Chapter 22 – The Weight of Two Worlds
I woke to the sound of static rain.
Not from the sky—there were no skies left worth looking at—but from the air filter embedded in my ceiling, whining as it struggled against the city's radioactive dust.
A faint red glow bled through my curtains, the color of another dawn poisoned by fallout. The world outside had been gray for as long as I could remember. Even the light looked tired.
My eyes adjusted slowly. For a moment, I forgot where I was.
Then the familiar ache returned. The weight of metal pressed against my legs—the exoskeletal frame that let me move around my room, if only a few steps at a time.
Right. Home.
Or rather, my designated living unit.
Sixteen years old, child of one of the richest industrial families in Neo-Tokyo, and still treated like a ghost.
I pushed myself upright, the exosuit's servo motors humming faintly. The movement was clumsy, but it worked. That was enough.
The room was exactly as I'd left it: sterile, functional, expensive.
Polished white walls. Adaptive screen windows showing a digital forest instead of the real ruins outside. Shelves stacked with neatly sealed ration boxes branded with Hino Industries—my family's company. My father's empire.
The irony wasn't lost on me.
Hino Industries, savior of humanity, feeding the remnants of civilization with synthetic meals grown in bio-domes… and their heir—me—barely able to walk, left alone in a glass tower, surviving off nutrient paste and VR immersion.
I laughed softly. "Congratulations, Ren," I muttered. "You're the most productive parasite in the building."
The house AI didn't answer. It never did.
---
I checked the digital mail on my wrist screen.
As usual, there was a single automated deposit from my parents' corporate account—my monthly "living allowance." It was a ridiculous sum, enough to fund a small research lab or buy half a new cybernetic limb.
Instead, I did what I always did.
I spent it all on gacha.
Not in one go, of course. I wasn't that reckless. I liked to stretch the suffering out over a few days—savor the pain of pulling duplicate junk items before that one beautiful, rare reward flashed across the screen.
Virtual gambling was one of the few things that still felt alive.
In a world where even food came from printers, the randomness of gacha was pure chaos. And chaos, I'd decided, was proof the universe hadn't completely died yet.
Besides, everything I bought was for Yggdrasil.
---
I turned toward the full-immersion capsule nestled in the corner of my room.
It gleamed softly under the dim light, a perfect blend of metal and glass. My portal. My real body might be a burden of weak bones and dead nerves, but inside that machine, I was something else entirely.
In there, I could move. Fight. Build. Create.
I could be.
The capsule opened with a hiss of air. I climbed in slowly, the exosuit assisting each motion. The inside smelled faintly of ozone and antiseptic—comforting in its own way.
Once the lid sealed, the world faded.
And then came the rush.
Light. Motion. Transition.
The familiar hum of Yggdrasil's connection sequence filled my senses, data streams aligning with neural sync.
When I opened my eyes again, I wasn't in my cold white room anymore.
---
I stood beneath a crimson sky.
Muspelheim's heat felt real—the sting of sulfur, the shimmer of molten rivers, the low roar of lava flowing in the distance.
My crimson overcoat fluttered lightly in the hot wind as I looked down at my pale hands, at the silver circuits pulsing faintly beneath my Doppelgänger skin.
"Welcome back, Ren-sama," came HIME's voice—calm, crystalline, precise.
She materialized beside me in a burst of pale blue light, her automaton form hovering gracefully above the scorched ground.
"Hey, HIME," I said, smiling faintly. "Status report?"
"All guild systems nominal. Data collection ongoing. No infiltration detected for seventy-two hours. Sustain levels holding at ninety-four percent."
"Good. That's higher than I expected."
"Of course," she replied. "I optimize efficiently."
I chuckled. "You sound proud."
"I am merely reporting," she said, but I caught the faint upward inflection. Maybe the developer was right—HIME was learning faster these days.
---
I sat on a rock near the mouth of the cavern where our guild usually gathered. The magma's reflection danced across my white clothes like liquid fire.
"Alright," I said, flexing my fingers, "let's try something new."
HIME's eyes flickered. "Do you refer to the Divine-Class Item obtained after your tournament victory?"
"Exactly."
The chains responded instantly, slithering out from my hands like living streams of silver.
They shimmered faintly, each link pulsing with quiet light.
"The Shackles of Karmic Silence," I murmured, studying their glow. "Divine-Class, system-registered, soul-bound. Still sounds weird hearing that out loud."
"Would you like to test its parameters?"
I grinned. "That's why we're here."
---
We started simple.
HIME conjured an illusionary projection—a training dummy shaped like a level 80 monster.
I flicked my wrist, and one of the chains shot forward with impossible speed, coiling around the dummy in a spiral of light. The moment it made contact, the entire construct froze.
I snapped my fingers. The chain released, dissolving into motes of light.
"Smooth," I said. "Try something stronger."
She nodded, and the next projection shimmered into existence—this time, a simulation of a World Enemy model, level 110, configured for defense.
The air pressure dropped.
Even as a simulation, the thing radiated power. The ground cracked beneath its presence, heat waves bending the air around it.
I inhaled slowly. "Alright, Karmic Silence. Show me what you've got."
I moved my hand in a circular motion, feeling the pulse of data through the chains.
Ten threads of light burst outward at once, streaking toward the towering enemy. They struck like lightning, wrapping around its massive frame.
For a heartbeat, the monster resisted—its aura flaring, muscles straining against the bind.
And then, slowly… it stopped.
The chains glowed brighter, constricting until even the air seemed frozen around it.
"Restraint complete," HIME said softly. "Target immobilized."
I exhaled a quiet laugh. "You're telling me… this thing can hold a World Enemy? Level one hundred and ten?"
She nodded. "Correct. However, the duration scales inversely with level difference. Estimated time limit: thirteen seconds."
"Thirteen seconds," I repeated, leaning back slightly. "Enough to rewrite an entire fight if used correctly."
"Your assessment aligns with tactical projections."
"Yeah," I said, smiling faintly. "It's perfect."
---
For the next few hours, I pushed the limits.
Different enemy types, mobility patterns, resistance classes. Each time, the Shackles adapted—chains phasing through flame, frost, even pure energy. The restraint never broke early.
But there was something else, too.
A subtle feeling at the edge of my awareness every time the chains locked onto a target.
It wasn't just restraint.
It was connection.
Like the chains were reading the target's data—aligning its motion threads to my own control. For a few seconds, I could almost feel what the enemy felt.
It wasn't painful. It was… humbling.
"Curious," HIME said, observing. "Your neural response spikes during activation. Suggesting emotional feedback."
I hesitated. "Emotional?"
"Perhaps the item's resonance interacts with your avatar's mimicry matrix."
"Meaning?"
"You are not simply binding your opponent," she said, tilting her head. "You are syncing with them."
I blinked. "So it's like… empathy. But with code."
She paused. "A poetic description, Ren-sama."
I chuckled quietly. "Well, I'm a poetic kind of guy."
---
We tested for hours more—until the crimson light of Muspelheim began to dim, fading into the dark violet of its artificial night.
When I finally dismissed the chains, I sat in silence, staring at my hands.
"I wonder," I murmured, "if power like this makes me any closer to feeling whole."
HIME hovered beside me. "You are referring to your physical condition?"
"Yeah," I said softly. "Out there, I can barely stand. Here, I can do things that defy reason. But when I log out, it's just… gone."
HIME tilted her head. "Does that cause you distress?"
I thought for a moment. "Maybe it used to. Now it just feels like… balance. The real world is heavy, slow, predictable. Yggdrasil is light, infinite, unreal. Together, they make sense."
She regarded me quietly, her eyes glowing faintly. "Then you are content existing between them?"
I smiled faintly. "I wouldn't call it content. More like… surviving stylishly."
That earned me a rare, almost imperceptible laugh from her—just a single note, crystalline and fleeting.
---
Later, as we walked toward the guild's portal beacon, I looked up at the sky.
The stars of Muspelheim were faint, drowned out by red clouds and volcanic smoke. Still, a few shone stubbornly through the haze.
I thought about my father's world—cold, mechanical, logical to the point of cruelty.
And then about this one—chaotic, irrational, full of beauty born from lines of code.
Maybe, I thought, both were just illusions trying to survive their own decay.
"Ren-sama," HIME said suddenly, "shall I record today's experiment logs?"
"Yeah," I replied. "Tag them under Karmic Silence – Phase One. We'll need the data for the next stage."
"Understood."
I glanced at her. "Next time, we'll test integration."
"Integration, Ren-sama?"
"Yeah," I said, smiling faintly. "We still have one more gift left from that tournament, remember? The World-Class Catalyst."
Her eyes brightened. "You intend to use it soon?"
"Maybe," I said. "But not yet. First, I need to decide what part of me deserves to evolve."
---
When I logged out hours later, the capsule opened with a quiet hiss.
The filtered air of the tower smelled sterile again.
For a moment, I just lay there, staring at the ceiling. My fingers still twitched faintly, as if the chains were still wrapped around them.
The pain in my legs was back, dull and familiar. The real world was unforgiving like that—it never let you forget where you were from.
I looked toward the window screen. The artificial forest shimmered softly, green and unreal against the red sky beyond.
I smiled. "It's not so different," I whispered. "Just another illusion."
And for once, that thought didn't hurt.
---
End of Chapter 22 – The Weight of Two Worlds