We successfully completed the process of sealing 1% into the cursed sword.
There were several minor injuries and one moderately injured individual during the process, but nothing more serious than a few bruises that would heal in a night. In reality, there was no significant damage.
Now that all the preparations and packaging were done, the only thing left was to enjoy the results.
Looking at the cursed sword bound tightly with magic ropes, we started discussing how we should "cook" it. First up was the Evil God Mk.2 plan.
It would be ideal if we could corrupt this one into a fallen hero.
“So... Aisha would have a friend, or maybe... a sister, right? It’s like we’re making—no, giving birth to one, right?” Yuna asked excitedly, her eyes sparkling as if she were thrilled by the prospect of a pseudo-family dynamic.
I joined in, putting on a fatherly expression like a dad considering having a second child, and asked Aisha gently, “So, Aisha, would you prefer a little sister or a little brother?”
“I don’t need a sister or a brother!” Aisha snapped.
“Hey now, families should get along. And even if a second child is born, my love for you won’t change.”
“I said I don’t need one!”
Aisha, who had once mentioned that siblings were born programmed to kill each other, was already grinding her teeth at the thought of an unborn sibling.
I, for one, would prefer a daughter. I attached my magic to the sword and connected to its interior, planning to examine its data and consciousness before deciding on any transformations, like a gender swap or something similar.
“...Huh?”
“What’s wrong, Mima?”
“There’s no consciousness. The internal data... it’s so twisted and encrypted that it’s hard to read.”
“No consciousness? But didn’t the cursed sword emit hypnosis waves at the academy students?”
I had assumed, just like Aisha, that there was consciousness within.
However, the 1% inside the sword was closer to a lump of raw data, with a mechanical tendency to corrupt anything around it—much like how bacteria or viruses operate.
This was something that It had intentionally done. In trying to extract 1% of its body, it had given us a part without consciousness, deliberately choosing to provide us with the most useless and encrypted portion of itself.
“It sacrificed flesh instead of bone, minimizing the damage,” I concluded.
“Exactly. It must’ve seen Aisha’s case as a significant threat. If it fell into corruption again, it knew it would slowly lose ground. So...”
This confirmed something important. Even though It was sealed in my mind, It was still aware of external events. How else would It have known to guard its consciousness so carefully after witnessing Aisha’s transformation?
The exact method by which It perceived the outside world was unclear, though. Could It see and feel what I saw, or was there some external terminal it used?
“In that case, there’s no need to grant this cursed sword a consciousness. Treat it like a USB with valuable data... that’s probably the best approach. Once the research is done, Aisha, I’ll give it to you.”
“Why?”
“Well, it’s technically a part of you, right? So you’d be the best one to utilize it.”
Some things are meant for personal use only.
As Aisha toyed with the tightly bound cursed sword, she frowned as if sensing something suspicious. I raised an eyebrow and asked her silently what was wrong.
“It was originally one, right? Now it’s split off, and I can feel some kind of pull. It’s like 1% and I are trying to merge back together.”
“Is that dangerous?”
“No, there’s no consciousness inside the sword, and it’s just 1%, so I can handle it. But we should be extra cautious for the next extraction. The parts will want to come back together.”
I see. The more we extract, the greater the risk.
That made me reconsider our plan of gradually shaving off 1% until we destroyed It . If the parts would eventually recombine no matter how far apart they were scattered, it was no better than trying to scatter pieces of Exodia across the continent only for it to reassemble later.
This was becoming a real pain.
From there, we entered into a lively discussion about how to extract the information from the cursed sword.
The sword was like a tightly sealed treasure chest right now, wrapped up with all sorts of locks, ropes, and defense mechanisms. Our job was to break through that and extract the data inside.
“What if we steep it in magic liquid, like a tea bag... and slowly draw out the information like steeping tea? We could extract only the data we need bit by bit,” suggested the Grand Wizard’s Green Tea Bag Theory .
“How about this,” I proposed. “We already confirmed there’s no consciousness, right? So what if we filter the sword’s data through a session and examine it step by step? That way, it won’t go berserk, just like back in the Cthulhu days.”
That was my TRPG Theory .
Finally, Aisha, the expert on It (because she’s part of It ), presented the last suggestion.
“If there’s no consciousness, it means we can use it however we want. We could treat it as a pure data pack, and maybe we don’t even need to decrypt the information. We could just shake it and get answers.”
Her idea was a Black Box Theory , where instead of unlocking the treasure chest, we would poke a hole, ask questions, and shake it until we got answers.
It sounded fun, and since there was no risk of damaging the sword’s data, we decided to go with Aisha’s suggestion.
After about half a day of tinkering, we finally created...
“Cursed Sword Internal Module ‘Storyteller’ —answer our questions.”
—...
“What would happen if a gate opened in the skies of Korea?”
—If a “gate” opened in the skies over Korea, the situation could unfold very differently depending on various scenarios. As a vassal state located in the eastern and western empires, Korea is home to elves with a strong affinity for fire magic. Depending on what you mean by “gate”—
“Yep, just as I thought. It’s making things up when it doesn’t know the answer.”
It was like a bootleg ChatGPT, the ‘Storyteller’ .
We could use this feature—its tendency to spout nonsense when it didn’t know something—to gauge what information it knew and what it didn’t. It was like playing a game of 20 Questions.
“Do you know about Cthulhu?”
—Cthulhu refers to a roasted duck recipe passed down orally by bards 3,000 years ago, typically served with ginger...
So, it doesn’t know anything about my past life. Nor did it seem to have any knowledge of what happened within our sessions. If it had seen Bennett’s wild adventure, it would’ve known about the giant octopus.
It seemed that It couldn’t extend its reach into the isolated simulation world, which was valuable information. From now on, we would plan our operations within the session.
So then, how far does this thing’s knowledge go?
“Predict what would have happened if I hadn’t chosen Yuna and started my life as a mage in the Red Tower instead.”
—Two people lived in the Red Tower’s “Fire Soul Palace”...
Fire Soul Palace, Red Tower
The place where the Red Tower Mage resided was a domed structure made of thick magical alloys. This wasn’t to protect it from external threats.
It was to protect the outside world from the heat and radiation generated within.
Due to the various experiments and magical circles conducted inside, the average temperature in Fire Soul Palace reached 105°C. It was an environment where most life forms couldn’t survive.
Spit would evaporate. Any liquid excreted from the body would boil. Just breathing would cook your lungs. It was no exaggeration to call it a burning hell.
Only two people lived there.
Lying on a bed with flame resistance charms was a voluptuous woman, completely naked. Her long red hair cascaded down like molten lava, and her eyes blazed like the sun.
Her skin was as white as snow without a trace of burns, and other parts of her body were as pink as cherry blossoms.
As she inhaled and exhaled lazily, her large breasts rose and fell slightly with each breath. Any man would feel lust at the sight of her sensuous figure.
Her fox-like eyes had an adorable charm, and the tear marks at the corners of her eyes only added to her seductive allure. She wore the allure of a woman who could shake an entire nation and spoke softly.
“Ah~ I feel like yawning~!”
“Please don’t talk so loudly, Master.”
And then her apprentice scolded her.
—
The Red Tower Mage, Vermilion, was a kind and unreserved person... at least to herself.
She behaved like a cat, ignoring most people’s feelings in most situations. Had her ideals not benefited the empire, she would’ve been labeled a public enemy long ago.
Crazy yet capable, she resembled a deranged scientist striving for the advancement of humanity.
Her motto was, ‘I don’t listen to anyone weaker than me,’ and her apprentice, who had been lucky enough to be picked up 10 years ago, was still slightly weaker than her.
“Master, today we’re scheduled to begin renovations on the third magic circle—”
So she ignored him.
Pulling her apprentice onto the bed, she passionately kissed him. He pounded her head with his fists, but those blows weren’t enough to faze her. In fact, the more he struggled, the more excited Vermilion became.
Vermilion grabbed both of her apprentice’s wrists and pinned him to the bed. His black hair and indifferent red eyes looked up at her, emotionless. Those eyes, void of any feeling, stared back at her, unbothered by her violent physique or her sexual advances.
Vermilion loved that about him.
“Sweetie, how about we start the day with some fun?”
“No.”
“I love how you keep stubbornly saying no, even though you know it’s pointless...”
“Die.”
Vermilion lowered herself and pressed her body against his. And then—
“Stop!”
Bang!
Yuna, with her tiny fist, smacked the cursed sword, cutting off the rest of the story. The description of my hypothetical bedroom wrestling with the Red Tower Mage vanished into thin air.
Yuna looked up at me, her expression one of a devoted housewife torn between anger and heartache, unable to fully hate the unfaithful husband she could never truly leave. It wasn’t fair. I wasn’t the one telling the story.
As I lifted her into my arms and comforted her, I started analyzing.
“Do you think the cursed sword is just making this up?”
“I doubt it. I still have some fragmented memories about the Red Tower Mage, and it makes sense the main body would have them, too. So it’s not strange that 1% would contain this information. Plus, there’s probably plenty of info about you...”
“So there’s a possibility that I could have been rolling around in bed with a sultry Red Tower Mage in another timeline—ow! Don’t pinch me! It’s just speculation, a ‘what if!’”
“Try asking something that could give us more clues about the main body.”
Hmm.
“Alright, let’s say I chose to join the Golden Tower instead of Yuna. What would that look like, and how would the world turn out?”
—The Golden Tower’s ultimate desire has been realized. The master of the Golden Tower and his apprentice have created the ‘Floating Earth,’ a floating continent that now soars through the sky...
The crazy magician descended from the central control building and made his way to the front of the ‘Floating Earth,’ a massive airborne landmass decorated with lush greenery. At its edge sat a towering woman, weaving a crown of flowers.
The master of the Golden Tower, who had somehow lifted an entire continent into the sky, was a true anomaly.
The crazy magician scratched the eyepatch adorned with a skull over his eye and reported to the Golden Tower Mage.
“Captain, we’re running a bit low on mana stones.”
“Ohohoho... In that case, let’s adjust our course. Head northwest. Target the empire’s sixteenth mana stone mine. I recall that it’s been tough to develop, so there should be plenty of stones left.”
“Aye aye, ma’am. If we encounter any survivors in the area, should we follow standard protocol?”
“Yes. Accept the untainted as crew members and dispose of the corrupted ones. We can’t let any Mohicans into our paradise, now can we?”
Indeed, it would be suicide to allow any apocalypse-crazed Mohicans aboard. The crazy magician pulled out a telescope from his robe and peered down at the land below.
Below lay a hellish scene, a chaotic pandemonium. Mohicans rampaged across the scorched earth, giant strawberries rolled about, and the sweet-smelling marshmallow farms burned in the background.
The crazy magician focused as he prepared to drop meteors—
Bang!
“Stop. This is nonsense.”
I smacked the cursed sword with a flick to the forehead, cutting off the story. It was heading in a weird direction, and it didn’t seem like we were getting any valuable information. Giant strawberries? Burning marshmallow farms? What was going on?
This thing is 1% of It , but it doesn't seem to know anything about the main body.
However, Aisha saw things a bit differently.
“No, the beginning was fine. But as soon as it started talking about the main body, the story fell apart. It seems like the important information is being carefully guarded.”
“So It won’t easily reveal any secrets about itself.”
It was likely trying to obscure the sensitive information by replacing it with random nonsense—hence the giant strawberries and marshmallow farms. The real story must have been different.
Well, I’d be disappointed if it had been that easy to crack. This was an entity that refused to let go of its hold over someone’s life, no matter what. If the secrets were revealed so easily, It wouldn’t be the persistent foe I’ve come to know.
“Shall I heat it up?”
“Go ahead.”
Sizzle!
Next up was Yuna.
As Yuna attempted to steep the sword in hot water to extract more information, I crossed my arms and started pondering, running through various magical theories and combinations in my head.
And then, it struck me.
We were already preparing a session with giant robots battling kaiju.
If I could copy the cursed sword’s data into the kaiju and test it out in the simulation world, we might be able to extract the data we need. As I mentioned earlier, since there’s no consciousness and it’s well-sealed, it wouldn’t interfere with the session.
On top of that, it could be an opportunity to explore the crossover between magic and technology.
My brain, a monstrous powerhouse of computation and magical talent, was excellent at these kinds of things, though it wasn’t great at other tasks. Poetry or anything creative? Not my strong suit.
Fortunately, I had a good sense of naming things.
Also, I wasn’t good with science and technology. I’m like a high-performance calculator, but I’m not a high-performance scientist. That’s why I haven’t invented nukes, laser guns, or planet-busting weapons.
But in Gordius, the Golden Tower Mage’s apprentice, I saw the makings of an engineer. After all, who else in a fantasy world would think to attach a rocket booster to a sword? That’s when I had the idea.
If I threw all kinds of knowledge and materials at him inside the simulation, perhaps he could create something... special, something even I couldn’t imagine.
“So, I think this could help make your dream come true. If you’re interested, I’d like to give you a chance to experience another world...”
“I’ll do it.”
“I like your enthusiasm! Now, step onto the magic circle, and I’ll explain the precautions...”
It’s been a while, but the session is about to begin.