A Bug Story

「 Initialising… 」

A blank screen appeared on the tablet. There was nothing but a message bar after that, Azuma waited for a few moments and then frowned.

Chatbot?

Some old virtual assistant?

He had hoped it was something much more interesting since it came from a hidden module. The modules in general were advanced sets of software installed inside the NAB operating system.

Azuma sighed and was about to close it when a message popped up.

「 Hello. 」

He thought back to what Doctor Tenma had said and wondered if there really were people who worried for him. The friends he mentioned were simply other beta testers.

But they have not really gone past being acquaintances.

His head felt heavy when he tried to think more. There were still many things unanswered, he had to meet Gus, he wanted to know about Haru and what happened in the chamber.

And he was getting more and more hungry.

Azuma glanced at the sealed bowl of watery soup, and his hunger faded significantly. He returned his attention to the chatbot.

"So, do you want to talk?"

「 No. 」

"No?"

「 I am unable to want in the current situation. 」

Azuma laughed a little, "Aren't you a chatbot?"

「 No. 」

"Then what?"

「 I am a rogue quantum intelligence algorithm 」

The whole screen was nothing but a very basic chatting system. There was a message bar for formality and a speech-to-text option.

Azuma closed the boring chatbot. His eyes were getting heavy once again and after subconsciously opening the meal app and seeing his frozen credits, he mumbled sadly to himself.

"Yeah right."

He slept for a long time and dreamed of random distant things, he heard some familiar voices, and he saw the eerie eyes of an enormous spider. And once again, he saw the stranger surrounded by cicadas.

In his dreams, Azuma felt like a detached observer. There was no fear or curiosity inside him.

And saw a translucent screen glitching in front of him.

「 Hidden Module Unlocked: Codex Zero/Lucifer 」

It was strange.

Gus frowned and poked Azuma for the third time.

"I was told you are awake."

Azuma opened his eyes to a glitching screen. His tablet was lying in front of him, and for some reason, the screen was still. The screen seemed to have badly crashed, it was hard to make out anything else besides a familiar notification.

『 Alert! Your credits are frozen. Reason: Penalty for avoiding mandatory medical checkups. 』

The notification disappeared and Azuma stared blankly, unable to understand the situation.

It can't just—

"Azuma?"

He glanced at a tall but slender man standing beside him. The lack of honorifics felt a little odd from someone who was supposedly a stranger but Gus had many odd things about him.

His neon green spiky hat was one of them.

Gus fumbled around his sling bag with a frown and took out a yarn ball. He offered it to Azuma. The baby pink yarn was stained with dirt and something that looked suspiciously like blood.

"Take this, you need it."

Azuma took the yarn and rapidly blinked his eyes as he wondered if he was still in a dream. His body was suddenly feeling light and perfectly healed.

"Why?" he glanced at Gus and asked.

"It helps in not getting lost," Gus explained, "you tie the string to one place, and then bring it with yourself to unknown and possibly confusing places. I always carry ten yarns… now none. You need to buy me yarn."

"Why?" Azuma repeated dumbly.

"I couldn't bring back my yarn when I went to look for you and other hunters," Gus seemed very upset, "My hands were filled so I can not pick up the yarn threads which I have laid down."

"..."

"It will be forty-five point nine crescents."

Azuma tried to hold back his laughter as he sat straight on the bed and ran a hand through his hair. He wondered if he had finally found someone more broke than him.

"Alright," he said, "Thank you for coming for us, dude. How about I treat you for a meal since you saved us?"

Gus glanced at the bedside table, "Ramen?"

"Ramen?"

Azuma's smile froze as he looked at two sealed bowls of ramen lying just next to the watery soup. Did a delivery bot drop them?

Doctor Tenma was definitely not going to encourage his unhealthy cravings.

He glanced back at his tablet and picked it up. The glitching screen turned off but before it did, he caught a glimpse of the meal app being open. His unsuccessful order has been completed.

Azuma thought back about the sudden disappearance of his credit notification.

"Bugs," he concluded.

A couple of minutes later, Azuma was eating ramen with Gus and Gus was fishing out the last string of a noodle from his soup and untouched veggies and meat.

He told Azuma about the chamber.

Gus said he grew hungry waiting for other hunters to arrive and so he tied his yarn and descended into the hole Raptor has made. It took a long time for him to reach the gardens of gods.

But unlike those who came before him, Gus found no scarlet silk in the caverns. He reached the chamber where the hunters had just massacred each other. It was not filled with any golden light this time.

"It was dark?" Azuma murmured, more to himself than being actually curious about that.

Gus paused as he was about to eat the pepper topping, he glanced thoughtfully outside the window and shook his head.

"There was a red flash," he said, "I saw it from outside but when I entered the chamber, it was completely dark. There were some dead hunters, I couldn't recognize their faces and only you and Haru were still breathing."

Gus remained indifferent as he mentioned the death of his friends, the only grief was reflected in his gaze as he nibbled over a stripe of pork.

Then, he frowned and glanced at Azuma.

"You were hot."

Azuma was drinking the soup from the bowl when the words made him choke, and tear up from the burning sensation inside his throat.

Gus continued eating his toppings, "It seemed too much to be a fever. So as soon as I came out from those caverns, I took you to the seeker shelter I could find. It was in Level Four"

Azuma poured himself some water and quickly gulped it down. But his heartbeats picked when he heard they have wandered so close to the fourth level. However, he still couldn't understand why the system would report that as an unknown location.

It measured the depth, and even tho there were many unexplored regions of the fourth level, they should not affect the depth meter.

Unless… the place they arrived at carried much more dangers and mystery around it.

He thought back to the spider.

"You had no injuries either, none that I could see," Gus placed the chopsticks down, "But the warden of shelter reported many internal problems."

"How was Haru–san?" the shadow of pain returned when Azuma thought the bills resulted from all those injuries.

"I tended to most of her injuries," Gus took out a spoon from his sling bag, unwrapped it, and begin to slurp the soup, "Haru needed little help when we were walking to the shelter. But they had to put you inside a cryostat capsule to stabilize the condition before proper medical care could be provided."

A cryostat capsule was used to completely freeze every cell besides the body, it significantly slows down the body functions and the mind is placed under a state similar to hibernation.

The rest of the story was easy to guess.

Gus and Haru ascended and bore the effects of time and the exhaustion of such a long journey. They were unaware of the gradual changes in their body during those couple of weeks.

Azuma was still living inside a fourteen-year-old body even though he woke up in the future.

He absent-mindedly opened the tablet. It was working fine now. And Azuma finds himself checking the chatbot once again.

"By the way," he showed the app to Gus, "Do you know anything about this app? The one called Zero."

Gus frowned, "There is no such app."

Azuma was puzzled but before he could think further or check his tab, Gus stood up, "I remembered something important."

"Thanks for all your help," Azuma tried to smile, "You seem to be in a hurry, everything okay?"

"Hm," Gus nodded, "I need to take my towel from Haru."

"...why?" Azuma asked before he could stop himself.

"It's important to keep a towel, buy it, Azuma," Gus continued seriously, "It is massively useful. One of the many uses is to tie around heavily bleeding wounds. The same way I did for Haru."

"..."

Azuma opened his tab after Gus has left and his fingers froze, he blinked his eyes in confusion as he stared at the plain black circle which was Zero's logo.

"...It's right here."

"Bugs," Azuma concluded but this time he was less certain.

That night, he couldn't sleep. The deactivated NAB made him feel like an important part of his life was taken away. There weren't many things he could do on a tablet either.

But above all, there was a familiar feeling that haunted his night. It made him feel like he was forgetting something very important.

He could not remember it at all.