Chapter 35 Part 1

Old Hejin didn’t even have a moment to bristle with anger before Hastur pulled open his Game Panel. In that instant, the universe and time itself ground to a halt around him.

G8273 leaned back slightly as Hastur spun around and wrapped an arm around his back. Those eyes aglow with unyielding order and rationality gleamed dimly in the cramped room’s shadows, like the solitary watchtower fire on the sea’s surface—the lone beacon guiding one through chaotic ocean depths.

“Are you looking for an excuse to grill me about my origins, or are you really hungry again already?”

Hastur’s palm pressed firmly against the nape of G8273’s neck, pulling him in close with a dominant force that brooked no resistance. His nose tip traced over the fragile, protruding curve of that throat, much like a predator baring its sharp fangs in a menacing snarl along its prey’s neck.

“Can’t it be both?”

In the frozen grip of time, they coiled around each other like pythons, squeezing tight, devouring one another’s flesh.

G8273 took a step back, his shoulders slamming into the file-stuffed cabinet. Papers scattered across the floor in a cascade. “You can ask, of course. But I can refuse. I don’t want to dredge up the past in a dump like this… That’s not unreasonable, is it?”

Hastur nuzzled his nose against the side of G8273’s neck, feeling the powerful throb of the carotid artery pulsing just beneath that thin layer of skin. “Then where? A coffee shop? Revolving restaurant? This is an interrogation, not a date.”

Before Hastur could bare his fangs against that artery-veiled skin, G8273 tilted up his jaw. “I won’t breathe a word to my interrogator unless we make it a fair trade.”

“He tells me why he doesn’t know his own origins. I tell him mine. Deal?”

“…” Hastur stared into G8273’s luminous eyes, his thoughts scattering into disarray.

He had never truly delved deep into G8273’s true nature before, thanks to the tangled web of possibilities that made truth impossible to untangle.

Sometimes, he figured G8273 was just another piece of the game plot—an NPC with save-file memory retention across multiple timelines, a setup that wasn’t exactly rare. But how could an NPC match him blow for blow?

Other times, he suspected G8273 might be another player. But why invade his single-player game?

And why bother invading at all? Was it the work of some unknown figure, trying to slip him forbidden truths through the game—and deliberately engineering their paths to cross?

A primal instinct tugged at Hastur. He stood right on the edge of revelation’s curtain; one gentle tug, and everything would come spilling out.

“—Deal.”

Time snapped back into motion.

Hastur hurriedly exchanged his Freedom Points and dumped them straight into Intelligence without a second glance. The world’s sounds crashed over him like a returning tide.

“Not an Electronic Ghost after all? You buy into some ragtag tabloid’s clickbait?” Old Hejin muttered, lifting a hand to rub his eyes in self-doubt.

That didn’t add up. Just a second ago, he’d seen these two hunks all tangled up, like they were about to go at it right there on the spot. How were they suddenly standing poles apart? And when had the door to his file cabinet swung open?

Hastur scooped up the scattered papers from the floor. “A newspaper wouldn’t just grab any random Joe and fabricate a whole story out of thin air, would they?”

“Journalists are wizards at chasing shadows and spinning yarns.”

Old Hejin hurried over to take charge of the sorting, lest his guests make a mess of it.

“Ten years later, and folks are still dredging this up? Think about it—if I’d actually spotted an Electronic Ghost, the Netinfo Department would’ve dragged me off for questioning ages ago.”

It was a solid point, but Hastur took a light sniff of the room’s air.

“A lie.”

Old Hejin had probably dealt with his share of skeptics over the years. He just flashed a good-natured smile at Hastur’s blunt callout.

He opened his mouth to deflect, but the man in the corner—the one who’d been hanging his head and lurking in the shadows—suddenly lifted his face and gave him a cool nod. “Mr. Wes.”

“…” Old Hejin stared at Finnian, his body locking up. “L-Little Mr. Luciano?”

“Who?” Dustin’s face twisted into the classic “old guy baffled by his phone on the subway” grimace. “Who’s Little Mr. Luciano? Finnian?”

Hastur recalled the perpetual 【？？？】 hanging in Finnian’s character profile. “Probably his old alias… Wait. You’ve met before?”

Yet back on Gourmet Street, when they’d brought up Old Hejin, Finnian had played dumb…

No wonder he’d hesitated before they left, turning down the invitation to join only to change his mind at the last second. “Just in case I can help.”

Finnian’s demeanor now made it clear he still had no interest in rehashing old history. He gave a curt nod to Old Hejin, who had suddenly deflated and was biting back his words. “Tell the Electronic Ghost story if you can. Consider your family’s debt settled.”

“Your family?”

Hastur shot Finnian an odd look. The Longevity Potion had sparked a fourth great war; it sure as hell wasn’t handed out like candy on every corner. Ten years back, when Old Hejin’s family was still around, Finnian would’ve been a little kid.

Which meant this favor was likely from Finnian’s parents. Or maybe Finnian himself had been some pint-sized rich kid with cash to burn even back then.

Judging by Old Hejin’s guilty, half-hearted reaction—and Finnian’s icy expression—young Finnian had probably once asked Old Hejin for a favor, something the old man had refused. No wonder their reunion left Old Hejin looking so awkward and ashamed.

Under the flickering, dilapidated lights of the archive room, Old Hejin’s face shifted through a dozen shades.

Hastur caught the whirlwind of raw emotions surging through the office like a storm—culminating in a crushing guilt laced with a flicker of opportunism, potent enough to break a man of wavering resolve. He had no clue what sparked that “opportunism” in the hormonal signals, though.

“Truth is… there’s not much to tell. Just a big mix-up.”

If there’d been any other topic to pivot to, Old Hejin might’ve dodged it—but he couldn’t dodge Dustin’s other question, since he truly knew zilch about Casey’s parents.

“Ten years ago, I was pulling the night shift, staring at the monitors. Snowing that night, so I was zoning out on the snowflakes in the camera feed…”

“Then I saw something barrel through the blizzard. It streaked right across the screen.”

“What kind of something?” Hastur and G8273 stepped forward in unison.

Old Hejin grimaced. “Couldn’t tell.”

“Whatever burst through that snow, it was invisible, got it? To the naked eye, it was like a blob of walking air shoving the snowflakes out of its path.”

“No footprints. No tire tracks. Ghostly as hell—that’s why I went around blabbing the next day that ‘I saw a ghost.’ Has nothing to do with any ‘Electronic Ghost’ from start to finish!”

The answer caught Hastur off guard for a beat.

G8273 leaned in and murmured in his ear. “Looks like one of your kind after all.”

Hastur felt no joy in it. He pressed on with Old Hejin. “What about the surveillance footage from back then?”

“How could it still exist? That’s ten years ago!”

Old Hejin was starting to get agitated; he’d clearly endured plenty of harassment over the decade.

“Why are you suddenly after footage from ten years back? The bureau purged all that old junk ages ago. The substation’s server room can barely handle traffic cam data from the last seven years. Nobody thought to waste time or money storing that crap.”

There was resentment in his tone. Hastur recalled the invisible-cam permit requests G8273 had dug up earlier. Old Hejin must be pissed at the higher-ups’ negligence too, though one man could hardly buck an entire system.

“Do you at least remember which road that anomalous camera was on?”

“…” Old Hejin’s expression turned guarded, like he was about to clam up rather than leak substation traffic details to outsiders.

Finnian murmured softly from the side. “Mr. Wes?”

That agonizing conflict slammed into Old Hejin again. His face twisted with uncharacteristic distress. “…Rak Street.”

He collapsed into his hard wooden chair, as if uttering that single name had shattered years of gritted-teeth principles.

Dustin looked uncomfortable and guilty; he’d brought Hastur and the others here, not to strong-arm Old Hejin into breaking his code.

Hastur left the interpersonal drama to his employees and glanced at the task description.

【Task: His Birth · One (In Progress)】

【Investigate Rak Street (0/1)】

“What are you thinking?” G8273 grabbed Hastur’s arm, half-pushing, half-steering him toward the door.

Finnian took the hint from Dustin’s glance and followed them out. “Where to next? Rak Street? Ten years on, any clues would’ve been worn to nothing.”

Something still nagged at Hastur. “That group photo.”

With Intelligence bumped to 43, the clue-highlight feature ought to be sharper than ever. But even after the points, the glowing lines clung solely to that photo—now screaming in eye-searing fluorescent hues.

Look at me! Look at ME!! Your key clue’s right here!

But what made that photo so special?

Finnian hesitated. “You think… there might be something hidden in the group photo?”

G8273 shook his head. “I’ve already scanned that picture frame. Nothing’s hidden inside—not even an inscription.”

Hastur’s eyes rolled aimlessly in irregular patterns as he pondered, until they suddenly swept over the vehicle parked at the entrance to the police station. “—That green Beetle car.”

He jerked his head up and looked at Finnian. “What about that key? The one I asked you to get investigated.”

“I just sent someone off to match it and test for bloodstains…” Finnian’s words trailed off as shock dawned on his face. He stared at Hastur. “You can’t think that key belongs to the green Beetle car from the crash, can you?”

A car crash. A key. Bloodstains. It all seemed to connect.

The only thing still puzzling Hastur was this: why would the Game System go through such an elaborate setup just to hand over a simple memento as the final reward?

It couldn’t be some special delivery of care for Old Hejin, could it? Handing back the keys to the car from his wife and daughter’s fatal accident after all these years hardly qualified as heartfelt concern.

The answer seemed obvious enough.

“Old Hejin is still holding back some secrets,” Hastur said with conviction. “And this extra secret might only come out with that key from the crash.”

Finnian moved at once, heading for the door to retrieve the car keys.

G8273 raised a hand to stop him. “Where’s that key right now?”

G8273’s optic pupils glowed dimly in the corridor. Finnian, his face full of suspicion, named a location. A few seconds later, a green holographic web—like something straight out of a hacker movie—flashed across G8273’s upraised palm. A familiar bloodstained key materialized from a blocky mosaic of pixels and dropped into G8273’s hand.

Inopportunely, Hastur recalled some trivia his new teammate T—that technician—had explained to him not long ago.

“Word is, real hacking or networks don’t look…” He gestured over G8273’s palm. “Don’t look like that.”

So that classic, by-the-book hacker effect was…?

G8273 arched a brow. “Do you still want to question him?”

—Understood. A personal flourish.

Hastur nodded in realization and let the topic drop. He took the key from G8273’s palm and turned to retrace his steps.

When he reached the door, Dustin was just emerging from Old Hejin’s office after finishing his soothing words. “Hm? What are you doing back here?”

Hastur brushed past Dustin and dangled the key toward Old Hejin, who gazed out from inside the room with obvious reluctance. “Isn’t this yours—”

Thud!

Crash—

No one had anticipated that Old Hejin would fly into a complete rage the instant he laid eyes on the key. Like a rabbit pushed to the brink, his neck bulged red as he barreled forward blindly, his scrawny frame even knocking the heavy desk askew.

It was only Dustin’s reflexive grab that slammed him back against the office wall. There, he thrashed wildly and unleashed a gut-wrenching wail from deep in his chest, like a man cornered with nowhere left to run.

“Ilsa!! What did you do to Ilsa and Beni?! I’ve been doing everything you asked—Little Mr. Luciano, why?”

Pressed against the wall in disarray, he craned his neck awkwardly. His bloodshot eyes, brimming with tears, bored into Finnian. “Why are you working for them? Why help them probe me like this?”

“You’re getting revenge on me, aren’t you? Because your parents saved Ilsa and Beni once, but when you came begging for my help to track down your parents’ whereabouts, I turned you down. You hate me for my ingratitude, for abandoning them to die. Isn’t that right?”

Finnian felt utterly bewildered, laced with irritation. “I’m not that narrow-minded. But what do you mean by ‘them’?”

Old Hejin’s outburst was far from quiet. It drew the attention of nearly half the precinct.

Hastur slipped inside at once and took over restraining Old Hejin, shoving Dustin out to deal with the curious onlookers. “What are you doing, chatting away by the door? Afraid the bystanders won’t get the full show?”

The rebuked G8273 merely shrugged indifferently. He grabbed Finnian and hauled him into the office before shutting the door.

Old Hejin continued his disjointed tirade, which soon shifted to desperate pleas. “Forgive me—please forgive me just this once. I swear I’ll never breathe a word to anyone—”

Clink…

Something tumbled through the window and hit the floor, rolling with a metallic rattle.

Old Hejin’s plea choked off in his throat the moment he recognized the grenade, pin pulled.

The next second—

Boom!

A searing tongue of fire obliterated the walls and furniture in an instant. Countless files incinerated to nothing, leaving only thick black smoke warring with the night wind howling through the gaping breach.