[You sense the air around you growing colder. The foreman has called out.]
Deep blue, elegant text materialized in the soft light of morning in the way Jhin had long since grown familiar with. He didn't even have time to complain before his phone rang — urgent, insistent, demanding he pick up immediately.
"Hey, Boss — what's the job this time?"
"Now, now, star employee — don't sound so lifeless. Did you like my new notification prompt?"
"Mm... it's certainly novel."
"Ha ha ha — I knew you'd agree!"
Every time Jhin read the second half of that notification, he got the distinct feeling his direct superior had recently been binging content about some handsome, perpetually-smiling Solar Knight who also happened to chair a tech conglomerate.
Please, for the love of everything — don't let the Boss's taste get assimilated by the Outer Gods.
"This job is a special case. You can take it or leave it."
"Is that actually an option?!" Jhin genuinely wondered if he was hallucinating. A refusable job — did such a thing actually exist in this universe?
"Don't be in a rush to say no. Hear the whole thing first, then decide."
"Understood, Boss!"
"Due to an operational error on the part of one of my colleagues, two worlds have undergone an unintended merger — and in the process, a viral program was also generated. I honestly have no idea how that person studied Introduction to World Fusion Coding and Biological Genome Recompilation — I wouldn't be surprised if they failed both courses outright."
"Getting off track — this time, I'm acting on their behalf and asking you to travel to that world and purge the viral program."
"Boss, if you and your colleagues already know the virus exists, can't you just handle it directly?"
"I wish. But whatever that idiot did, the viral program evolved a mimicry capability — it's fused with the native lifeforms of that world and become completely undetectable. So there are only two options: one, I send you in as an outside agent to perform a professional virus purge; two, I format the currently-merging world from my end."
"The second option would inevitably cause a certain degree of damage to the world — and after all, it is that colleague's work. Better not to destroy it if it can be avoided. The compensation I can offer you is also considerably more generous. So — worth considering?"
Jhin scratched his head, conflicted.
Honestly, he had no particular desire to travel to another world on a business trip. But his direct superior had come to him this civilly, this reasonably — it would be rude to refuse outright.
"Alright, Boss. Just make sure you bless me with SSR luck on my next pull as compensation. And — is there any intel on the viral program itself?"
"Other than knowing it's called [What Faces Death], there are no specific details."
"Boss, you don't need to say another word — I'm leaving right now. Immediately. This instant."
"Hm? Why the sudden enthusiasm?"
"After hearing that name, the fact that I haven't already started sprinting headfirst into a wall is a testament to my rationality."
"I have no idea what you're on about, kid. Once you cross over, all your currently active tasks will enter a paused state. As with previous assignments, your memories of that world will be consumed to construct your identity there. Time flow in the main world will be reduced to a drastically slowed pace — to facilitate syncing the merged world back over once you've completed the task. Any other questions?"
"Boss — how slow does the time dilation get?"
"One year on your end equals one week here."
"Understood. I'm good to go."
Jhin hung up and turned to give Nymph her instructions. "Nymph — let everyone know I've gone on a business trip."
"Understood, Master."
"Angel of Daedalus... He really doesn't hold back, does He. Get yourself ready and step through the transit gate. I'll be waiting for good news."
Jhin set down his phone, changed clothes with practiced efficiency, waved goodbye to Nymph, and stepped through the shimmering, deep-blue star-filled gate.
The mission briefing materialized in his mind.
[Mission: Professional Exterminator
Objective: Eliminate the viral program [What Faces Death]
Deadline: Before the virus fully corrupts the world
Progress: 0/1
Reward: Random ×2
Penalty: None (Don't worry — if you fail, I'll fish you out and we'll just run the format.)]
My direct superior really is a stand-up boss.
Jhin was still reflecting on that when he realized he was already standing in the middle of a vast starfield. Seated upon an ornate stone throne was a beautiful silver-haired goddess, her smile as gentle as still water.
"Hello, Mr. Jhin. I am Eris, the goddess responsible for guiding those who have been reborn. This task would normally fall to my senior colleague, the Water Goddess Aqua — but she's occupied at the moment, so I'm filling in temporarily."
"There's no need to worry. Simply choose the ability you desire from these selections, and you will be reincarnated into another world under my guidance. A Demon King awaits there — one you must defeat."
Goddess. Reincarnation. Another world. Demon King. All of it rang with a familiarity so acute it was almost explosive — and yet he couldn't remember a single thing. So the memory loss started from the very beginning this time. He'd assumed it would fade gradually, like before.
Unable to recall anything, Jhin shrugged off the mild frustration and began leafing through the stacks of ability descriptions, searching for something that interested him.
The divine artifacts and broken-tier abilities all came with crippling restrictions. The ordinary abilities weren't worth his time. He flipped through everything before finally landing on one that caught his eye.
[Void Genome (Perfect)
Ability: Extract the hearts of others and use them as instruments. Ability strength scales with the user's own mental fortitude.
Side Effect: If an instrument shatters, its owner will be weakened for a period of time.
Restriction: Not everyone possesses the qualifications to be used by the King's Hand.]
Jhin held up the ability card and announced to Goddess Eris: "This one."
"Of course. I will manifest the ability and bestow it upon you now."
"Thank you."
Jhin rubbed his hands together in anticipation. The King's Hand — who hasn't heard of that? His only regret was that he didn't have his little prayer-maiden around — it would've been fun to pull a sister-blade to play with.
A silver-white helical DNA injector, sealed in a transparent glass tube, floated to a stop in front of him. Without hesitation, Jhin picked up the Void Genome and pressed the needle into his right arm.
A tingling numbness spread from the injection site, radiating outward until it saturated his entire body. Power surged from somewhere deep inside him, impossible to contain. He pulled up his personal status panel and read his attributes.
[Physical Composite Rating: D
(You don't need to put on the Stone Mask. You've already left humanity behind.)]
His rating had climbed from D-minus to D. The annotation confirmed it — his body had completely transcended the realm of ordinary humans. Paired with his Stand, he could absolutely shout "I'm riding so high right now!" without a trace of irony.
Not that he was a vampire, of course. Injuries at the level of severed limbs were still going to be a real problem.
"Mr. Jhin, please prepare yourself. I am about to transmit you to the other world. I have already arranged for a guide to meet you upon arrival. I wish you success in defeating the Demon King."
"Thank you, Goddess."
"Safe travels."
Goddess Eris smiled and gave him a small wave. In the next instant, Jhin vanished.
Wrapped in streaming golden light, Jhin plummeted from the sky at breathtaking speed. Completely unbothered by the prospect of dying on impact, he still had enough mental bandwidth left over to critique his own transmigration method:
If this were a gacha game, I'd be a textbook five-star character entrance. Should I strike a pose for this guide of mine — hold a big sword, something dramatic like that?
While Jhin was deliberating on how to make his landing look as cool as possible, a voice full of heat and crisp, soaring energy poured into his ears.
"Darker than black, darker than darkness,
Let my crimson light be enshrined here,
The hour of awakening, the fallen doctrine of the absurd church,
Become an unseen distortion,
Reveal yourself —
Explosion!"
From within deep, overlapping rings of dark crimson, a laser beam like a railgun shell slammed into the earth and detonated with world-shaking force. The shockwave from the blast reached all the way up to Jhin in the sky, knocking him off course — he careened sideways and plunged toward a distant lake.
The magical girl who had just faceplanted on the ground raised a bewildered question: "Did I just... hit something I wasn't aiming at? That can't be right — there shouldn't be any other living things in this area anymore. Must be my imagination."
What kind of terrorist attack was that — is this the Demon King of this world, finding out a transmigrator was incoming and launching a preemptive strike? Jhin couldn't decide whether that had been the Demon King or [What Faces Death], the final boss, making the first move.
With no way to change his trajectory, he surrendered to the golden light and let it carry him into the lake.
"Hm hm hm~ Giant frog legs, fragrant and crisp,
Coat them in flour and fry them up,
Eat a dozen plates in one sitting,
Rolo plums, squeeze out the juice,
Blend in a milkshake and give it a stir,
Good for your appetite, healthy and delicious~"
An energetic orange-haired girl stood beneath a large tree at the lake's edge, humming her own self-composed song as she began to undo her clothing. She planned to wash up in the open lake — she'd just finished a battle and was covered in soot, and as a girl, she absolutely could not sit down to eat in this state. That would be a disrespect to the food.
"Oh — a golden shooting star."
Her exceptional eyesight caught the trail of light hurtling in her direction. She gave the meteor a cheerful little wave, then looked back down and continued undressing. In her understanding, shooting stars didn't land. They streaked across the sky and then vanished mysteriously beyond the horizon, never to be seen again.
SPLASH!
The impact of something heavy hitting the lake sent a massive sheet of water spraying outward. The girl was bent at the waist, both hands reaching back toward her bra clasp, staring blankly at the dark-haired young man now completely drenched in the middle of the lake.
She made a soft, baffled sound: "...Wuh?"
Being a man of upright character, Jhin had no intention of taking advantage of the situation. He used his personal terminal to snap a photo — documentary evidence that he was not a pervert — then covered his eyes, turned away, and called out to the girl on the bank:
"I sincerely apologize for interrupting your bathing. Miss — please get dressed at your earliest convenience."
"Oh, oh oh — sorry about that! Let me just get dressed, wait in the lake for a second!"
The girl was a little flustered, but she didn't fly into a rage and start screaming at Jhin without reason.
"I'm dressed! Come out of the lake already — the water's got to be freezing!"
What a genuinely good girl — she's actually worried about me.
Jhin almost felt guilty about keeping the photo. Almost. Unfortunately, the angel in his heart had been thoroughly defeated by the demon that went by the name of Mortal Vice.
____
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