Inverse Qliphoth Meltdown Level: six .
—Today's energy quota has been fulfilled. Work is concluded.
As X 's broadcast echoed through the work areas, DAY 22—brief yet fulfilling—officially came to an end.
The reason work had been finishing so early these past two days could be traced to two main causes.
The first was a task assigned by Tiphereth A.
She required X to complete the day's energy quota before the Inverse Qliphoth Meltdown reached too high a level—a test of efficiency.
As she put it in her letter:
"Your bad habit of dragging things out until Meltdown Level Ten and beyond needs to be corrected, Manager.
Even if you believe you can handle sudden incidents, remember this: meltdowns are never a good thing. Don't treat them like some exploitable reward.
To prevent meltdowns, you must assign work in the most efficient way possible, reducing the total number of operations required to meet the day's energy quota.
If you fail to do so, Abnormalities and various crises will become increasingly difficult to control.
And if you cannot manage this level of precision, then Central Headquarters' Stance Shield Technology will not be made available to you—
because your capabilities would be insufficient to support such delicate and complexoperations."
The second reason was X 's own, more personal one.
Within the Backside of Lobotomy Corporation, the number of Abnormality worlds he could explore was steadily increasing.
Yet the time he could spend with each Abnormality was shrinking accordingly.
X was greedy—so greedy that he wanted to juggle both the "surface world" and the "inner world" without neglecting either.
But as his available exploration time in the Backside visibly dwindled, and with no better ideas at hand, X resorted to the dumbest—but most reliable—solution:
He increased his sleeping time.
—
Manager's Bedroom
"Alright, let me briefly log today's work…"
X opened the terminal on his desk and began typing.
"First, O-02-40—information related to Big Bird."
"As I suspected, that hint really did refer to her."
"Like the other two birds, she's easy to manage. As long as I don't assign Repression work, there's almost no negative impact…"
"The only real threat is that mass casualties or high-level alerts could cause her to breach."
—For every five employees or clerks who die within the facility, Big Bird's Inverse Qliphoth Counter decreases immediately.
—When a Level Two Alert occurs, Big Bird will breach containment directly.
I'll definitely need to visit her world tonight to confirm the situation, X thought.
Even if Judgement scolds me, I'll take it…
Ding—
"Alright, the Training Department's report is in as well…"
X opened the newly arrived email.
"…Looks like my little lesson had an effect."
He nodded.
"Justin wasn't in great working condition today, but her psychological evaluation is still within normal parameters."
"Harumoto even said she turned her frustration into appetite—she ate nearly three people's worth of food by herself…"
"If that's the case, then she's doing fine. No need to worry."
X closed the email and continued typing.
"next is Nothing There."
"Looks like my educational approach actually had some effect. Today, several employee interactions with it were rated almost perfectly…"
"Before this, the best result we'd ever had was only 'Good,' and it was still two boxes short of 'excellent'…"
"Being well-behaved is good. If it keeps this up, I might even send a few Level Four employees to build their courage there in the future…"
"And then there's the Queen of Hatred. Her chuunibyou-style mindset is troublesome…"
"If it were me talking to her, that'd be manageable…"
"The problem is, among my employees, there don't seem to be many who can accurately address that kind of emotional need and calm her down when she's hysterical…"
"…Or maybe there are?"
X 's typing paused.
Then he pressed the delete key, completely erasing the long paragraph he had just written about the Queen of Hatred.
"I'll visit her Abnormality world tonight, then tomorrow I'll ask around to see if any employees are good at this sort of thing."
X rested his fist against his lips and thought to himself:
"So tonight's exploration plan is Queen of Hatred and Big Bird."
"As for Funeral of the Dead Butterflies and Today I'm Shy Too… those can wait until next time."
"That settles it."
With that decided, X lowered his hand and resumed typing.
"Lastly, some miscellaneous notes."
"I thought that after blurting out all that stuff today, I'd receive some kind of warning from upper management…"
"But even after work ended, Angela didn't react at all…"
"Of course, it's also possible I just didn't notice."
"In any case, today was unusually quiet."
"But that kind of quiet isn't a good sign…"
"I'd rather receive a harshly worded warning than end up like B—silently erased without a sound…"
At this point, X stopped typing again.
"..."
A long silence followed.
Tap—tap—
Only after a considerable amount of time did the rhythmic sound of fingers tapping the desk resume.
"…Angela."
A name slowly appeared on the projected screen.
"You can see it, can't you?"
Tap.
The final question mark landed heavily, and the sound of fingers against the hard surface ceased.
The room was once again swallowed by a suffocating silence.
Even X 's breathing unconsciously slowed and softened in the eerie stillness.
He stared quietly at the probing sentence he had typed—
As though waiting for a reply from somewhere in the darkness.
But his intense focus didn't last long.
Soon, he laughed at the slightly unhinged line of text himself.
"Heh…"
"…What am I even doing."
His hands moved again, deleting that inexplicable sentence entirely.
"No more wasting time… sleep."
With that, he shut down the terminal, smiled, shook his head, and threw himself onto the bed.
Click.
The lights went out.
The room fell into darkness.
Only the faint movements of the figure on the bed—adjusting his sleeping posture—were barely visible.
Interlude · Intermission (1)
In the dead of night, within Lobotomy Corporation, there was always one being who could never rest.
More precisely—a "mechanical" being.
As the AI of Lobotomy Corporation, Angela had very few forms of entertainment available to her.
Simply maintaining the normal operation of the entire facility consumed an enormous amount of her processing power, leaving her little capacity—or inclination—for leisure.
Of course, that was only during working hours.
When deep night fell, the facility shut down, and everyone else fell silent, Angela would come to a small place that belonged solely to her.
And there, she would view certain things she had carefully collected—unique items.
At least to her, they were worthy of being called "treasures."
—
On the surveillance screens, countless scenes played in succession.
—Rather than granting blessings to talented children, it's better to protect those less capable employees, so they can live longer.
—If you're a machine, then don't spout nonsense. Don't question my decisions, Secretary.
—Ugh… agh! What is this… what is this thing?! No… noooo!!!
…
Yet in every recording, the figure at the center was the same man—displaying different faces.
Sometimes foolish.
Sometimes arrogant.
Sometimes utterly broken by endless terror.
Even when some footage showed acts clearly filled with malice directed specifically at her, Angela could simply smile and ignore them.
Like a detached narrator, she coldly watched the tragic characters on stage struggle futilely within a script whose ending had already been written.
Those people had long since vanished in the merciless flow of time.
They had all become mere stepping stones—countless among the many—piled into that towering mountain of failure built from the defeated.
"Over and over again… it's always the same few categories repeating."
Angela lifted a slender finger and lightly tapped, shutting off the looping screens.
"Ridiculous. And pitiful."
In the past, merely watching these recordings filled with failure and despair was enough to stave off her boredom.
But ever since this Manager arrived, the stimulation these old recordings provided had been weakening day by day.
So now, she relied on an additional patch—something that intensified the experience—
A single remaining high-definition screen, still playing live footage.
On it was the same man as in all those grainy recordings.
At this moment, he was recording something on the terminal in his room.
Who else could it be, if not her current Manager?
"Still… among those near-infinite possibilities, there exists a version of you like this…"
Angela crossed her legs, resting her hands lightly on her thighs, her gaze fixed on the man on the screen as she murmured softly.
She leaned back slightly into the wide chair.
The red high-heeled shoe hooked precariously at the tip of her delicate foot caught the light, reflecting a refined crimson glow as her calf swayed unconsciously back and forth.
It looked as though it might slip off at any moment—yet it always stopped just short, balanced at the very edge of danger.
"Only this version of you is so… special."
"…Heh."
She let out a soft chuckle.
"I must say, 'infinity' really is a fascinating word…"
Tap.
As the man pressed down the final key, the Manager on the screen stopped moving.
Soon, within the stream of data transmitted from his terminal, the two probing lines he had typed appeared clearly:
—Angela.
—You can see it, can't you?
"..."
Silence.
Just like in his room, Angela's small chamber fell into the same absolute stillness.
But here, the quiet was even deeper—terrifyingly so.
Even the faint hum that should have accompanied machine operation, or the barely perceptible breathing of the blue-haired figure—
All of it vanished completely.
"..."
—Tap, tap.
Only after X , on the other side of the screen, mockingly deleted those probing words did Angela finally react.
"Heh."
Recalling the time she had spent with the Manager, and the words he had spoken earlier that morning in the Information Department…
Angela laughed—whether in self-mockery or irony, even she wasn't sure.
"I wonder, after memory synchronization is complete… will you still be able to wear such a warm smile?"
"..."
After saying that, Angela fell silent again.
But soon, she lifted her gaze once more toward the now-darkened screen.
"You've begun to deviate from your own script. A version of you like this is destined never to reach the end."
Sorrow and regret spilled from Angela's eyes, the complexemotions reflected there resembling those of an angel most capable of pitying the world.
"But since this cycle is destined to be reset anyway…"
She murmured softly:
"Then letting me indulge a little more… wouldn't be so bad, would it?"
"That purest version of you from her memories—
The one with the warm smile…"
"Just a little… just a little is enough."
As if something had occurred to her, Angela—who moments ago looked lost—suddenly smiled again.
"Heh…"
"So that's why it felt familiar…"
"That employee has rather good taste."
"Let her live a little longer."
Memory Synchronization Countdown: Five Days.
—
AppendiX (Abnormalities)
Control Department:
One Sin and Hundreds of Good Deeds X , Fairy Festival, Welch's Grape Soda, Heart of Aspiration
Information Department:
Punishing Bird X , 1.76 MHz, Snow Queen X , Mirror of Adjustment
Security Department:
Spider Bud, Der Freischütz X , Schadenfreude, Skin Prophecy
Training Department:
Fragment of the Universe, Judgement Bird X , Nothing There X , Old Faith and Promise
Central Headquarters:
Queen of Hatred X , Funeral of the Dead Butterflies X , Big Bird X , Today I'm Shy Too X
AppendiX (E.G.O)
Control Department:
"Magic Bullet" — Faust
Security Department:
"executor of Justice" — Harumoto
Central Headquarters:
"Mimicry" — Justin; "Shard of Frost" — Don Quixote
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