DLC [Professor of Heroic Fantasy]: Hotfix Ver2.3.2a(6)
In truth, [Offline] was still [Online].
The fact that Dino existed, and that the bastard recited the patch notes to me, meant this was still a place under the influence of the System⧉.
However, when I entered the sea, Dino hadn’t been able to follow. Which meant that [End Ocean] itself was the true ‘Offline’—a space purely for users.
The System⧉ was well aware that I had figured that out.
< ⧉ Connecting to [End Ocean]. >
The moment the phrase appeared.
The bastard began to twist itself again to stop me.
< ⧉ Connecting to [End Ocea_ >
< ⧉ Connecti_ to [End_ >
The phrase was quickly erased. It meant it was trying to hold out until the very end.
No matter how much it controlled the system, if it wanted to restrict the player’s movements, it needed justification.
And the bastard brought justification.
< Connecting....... >
Something popped up.
< ⧉ I am not a robot. [] >
What?
‘Unbelievable.’
A device meant to block unauthorized robots or AIs from connecting to the net. A kind of ‘Turing test.’ And the bastard was shoving that at me.
Seriously, it’s trying every damn thing it can.
Fine.
Let’s see how far you’re willing to take this.
< ⧉ I am not a robot. [✓] >
Then the screen changed, and something appeared.
< ⧉ If you are judged to be a robot, access to [End Ocean] will be semi-permanently restricted. >
< ⧉ Please select the tile where ‘Dino’ is located. >
This time, a large photo popped up. A 16x16 grid, 256 tiles in total. In the photo, kids were wearing mascot costumes, enjoying a party at a playground. And I had to select the tile where ‘Dino’ was.
But there were just too many kids in mascot suits. Probably over a hundred. It looked like a big kindergarten had set up a picnic in a nearby park.
Still, as I kept looking, I spotted a child wearing a gray dinosaur costume.
Then the corresponding tile began to blink, and the screen turned white.
< ⧉ Incorrect. >
What?
< ⧉ Please select the tile where ‘Dino’ is located. >
< ⧉ If you fail three times in a row, access will be restricted. Currently failed: 1 time. >
Why?
A gray dinosaur mascot. That was clearly Dino, wasn’t it?
I had a strong feeling the System⧉ was pulling some kind of trick to stop me.
‘......You little bastard.’
I tried again.
The photo changed. Similar kids in the same playground appeared again. Looked like it had been taken a few seconds apart.
This time too, I was about to pick the gray dinosaur, but—
Looking more closely, there were two gray dinosaurs.
Then, even more carefully, I noticed one of the kids was a girl. Dino might look cute, but he was definitely a boy.
So it had to be this one.
But once again, as the tile turned white, I was met with a familiar system message.
< ⧉ Incorrect. >
Wrong again?
I chose the boy, though?
< ⧉ Please select the tile where ‘Dino’ is located. >
< ⧉ If you fail three times in a row, access will be restricted. Currently failed: 2 times. >
The final chance. And the photo had been subtly altered again. This time I quickly found the dinosaur mascot suits.
It wasn’t that I picked the wrong one.
The first time was the girl. The second time was the boy.
Then why the hell was it marked as a failure?
‘System⧉.......’
For a second, I thought maybe the bastard had tossed out a problem with no answer.
But that couldn’t be.
At least not the System⧉.
The bastard symbolized the management and system of the game itself.
To put it another way, it could manipulate “enhancement rates.”
But it could not manipulate the fact that “if you press the button, the enhancement applies.”
‘Every problem must have a correct answer.’
That was the minimum boundary the bastard had to maintain.
Then what was it?
What was the answer...?
And then I remembered something.
From [Hard Mode] and earlier versions—what the System⧉ used to proclaim.
⋮
– The System⧉ said its role is to grant children’s dreams.
⋮
Fulfilling children’s dreams. That was one of the core essences of a game.
It was something along the lines of this:
As a child grows up, a moment comes when they realize reality isn’t as pretty as their dreams. And everyone has to compromise and live on.
Since the dawn of history, humanity has dreamed of utopias. Adam and Eve had Eden, Peter Pan had Neverland, Hong Gildong had Yuldoguk......
But those were just stories and myths. Couldn’t each struggling individual life also be allowed a tiny utopia? That was the question posed—and the System answered it.
⋮
– The System⧉ will create it.
⋮
I turned my gaze back to the photo. The children already in mascot suits, laughing with friends, fully immersed in happiness—those kids didn’t need the System⧉’s world.
My eyes moved. Beyond the playground. To a shaded corner under a street tree, where one boy sat watching the other children play.
He had clearly come with them, yet he was alone, wearing regular clothes.
That child looked like he needed a mascot suit. And a bright personality. And a warm smile. Maybe those were the very things he wished for.
......I had found Dino.
< ⧉ Selection complete. [✓] >
⋮
One challenge, overcome.
Even so, the System⧉ kept flailing.
In the [Overworld], the chairman and countless other restraining forces weighed me down.
In [Offline], it had thrown Dino and various devices at me to stop me from reaching [End Ocean].
And now, when I had finally passed that last gate, it flipped the board entirely.
< ⧉ 『Game System』 is reactivating. >
In that moment, a fierce force surged through the helpless weight pressing down on my body.
The reason the System⧉ was giving me the Game System despite this place not being inside a game was simple.
< ⧉ You cannot connect to [End Ocean] while 『Game System』 is active. >
No matter what.
No matter what trick it had to use.
It was clenching its teeth, determined to stop me.
To me, it felt like a murderer trying to fabricate an alibi. Like someone so obsessed with survival that they’d throw their own family into the fire just to escape. That disgusting desperation, that clinging instinct to survive—I could feel it oozing off the bastard.
But now, even I was starting to get curious. I could sense it—this was its last resort.
Fine then.
Let’s see this through to the end.
『Game System』 was now blocking me.
Only ten minutes remained.
< Time until Ver.2.3.2a patch completes... [10 minutes] >
Now what should I do?
It had been nothing but darkness. I’d been hovering in some uncertain part of the deep sea. But once the 『Game System』 reactivated, I could feel my body again. My senses.
‘I see now.’
If the System⧉ was blocking me with the Game System, then I’d just break through with the Game System.
At that moment, I thought of the star the System⧉ hated most—“FortuneStar□.”
And right now, the revived 『Game System』 had given me not one, but three items related to FortuneStar□.
The moment I realized that, an unexpected system message appeared.
< ⧉ : I order you to halt. >
The bastard responded.
Yeah.
You felt it too, didn’t you?
Go fuck yourself.
『 Stigma Imprint I 』
I activate the special ability.
The stigma I intend to imprint is the power of “Gamble□.”
What the System⧉ hates most—its sworn enemy in its pursuit of a predetermined future by labeling and managing everything in the world.
Uncertainty.
< ⧉ : I order you to halt. >
< ⧉ : I order you to halt. >
< ⧉ : I order you to halt. >
The bastard flares up even harder. Useless. The target of the imprint is a note from the “Empire Cookie.”
I took a small piece of paper from inside my coat.
It just so happened that Adele had bought it, saying we should imagine our future together. My cookie had no picture on it—completely blank.
「 □ 」
The fragment of the star decided to go all in.
If I lost this battle, the System⧉ would sense danger and perfectly falsify all evidence. I would never be able to get close to the truth again.
But if I got close to the truth, I could recover this worthless piece of star at any time.
< ⧉ : I order you to halt. >< ⧉ : I order you to halt. >< ⧉ : I order you to halt. >< ⧉ : I order you to halt. >< ⧉ : I order you to halt. >< ⧉ : I order you to halt. >< ⧉ : I order you to halt. >< ⧉ : I order you to halt. >< ⧉ : I order you to halt. >< ⧉ : I order you to halt. >< ⧉ : I order you to halt. >< ⧉ : I order you to halt. >< ⧉ : I order you to halt. >< ⧉ : I order you to halt. >< ⧉ : I order you to halt. >< ⧉ : I order you to halt. >< ⧉ : I order you to halt. >< ⧉ : I order you to halt. >< ⧉ : I order you to halt. >< ⧉ : I order you to halt. >< ⧉ : I order you to halt. >< ⧉ : I order you to halt. >< ⧉ : I order you to halt. >< ⧉ : I order you to halt. >
Phrases flashing madly, clouding my vision.
But from the moment it granted me the Game System, I had become an entity with uniqueness.
You can’t interfere with me anymore.
⋮
『 Stigma Imprint I : “FortuneStar□” ⊂ “Empire Cookie” 』
< Star Fragments held: 0 (▼327) >
⋮
At that, a dazzling light burst from my hand.
────.
A violently bright neon glow. The gaudy brilliance of a casino that obliterates the night. It began to illuminate the entire deep sea, once cloaked in darkness.
And at the same time, something astonishing occurred.
「 □ 」
Dots began to appear on the once-blank dice inside the paper. One, two, three—yet the graphics began to break apart. The dots appeared, then shattered, appeared, then shattered again. From that, I realized—FortuneStar□ and System⧉ had started a power struggle.
Even the probability of uncertainty—the system was using force to control it.
And in that distant clash of colossal monsters, a strand reached into my mind.
I was being replicated into tens of millions, hundreds of billions of entities across the cosmos.
And among them, all unauthorized copies were being slaughtered.
But amidst the multiplying clones, some began to slightly diverge.
The birth of “mutation,” the authority of FortuneStar□, which had guided the world from its inception until now.
There were Dantes with wings or horns, some with the appearance of angels and blue eyes.
And in the end, one Dante Hiakapo did not die.
He looked up at the sky.
Where the image had shattered, I was again, buried in the deep sea. I stared at the Empire Cookie’s paper. The dots grew—three, four, five, six—and soon like a sewing machine piercing holes, they multiplied by the dozens and hundreds, filling the paper completely.
At the end, a phrase was written.
「 ■ : Be happy here. 」
At that same moment, cracks began to form across the entire world around me, including the deep sea.
And outside the rift of this broken world, I saw two vast stars in the distance.
A star shaped like dice and another smeared in dot graphics.
They were shouting at each other in rage.
□ reports that ⧉ is overstepping its authority.
⧉ shouts loudly! Proclaims that truth can only be reached by following the predetermined path!
□ responds that such thinking only applied in 2.1.0. That one cannot force a path onto humanity.
⧉ screams to cut that nonsense out!
They are fighting.
Two colossal gods.
Expressing their frustrations through overwhelmingly intense mental communication.
⧉ mocks.
⧉ laughs, calling it foolish for □ to believe in such flimsy hopes.
⧉ asks, “Do you believe in humans?”—a truly idiotic question.
System⧉ bursts in fury, filled with emotion.
And to that, FortuneStar□ answers.
□ responds: “I do.”
And with that, the tide shifted.
□ wishes to leave the judgment to ✯.
Transcendence✯ was invoked. The King of Stars. The sole god above the System⧉.
And the judge and mediator of all stars.
⧉ yells to wait.
□ is leaving.
⧉ curses!
⧉ desperately chases □!
And before leaving, ⧉ decides to use all its remaining power to exile you. Sends you into a trash bin of unknown data.
≪ ⧉ has exiled you. ≫
After that, I was ejected from the deep sea.
.
.
.
.
.
[ This is the trash bin. ]
At the tail end of a long battle.
I was drifting in darkness.
My blank gaze lifted toward the murky shadow.
Looking up meant I was falling.
But I couldn’t sense anything else.
It felt like a long time had passed.
Maybe days.
Maybe months. Or even years.
There was no ★ 𝐍𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 ★ sensory input, so only boredom and anxiety remained.
FortuneStar□ had fought for me—so why had it let me be thrown here?
Perhaps the trial of Transcendence✯ was still ongoing?
In the end, what was I trying to find?
What was the System so desperate to hide?
Why had Adele trembled and cursed through clenched teeth at the claw machine?
Why had a mere teaching assistant been marked with the “Curse of Instant Death”?
At this rate, I wouldn’t learn anything......
Back in childhood, I once died 300 times over two weeks to a boss in an RPG at a friend’s house.
Still couldn’t beat it? Still? I even endured being glared at by my friend’s mom just to keep fighting that thing with him—and still couldn’t beat it?
That was the first time I’d ever tasted true frustration.
And I was starting to feel something similar now.
Maybe challenging a god in a world made by gods was a stupid idea.
Seeing it lose its shit like this—
Maybe it was impossible from the start......
Once that doubt crept in, time began to flow even more aimlessly.
A human with will can climb Everest without toes, but one whose will is broken struggles to rise from bed.
Which means, to humans, will is everything.
And mine was breaking.
.
.
.
.
.
......Then, at some moment.
In the blurred vision—
Something twitched.
[ This is the trash bin. ]
Right there, in that very system window.
[ This is the trash bin. ])
[ This is the trash bin. ]ㅇ)
[ This is the trash bin. ]ㅅㅇ)
A single face peeked out.
It was PeepingStar│ㅅㅇ).
Why the hell was that bastard here?
No—more importantly, how had it gotten here...?
I pretended not to see it for now.
Then PeepingStar│ㅅㅇ)’s thoughts were transmitted.
│ㅅㅇ) acknowledges that you are in distress. The stars are unkind. The world is broken. At this rate, you will not survive. You are doomed to follow the path of countless dead players before you.
Meaningless words followed. I didn’t look too long. The moment our eyes met, the bastard would run. But just from that glimpse, I could clearly read its intent.
│ㅅㅇ) believes this is wrong.
The face moved closer.
│ㅅㅇ) wishes to help you.