Story Reader / Floating Record / ER02 Cinder Burns / Story
The dark sky, crimson phantoms, and the blood river form a picture of the inferno.
Their whispers are filled with hatred, protesting about the young man who is rushing by.
You could have saved us.
You were chosen, but you ran away from your responsibilities. Why wouldn't you save us?
Why? Why? Why did you leave?
Save me... Save me, Shrek...
That name...
The young man stops running and turns toward the Red Tide projection.
...Who are you?
I'm a Task Force "defector." If we're meeting at an Ascendant base... I assume we're all the same.
Why did you defect?
Ha... Are you surprised that I chose an unlikely way to live instead of a likely way to die?
I heard that failing the filtering will turn you into a Corrupted.
I have to try, right? What's your name, by the way?
...Everyone calls me Shrek.
Shrek? Haha! My apologies—I think that name has to be associated with some ogreish monster!
But I suppose there's nothing wrong with calling you a "monster" when you're the Construct the Ascendants are "feeding" in a jail cell.
...I suppose.
Well, then. Let's hope we both pass the filtering, Mr. "Monster"!
...
You want to know what the filtering actually is?
It's a test to select our comrades. From what your memories have shown me... it's akin to how the human conservation areas choose their skilled workers.
People don't turn into Corrupted if the conservation areas don't choose them.
Are you sure? Abandoned, they become Scavengers who linger on, searching, looting, and stealing resources and livelihoods in a broken world.
They take, and one day they'll die when someone else takes from them.
Don't worry. I don't want to blame anyone... and I won't despise any.
The world is taken over by the Punishing Virus. They don't have a choice. They are forced to become who they are.
I simply want to put an end to their suffering sooner.
Best if they pass the filtering and become one of us, but I have somewhere they can go if they don't.
The Ascendant smiles and points at the reservoir of the underground waterways. A crimson liquid is swirling with corpses and remains inside as if a monster that will not stop gnawing.
The female Construct who was smiling at him earlier is within it too. She has long become one of its phantoms, repeating her plea before dying with faint, broken words.
Save me... Save me, Shrek...
...
See? Those who become one with this crimson sea are not dead. Their lives have begun anew.
But I'm sure it's hard for you to comprehend this way.
The Ascendant scoops up some of the Red Tide and delivers it before Noan.
Their minds and data are not gone. They're all stored here.
They're searching for each other, becoming whole from the pain of their loss...
Red Tide feeds the hungry and unites the departed... It takes away all the doom and gloom, and stitches together all their joy.
She lets them gather and decompose, turning them into the creature of "order" Mister wants when we arrange them or a host of "chaos" when they come together freely...
Those lives and minds are hardly what they were.
Better than the completely rotten shells they would've been.
Noan... No—I think I prefer "Shrek". The monster's name sounds more like one of us.
You should hate this world as much as I do, this world that keeps churning out dead bodies one after another. You should want to change it as well.
...
I don't want to force you to choose. I can give you more time if you're still undecided.
Mister said... you'd only become a threat if we made you one of us against your will.
So, I'm only going to "guide" you. I'll never force you to do anything.
Oh... by the way, if you're thinking about saving those who are still alive... why don't you try out your new powers?
My new powers?
Exactly... You're wondering when that happened, aren't you? Hehe...
I made you. You've retained your mind, and nothing's broken for once.
So I borrowed Mister's access and planted some "magic" in you.
As long as you stay near me, you don't have to fear the Punishing Virus. Instead, it can become your strength.
You can read the information stored within the Red Tide. You can see the dead, save the living, and kill whoever you want to kill.
That won't be necessary. I'm good.
You don't want to save those people?
Of course I do!
Then why won't you agree?
I'll never be your accomplice.
Fragments of his broken memories begin to connect, slightly dispelling the fog in his mind.
I rejected the offer, but what happened afterward?
If you leave me, you'll slowly lose control of yourself until you become a monster that hurts other people.
Wait. Why did I reject it?
If I don't use those powers to hurt people, I won't become an accomplice to the Ascendants.
But there's the danger of losing control...
The young man turns to the Red Tide projection once more.
What am I missing...?
It's too late, Shrek.
...?
The distorting projection struggles to hold together, repeating the words a woman said to the approaching man.
That's what it always says... in my book.
A bird that was born in a cage will fear the sky; a goose that soars to the air will fear the cage. Humans can only make choices based on what they know...
And someone without a past—someone who runs from it—is destined to be lost on the way to the future.
...Who are you?
Don't you remember? This is the second time we've met.
...Bella?
...It's been too long.
