Chapter 6

Three minutes later, all the members of the orphanage had gathered in front of the main gate.

Hastur stared at the empty air in front of him, hoping his Intelligence would flicker like a faulty lightbulb and occasionally illuminate the clues before him. “What does he look like, Ithaqua?”

“Uh…” Ithaqua glanced at the burly man sprawled on the ground, then back at Hastur. “Brown… short hair? Around five-foot-seven. He looks pretty good, but I don’t know if this face is natural or a later cybernetic replacement—”

“I’m asking for features that can confirm his identity,” Hastur interrupted.

He strained to widen his eyes, but since his gaze perfectly skipped over the unconscious man on the ground, the expression only made him look more like a blind man staring at nothing:

“For example, what clothes is he wearing? Does he carry any weapons? Are there thick calluses on his fingertips? What type of cybernetic body does he have?”

As he spoke, Hastur crouched down near the empty air.

Just because his vision was restricted didn’t mean he was completely helpless.

Ithaqua’s assistance was one thing, but even without it, he could still glean information from the clues using his other senses.

For instance, the unconscious man had been drinking before this happened, and it was high-end stuff—this guy clearly had some money and status.

He could also hear the steady thump of a mechanical heart. The man reeked of blood, but he wasn’t going to die from it.

And then there were those intense, muddled hormones… anger, disappointment, self-doubt, and a burning thirst for revenge.

This was someone who had just been betrayed. His desires for vengeance and survival were blazing like an inferno.

“Uh,” Ithaqua said, scrambling to squat down beside him. Amid his embarrassment, he also felt like the Dean was teaching him some survival skills. “Let me see…”

“He’s wearing a leather jacket and a white tank top.” Ithaqua ran his index finger through the air. “He’s covered in sand grains… I think he came from Otodast—that patch of Desert Wasteland to the south.”

Hastur gave up hoping his 3 points of Intelligence would kick in. He looked up, his gaze urging Ithaqua to continue.

Ithaqua pursed his lips shyly but couldn’t suppress a swell of pride as he puffed out his chest just a little:

“He’s not carrying any weapons, but there are signs of extensive cybernetic modifications… All the exposed skin is covered in optical decorations.”

“With modifications that heavy, I’m guessing he’s either a wanderer or a gang thug. Both need high combat stats.”

Hastur nodded approvingly at Ithaqua’s analysis, adding just one detail: “His teeth are grinding on something hard. He’s got something in his mouth.”

What could it be?

Father and son both fixed their eyes on the unconscious man. Ithaqua carefully pried open the man’s lips and spotted a white chess piece clenched between his teeth, squeaking faintly.

“Father?” Ithaqua looked up at Hastur in confusion, blurting out the affectionate title he’d been secretly using in his mind without realizing it.

Hastur paid no mind to the shift in how he was addressed. Even without hearing Dustin’s spiel about “Ithaqua forgot the front forgot the back but anyway he’s Hastur’s offspring,” he had already committed to the role of father:

“It could be a ‘crime signature’ left by his attackers, or maybe it’s his most cherished possession… Let’s carry him inside. I’ll set up a new room for him.”

Seeing nothing but “a blob of air”—wasn’t that a kind of highlight indicator? At the very least, it proved this unconscious man was definitely an important clue.

Hastur even pondered it for a moment: later on, should he deliberately avoid adding Intelligence points to exploit some game bug from another angle?

He stepped aside to let Ithaqua through the gate, then opened the Building Interface and re-planned the orphanage.

First, the first-floor lobby definitely needed to be changed back to a style normal humans could tolerate, even if it hurt to do so.

After all, Detective Dustin might come knocking again, and he didn’t want to scare off a useful… ahem, upstanding good cop.

He’d leave the kitchen alone for now—he hadn’t figured out how to deal with that heartbreaking place yet.

Plus, that cooking quest was still hanging in his task bar. Hastur, who had never lost at anything in his life, wanted another shot at it.

As for the rest of the first-floor rooms… a small school? Staff office?

Aside from the Dean’s office, none of them had any use right now. He’d leave them dormant for the time being and unlock them later if needed.

Hastur swiped the interface and looked toward the second floor.

The orphanage didn’t have many specialized rooms here—just the “Orphan Dormitory” and a communal bathroom for the entire floor.

He’d definitely need to open the bathroom. For the dormitory, he could activate just two rooms and shut down the rest (Hastur’s version of “shutting down” meant selling off the doors and windows).

Of course, in case the new clue woke up in the middle of the night and had a mental breakdown in his room, the space prepared for him had to be a bit more “human-friendly”…

As for the basement… the game hadn’t even shown a full map. Hastur had a nagging feeling that the negative first floor was larger than it appeared. When he had time later, he’d have to go down and explore properly.

And for now…

Hastur closed the Building Interface, rolled up his sleeves, and floated toward his unruly kitchen with murderous intent.

~~~

Pain.

And cold.

Finnian awoke at the stroke of midnight.

He lay face-up on something soft, his body shivering from blood loss and fever.

He felt like he was sinking into a swamp of scalding heat and biting chill, his thoughts muddled and drifting into aimless nonsense.

From whether the red wine he’d bought a few days ago deserved a unicorn label, to the knife plunging toward him from a comrade he’d once seen as family… Right, the knife.

The memory of betrayal seized his scattered mind, forcing his attention to sharpen as he tried to assess his current situation:

A soft sensation… Was he lying on a bed?

The acrid smell of chemical agents—he must be somewhere near the Black Sea.

Had one of his gang brothers saved him?

No, impossible. They knew he never tolerated traitors. No one would betray him and then suddenly have a change of heart to save him.

So… someone else had rescued him?

A random passerby? Or someone from another gang with their own agenda?

“…I… flu…”

“…inkc…”

“…oulorn… igh…”

Muffled voices drifted in from afar, as if filtered through water.

One voice in particular was strangely off, like human speech warped into the mimicry of some nonhuman creature.

A shiver shot through him. Even as his reason struggled to function, his primal instincts blared a piercing alarm.

A surge of adrenaline flooded his veins, lending a sliver of strength to his weakened body and forcing his eyelids apart.

“…hla…”

The voice sounded again.

He took in the midnight room, especially those bizarre cabinets dangling upside-down from the ceiling, and the white sheets drifting lazily about.

Someone was playing tricks, putting on a ghostly show.

It had to be. How else to explain this weird furniture arrangement?

He forced himself to ignore the pain in his body—even though it was excruciating, making him feel like a sieve with blood and strength pouring out through the gashes, and unbearable agony surging back in through those same wounds—

Still, he compelled his mind to focus, listening to those distant voices in hopes of grasping his situation sooner:

Ping… ping…

His mechanical heart pumped steadily, one beat after another, circulating blood and oxygen.

The garbled voices gradually grew clearer:

“…I think it’s fine. The recipe…”

“But the color’s off—”

“Father.” It was a young voice, maybe fourteen or fifteen. “I still think you should finish making this meatball. If you’re following the recipe step by step, how could it possibly be wrong?”

The other voice—which was a bit strange (Finnian’s calf twitched: that’s the creepy one!)—replied:

“…That’s the problem, Ithaqua. What I made isn’t a meatball. It’s fish and chips with tomato sauce. And I haven’t even poured the sauce on yet.”

“…” Finnian lay there stunned into silence, mentally inserting six ellipses into the darkness.

How the hell did you turn fish and chips into meatballs?

“…” Even Ithaqua, the kid called, fell into baffled silence.

But after a few grunts, he rallied with fervent encouragement: “But it looks delicious!! Father! Don’t doubt yourself—this is your first successful dish. Once it’s out of the oven, I’ll eat every last one!!”

Finnian: “…”

…No need to go that far.

The everyday, clumsy banter between father and son gradually eased his nerves.

The earlier adrenaline rush had broken into a light sweat, loosening his body a bit as the fever in his head began to recede.

He tested his limbs—he still couldn’t control them fully, but his fingers and toes seemed to have regained some mobility.

Maybe in a few more hours, he’d have the strength to walk and get out of this bizarre place.

Until then—Finnian decided to keep tuning in to this “father-son midnight snack saga.” It wasn’t like he had anything better to do.

From very far away.

The father’s voice sounded utterly terrifying. “It’s cursing at me. Why? What did I do that wasn’t up to standard?”

His son replied, “No, not at all. This stove top probably just has a clogged gas line, so it sputtered out a little spark.”

The father insisted, “No. It’s definitely cursing me. And it gave me the silent treatment earlier—remember? At the start, no matter how I twisted the knob, it refused to light.”

The son made a sound like his brain was whirring at full speed. “Uh—yeah—! That must just be the gas line acting up, right?”

“Father, you’re overthinking this. A stove top can’t have a mind of its own. —Oh, isn’t that the time the recipe said? Can we take it off the heat now?”

A flurry of chaotic noises followed, punctuated by the sharp crack of a plate shattering.

Once the “fish and chips” had been successfully plated, a heavy silence descended from downstairs.

“…”

“…………”

Finnian waited and waited until he grew impatient enough to roll over and get out of bed.

What kind of reaction was that? How badly did the plated fish and chips look to leave that father and son pair speechless for so long?

And that son? He’d been encouraging the whole way through, even saying he’d “eat every last bite.” So why had he gone completely quiet now?

After a long moment, the father’s voice rang out again, heavy with disappointment. “It’s not a total loss, at least… um…”

An even longer silence stretched out, as if father and son were racking their brains together for some positive spin.

Finnian nearly burst out laughing.

—But was the reality really as amusing and lighthearted as Finnian imagined?

Downstairs in the kitchen.

Hastur stared at the empty frying pan, now coated only in a layer of tar-like residue. A few seconds later, he asked Ithaqua softly, “Did you see that?”

Ithaqua hadn’t been able to see the stove top’s earlier furious rantings without the Game System, but those “fish and chips” had genuinely materialized right in front of them before vanishing into thin air, leaving only the sizzling remnants of oil to prove they’d ever existed.

“…” Ithaqua’s mouth hung open, his face a picture of utter bewilderment. “I…”

But his focus wasn’t on the midnight snack’s disappearance—it was on the plating itself.

His mind blanked for a few seconds before his eyes widened in horror. “What was that?? What the hell was that?! Father, why did your meat patties turn into… into…”

He struggled to find the right words to describe the things.

They looked like a clutch of chicks freshly hatched from their shells, with unnaturally elongated necks and wings as thin as gossamer, their bones twisted out of shape.

Coated in yellow-green slime, their heads were oversized. Their four stout, powerful limbs—two fore, two aft—were just barely able to support bodies that were grotesquely bloated compared to their necks and wings.

The question was: how had codfish and potatoes produced creatures like this?

And why had they vanished into thin air the instant they hit the plate?

Ithaqua stared blankly ahead, mumbling endless “whys” about the sudden monstrous transformation. Hastur, meanwhile: “…”

Hadn’t Ithaqua just called them “meat patties” too?

Whatever. It didn’t matter.

What did matter was whether those little monsters had flashed some kind of symbol beneath them before they disappeared.

He recalled what Dustin had mentioned about the Cradle Cult and the summoning arrays in those photos…

That plate of fish and chips—er, little monsters—wouldn’t have been whisked away by some cult ritual, would it?

—Whatever. If they were gone, they were gone.

At least he’d completed this Easter Egg Quest. It had been worth enduring Ithaqua’s weird stares and threatening the stove top with the Electromagnetic Railgun just to make his life easier.

Hastur opened the quest description to check his completion reward.

【You have obtained: 5 Freedom Points. Allocate them? [Yes/No]】

Hastur instantly felt like the 30,000 bucks he’d dumped into the kitchen had paid off. He pulled up his Status Panel and studied his stats for a moment.

【Character: Hastur

Mental: 20

Intelligence: 3

Strength: 1

Health: 1

Defense: 1

Agility: 20】

Hastur: “…”

Same as always—trying to cram at the last minute, with no clue where to even start.

If this had been a day ago, he probably would’ve dumped everything into Intelligence to avoid missing any clues.

But tonight’s experiences had made him reconsider the whole “can’t see clues” issue. There had to be some exploit in the system; maybe he didn’t need to add points after all and could just game it instead.

His gaze flicked up and down the panel for a bit, but he still couldn’t decide where to invest. In the end, he closed it, figuring he’d add points on the fly if needed later.

For now…

He glanced at the massive fluffball still clutching his head and questioning his life choices. “Come on. Before my shift starts, let’s try advancing your transformation a bit further.”

Until he could shape Ithaqua into a proper humanoid form, he couldn’t go harass Detective Dustin.

Sure, the excuse of “the kid just had surgery and hasn’t woken up” might fly for a day or two. But dragging it out to a full week? Even an idiot would smell something off.

Hastur didn’t need sleep himself, but that didn’t mean he should deprive the kid of his rest. He gestured for Ithaqua to head back to the dorm and get some shut-eye, ignoring whatever he himself was up to.

Hastur then sat on the edge of Ithaqua’s bed, tinkering from midnight until 4 a.m.

No humanoid form emerged—instead, Ithaqua’s fuzz grew even softer and fluffier, perfect for kneading like a giant dollop of whipped cream.

Phoenix District had fallen completely quiet, not even a distant gunshot to be heard.

In the pitch-black dorm, a voice whispered from the depths of Hastur’s mind.

What are you doing, Hastur? You are the embodiment of chaos, the true path of evolution. Why push your sole offspring away from your direction?

Hastur pretended not to hear it. He had his own plans.

4:01. 4:10. 4:30.

At 4:42, the old-fashioned phone tucked inside his Yellow Robe suddenly rang.

Blues music drifted mournfully from the cold metal casing, like a funeral held just before dawn.

Hastur had no innate grasp of such emotions. He silenced the ringtone before it woke Ithaqua and stepped out of the dorm. “Hello?”

“—H.J.” Dustin’s voice crackled through the receiver, taut with unnatural tension.

He sounded breathless, as if something had scared him badly. “There’s been a second disappearance. The scene matches Philip Brown’s almost exactly—no! It’s worse! I saw… things. Traces that science can’t explain. Tell me, H.J., tell me—how’s Ithaqua doing right now? Can he give us any more details?”

Only after Hastur delivered his negative response did he suddenly recall those little monsters from four hours ago. “…”

The folds of his Yellow Robe shifted cautiously. “What kind of unexplainable traces?”

—No way those plate of little monsters had caused this mess, right?