Pick Me Up!-Chapter 314: Embers (4)

The world does not move according to your will.

Siris Argentheim knew that better than anyone.

Once, she had charged her father’s killer in a blind attempt at revenge—and hadn’t managed to leave so much as a scratch. ƒгeewёbnovel.com

That was her first failure. If all it took was desire, if emotion alone could decide victory, anyone could swing a sword. But the result was always the same: ruin.

“I need a proper plan.”

Just like Master Loki had always done.

She would need a clearly defined objective, a feasible route to success, and a thoroughly vetted method to reach it.

After the garden assembly, the members of Floor 13 agreed to take a short rest period.

Party 1 hadn’t worked together in a long time.

They needed to get back in sync, and help their new member adjust to the group dynamic.

While Yurnet focused on research and preparing the plan, Siris stayed constantly on the move between the training grounds and operations office, barely resting.

A week passed.

And on one particular evening, Siris finished dressing and headed for the tactical chamber.

Tonight, they would establish the foundational plan and tactical directives.

The outline for saving the Master would finally take shape.

Click.

Siris tightened her grip on Levatein’s sheath.

Ahead stood the chamber’s massive double doors, engraved with the image of a black ram.

As it was a confidential meeting, no senior staff other than Party 1 were invited.

“You’re late.”

As she stepped inside, Ridigion glanced up from the right side of the round table and offered a faint smile.

The other members of Party 1 were already gathered: Yurnet, Ridigion, Nihaku, and Aaron—the one who had succeeded Müden.

“Good. Everyone’s here.”

Siris walked to the center.

The tactical chamber was where Loki had once laid out their pre-mission strategies.

A sort of briefing room. At its center was a round table used for discussing operational outlines.

“We’re ready,” Yurnet said, bowing slightly to Siris.

She took her seat at the head of the table, her mind composed and steady.

“I trust the past week was meaningful for all of you. I believe none of you wasted it.”

“Of course.”

“Yes, ma’am!”

“We’re prepared.”

Siris turned to Yurnet.

Yurnet cleared her throat a couple of times before speaking.

“Let’s begin by clarifying our objective. Though I doubt it needs to be said.”

“To save my brother.”

“‘Brother,’ huh. To us, he’s the Master. But either way, yes. The ultimate objective of this mission... is to save the Master.”

She continued.

“The first stage is to recover the Master’s memory.”

She raised her right hand, and a hologram flickered to life above the table.

It showed a man in a fur-lined cloak walking through a modern city street.

Captured on Server 1’s CCTV: Loki.

“The Master is currently suffering from severe personality degradation and memory loss due to over-fusion. At this point, he wouldn’t even recognize us. He’s probably in the Boundary right now, fighting Fragments without any self-awareness.”

“Without self-awareness?” Ridigion tapped his fingers on the table.

“It’s an Earth term, but essentially—Master Loki has become something like a ‘program.’ He behaves like a machine following preset parameters. He destroys and absorbs nearby enemies indiscriminately. He neither sleeps, eats, nor thinks.”

“A thoughtless machine, then.”

“Exactly. That’s his current state. If we meet him, he’ll most likely identify us as enemies and attack.”

Yurnet bit her lip in frustration.

But the emotion quickly faded, and her usual composure returned.

“There are three primary challenges in this operation. First, how do we reach the Master. Second, how do we restore his humanity. Third, how do we relieve him of his burden. As you might expect, none of these are easy.”

“The second and third I get, but isn’t reaching him the easy part? I mean, even if he's buried deep in the Boundary or whatever, couldn't little brother—sorry, junior—just smash through with his spear?”

“It’s not that simple,” Yurnet said, shaking her head.

She waved her hand, and a miniature holographic city appeared above the table, pulsing with magical energy.

Towering buildings and urban structures.

...This place...

Siris narrowed her eyes.

She’d seen this once before—back when she met Alpha Zero.

The city was Eden, the core of Server 1 and home to Möbius headquarters.

A perfect illusion recreated through projection magic.

“What’s wrong with Server 1? Is there a problem?”

“A major one.”

Yurnet waved her hand again.

Mist coiled around the model city, and the landscape began to shift.

What appeared was—

A ruined city.

The pristine structures were half-destroyed.

Once-straight roads and buildings rusted, crumbled, barely recognizable. Across the streets, blackish-red clouds writhed and floated like parasites.

“Huh.”

“When headquarters collapsed and the Boundary reshaped itself, Eden—now abandoned—underwent radical changes.”

Yurnet pointed her baton to the center of the city.

There, a black hole gaped open in the middle of the road.

“The Möbius test subjects once kept in the underground facility—codenamed ‘Fairy Land’—all escaped and rampaged across the surface.”

“Test subjects?”

“Research projects. Fused monsters and Heroes. Clones of 7-Star Heroes. Sealed legendary species from other worlds. Too many to name. They’re vastly more powerful and violent than regular monsters. Over a thousand confirmed cases. If we include unknown ones, it’s likely double or triple that.”

“And what made them go wild...?”

“The corrupted cloud,” Siris answered.

The illusion above the table might be a fake, but it reflected reality closely.

She’d encountered that cloud during several high-level missions. She’d even cut through it herself during a critical run.

“The cloud formed due to the barrier erected nearby,” Yurnet said, pointing to the city center.

A massive obsidian wall stood there.

It was the barrier Loki had erected to block Möbius from accessing the Boundary.

“After analyzing the barrier’s data, I found that the spacetime inside the Boundary had become so twisted that I couldn’t even calculate it. That distortion spread to nearby Server 1.”

“So the space itself became contaminated.”

“Exactly.”

“Wonderful,” Ridigion muttered, clearly annoyed.

Siris understood what it meant.

“A large-scale infiltration is out of the question.”

“Only a few Heroes with high resistance to the corruption can enter.”

No fleets. No support squads.

And if Möbius’s test subjects had gone rogue, they wouldn’t tolerate intruders into their domain.

Siris nodded to herself.

This is... the first reason we need Amkena.

If they could use the Master’s interference power, they might temporarily neutralize the cloud.

“This mission will be carried out by a small, elite force. We’ll use a high-speed, self-defensible stealth airship—Sleipnir.”

“If it’s a small team... how many?”

“Just us. No one else can resist the corruption.”

Siris answered Aaron’s question.

“Five, then.”

“Why, getting cold feet? Little brother wouldn’t wimp out over something like this!”

“No, I just—”

Aaron smiled faintly.

Nihaku had taken to calling him “junior” since his induction into the party.

“Understood. So it’s just us breaking through Server 1 to reach where my brother is.”

“Let me be clear: you can’t breach the dimensional barrier with brute force or mana. Your Karma attribute is indispensable.”

“......”

“Let’s move on,” Yurnet said, shifting topics.

“The second challenge: how do we restore the Master’s humanity?”

Humanity.

A word that defies simple definition.

The cost of surpassing mortal limits.

Great power comes with great consequences.

Loki had gained overwhelming authority—but lost his identity and memories in return.

Returning the Master to his original state...

Even if they reached him, if he couldn’t understand their words, it would be meaningless.

In ✪ Nоvеlіgһt ✪ (Official version) his current state, he was no different from a corpse.

What Siris feared most had become reality.

“That’s the key issue. Even if we get inside and find him—how exactly do we bring him back?” Ridigion asked coolly.

Yurnet took a slow, deep breath before speaking.

“We have to...”

“Have to what?”

“...Kill him.”

“Kill... him?”

Ridigion’s eyes narrowed sharply.

Yurnet’s robe fluttered as she reached into her sleeve and pulled out a dagger.

“This is Misteltein. A magical vaccine I crafted myself.”

“......”

“The Master has forgotten his memories, not lost them. He took in too much data at once, and a safety mechanism was triggered to protect his personality. If this dagger is driven into the Master’s data core—his heart—it will temporarily awaken his locked personality.”

“Temporarily?”

“It won’t last long. We’ll have to end things before it fades.”

Yurnet looked directly at Siris.

“We’re going to form a contract with the Master once again.”

Siris spoke.

“You all know this—Heroes and the Master are inseparable. The reason we were summoned here, the reason the Waiting Room exists, the reason we were able to grow stronger through our missions—it’s all because the Master played this game.”

He was, essentially, their creator.

If the Master hadn’t installed the game, Siris would never have opened her eyes.

Heroes and the Master were the very reason Pick Me Up was created.

‘We’re connected.’

Just like when Loki fell into Möbius and the members of the 13th Floor sensed it instinctively.

If so—

“We’re going to connect even more deeply.”

“......”

“We’ll share the burden the Master is carrying. All five of us, together.”

The other three’s expressions turned blank.

‘They won’t understand right away.’

That was why Sizel had called it absurd.

The Chalice of Infinity.

A unique trait possessed only by Loki.

A trait that allowed him to endlessly continue synthesizing. They would now share that trait with his Heroes.

With the Master, who had already surpassed even divine beings, it was possible.

“Whether this operation succeeds or fails, I don’t intend to come back. I’ll bury my bones at the Master’s side.”

“Bury your bones... did you say?”

“I’ll continue fighting by his side. Until he achieves victory.”

“That’s...”

“I know the condition is harsh. The war might never end. Thousands of years, tens of thousands... maybe even longer. But this is the only way to save the Master.”

To remain at the Master’s side.

To make sure he never forgets.

To constantly remind him of his own existence.

‘Alone in a place where no one else exists.’

No one could endure that.

In the end, he’d let go of himself.

But if there were two. Then three, four, five—

That fear would be halved. Less than halved.

“An illogical method.”

Ridigion let out a cold snort.

Siris couldn’t argue.

It wasn’t wrong.

“You’re saying his personality can be sustained through bonds? That’s the kind of thing that only works in novels. Even if it were possible, you can’t hold on forever.”

“If we’re together with the Master, we’ll have more than enough time.”

Yurnet’s eyes sank low.

“I’m sure there are other methods. But they’ll take time. Until then, until we lose ourselves... I’ll find it. I’ll bet everything I have.”

“You want me to trust you and throw myself into something uncertain?”

“Yes.”

Siris didn’t hesitate.

Clack. Ridigion placed his saber hilt on the round table.

“Then let’s proceed with that.”

“Fighting alongside the Master, huh. Sounds fun.”

Everyone’s eyes turned to one person.

The young man, eyes closed, his face hardened.

Aaron Neidalk finally opened his mouth.

“Forgive me for going off-topic, but may I say something?”

Aaron opened his eyes.

“Just now, you said we’d have to kill the Master once. But my brother... he’s currently—”

“You mean he’s unbelievably strong?”

Siris finished his sentence.

“He’s not just strong. My brother absorbed every divine being that was in Möbius. We can’t even imagine what level he’s reached now. I’m ready to fight, but I think we need to first evaluate our odds.”

“True. The rookie’s not wrong.”

Ridigion nodded.

“The Master has surpassed the divine. Even if we all fight together, I’m not sure we’d stand a chance.”

“The pollution level inside the boundary is off the charts. The only one who can withstand it is Siris, who bears the Seal of the Dharma. Our role is to clear the path for her.”

“You’re saying she’ll face the Master alone?”

All eyes turned to Siris.

Siris closed her eyes. She, too, knew what state Loki was in now.

He had absorbed dozens of divine entities, and countless shards and monsters.

By now, his power had surely transcended all limits.

‘This is why Sizel said it was impossible.’

Siris opened her eyes.

“No other plans, Yurnet? Something with a higher chance of success...”

“We’re not changing the operation. This is the only way to save the Master. I’ll go in alone and face him.”

“......That’s reckless.”

Ridigion’s gaze grew colder.

‘Reckless, huh.’

He, having lost his self, wouldn’t recognize her.

He’d attack her on sight, trying to kill her.

She would have to subdue him and then drive the dagger into his heart.

An absurd level of difficulty.

If it were before she left Niflheim—

If it were the version of her before Loki fell here—

She might have looked for another method.

‘But.’

She hadn’t just sat around.

She had wandered through Möbius, and at last, fully inherited the myth passed down from Niflheim.

“If I wasn’t confident...”

Fwoosh!

Siris’s blonde hair turned crimson and blazed.

“...I wouldn’t have even brought it up.”