939. The First Level And The Slug Cat

< Entering G-Y7 – Second Level For The First Time >

< Welcome to G-Y7 >

The Central Elevator was spacious enough to hold hundreds of people at once. In the event of a mass outbreak, this elevator would be filled with many armed Workers across multiple Floors.

It was also the only elevator where one could explore it from the outside. The elevator ran through a massive hollow tube. A vast network of colossal pipes ran through the central elevator shaft.

The lower the pipes went, the thicker and larger they became to withstand the enormous pressure further beneath.

Indeed, the atmospheric pressure increased as one descended the Levels It was no different from the Maw of the World as Frost had read from the notebook. The symptoms closely resembled the effects of nitrogen narcosis (descent) and the ‘bends’ (ascent).

Descending and ascending through the Site invoked a plethora of symptoms, ranging from the benign, to debilitating, to instant death.

Rings of glass that ran around the shaft at every ten-meter interval revealed a blue light. That same blue light ran through transparent tubes. They were funneled from somewhere deeper within and were brought up to the Administrative Floor for holding.

Frost, who had been standing on a platform that ran along the exterior of the Central Elevator, noted this.

“Liquid Nex is being produced, huh. Meaning someone’s interacting with the Corrupted in the lower levels.”

“The Germinated Seed doesn’t sound like they’re strong enough to interact with the Corrupted!” Jury had to shout to combat the scraping sound of the elevator. “It could be the White Midnight Syndicate!”

“A Syndicate going after Liquid Nex? Never heard that one before!” Joining them was Horus. “Makes you wonder~! The Administrative level had a handful of Corrupted! But the Reservoir didn’t have a soul in sight!”

She was correct. What Horus was implying was that White Midnight was likely not after the Liquid Nex itself but was achieving an entirely different goal. If they were after the Liquid Nex, then they should have found them guarding the Reservoir.

Frost shouted:

“How’d it go from hunting White Midnight to a Germinated Seed, to then a Genesis Stone recovery mission!? I’d like to take a look into the minds of the Demons that run Oboros Infinitas! But the lack of clarity probably plays into this damned living hell they’ve created.”

She patted down her small beret as the elevator came to a gradual stop.

The wind was strong enough to throw her hat away, but she kept it anchored using [Blood Crystallization]. With a vast reservoir of blood, she could afford to use it for such menial things.

She wondered if an Honored One would be impressed by this, if they would scoff at her with for wasting her blood.

“You think they made this hell?” Horus chuckled haughtily as she looked down.

There was a Forty-centimeter gap between the platform surrounding the elevator and the floor of the First Level. One wrong step and it was a long plummet to one’d death. And it wouldn’t be painless. The sheer speed in which they descended would cause them to die prematurely, likely by their bodies completely imploding.

Horus then continued:

“We all made this hell. Oboros Infinitas are just the ones with the means to traverse it. Try not to get it mixed up too. While we’re the lapdogs of Oboros Infinitas, we’re the mental prisoners of CogitO. What we see, what we feel, what we taste, and what we experience are for them to watch. Nasty voyeurs, aren’t they?”

She tapped the head of a passing Icara.

“Got a CognitO Transmitter and Receptor up ‘ere and a few other goodies. Can’t have the Repenters thinking that they can escape in their dreams. Makes it easy to have our own little confidential network. A Repenter hears rumors in one place and our Collection handles it.”

Collection.

It was a staggeringly long time since Frost had heard this word.

From what she knew, the Collections were – in all intents and purposes – data centers that used the minds of those connected to it.

Each person had their own ‘Collection’ so to speak. A vault that one only had access to. It was where the Corrupted Persona, and in Frost’s case, Main Sequence Corrupted were stored for her.

It doesn’t sound any different from the idea of the Collective Unconsciousness. A place where all thoughts are said to propagate to and from. I wonder if our own Collections can leak into it.

“Like a river, hm?”

Yeah. Something like that. A stream of consciousness naturally flowing off to who knows where. The fact that we can have localized versions of it is hard to wrap my mind around. The Nexus can tap into the missing Collections and the greater Collective Unconsciousness through Lailah. That and the Library is where we get our information from.

The greater Collective Unconsciousness was as mysterious as the Source, the Sins, the Gods of Cognition, Qliphoth – they were things that Frost figured they were nowhere near understanding.

She was more confident that they’d understand the Stars before they could scratch the surface of any of these. Gods of Cognition included the Aberrations of Elysia and even they were impossible to crack, aside from them coinciding with an Affinity.

Frost was so deep in thought that the Repenters had already split up to investigate the First Level, leaving her in the presence of the Acedia Special Division and the Blood Angel.

“Zero decompression time. Not a single Tribulation either. Check out the Nex Quota. We’re barely past a quarter.”

Horus pointed at a mechanical gauge that read how much Liquid Nex was currently stored.

“Looks like we’ll be getting a second Tribulation in the Second Level at this rate. They’re working hard down there. Must’ve brought a lot of sacrifices for this amount of Nex.”

“Are they intentionally trying to cause the Tribulations?” Jury questioned.

“Usari thinks they’re trying to slow us down.”

Frost took a small stroll around the spacious hall. The theme of the First Level was purely made of steel. The grey, monotonous walls were occasionally broken by panels and massive rivets.

The First Level didn’t have any remarkable features. The Levels were primarily used to contain Corrupted, after all. A Healer’s Infirmary would also be located on this floor, as well as the First Floor Unit Manager’s office.

But this was not why Frost was roaming the unwelcoming hall.

She had sensed the presence of something in here.

While Frost couldn’t see the Impuritas because they lacked Light–

“What’s a Corrupted doing here spying on us?”

–her [Heart of Judgement] Ability allowed her to see the Light in all living and non-living beings.

This included the Corrupted.

It worked behind walls, obstructions and her eyelids.

Pinched between her fingers was the scruff of a small, slug-shaped cat that was hiding behind a mound of torn pillows.

The little, grey critter was barely the size of a squirrel. Its hands and legs were no more than tiny nubs, and its face was exactly like those slimes that pretended to be cats. It had the [ >_< ] kind of face, the type that was Ignis’ most favorite to see on a slime.

Cataract

You found me!

AFFINITY :

Attachment

LEVEL :

ORIGIN :

Trauma

HP :

ATT :

MAG ATT :

ATT DEF :

MAG DEF :

MP :

100

RESIST :

AGI :

“Meow! Meow! You looked my way~!”

It was, by no exaggeration, the weakest Corrupted she had ever laid her eyes upon.

Frost wasn’t this weak when she first arrived in the Nexus. Even the villagers of Virt were stronger. It baffled her, and the Corrupted’s murmurs only drove its bizarre existence home.

“[ OwO ]”

The creature stared back at her, unaware of the predicament it was in. Corrupted did not experience fear like ordinary creatures. It kept smiling at her, as if waiting for her to respond.

“I’ve heard of this story before. A weak Corrupted actually being a disaster-level Corrupted. One Woe of the Fallen Star catastrophe is enough.”

“Heh. Catastrophe.”

Nav said proudly.

“A Corrupted – Oh my –!” Jury was frozen in place.

The shock of seeing this dangerous creature must have brought back terrible memories. Frost squeezed it slightly harder, trying to provoke it.

“Are you satisfied with me? Am I going to be broken and washed away?”

But it continued smiling at her with the most innocent expression.

“… Just what kind of trauma created a Corrupted like you?” Frost murmured. “Jury. Your call –!?”

“It’s adorable! But it’s a Corrupted too. Do you think you can –!”

“No. I’m not going to do

that

for this one. What would even be the point?” Frost wasn’t going to try to figure out the Salvation Criteria for Corrupted they just met.

She scrutinized the Corrupted further, wondering if it had telepathic powers.

“Aww.”

“Don’t ‘aww’ me. A Corrupted is a Corrupted. We don’t know what it’s capable of.”

She snapped at the Corrupted, only for it to tilt its head as it made a [ >_< ] face.

“Your psychological powers aren’t going to work on me.” Frost poked its cheek, making the slug cat smile. “Only Ignis and my slimes can pull off the perfect [ >_< ] look.”

Frost made the exact same face as well, much to Jury’s delight. Her tail wagged furiously. If one happened to accidentally walk into that tail, then they would be perfectly bisected.

There was a heavy thud behind them. Usari armed her Mana Repeater and prepared to eliminate the Corrupted in Frost’s hands.

“Usari will snipe it!”

“Wait! You’re going to kill it!?” Jury exclaimed.

“Are you going to torture it? Usari thinks all Corrupted deserve to be torn from limb from limb!”

Icara hastily writes down:

“Killzone Site Corrupted host many useless Corrupted. That is no exception.”

This paired with the fact that this was only the First Level, where only Green Trickle Corrupted could be kept, Frost gradually realized that this little slime cat was probably not that dangerous.

“Meow. Meow. Would you have kept me with you if I had paws?”

“Jury. Let’s test the Traumatic Clock on it.”

“Alright. If you kill it, then at least make it painless. It’s too cute to suffer~”

Frost placed the Traumatic Clock against the Corrupted. With one click, the clock began to tick backwards. It resonated with the Corrupted. Glass fragments appeared above the head of the tiny critter.

Then, they shattered into oblivion.

< Resonance Failed >

< Corrupted are already a manifestation of the past, present or future. The thoughts that propagated to create it are embodied by the Corrupted itself >

< Therefore, it is redundant to look into the woes of the Corrupted when it is right in front of you >

It was regrettable, but Frost had also expected this outcome.

There was a difference between a person’s historical past and the thoughts that created them. The latter did not count as a ‘past’, and therefore, the Traumatic Clock could not allow them to enter its current State of Mind.