The Empire Public Security Special Task Unit was made up of top-tier powerhouses, even among the countless units inside the Public Security Bureau.
The task unit captain, Roival, was a former [Challenger] ranked 70th. And every single person following him was [Grandmaster] grade—each one individually above the level of a typical academy’s head professor.
So when they opened the basement door of Agion’s mansion, there was no sense of crisis. A bit of tension. Only that.
"Entry."
At Roival’s order, the members drew up their 『Sword Aura』 and stepped underground.
What appeared at the end of the not-long cave was a man bound in chains.
‘......He doesn’t look as dangerous as my first impression.’
A gaunt body. A small-looking height. But an adult.
"Is he alive."
"Yes. There are vital signs."
"Why would Agion keep something like that locked up underground?"
When they looked around more closely, they could see things like a rice bowl and a water bowl.
There was also something like a feed bin beside it, but it was completely empty.
Looking even closer, they could see traces as if someone had eaten the dirt—there were gouges in the floor, and dirt was smeared around the man’s hands and mouth.
‘A slave or something?’
Something Agion kept?
And after Agion died, with no food, he shoved dirt into his mouth instead?
That was the line of deduction Roival was following when a cracked voice flowed out.
"......Give me some water."
A voice like winter wind brushing over a dry branch.
Roival’s eyes narrowed. It didn’t feel good.
"We’re from the Empire Public Security Bureau. State your identity. And the reason you’re bound here."
"......Water."
"I won’t say it three times. A highly ominous mana is flowing from you. State your identity, and the reason you’re bound here. Then I’ll give you water."
"......."
If communication was possible, they had to identify the target.
So Roival approached by procedure.
Then the man lifted his head.
And the moment their eyes met.
Roival felt that something was deeply, fundamentally wrong.
"......Give me some water."
His body stiffened. And then it began to move on its own. Roival pulled the canteen off his belt, twisted the cap, opened it, and brought it to the man, pressing it to his mouth.
"Gulp. Gulp....... Haa."
After drinking for a long time, the man let out a cold breath.
Roival didn’t know what the hell this was. He had served decades in the Special Task Unit, and there were plenty of things he had never experienced even after becoming a [Challenger].
Like how a hard-nosed narcotics detective has never tried drugs himself.
Still, Roival realized from circumstantial evidence.
A phenomenon where your thoughts are carried out by your own will, yet your actions are completely swallowed—only the 『Curse of Domination』 could do that.
Somehow, just by making eye contact, he had begun to be manipulated by the 『Curse of Domination』.
Everyone in the task unit present here!
"Unchain me."
When the other members loosened his restraints, the man turned his body, cracked it, and stretched.
Then he looked at Roival and said,
"Die."
Roival felt his own hand moving toward the pistol on his belt. Despite what his mind was thinking, his body didn’t stop. This time, even his mouth moved on its own.
"Understood."
Then something cold touched his temple.
A gun barrel.
Even though Roival’s jaw was trembling, he couldn’t stop that series of motions.
An alarm bell rang in his head.
No matter how you slice it, even a curse in the 90s cannot bind a [Challenger] like this. And without any foundation, at that. Binding someone with nothing but a glance is absurd!
And yet the other side was performing that kind of aberration.
I have to... I have to report this...! Right now, to the Public Security Bureau—inform them that this dangerous existence has been released—
—— Bang!!
***
What kind of people were my parents?
It was a question that had circled in my head ever since I started growing up.
My childhood memories were blurry, but the clearest event was my parents’ deaths.
I know their jobs, their names, and their faces.
But what I’m really curious about is their personalities. Their values. Or what it felt like to be with them.
But there was no way to know.
I couldn’t exactly ask relatives I wasn’t even close to.
Then, by chance, I realized something.
That my parents were inside me.
Being wary of strangers at first sight.
As if possessed, choosing the STEM path.
When I get hooked on one thing—games, hobbies, research—I don’t do chores, I don’t meet people, I just bury myself in it.
When I see someone acting all high and mighty, I want to mess with them for no reason.
And for some reason liking dogs more than cats, and so on.
Inside all the parts of me that were decided on their own, without me choosing them.
I started thinking maybe those were something that continued from my parents into me.
‘If not, then whatever.’
Who knows.
There are plenty of cases like a bum son from a family of doctors.
But the me right now is different.
Living in Dante’s body, adapting to that ‘unfamiliar me.’ Now that my personality has changed a lot.
I can clearly realize that the me of now continues from something in the past.
"You want me to tell you about Abraxas?"
So I came to meet the Eternal Constellation∞ Songchien at the earliest time I could.
"Yes. While continuing research on curses in the 100s, I thought I needed to know Abraxas."
"What do you want to know?"
"I know the commonly known things. I also know information originating from the Empire or the Public Security Bureau. What I’m curious about is what kind of person Abraxas was in everyday life. Or what direction he lived in."
Murmuring, “Abraxas,” Songchien stared into the distance for a moment.
Behind her was an old dragon, and Songchien’s vassals—steel armor, death knights, and the like—also had eyes soaked in melancholy.
So he really was a mysterious figure.
Right. Even in my head, he already had this lofty, mysterious image—
"He was an X-bastard."
...Huh.
"Accurate."
"Straight trash."
"Grk... (agreed)."
Old people nodding along.
"First off, he was a famous womanizer. There were rumors he always had some kind of perception-interference laid over him, and beneath it was a handsome face."
Songchien’s eyes turned straight to my face.
"He had confidence, so he went around flirting everywhere."
"That wasn’t all. He betrayed people like it was eating rice, just to become the Public Security Chief. Making others trust him and then stabbing them in the back—he was human scum."
"He had ugly sides too... worked hard to bully the weak, and when someone came to denounce the truth, he ran.... Ah, we’re forgetting the strangest thing."
"The strangest thing? Ah, if it’s that..."
"Ahh, right."
"Krk! (That one!)"
What.
The four of them looked at each other and snickered.
Like it was ridiculous.
What is it.
"He was obsessed with something like cream buns."
...Wait.
Cream buns?
"One day there was a summit meeting of the constellations, and that kid suddenly blew it up and left. Told everyone to go eat shit, too, while he was at it."
"...That’s absurd. Why?"
"At first, we didn’t know. Later we found out it was because he couldn’t eat some cream bun? thing, so he was in a bad mood."
"......."
Ridiculous.
Are you telling me even my weird pull toward soft fluffy cream buns is evidence of continuation?
"That’s why everyone thought he was a thug, but..."
At the end of that horror story, there was one line of a heartwarming story too.
A very important one.
"...Now, the constellations’ evaluation has changed a bit."
"In what way?"
"A theory started spreading that every single person Abraxas cheated on, bullied, and betrayed had connections to the Lord of Eternal Regression."
The Lord of Eternal Regression.
The Demon King.
"There were already people saying that among the constellations, but it got refuted, right? Anyway, the next Light Constellation⁺₊⋆ was Agion."
"I’ve heard there was talk that Agion stole the power of the Light Constellation⁺₊⋆ from Abraxas."
"My thoughts are different. Agion was too weak for that. And right after he became a constellation, Abraxas cut ties with him."
"......."
"And Agion...."
She stopped for a moment when talking about the dead.
I know the rest.
Agion was a man full of greed.
In the end, he accepted demonization and was becoming a monster.
Then he died by my hand. The flow of events was fairly inevitable.
‘Because he realized the Holy Sword existed and came to steal it.’
He was humanity’s enemy.
He had to die.
And he died by my hand.
"...There’s something I find strange."
"What is it?"
"If Agion was someone with the potential to become a demon in the future, why didn’t Abraxas kill Agion directly?"
It was a question.
Abraxas would obviously be stronger.
"In my opinion, it’s probably to pass the Light Constellation⁺₊⋆ on to the next generation."
"To me."
"Seems like it. If Abraxas killed Agion, then the Light Constellation⁺₊⋆ he ‘put down’ would have tried to stick back to Abraxas."
Because I killed him.
It attached to me.
‘Ha.’
Once again, the past and present are placed inside “continuation.”
In other words—
Abraxas existed solely to kill “demons.”
And he even used “a person who would become a demon in the future” to create this situation.
‘So that nameless hostility I felt whenever I looked at demons, that was the influence too?’
I used to think it was an emotion forced onto the player.
But even that—was Abraxas’s disposition continuing down to me?
"Songchien."
"Hm?"
I refined my thoughts about continuation and told her.
Songchien nodded as well.
"Sounds right. What I’ve felt living a long time is this—this world, from its very foundation, is based on a war against destruction. That’s the order that lofty star, Transcendence✯, created."
Transcendence✯ was the star that created the world’s foundation.
As an analogy—
A game has planning, programming, and art.
And among those, you could say it’s the one in charge of planning.
Meanwhile, programming revolves around Systematic Order⧉.
‘......A game made for all characters to die, and the one stopping that is the Hero, and the one raising the Hero is the [Professor of Hero Stories].’
Then it became full of errors, and the Hero deviated from his role.
And Abraxas slipped into that gap.
‘He’s basically another Hero.’
In fact, all of Abraxas’s actions weren’t that different from a Hero’s.
And that made me feel uneasy.
"My child. Your expression isn’t good."
"The curse in the 100s keeps bothering me."
"If it’s that, I think it’s right not to worry too much."
"...Why."
"The Lord of Eternal Regression disappeared, didn’t he? This world has already been saved. If you call it the way of heaven, humanity reached the end of the road. If you call it Transcendence✯’s order, it means everything is already within order."
I nodded.
But my real thoughts were different.
‘Just like Setian tried to change his role with a curse in the 100s, Abraxas also tried to change his role.’
Setian wanted to become something similar to a Demon ~Nоvеl𝕚ght~ King.
And Abraxas became something similar to a Hero.
There was a common point.
Both of them defied Transcendence✯’s order—the foundation of the system.
‘The will of the Hero who defied order continues and reaches me here.’
But you’re telling me the will of the Demon King who defied order—the curse in the 100s—disappeared?
‘......No.’
That can’t be.
*
After parting with Songchien, I tried searching everywhere for traces of the curse in the 100s, but I couldn’t find anything. I was getting frustrated.
Around then, Ran brought me an unexpected fact.
"Offline has opened now?"
"Yes. Since it seems to be the first time ‘here’ is being cleared, the judgment appears to have been delayed. Now, Professor, you can go to spaces including End Ocean."
"......."
End Ocean, which I had visited once in the past.
But back then, I still hadn’t seen the ending, so it was a space where indirect communication was all I could do.
Some of them knew about Adele’s error, and even gave me advice.
In other words—even if each world is different, bugs carry over.
‘...I’ll have to find out about the curse in the 100s in End Ocean.’
When I told him that, Ran blinked.
"May I go with you too?"
"What? Why would you."
"Professor, what is your combat power right now?"
"A little over 1.35 million."
"That combat power—do you know that the units are different in other worlds?"
Ah?
Come to think of it.
I remember the people in Main Story 1, where I hadn’t been able to grow, cheering at my combat power.
And how an Easy-difficulty person entrusted their sense of self to me and cried their eyes out.
‘I’m not that interested in showing off strength...’
By definition, three-tenths of Koreans are North Koreans, and North Koreans naturally praise dictatorship. Don’t they live with about one-third of a North Korean flag inside their chests?
In other words, it means about one-third of me is interested in showing off power.
‘......Just kidding.’
I truly have no interest in that childish crap.
Of course, if there’s something that requires me to use force, I’ll use it.
But right now, the top priority was identifying the curse in the 100s that was generated by an error.
"Set the offline schedule."
"Understood."