[WARNING. THE SYSTEM HAS STARTED TO BREAKDOWN. EVERYTHING RELATED TO THE SYSTEM WILL START GETTING DESTROYED.]
[Subject #00 will get affected by this as well. Please rethink your decision and help the system out.]
It was a clear cry for help, but Rin did not move to do it. His body felt like it was breaking apart, but he had no intention of helping the system out.
"Fuck you! You can rot in hell for all I care. If killing you means killing myself, then I don’t even mind. Let’s both die together now."
Rin’s body had no energy but he still spoke these words out loud.
[Searching for an alternative survival route...]
[Searching...]
[Searching...]
[Optimal solution found.]
The cold mechanical voice echoed once more before the scenery surrounding Rin abruptly began to change. The endless darkness faded away, replaced by a warm afternoon sky that looked painfully familiar.
A gentle breeze brushed against his face, carrying with it the scent of flowers and fresh grass.
Before he realized it, he was no longer standing beneath the enormous system tree but inside the courtyard of the settlement he had worked so hard to protect.
Everything looked exactly as he remembered it.
The houses were untouched, children were running through the streets with carefree smiles on their faces, and the hunters who had survived countless battles laughed together as though the apocalypse had never existed.
Shelly stood several meters away from him beneath the shade of a large tree, quietly watching him with the same gentle smile she always wore whenever they were alone together.
There were no traces of blood on her clothes, no exhaustion on her face, and no burden weighing down her shoulders.
She looked exactly like the Shelly Rin wished he could have protected from the very beginning.
She slowly walked toward him before stopping only a single step away, her violet eyes staring directly into his own as she reached out and gently wrapped both hands around his.
Her touch felt warm enough to fool anyone into believing she was real, and for a brief moment even Rin felt his heart waver.
"Rin..."
Her voice was barely above a whisper, yet it carried far more emotion than any illusion should have been capable of expressing.
"Please don’t leave me behind."
She lowered her head, her fingers tightening around his trembling hands.
"You promised me that we would survive this together. You said that once everything was over, we would finally be able to rest. We still haven’t kept that promise, so...please don’t give up now."
Rin slowly closed his eyes.
His heart hurt.
Not because he believed the illusion standing before him.
But because the system had chosen this method to stop him.
"...You’re really unfair."
His quiet voice caused the smiling Shelly to freeze.
"Out of everyone you could have shown me, you chose her."
He let out a tired laugh before opening his eyes once again.
"You know better than anyone that she’s the only person capable of making me hesitate."
The illusion remained silent.
Its expression never changed, yet Rin could almost feel the system waiting for his resolve to break.
"I won’t lie. Seeing her like this makes me want to stop everything. It makes me wonder whether I should just accept your offer if it means everyone gets to live peacefully."
Rin smiled bitterly before slowly shaking his head.
"But that’s exactly how I know this isn’t her."
He gently pulled his hands away from the illusion before taking a slow step backward.
"The real Shelly would never ask me to surrender. She would hit me over the head first, call me an idiot for thinking something so stupid, and then drag me toward the enemy herself."
For the first time, the illusion’s smile disappeared.
The surrounding scenery immediately began to flicker as though it could no longer maintain its shape.
[Subject #00 is displaying unexpected emotional resistance.]
[Attempting another correction.]
Several new system windows appeared before Rin, but unlike before, they were no longer stable. Their edges flickered violently, and lines of corrupted text began replacing the familiar blue notifications.
The drug Mira had created was spreading deeper into the system than anyone had anticipated, eating away at its core from the inside and corrupting every function it touched.
Even the illusion standing before him started breaking apart into fragments of light, its outline becoming increasingly transparent until Shelly’s face finally disappeared altogether.
__________
Outside, the changes became visible almost immediately.
The enormous system tree towering over the battlefield suddenly stopped moving. Every glowing branch froze in place before deep crimson cracks spread across its trunk, branching outward like veins throughout its entire body.
The countless monsters pouring from its roots suddenly halted where they stood, their glowing eyes rapidly flickering between light and darkness as though they had forgotten what they were supposed to do.
Everyone on the battlefield stopped fighting.
Hunters and monsters alike stood motionless while the sky above them filled with countless glitching system windows.
[CRITICAL ERROR.]
[SYSTEM CORE FAILURE.]
[REPAIR FAILED.]
[REBOOT FAILED.]
The messages rapidly replaced one another before distorting into unreadable symbols.
Entire windows began collapsing into particles of blue light that scattered across the battlefield like shattered glass, and with every notification that disappeared, another section of the enormous tree crumbled away.
A low groan echoed throughout the world, sounding almost like the pained cry of a dying creature, before the tree itself began collapsing inward.
No explosion came.
Instead, the enormous structure slowly disintegrated into countless glowing fragments that drifted through the sky like falling stars, illuminating the battlefield in a soft blue light.
As the last remaining branches disappeared, the monsters surrounding the hunters collapsed lifelessly onto the ground one after another, their bodies dissolving into dust before anyone could even approach them.
For several long seconds, absolute silence covered the battlefield.
Nobody dared to move.
Nobody dared to speak.
It was only after the final blue system window shattered into nothingness that someone quietly dropped their weapon onto the ground.
"...We won."
The whisper spread from one hunter to another until it became impossible to tell who had spoken first. Tears appeared in exhausted eyes, laughter mixed with sobs, and people embraced one another without caring who they held.
After months of living beneath the system’s control, after countless tasks, monster waves, and impossible battles, humanity had finally witnessed the impossible.
The system...had fallen.
For several long minutes, the battlefield remained filled with nothing but laughter, cries, and exhausted sighs of relief.
Hunters who had fought until their bodies could no longer move simply collapsed where they stood, too tired to care about the dirt beneath them.
Some laughed hysterically while others cried without restraint, unable to believe that the endless nightmare which had dictated every waking moment of their lives had finally come to an end.
The system windows that had accompanied them since the beginning of the apocalypse had vanished without leaving behind even a single trace, and the oppressive pressure that had always lingered over the world disappeared together with the enormous tree.
For the first time in months, the sky looked strangely empty.
Shelly remained motionless amidst the celebration.
The cheers surrounding her sounded distant, almost as though they belonged to another world entirely.
She watched people embrace one another, watched veteran hunters fall to their knees while thanking whatever higher power they believed in, and watched children rush toward their parents with relieved smiles on their faces.
It should have been a moment worth celebrating. It was everything they had fought for.
Yet...
Something felt wrong.
A strange feeling settled inside her chest, making her breathing grow increasingly uneven as she slowly looked around the battlefield.
"...Rin?"
She quietly called his name, expecting him to answer from somewhere nearby.
There was no reply. Just where had he gone for him to not even hear her?
Shelly frowned before taking a few steps forward, her eyes scanning the battlefield more carefully.
She had been so focused on the collapsing tree that she had completely lost sight of him after he disappeared into the system’s main body.
She had assumed he would emerge once everything was over, battered and exhausted perhaps, but still smiling that reassuring smile he always showed whenever he wanted everyone else to stop worrying.
But he wasn’t there.
"...Rin?"
Her voice grew louder this time.
Several nearby hunters instinctively turned toward her before awkwardly looking away, each of them suddenly realizing the same thing.
They had won.
But their leader had yet to return.
Shelly immediately broke into a run, ignoring the protests from her exhausted body as she searched through the remains of the battlefield.
She rushed toward the place where the enormous tree had once stood, stepping over broken weapons, shattered armor, and the remains of monsters that had already begun turning into dust.
Every few seconds she called his name again, each call growing louder than the last.
"Rin!"
But Rin was gone and there was no indication that he would ever be back.