Memory Reaper's Ascension - Chapter 224: Results
Chapter 224: Results
Ishiki opened his eyes and peered into the endless void above him.
He looked at for a long time without moving, he didn’t know how to feel about it all.
He was back in his NEXUS Chamber, that meant that the scenario was actually over.
On one hand he was happy, delighted even that he was finally out of that hell. He was finally going back to earth. That was a thing to be happy about.
But at the same time, he felt an inexplicable loneliness, despair and hatred… loneliness to the fact that most of the people he had known and become friends with were no more or were under the impression that he was dead.
Filch, who was most likely alive and knew that Ishiki wasn’t dead, would not be wanting to face him… after what he did to Nina.
He closed his eyes and let everything that he had witnessed settle deep in his memory.
He realized that, he was lying on his back.
He pushed himself upright and sat for a moment with his hands in the grass — the grass that felt solid and also somehow not quite there.
His body was already healed from all the damage he had received.
He sat in the grass and did not move for a long while.
Kenji’s betrayal and the fact that everything was already planned by Yuki’s brother was sitting at the top of his mind. He could not completely comprehend the facts.
’Why? Why would Kenji do such a thing? Its true that we were not particularly close, but why would he go to such lengths? ’
’Was it because he was corrupted? No! he said something about Akira at the end…but, hey! Why does that matter to me?’
“It doesn’t !” Ishiki hissed through gritted teeth.
’She’s dead. That’s the thing that’s real. Whether it was Kenji directly or whether it was a consequence of something Kenji set in motion — she is dead because of him. Because of what he was doing. Because he built a scheme in this place.’
He sat with that.
He let it be what it was without trying to make it smaller or find a framework that would make it easier to carry.
’He’s still alive. He was alive in the throne room.’
The thought that followed that one arrived with a clarity and a temperature that surprised him with its completeness.
It was not rage… but instead a clear goal and motive.
’I am going to kill him.’
’I will make him beg, I will skin him alive and make sure that he feels every bit of it.’
All the hatred and despair that he had accumulated over the years, he directed it all at Kenji.
He had one major goal now, and that was to kill that bastard in the cruelest way possible.
The platinum window materialized in front of him.
It appeared the way it always appeared, without any announcement or special effect.
[The Scenario has been Concluded]
[Calculating Participant Results…]
He watched the windows.
’Here we go,’ he thought, feeling a bit distant.
[Analyzing Survival Conditions…]
[Analyzing Combat Data…]
[Analyzing Key Actions…]
[Analyzing Contribution Score…]
A pause.
[Special Circumstances Detected…]
’Of course.’
[Unknown Skill – Recursive Anomaly has interfered with scenario results]
His teeth ground together at the mere mention of that unknown protocol. ’This shit again! ’
[Enemies slain : The Demigod of Charity, 3x Innate Humans, 1x Adept Human, 1x Elite Human, 1x Tainted Demon…]
The list displayed all the Withering beasts, Xenons or anything Ishiki had killed during this Scenario.
Ishiki stared at that line and surprisingly, he didn’t feel anything.
What was there to feel? He had done all that in order to survive, his survival was all that mattered the most in the end and the system was just displaying what he had achieved in order to just stay alive.
He had not thought about it in those terms during the fights because there had been no time to think in those terms back then. Looking at it now, from the cold grass of the Nexus Chamber, he found that it did not produce pride as much.
[Special Achievements Detected…]
[Legendary Achievement : Lone Wolf – Killed a stronger enemy in a duel]
[Mythical Achievement : Divinity Slayer – Slain a Divine Being]
Ishiki looked at the achievements for a long moment and realized how far he had come. But even then he could not truly feel the pride, the Mythical Achievement was just an accidental product of his unknown protocol.
He sighed and didn’t think much about it.
[Scenario Assessment Complete]
[Results:]
[You have Received 40,000 Data Fragments]
’Forty thousand.’
He had received the full amount of Data fragments promised in the Scenario rewards.
[You have Received 50,000 NC]
He read that twice.
’Fifty thousand.’
He remembered that he had collected only 60,000 NC after so much effort and time. And now he received 50,000 just like that.
Honestly, though. This was the hardest thing he had ever done in his life.
[You have Received a Relic]
He went very still.
A relic? How did he get a Relic? Wasn’t he supposed to get a skill according to the rewards. And then again there was this thing.
’The last Mythical thing the system itself gave me was my Title. That was at the beginning of everything. And now—’
As if responding to his thoughts, a screen materialized in front of him.
=====================
Relic – Dragon’s Heir
Type – Unknown
Rank – Mythical
Adaptability – 0
Description -[A Dragon’s Egg]
=====================
He read the name.
He read it again.
“Dragon’s Heir? What the hell is that?” Confusion was evident in his voice and expression.
He read the description and involuntarily shuddered. “A… A dragon’s Egg!!”
A sound began somewhere in the space between the towers — not from them or from the Synth Reactor, but from the air itself, a low resonance that was less a sound than a pressure change.
The grass stilled, which it had never done before in his experience of this place — the phantom wind that moved without existing simply stopped, and in the stopping the Nexus Chamber became completely, totally quiet.
Then something materialized in front of him.
An egg.
It was roughly the size of a large melon, perfectly ovoid, and its surface was covered in scales.
It was neither smooth, nor rough, but somewhere between the two. Each of its scale caught the non existent light with its own slightly different angle, creating a texture that shifted as he looked at it. The scales were dark.
And as he slowly held it in his arms, he felt that it was warm. He could feel the warmth inside his bones… the warmth of something that was generating its own, from whatever was inside it, quietly and continuously.
Ishiki stared at it.
’A dragon egg.’
He had just spent the better part of a scenario fighting a dragon. He had killed it in a ruined golden throne room with a scythe made of his own blood and the accumulated stolen lives of everyone the system had ever made him responsible for.
He had watched it bleed gold across a floor that was already gold.
And now the system had given him an egg.
He did not know whether to laugh or not.
’What am I supposed to do with this? Hatch it? How do I hatch it? Do I sit on it? Is there an instruction window somewhere that’s going to tell me what temperature a dragon egg requires and—’
The Synth Reactor moved.
He felt it before he saw it. The synth reactor had always formed a pull on him, but currently it was very different.
The gold and purple energy between the towers that always chased each other… shifted.
It did not dim and was slowly redirected. Threads of it, fine as hair but completely visible, moved from the sphere and traveled outward through the air of the Nexus Chamber in two distinct streams — one gold, one purple.
They both moved towards the egg in Ishiki’s hand and reached it.
Then, they entered it.
The egg’s scales responded immediately… the deep color of them warmed and the gold veins brightened and the whole surface pulsed once with the specific combination of the two colors that had just entered it.
The warmth increased.
He sat very still.
The threads of energy from the Synth Reactor continued their quiet migration into the egg for several seconds. Then they stopped and the sphere between the towers resumed its rotation, the gold and purple still chasing each other.
The egg pulsed one final time.
And then went still.
Ishiki looked at it for a long time… not sure what to feel or do. Then he reached out and put one hand against its surface.
The scales were smoother than they looked. The warmth of it went through his palm and up his forearm.
He felt that the egg was somehow connected to his very soul in a very weird manner.
’A dragon.’
He had killed one not long ago, and now he had an egg. The system, in its comprehensive indifference to his psychological wellbeing, had decided this was an appropriate reward sequence.
’I wonder how it would look after it hatches. Like a human? A dragon? Or a human with wings and horns… how am i supposed to feed it? ’
His thought drifted, but he collected them and summoned his system screen.
The platinum system window materialized in front of him. It was his finally updated window.
========= Player : ????? ========
Name : Ishiki
Age : 18
Title : [Memory Reaper]
Rank — [Mythical]
Exclusive Skill — [Soul Archive]
Skill Description — [Allows the bearer to chain the very consciousness of the Slain in an eternal collection. The new master can reap the memories within.]
Exclusive Corruption — [Phantom Voice]
Corruption Description — [Listen closely. When the Reaper speaks, you may hear the whisper of everyone they’ve reaped.]
Synth Reactor Tier — Innate
Level — 26/50
Data Fragments — 9,870/13,000
Basic Abilities :
Strength : 45/100
Agility : 45/100
Endurance : 45/100
Charisma : 43/100
Protocols : [Recursive Anomaly (Unknown)], [Curse of the Forgotten (Exclusive)], [Cursed Fate (Unknown)]
Attribute : [Half Royalty (Epic)], [Minor Regeneration (Epic)], [Undying Heart (Mythical)]
Skill Cards : [Ghost Blade (Epic)], [Universal Translate (Legendary)]
==============================
{Vestiges}
{Relics}
{Shop}
==============================
He looked at it for a long time. He had finally crossed the half part of the final cap value which was 50.
His stats had also gone up by a lot, but in the end it didn’t meant much. he was sure everyone who survived this must have gotten at least this basic reward.
Another window materialized in front of him.
[Initiating Transfer to Earth]
