Chapter 65

Chapter 65 : The Edge of Truth (7)

“You, you know…….”

Ding!

[Says to stop joking now.]

[Urges you to come to your senses.]

[Asks why you are going this far.]

[Explains that Achievements are not obtained by force.]

[Threatens that even if you do it, it will not give you a single 1P.]

[Pleads with you not to say anything.]

I quietly listened to the overlapping lines of text and pulled up the corner of my mouth.

I wonder what it thinks I am about to do, blocking me in such a hurry? It did not come out promptly when I called.

Ding!

[Panics that this is a different problem.]

Mm, understood.

I gestured to Murel, who was tilting his head.

The creature had been sitting obediently, examining the structure of the clock’s gears, but he sprang to his feet and came over to kneel before me.

“Do you, by any chance, when you think about being abandoned by me before, have any part of you that gets worked up or feels resentful…….”

Ding!

[You will really die if you do that! ┗|｀O′|┛]

“……I was curious whether there was any part like that.”

“Suddenly?”

“It suddenly occurred to me.”

“Of course I get worked up. When I think about it, I often want to kill you, but Lord Iwon would not conveniently die for me, so I simply gave up and live with it.”

“…….”

Is that not wrong? You wagged your tail so hard calling me My Lord, and yet you live with thoughts of wanting to kill me?

Ding!

[Laughs at you and says it serves you right.]

You, shut up.

“Still, it is only a very brief, minor impulse, so I trust you know that aside from that, I always treat you with respect, affection, and loyalty……?”

I sent Murel, who belatedly began trying to smooth things over, back to the clock and stroked the creature wriggling inside my pocket.

The warning that this was a difficult place for Phantasmal Species to endure had not been a simple warning.

I drew in a deep breath and stared at the Red Threads and mist surging around me.

Because of the special mist that had blanketed Mist’s Domain for this entire year, the Power of Phantasm was thin here.

Phantasmal Species needed that phantasmal energy. They were creatures that could live for days or months just by breathing, so long as they had that, even without eating.

This creature was enduring by receiving energy through its connection to me, but because my grade was so pathetic and my Frame had not been fully unlocked, it was clearly having a hard time.

But I could not very well leave it alone in the forest, could I?

The Time limit was seven days, but my goal was to finish this as quickly as possible and return.

‘So hand it over, you system bastard.’

Quiet again?

“Murel—”

Ding!

[Says it cannot understand such unnecessary threats.]

“—the third gear from the right over there looks important.”

“Ah! Is it easier to see from a distance after all?”

Leaving Murel to cling to the gears again with passion, I glared into empty air.

‘There will not be a next time.’

I meant it.

Ding!

[Says do as you please.]

[Says it does not know anymore and lets go.]

[Warns you not to regret it.]

[Command □□ will shortly ■□ㄷ――▽ㅅ〓∞∏]

[일ㅅ―■#^ㅈ■□∴로―ㅅ〓∞∏]

[!ERROR!]

[……Processing……]

Ding!

[Minimum grade for 〈Fame〉 system achieved: Supporting Role C.]

[!ERROR!]

[……Processing……]

[Minimum grade for 〈Fame〉 system achieved: Supporting Role F.]

[Fame List updated.]

[How much is your name worth? ― Recognition term: Fame]

[!WARNING!]

[System temporarily unstable.]

[Recovery will take some time.]

[!WARNING!]

I watched the lines of text appearing one after another with interest, then curved my eyes at the end.

There is no such thing as impossible. Everything works somehow.

This Original Work experience had started with errors from the very beginning.

Unstable or whatever else, what did that matter?

If a system that gobbled up 20 points at a time had appeared, then a way to supply those points should have been essential, should it not?

If it was Fame, did it mean increasing Achievements and getting people to recognize me?

‘Fame.’

[Fame Value: 18]

〈TIP〉 Fame Value ― Readers who recognize you are quantified. Converted at 100 per 1P.

Fucking 18.

It did not mean fame inside the Original Work, but the value of my name recognized outside the Original Work.

I had only just left the extra title behind and become Supporting Role F, so what fame could I possibly have?

Was this not the kind of grade only possible for a reader who stared closely even at a passing extra and poured fantasies onto them?

[Fame Value: 19]

The moment I thought that, it went up by 1.

I lowered the arm that had been supporting the back of my head and rubbed my face.

It might have been better to ask Murel to stab me in the stomach.

The image of the system laughing darkly somewhere in a corner, pleased that it had gotten one over on me, formed in my mind and quickly vanished.

This is all my karma. Karma.

Still, the fact that the system had gone so far as to reorganize itself to match my joking rhythm meant that this matter was that important.

‘Will things really go terribly wrong if I fail to stop this?’

As I imagined a few scenarios that might happen if the Boundary of Death expanded worldwide, my face twisted on its own.

Because that would be the real Bad Ending.

If a reset were guaranteed for certain, I might finish something and start over, but that was close to gambling.

The ending quest had clearly stated that choices could not be reversed, which meant this was a one-shot board where no reselection was possible.

So taking a gamble like that was something only a fool, or someone who wanted to die right away, would do.

‘But who fixed it in the Original Work?’

At the sudden thought, I sprang upright.

If this was something this important, then naturally, someone other than me must have resolved it in the Original Work. Was it not Karon who later stirred up a war and manipulated a perfectly fine world as he pleased?

“Two days ago, I made a suggestion to the Ruler. I pleaded earnestly with Lord Katesa. I told him that even if the Ruler had to kidnap an Underfolk, that thing had to be repaired.”

An Underfolk with dexterity in this field.

Herton’s earnest plea.

“Wow, fuck.”

The person who solved this clocktower’s problem might be…… Karon.

The hair at the back of my head seemed to stand on end.

I roughly mussed my hair and rolled my eyes.

Whether I failed to do this, or properly resolved it, comparing both outcomes openly made it clear that either one would give an enormous Contribution.

Whether Karon was asked by Retu, threatened by her, or kidnapped like me.

It would mean I was overturning the Original Work where he visited this place, saw the clocktower, solved the problem, and left.

This had to be confirmed.

And definitely with Designated Original Work.

[Fame Value: 20]

---

Before finding the cause of the clocktower’s broken hands, I had to clarify exactly when it broke.

There was also one thing that bothered me in the mentor’s notebook Herton had given me.

The clocktower underwent repeated daily checks. Judging by the dates in the mentor’s notebook, it seemed to be structured around roughly three shifts, and during a person’s assigned time, they remained inside the clocktower for nearly twenty-four hours, identifying problems and confirming that it was running properly.

Herton’s mentor had been on duty the day the problem occurred.

Naturally, it would make sense to think something had happened that day, but there was no way that mentor, who worked while writing even a meticulous log, would have missed any warning signs.

Even in the passion he showed while trying to identify the cause after the incident occurred, he had examined everything by the book.

Perhaps his struggle had instead driven him into a corner.

Then what day had the incident happened?

The period between the warning signs appearing and the accident occurring.

It would be more accurate to say the incident had happened during the two days before the person Herton called his mentor took over the shift.

Was I excluding an important suspect for no reason?

He had been skilled enough for Herton to respect him.

Looking at the process by which he inspected the clock and searched for the cause, there was no way that if the incident had occurred while he was on watch, he would not have written down what happened there from the start.

He had discovered the hands had stopped shortly after taking over the shift.

Trusting the previous person in charge when they said there had been no problem, he must have spent days blaming himself and searching for the cause.

Unlike the bastard in front of me, that is.

“I do not know why I should cooperate with you.”

“Rather than cooperation, it is closer to Lady Retu’s recommendation.”

“So why?”

“Because Pizer, you were the person in charge the day before the clocktower’s clock stopped.”

“Hah. Why are you trying to make me the culprit, then?”

Pizer, a member of the Mist whom I had asked Katesa to find, had appeared with an unshaven beard and a haggard appearance.

At my words, Katesa had very readily dragged this bastard over and shoved him in front of me.

In front of Katesa, he had bowed and scraped, cold sweat pouring as his eyes rolled around, but after Katesa left, he crossed his arms and brazenly took this attitude.

I forced my eyes to curve and coaxed Pizer.

“The culprit? Absolutely not. I simply wanted to hear the details of that day. You want the clocktower repaired quickly too, do you not?”

“That is something every member of the Mist longs for.”

“Exactly. There is no need to keep carrying around an anxiety that has lasted for a year.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Have you heard of me? The master of crafting who has never failed to fix anything, directly commissioned by Lady Retu herself to repair the clock……?”

Cough.

From the corner, I heard Murel suppressing laughter.

He was obviously choking inwardly on, ‘You were that master of crafting?’

I learned from that shamelessness and stabbed at Pizer, who was subtly testing me.

“I will repair the clock. You merely need to tell me what happened that day.”

“If you mean to hold me responsible—”

“—Oh, of course that will not happen. Do not worry, and tell me. What happened?”

“That day, strange things happened one after another from the beginning…….”

I nodded repeatedly and pretended to listen closely to Pizer.

The clocktower’s hands had moved without issue for long years.

Aside from the single time two hundred years ago when Sek had visited, it was a power source that had worked without any problem at all.

When something flows for hundreds of years without issue, someone like Pizer is bound to grow lax.

He said he spent most of his work inside the clocktower catching up on sleep, doing other things, or thinking about the next day’s amusements.

Truly, at that part, I nearly cursed.

Someone else had thought it was their own mistake, suffered for a year searching for the cause, and then left like that, but this bastard Pizer had known what he had done and still kept his mouth shut, only inflating the incident.

“……When I woke up after sleeping, I saw black mist.”

“Black mist?”

Only after hearing an interesting word in the middle of the boring story did I pull my chair closer and lean forward.

“I might have mistaken it for a shadow cast over the mist, but that day was one of the first clear days in a while. Even if not for that, there are almost no cases where mist rises all the way to the top of the clocktower, so I thought it was strange. Why is there mist here? That sort of thing.”

“What did that mist do?”

“I am telling you, it did not do anything else. It just filled the inside of the clocktower and then vanished again as though it had never been there.”

“Why did you not mention that in the investigation afterward?”

“Because there was no problem! The mist disappeared, but the clock was still fine. The next person on shift also acknowledged that it was running properly until the time I handed over the shift.”

They would have acknowledged it. That was why they must have devoted themselves to trying to find the cause and fix it.

“Understood, so you can go.”

“Excuse me…….”

“……?”

“You will speak well of me to Lord Katesa, yes?”

I curved my eyes and smiled at him.

“Of cooourse. I will speak well on your behalf.”

Exactly as it happened, in thorough detail.

I waved a hand to drive him out and called Murel.

If we were talking about black mist, we could not exclude a connection to what had spewed from the sphere that day.

I had heard that before Murel was isolated two hundred years ago, everything made in the Underworld had undergone his inspection, so I wondered if he might know about the mechanical device that spewed Black Mist too.

“Black Mist is definitely something from the Underworld, right?”

“If it is Black Mist, then it is the power of the Underworld Lord. Before, Lord Iwon would have used it from the lord’s seat, and now that a man named Karon has taken that position, it must be his doing.”

Ha, that bastard Karon.

He laid the groundwork and then cleaned it up himself?