The system Su Yun had designed could track people's affection for him.
But the real world wasn't a game, and human feelings couldn't be expressed with a single number.
Someone might adore you one second, then want to kill you the next.
That was humanity: a species whose feelings couldn't be quantified.
So Su Yun used colors to gauge how people felt about him.
Hostility was red, neutrality was yellow, friendliness was green, and affection was blue.
And affection didn't mean the sort of fondness that came with a fan's rose-colored glasses. In Su Yun's system, that kind of good feeling could only reach green at most.
For someone to be rated blue, they had to have genuinely spent time with him and gotten to know him. Only after they'd become friends could their affection turn blue.
So far, there was only one person in the blue: Artoria.
As for Tokisaki Kurumi, the girl had started out with outright red hostility toward Su Yun, probably because their story had begun with a broken engagement.
Su Yun had even prepared himself for her to stay red forever.
Yet before long, Kurumi's feelings toward him had turned yellow, and they'd stayed that way. From time to time, she'd even approached him of her own accord, saying polite but barbed things. The two of them were quite "open and aboveboard," never hiding how little they liked each other.
Today, though, perhaps because Artoria wasn't around, or because the Light Screen's images had stirred something in her, or perhaps because Su Yun's words had made her happy, Kurumi's affection had turned green—a deep green, indicating a high degree of friendliness.
That was the minimum threshold Su Yun had set for someone to be recruited as an Operator.
Kurumi's feelings for him were complicated, and she really did have the dangerous, lovesick notion of capturing him and playing house arrest with him. The young lady of the Tokisaki Conglomerate wasn't as harmless as she looked.
Of course, Su Yun wasn't worried. Even if Kurumi gained supernatural powers, she'd still get flattened when facing the person who'd granted them to her. So he could confidently give her a supernatural template.
But giving it to her right away wouldn't be appropriate. It would be too abrupt, and people didn't appreciate things that came too easily. He needed to wait for the right opportunity to grant her the template.
Su Yun had actually planned for that long ago. He just needed to make a few preparations before putting it into action.
But for now...
Classes were over for the day. He'd go home and get some rest!
Corpses, twisted shapes, tentacles, the dead.
The dark red and black sky writhed madly, and the earth was being corrupted.
Crying, howling, grief, despair.
Everything was so vivid, as though a tongue were licking Su Yun's face, tearing his skin, kneading his muscles, and stabbing at his nerves.
A scene of ultimate despair, beyond human comprehension, unfolded where Su Yun was, eroding the senses and twisting the soul.
It was as if the greatest evil, the most terrible horror, and the most rampant madness in the world had all gathered there.
An ordinary person would go mad after spending even a few seconds in such a place, their will, thoughts, and even soul twisted beyond recognition.
But Su Yun wouldn't.
The World Consciousness's blessing was with him. As long as the world didn't fall, he wouldn't break.
Still...
"This dream again... What a pain. Having dreams like this every day is a real nuisance, even for me. It's messing with my sleep."
Su Yun scratched his head, slapped away a tentacle that was trying to reach him, and kicked aside a dead hand clutching his feet as he complained.
After all, when something happened every day, over and over, anyone would get used to it.
Of course, getting used to it didn't mean he liked it.
There was no way he could ever get used to this.
Still, compared to when he'd first started, nearly broken and filled with despair and fear, wishing he could die on the spot, Su Yun was doing much better now.
The World Consciousness didn't understand human feelings!
Its intentions were kind. It treated Su Yun with genuine, unvarnished sincerity.
But to a human like him, that absolute reality was too much to bear. It felt more like a terrible curse.
Without the World Consciousness's protection and blessing, he would have been driven mad by these nightly nightmares of despair. He would either have died in his sleep or chosen to kill himself.
Even so, spiritual protection and blessings alone couldn't undo the damage. Just as he'd said himself, Su Yun didn't know whether he was going mad.
That was why he needed a persona.
Because having a persona meant he was still himself.
"My name is Su Yun. I'm sixteen, and I live in a high-end apartment in northeastern Chiyoda Ward, Tokyo. I'm a student, and I don't have a girlfriend. I go to school and come home at the usual times. I don't smoke, and I only have the occasional sip of soda. I go to bed at one in the morning and get less than six hours of sleep a night."
"Before bed, I always think about a lot of things, then use the system to do all sorts of things. Once I get into bed, I can't fall asleep for ages, which leaves me severely sleep-deprived. But thanks to the World Consciousness's blessing, my body never carries fatigue or stress over to the next day. Even doctors say there's something wrong with me, and that I should get psychological treatment and counseling at least twice a week."
After saying that, he paused, then added a few more words.
"So far, four psychologists have been so worn down by my condition that they've started having nightmares themselves and are in poor mental health. One of them is even looking for a psychologist to treat him. So I don't think I should keep troubling those poor, helpless psychologists."
"I deeply regret that people who shouldn't have suffered were made to endure pain and even death, and I'm truly sorry for that. But I don't regret it, because what I'm carrying won't allow me to regret it."
"Just like Luo Ji, the Wallfacer in the Three-Body Problem. I'm nowhere near as great as he is, and I'm nowhere near as wise. I'm just doing what I want to do—and what I have to do."
"Isn't that right, Mysteries?"
He looked up at the mad, twisted, crumbling scene before him and smiled, his eyes narrowing into the kind of smile that belonged to a monster.
This nightmare was the World Consciousness's way of showing him the world's struggle against the Mysteries' invasion. It embodied the despair, pain, and madness of countless people, the most hopeless and darkest things in the world.
It represented...
All the negativity in existence!
Only when the Mysteries' corruption of this world had been brought to an end would the nightmare finally disappear.
Then the maddening despair and distortion surged toward Su Yun like a tide, along with the wails and sobs of countless dead, and swallowed him whole.
Su Yun opened his eyes and sat up in bed. The twisted, maddening scene was gone because he'd woken up.
With bloodshot eyes, he picked up his pillow and blanket, climbed out of bed, went to the bathroom, and tossed them into the bathtub. Then he curled up inside it.
The position was uncomfortable, but if he fell asleep like this, at least he wouldn't have any more nightmares for the rest of the night.
Su Yun's nightlife was that simple—and that boring.
But just then, he heard a crisp system notification and sat up in the bathtub again.
He opened the system and saw that he'd finally gathered enough Fantasy Crystal fragments to form a complete crystal.
He grinned. "That was fast. In that case, there's no need to sleep. So, my dear Lia, you're staying up with me!"
Before you continue