Clearing the Game at the End of the World

****

The anomaly, as always, happened abruptly.

On my way to the supply room to get a new set of clothes in place of the torn ones.

A commotion began among the soldiers lined up to get their morning meal.

"Mike. When are you going to pay back the money you borrowed that time?"

"What are you talking about? I've never borrowed money from you."

"What? Mike, you borrowed money from him too? You haven't even paid me back yet."

Passing by, I overheard their personal issue. Thinking they would sort it out themselves, I attempted to move on.

But then.

"These guys must have all gone mad! Why would I need to borrow money when there's nowhere to spend it while on station duty!"

"…No, you did borrow money. Mike."

"Yeah, that's right. You borrowed money and made fun of me a lot for being short."

"Wasn't your girlfriend's name Kate? Our late mother's name was also Kate. You killed our mother!"

"Mike! Why do you ignore us! Beat us, and kill our mothers? Someone like you, you trash, deserves to die!"

"Kill him!"

"Kill the criminal Mike!"

"Peace will return once this guy is gone!"

"Kill him!"

"Why, why is this happening…. This is too much of a joke. Let go of this. This- Argh! Aaah!"

Unjustly conspiring over absurd accusations, the soldiers quickly started lynching an innocent soldier.

Not just them, but in various places, groups of soldiers began to lynch individuals without any reason.

"Kill him!"

"It's all your fault the world has come to this, that our mother died, that I'm rolling in the battlefield like this!"

"Everything will be okay without you, they said!"

"No, don't come. Don't come!!!"

Bang! Bang!

"Write the ritual with their blood!"

"Cut off their limbs and hang them!"

"Burn them!"

"Kill the witch! Kill the witch and reclaim happiness!"

The terrified victim shot at them, but there were far too many already lost to madness.

A broadsword pierced the arms and legs of the soldier who was firing.

Struggling to escape, the soldier was caught and thrown into boiling water.

Oil was poured over the body of the one struggling to survive.

"Aaah! Gas! Gaaaas!!!"

With that desperate death cry, the soldier was quickly engulfed in flames and perished.

Before I could even think to run out, the madness erupted all at once, suddenly.

Eeeeeeeng-! Eeeeeeeng-!

"It's an attack!"

"Everyone to battle stations! It's a biochemical terror situation!"

"Personal doping authorized! Everyone not contaminated, inject yourselves with Lionheart!"

"Contaminant source confirmed in the northwest! It's an attack! It's an enemy attack!"

With the sound of the siren blaring alongside the swift response from the command, I knocked down a soldier gone mad with frenzy, pulling out two syringes—one red, one brown—from the neatly arranged set of five in his pocket, and quickly jabbed them into my thigh.

Pssht!

"Ugh!"

With the dense liquid flowing through my veins, my vision wobbled, and an unpleasant sensation muddled my head.

The mixed neuro-agent Lionheart. Apart from a slight sense of nausea and the discomfort of the world seeming too sharply in focus, it had almost no side effects as a detox and stimulant.

Between the shaking sights, I noticed white smoke sluggishly spreading across the ground.

"Damn it. Mixed with the morning fog, I couldn't detect it in time! It's a hallucinogenic gas!"

The low-lying white gas. It wasn't the type that spread easily since it was heavier than air. Spreading it so extensively wasn't easy.

"Unless it was carried here by the constant winter wind!"

I grabbed a telescope from the belongings of the fallen soldiers and turned my gaze toward where the smoke was coming from.

Next to Happy Blind Base, a tall rocky canyon. At first glance, one could see the object emitting thick smoke and burning, clearly the cause of this situation. About 3 meters tall. In the dim light of an early winter morning, the orange flames were clearly visible.

‘A burning… cross?'

No, on closer inspection, it wasn't just a cross. Burnt and melted to the point of being hard to recognize, but traces of human flesh and skin on the burning cross were visible. Below it, a charred brownish body and countless human legs were moving, supporting both the body and the cross.

Astonishingly, the entity burning itself was a living creature.

‘Unidentified Type 3. The Artist Union has made their move!'

Dropping the telescope, Professor ran towards the command tent. Soldiers wearing gas masks were seen beating the frenzied soldiers with rifle butts, among them some familiar faces.

"Ian! Ezell! Vex! Were you guys together?"

"Urazil! Been waiting till our necks were about to break….! Hey! What happened to your arm?"

"No time to explain! The doping?"

Slam!

"Some guy passing by gave it to us, we're all done!"

"Then follow me! The enemies will be swarming in soon, we need to secure the equipment before that!"

"The enemies?"

"Yes! They sowed chaos in our ranks, it's obvious they'll push forward!"

Boom!

Crackle-

[Enemy attack! Command tent, command tent, there's a monster- Aaaargh!]

In an instant, as if proving Professor's words, a heavy collision sound followed by a dying scream echoed over the base's broadcast.

Smoke and screams enveloping the base. Numerous Type 2 and 2.5 mutants started charging towards Dome's base as if they had been waiting for this moment.

The beginning of a full-scale battle was marked by a surprise attack from the previously disadvantaged enemy.

****

Tududududududu!

Boom!

Wooong- Fzzzzzz!!!

"Aaaahhh!!!"

"Uuugh! Ooooh!!"

The relentless firing of machine guns and grenade launchers.

A plasma ejector that could turn a radius of about 10 meters into ashes in a single strike, and even an electromagnetic net.

"Hmm. As expected, it's not progressing as smoothly as an ordinary task. It would have been better if there was a bit more chaos."

"….Graaah….ughhh…."

"Hm? Ah, there's no need for that, Glinda. You're pushing yourself hard enough, don't blame yourself. After all, it's not a problem even if all of them die. You're doing well enough. Commendable."

Tak, tak-tak.

Upon his words, the face of a hideously swollen woman nailed to the cross twisted into a grotesque smile.

Atop a rocky hill about 1km northwest of Dome's base.

W was sitting next to his newly created sister, observing the battlefield.

Should they be praised as the ultimate fighting group dividing the wasteland? There was a brief moment of chaos initially, but once they settled, they began to overwhelmingly dominate the mutant army with their superior firepower. As soon as they entered the kill zone, the mutants' forces started to rapidly collapse and be crushed. If things continued this way, Dome's forces that thwarted the surprise attack might counterattack and advance towards Happy Blind's residence, but W was indifferent.

After all, his purpose was not the protection of those humans caught in that bizarre faith, but rather to ensure that the box could find its own way.

Tak- Tak-tak-

"Aaaah….ah, ah…."

W turned his head as he quietly watched the massacre. Conversations with family always took priority.

"Ah, that might have been how it appeared to Glinda. Since you can go anywhere, you might think, why not deliver it directly. But, Glinda, as you know, all of us siblings are bound by our own rules tied to the memories of the original, aren't we? I'm not free from that curse either."

"Eeey….ah?"

"Ah, of course not. It's good to have an interest in family. It's not a difficult task. Me… I can't stay in one place by my own will. It's a born wanderlust stemming from the original. If there's something like this happening, I can stay for a while, but if there's nothing, I wander endlessly, passing by someone's side like a ghost, until someone calls me again. Personally, it's very unpleasant. Just a few seconds. Without a body, drifting through strange worlds without even time to enjoy the scenery."

"Eeeyoouu- Thoooh, aahhh…"

Hearing her warm concern and attempts at a solution according to his rules, W couldn't help but burst into loud laughter.

"Hahaha! It's not that simple. Just like all our originals, my original was also a very seriously twisted person. Family requests are not recognized as ‘work'. How can what you wish for, which is also what I wish for, be considered work? Similarly, it's not permitted for me to stay in one place for my own objectives. Only when I'm performing someone else's work can I stay in one place like this, having conversations, observing the world."

He thought it was almost like a curse. A life where he cannot stay in one place unless someone needs him. And ironically, he cannot stay by the side of those who do need him.

Thus, before a deal was made, he could not return to her side except when visiting her abode to receive shillings transferred from the Collector.

A brief visit for work. That was the most he could stay in his own home.

Once the fleeting reunion ended, he found himself beside someone he didn't know, suppressing his aching longing and wandering again in search of ‘work.'

"Because of this, whenever I wanted to acquire something, I had to go through a very complex process. I had to reach out to someone who wanted something. In the process of them achieving it, I would slightly achieve my goal. A bit here, a bit there. Only by gathering the intersections of their goals and mine could I finally achieve ‘what I wanted.' Hmm… Think of it as needing to borrow a hundred different hands to complete a puzzle of a hundred pieces."

He had come a long way. Gaining life as an Adapter and wandering the world like a ghost for a year due to that damned curse. The first one to summon him was the Collector, who had stumbled upon one of W's traces. The first Adapter. Prototype, created being. The moment she called him family, that place became his home and purpose.

"All I want is really nothing much. Just to be able to stay for a long time in the same space as our siblings, by their side."

Since W's wanderlust, his inability to stay in one place, was inherent to his being, it couldn't be helped.

Then, the solution seemed to be to shrink the world we live in. Just as the old humanity had done by launching nuclear weapons and reducing human territory by more than 90%. Whether through weapons, a powerful threat, or an environmental factor. The world itself had to be narrowed down.

Since he couldn't stay by his family's side, it wouldn't do for all people to die out. To a point where wherever he went, he could see the Collector's crumbling laboratory. Yes, a small village-sized world would be perfect. Small enough that calling out loud would allow them to hear each other's voices, a world that small with only that many people would be enough.

And finally, he found those who would fulfill his wish.

Happy Blind. Those mad humans who believed that everything inherited from the old era, even humans carrying memories of those times, must be eradicated.

In their utopia, the only beings allowed to exist were the newly born, especially those born within their community, knowing only the knowledge of this changed world, the ‘sheep.' Those pure blinds who sincerely accepted this hell as happiness, considering a world without a single blade of grass or where people die every day as natural. Their utopia would be complete when the ‘shepherds' and ‘eyes,' the ruling class, would take their own lives after the sheep have grown to take care of themselves. In such a small world, even without any special event, familiar landscapes would enter his sight wherever he went.

Suddenly, a familiar face caught his eye amidst the ongoing battle at the base. Another piece moving towards fulfilling his wish. Professor Park. An intriguing man indeed. A slight anxiety crept into W's voice as he watched the direction in which Professor was running.

"Hmm… It would be problematic if that friend dies by the hand of Brother Claw. Though I've mentioned it before, Brother Claw, like the other brothers, isn't much of a thinker."

Hopefully, he would survive. Not too injured, not too unscathed. Surviving battered to the very end to move for him.

W quietly rooted for Professor, struggling in the battle.

A hidden puzzle piece moving secretly in one corner of the battlefield.

Another piece stirring up dust and black smoke at this very moment.

And… the last piece lying in wait, seizing the opportunity.

Who will raise the cup of victory? And what reward will he gain as a result?

W was delighted. Escaping from the original's shackles to undertake new tasks reminded him that he was not just a collection of traumas but an independent entity.

The labor of the process, the joy of success, and even the frustration of failure. He would gladly embrace them all.

"Now, the final act approaches. Will Professor, who survived the merciless brothers, rush towards the bait? Will he finally comprehend all truths, leaving me in frustration and yet another task? Or… will he die in the despair of great loss, reborn as a new brother?"

The final curtain of this twisted ensemble play, where even he could no longer predict where it would flow, was approaching. All the puzzles were finally coming together in one place.

****