When a Program Ran on Bugs

Darkness.

A vast expanse of darkness.

Endless darkness.

In the darkness, Horn walked in peace.

At the instant he could no longer hold on and passed out, Horn truly thought he was going to die again. Unlike the first time, when he'd blacked out after drinking at the company's annual party and opened his eyes to find himself in another world, this time his soul felt so light it was hard to imagine. It had risen above his heavy body and was falling toward the sky.

In his daze and confusion, Horn forgot where he was.

He rose above all things, as if soaring, and looked down upon the earth. His formless soul gazed downward in a stupor.

But what he saw was no heaven. It was a hell of such devastation that no mortal could imagine even a fraction of it in their entire lifetime.

—The earth trembled awake, and unfathomably deep ravines split open. The stars went out one by one, falling with the shattered, false firmament and beating down like raindrops upon the oceans, now dried up.

—The rivers turned to viscous oil, the dust to sulfur, and the soil to burning coal. The flames never died, day or night, and smoke rose forever. The corpses of men and beasts piled up together, their stench spreading with the smoke. Mountains melted in their blood, blending into ugly scabs that clung to the shattered earth.

—The nations upon the earth grew gray as cut thorns and burnt lime, burning amid withered trees. The empty measuring line and the plumb line of chaos stretched across them, leaving them beyond salvation for generation after generation.

Only the word "apocalypse" could describe the spectacle before him.

Then a light rose.

Fierce flames devoured the night and set the firmament and earth ablaze. In a radiance that outshone even the sun, eight magnificent pillars of different colors intertwined, yet remained distinct, supporting the world and keeping it from falling into death. They also seemed to encompass all things, vast and boundless, leaving nothing outside their reach.

Like fate itself.

The view pulled back. Beyond the pillars, great beings revealed their true forms.

One was a searing furnace, shattering the night and ending stagnation; one was a blood-filled cup, promising ultimate temptation and overflowing with pain; one was a cold dawn, exacting and meticulous. One was a wild beast, filled with wrath and growing ever stronger; one was a perfect moon, flawless and dazzling; one was a fragrant bud, intoxicating and dreamlike, forever out of reach.

And there were more, many more...

Like stars... no, like brilliant symbols a hundred times more wondrous than stars, they stood upon the pillars and cast indifferent glances toward the tiny mortal world.

Even in his dream, Horn found himself holding his breath.

He marveled at such greatness, feared such power, and yearned for such deeds...

—Suffocating beneath that gaze!

They, these beings, Those...

They were all looking at him!

Beneath that gaze, so intense it felt almost tangible, Horn felt his tiny self dissolving, collapsing, and...

—Transforming!

As exhaustion washed over him, the scene before his eyes grew increasingly blurred. The last thing Horn saw was a grand light pouring down from above, enveloping everything.

Sunlight? Candlelight? Or firelight?

Before he could take a closer look, his consciousness, already at its limit, could no longer maintain his point of view. An irresistible tug came from below, and Horn's vision flashed black once more.

In Birmingham, in the top-floor luxury single room of Sacred Heart Hospital, on a hospital bed covered with classic blue-and-white striped sheets—

"Holy crap, a giant of light!"

Horn jolted upright, as if rising from his deathbed.

"An unfamiliar ceiling... Wait, wasn't I attacked by some perverted old guy?"

Still shaken, he pulled back the covers. After seeing that he was wearing a hospital gown someone had changed him into, with his upper body in one piece, he reached down to check that everything was all right below before finally breathing a sigh of relief.

Thank goodness his ass hadn't been sold off. It seemed that the perverted old guy whose name he still didn't know really had been driven away and hadn't come back to loot his unconscious body.

Trying to recall what had happened before he'd collapsed from exhaustion, Horn looked around at the bright, spotless room. It smelled fresh, and there wasn't even another bed in it. The more he looked, the less sure he felt.

According to what Belloc had said earlier, he'd been rescued by an organization called the Prevention and Suppression Bureau?

Why had they saved him? Did the life of an unaffiliated supernatural count too?

No, that didn't make sense either. Belloc was the only one who'd seen him use [Flame of Destiny]. He'd faked his death three times, and now he was most definitely dead, so he certainly wouldn't have any objections.

The Blood Cup Cult was unquestionably an enemy, and that didn't mean the Bureau, which was fighting them, could be trusted. An official organization like that might use its rescue as leverage and demand that he sign some kind of contract of servitude, making him work like an ox and a horse for the rest of his life, without complaint, day and night, night after night, at their beck and call...

At any rate, that was what the occult conspiracy section of the Kael-Isum Review had told him.

But as he stroked the smooth sheets, feeling their delicate warmth, a quality unique to woven fabric, Horn decided he didn't really care.

He spread his hands. Not my problem.jpg

At least he was still alive, wasn't he?

It was good to be alive. As long as he was alive, there was hope. Being alive was the happiest, luckiest thing of all.

Horn hadn't had his fill of life yet. In his previous life, he'd fought tooth and nail to get into a good school, then gone on to graduate school and a doctorate, finally squeezing his way into a well-known company in his industry. As soon as he'd started, they'd sent him to intern on a project they said had "boundless potential."

Then came the celebration, the banquet, the pressure to drink, and a blackout.

When he opened his eyes again, Horn had become Hohenheim Lancaster and was experiencing this unfamiliar world all over again.

With the perspective of someone from another world, plenty of effort and sweat, and a tiny bit of help from his cheat-like ability, Horn had confidently believed that his second life would be more exciting and eventful than the first, which had ended all too soon.

Now, it turned out to be not just exciting, but far too exciting.

He ignited the colorless flames and watched the air shimmer faintly above his fingertip. Horn still felt a wave of relief.

"Phew—"

A gust of wind blew outside the window, and the heavy wooden frame swung open as smoothly as if it had been oiled. The pink wristband on Horn's left arm, marking him as a patient, came undone by itself in midair under his astonished gaze, then drifted lightly onto the sheets.

At the only door in the hospital room, the lock opened by itself, its spring latch clicking. A blonde girl wearing sunglasses, her hands in her pockets, sauntered inside.

Without the slightest obstruction.

"Hey, you're awake."

Veronica adjusted her sunglasses with her right hand, partially hiding her pale purple, snake-like slit pupils. Seeing Horn staring at her in shock with one hand clutching his collar, she skipped all pleasantries and went straight to the point.

"I'm Veronica Cessno, a special consultant for the Prevention and Suppression Bureau. I'm currently in charge of all matters concerning the Blood Cup Cult here in Birmingham. So, um, Mr. Hohenheim Lancaster, would you be willing to sign this confidentiality agreement?"

As if performing a magic trick, a thick stack of contract papers appeared from thin air as Veronica flipped her wrist and handed them to Horn. She'd even thoughtfully included a glossary explaining the technical terms, in case he couldn't understand the agreement.

"...Could I look it over first?"

"Of course. It's your choice."

She shrugged and agreed. While Horn lowered his head to read, Veronica looked down at his crimson eyes through her sunglasses and carried out her final check. She didn't miss a single sign of abnormality, carefully examining every trace of spiritual energy.

Then her eyes widened in confusion.

What the hell, that's weird. Better take another look.

Activating her sight threshold with seven blinks, Veronica's pupils stretched slightly as she examined the vast amount of spiritual energy settled inside Horn. It was clearly abnormal; in an ordinary person, it would have been enough to cause instant death. Yet it sat there in perfect harmony.

No, "perfect harmony" wasn't quite right. On the contrary, the spiritual energies clashed violently with one another. But their precisely balanced conflicts had somehow allowed them to combine in an unexpectedly harmonious way, enabling Horn's body to run and jump just like any ordinary person's.

This peculiar structure had been stacked up tens of thousands of times. It was nothing short of a medical miracle—an ancestral pile of spaghetti code that would leave medical students baffled and make programmers shudder!

One bug was a bug. A whole pile of bugs could work.

As long as it ran, it counted as a success!