The pit Cain had dug beneath Filth Park was about half the size of my workshop.
Right in the center of that spacious area stood a vertical sewer pipe with a hideous hole smashed through one side.
Cain had probably made his way down through that sewer pipe to the vicinity of Filth Park, smashed through one side of it with his bare hands, and then dug this tunnel.
And thus, this place had become—
【Hidden Map: Womb of Filth】
—A hidden location.
‘What is he, a mole or a cicada larva?’
I could not even bring myself to sigh.
I approached Cain, who had only just woken up.
“You bastard. Are you that desperate to die?”
“I don’t…… want to die.”
“Your words and actions do not match.”
You could barely even breathe properly in a place like this.
“It wouldn’t have been strange if you’d suffocated to death before I ever found you, you idiot.”
“But, this way, I can focus better.”
“By focus, do you mean this?”
I tossed a Mana Stone into the air in front of him and caught it again.
The instant I did, Cain’s hazy eyes snapped into focus, and his expression came alive.
“Mana Stone-!”
He shouted and thrust one thick arm toward me.
However—
CLAAAANG!
His arm stopped dead in midair.
【Mana Manifestation】
I had already wrapped red chains tightly around both of his arms and legs.
“Take! This off!”
“I’ll take it off once you calm down.”
“I am calm! Take it off-!”
“Do you not know what ‘calm down’ means?”
Maybe even a level 70 Paralytic Poison could not keep that massive body restrained for long, because his fingers were already beginning to twitch.
I moistened my throat with a Mana Potion and wiped my mouth.
“I already told you. I’m not here to capture you.”
“Tell me, who you are!”
“My name is Akkun, and I’m an NPC. At the same time, I’m a Player.”
“……Ak, en, play?”
“It sounds strange, doesn’t it? But I told you exactly what I am. I’m both an NPC and a Player. Of course, fundamentally, I’m a native of Amuse just like you.”
“How?”
“Do not ask how. It would take too long to explain. Just remember that such a thing is possible.”
Cain thought hard about it before reluctantly nodding. Fortunately, while his speech was clumsy, he did not seem exceptionally stupid.
“I’ll say it again. I’m not your pursuer. I’m not interested in your Mana Stones either. But I’m also not going to stand by and watch someone kill himself right in front of me.”
When I held the Mana Stone in front of his face, Cain’s Adam’s apple bobbed.
“Listen carefully. A Mana Stone is a monster’s heart. It is not something a human should be putting in his mouth.”
Cain had been devouring Mana Stones inside a pit where there was barely enough oxygen to breathe.
I had spent a while wondering why he would do such a thing…… but I still did not understand. Eating a monster’s heart was difficult to accept on a purely instinctive level.
“But, eating them, makes me stronger.”
“What lunatic told you that?”
“I saw it. Scrap-Metal Tower. They raise mutants, feeding them Mana Stones. They were strong. I could not beat them.”
Cain spoke as though he had already fought mutants before.
“Are you talking about the scholars and architects?”
The Scrap Lord had supposedly soaked them in water mixed with Mana Stone powder and then thrown them outside the Scrap-Metal Tower.
After transforming into monsters, they had lost their reason and massacred the residents, only to later sink into rage and regret.
Could those have been the mutants Cain had seen?
“They were mutants too. But weak. Stronger mutants. Live inside the tower. Even now. They are being made.”
“You’re saying they’re making mutants inside the tower?”
“I saw, how they do it. Beat them unconscious, inject Mana Stones.”
Cain stared at the Mana Stone in my hand.
“They said, that way, you feel the Mana Stone better. When I do not breathe, I can feel, the Mana Stone’s mana, better too.”
“So you deliberately starved your brain of oxygen?”
Cain nodded.
I had to consciously stop my jaw from dropping.
‘……I knew from the beginning that he wasn’t sane.’
He was even stranger than I had imagined.
Wait. Could he already be dead and merely acting according to his Character Profile?
“Cain. Say, ‘The Administrator is a fucking bastard.’”
“Administrator, fucking, bastard.”
“Say, ‘Grid is a fucking moron.’”
“The great? Crea, tor? Aren’t they?”
“Great, my ass. Curse them all you want.”
“Grid. Fucking, bas, tard. Mor, on.”
“Good.”
Cain’s soul was still intact.
[───.]
That was when my eyes met Grid’s black screen.
‘What the fuck do you want?’
[There is some logic to it.]
‘Yeah, you really are a bastard.’
[I mean Cain’s plan.]
‘That…….’
It was difficult to argue with that.
Cain said he had been consuming Mana Stones in order to awaken as a mutant. It looked absurd, but when I actually thought about it, it was not entirely idiotic.
If someone remained for a long time in an oxygen-poor place like the 【Womb of Filth】, the oxygen reaching the brain would decrease, forcing the body into a heightened state of alertness.
At the same time, the senses throughout the body would become sharper and more sensitive. The person would enter both a state of hyperarousal and an altered state of consciousness.
If someone consumed a Mana Stone in that condition, it certainly seemed possible that they might be able to perceive something more clearly.
‘I awakened to mana when those older guys from the neighborhood beat me until I was almost dead.’
I had even awakened as a Red Player when death was right in front of me, so I had no right to call Cain an idiot for what he was doing.
Still, this was only my hypothesis.
‘I want to know whether there are any similar precedents.’
[Long before you were born, Mages who made names for themselves on the Western Continent would enter coffins and deprive themselves of oxygen. Some even took poison to put themselves into a state of suspended animation.]
‘They could easily have died doing that.’
[Given the circumstances of that era, most who failed to awaken to mana were eventually killed by monsters or demons. What do you imagine happened to those who went onto the battlefield?]
So they did not have much of a choice.
I understood.
That certainly made sense in an era overrun by wars against demons.
But Cain—
“You do not need to do that.”
He looked at me in confusion.
Earlier, he had looked like a savage monster, but now he seemed almost absurdly guileless.
“I heard roughly what happened to you. You hated the Scrap Lord’s tyranny, right? You wanted to defy him. So before the Patch began, you started a rebellion, lost, and were imprisoned. Correct?”
“That is correct.”
“That incident is now being reenacted in the form of a Quest. Do you know that?”
Once three months ago.
And once right now.
Another three months from now.
Six months, nine months, a year, three years—and even after far more time than that had passed.
“Unless the System itself changes, the revolution you dream of will repeat forever. It has already been reduced to entertainment for the Administra…… the System. Do you know that too?”
“I know.”
“Then why are you trying so hard that you’re destroying your own body?”
Cain apparently did not understand, because his eyes wandered around. I grabbed his grass-short hair and forced him to look directly at me.
“What meaning is there in eating Mana Stones, becoming stronger, and taking revenge on the Scrap Lord?”
“What, mean? Difficult.”
“You have no freedom. Every action you take is controlled by the System and Quests. No matter how hard you try, no one will acknowledge it. The System will only laugh at you, and Players never considered you human in the first place. What about the other NPCs? How many of them do you think are even still alive?”
More than seventy percent of Mekal Town’s NPCs were already dead.
And that was only among the ones I had seen.
The real number might have been even higher.
“They won’t honor your sacrifice. They can’t. Eventually, they’ll all die and fall completely into being NPCs. They won’t even be capable of resisting. That’s what an NPC is.”
With every word I spoke, it felt as though dozens of nails were rolling around inside my mouth.
“Do you understand? You should…… feel insulted by this reality. You should be disgusted with this damned world that turns even your struggle into entertainment.”
It stung.
“Listen carefully. Do not obediently follow the System. Do the bare minimum. Do not try. Whether your rebellion succeeds or fails, everything will reset once enough time passes, so stop struggling. It does not mean anything anymore…….”
“I already, know.”
Cain’s speech remained clumsy, but his voice did not tremble in the slightest.
“But. My emotions do not belong to the System.”
“What, your desire to crush the Scrap Lord?”
“Yes. And. I will give the residents liberation.”
“You did not understand a single word I said. That is exactly what the System intends! The rebellion itself is part of the script! The Quest does not respect your will. Not at all! I’m telling you not to play along with it, you idiot!”
“Does not matter.”
Cain stared straight at me.
There was no longer any anger or hatred in his pupils.
Instead, I saw resolve.
Determination.
Cain spoke.
“The Quest is another chance to bring down the Scrap Lord.”
“……A chance?”
“Yes. I am grateful, to the System, for giving, a loser like me, another chance.”
At that moment, it felt as though something inside my head snapped.
Before I could even think, my mouth started moving on its own.
“You killed residents.”
“Yes.”
“You killed countless other people too, and stuffed your belly with all the food you received in return. And you dare speak of salvation with that filthy mouth? Someone like you?”
“I did not know, good and evil. I was never taught.”
“That does not mean what you did in the past can be forgiven.”
“This is, atonement. I will help them.”
“That’s hypocrisy.”
“It is the best, I can do.”
CLINK-
Cain slowly began to rise.
The red chains anchored to the floor and walls shone brightly as they tried to restrain him, but he did not stop.
“I cannot, undo it. I can still move forward.”
SCRAPE- SCRAPE-
Cain repeatedly stepped in place, trying to advance toward me. His two feet gouged the dirt floor, carving two thick lines through the soil.
“Do you not think it is already too late?”
“It is late. But.”
CRRACK-!
The wall and floor tore apart at once.
With chunks of dirt still clinging to the red chains trailing behind him, Cain carefully took the Mana Stone from my hand.
“Of the time, I have left.”
THUD.
He dropped heavily onto the floor and met my gaze.
A blue light swirled within his pupils.
“This is the earliest.”
GULP-
He swallowed the Mana Stone in one bite, then crawled through the pit toward the pile of Mana Stones.
THUD.
He planted his enormous backside there and began crunching through dozens of Mana Stones.
The more he ate, the more violently the veins spread across his body writhed, and a low growl like that of a wounded wild animal began to emerge from Cain’s throat.
Occasionally, his body even convulsed.
Even so, Cain did not stop.
It had nothing to do with his Character Profile.
It had nothing to do with the Quest interfering.
Cain himself wanted revenge.
And he wanted atonement.
I quietly stared at his broad, thick back.
He looked foolish.
Hopelessly, endlessly foolish.
He would probably remain foolish from now on too.
I had not known Cain for long, but figuring him out was not particularly difficult.
‘…….’
Understanding Cain was not particularly difficult either.
‘Grid.’
[────]
‘If he eats any more Mana Stones over there, the Main Quest starts, right?’
[To be precise, it begins the moment he becomes a mutant.]
‘What if I stop him before that?’
[You can delay its beginning for a while.]
‘……I see.’
I approached Cain.
“Hey.”
The moment he turned his thick neck toward me, I kicked him in the back and crouched beside him.
“You win.”
“I, win?”
“Yeah. You win.”
“Is that good?”
“Of course it is. Because starting now, the best Apothecary in Mekal Town is helping you.”
“I cannot give you food.”
“I do not need it. Instead, give me information about the Quest.”
Cain had already experienced the Main Quest once.
He should know what Quest would unfold next and what had to be prepared for it.
With that information, it would not be difficult for me to claim every reward before anyone else.
“Cain, this is something only you can do.”
“Understood.”
“Good. We have a deal.”
I held out my hand for a handshake, but Cain only stared blankly at it without taking it.
Embarrassed, I withdrew my hand.
“……Apparently, if you keep eating those, the Quest will start.”
“Yes. I have to awaken, as a mutant. To do that, I have to eat Mana Stones. CRUNCH- CRUNCH-”
“If you mindlessly keep stuffing yourself with Mana Stones, you’re going to die.”
“Either way. If I lose, I die. GULP! Last time, I almost died too. Ahem! Almost. Died. There is no other way. Even if I have to do this. I have to win.”
“Of course there’s another way. You just do not know it.”
“Does Akkun know a way?”
“No.”
I knew about medicinal ingredients, but I did not know much about Mana Stones.
In truth, I did not know all that much about mana itself either, nor did I know the exact process by which mutants were created.
I could only make vague guesses.
And storming the Scrap-Metal Tower to learn how to create a stable mutant was not something I could do right now…… which left only one possibility in my mind.
“Stop doing anything weird for a while and wait here. I’ll bring someone who researches Mana Stones. You can keep eating them after that.”
“Who?”
“You know him too.”
Cain thought for a moment, then smiled faintly as though he understood.
“Oh, right. Take these.”
I pulled five pieces of hard rye bread and a large strip of jerky from my Inventory and tossed them to him.
“If you get thirsty, drink this. Take these with water too.”
I tossed him three leather waterskins, along with some Antibiotics, Deworming Medicine, and several Sedatives.
“……Food?”
Cain’s eyes wavered, as though he suspected I might have poisoned it.
“Do not worry. It is clean.”
“Food is precious. Supplies are valuable.”
“Uh…… I suppose they are?”
“Akkun, knows food is precious.”
“What are you trying to say?”
“Why are you sharing food?”
“Because your stomach has been making a racket.”
Cain’s stomach had been growling for some time now.
“Instead of chewing on Mana Stones whenever your mouth gets bored, eat the bread and jerky.”
“……Precious food.”
“The medicine is even more valuable, so take all of it before I come back. I’ll check when I return.”
I stepped into the sewer pipe inside the Hidden Map, the Womb of Filth.
The hole was so large that I did not even need to lower my head or bend at the waist.
As I climbed the ladder inside the sewer pipe, I felt someone watching me from below.
It was Cain.
“What are you looking at?”
“I will. Eat the food. Well.”
“Go ahead.”
I resumed climbing the ladder.
Cain kept his head poked into the sewer pipe as he watched me.
His gaze was so deep and lingering that it was almost creepy.
‘Why is he looking at me like that?’
In any case, I made my way through the maze-like sewer pipes.
Eventually, I reached a point where the quality of the air changed.
Instead of the stench of rotten water, the air reeked of sharp chemicals and the sour odor of cheap explosives.
Before long, I spotted an iron door with a crudely painted red skull on it.
CREEAK, CREEEEAK-
I turned the handle and opened the door.