Thanks to G8273’s ride service, the speedboat pulled into the port dock just after midnight.
Before stepping off, Hastur was stopped once more by the steward.
“Please wait a moment, sir. The gentleman who paid your bill left a message and asked me to pass it along.”
“?” Hastur paused at the edge of the deck as the steward cleared his throat.
Then, the steward puffed out his chest and recited in a deep, resonant voice—as if delivering a passionate love poem, drawing breath from his dantian:
“‘To H:
I imagine you can feel it too: the profound impact we’ve had on each other. An impact that can’t be erased in a single day or even a week.
So, though I hate to say it, for the sake of both of us and our futures, we should probably put off our next meeting.
When that time comes, I’ll naturally fulfill the promise between us.'”
“…” Hastur was stunned by the steward’s rich, velvety baritone.
He could practically hear G8273’s lazy, overbearing tone—the kind that made unilateral decisions without a second thought—in those same words. How on earth had the steward turned that nonsense into something so heartfelt?
Embracing a mindset of “humans are truly wondrous,” Hastur floated away from the yacht, unburdened by any luggage.
He left Finnian behind, forced to deal with the crowd that had been eagerly gossiping just a second before:
“It’s not a love letter—and even if it was, it has nothing to do with you guys!”
“No, no! Get this straight—I saved you right-wing old-timers purely because I didn’t want the Nirvana Gang running wild without a leader, turning the Phoenix District into a mess. It wasn’t about bonding with you or anything.”
“Keep your comments—and your questions—to yourselves! Just take this poor kid to the branch station and hand him over to Detective Dustin. He’ll find the best place for the boy.”
Finnian paused, then turned reluctantly to the young gentleman beside him, who had been hemming and hawing: “You too. Zip it.”
“Don’t ask about your missing shirt buttons or those weird marks all over you. I can assure you, your virtue is intact.”
“Surviving was a miracle in itself… Now, go home. Right now. And get some sleep.”
Finnian quickly caught up to Hastur, a hint of weariness in his voice: “I feel like your secretary—the one who has to shoo away the boss’s one-night stand the morning after.”
Hastur marveled at Finnian’s thick skin: “You’re the one who ‘slept with the lover.’ You sure that guy you hooked up with won’t come looking for more?”
“?? How do you—” Finnian clamped his mouth shut, his face flushing with annoyance. “Don’t non-humans have any sense of privacy!? Enough! I’m going to grab the motorcycle!”
~~~
The farce on the cruise ship had finally concluded, but the night was far from over.
First up: the branch police station.
A forensics officer puzzled over the mangled corpse, wondering what kind of biochemical weapon could have reduced Coran Domino to such a state.
Next door, the logistics department exploded—in the voice of Coran Domino himself:
“What did you say??! The car hood got smashed by who-knows-what?? Why didn’t your thick skull get smashed along with it?!”
“—And you want a new car to replace it? Ha! Why don’t you take that suggestion straight to God in paradise?”
The guests’ families were in equal chaos.
They had witnessed their loved ones—supposedly attending a secret ritual—hurled into the yard by a bizarre, grotesque, and terrifying flying creature. The thing had vanished in an instant, but:
“I saw it! We all saw it! Are we all hallucinating the same thing?”
“That was real?? I always thought your involvement with the Cradle Cult was just a front for your business—some safe spot to connect with ‘old friends’?”
Those who had glimpsed the truth were divided: some, entranced by mysteries beyond imagination, plunged even deeper into worship of the Outer Gods. Others couldn’t shake an inevitable dread:
“So there really are monsters living in our world? Where do they hide? Do they eat people? What if they attack us?”
That night, countless people lay awake. News reporters were jolted from sleep by frantic calls, hammering out stories into the wee hours.
Yet for the orphanage at the border of Phoenix District and the wasteland desert, it was just another fruitful evening.
…Or maybe a little less ordinary.
At 3 a.m., Finnian and Ithaqua stood by the gas stove like a pair of stone door guardians.
Finnian nodded expressionlessly at Hastur, who hovered in front of the stove: “Go ahead and start.”
“…” Hastur reluctantly wrapped his mental tentacles around the pot’s handle. Instantly, a barrage of popups assaulted him:
【Though you might not hear it, the pot is letting out shrill screams.】
【It’s wailing like a pitiful victim on the verge of a second death. Please, player, remove those sinful tentacles at once.】
【’Why won’t you give up?? Why use me to spawn more Byakhee?? Are you trying to be the heroic mother of them all?!’ it screams.】
In that moment, the judge’s gavel fell.
In that moment, Hastur could almost hear the popup text silently pronouncing his guilt.
Hastur stayed silent for a beat before releasing his mental tentacles from the pot: “No need for tests. I did create those Byakhee. From that batch of meat lumps that got cleaned out before.”
“Urgh—” Finnian clutched his head and let out a groan that was equal parts vindication and disbelief. “I knew those freak birds’ oversized heads and scrawny necks looked familiar!! How did you even pull that off?”
Wait, no—the real issue was: “Does this mean you’ll never learn to cook?”
Hastur dodged the question: “Unsummoned Byakhee just linger in the interstitial layer between time and space. They don’t bother anyone.”
“Let’s tally up Coran Domino’s transferred assets instead. See if we can upgrade the school—classes start tomorrow.”
Pretending not to hear Finnian’s baffled “Classes? You found teachers?”, Hastur opened his inventory.
【G8273’s Arm (Polluted) ×1
Coran Domino’s Asset List (Unread) ×1
Lake Hali (To Place) ×1
Cruise Ship Wreckage ×1】
Lake Hali.
An inner voice echoed the moment Hastur’s gaze snagged on it—a sigh laced with urgency:
Look at that lake!
Perhaps the lingering effects of the earlier battle hadn’t fully faded; Hastur felt something vital in the core of his body pulsing hard.
For a few seconds, he even lost control of his form. Only after an indeterminable stretch did he lift his mental tentacles and select the third item.
【Lake Hali (To Place)
A vast, warm black lake.
Once, every day, black stars rose over its surface, twin suns tangling in the sky.
To enter this lake is to return to your origin.
Choose placement location: [Tap to view map]】
Hastur maneuvered his mental tentacles to open the map. Amid its sprawling expanse dotted with markers, he unhesitatingly selected his current spot.
【Place at: Orphanage Entrance?】
Hastur confirmed.
Lowend District, Central Park.
Lovers stealing a midnight rendezvous froze in place.
Their jaws dropped in shock; they forgot to breathe, brains blank as they stared at the vast inland lake before them—the famous one whose far shore no one could glimpse—slowly rising, as if a god had unleashed divine might in that instant.
Like the Hanging Gardens Babylon once dreamed of building, like humanity’s ancient yearning for paradise, it ascended silently, endlessly upward. Not a sound—not even the trickle of a single drop.
The scene was as solemn as a funeral vigil. In the end, everyone watched the inland lake vanish completely into the heavens.
—Meanwhile, inside the Phoenix District orphanage.
The entire building shuddered. Hastur whipped toward the unchanging wasteland out the south window, then floated to the north one.
Outside, everything to the north receded farther and farther, as if the land north of the orphanage kept expanding.
At last, the earthquake-like tremors ceased abruptly, followed by…
“Whoosh—”
The roar of a colossal waterfall plunging to earth flooded their ears.
Hastur heard Finnian—still clinging to the stove and yelling “What the hell?!”—unleash a string of desperate curses along the lines of “I knew Newton was doomed again. Ha! Welcome to science’s funeral!”
Ithaqua, buzzing with excitement, yanked Finnian toward the window: “This isn’t a funeral! It’s magic! Myth! Peter Pan’s Neverland island!!”
Two warm bodies barreled over, sandwiching him between them.
A brown head and a white one poked out from either side, leaning on the windowsill to gaze at the lake cascading from the sky, its spray veiling the entire night.
“Wait—this water’s warm?” Finnian had abandoned his shattered faith in science. Head tilted back, he tried to catch some mist on his tongue. “I remember Poe Lake being a normal freshwater lake—and at that latitude, it should be freezing cold. Oh, blech—why’s it salty?”
Ithaqua’s fur was all dampened by the mist, crystalline droplets dangling from his enormous antlers. “Could it be because… this is the real Lake Hali?”
Hastur had never known what “excitement” felt like, but in this moment, every inch of his body trembled.
He had nearly forgotten everything—his image to maintain, the other assets waiting to be inventoried, the troubling medical report that had gone to waste. None of it mattered anymore.
He hurtled toward the black lake that had plummeted from the heavens, like a child leaping into its mother’s embrace.
Warmth enveloped him tightly, fiercely.
A contented sigh escaped the voice in his mind, and every one of his mental tentacles extended in excitement.
The currents stretched his body infinitely long, scouring and tempering it even more solidly.
Amid the thunderous roar of the fall, he heard the game’s system chiming crisply over and over, but he didn’t look.
A strange yet faintly familiar drowsiness wrapped around him softly. He let out a low, drum-like rumble and sank obediently into sleep.
~~~
“…First time… dangerous!”
“Why would… holographic…?”
Hastur awoke to hushed voices thick with anxiety and fear.
He opened his eyes, but Lake Hali was nowhere in sight, nor was the orphanage.
Everywhere he looked was a sea of silver-gray. Towering company skyscrapers lined the avenue in orderly ranks, with manicured green belts distributed in precise patterns between the buildings.
“…” Hastur closed his eyes for a moment, like an overworked office drone on Monday morning jolted awake by the alarm but squeezing his eyes shut, unwilling to face the world beyond the covers.
“Hastur.”
Lv Zhucao’s voice yanked Hastur out of his passive resistance. He looked down, following the sound—hmm?
Hastur shot upright, his eye level suddenly thrusting up to the atmospheric layer.
Only then did he realize three things: First, he was back in reality. Second, he had somehow become enormously huge. Third, he was having a hard time spotting the tiny Regulator from this vantage point.
It made the diminutive Lv Zhucao seem almost cute, even with his face turning green.
