[EN] Chapter 15: Memory Oasis

# Chapter 15: Memory Oasis

A suffocating silence descended where the white flash had faded.

Zero knelt, gasping for air. His chest burned as if he had swallowed a mass of molten lead deep in his lungs. The 'Burst of Will' he had just unleashed was not a mere release of power. It was a violent breach of the dam that was his ego, a forced eruption of the emotional dregs of others he had kept locked within.

"Urgh… *haah*…"

His vision blurred sharply. The blood-red sky stained black, then shimmered into a bruised purple. Pain surged through every single neuron, like a thousand needles piercing his brain. The price for forging a physical shockwave from raw will was cruel: mental exhaustion, or perhaps a temporary collapse of the self. He was swept away by a dizzying sensation, the memory of who he was and why he was here fading into a grey haze.

He pressed a trembling hand against the ground. But the sensation was wrong. It wasn't the rotting, cerulean earth—it was soft… and warm.

Slowly, Zero lifted his head and scanned his surroundings.

Before him lay a small pocket of miraculously 'normal' scenery. A circular space, barely twenty meters in diameter. Beyond its boundary, storms of grotesque colors still raged, but inside, it was like a tiny garden tended with meticulous care.

Pale green grass carpeted the ground, and nameless white flowers swayed gently in a windless void. Even the sky, in this place, was not blood-red, but a peaceful, pastel blue—the kind of sky that might have existed somewhere in a forgotten memory.

"A Memory Oasis…"

The words escaped his lips in a subconscious whisper. This was a 'Safe Zone,' a rarity found within the Strata of Fragments. A crystalline coagulation of memories, either accidentally formed or projected temporarily by a being of immense will.

Driven by instinct, he collapsed onto the green grass. The moment he touched it, the agony crushing his body receded like a low tide. The searing heat in his lungs cooled; the splitting headache subsided. For a long time, he lay motionless, surrendering himself to a sensation he had forgotten eons ago: peace.

"A face I haven't seen before. Or rather… is there even enough left of you to call it a face?"

A dry, cracked voice shattered the silence.

Startled, Zero bolted upright. In the center of the meadow stood a massive zelkova tree. And there, leaning against its trunk, sat a man in a worn grey coat, staring blankly into space.

The man was an anomaly. Parts of his body—specifically his left arm and a section of his left cheek—were constantly flickering, dissolving into static noise before snapping back into place. Like a hologram with a failing connection, his very existence trembled with instability.

"Who… are you?"

At Zero's question, the man let out a weak laugh. Even the laughter seemed to stutter, as if suffering from a frame drop.

"A name? Heh. Threw that into the scrapheap outside a long time ago. For now, just call me 'The Guide.' Or 'Glitch.' I don't particularly care."

The man calling himself the Guide swept a disinterested gaze over Zero.

"You used a Burst of Will. Stupid move. That's like burning your own soul as kindling just to start a fire. You're lucky. If you'd been ten meters further out, you'd already be a snack for the Wrap-Up Entities."

Instead of answering, Zero looked down at his hands. The tremors remained, but the aura of the oasis was rapidly knitting him back together.

"What is this place? Why is this layer… so twisted?"

"The Strata of Fragments. The sewer for memories the Oracle Shell deemed 'unnecessary.' Sorrow, hatred, fear, and the shames one wishes to erase… these things clump together until they take on physical form. That's why the colors here are so aggressive. The memories themselves are aggressive."

The Guide leaned back against the trunk and continued.

"But be careful. Even this oasis isn't eternal. Spaces made of memory are destined to be consumed. And right now, this entire layer… is shaking."

As the words left his mouth, the grass beneath their feet momentarily flashed grey and vanished. It was a fleeting instant, but Zero felt it clearly: the space itself was screaming, beginning to collapse.

"Collapsing…?"

"Yeah. The Oracle Shell's Purge Cycle is approaching. When the dregs pile up too high, the system forcibly compresses the layer. If you don't find the exit before the next cycle, you'll be crushed into one giant lump of data along with the monsters outside."

A cold shiver ran down Zero's spine. A threat far more monolithic than any monster was now pressing down on him.

He reached into his coat and pulled out the memory fragments he had collected—shards of strangers gathered since the Ghost Layer. He examined them one by one, trying to recall the 'map' he had struggled to construct within himself.

But the fragments were discordant. One was the sound of laughter under a warm sun; another, the sound of weeping in a cold rain. Every time he tried to weave them together to find a direction, the clashing emotions caused his mind to blink white.

*It doesn't fit. These pieces won't connect.*

He tried to force them together, but it was like trying to merge pieces from different puzzles. The memory shards repelled one another, emitting a sharp, piercing noise.

"You won't build a map doing that," the Guide sneered.

"Memory isn't linear data. Especially not the fragments here. You don't connect them with logic, but with 'context.' You have to find the link between yourself and the owners of those memories—or find how that memory resonates with your own will."

Zero closed his eyes.

He stopped trying to 'analyze' the fragments. Instead, he focused on the 'colors' they emitted.

The blood-red sky, the cerulean noise, the purple pain… and the hues of the shards he held.

Slowly, he let his will flow between the fragments. He didn't force them; he guided them, allowing the shards to find their own places. Then, something strange happened.

The clashing fragments began to follow a specific rhythm, forming a massive current within Zero's mind. It wasn't a precise map, but a kind of 'sensory orientation.'

The place where the deepest sorrow pointed. The direction where the most intense longing flowed.

At the end of that path, he saw it—faintly—the center of this layer, and the gate to the next.

"Hoh. You've got more talent than I thought."

For the first time, a hint of genuine interest entered the Guide's voice.

Just then, the boundary of the oasis shuddered violently. The storm of colors from outside began to gnaw at the perimeter, and the peaceful blue sky rapidly faded into a dull ash.

"Time's up. Get lost. The garden is closing."

The Guide returned to his indifferent expression and closed his eyes. More than half of his body was now veiled in static.

Zero stood up. His body was still heavy and his mental fatigue lingered, but the path was now clear.

He looked back at the Guide one last time.

"Why… why do you stay here? You could find the exit."

The Guide didn't answer. He only wore a faint, tragic smile—the kind of smile only one who has lost every single memory can wear, a smile of absolute void.

Zero stepped across the boundary of the oasis, plunging back into the hellish screams of color.

He was no longer a lost child.
Within him, he carried an imperfect but certain landmark, woven from the memories of others.

Turning his back to the ashen sky, he began to walk silently toward the darkness where the deepest sorrow pointed.

Behind him, the tiny paradise that had briefly sheltered him collapsed without a sound.