer.
“Or did one of the Scrap Merchants risk death to free Cain?”
[Both are wrong.]
“Then how did he escape?”
[In precisely the same manner as six months ago. Talk once again spread among the Scrap Merchants about letting the children into the tower, and those Scrap Merchants were executed. Cain alone survived, then stole the Mana Stone that serves as the Scrap-Metal Tower’s primary power source and symbol of military might before fleeing the tower.]
“Wait, I’m not following. So you’re saying…… an event from the past is being reenacted right now?”
[Correct. The System closely observed Cain’s struggle and adapted it into a Quest. Regardless of whether this struggle ends in defeat or revolution, another three months will pass and Cain will flee once again. Even after six months, he will flee again. Cain cannot escape that fate.]
“Then…… even before I arrived in Mekal Town.”
Back when I was struggling in Arche, and later when I was going through hell avoiding Players and Monsters in an attempt to enter Mekal Town.
[At that very moment, Cain escaped yet again, and the first Mekal Town Main Quest was presented to the Players. Cain was defeated then as well and imprisoned. The Players who participated in the Quest either received rewards according to the faction they chose or went home empty-handed. Only after that wave had passed did you set foot on the soil of Mekal Town.]
Grid tilted the screen and asked.
[Do you understand? A Quest represents the repetition of every tragedy and comedy. The conclusion of the second Main Quest may well depend on you.]
“…….”
[Have you fallen into a panic? Panic refers to a state of acute fear.]
“No…… It’s not that.”
The System had even turned the emotional rift between the old man and me into entertainment.
Cain’s story was merely an extension of that.
Amuse Online had never cared about the thoughts or emotions of NPCs in the first place. That was simply how it worked. There was no point getting angry or despairing over it now……
……I understood that much intellectually.
“Suddenly…… I’m kind of thirsty.”
Just as I had once been trapped in helplessness on the hill behind the village, Cain must have spent his time in that prison enduring a living hell.
And his hell had yet to end. It would never end for as long as he lived. Cain’s life was as cruelly twisted as mine, perhaps even more so.
‘Then again, how many NPCs are actually happy right now…… What is that?’
Something was glinting on the ground.
【Mana Manifestation】
I wrapped both hands in Mana as though putting on gloves, scooped away the dirt around it, and pulled the glinting object free.
It was a blue stone.
HMMMMMM-
The moment the stone touched the Mana surrounding my hand, it began trembling violently and scattering a faint blue glow in every direction.
“It’s a Mana Stone.”
[Prepare yourself.]
“Prepare for what…….”
I cut myself off.
A sense of wrongness.
A chill ran through my entire body.
My exhaustion vanished in an instant.
I pushed away from the wall and surveyed the pit.
Killing intent…… no, anger?
Who? Why? More importantly, from where?
I held my breath as I prepared to activate 【Mana Manifestation】.
RRRRRUMBLE-
The ground shook violently as though an earthquake had struck.
I was not surprised.
I had already sensed him.
I steadied myself and stared at the ground.
BOOOOM!
The earth exploded, opening an enormous hole. Through the gap.
“…….”
I saw a bloodshot eye.
“Mana, Stone…….”
The eye spoke.
It was a man’s voice, as deep and low as the pit I stood in.
“It, is-mine.”
No, it was closer to the growl of a Monster.
RUMBLE-
The ground collapsed with a roar.
Now I could see a human hand emerging through the gap. It was enormous enough to engulf my entire face in a single palm.
THUD-
The other hand suddenly burst out and planted itself against the ground. Then, like someone climbing over a wall, the creature slowly pulled its upper body through the enormous hole.
“Mana Stone, hand it over…….”
At last, he stood towering before me.
He was easily three heads taller than I was.
His massive, bulging muscles looked like a suit of armor. Veins protruded all across his body like parasites, writhing beneath his skin, and bizarrely enough, they were purple.
“Huff…… Huff…….”
He looked down at me, exhaling scorching breaths. He resembled a wild boar or a bear more than a human. A dark crimson screen appeared above his head.
【Character Codex: Fugitive Cain】
【He is a rebel of the Scrap-Metal Tower!】
【View Details】
“Hand, it-over-!”
WHOOOOSH!
He swung his massive fist.