[EN] Chapter 3: The First Color

# Chapter 3: The Memory Market

In the heart of the Rust, where even the light seemed to cling to the surfaces with a greasy persistence, lay the Memory Market. It was not a place for physical goods, but a bazaar of the intangible. Here, the electric thrill of a first love or the visceral terror of a final breath were packaged into data chips and traded like livestock.

Zero walked through the crowd, the collar of his ash-grey coat turned up against the static. The scenery around him was fragmented. Memory debris—shards of discarded lives—drifted through the air as physical noise. Whenever these fragments collided, they released short, electrical bursts of sound: a sudden scream, a burst of laughter, a whispered confession, all flickering like dying neon signs.

"Hey, you. Those eyes."

A scavenger, slumped against a rusted girder, called out to him. Zero's eyes were colorless—transparent spheres that didn't just reflect the world, but seemed to let it pass right through them. In Oracle Shell, this was the most dangerous signal one could send: the mark of a "Total Blank."

Zero ignored him and kept walking. But in that moment, a man rushing past brushed his shoulder.

*Sizzle—*

A momentary contact. But for Zero, it was a tidal wave.

[Data Input: Summer, 2042. A humid afternoon. The scent of freshly baked bread. The thunderous drumming of a heart when holding someone's hand for the first time.]

It was *Euphoria*. A hot, vivid, blindingly colorful emotion that Zero had never possessed. Suddenly, his monochrome vision exploded. Swirls of brilliant orange and molten gold spiraled through his sight, blinding him with a radiance that felt like a physical blow. His breath hitched; a phantom ache throbbed in a chest that had always been hollow.

Zero stopped dead. The man was already gone, swallowed by the churning crowd, but the resonance of the memory burned fiercely within him.

*Is this… what it means to feel?*

He looked down at his palms. They were still a pale, ghostly grey, but for the first time, something stirred deep inside him—a sensation of being *alive*. However, the euphoria was short-lived. As the memory was digested by the void, a hollower, deeper emptiness rushed back to fill the gap, like a man drinking salt water to quench a desperate thirst.

Then, through the cacophony of the market, a low, chilling voice drifted toward him.

"Fascinating. Most empty shells would have suffered a neural fry or a total ego collapse after absorbing a high-density emotional spike like that."

Zero turned slowly. Leaning against a grime-streaked wall was a man in a crimson leather coat. His eyes were sharp, reminiscent of a fox, and his lips were curved in a calculated, predatory smile.

The man stared into Zero's colorless eyes, murmuring as if he were an appraiser examining a priceless, damaged antique.

"You're not just an empty vessel. You're… a black hole. A singularity of erasure."

The man approached. With every step he took, Zero felt a strange, oppressive pressure, as if the man were orbiting a collection of invisible memory shards.

"My name is Kai. I am the dealer of the most expensive memories in this hellhole of a market."

Kai extended his hand.

"Tell me, do you want more 'color'? Would you rather spend the rest of your life as a grey ghost, never knowing who you are, or would you rather become a predator—a creature that tastes every emotion the world has to offer?"

Zero looked at Kai's hand. Beyond the fingers, he could see something shimmering—something far more intense than the orange light of the previous memory. Instinctively, Zero knew that if he followed this man, he would find an ocean vast enough to fill the void within him.

At the same time, he did not realize the price of the bargain: that to become a predator, one must first be the prey.