The mountain mansion was his. The deed, a complex data-stream of cryptographic signatures and territorial bindings, was now secured both in S.A.R.A.'s impregnable core and the planetary Gaia network. It was ironclad.
Noctar had personally audited every line of the contractual code, patching three subtle but potentially exploitable loopholes the sellers' legal A.I. hadn't even known existed. To him, it had been less like reading a document and more like performing surgery on a fragile, logic-based lifeform.
He stood outside the gleaming facade of the real estate agency, a small millionaire with a title to a glorious mansion, but utterly without a means to get to it. The problem presented itself with mundane absurdity.
A taxi? The variable quality of drivers, the unknown cleanliness of the interior, the sheer, grinding inefficiency of it was offensive. Public transit? The concept of being compressed into a metal tube with a cross-section of humanity, each with their own biological microclimate and emotional baggage, was a non-starter from both a tactical and personal hygiene standpoint.
He had the funds of a small province. The solution was therefore obvious and elegant.
// Query: Do you have a driver's license? Or a government-issued ID? S.A.R.A. inquired, her tone dripping with synthetic innocence.
Noctar stopped mid-stride. <...No.>
// Then our next destination is the Department of Civil Registration. Let's make you a legal person.A thrilling sequel to your origin story.
The government office was a monument to bureaucratic entropy, a place where ambition and efficiency went to be slowly digested in a vat of fluorescent lighting and stale air. The line he was instructed to join moved with the geological patience of continental drift.
The low-grade anxiety and frustration emanating from the other citizens was a psychic hum that grated against his senses. As he stood, a statue of impatient perfection in the drab queue, S.A.R.A. provided a welcome, critical distraction.
// Boss, updating you on Ardyn's status. She is currently at the entrance of the A-Rank dungeon, 'Solarium.' There appears to be a... jurisdictional dispute with another guild.
Noctar's head snapped up, the dull beige surroundings sharpening into hyper-focused clarity. A cold, familiar knot of protective instinct tightened in his gut. < What is the nature of the dispute? Hostile? Do we need to initiate a remote intervention? > His mind began automatically calculating the fastest route, the types of non-lethal area-denial spells he could deploy from this distance.
// Situation update: Dispute resolved. Approximately twelve seconds ago. Audio capture is quite clear. Ardyn Vermont just broke the Crimson Vanguard team leader's nose with the precision-cast hilt of her energy sword.
She then verbally eviscerated the rest of his team, highlighting seventeen tactical flaws in their formation and questioning the legitimacy of their guild charter in a tone that, according to my analysis, caused measurable drops in testosterone levels. They are now in full, demoralized retreat. She has entered the dungeon solo.
A slow, proud smile spread across Noctar's face. Of course. She wasn't a damsel. She was a force of nature. The urge to rush to her side vanished, replaced by a deep-seated admiration. He could relax. She had it handled, she was an A rank awakened.
With his mood significantly improved, the rest of the process was trivial. His "ID" was created, listing him as a "Returnee" with a backdated file S.A.R.A. had artfully woven into the historical archives. The driving test was a farce that bordered on performance art. He aced the written exam without his eyes ever touching the screen (S.A.R.A. fed the correct answers directly into his optic nerve). The practical test lasted precisely thirty-seven seconds.
After Noctar executed a perfect, physics-defying J-turn in the cramped parking lot, followed by a parallel parking maneuver that left exactly two centimeters of space fore and aft without using the rear-view camera, the instructor, a man who had seen much...simply went pale, gripped the "oh-shit" handle with white knuckles, and rasped, "Stop. Please. Just... full marks. Get out."
By afternoon, he was the proud owner of a sleek, black, all-terrain vehicle that looked like it could survive a meteor strike by outpacing it and a provisional driver's license that would become permanent in a week. He slid into the driver's seat, the leather groaning in a satisfying way. The engine purred to life. He had a destination in mind.
// Plotting course now. May I inquire as to the reason? My earlier analysis indicated a 99.9% confidence interval in your belief regarding her self-sufficiency.
// How... unexpectedly chivalrous. And this calculated gesture of politeness has absolutely nothing to do with the 87% probability that you want to visually confirm her post-dungeon status, nor the 73% probability correlation with a desire to see her in a state of post-combat exertion, possibly sweat-glistened and disheveled?
The drive was smooth and dominant, the powerful vehicle eating up the kilometers leaving behind the urban sprawl and entering the blasted geothermal badlands where the Solarium dungeon fumed. He pulled up to the designated arrival zone, a cracked asphalt pad before the dungeon's entrance: a massive, sun-bleached stone archway carved with ancient runes that pulsed with a dull, oppressive heat.
He killed the highly empowered engine, the sudden silence profound. Stepping out, he leaned against the hood of his new car, folding his arms. He was the picture of casual, confident cool, a man waiting without a hint of impatience. It had taken him about an hour to arrive at the speed he was driving so Ardyn should be close to finishing the dungeon.
As he waited , Noctar was observing the dungeon gate, the blocks placed in front by probably the Hunters Authority Guild. He was trying to see if he could understand the runes when something flicked in his vision.
And then his vision glitched.
The real world, the heat-shimmered air, the grey stone, the blue sky was violently overwritten. A corrosive wave of green, hexadecimal code washed across his sight. His Root Access skill, a fundamental part of his being, flared to life without his conscious command, triggered not by a threat to him, but by a screaming, systemic anomaly in the local reality.
Superimposed over the grand, mundane archway of the Solarium dungeon was a pulsating, angry red wireframe marker, its flickering edges identical in every terrible particular to the one he'd seen devour the Shifting Keep.
[DUNGEON: SOLARIUM - STATUS: ACTIVE]
[SYSTEM ALERT: CRITICAL ERROR]
[DIAGNOSTIC: BUG_DETECTED - MANIFESTATION IMMINENT]
The casual posture shattered. Every muscle in his body went taut, a spring coiling to its absolute limit. The air around him didn't just grow cold; it seemed to void itself of warmth entirely, as if his emotions was drawing energy from the very atmosphere.
All casual thoughts of rides and polite gestures vaporized. Ardyn was inside. Not just in a dungeon, but in a corrupted instance, a reality gone wrong. And so was a fatal, world-eating system error. His ice blue eyes, now glowing with an inner, dangerous light, fixed on the dungeon entrance. The game had just changed.
This wasn't about observation anymore. It was about extraction.