Chapter 79

I opened my eyes.

A tingling pain surged from my arm and abdomen.

When I turned my head, one of my arms was gone. On top of that, there was a large hole in my stomach.

Only then could I let out a sigh of relief at the sight.

‘It’s over.’

[System Message]

Act 4 of Part 1 has ended.

Your rewards have been granted.

Part 1, Act 4 was over.

I had just overcome the greatest crisis I would ever face while living in this body. I clenched and unclenched the fist of my remaining arm.

‘I am…….’

Who am I?

The original? A copy? Or neither?

I had a lot of complicated thoughts, but in truth, none of that mattered. In the end, ‘I’ would still be ‘me.’

‘There’s still something I need to take care of.’

The biggest crisis had passed, but that didn’t mean I could relax. I looked across from me at the ‘copy’ who had collapsed to his knees.

A face drained of color.

His skin was melting in places. The aftermath of the battle from moments ago had left him in a pitiful state.

He was no longer breathing.

But his expression, eyes closed, looked somehow satisfied. Perhaps it was only natural after fulfilling his role.

I recalled the battle just moments earlier.

‘A terrifying opponent.’

Though it was my body, perhaps I could say I had witnessed the latent potential hidden within it. The pure combat ability of ‘Aaron Stingray,’ something I had never properly seen even in the original work.

Even after contracting the virus and uninstalling most of his modules, he had fought on par with countless Adaptee soldiers, as well as his own copy armed with various modules.

‘A monster is still a monster.’

Thankfully, I would never have to fight ‘myself’ again. That monstrous power was now wholly mine.

‘Now, I should do what needs to be done.’

I erased my thoughts and reached out to my copy in the form of a boy. Then I began taking the modules stored in his Socket HUB one by one, inserting them into the opening at the back of my neck—only to stop as I suddenly remembered something.

[Miyu. Are you listening?]

[Ah, Mr. Aaron……?]

[It’s over. We succeeded.]

[R-Really? Then, the password…….]

Miyu and I had agreed on a password beforehand. Of course, the ‘me’ who had transformed into ‘Aaron Stingray’ wouldn’t have known it.

Once I recited the predetermined word, Miyu, sounding delighted, remotely lifted the virus that had been injected into my body. If I had inserted the modules while the virus was still active, everything would have been ruined.

[All done~!]

Following Miyu’s signal, I began installing the modules one at a time. First came the [Cellular Regeneration Enhancement Module], the most important for recovery.

‘The [Cell Generator] was destroyed because of the virus…….’

So the one my copy had been wearing was a custom module made by Miyu.

[System Message]

A new standard module has been installed.

Connected Device: [Lv.3 Get Healthy!]

“……”

Well, alright.

I’d better tell Miyu from now on not to name anything herself, no matter what she makes. True to her style, the performance was good, but with a name like that, it was hard to take it seriously.

Anyway.

Thanks to Miyu’s military-grade recovery module, my severe wounds began visibly healing in no time. The bleeding stopped, and the large hole in my stomach closed up.

Of course, with just a Lv.3 module, it couldn’t regenerate my severed arm. Becoming one-armed was a little bothersome, but it didn’t bother me much.

After all, with regular application of the drugs used by Adaptees after undergoing cyberware removal surgery, or by installing a Lv.4 or higher module, my arm would eventually grow back to its original state.

It would just be inconvenient for a while.

After that, I took my time installing the remaining modules in sequence.

Installing a large number of high-output modules all at once was obviously dangerous, so I allowed my body ample time to adapt.

My condition wasn’t great to begin with, and after surviving such a crisis, dying at the last moment from module overload would have been the most ridiculous comedy imaginable.

‘Looks like the installation’s about done.’

After quite some time, I checked the list of modules now installed in my body.

【Arcane】

[Cloud Spider Lv.5] - Inactive

[Corpse Eater Lv.5] - Active

[Techblade Lv.5] - Inactive

【Standard】

[Strength Lv.3] - Active

[Haste Lv.5] - Active

[Hawkeye Lv.5] - Active

[Neural Booster Lv.3] - Active

[Poison Immunity Lv.4] - Active

[Trauma Biometric Scanner Lv.3] - Active

[Tungsten Skin Lv.4] - Active

[Get Healthy! Lv.3] - Active

Overload Rate: 25% (Safe)

Replacement Rate: 32%

‘……Good.’

Preparation was complete.

I was still one-armed, but this much would be enough. First, I needed to deal with the remaining issues.

‘Maria.’

It was about time to go save her.

Where had it gone wrong?

Even looking back, I couldn’t tell.

This outcome likely hadn’t been caused by just one mistake.

***

Maria quietly closed her eyes.

Beyond her darkened eyelids, old memories returned as if someone had started a projector.

When she was young, she had always been hungry.

Her surroundings were nothing but ruins.

No matter where she turned her gaze, all she could see were the wretchedly rotting corpses, the monsters feeding on them, and flames surging high as if to swallow everything whole.

In those hazy memories, the one scene that surfaced with absolute clarity was when, as she lay dying of hunger, a man reached out his hand to her.

-Do you want to live?

-……

-You have interesting eyes.

She hadn’t answered, but the man, intrigued by her reaction, had ordered his subordinates to collect her.

After that, she was placed inside some dark and bitterly cold box.

When she opened her eyes again, she was in an unfamiliar place. Men and women in white coats were observing her naked body as if it were nothing out of the ordinary, asking her various questions.

How did she feel? Did she remember anything? Was there anything she wanted to eat or do?

Maria, feeling no shame, answered the woman in the coat earnestly. The woman, satisfied with her answers, dressed her and led her outside.

And the world had changed.

Buildings that pierced the sky.

Cars floating in the air like wasps, and a cityscape shining brightly as if someone had plucked the stars from the sky and embedded them above.

To the astonished Maria, the woman said she had been in a deep sleep for a long time. During that time, the Stingray Group had saved the dying world and created this magnificent city.

And then she added:

-From now on, you will work for the Stingray Group.

At those words, Maria felt her heart race for the first time.

From then on, she was raised as a test subject for a secret project supervised by the Stingray Security Division. Cyberware surgeries were excruciatingly painful, and her missions were so grueling they brought her to tears, but compared to her previous life, this was far happier.

To her, Stingray was her savior.

They were the heroes who had saved humanity from despair and rebuilt civilization. Chairman Drake Stingray was like a god who had remade the world and rescued her.

Maria took great pride in being able to work as the hands and feet of such a god.

Then one day—

While still active in the Security Division, Maria happened to meet a boy visiting the division’s facility. It was her first time facing someone her own age, but she could tell instantly.

He was someone truly special.

His name was Aaron Stingray.

A boy who bore the blood of the Emperor himself.

Jet-black hair.

Golden eyes that proved his imperial lineage swept up and down her entire figure.

-Who are you?

-I am Maria.

Though their ages were likely similar, Maria instinctively bowed her head and spoke formally.

The boy tilted his head and asked:

-Maria? You look like you’re of Eastern descent.

-The researchers who took me in gave me this name. I do not remember my previous one.

-I see.

The boy, seeming to lose interest, turned his gaze away and passed her by. Yet in that brief exchange, Maria felt a certain fate.

It was this boy.

This boy would surely become the Emperor.

And to ensure the Stingray Empire grew even stronger, standing at his side was surely the destiny given to her.

And Maria’s intuition had been correct.

As if fate itself were guiding her, she was assigned to the Group’s Secretariat — an elite among elites who assisted the lives of the owner family.

They had probably been looking for someone around Aaron’s age within the Group, and by coincidence, she had been selected.

Her mission was to assist Aaron Stingray. Attending the highest-class school in Elysium alongside him, ensuring he had no inconveniences in his daily life — that was Maria’s role.

From then on, as if it were predestined, Maria had followed him like a shadow.

Through middle school, high school, and university.

Even when Aaron began working in earnest as a member of the Group, and later when he became the Chairman of the Stingray Foundation.

As Aaron’s position rose, Maria’s naturally did as well — from an ordinary junior staff member in the Group’s Secretariat to the Chief Secretary of the Foundation.

‘I’ve had plenty of hardships…’

Some had been jealous of her rapid promotion.

When a baseless rumor spread that Aaron kept her around because he was romantically interested in her, she had nearly been driven out of her position entirely.

As she grew older and more mature, she came to learn more and more truths.

The truth hidden behind the dazzling façade of the Stingray Group, the countless corpses and tragedies buried beneath its solid fortress.

Aaron’s cruelty and overwhelming power.

The shadowy struggles for power.

Those so consumed by money they would sell even their honor and family.

At some point, the way she saw the name ‘Stingray’ and this city began to change.

‘Should I have quit back then?’

Even so, she had tried to keep her loyalty. After all, the fact that Stingray had been her benefactor had not changed. And more than anything, by now her own hands were stained red — it was far too late to pull out.

She had done her best.

Pouring her body and passion into repaying that debt, choosing the Group’s future over her own body in all manner of dangerous situations.

But—

‘What’s the point of it all now?’

Maria slowly lifted her head to look at the handcuffs binding her wrists.

The skin chafed by the cuffs was raw and red. Normally it would’ve been nothing, but today it hurt far more than usual.

‘So this is my end?’

It was all because she had turned against Benedict’s plan to kill Aaron Stingray at the very last moment.

As if he had been expecting it, Benedict had sprung a trap prepared in advance to subdue her, and had locked her away in an unknown place.

Why he had kept her alive, she did not know. Did he think she was still useful? Or was there another reason?

“……”

She didn’t know.

Her mind was hazy, thoughts sluggish.

It was probably because of the truth serum Benedict had injected into her. She had drifted back and forth between illusion and reality countless times, each time waking up here again.

She would probably die like this.

After a lifetime of serving Stingray with all her body and soul, she would end up vanishing quietly, unseen by anyone.

“……”

For some reason, even standing at death’s door, she felt strangely calm. Perhaps it was just the lingering effect of the drug, dulling any real sense of ‘death.’

Maybe it was for the best.

She had been growing tired anyway.

She had no family, and because she had devoted all her time to work, she had not a single close friend.

Her coworkers had feared the name ‘Maria’ as much as they feared Aaron Stingray, and no one had ever opened their heart to approach her.

That didn’t mean she had never felt lonely. On rare days when she had finished work early and lain alone in bed, she had often felt a deep emptiness.

When work was taken out of the equation, she realized, she was an utterly hollow person — and after mulling over that bitterness, she would fall asleep, only to wake and throw herself into work again as if to escape.

Could she go on living like this?

Without forming any connections with anyone?

Maintaining only the faintest human relationships, barely worthy of being called ties?

Even as she buried the rising anxiety and doubts under more and more work, somewhere in her heart the thought, ‘I’m tired,’ kept quietly growing.

‘I wish it would all just end quickly.’

Better to have this life cut short now than to drift toward the end in this meaningless emptiness.

She knew the truth.

Even if she vanished here and now, no one would cry for her.

No matter how hard she had worked for the Group, to them the part called ‘Maria’ was an easily replaceable, insignificant piece.

And after all, hadn’t she sent a ‘message’ to Aaron Stingray — the man she had spent nearly half her life with — without him even noticing her disappearance?

Even if this whole incident ended and she died, Aaron would probably start tomorrow as if nothing had happened.

“……”

The moment she thought that—

A crushing weight of emotion pressed down on her chest. And in the eyes she had kept expressionless, pretending to be fine, a small droplet welled up.

“What am I even…”

“What have I been doing all this for…!”

Her faint words drifted hollowly around the cell before fading away.

Weakened, she stared blankly into the air, then lost consciousness again.

In the borderland between reality and dream—

She heard voices.

A voice interrogating, a voice angry, a voice slandering someone…

And then, at some point—

She felt someone’s hand gently caress her cheek. She slowly opened her eyes, her hazy vision sharpening to reveal sharp amber eyes.

“You’re awake.”

“……!”

Just as she was about to speak—

Maria saw Aaron’s bloodied figure. His once immaculate suit was torn and stained red, and one of his arms was completely severed.

Maria gasped, startled by Aaron’s pitiful state — a sight she had never even imagined.

Why had the Crown Prince, once so strong and untouchable, come before her like this?

For what purpose?

Of course, she had a guess.

“…Have you come to execute me?”

It was the reasonable assumption.

Judging from his appearance, Aaron had likely already fought a fierce battle against Benedict’s soldiers.

Though she could not tell who had won, there could be only one reason for him to come find her in the midst of being targeted for assassination by his brother.

To punish the traitor.

“…If it’s punishment, I’ll accept it. I have no intention of making excuses.”

Death didn’t frighten her.

This was the fitting end for someone who had turned her back on her conscience and taken on all manner of dirty work.

“Only, if you have even a little mercy for me, please make it quick.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Toward Maria, Aaron spoke coldly.

“I came to save you.”

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