Iver Moriarty

Now, the Shadow Demon summoned by the ritual lurked in the shadow beneath Iver's feet.

He sat in a wheelchair not because his legs had been sacrificed and rendered useless, but because stepping on his own shadow would immediately awaken the Shadow Demon and force it to materialize.

The wheelchair was what Iver had asked the old steward for after waking up.

Because his Shadow Affinity was too low right now.

The Shadow Demon was a Greater Demon. Shadow Affinity had to reach at least level three to control it, and level five to merge with it. Before then, he could only draw a portion of its power to use as a "supernatural ability." Although the Shadow Demon would not harm him and would even protect Iver under the terms of their contract, he could not restrain its actions at all.

From this perspective, Demon Scholars who contracted low-level demons were like people walking dogs, while Iver was a dog walking its owner.

How to seal the Shadow Demon was not something "Iver" ought to know. It came instead from memories of another world.

Iver Moriarty, the Path, Demon Scholars, the Avalon Kingdom... This was the world of an MMORPG called the "Ouroboros Ring."

The game had been published and operated by their company, "Nameless God Studio."

Though he called it "their company," the game's production had nothing to do with Iver, since he did not work in development. He was the newly hired human resources manager at the game company—in other words, an HR manager.

Three years ago, Iver had resigned from his previous company and become unemployed. Having suddenly felt lost in life, and with a decent amount of savings, he had simply given himself a long vacation. That was how his best friend had dragged him into the pit.

That friend was the company's game writer. He had tirelessly recommended the game to Iver, repeatedly telling him about all the easter eggs he had designed.

In the end, Iver could not take it anymore. Since there was also a drought of games at the time, he tried it for a while and found that it really was a good game. Its only flaw was that it was incredibly grindy—but it was a good way to pass the time while unemployed at home.

Later, he heard that "Nameless God Studio" was hiring. His restriction period had also ended, so he sent in his résumé and went for an interview. He had grown tired of working in HR and wanted to try his hand at being a writer, but his HR abilities were what they valued. Still, he had made peace with it—HR it was. He was a wage slave either way.

Before he had even finished handing over his work, he had been sent to this world by a dump truck after replying to his boss's message while crossing the road on his way to work.

...If he had known he would transmigrate into this world, he would have asked more about the company's internal materials or spent more time reading plot discussions on the forums!

That had been his greatest mistake.

Because, in essence, Iver was the sort of hardcore player who paid little attention to the plot and cared even less about the characters.

Although he had learned many secret settings, character backgrounds, and future main-story developments from chatting with friends, and had absorbed some of the early plot secondhand from group chats, he had never cared much about the main story. The various character side stories were far more interesting.

Iver had started playing during the 3.0 era. After clearing the first raid boss, he had used a main-story book to instantly complete every old main-story quest up to the beginning of 3.0. Not only that, he had skipped every story animation that could be skipped while leveling or at the start of a dungeon. For the ones he could not skip, he had watched them at high speed by clicking left-click, left-click, left-click, left-click, left-click.

As a result, Iver now could not remember what the early main story had been about. In contrast, he remembered the later plot more clearly, because the story sequences in the main-story raids had been quite good. Even without carefully watching the earlier plot, he could guess most of it from the unskippable raid sequences.

"Iver" appeared right at the beginning of the main story.

In Calendar of Libra 1898, he was kidnapped and taken to an altar for a ritual. A passing "player" accidentally broke the barrier meant to drive away passersby and witnessed the cruel sacrificial scene. At the critical moment, he pretended that he had already reported the matter to the Bureau of Supervision and was leading its Griffin Knights there, frightening the two men away.

The "player" rescued Iver from the ritual altar. Since the player's wallet and identification had been stolen, Iver invited the homeless player to his home for food, drink, and a place to rest.

After that, Iver would enroll in school with the player, grow alongside them, and continue investigating the case together. They eventually discovered that the case was growing larger and larger, even implicating the kingdom's upper echelons...

And when Iver fell into mortal danger, his sister Yulia suddenly lost control. Under the catalysis of the Blood Crystal Stone, she transformed into the "Phantom Demon: Paradoxical Flame Butterfly," the first eight-player raid boss.

She was also the first Phantom Demon players encountered in the game.

Her true body curled into a ball inside the transparent, amber-like thorax of a butterfly, protected by wings made of Flame Spirits. Because the dungeon level was low, this eight-player raid was the easiest to queue for in the daily random pool. On average, players had to fight Yulia three or four times a week.

Because Yulia did not want to hurt Iver, the fight had almost no mechanics or aggressive intent. It was a classic beginner boss where players hit whatever appeared and dodged whatever appeared. If their level was high enough, they could even ignore the mechanics and attack the true body throughout the fight, barely scraping by. If they used a main-story book after defeating Yulia, they could obtain some cosmetic rewards.

In the end, she was killed and, after losing most of her spirituality, shrank into a Flame Butterfly. Iver contracted her as his first familiar. Through this method, he preserved her spirituality, hoping to find the legendary Master Insect Amber, who was said to possess the art of resurrection, and have her revived.

It was not until the main story of version 5.0, when Iver acquired a new ability that could seal Phantom Demons theoretically incapable of being killed into cards, that he finally gained his own massive power-up. He armed his familiars with those cards as enhanced equipment.

After that, he stopped accompanying players through dungeons and instead became the story device in the CGs that killed off Phantom Demon bosses.

"...Brother?"

Just as Iver was thinking about this, he suddenly heard a childish voice.

He jolted in surprise.

Hai Na, who had been excitedly chatting with Iver about "Sherlock and deduction," heard the voice as well and instinctively turned around.

A little girl was standing silently in the doorway.

"When you woke up yesterday, I happened to be asleep. After I woke up, you had already fallen asleep again."

She had only just woken in the evening. Looking aggrieved and bewildered, she said, "Brother, why are you... sitting in a wheelchair?"

"—Who is she?"

She wore the same pure-white, fluffy pajamas as Iver. Her silver-white hair reached her shoulders, and her deep-red eyes brought roses to mind. Her delicate, soft features made people think of a white cat or rabbit. She was an entirely different type from Iver's radiant handsomeness. Her brows and eyes, hair color, and eye color all proved that the two were not related by blood.

If they resembled each other in anything, it was their inherited air of frailty.

She had a sickly look similar to Iver's, and it was even more pronounced.

The girl's skin was unnaturally pale, almost translucent. Whenever she stood in the doorway, she unconsciously held onto one side of the frame, tilting her body to shift her center of gravity and reduce the strain of standing upright.

What an adorable girl! Hai Na's eyes lit up.

Like someone who had spotted a cute pet, she wanted to get closer, but she was afraid she might frighten the girl.

"It's all right, Yuli. It's only temporary. This is Senior Hai Na. She came to ask about something."

Iver smiled and called the girl by her nickname, just as he remembered. Yet for some reason, the name felt awkward and unfamiliar on his tongue.

It was like calling a friend by their nickname for so long that using their full name one day suddenly made it feel as though the name did not belong to them.

After a moment of dazedness, he opened his arms slightly toward Yulia. "Come here and give me a hug."

"...Okay."

Yulia obediently walked over, swaying unsteadily. Like someone who had just woken up, she seemed so weak that one worried she might fall.

As Iver held the Yulia who nestled against him, he suddenly fell into a brief daze.

He was holding Yulia now, yet it also felt as if he were in another world.

After Iver of this world received those "prophecies" from another world, he suddenly felt a certain fear toward the future.

Yulia would become a monster... and then she would die.

—At that moment, Iver's memories and reality overlapped. They fused completely, and the memories of his two lives both became clear. It was like someone waking from a nightmare and finally realizing whether they were dreaming.

It was only after two full days of awakening his memories of his previous life that he finally realized he was not dreaming. He had truly transmigrated.

He had come to this world when he was very young, and only the day before yesterday had he remembered who he was.

However, he also clearly realized something else: the plot had already changed.

The Iver in the game had definitely never contracted a Shadow Demon.

Because the ritual had been interrupted by the player this time, it had never succeeded in the first place.

That probably meant there was no "Player Character" in this world.

In an epic fantasy game, players usually played the role of one-time saviors. If the game was an MMORPG, then players were usually recurring, high-frequency, low-margin-for-error saviors.

They had to save the world once every major version.

...That was going to be a problem for him.

Because according to the setting, the "player" was a descendant of the Serpent Father, who had once controlled the Path of Transcendence and ranked among the Nine Pillar Gods. That was why players could possess Experience Points and levels, growing stronger without any threshold and regardless of talent. In the setting, players did not actually queue for dungeons or form parties. One person alone defeated every enemy.

Iver, however, though an important character himself, could not defeat world-ending calamities like the Fallen Angel, the Calamity Demon Dragon, and the Shadow of Avalon merely by being a "strong person" in the conventional sense.

Iver knew that something would probably happen to the Avalon Kingdom in about half a year.

Although he did not remember the main story clearly, he at least remembered key milestones such as version changes.

He had not been lying to Hai Na. The Avalon Kingdom would indeed suffer a catastrophe in a little over half a year, and it was closely connected to the demon ritual they were experiencing now—an incident that no major figure cared about.

But Iver still had a chance to change everything.

Change everything—

He instinctively tightened his arms around Yulia, and the girl keenly sensed something. "Brother?"

"...It's nothing."

Iver smiled calmly. "I just had a very long dream yesterday... I dreamed that Yulia left me."

Yet at that moment, he suddenly and clearly felt Yulia's body tense in his arms.

...Hm?

Iver's heart stirred slightly.

As if trying to cover it up, Yulia suddenly asked, "How long will Brother have to sit in the wheelchair?"

"Probably... a year?"

As he spoke, Iver looked toward the old steward. "That's what the doctor said, right?"

"Yes, Young Master Iver."

The old steward asked without hesitation, "So, will you take a year off school? You've already taken three months off anyway."

That was a lie.

And both sides were lies.

There was no doctor who had told Iver to use a wheelchair. He had requested it himself. Demon Scholars who had contracted Shadow Demons used this method to seal them while they were still unable to control them.

Besides using a wheelchair when moving around, he had to avoid strenuous activity as much as possible and slow his movements to lower his heart rate. This was a standard method for suppressing demons.

He could also take medication that suppressed his heart rate, allowing the demon sealed inside him to fall dormant.

"No need," Iver said. "Once this incident is resolved, I'll return to school."

"...Once this incident is resolved?"

Hai Na belatedly realized what he meant.

She instinctively sensed that, in that instant... Iver's attitude seemed to have changed.

She was very familiar with that feeling.

When Hai Na had been a naive freshman, she had believed she was still the genius of her remote little town. Then, during the Final Exam that year, she had barely passed Astrology, scaring herself half to death.

But precisely because of that, she had become serious. She realized that at the highest-level school in the Red Queen District of the capital, Glass Island, she was nowhere near as outstanding as she had thought. At least... she was not a pure genius, but a hardworking one.

If she continued studying with her former careless attitude, she might actually fail despite never being absent. The reason she could now graduate with the Seven Petal Flower seal representing a perfect score was that Professor Moriarty's bright-red Three Petal Flower seal, representing a passing grade, had jolted her awake.

To ordinary students, it was a mark of release from punishment, worthy of cheers and celebration. But to proud Hai Na, it had felt like a slap across the face, leaving her cheeks burning and her speechless mind blank.

Iver was giving her that same feeling now.

The feeling of waking from a dream upon seeing one's report card—

"Yes. I'm going to participate in the investigation."

Iver suddenly became serious. "If they kidnapped me once, they'll do it a second time. Until that cult is purged, I won't be able to leave home with peace of mind. Likewise, I can't simply wait at home for an investigation result I might not be able to accept—so I'm going to take part in the investigation as well."

Hai Na felt awkward upon hearing this. He was clearly alluding to the Bureau of Supervision's extremely slow investigative efficiency.

The Bureau of Supervision was exceedingly particular about "procedure." Everything had to be reported to a superior, and everything had to follow the standard process. Those were the rules set by the knightly lords of the Senate.

Precisely because they could investigate almost nothing, they even needed to request detectives' assistance. The "Sherlock" Hai Na had mentioned earlier was a detective who had recently become quite famous in the newspapers.

Sherlock had graduated from the Royal Law University many years ago, but had chosen not to enter the Bureau of Supervision, the Law Court, or the Arbitration Hall. He was now a special consultant to the Bureau of Supervision. His investigations were not bound by the Bureau's many regulations, and he had solved several major cases in succession. His status was now considerably higher than that of his old classmates who had entered the Bureau after graduation.

"If Miss Hai Na can't make the decision, you may report my words to your superior and ask for his opinion."

Iver calmly crossed his hands. "In any case, according to procedure, you have to submit the full contents of this conversation to your superior, don't you?"

For some reason, Iver made Hai Na think of an interviewer from the Bureau of Supervision.

Dear readers, I've missed you all so much! (In Feng Gong's voice.) I'm updating ten thousand words today, and there'll be another ten thousand words tomorrow at noon!

Qidian's recommendations for new books are now assigned by artificial intelligence. It all depends on readership, so readership data is truly important for a new book! Remember not to let the story pile up—come take a look every day! Don't let the cat starve! (Shouting.) The cat is back!