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Falling, falling, falling――

Flugel, who was about to fall, took his right foot and stepped outward to try to prevent the fall. He steadied himself and was able to avoid falling.

He pulled back his hips and stumbled forward, but still stood up with both feet firmly planted.

Drain, who was watching over Flugel in anticipation of the trial’s end, felt uneasy that Flugel did not fall.

In the real world, Ryuuji Sogabe blacked out and the VR scanner’s connection was lost. Was only his PC body left here in an incomplete posture? 

No, that was not it. There was still a player. He felt his existence. Still remaining in The World through Flugel. So, why did he not lose consciousness?

He could not see Flugel’s face.

Suddenly Flugel started to raise his upper body.

Slowly, he lifted his the full body and head.

At Drain’s feet, one of the rats, who had been giving a "halt" command instructions for “Arrest”, was provoked by Flugel’s movement and jumped on him, considering him an enemy to be eliminated.

It made a dry, crunchy sound. A sound like ringing the end of a washcloth.

Flugel raised his upper body as though nothing happened. He looked at the face.

What kind of facial expression was this? It was laughing. It was crying. It was angry. It was jeering. It was delighted. It was cursed. It was regretful. It was all of these, it was none of these.

Drain jumped down quickly along with the rats.

Drain’s instinct told him that the man before him was dangerous.

Only a few seconds had passed since he flashed the light. In those few seconds, did something happen to Flugel’s body?

More than that, what did he do?

The trap that attacked Flugel has disappeared.

Drain quickly counted the number of rats he currently had in his possession.

The total number used to be ninety eight. Now, there were none.

"‘Ohh. How could this be…’ is what you must be saying to yourself," Flugel muttered.

He has already returned to his usual vague expression.

Why are you able to make such a face? Why are you able to stand?, Drain thought. I pierced Flugel’s abdomen with the Spear of Wotan and cut off his right hand. I bathed him in a powerful light. He fell to the ground and was in a dire state.

Strange. Something strange is going on.

Drain controlled three rats and jumped towards Flugel. He was trying to determine what happened.

Again, he made a dry crunchy sound. A sound like ringing the end of a washcloth.

However, there was nothing there. Several sounds rang out at the same time.

Then the rat vanished.

Drain was stunned.

What did this mean? What happened? Were all three rats just killed?

That was not an ability of Breiler Rossel. At least it’s not an ability of the current Breiler Rossel.

First of all, there was no gun in Flugel’s hand. There was no Curse Gun anywhere.

"You should stop now. It’s futile," Flugel said.

"Well, you know… I understand in a sense. Your rats can’t beat me anymore."

Upon hearing Flugel’s words, Drain got angry.

But Flugel was merely relaying what he felt.

Thanks to Drain setting the rats on him, Flugel was able to better understand the new form of the Brieler Roessel he had just used.

He had the ability to use Brieler Roessel to target and shoot anything that entered within two meters of it.

Just the sensing of something within two meters would set off the gun. As a result, the target would be eliminated.

You don’t have to pull or hold the trigger, or even hold the gun in your hand.

A new power created by the Ryuuji Sogabe’s spirit.

Or perhaps it could be called an original power?

Could it be… Drain trembled with fear?

Was it a mistake to pour the light on them? Could he be absolutely certain that he had not done something terribly wrong?

This man, Ryuuji Sogabe… in addition to being a developer of a medical device VR scanner, he has the aptitude of a Schicksal PC.

Did he not heal properly with the VR scanner until now?

For example, since something like an ego-shell is stronger than a normal human, was the healing effect of the VR scanner faulty?

The light emitted by Drain destroyed it. The moment the ego-shell collapsed, the VR scanner exuded its original power and healed the wounds of Ryuuji’s mind…

"It’s nice, isn’t it, Flugel?"

Drain was already recovering from the mental shock the next moment. When he stepped forward with his right foot, Wotan’s Spear, which had been lying on the floor, jumped up like a level and fell into Drain’s hand.

"If this is also a test, I will overcome it again and again. I will beat you!"

A new instruction was quickly given and Drain’s ninety-five remaining rats all exposed their fangs at once.

"My, my. At thirty years of age, I have awakened my abilities. Perhaps I’m getting old," Flugel muttered.

"I ended up writing ability and reading it as ‘power.’"

He thought he saw Drain’s hand shake and at once Wotan’s Spear flew at him. Drain snapped his fingers and made it rotate like a windmill.

This spear destroys and deletes the thing that its blade hits. Just a few strikes can cause huge damage. It’s not necessary to stab right away. Just a strike somewhere on Flugel’s PC body would do. Drain made it fly like a javelin.

Flugel did not try to evade it. He stood firmly in place.

He heard a dull sound and bullets, which fired from the gun without being held, struck the tip of the spear.

The spear, which lost its tip, fell at Flugel’s feet.

Flugel stood still a while. He then took one step forward.

Drain’s face took on a demonic aspect. He sent his rats charging at Flugel one after the other.

A rat jumped at him and struck him and was then blown away.

A rat jumped at him and struck him and was then blown to smithereens as well.

Flugel stood still a moment. Then he took one more step.

Some rats jumped at him and struck him and were then blown away. Flugel moved forward.

Some rats jumped at him and struck him and were then blown away. Flugel moved forward.

Some rats jumped at him and struck him and were then blown away. Flugel moved forward.

Some rats jumped at him and struck him and were then blown away. Flugel moved forward.

Some rats jumped at him and struck him and were then blown away. Flugel moved forward.

Some rats jumped at him and struck him and were then blown away. Flugel moved forward.

Some rats jumped at him and struck him and were then blown away. Flugel moved forward.

Some rats jumped at him and struck him and were then blown away…

In an instant the ninety-five rats disappeared from the rain of bullets and Drain was being driven to a corner of the cathedral.

No matter what they tried, the rats could not invade Flugel’s space at a distance of two meters.

It was like a barrier of bullets. There was no way to break through.

No, there was only one way to break through. Or should he say there had been? The energy of the black forest. If it had been a sliver of the black forest’s power, it ought to have defeated Flugel by penetrating the two-meter barrier.

But the black forest was no longer usable. It was used to deal with the golden Sophia, Urania.

"Wait, Flugel!"

Drain was driven to the wall and he shouted.

"The rats should be filling this world. This world should be filed with my rats! People will realize their errors by the rats that I have created. They will realize the repulsive creation known as the Internet and will begin working towards abandoning the Internet. Until that time comes, I must hide here at all costs. Now, if I die, the rats that I created will also disappear. Then all I worked for will have been for nothing!"

Drain kept talking. He was beginning to look desperate.

"If that happens, the Internet will continue to spew out filth like a drainage system as before. This world will slowly decay. Everything will be lost without anyone knowing. So, I cannot die yet. Understand that the Internet is the root of all evil!"

"Uh, what did you say?"

Flugel cut off Drain’s words.

"That’s right. ‘The inevitable born of randomness is the ultimate truth’… was it? That’s exactly it right now. This is our trial. That’s right, isn’t it?" Flugel snickered.

"Let’s enjoy ourselves to the very end."

"Don’t you understand?"

With a tinge of disappointment and hopelessness, Drain’s voice became softer.

"Don’t you understand?"

Drain shook his head.

"Don’t you understand, Flugel?!" Drain suddenly yelled in a loud emotional voice and with glowing eyes he glanced at Flugel. It was no longer a human face. It was the face of a criminal.

There was only the intent to kill there.

Not to beat up the one standing before him. Not merely to hurt him. Not to restrain him.

But to kill.

Something was starting to happen to Drain’s body.

Had such strong emotions caused something to progress deep inside his body?

His body, which was disguised as a system administrator, began to distort and swell. Bristles began to grow from Drain’s body until he was covered in them. The tip of his nose extended for a long time and he started to look like a giant rat.

It was a drastic transformation.

Flugel let out a gasp. He soon understood the phenomena in front of him.

Outer Dependency Syndrome.

The fate of human beings who have spent too long a time in the electronic world.

The diffusion and extinction of the ego into space. By this process, the self "catabolize" into something other than a human being.

Perhaps there had been precursor symptoms such as the illusion of expanding out into space and periodic severe headaches.

The huge rat-beast Drain jumped with tremendous agility.

He extended his sharp-nailed, bony right claw and as soon as he tried to get within two meters of Flugel to scratch at Flugel’s throat, a bullet was fired and flew at Drain.

Drain roared as he charged forward. He stuck out his left arm. Immediately after, he was struck with full force in his left arm. He was struck. He was struck. He was struck. He was struck. Drain, who was being beaten by the force of the bullets that hit him, jumped down in an attempt to avoid the barrage, but the bullets hit his entire body. He was struck. He was struck. He was struck. He was struck. He was struck by more bullets. He was struck. He was struck. He was struck. He was struck. He was struck. He was struck. He was struck. He was struck by a barrage like a wall. He was struck. He was struck. He was struck. He was struck. He was struck. He was struck.

"You’ve already died in the real world," Flugel said.

"Here you are nothing but the ‘remnant’ of Yuri Seto. More or less…"

Once again Drain roared.

He pulled his hands to his chest, bared his fangs, and rushed with his fangs aimed at Flugel. A single blow struck Drain at full force.

"I hope you get this world cleaned up."

A bullet struck him in the middle of the forehead. He was struck. He was struck. He was struck. He was struck. He was struck.

Finally, a bullet penetrated Drain’s skin, which had extraordinary durability, and became buried with incredible accuracy in the part of his head corresponding to the left parietal bone.

At that moment, the spirits of Flugel and Drain were connected for a brief instant through the bullet. Flugel traced Drain’s memories backwards to the past.

He had entered the game, had killed himself in an abandoned mountain hut, had confronted Veronica Bain, had been hired as a programmer at CC Corp, had been released from prison, had gotten locked up in a cell, had executed the Deadly Flash program, had graduated from Chikuba University, and had received lectures from Taichiro Sugai, and then…

Good gracious, when did his life decide to go in its current direction? From the time he realized that his father was killed by a simple transmission error of an unmanned robot weapon, which at the time was under secret research and development in the US military? Or was it from the time he learned that his mother’s death was caused by a medical computer’s error?

If the "gears" of his life had differed only slightly. If his "fate" had been different.

Perhaps there may have been a future in which his extraordinary intelligence and exceptional sensitivity could have been harnessed socially.

But that was not the case. Just as Flugel did not walk the same path as Drain, Drain also did not walk the same path as Flugel. Drain had transformed into an evil monster hidden in the sewers.

Now, the bullet penetrated while precisely destroying the data around Drain’s head and then it ejected from the occipital region.

Then the bullet rebounded. The true stopping power of the Brieler Roessel exploded. The bullet itself eroded as it entangled with the target’s data, which also dissolved like dust.

Drain’s PC body was vanishing, vanishing, vanishing――

Then silence. He was completely annihilated.

The wicked Drain was dead.

The life that had plagued the world for a long time, a life full of fanaticism, anger and humiliation, the life of Drain, that is Yuri Kazinski Seto, finally came to an end here.

Flugel shut his eyes.

He did not look back on the deadly battle that had just unfolded. There was a view of the sea in front of his closed eyes. Waves, sand and the sky. The sound of birds. The noise of the tide.

Ryuuji removed the VR scanner and exited the phone booth.

David, who had been sitting on the sidewalk avoiding the rain, stood up quickly.

"You took a long time. Were you successful?"

Ryuuji tried to smile and give a thumbs up, but he did not have the strength to do it.

Ryuuji started to fall and David caught him and held him up.

"Ryuuji, are you okay?"

Ryuuji tried to answer, but could not speak. He was starting to feel as though his body was not his own.

David screamed something, but Ryuuji didn’t understand anything anymore.

Ryuuji lost consciousness and sank into the darkness.

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