Nikke, something’s seriously wrong with this evacuation point! Chapter 132 132: Repair, Return

"It wasn't that difficult," Charon muttered.

And it really wasn't. There had been plenty of fighting along the way, but almost nothing capable of actually defeating him–or even hurting him. The bullets lacked stopping power, and the enemies barely had any fighting spirit. Compared to the bots in Zone Zero, this battlefield wasn't even challenging.

「You do realize we only got here by cheating, right?」Rose's tily jab landed perfectly.「If we had climbed here through the normal route, how many supplies do you think we'd still have left?」

"If there weren't supply points or so kind of 'save point' chanic," Charon said with a bitter smile, "I probably wouldn't make it up here even in a year. Yeah… I really should thank that girl properly."

Thinking about it that way, it all made sense. Once you ran out of ammo and supplies, forget the boss–even the trash mobs would beco hard to deal with. The sheer scale of this all-out war was already absurdly high difficulty. It just probably never expected soone would exploit a shortcut.

"I doubt there'll be any more obstacles inside this building."

Charon nodded and stepped into the tower.

Behind him, distant explosions and gunfire still echoed faintly, but they no longer had anything to do with him. Judging from how clean and untouched the inside of the building was, those mobs seemingly weren't even programd to enter this place.

As he moved forward, he spotted inactive security caras and defense turrets. One turret even had a sticky note attached to it.

「Increasing security in Schale was never to protect Sensei.

It was to make Sensei believe he was protected.」

"..."

「That's pretty funny. Why aren't you laughing?」

"Uh… I don't know. Sohow it's not funny."

Charon's thoughts spiraled. So Schale was actually this dangerous of a place?

Though judging from the surroundings, it didn't really seem dangerous now.

The elevators and most facilities had long since stopped functioning, forcing him to take the stairs.

The tower had roughly thirty floors. He briefly checked the first ten or so, most of which resembled dormitories. It wasn't until the twenty-eighth floor that areas resembling actual workspaces started appearing.

So Schale was basically one giant dormitory building?

Eventually, Charon reached the top floor.

Only then did he truly appreciate the luxury of stamina regenerating automatically over ti. Climbing thirty flights of stairs without even losing his breath at the end felt absurd.

[Schale Office]

The noise from the battlefield below could no longer reach him. At this height, the ground itself felt impossibly far away.

Maybe that was why the owner of this office had left.

Pushing open the transparent glass doors, Charon stepped inside.

The office was mostly tidy, save for a few minor signs of disarray. The floor was spotless. A blue origami crane rested atop the desk. Steam curled gently from a coffee cup–but when Charon looked inside, there was nothing there.

Everything looked as though soone had still been here just minutes ago.

And yet both Charon and Rose knew:

No one had been here for a very, very long ti.

Charon gently brushed his hand across the room.

For so reason, his heart had beco completely calm.

Sensei.

Sensei!

Sensei~

Sen–

「Charon! Snap out of it!」

"Ah!" He jolted awake from Rose's shout, rubbing his head. "Ah… right. I'm fine. Just spaced out for a second."

「That 'second' lasted way too long!」

"Uh, sorry, sorry."

Only then did Charon notice he had sohow sat down in the office chair. In front of him sat a monitor and a desktop computer.

"So… what do we do now?" Charon casually pressed the power button.

The computer booted up imdiately.

「What did you just do?」Rose asked, confused.

"What do you an? I turned it on."

「I know you turned it on,」Rose replied, 「but did you notice this computer isn't plugged in?」

Charon froze.

Only now did he realize not only was the power cable unplugged–there weren't any cables connected to the tower at all.

The monitor remained completely black, naturally. Without electricity, the fact that the computer had powered on at all beca deeply unsettling.

"W-we're not exactly in the real world anyway," Charon argued weakly. "A computer working without power isn't that weird for a ga chanic, right?"

「Hopefully it's just ga logic…」Rose paused.「Still, aside from this computer, there doesn't seem to be any other clue. Connect the Shittim Chest.」

Charon took out the Shittim Chest and its data cable, plugging one end into the computer tower and the other into the tablet.

Then he waited.

A familiar charging sound rang out.

At the exact sa mont, Rose's voice vanished.

The tablet's screen lit up. Countless unreadable lines of code flooded across the display. A violent storm erupted inside the office, scattering papers and furniture everywhere, eventually twisting into a full-blown tornado. Only the small space around the desk remained untouched–the eye of the storm.

Everything around them began dissolving into raw data at terrifying speed, flowing into the computer tower before transferring through the cable into the Shittim Chest.

The spectacle looked overwhelmingly chaotic.

Yet the spot where Charon stood remained perfectly calm.

He clenched his fists tightly.

He had no idea what this process would lead to. But more than anything, he just hoped Rose would co out of it safely.

Suddenly, the Shittim Chest began trembling violently.

A brilliant blue light swallowed Charon's entire field of vision.

[What we seek is the lantation of the Seven.]

[What we rember are the ancient laws of Jericho.]

[Authentication complete.]

[Welco back, Sensei.]

…

[Generating operation report…]

[Extraction Point: Schale Tower · Top Floor]

[Total Ti: 14 hours 27 minutes]

[Ergency Mission [System Reboot]: Completed]

[Rating: E]

[Remarks: Good. You discovered the only clearable route. However, your exploration progress is still below 1%. I cannot turn back for you.]

[Hidden Mission [Elevator]: Completed]

[Rating: S]

[Remarks: Only idiots would climb thousands of floors under a ti limit. Smart people exploit bugs and skip the stages.]

[Overall Rating: B ]

[Extraction Value: 13,000,000 Zone-Zero Credits]

Extracted?

When Charon realized he was standing outside the blast door of his shelter, he stared blankly in confusion.

How the hell did I get extracted?

Was that light ant to pull out?

He quickly checked his system inventory. Inside remained only the priceless red-tier item worth thirteen million credits.

The Shittim Chest, however, had vanished completely.

No–more likely it had been delivered separately as a reward.

"Rose!"

Charon instantly reacted.

That was the important part.

He rushed noisily into the shelter's main hall–

And saw her.

The white-haired girl sat casually on a chair in the living area, curiously observing her surroundings. The mont she noticed Charon, a deeply familiar smile spread across her face.

"Commander, you're here."

He knew imdiately.

Hacker Rose had returned.

"Look at this," Rose said naturally, holding up the tablet. "The Shittim Chest still needs your authentication. My fingerprint doesn't work at all."

Charon stared at the screen.

"…Isn't this a gacha interface?"