Chapter 66

Chapter 66.

I returned home with the parts I had “borrowed” from Happy and Yeriche.

And the most urgent thing right now was this.

Holy water.

Using holy water as a base, then mixing in several material items that could be easily obtained from the Marketplace and combining them in various ways…

A round, dumpling-shaped consumable item was completed in no time.

It was an “Anchor Stone,” made with the exact same mixture and the exact same manufacturing method as in Lost Honor.

Using the same method, I also made a “Link Stone,” which was needed for teleportation.

‘I did knead it into the shape I knew at the very end… so it should have worked properly, right?’

“Create Anchor.”

[Would you like to designate your current location as an anchor?]

‘It works.’

The notification window I had seen when I used it earlier, [An Anchor Stone is required], was skipped. Instead, a prompt asking whether I wanted to designate the location as an anchor appeared.

My current location was inside my room.

If I pressed “Yes” here, this place would become an “anchor,” and from then on, using a Link Stone would teleport me to this location.

I pressed “Yes.”

Naturally, this room, where all my infrastructure was concentrated, had to be my first base.

[What would you like to name this anchor?]

“Home.”

WHUM—

With a heavy vibration, a huge, complex golden magic circle unfolded, filling the air inside the room.

The outer edge of the magic circle spun like gears as it precisely scanned the room’s three-dimensional coordinates. Then, as if sinking into the floor, it vanished without a trace with a FLASH!

‘Is it done?’

Since the anchor had been installed, I decided to check the means of transportation as well.

I went up to the rooftop.

“Link.”

[Where would you like to link?]

[1. Home]

“So that is how it works.”

I lightly touched “1. Home.”

FSSSH—

The Link Stone in my hand melted into golden particles of light.

The particles seemed to circle through the air and scan my body shape. Then they began wrapping around my entire body without leaving a single gap.

WHUM—!

The particles of light vibrated as if resonating, and my vision flashed as brightly as a camera flash.

I reflexively closed my eyes. For a split second, I felt my body float into the air.

When I opened my eyes, I was inside my room.

“…Oh. Whitey, how long did it take to get here from the rooftop just now?”

[It took exactly 2.8 seconds.]

“That is fast.”

I went back up to the rooftop and tested a few more things.

When I stretched one arm slightly into the air, the particles of light surrounding me trembled as if they had been startled.

Then, as if absolutely refusing to allow any part of my body to leave the barrier, they hurriedly scurried over and swiftly wrapped around the exposed skin.

There was something cute about that desperate yet dainty movement.

‘It would be difficult to use this during urgent combat.’

Cute was cute, but… it was slow and inefficient.

If I moved violently while the particles of light were wrapping around me, the link was either canceled or delayed.

It seemed I would have to use it only in safe places.

“Assessment complete.”

With that, I finished testing the first new feature, “Anchor and Link.”

Next came something important.

“Heh heh… heh heh heh.”

This was today’s main dish.

Terminal expansion!

It was the laptop upgrade for that purpose.

When I activated Terminal Expansion, an alert appeared: [Which terminal will you install the “world” on?]

I took out a black laptop.

“Nice to meet you, Level 1 laptop.”

I had asked Kang Hyojun to prepare the “toughest one” among all currently existing laptops.

It was a sleek machine with a black body, luxurious LED lines embedded in it, and a stylish silver inverted-triangle logo engraved in the center.

It was a Genovo laptop, famous even before the Tower appeared for being cheap, sturdy, and heavy, that some mad scientist had heavily modified.

Since it was an item from the pre-Hunter era and had been chosen purely for durability, its performance was miserable.

If it were measured by Hunter rank, it would be F-rank.

However, this one would become…

An EX-rank Hunter. No, something beyond that!

It was destined to become the king of laptops.

“From now on, your name is Note. B. Luffy.”

Please become the freest laptop in the world, unbound by the limits of any component.

I selected Note-B-Luffy, or Nopi for short, as the terminal.

[Scanning]

BZZT—

A flat, intense blue light shot out from the message window like a barcode reader and swept over my entire laptop from top to bottom.

WHIRR—

Even though I had not pressed the power button, the laptop turned on by itself, and the sound of the fan began to spin…

WHIIIIIR!

“Huh?”

Just as I thought it had started, the fan suddenly began screaming.

“Wh-what is this?”

VRRRRRR!

The laptop trembled as if it might explode at any moment, and my heart began trembling as well.

“No! My Nopi!!”

Afraid that the main body might explode, I urgently mashed the close button on the holographic system window.

But my fingers only cut through empty air. It had no effect at all.

Meanwhile, Nopi went beyond screaming and began shuddering as if it were absolutely furious.

“Calm down, Nopi!”

I hurriedly opened the laptop to force it to shut down, only to find that the screen was glowing bright blue.

And on it, written in large golden letters, were the words:

[Installing the world.]

I tried touching the touchpad and tapping the screen, but there was no “Cancel” button anywhere.

With my heart in my throat, I watched over Nopi.

[Installation complete.]

“Phew.”

Nopi had endured it.

‘As expected of the one who will become the king of laptops.’

After the final notification, Nopi calmed down again.

Once it returned to normal, Nopi obediently displayed the desktop.

And there, on the desktop, was exactly one thing.

The Lost Honor icon had appeared.

Click, click.

When I operated the pad and launched Lost Honor…

DUN-DUN!

The login proceeded normally along with a grand BGM.

The difference from when I launched it on the PC was…

[Who are you?]

“What is with this overly solemn question?”

Against the background of Lost Honor’s start screen, a strange question had appeared with crackling noise, as if the text itself had become corrupted.

“I am Ha Seong-un.”

[Ha Seong-un]

After typing that simply and pressing Enter, an hourglass indicating loading popped out and began spinning round and round.

“Is this how account authentication works?”

[Earth-94th Floor-ID: Ha Seong-un]

[Is this you?]

[1. Yes] [2. No]

“Yes, that would be me.”

When I pressed “Yes,” the screen changed.

It was the familiar login window.

Nebula’s appearance came into view.

I clicked it to log in, and while that was happening, I checked the PC.

[Connection confirmed from another terminal.]

Along with that message, I saw the game shut down.

On the laptop, the hourglass was spinning round and round again.

[Checking terminal status]

[CPU: F]

[GPU: F]

[RAM: F]

[SSD: F]

[Motherboard: F]

[Power Supply: F]

[Cooling: F]

“That is horrible.”

Heroes who had just left the starting village were always like that.

Do not be disappointed, Nopi.

The login was completed.

However…

“…What is this?”

The screen was grotesque.

A black lump of clay that looked… somewhat like Nebula stood there blankly.

Nebula’s full-body armor, which should have possessed a beautiful, gloomy sheen, had turned into something like a crushed black oil drum.

The hideout, which should have been magnificent, had also stopped loading properly and had collapsed into murky cement blocks.

The NPCs in the hideout looked like wax figures melted in a microwave. They moved around while stuttering and lagging, as if their frames were dropping.

[You have returned, Guardian!]

Only the clear voice of the NPC Atier, coming from a gray lump of paper clay whose facial features had been crushed beyond recognition, was still intact.

“…This is serious.”

My Lost Honor, which had delighted my eyes with lifelike graphics, had turned into the result of a child’s clay play.

“No! What I can see is not important. What matters is that I can connect from a new terminal.”

I forced myself to look away and clicked the skill window.

…

“Why is it not opening?”

Only after I repeatedly tapped the mouse with my index finger did the skill window belatedly appear.

“…Okay, I expected this much lag.”

Click. I turned on synchronization.

…

About three seconds later, the Death Lord’s mana filled me.

“The downgrade feels absurd.”

I had to endure about three seconds of lag just to do anything?

And about another three seconds later…

[M-my, my, my liege.]

Ratty prostrated itself before me with bizarre movements that jerked and froze, as if it were suffering from frame drops.

‘….’

Ratty normally woke up on its own when dark mana circulated.

Three seconds to open the skill window. Three seconds to turn on synchronization. Three seconds for dark mana to return. Then another three seconds until Ratty woke up…

“Has this thing gone mad?”

I tried using magic.

…As expected, it took three seconds.

The processing speed had slowed so much that the movement of the mana drawing the magic circle stuttered and broke off in chunks.

The mana consumption had also deteriorated so badly that it made me gasp.

On top of that, the most serious problem was something else entirely.

I took my eyes off the monitor and looked around the room.

…The world looked warped, like the same “clay lumps” I had seen in Lost Honor.

It was the same visual problem as before.

I hurriedly logged out.

“Phewww.”

My vision returned to normal.

Normally, I should have felt a sense of weakness as my mana, which had been filled to the brim, vanished… but the experience had felt so terrible that I actually felt liberated.

“It is only usable in the sense that synchronization can technically be used.”

But it was too early to be disappointed.

If all these downsides were caused by Nopi’s components being completely “F”-rank, then they could be improved sufficiently.

And the starting point for that was…

I lined up the parts I had ripped away from Yeriche and Happy… no, “borrowed” from them, on the table.

“A great laptop deserves great companions.”

Join the journey to become the king of laptops.

First, I decided to replace the CPU.

“Let me see. The model name is… Huh.”

Wow!

This was incredible.

With the discovery of magic stones and the development of magitech engineering, Earth’s civilization had advanced tremendously.

Unfortunately, the problem was that magic stones, which had limitless uses, were “precious things” that were difficult even to obtain.

In an age where magic stones were responsible for most power generation, there was no surplus capacity to waste them on mere computer parts.

As a result, the “magic-stone components” that had been produced in limited quantities during the early days of magitech engineering had become ultra-rare treasures that were now almost impossible to even see.

And yet two of them were now right before my eyes.

“How did they even get these?”

It was a magic-stone CPU, known as MainTel’s final work and masterpiece.

The center of the rough metal heat spreader had been cut out and fitted with reinforced heat-resistant glass, allowing the faintly glowing magic-stone core inside to be seen with the naked eye.

Even though it was not connected to power, the fine magical circuit lines engraved into the magic-stone wafer were flashing as if they were pulsing.

It had a sci-fi appearance.

“As expected, components taste best when they sparkle like they have been packed with LEDs.”

With practiced hands, I replaced the part and checked Nopi’s status.

[CPU: S]

“S, is it….”

That was slightly disappointing.

To match Nopi’s dignity, I needed to get at least EX-rank.

“I am disappointed, Yeriche.”

That was all your level amounted to.

“I am confiscating this.”

How dare she lend me a mere S-rank part.

I would punish her by confiscating it.

Next was the graphics card, the GPU.

“It looks unusual.”

A large main magic stone was proudly embedded in the center of the board, and thick heat pipes woven from silver and gold with high mana conductivity coiled around the board.

Instead of RGB LED tuning, the natural glow of mana emitted by the magic stone itself leaked through the gaps of the rough metal heat sink.

It seemed like two genres, fantasy and mechanical engineering, had been mixed together.

“This has its own… charm.”

[GPU: EX]

“!”

There it was.

EX.

“As expected of Happy. You never disappoint me.”

As a reward, I shall extend the lending period.

If I had to set a deadline…

I shall make it ten thousand years.

[Agent.]

“Hm?”

[Someone came and went at your door. They left a package.]

“?”

It had been heavily degraded because I had turned it on through the laptop, but until just now, I had still been strengthened by the Death Lord’s mana.

And yet someone had come and gone stealthily enough not to be caught by my senses?

Just as an emergency warning light was about to go off inside my head…

[It seems impossible to detect them with mana. I believe I detected them because I can read biological signals.]

“That is an incredible stealth technique….”

There was a Hunter in Korea who could use stealth at this level?

[I believe it was Hunter Jang Hohyeon.]

“Jang Hohyeon? Who is that?”

The name felt like something I had heard before, yet strangely unfamiliar.

[…He is the Hunter known as the Silent Assassin.]

“Ah, that person.”

There was a Hunter like that.

I opened the door and went outside.

On the floor was a politely wrapped “part.”

The part of Nopi that Jang Hohyeon had “borrowed for a moment.”

It was the SSD.

“I will use it well.”

Hm? There was a note.

[You must return this.]

It was written in neat, proper, and polite handwriting.

“Is this Jang Hohyeon’s handwriting?”

[It is Jang Hohyeon.]

“Yes, that person.”

I casually crumpled the politely written note and tossed it into the trash can.

This was originally Nopi’s, so what did he mean by asking me to return it?

He was only a temporary owner who had been “holding on to it for a moment”…

[Haha. To think you believed that. How naive. You foolish organic life-form…]

“….”

After hearing Whitey’s words, I quietly pushed the trash can containing the note with my foot and hid it.

I would definitely return this.

I was merely a gamer who valued efficiency, not a villain.

Above all, I was certainly not a mad scientist who would turn Whitey into a human-hating AI.

“What are you talking about, Whitey? Of course I have to return what I borrowed. I am a good citizen of the Republic of Korea.”

[Oh…]

In any case.

That was not the important part.

I needed to install the SSD quickly and check how much better it became.

***

The Silent Assassin, Jang Hohyeon, forced his unwilling feet to move.

However, he could not stop himself from repeatedly looking back.

My SSD…

The part he had just left behind kept flickering before Jang Hohyeon’s eyes.

A tear rolled down from Jang Hohyeon’s eye.

However, because he was the Silent Assassin, no one noticed it.

“Agh! You startled me. Make some noise when you walk around!”

“Sorry….”

***

“No!!! Nopi!!!”

Nopi died!