Through one consultation room and two doors, a sound finally came from the surgery room: “Let me see… Oh, excellent.”
~~~
Inside the surgery room.
Little Valen lay limp on the cold operating table, staring in terror as the kind and gentle doctor finished injecting the anesthetic and suddenly split into a grin devoid of any goodwill.
“Thirty-five thousand points… Thirty-five thousand! Calling a cab for you cost all that.”
The doctor kept up that exaggerated smile as he bent down, like a life-sized jack-in-the-box ready for mischief. “Didn’t you ever wonder? H.J.’s so broke—where’d he get the money to cover your surgery bill?”
“Delirium District’s full of black doctors. Who’d have the conscience to give cheap surgery to nobodies like you with no ID or backing—and even pay out of pocket for a cab to pick you up?”
The doctor’s hands braced on either side of the operating table. “An hour ago, Nissen went to the orphanage to see H.J., right? He wants to transfer you into his orphanage. Why do you think he’s so interested in you—keen enough to head out late at night just to beat me to the punch?”
This world was cruel. Sick.
Healthy kids got eyed for their looks or organs; disabled ones got snatched up by perverts for their rare deformities.
Even holed up in the orphanage with hardly any trips outside, Little Valen had heard the news stories: “Tycoons hoarding human specimens,” “Cruise ship freak shows.”
And as he watched Dr. Raymond sterilize the scalpel, Little Valen could practically confirm the first one.
Someone had seen his appearance through some channel, shelled out big money to have him “collected,” which explained why both Nissen and Dr. Raymond had suddenly reached out to an obscure little orphanage…
The question was, did the Dean—the new Dean—know about any of this?
From childhood observations, Little Valen had always been naturally pessimistic, assuming the worst of people and rarely holding out hope.
But right now, sprawled on that frigid operating table, facing Dr. Raymond as he raised the scalpel, his survival instinct drove him into desperate, frenzied prayer inside:
The new Dean doesn’t know Dr. Raymond’s bad news. The new Dean will come save him!
‘Save…’
He strained to shout, but all it did was make his breathing hitch a little.
The gleaming scalpel pressed against his chest, sending a phantom chill through his skin—and then it bore down hard—
[Mgah…]
A bizarre murmur erupted, like the skittering of spindly-legged spiders after rain, crawling in through every crack in the surgery room.
Little Valen couldn’t feel the changes in his own body, but he saw Dr. Raymond freeze solid from his movements to his expression—like a human wax statue after a Medusa’s glance.
Boom!
The surgery room door burst open.
~~~
Hastur barreled in, clutching a heavy electromagnetic gun he’d just “borrowed” from the street. He swung the butt to knock aside the rigid human statue, intending to scoop up Little Valen and find another doctor—but he was still too late.
Violent coughing, retching, and gasps came with the stench of rotten, tumor-ridden lungs spewing from Little Valen’s mouth.
Blood soaked his clothes in mere seconds, and that saxophone wheeze drew near again.
‘Save…
…me…’
In his dying moments, Little Valen’s dim eyes ignited with the fire of survival instinct, gleaming like twin rubies trapping flames within.
He laboriously mouthed toward Hastur: ‘…I’ll do anything for you.’
Anything?
That strange voice whispered in his ear again.
Hastur ignored it, rapidly piecing together the timeline in seconds.
From the look of things, saving Little Valen’s life meant handling Nissen, crossing Phoenix District, finding a reliable black doctor in Delirium District on short notice, and convincing him to do the surgery cheap—all in under half an hour. And without using mental pollution to shatter the doctor’s mind, lest the operation fail.
If he had his real-world speed and power, sure, he could pull off a high-stakes chase. But in this game prologue with his player level at 1? No way.
His gaze fell back on the quest prompt: Paths Converge…
Why name a simple “send orphan to doctor” quest something like that?
Because the devs wanted players to know: No matter what you do—hit the Red Light District or not—Little Valen’s end is the same.
He was “doomed to fall.” He was “Paths Converge.”
The main storyline didn’t allow players to change it. His birth and death were scripted solely to add tragic weight, stir the protagonist’s emotions, and spark their awakening.
Some people, even omnipotent players couldn’t save in the plot.
You could restart endlessly, optimize the shortest route, max out kill speed—but you could never, ever avert his death. The script had already penned his final curtain call.
The black-and-white prologue page faded in, time stopping in the game scene.
—The player was supposed to freeze with the scene, helplessly watching the death cutscene. But at that moment, Hastur moved.
Defying the code, ignoring all logic, he slowly bent down amid the cutscene CG and gazed at Little Valen’s freshly expired body.
“I made a promise.”
He never broke his promises.
“You said you wanted to live.”
Anything goes.
His formless palm—or tentacle—or whatever limb—gently settled on Little Valen’s chest, unleashing a torrent of foul, viscous pollution!
【Zzzt! Sc… Zzzt zzzt…】
The game’s subtitles fritzed into a mosaic blur, the crisp scene flickering in and out of focus.
The Game System shrieked error codes as the body under Hastur’s limb—which hadn’t yet suffered brain death—lay motionless for ages, then abruptly thumped back to life with heavy heartbeats!
Thump. Thump.
Thump thump. Thump thump.
The sluggish beats knit into a rhythm, but Hastur didn’t withdraw his limb.
Just that afternoon, he’d run several “conversions.”
His would-be assassins had twisted into mindless, shapeless writhing meat under the dense mental pollution—and on instinct, he knew his “conversions” should amount to more than that.
That’s right… You can do so much more than this. You’re still too weak, Hastur. You shouldn’t be this feeble.
The voice seemed to sigh, to keen:
Grow stronger, Hastur. Embark on the path of evolution once more… That’s the purpose you should pursue.
Stay here… Hastur. This world can awaken you.
—If he hadn’t heard this nagging voice in the real world too, and Lv Zhucao hadn’t mentioned “atavistic awakening,” Hastur might’ve suspected it was the Company’s shameless trick to boost player retention.
Prioritizing his promise, he tuned out the babble and focused on pushing Little Valen further—from revived but mindless writhing meat blob to the next stage of transformation:
The foul-smelling grime receded, and Little Valen regained his head and body.
His long hair, reaching down to his back, floated in the air without a breeze, giving off a nebulous texture like a cosmic nebula.
This brand-new shell of a body was tall and robust. It had nothing to do with “frail” and even far surpassed the limits of any human frame.
Excessively sinewy muscles—almost beastly in their power—were covered in white, frosty mid-length fur. Massive, tree-like horns thrust through his thick mane of hair, perfectly proportioned to his enormous new physique.
Snowflakes and mist quietly coalesced. On this autumn night, they appeared without reason in the operating room, swirling around Little Valen.
A gentle wind brushed across his cheek, tenderly and silently rousing him from slumber.
“…” Little Valen slowly opened his shining, star-like red eyes. He saw his reflection in the silver tray that Hastur held aloft:
“–Waaah mmmph!!”
Hastur swiftly clapped a hand over Little Valen’s erupting scream and gale-force wind, muffling them both.
“Quiet. You said as long as you’re alive, anything goes.”
No one could stay calm right after being turned into a monster, let alone accept the twisted logic of “but you said as long as you’re alive, it’s fine.” Yet Little Valen clamped his mouth shut almost on reflex after Hastur’s low-voiced command.
It wasn’t out of fear for the new dean. Nor was it terror at the monster he’d become. No, it stemmed from something far more subtle—a wondrous bond Hastur had never felt before.
This connection made Hastur feel an uncanny closeness to Little Valen. It was so profound that he suddenly wanted to bestow a proper name on the boy who only had a nickname.
“Ithaqua.”
“What?” The Little Sick Ghost—now a furry freak—stared at the silver tray, his face twisted in agony. He clearly couldn’t wrap his head around shifting from one extreme to another, becoming even more monstrous than before.
“Ithaqua. A new name.”
Hastur never took offense if his actions weren’t well-received. He lived by a supreme mindset: all boons from on high, be they thunder or gentle rain.
“You said your parents never gave you a name or put you on any records. I want to adopt you, ‘Little Sick Ghost.’ Ithaqua is the new name I’m giving you.”
“…” Little Valen’s—no, Ithaqua’s—eyes slowly widened. Bewilderment, disbelief, and joy flickered through them in sequence. His eyes were no longer dull and murky; they blazed like red stars in the night sky. Stepping out after dark without shades would randomly terrify some lucky passerby to death. “You want to… adopt… me?”
Hastur: “Yes.”
To stress the point: Hastur didn’t understand human emotions. His reasoning was purely pragmatic.
Orphans left the orphanage upon reaching adulthood, automatically dropping off the list of fixed assets. But an adoptive father-son bond? Once a father, always a father.
How could he let a fixed asset he’d poured so much effort into modifying sprout wings and fly away?
What would be the difference from a cooked duck taking flight or the prize cabbage you’d slaved over getting rooted up by a pig?
Hastur pledged, “I’ll do my best to live up to my responsibilities as a father.”
The new Ithaqua looked easy to keep alive—leather-tough hide, thick flesh, solid build. He shouldn’t prove as fragile as those little flowers, weeds, and bunnies Lv Zhucao had gifted him.
How could Ithaqua possibly guess Hastur’s true thoughts? The anguish from his changed appearance, the helplessness and dread of facing even more malice and rejection in his future—all of it was instantly buried under waves of elation. “I… yes!”
Even back when he still looked vaguely human, no couple scouting the orphanage for kids had wanted to adopt him. Hell, none had even given him a second glance.
And now, right when he was on the brink of despairing over his future, he was getting adopted?
By a powerful adoptive father, no less!
Ithaqua completely tuned out Hastur’s myriad oddities and the outright villainous methods of his transformation.
For someone who’d had to claw for every breath of life, who’d screamed himself hoarse begging the gods for mercy, nothing else mattered. It all felt distant and unreal. Survival was the only solid roadblock in his path—and Hastur had bulldozed the biggest obstacle on it.
The game system chimed with a crisp ding, finally free of its sizzling static and pixelated glitches.
A task prompt floated up from the bottom-left corner:
【Task: Paths Converge (Completed)】
【Task Reward: Cradle Cult’s Damaged Log ×1】
Hastur: “…?”
A Cradle Cult damaged log? What kind of task reward was that? Had this garbage game forgotten it was supposed to be a “management sim”?
Hastur shoved the Cradle Cult’s damaged log into his yellow robe without a second thought. He scanned the room, brimming with interactable items.
Things had come to this. Time to clear the dungeon first.
