Glitch?
Albedo's ears caught the word instantly.
Albedo: "Is my world experiencing a glitch?"
Rei Ao: "The frozen state of the Great Tomb of Nazarick might be because of that. It's like a program freezing halfway through execution—the world's own code has a problem."
A chill ran through Albedo at that explanation.
If what Rei Ao said was true,
then both Nazarick and her fate were hanging by a thread.
"Glitch…"
She repeated the word under her breath, her gaze sweeping over the unmoving Cocytus.
All at once, she noticed details she'd missed before:
even the dust motes hanging in the air were motionless.
The rays from the magical light sources were congealed mid-air; even time itself seemed to have stopped flowing.
This wasn't ordinary time-stop magic; it was the world itself at a standstill.
So it probably wasn't the effect of a world-class item.
Albedo: "If this is a glitch, is there a way to fix it?"
The chat fell silent for a moment before Rei Ao finally replied.
Rei Ao: "I'm not sure."
Rei Ao: "But the fact you can join this chat group means your world has connected to others. That connection might be a lead."
Misaka Mikoto: "You mean the chat group might be the key to fixing Albedo's world?"
Rei Ao: "It's possible. The very existence of the chat proves different worlds can affect each other. Maybe, through it, Albedo can find a way to get things back to normal on her side."
Albedo drew a long breath.
Whether she was only a character in a game or not, whether the Great Tomb of Nazarick was "real" or not,
her awareness of her own existence was real enough.
Albedo: "I understand."
Just as she sent that message—
Rrrr—mmm—
A faint tremor rippled through all of Nazarick.
"…?"
Alert, Albedo scanned the surroundings.
A corner of the Throne Room was behaving strangely:
the space there had fractured like a shattered mirror.
Through the cracks she didn't see any familiar structure of Nazarick, but a churn of chaotic nothingness.
"What is—"
She stepped back on instinct.
Albedo: "There's an abnormal phenomenon in the Great Tomb—space itself is breaking!"
She fired off the report to the group,
summoned her jet-black armor and battle-axe, and went on full alert.
Misaka Mikoto: "What's happening? Need help?"
Frieren: "Space breaking? Sounds like a problem with world stability."
Rei Ao: "Albedo, describe what you're seeing."
Keeping her eyes on the widening rifts, Albedo edged closer with care.
Albedo: "It looks like cracks in glass, but suspended in mid-air."
Albedo: "Through the fissures I can see only a void."
Albedo: "They're expanding slowly—everything they touch is vanishing."
As she typed, one crack suddenly shot forward, racing right up to her.
!!!
Albedo sprang back.
Her axe head brushed the edge of the rift—
The front of the axe vanished at once, the cut surface terrifyingly smooth.
She stared at the ruined weapon, stunned.
A weapon crafted by the Supreme Beings themselves had been erased that easily.
Albedo: "These spatial cracks are extremely destructive. Part of my weapon was wiped out the instant it touched one!"
Hiiragi Shiya: "That sounds dangerous—get back!"
Frieren: "It's like a collapse of the fabric of reality."
Frieren: "In my world, when the balance of mana is completely broken, similar rifts appear."
Rei Ao: "Albedo, this may be the glitch worsening."
That surprised him too.
By the original story, it was because Momonga stayed logged in through the shutdown that Albedo and the others awakened.
But now, only Albedo had self-awareness—which made her the anomalous glitch.
Rei Ao: "The game's frozen state might be a kind of failsafe in the code, but that protection is failing now."
Failsafe?
Albedo frowned.
If the stasis was protection,
then was her awakening the very thing causing its collapse?
She was facing a brutal choice.
"What would the Supreme Beings do?"
she murmured.
No answer came, of course.
The Supreme Beings were gone.
The fate of the Great Tomb of Nazarick now rested in her hands.
The fissures kept spreading, silently devouring everything they touched.
Watching them, Albedo suddenly noticed that, beyond the cracks—within that void—something seemed to be moving.
She narrowed her eyes, trying to make it out.
It wasn't any creature of Nazarick,
nor anything she recognized.
They were flickering points of light,
like stars in a night sky—yet arranged too regularly, forming some pattern she couldn't parse.
Albedo: "…I'm seeing something on the other side of the rift—like a pattern made of points of light."
Rei Ao: "Can you describe it in more detail?"
Albedo: "Wait! It's changing—forming… text?"
She realized the lights were shaping words she could read—no, more precisely, they were characters used in the game YGGDRASIL.
The points settled into a short sentence:
[Error reboot protocol initiated. Please verify administrator privileges.]
(…garbled…) Albedo froze.
What did that mean?
Administrator privileges—was that the authority of the Supreme Beings?
Albedo: "There's text beyond the crack: 'Error reboot protocol initiated. Verify administrator privileges.'"
Ai Hayasaka: "That could be the key! Albedo, do you have admin privileges? Or is there somewhere in Nazarick that handles that kind of authentication?"
"Administrator privileges…"
Albedo thought fast.
As Overseer of the Guardians, she held very high internal permissions within the Great Tomb.
But that only applied after the Supremes' departure.
If this was a world-level permission…
She suddenly recalled the room at the deepest point of the Throne Room—the Supreme Council Chamber.