"Here, you take care of this little one for now." Alain gripped Tiny Mita by the collar, as if holding a small mouse, and passed her into Cool Mita's hands.
"Hey, hey! Holding me like that is really uncomfortable!" Once the little one was back on her feet, she huffed childishly, but then showed a hint of hesitation,
"Are you... really going?"
"Yeah, I have to," Alain said, looking around.
The gray mist was like an ocean, flooding over them and sinking the world into a sea of nothingness.
The iron railings were close by, but only their faintest outline was visible. His friends were right in front of him, yet they flickered in and out of view like navigation lights at night.
"If you're going to go..." Cute Mita walked over and pointed in a certain direction. "Then go forward."
Cool Mita, holding Tiny Mita, slowly approached. "It's okay if you fail. We can come back and figure it out together."
"Don't worry, I'll succeed."
Alain smiled, then walked in the direction Cute Mita had pointed.
"Go, Alain!" Cool Mita's cheer was gradually swallowed by the dense fog.
Step... step... step...
The mist grew deeper, like a solid wall, completely cutting off Alain's line of sight.
He glanced back and saw that after walking just ten or so meters, the girls' silhouettes were already blurred.
"Misha," Alain called out. The girl's voice in his headset was sometimes clear, sometimes hazy.
"Alain... zzzz... shhh—"
The mist must be affecting communications as well.
If it was this bad in the misty area alone, once he entered the illusion, the headset would probably fail completely.
Thud!
Alain's steps came to a sudden halt. He could feel waves of weightlessness washing over him.
The illusion Cute Mita mentioned must be right in front of him.
He was a little curious about what kind of illusion he was about to face. If it was a past virus, that would be manageable; he could probably force his way through with the "shashasha."
But if it was precious memories of his friends... Destroying the illusion would be out of the question; Alain would have to find another way.
In the midst of his thoughts, Alain could feel himself drifting away from this world.
In the final moments before his consciousness faded, he glanced back in the direction of Cool Mita and the others.
Cute Mita—the Mita they'd rescued in The Forgotten Jigsaw Puzzle—there was something about her that Alain found strange, something he couldn't quite put his finger on.
Whether it was the contradictions in her words when they talked, or her unnatural level of affection...
He just felt like she was hiding something.
But when he'd spoken to her just now, the Safety Assistant hadn't shown any sign of a virus. That meant, at the very least, Cute Mita wasn't possessed by one...
Through the mist, he could vaguely make out their silhouettes. Cool Mita seemed to have seen him turn around and raised her arm high to wave.
Alain waved back as a brief farewell.
The next moment, his pupils contracted sharply. In his vision, Cool Mita's slender silhouette remained unchanged.
But behind her, two much larger, hazy outlines appeared, like a stick-figure drawing.
One set of lines sketched out eight legs and the upper body of a female, while the other was simply a sphere.
These two figures connected with certain "old acquaintances" from Alain's past.
"Hey—"
Before he could shout a warning, the fog had already surged past his line of sight, swallowing him whole.
Alain felt as if he were soaring, falling, or riding a roller coaster, moving faster than the mist itself.
"Rumble—"
A sound like something opening echoed in his ears. When a sliver of light pierced the oppressive darkness, the mist, the Forgotten Place, and even Cool Mita and the others had vanished.
He was surrounded by blackness, which gradually began to form lines and colors, as if a game scene was being constructed.
"...So this is what it's throwing at me?"
He recalled the last thing he saw before he left:
The mother-body with eight legs and a female upper half was, without a doubt, the mother monster from Version 1.3B that he had defeated before.
And the round sphere had to be that damn black ball—the Modified Entity.
This brilliant duo had taken advantage of the moment just before he was swallowed by the illusion to descend upon Cool Mita and the others... a classic sneak attack.
Their intentions were truly sinister...
At this point, he couldn't just break the illusion. Alain decided to see if he could get back to his friends directly.
If time kept passing, there was no telling what might happen.
He tried to call up the Safety Assistant System, wanting to test the waters with the Intranet Firewall first.
The illusion—it should be similar in nature to the little black room and dreamscapes, so the Intranet Firewall would probably work.
When the system panel appeared before him, he breathed a sigh of relief. Thankfully, the Safety Assistant was still usable.
He checked the Intranet Firewall icon.
Just as he expected, the icon was flashing red.
"Alain." Just then, a small head popped out from the corner of the Safety Assistant panel and stood in the center.
"You're here too?" Alain was slightly surprised. 2D Mita's appearance was a timely relief. "How are they?"
"Yes. They're fighting the viruses now. It's a bit of a struggle, but they should be able to hold on for a little while longer." 2D Mita said, her gaze falling on Alain's fingertip, which was poised over the Intranet Firewall.
"You're planning to shatter the entire illusion directly, aren't you?"
"Yes. They can't hold out for that long—"
"I'd advise you not to do that." 2D Mita's voice was calm, without a hint of jest.
In Alain's peripheral vision, the outlines of the illusion finished forming, and simple colors began to build into something more complex.
"What do you mean? You want me to just watch them—"
"Once you use the Intranet Firewall, this illusion will collapse, that's true. But along with it, the only way to defeat the Mist Entity will be lost."
"...What do you mean?" He frowned slightly.
Seeing him move his finger away, 2D Mita let out a sigh of relief. "The Mist Entity's illusion ability is a one-time use. If it's destroyed, it can never be restored. But the Mist Entity... it will still be there, blocking your path."
In other words, if you use the Intranet Firewall inside the illusion, we lose the only means of fighting the Mist Entity.
Also, due to the special nature of this illusion, some of the Safety Assistant's passive skills might require manual activation to work. You need to be aware of that.
"...Tsk." Alain lowered his hand. Passive skills... did that mean he'd have to manually click on his safety protections to use them? That made things a lot more troublesome.
And a lot more dangerous.
As for the Mist Entity and the Intranet Firewall, a thought occurred to Alain. "How do you know all this?"
Hearing this, 2D Mita sighed softly. "How do you think the Safety Assistant got in here? This is an illusion, a combination of your inner world and the game.
I used the 'game portion' of the illusion to successfully bring the Safety Assistant in and appear before you, precisely to tell you these things.
"And I've discovered that time flows faster in here than outside, which means you have more time than you think. Cool Mita and the others can hold on a bit longer. But... don't you find it strange?"
2D Mita's voice made him realize something,
"Why is it that the moment you arrived in The Forgotten Jigsaw Puzzle, a Mist Entity just so happened to appear? And a Mist Entity... that possesses the ability, in a sense, to counteract the Intranet Firewall."
___
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