The collective had modelled the checkpoint terminals in the Gigantomachy after retro touchpads but came with state-of-the-art computation units and security systems. From precise bio-informatics to behavioural analyses, the central AI of Gigantomachy powered by the quantum computer Alpha Logic used the terminals as spider-web hubs to monitor the monolithic vessel’s parameters. While the personnel used them as little more than security checkpoints, they were far more than that.
Whether surfing the internet or watching a movie, every bit of data had to pass through the terminal network to be verified. So the terminals were security checks for people and all information streams that entered and exited Gigantomachy.
And here one was, embedded into a rock, flickering with green digits on its black screen.
“Hells.” Said Elrhain, gulping down the astral air. “First the gangway, and now this. I suspect we brought the Gigantomachy into this world with our transmigration. Is this a belated ‘cheat’?”
“What nonsense is that?” Agwyn asked, confused. Yip bounced towards them and purred as to echo Agwyn’s words.
“A transmigrator’s boon, our gold finger, or an RPG system, or-” Elrhain faltered at Agwyn’s blank gaze. “You wouldn’t understand… I-It’s a web novel thing….”
“Right.” Agwyn picked Yip up, hiding her disdainful look. Games she could understand, but web novels were trash on another level. Almost ruined Miramarja’s social life when she was young, thanks to a certain shut-in.
“What do you think that… gaze was?” She ruffed the fish gremlin’s puffy fur.
Elrhain shook his head. “Who the hell knows.” He shot Yip a glare, “Do you?”
“Yi… yu?”
“Sneaky little bastard.” Elrhain quipped, much to Agwyn’s disapproval. “A-Anyway, I ain’t touching that.”
“Yip?!” The fish gremlin mewled.
“… yet. It’s way too suss.” Agwyn nodded, finishing Elrhain’s sentence.
For the next few days, the trio moved back and forth from the gangway, the dream corridor, and the terminal side of the tholus. They ran most of the safety checks they could think of, but nothing really changed.
“I don’t think we have a choice.” Agwyn shrugged, then dragged Elrhain in front of the terminal. She was careful not to touch anything else such as the floating glyphs but had decided to not drag it out.
“You know, you might be right about something.” She spoke as they stood face to face with the terminal. Well, Elrhain did. Since she was so much shorter, she had to reach up on tippy-toes to touch it.
“Something? You mean most things.” Elrhain playfully pulled her backwards. Agwyn figured her boyfriend was nervous and didn’t want her to touch the screen spontaneously. She grunted, then shoved him back harder.
“Ouch.”
“It’s about the game thing!” Agwyn ignored Elrhain’s plea for mercy. “A linear storyline and not an open world setting with many endings. We have to clear certain checkpoints one by one to proceed to the next scenario… like that?”
“And Yip is the game master?” Elrhain pointed at the fish gremlin happily playing sonic the hedgehog with the floating runic chains and glyphs.
“It… is at an NPC?” Agwyn wasn’t sure. She pouted, then brushed away Elrhain’s playful hands from her hip. After a quick bend of her knees, she was about to jump up and touch the terminal… but Elrhain grabbed her by her armpits and raised her up.
“H-Hey!” Agwyn blushed, feet dangling like a distressed damsel. “Must you humiliate me like so?” she yelled, wronged and humiliated. She did her best to hide how much she loved it.
Elrhain didn’t pay her any mind. He hugged his right arm across her abdomen and held her. With his left, he grabbed Agwyn’s small palm, entwining their fingers.
Agwyn’s heartbeat rose.
Elrhain, with her hand in his, touched the terminal.
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““AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!””
It was as though a planet’s worth of… soul, data, and information plunged into their very being without warning. Their bodies cracked with blue light, shining the dark astral sky in a neon hue. A burning pulse of azure left the terminal where skin met scree and entered these spider-web cracks every microsecond.
Agwyn’s vision flickered blue, and she struggled for air. She had to get up. Elrhain was right. Yip wasn’t an NPC. It was a mastermind!
But right then, a vast… mental force, an invincible probe with the weight of a mountain, pressed her down against her will into the lunar floor.
This probe. This was the spirit of the land, the ghost of the terminal. This embodied form of a god judging all that made them sapient, commanded compliance. It was the crystals, the runic chains, and the mystical glyphs. It had no will; it only ‘did’. And Agwyn could not deny its will.
She tasted dust and rock, pain and blood. The probe strangled her neck and reached down deep into her mouth, suffocating her with saliva and manna. It searched her mind with its withered appendages until it found…. something.
Agwyn’s back arched, and her eyes rolled over.
The next second, Agwyn realised she was still standing in the same position. Everything… was an illusion? Where’s Elrhain?!
The hellish pain faded. But within that moment of relief, a cacophony of other sensations replaced the pain.
‘ARGH!’
As if she was in a sauna. Like she was lying on a cloud of strawberry smiles. Her body soothed into melted honey after a date on the beach; all worries of the past faded into nothing.
Only comfort remained.
She felt giddy. Happy. And oh so thirsty. But then the comfort passed, bringing in a wave of… lethargy.
Little by little, she felt every possible sensation her senses could sense. The hum of a community choir, the climax of violent sex, the masquerade of the night cityscape, the taste of caramel glazed shortcakes, the scent of freshly bloomed lavender. Each stimulus lead to her many senses mingling and kissing, alternating each turn from pleasant to painful, then calming.
Then they separated before combining in a distinct form.
Emotions.
Love. Hate. Jealousy. Fear. Lust. Calm. Anger. Betrayal. Intoxication. Fulfilment. Surprise. Disgust. Sorrow. Happiness and on it went.
They blurred yet kept a cruel mindful clarity. Agwyn could not move or speak, only accept with a burning heart. She felt Elrhain’s mind behind her sinking in the same plight.
The probe grappled inside her. It measured the weight and function of every last atom of her bones, organs, and hormones.
The emotions soon started repeating. Then shifted. The probe seemed to decide on a course of action. The emotions stilled, then concentrated forcibly on the negative.
At once, Agwyn… felt an intense urge to kill… who? Yes, Elrhain. That bastard! How good it would feel to plunge a knife into his cowardly heart. It was he who ruined her relationship with Naomi! He dared to almost marry that slut of a Korean associate professor! He refused her love for decades on, even after parting ways with Park Jarim, hooking her along with a hopeless wish!
‘NO! SHE HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH US NOW!’
This was just the mental probe talking, this devil’s device! Yes… she should not kill him. Agwyn should… Cheat?
Ah, Shirvan. How Agwyn missed him so. His Greek god body, his stallion member, his soothing words, his gentle touch, his passionate embrace. Agwyn wondered how much her infidelity would hurt Elrhain.
Would he cry? Would he lash out? Would he kill himself like a pathetic loser? Would he live the rest of his life as a betrayed fool, drowning in his feelings of helplessness as he watched Agwyn take all they had built together and give it to her ex-lover. Miramarja, their mansion…. Her aching body.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
How intense that emotion!
It’s not like she didn’t love Elrhain. She did. Really. But sometimes… she wanted to see him hurt. Oh, how she would savour each and every second of that sweat despair on Elrhain’s broken face as she plunged Shirvan’s Mars into her sacred Venus, where it belonged. Where she belonged———
‘NO! WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK! NO! AGWYN YOU DO NOT WANT TO GO INTO THAT LINE OF THINKING YOU DIRTY LITTLE SLUT! ANIMAL! PERVERT!’ Agwyn screamed, but her mental body only twitched.
She was helpless as one scenario after another passed before her eyes. She experienced them deeply with all her senses, trapped in this twisted virtual reality. Into this sick re-enactment of her most hidden urges, intense desires, and animalistic intentions.
These were nasty, monkey-brained thoughts every human being had. The compulsion to jump off a cliff’s edge after standing on the precipice and looking down. The impulse to just… shoot a bullet into one’s best friend’s head to shut them up. The itch to bite one’s own fingers, smash a keyboard, and throw out a baby from the top window of a skyscraper. The desire to just… surrender.
Thoughts that would let even Satan down. Thoughts that would get her cancelled in seconds.
She had complete control over these uncontrolled mental devils in her day-to-day life, immediately acknowledging them and then letting them go, never allowing them to take over her conscious brain. Like everyone else, her inner world was disgusting. But also like everyone else, she possessed the basic willpower to hide them, to live everyday life in society without taking these thoughts seriously.
But… was she doing herself disfavour by being so… Stuck up? Would it not be much easier to just… go with the flow? Kiss that cute waiter in the restaurant. Rat on her best girlfriend for that one time she called in sick to go to the beach. Use armed violence… while reclaiming land from those unwashed nomads that lived and suffered in Earth’s radioactive wastelands…
She once had a poor relationship with her mother. So she should just play her false! She should hand over insider information to her mother’s political enemies, right? And then lock her up in a rotting jail for that one time her mother didn’t let her stay out late with Shirvan for the last rave party of their university life.
‘MOM, IF YOU ARE SEEING THIS, THIS AIN’T ME. SOME MAGIC TERMINAL IS MAKING YOUR DAUGHTER GO THROUGH ANOTHER REBELLIOUS PHASE.’ Agwyn prayed to the departed Mrs Hildebrand just in case. As if acknowledging her prayer, her mental focus moved from her past mother to….
Miramarja!
That whiny little bitch!? How dare she be ungrateful after Agwyn raised her so! She had sacrificed everything for her! Any decent chance at dating, conceiving her own children, hanging out with besties. They said children brought people together. But twenty years raising her with big baby Elrhain, who played fake daddy but was too chicken to actually make a move, and what magnificent fruits did she get to show for it?
Wrinkles on her face.
She should just…. Steal her fiancé, get him drugged and have happy-end sex with the boy forty years her junior. Yes, that’ll teach Miramarja for changing the TV channel.
There was also Park Jarim. The biggest villain of all. She dated Elrhain for six long years, got engaged to him, was about to be married, only to leave for the Acheron Project. She even dared to ask Elrhain to go with her abroad on the Charon, humanity’s first colonisation spaceship.
Elrhain was Agwyn’s! Not some ramen-hating Korean slut’s!
Thank god Elrhain decided to stay. Thank god Jarim didn’t force Annamaria to hijack a fighter jet and shoot Charon down before it could take off from Mars orbit. But then again, maybe Elrhain… Alex should have just left with his ex-fiancé. What good was it for Annamaria if Alex had turned totally asexual by the time she was seriously courting him!
It was unfair! He was fine when dating Jarim. Annamaria knew because Jarim was one of her besties. Even after they had broken up, Alex had played around so much like a god damned pick-up artist. He was bringing home a different girl practically every night for two years straight! Only when Annamaria decided to be true to her heart, only when the Charon spaceship was about to leave the solar system for good with them losing contact with Jarim forever, did Alex lose all interest in love in general.
He’d become an asexual gentleman.
Why… why!!!!!!
‘WHY AM I THINKING ABOUT THIS RIGHT NOW AAAAAAAAAAH!’ Agwyn sobbed a little. But the mental probe delved deeper into this particular instance of hallucination, ignoring her crocodile tears.
Annamaria only wanted to be loved. She only wanted a real family of her own. They were already raising Miramarja together, so what was wrong with getting married and becoming a real father and mother?! Because of that stubborn Alex, Annamaria suffered so much. She was practically a celibate nun for the last twenty years of her life because an unreasonable part of her conscience felt like it would be traitorous to love another while Alex was still single.
She…. didn’t want to break the fantastic trio dynamic she had with Alex and Miramarja.
She knew that Alex wouldn’t mind, and the fact that he didn’t care hurt her even more. But no matter the reason, after Jarim was gone for good, her heart and body had no room for anyone other than Alex.
Anything else would be infidelity.
Thus, thank the Gods and Buddhas in heaven and hell that thirty-first-century adult toys were so… sophisticated… in their touch, heat, and feel. Or she might have just acted on her bodily needs rather than her heart’s wishes.
On that note, she should have married her Sinful2k Adonisdroid while she had the chance!
To hell with real men.
And speaking of the men in her life, sometimes, Bromwyn was…. was just too much! It might be a good idea to sit him down to articulate just how fucking much Agwyn hated him, and nothing he could do would ever make their relationship better. Like, never. As with Eluned, Cyra, Dofnald, and the rest of that conservative illiterates. In fact, they would probably disown her if she came out as a bisexual, so she might as well disown them first.
Ysbail. Agwyn really needed to cut off her tail and strangle that man-stealing schlampe. As for Cadfael, she’d neutered plenty of mutant animals in the nuclear wastes. So——
‘…. OH, COME ON!’ Agwyn wanted to kill herself by mentally biting her tongue. She tried; it was useless. She couldn’t even feel her tongue, not with these traitorous thoughts hijacking her executive functions. They spiralled on and on, grabbing onto any bit of negative emotion and amplifying it a millionfold into nightmarish movies.
Agwyn realised these were simulations. The terminal was… iterating Agwyn’s and Annamaria’s lives like a machine learning script.
But to her relief, these overwhelming intentions to do ‘evil’ soon passed.
… replaced with dreams of destiny.
Yes, she will have one hundred and twenty-one children with Elrhain. She will make twelve soccer teams, then live happily ever after. She will be loyal, and so will Elrhain.
Their relationship will never stagnate. There will only be peaks and not one valley other than the one on Agwyn’s body. Why~, every day from today until the day they die, she will wake up in the morning and see Elrhain’s face thinking how much she loved him. Their libido will never disappear like so many couples’ like Alex’s had when Jarim left for good. Nor will their dynamic, dates, and mystery even fail to interest each other. Because she was special. They were special. Their love was one of a kind. They were not like other couples.
Actually, they won’t die at all. They’ll become Beyonders and live for thousands of cycles. In fact, one hundred and twenty kids were too small a number. Aiming for the stars was the way to go!
Along the way, they’ll save this wretched world where so many children died young. It definitely wasn’t a neighbourhood where she would want her thousand darlings to grow up.
They’ll also defeat the no-good Impelakty, the stinking apocalyptic vision, and every foe of past and future.
They’ll make everyone happy. With their boundless love and past-life knowledge. Like the stories where even the secondary characters find true love in side stories and after works.
Now that she thought about it, if Ysbail wanted to have Elrhain, she could. They could then be proper sisters. Agwyn was sure an open marriage would thrill Elrhain. Polyamory was once the year's buzzword for the hundredth time when Annamaria was alone, and Alex had Jarim.
Speaking of which…
Her innocent boyfriend didn’t really have much experience dating. Or intimate lovemaking, for that matter. He had once filled the void in his heart with lustful fornication after Jarim left, but that was not love. Jarim was his only real love in their past life. Just as Shirvan and Naomi were Annamaria’s.
‘CAN WE FORGET ABOUT PARK JARIM PLEASE?’ Agwyn begged inside her heart. That only made the introspective vision more vivid.
In the long years Alex was with Jarim, Annamaria had also ‘dated’ many people. There were many meetups, hookups, one night stands and last but not least, polyamory. There were both men and women, couples and throuples, as she had tried so desperately to fall in love again. But nothing lasted. Her longest ‘girlfriend’ only put up with her unrequited love for a taken Alex for two months before dumping her.
Yes, that’s right. Annamaria had been in love with Alex Fischer after Naomi had betrayed her. But by then, Alex had made a promise not to ever romantically love her. As if to prove his resolve, he immediately got together with one of his former university classmates and mutual friends, Park Jarim, before Annamaria had even been discharged from the hospital. And even after Jarim had left on board the Charon, even after he and Annamaria adopted Miramarja together, even after they grew old and were left dying on the Gigantomachy, Alex stubbornly kept his promise. Only in death did he give in.
So for her innocent boyfriend and for her own unfulfilled soul…
Ethical Non-monogamy seemed to be the perfect solution!
She’d show him the way, then let him free. Someone of his calibre definitely needed more than one lover to feel satisfied.
… as did she. It didn’t mean her love for Elrhain would decrease. Love didn’t work like that. They’d just multiply for each lover added. She’d researched the subject while a virgin-at-heart named Alex Fischer was busy getting enthralled by a vixen-by-nature called Park Jarim.
She could have Cadfael. That poor sappy puppy. Was she really being a lovely human being by causing someone so much hurt? By denying them happiness for her own selfish insecurities?
‘…. UH……………………………………’ Agwyn wished she could crawl under a rock. The mental probe agreed.
It flinched inside her body, and for a split second, she swore she saw the terminal screen dim. And like all these illusions, she perceived an acute sense of… condemnation. Disappointment… Disgust?
Her vision changed, and her ears stung. Someone seemed to say, “Do you not have any other fantasies, either good or bad, other than sex?”
‘WHO SAID THAT?’ Agwyn blushed but could do nothing else. She had confirmed one fact, though. There was another sentient will in this place other than Yip. The real mastermind behind the mental probe.
The visions continued soon after. The mental probe analysed her every action and reaction. It put everything that made her Annamaria and Agwyn under a nano-scope, sifted through with a laser comb, and finally put into a centrifuge.
The approach was both top-down and bottom-up. The terminal learnt everything there was to know about Agwyn. It was like a job interview and also a human experiment. Somehow combining the worse parts of both into a terrifying whole.
Then, the will behind the probe took what it had gathered—and replicated her. Bit by bit, emotion by emotion, synapse by synapse. Inside the magical cyberspace behind the terminal’s screen, there now existed another her.
Agwyn could feel it. She dreaded it. She was connected to it, but the new virtual her was without a soul. It was an authorisation, a key.
The invisible probe stilled for the last time, then retreated from her body with a disembodied ghost equivalent of a tired sigh.
Her eyes automatically moved to the terminal screen. The illegible characters gradually changed.
> [Input detected // Biosoul-signal found!
>
> Searching for administrators… // 0 found!
>
> Searching Moderators… // 1 found!
>
> Moderator Input -> Set Administrator
>
> Checking Permissions...
>
> Permission Cleared!
>
> Searching Administrator Candidate… // 2 found!
>
> Assigning Administrator… // Error! // Error! // Error!
>
> Non-sufficient Biosoul signal strength -> Signal at 1st circle -> Required 4th circle
>
> Recalibrating…
>
> Creating 2 provisional administrative accounts...
>
> Creation Complete!
>
> Assigning 2 provisional administrators...
>
> Assignment complete!
>
> System Message: Welcome to the Gladys Time Capsule - [Civilization Ferry No.1] of Fanas Astras (Uorys Astra)!
>
> Assigning Administration Point
>
> Assignment Complete!
>
> System Message: O' thee of the olden new,
>
> We hear thy plight and hence bequeath,
>
> We know thy fright yet hope to persist,
>
> Crystal lives we permit thy choice,
>
> Memories rise in death's core price,
>
> Ferry our Idminas for ten epochs thou pass.]