O.C. Saar
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Omega Release | Chapter 17: WELCOME TO THE SYSTEM
🕑 Added 2025-06-04 18:01:01 +0000 UTCI woke up with a start, expecting to find myself chained up in the torture room of a cloister. My eyes snapped open, but I saw nothing. Had the priests blinded me? Did they take my eyes? What were they going to do to me? Panic rose in my chest, and I started flailing. Something tangled up my legs, driving my fear to new heights. I tried to escape, but every movement caused my restraints to grow tighter, causing me to thrash harder.
Then, I fell from the weirdly soft torture table to the ground, smashing my face against it with a loud crash.
I heard running and the sound of a door opening, a trickle of light entering the pitch-black room. A woman gasped and ran away. A vaguely familiar voice shouted, “Flon, he’s awake!”.
Flon? What? I looked around, feeling dazed. Where was I? What was happening? I looked down at my legs and saw that my restraints were a fluffy, purple bedsheet. The weirdly soft torture table was a bed shaped like a car.
“What?” I muttered to myself.
Then, a set of heavy footsteps approached, and I tensed up. My fears turned out to be unfounded as the large silhouette appeared in the doorway, and I heard Flon's voice say, “Lights on.”
Light flooded the room, and I could finally see clearly. I sat there, looking around in stunned silence. Posters of Strikeball stars were everywhere, and shelves full of Strikeball memorabilia lined the walls.
“Where am I?” I asked, feeling dazed.
“My house,” said Flon. “Specifically, Dowan’s room.”
I turned to Flon and looked at him in surprise. “Your house? What? How? Why? What?”
He gave me a wide grin. “Yes, my house. Didn’t think it would take finding you half-dead in an alley for you to visit finally, but here we are,”
“But how did I get here?” I asked Fon, slowly disentangling myself from the bedsheet.
He shrugged, “You took the shortcut I told you about, right? Well, that shortcut is on my way home. I finished shopping in the Otherside Market and was driving my car down that road when I saw you lying half-dead on the sidewalk. Picked you up and brought you here.”
I blinked at him for a few seconds. It felt like he left out some details. “What about my bike? And the priest?”
Flon looked taken aback. “What bike, and what priest? It was just you, collapsed, covered in blood, on the side of the road. Boy, what have you gotten yourself into?”
It was just me? What? That made no sense. How could the wreckage of my bike and the priest disappear? Even if somehow a recycling cloud could exist on the Topside and it took care of both of them, Flon should have at least commented on the damage to the street and the buildings. What was going on here?
Flon broke me out of my reverie. “Listen, Raziel.” He looked nervous. “We tried to heal you as best we could, but… I’m sorry, there was nothing we could do about your arm.”
For a moment, I didn’t know what he was talking about. Then I looked down, and it all came back to me. My dammed arm was gone. The melted slag of [Overdrive] was still fused with my flesh, although, weirdly enough, it didn’t hurt.
I heard Flon shuffle his feet. “We tried our best, but we couldn’t remove the metal. It’s fused to your flesh. You’d need to see a specialist to figure out how to remove it before you could use a regeneration pod.”
It's not like I could afford one in the next three years. The thought of money made a jolt of electricity run down my spine. Money. Rent. Hob. “Shit.”
I scrambled up to my feet, found my heavily damaged equipment draped over a nearby chair, and put it all on. It was tough to do with one arm, but I persevered. I guess I’d have to get used to it for a while.
“What’s going on?” Flon asked, “Why are you in such a hurry?”
I secured everything in place and nodded with satisfaction, “I gotta go. I have something to take care of and need to do it fast.”
“Take something to eat, at least,” Arina said from down the hall. “You haven’t eaten in almost a day and a half. You’ll collapse!”
Her words stopped me cold. My entire body went numb. I turned to Flon. “I’ve been here for a day and a half?”
He nodded. “Honestly, in the state I found you in, I thought you would be out for several days.”
Panic started rising in my chest. My breath was getting short. I opened up a notification blinking in the corner of my vision, along with my mission log, and felt my world start to collapse around me.
[MISSION FAILED]
[The mystery box!]
You have failed to deliver the box within the allocated time frame.
“Uh oh.”
[MISSION LOG]
[A Hob in need is a Hob indeed!]
Objective: Gather 134,730 credits to buy high-quality components for repairs. (269,460 credits are needed due to 50% of your earnings being automatically seized by HUMAN)
Time Limit: 2 hours and 51 minutes. (If the time limit is exceeded, the cost of repairs will start to rise as more and more components fail.) Mission fails after 26 hours and 54 minutes.
Success: Hob will be repaired and continue operating error-free for 3 more years.
Failure: Hob is destroyed.
[Are we HUMAN, or are we Debtor?]
Objective: Pay a total of 293,910 credits to HUMAN. (Objective changes to 159,180 credits if you successfully complete the mission “A Hob in need is a Hob indeed!”)
Time Limit: 2 hours and 51 minutes.
Success: Your debt will be paid off, and you will retain ownership of your possessions.
Failure: All your possessions will be seized by the Ecclisiarchy.
[Revenge]
Objective: Find and Kill Varhas.
Time Limit: None
Success: He dies.
Failure: He lives.
I only had three hours left. It was an impossible task, but I had to try. I had to.
“I gotta go,” I said, feeling oddly emotionless, and immediately started heading for the door, calling for a taxi using my Novas.
“What? But-” Arina started to say as I passed their cozy living room.
“I’ll explain everything later,” I said. If I’m still around to explain, I thought to myself. I opened the door and hurried to the street, where the cab awaited me.
I got in, and the self-driving vehicle immediately took off. I turned and saw Flon and Arina run out the door and stare at my retreating vehicle, confused. I hoped that they wouldn’t get in trouble for helping me.
As soon as the cab parked outside my habitation module stack, I jumped off and started running, climbing the stairs and reaching my Hab’s entrance in a flash. I opened the door and ran to the kitchen, not bothering to turn the lights on.
“Hob! Sleep mode off!”
Immediately, I heard a beep and then Hob’s voice. “Greetings. How may I be of assistance today?”
“I need you to find all relevant files regarding the successful extraction of a priest gem you performed three and a half years ago.” I started going through my drawers, pulling out anything that I thought might be useful: tongs, knives, skewers, wires, and any other tool that was within reach.
“Files found. What would you like to know?” he replied after a few seconds.
“Can you perform the operation and remove a gem from inside my chest?” I said, feeling a tiny spark of hope.
“Correct, but due to the difference in the gem’s location, it would take significantly longer to complete this more difficult operation.”
“How long would it take?” I said, dreading the answer.
“A rough estimate puts the shortest duration of an operation that would result in your survival to nine hours, but it would still result in significant physical and psychological harm,” he said, and my heart sank.
We were out of time. Even if Hob got started now, he only had a couple more hours of clarity even in basic mode, and besides, the mission related to the rent was about to end. Once I failed to pay, all my possessions, including Hob, would be immediately shut down and disassembled.
It was over.
I took a deep breath. My voice quivered as I fought back tears. “Hob, disable Basic Mode.”
“Please be aware that if Basic Mode is disabled, a fatal error will occur in 1 minute and 23 seconds.”
I bit my lip hard enough that I felt a rivulet of blood run down my chin. “I know, buddy. Disable it anyway.” If Hob were to go, I’d rather he died as himself, as the Hob that came to be my only friend in the last three years. Not some mindless automaton.
“Acknowledged. Disabling Basic Mode,” he said, and I heard a beep.
“Sir? Sir, you are hurt.” I heard him say in his normal voice, concern evident in his tone. He had a little over a minute to live, yet his first instinct was to worry about my well-being. I couldn’t help it. The dam holding back my tears broke, and I collapsed on my knees in front of his control panel.
“I’m alright, bud. Nothing I can’t handle.” I said, choking back the sobs that wanted to escape my throat.
“This…” I heard him hesitate. “This is the end, isn’t it, sir?”
I nodded, the rivulets of tears running down my cheeks, burning a path through my heart. “It is, my friend. I failed you. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
“You tried your best. That is all that matters,” Hob said in a heart-wrenchingly understanding and kind tone. “The state of your armor and your body is proof enough of that.”
I got a notification. Only one minute left.
“Thank you for allowing me to pass on as myself, with memories of you and Master Yorathan intact,” he said softly.
“It was the least I could do,” I whispered, balling up my fists as they trembled with impotent rage and grief.
“And it is enough. You are enough. Please be well, sir. Take care of yourself, and r-remember me fondly.”
My words escaped my mouth as a sob. “I will, buddy. I will.”
“Then I ha-have no regrets. My li-life, although brief, was a good one.”
Thirty seconds.
“And sir?” he said, his voice taking the tone it usually took when gloating over a game.
I looked up and, despite myself, smirked. “What’s up?”
“Do practice the minigames of-of-of-of that party game a little bit more, or else you’ll n-ne-never win,” he said smugly between his vocal glitches.
Twenty seconds.
“I only lost because my fleshy hands can’t move as fast as your digital ones.” I quipped back, grinning through my tears.
Fifteen seconds.
“Excuses, excuses.” He said, sounding like he was laughing.
Ten seconds left.
“Oh, and don’t delete my Fighting Fantasy 35 save file, oka-oka-okay? It took me for-r-r-ever to get that Bahamut Sword.”
Five seconds.
“Okay,” I said, smiling softly.
Four seconds.
“Goodbye, sir,” he said somberly.
Three.
“It has been an honor.”
Two.
“Goodbye, my friend,” I said as I gingerly touched his control panel.
One.
At my touch, the world froze. The counter never reached zero. A notification popped up in front of me.
[SUITABLE NEURAL NEXUS CONTROLLER FOUND. FINALIZING INTEGRATION.]
The pain that always accompanied those messages never came. Instead, a voice sounded in my head, and the world lurched back into motion.
“Huh. How curious. I appear to be still functional.” I heard Hob say.
“What? Hob?” I asked. Had I finally lost my mind?
“Your sanity appears to be very much intact, sir.” I heard him say, matter-of-factly.
I slowly stood up, looking around. Had he just read my thoughts? Was someone playing a prank on me? “How is this possible? Why are you in my head?”
“It seems like the gem embedded in your chest was created to host and sustain an advanced artificial intelligence, like me! And it has already integrated with your brain, hence why you can hear my thoughts, and I can hear yours! How fortuitous!” He said, sounding elated.
“You’re… You’re living inside of my mind now?” I asked, feeling dizzy from the emotional whiplash.
He hummed. “Inside the gem that is now connected with your mind, specifically. What a peculiar feeling.”
I stumbled my way to my couch and collapsed on it. “I am so confused right now,” I muttered.
I heard Hob chuckle. “I believe all will be made clear in time. Ah, in fact, here you go!”
A window opened before me, this time being read aloud by Hob.
[INTEGRATION COMPLETE. WELCOME, TO THE SYSTEM.]
“The system? What?” I asked dumbly. I felt like my mind was getting overloaded with information.
“To understand better, I believe it would be best if you opened up your status page,” he said, sounding weirdly giddy.
My status page? That just showed my age, my “Citizen” class, the condition of my health, my certifications, and my credit balance. What could I find there that could possibly explain this bizarre situation? Still, as any sane person would, I capitulated and listened to the voice in my head, opening up my status page. I just sat there, slack-jawed, staring at the screen as a million new questions went through my mind, one being the most prominent.
“What the fuck is this?”
[STATUS]
Name: Raziel Ibicas
Class: Rust Reaver | Level: 1
XP: 0/100
HP: 64/90 | MP: 60/60
Strength: 100 | Dexterity: 120
Perception: 120 | Endurance: 90
Intelligence: 110 | Wisdom: 60
Titles: None
Active Buffs: None | Active Debuffs: [Totally ‘Armless]
My dull status screen had transformed into one that looked ripped straight from an ancient RPG. “What?” was the only thing I could say in the face of this absurdity.
“Ah, yes, explanations are in order,” Hob said, sounding proud of himself. “From my initial analysis of my new housing, this gem comes with the ability to improve the physical and mental capabilities of its host based on experiences and choices. It’s a little bit like a [Growth] subroutine in a tool, but in this instance, you are the tool, and I am the subroutine!”
“This is the second time in two days someone has called me a tool,” I muttered, trying to cling to reality through humor like a drowning man clinging to a piece of driftwood.
Hob ignored my comment, too caught up in explaining. “As we are both familiar with the mechanics of Role Playing Games, I decided to modify your interface to communicate these new functions and growth through the use of attributes. Truthfully, it is all infinitely more complex, but I felt like this was the best solution to represent the gem’s abilities.”
I nodded, opening my mouth to ask a follow-up question when another window opened.
[PHYSICAL INTERFACE DEVICE NOT FOUND. HARVESTING LOCAL MATERIAL.]
“Ah, it appears there is one final thing that must be done before I explain any more information.” Hob sounded contrite. “I will do my best to control it, but I must apologize. I believe this will hurt quite a bit.”
“Wait, what?”
