Story Reader / Main Story / 26 Cradle Parade / Story
You tuck away the documents you just found and continue searching for hope in this maze of a control room.
After 2 hours of battle and search, the trio finally comes across the transmitter that Lithos has been using to communicate with the world outside.
You tinker with it hoping it would work, but see that there are no signals.
Let me give it a try.
Says Lamia, sounding absolutely confident.
Why would I do that? It's not like she'd come anyway.
The mermaid lowers her head.
...No one is going to come for us.
...Because this is a special channel built by Ascendants.
Lamia sounds upset, the confident person that she was just moments ago is nowhere to be found.
A-anyway, I know how to crack Lithos' cipher to restore the signal.
I guess his method can only connect to the ground where the Corrupted are.
She nods and proceeds to tinker with the transmitter. She operates the machine in awkward movements, every single step taking what seems like an eternity.
She seems like someone fiddling with a machine they've never seen before with the help of a manual.
...Well, I wasn't, but I am now.
That means what you think it means.
No, but I know how to work this machine now.
...Well, let's just say I did.
I found a few messages that Lithos left hidden in the Punishing that only Ascendants can see.
Vonnegut and his Ascendants came up with a lot of intricate stuff with the Punishing and the Corrupted. It's pretty surprising...
I thought you were supposed to fire the Punishing as a railgun like what Luna did...
She murmurs to herself.
Well, this should be good enough for us to handle most of our enemies.
Hey, th-that's not true! She's just too good for this rubbish! See, she can rock this world in a breeze if she wants to!
I-I mean... you've never seen the owner of a food warehouse try to figure out how to save cans, right?
Gabriel always says only the weak need to get together to work on their tools and techniques, and that these things don't really mean a thing when they're up against someone overwhelmingly powerful.
Lamia looks up with a melancholy face, her gaze penetrating the wall in front of her, crossing the deep sea, and reaching into a starry sky that's not there.
"Power" grows at a diminishing rate, though, except he was never even aware of this.
And she'd be correct—Gabriel is not alone in his ignorance. Most people are trapped in their ignorance without realizing it.
It's easy for one to take the things they encounter as the only truth and be clueless or show no interest at all in things beyond their understanding.
Many are those who fail to even realize just how ignorant and biased they are.
Huh?
...It's nothing. I just saw some "reflections."
I don't want to talk about it.
She snaps back to this very moment of the draining present.
Lamia says no more, continuing to operate the transmitter for a while before looking up again.
...We need an identity card.
I just got it up and running, but I'm no expert when it comes to cracking security!
She taps her toes anxiously on the floor.
That agent's minions sure like to make things complicated.
I'll take care of it. Let's cut off the M.I.N.D. connection for now so you can rest for a bit here.
And you know Lamia will do just fine on her own—since information gathering is one of the few things she's good at.
This time, with her cooperation, the M.I.N.D. connection is quickly severed.
Then, the mermaid disappears without looking back.
Unable to continue using the egg, Lamia conceals herself and carefully dodges collapsing structures as monsters emerge everywhere.
Soon, she comes across a nearby patrolling Corrupted, twists off its head, and reads the memory unit in its memory shell.
...
...Cinderelik, I need your help here.
The footage shows Lithos pulling a file from a crack in the wall.
Is it nearby?
Touching the exact spot she saw in the footage, she notices that the wall itself comprises the Punishing's hetero-crystalline.
Lithos isn't even trying to guard this place. Is it because humans can reach this place at all?
Or is there another trap hidden in there?
...
Despite the risk, Lamia knows she has to give it a try to see if it leads them to a way out of here.
She reaches out to the hetero-crystal and pulls an old file out of it.
When she opens it, she sees a yellowed file paper with a discolored ID card clipped to it.
Kana Kurono?
Case File for Candidates of Project Cthylla
ID: Kana Kurono
Biological Age: 16
Prior to becoming "Cthylla", CB103 was a child of natural birth born without the help of the Tree of Life. Her father was researcher Kugawa Kurono.
□□□□□□□□□□□□, □□□□□□□□□□.
After □□□□, Kana Kurono was confirmed to also have the potential to become Cthylla. The surgery to merge her with the tree is set for December 23rd at 21:00.
The Tree of Life...
For a split second, the gigantic tree that nurtures the dead crosses Lamia's M.I.N.D... She's in awe of the technologies from back in the day.
Lamia checks the date on the case file and sees that this happened before the Punishing outbreak.
Which means they've got to have modified her, then...
While trying to process what she's just read, Lamia places the ID card with the name "Kana Kurono" on the console's sensor area.
Let's see if it still works...
The console, however, displays a message in bold:
Insufficient balance for this ID. Access denied. Please recharge or try another card.
Wait, are you seriously making your own people pay to unlock this thing when this is your turf?
Disbelieving, she gives the console several more tries but gets nothing but the same response.
...I really want to find Lithos for a fight now.
Lamia feels anger boiling in her but knows that it has to wait. She decides to see if there is a workaround.
Guess I'll try my luck with other Corrupted...
▁▃▆▃▆▁▂▄▁▁▃▆▅▄▃▆▁
All of a sudden, a muffled sound finds its way into Lamia's auditory module.
Who's this?
It's like an invitation, a trap that's been set up in advance.
Quick, hide here.
Cinderelik?
He isn't going to find us this time.
The single-winged girl makes her way into the depths of the room with a smile, as though guiding the lost mermaid.
...
Meanwhile, with the help of your "local guide," you have been going through the rooms trying to find clues.
When you enter the third room, a notebook peeking out from a crack in the collapsed floor catches your attention.
Sure, where is it?
It takes the two of you—one severely injured and the other 90% blind—a good three minutes to finally pull out another notebook from the crack.
There are three things in it—a case file, an ID card, and a blank contract.
In the case file is the photograph of a girl whom you believe you've met before.
You quickly go through the file and learn that it belongs to a subject coded "XX003".
The subject was a modestly successful biotech expert born in the Golden Age. For years, she lived with hereditary cancer and, after several recurrences, opted out of treatment...
She devoted everything she had to the Tree of Life from Project Cthylla and was reborn three times, eventually managing to survive in someone else's body
But it was a failed attempt nonetheless—because XX003 only inherited her scientific talent and not her memories or personality.
If there's anything this elaborate project achieved that the cloning technology couldn't...
...it's the fact that her mind data was put in a test subject from the CB series and she was, therefore, reborn with a new body.
Cured of her hereditary disease, she took advantage of the opportunity to swap into an appearance that everyone would find pleasing but that she didn't much care about.
Her Mother, coded CB107, after giving birth to XX003, suffered from consciousness and organ rejection caused by the Tree of Life, which soon led to her death.
...Can XX003 still be considered "her," given the way things turned out?
District ______ Number ______ Name ______ Age ______
Subject Brief: _______________________________________
Thank you for participating in Project Cthylla! As this project is still under development, we would like to take this opportunity to go over its many limitations:
1. The ultimate objective of this project is for you to be reborn with your original memories, personality, and all knowledge intact.
2. This project is currently ineffective for those brain-dead or with severe brain damage or disease.
3. Per Article 1092 of the Science and Technology Progress and Protection Act by the World Government,
those who have signed agreements and claimed the special benefits will be notified upon admission.
Your cooperation is requested if diagnosed with less than a year to live to fulfill agreement obligations. (Refer to Appendix 3 for permissions)
Due to the unique nature of this project, we would also like to draw your attention to its potential risks as outlined below:
1. This project involves digitization of your mind and, upon completion, your body as a human will cease to live.
2. Due to technical requirements, anesthesia will not be administered during the digitization of mind.
3. In addition to the data of your mind, you also agree to leave your biological data with us.
4. Once your mind is digitized, we will not be able to offer visitation rights of any form.
Signature of Subject or Family Member: ___________
The inner pages of the notebook are printed with screenshots of web pages, making it seem like a nostalgic old man's effort to not forget what's happening.
The faded images and dialogue carry a witty and humorous exchange between Kilgore Trout and another person whose name has been redacted.
Okay.
He steps aside, clearly having no intention to do the favor for you.
We are getting fewer "earthquakes" and collapses now, which I think is a sign that Lithos has contained the chaos you caused earlier.
Once I'm gone, you'll only make yourself an easy target to either Lithos or the humanoid Hetero-Creatures if you stay here.
Your legs blistering from the Punishing corruption you have, you take a step forward in excruciating pain. You feel as though you were treading on the sharp blade of a knife, like a mermaid.
...Sorry.
Seeing you trembling in pain, he repeats his apology.
Would love to... but I'm a Transcendant now.
Would love to... but I'm a Transcendant now.
You're well aware of what might happen if you get help from a Transcendant, but people tend to get desperate in desperate situations.
He nods.
I wish I was, too.
...Well...
...to remind me of all the things I did wrong.
As the two groups approach each other with different documents in their hands, the cradle, on the verge of death, recalls when this nightmare first began.
No, her<//CTHYLLA'S> memories were already filled with nightmares unique to the Golden Age before that day even came.
This isn't what the higher-ups wanted to see when they decided to invest in you.
We're making improvements now, and improvement takes time.
Says someone who's still got the time for a fling with the test subject?
It's meant to test and see whether the test subject's stability of mind data is correlated to their emotions from when they were alive.
Which is why I decided to show her love and encourage her to love.
And how's that coming along?
CB103 is the only Mother who survived, perfectly compatible with the "Tree of Life".
We proved that compatibility indeed correlates with the test subject's emotional stability.
And a little bird told me that you and the test subject had a naturally born child that you named Kana Kurono. Is that true?
...Yes.
That's one hell of an experiment right there. Was this also part of your plan, too?
The still-young Kugawa Kurono looks down without saying anything.
See, they illegalized human experimentation with inmates not so long after Professor Trout's incident. What we're giving you now is not just money.
The higher-ups weren't going to stick their noses into your research and would have been happy to keep their mouths shut if you've got something to show for your work, but...
WE. ARE. NOT. SEEING. ANY. PROGRESS. THESE. DAYS!
In a fit of rage, the man showers Kugawa Kurono's face with a spit.
...
You're not raising your child here with the public funds. Put her to good use or get rid of her.
You're running short on both time and money here. If this rebirth thing just doesn't work, you probably want to start coming up with something that's going to please the higher-ups.
Speaking of which, that Queen Bee System built on the Tree of Life wasn't too shabby at all. It lets Cthylla do M.I.N.D. connections with her children and make them obey her orders, right?
Ever heard of "thought control" from one of the hot novels these days? An obedient army that follows every command without question—ideal, isn't it? Personality and memories aside, talent is all that matters!
But I haven't seen progress on your end, and Cthylla is being anything but aggressive. Quite a waste, wouldn't you say?
...I don't think Professor Godwin would want to...
Then you either replace him or "call it a day" before the police come busting your butt.
The man emphasizes the phrase "call it a day" in a tone that's anything but normal, which Kugawa Kurono takes as a pronouncement of death with reprieve for the wild project at hand.
Only 31 researchers remain, silently watching over the 47 "guinea pigs" still alive.
This dream of eternity they're trying to realize—all while disregarding all taboos and the law—is the very definition of insanity without a single bit of romance.
Your funding will be halved. You have nine months left, so make that count and prove your worth.
He leaves in big strides, hands behind his back.
Funding got halved...
What do we do next? We're too deep into all this illegal stuff to get off the hook.
We need to have a meeting with Professor Godwin... once he's feeling well enough...
He puts on a wry smile.
Even the best outcome requires comprehensive expenditure cuts—from the subjects to us, everyone involved.
God only knows if this utopia is going to see the light of tomorrow.
