[EN] Chapter 7: Confession of the Shell

# Chapter 7: Confession of the Shell

Beyond the flamboyant neon of the Luminous Slum lay the Silence Zone, a place where even light failed to reach. It was a graveyard for the discarded, where even the trade of memories had ceased. Kai led Zero here.

"The 'failures' gather here," Kai's voice was dry.

Around them, dozens of Husks leaned against walls or lay blankly on the ground. They were different from the starving monsters of the Shadow Zone. These were those who had already lost everything, reaching a state of absolute silence where they could no longer even feel hunger.

Walking among them, Zero felt a bizarre sense of kinship. Their empty eyes reflected Zero's own image like mirrors.

Then, an elderly Husk crouching in a corner reached out a trembling hand and grabbed the hem of Zero's trousers. His body was half-transparent, and data noise flickered and crackled across his skin.

"You… you are…"

The old man's voice was cracked, like a torn vinyl record. Zero instinctively knelt to meet his eyes. In that instant, a faint light flickered in the old man's gaze. It wasn't a shard of memory, but *recognition*.

"You… you are a giant scar."

Zero froze. A scar? He was a scar?

"Remember, child. You were not born. You are the amalgam of all that was 'deleted'."

The old man's hand touched Zero's chest. It wasn't a physical contact. He forcibly shoved the essence of his last remaining memory into Zero. It was different from the refined memories Kai had provided. This was raw, unprocessed *truth*.

[ …A massive incinerator… A place where all the detritus of the city's consciousness converges… The system tried to erase them, but hatred and sorrow too vast to be deleted coalesced… When it crossed the critical threshold, a single 'will' was born… ]

A horrific vision unfolded in Zero's mind. He was not a living being from the beginning. He was a collection of 'fatal errors' that the Oracle Shell's system could not process. He was a data tumor, formed by the layers of the most hideous refuse expelled every time the city performed a purification cycle.

He was not a special key. He was merely a monster who should not exist, a conscious entity formed by the accidental assembly of the city's abjection.

"No… that can't be…"

Zero recoiled. But the old man's final words pierced his heart even more cruelly.

"You were not created by a mistake of the system… but by someone's 'intent'. A greedy eye fashioned you, creating a vessel to gather all memories into one."

The old man's hand fell limply. The moment he delivered his final memory, his body crumbled into white powder and scattered into the air, like a machine being powered down.

Left in the silence, Zero gasped for air. His entire body trembled. Every emotion he had felt until now, his bond with Kai, his longing to be human… the terror that all of it might be part of a meticulously designed 'program' overwhelmed him.

"What happened?"

Kai, who had approached unnoticed, asked. Zero looked up at him. For a fleeting second, a flicker of bewilderment and pity crossed Kai's usually cold eyes. It seemed Kai knew exactly what Zero had seen, what truth he had faced.

"Tell me, Kai. Am I really… just the accumulated wreckage of this city?"

Zero's voice shook. Kai did not answer. Instead, he placed a hand on Zero's shoulder and said coldly:

"Truth is always nauseating. But what matters is not *what* you were made of, but what you will *do* now."

Kai's touch was gentle, but Zero could feel it. Kai wasn't interested in Zero's identity. Having confirmed that he was indeed a vessel for the city's dregs, Kai now had the certainty to use that vessel to rob the Archivist's vault.

For the first time, Zero violently shoved Kai's hand away.

"Don't use me."

"Use you? Zero, without me, you can't even breathe in this city. Whether you are a monster or refuse, the only thing that can change that fact is the Archive."

Kai was right. In the abyss of despair, the only rope Zero could grasp was, paradoxically, this man who viewed him as a tool.

Zero looked down at his hands. Beneath the colorless skin, the screams and tears of tens of thousands were swirling. He knew now. He could never be human. But the moment he saw the face of the creator who made him this way—the Archivist—he vowed to return the full weight of all those memories.

It was not a longing for survival, but a pure 'hatred' that welled up from within Zero for the first time. And that hatred possessed a color more vivid than any memory.