CHAPTER 42: QUEST MENU

Julie’s eyelids felt heavier today than any day before this. It had been a week since her incident with IRE A-1549. A lot has changed since then.

For one, her eyebags had become much more noticeable. Spending a week in quarantine and not being allowed much sleep did that to you. But this was the least of her worries.

Ever since that brief encounter with the rogue Irregular Runic Entity known as Scribe-of-Worlds, Julie had been moved to a different team under Dr. Miguel’s supervision.

The Cyberhawks.

As she understood it, the Human Preservation Project divides its members into departments—the total number of which was unknown. There were countless black projects under their name that were classified and above her paygrade. Even Dr. Miguel was apparently unaware of the total. The one’s she was aware of, however, were what most of her colleagues called the ‘Core Nine.’ Her department was one of these nine.

The Department of Mythological Affairs, or DoMA for short.

This department mainly consisted of historians, investigators, and archeologists. Julie was selected as an intern for it specifically for this reason—she had graduated as a history major after all. But more than that, they were also involved in mapping folktales passed down through oral tradition, and tracing their origins to what could have been a rogue IRE in the past that the people back then simply attributed as a miracle or the work of the gods.

It was a fairly common story within the project premises. Eve, one of her senior colleagues, told her that roughly 70% of all IREs they have encountered had some sort of history that spanned before this millennium even began. It shocked her at first, but she quickly accepted it as fact. After all, human history was long, and although Julie didn’t know how old the organization was, it was certainly not there from the beginning of time. If anomalous entities have always existed, it would make sense for their history to be just as old as humanity itself.

However, this was not the only thing DoMA involved itself in. After all, there were still the 30% of IREs that were not attributed to have ancient stories chronicling their past. Most of these IREs tend to be newly documented ones with little to no information that could give them a lead about their origins. Rather than myths and folktales, they cement themselves as urban legends instead.

IRE A-1549 was one such example.

The Cyberhawks were a sub-division of DoMA that were mainly responsible for tracking and pursuing rogue IREs with mentions of their existence over the internet. Eve told her that many of the popular creepypastas found online actually had some form of origin story that traced their existence to some form of IRE.

After all, Anima as she understood it, was willpower. Without it, IRE’s as a whole wouldn’t exist. And what better way to gather the influence of anima than through the internet, who’s spread can reach the ends of the globe?

This was why The Cyberhawks had gained much more support over the years—the amount of funding allocated to them increased annually without stopping since the inception of the internet. Julie didn’t disagree with this assessment—her first IRE encounter just so happened to be of the digital kind after all.

The one thing she did disagree with had to be the workload. Ever since she joined the Cyberhawks, she had been stuck to her screen doing online investigations into countless online rumors, creepypastas, news sources, and forums.

Out of 3,753 investigations, only 500 required further inquiry and 356 required an escalation of action. This didn’t mean all of these were the actions of rogue IREs—most of them usually were related to the same case or in other situations, they were simply Vagrant Occult Activities (VOAs) that were misread as IRE phenomena.

Julie sighed as she submitted another report. She leaned back into her chair while rubbing her eyes. When the fuck will they let me out…

Seriously…

A week in isolation while still requiring work to be done was insanity. She’d heard about workplace exploitation before, but she never expected to be a victim of it.

At least provide me with some entertainment… She faintly glanced back at the monitor radiating in blue light. Maybe that new gacha game that came out… God, I really wanna play it…

The mention of gacha games made her remember something: today was supposed to be the day she got her paycheck.

“Fuck! Did they forget to pay me?!” She slammed her hands against the desk and rose up from her seat—not even her exhaustion mattered anymore. She was ready to fight even Direct 004 if it meant getting her money.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

Maybe not Director 004, she corrected. Yeah, not him…

Reaching the door, she banged on it a few times to alert the guard keeping watch over her room.

“Intern B34, what do you need?”

“C-can I get some fresh air?” Her voice cracked—embarrassment followed. So much for trying to act tough, she thought.

“Leaving confinement is not allowed.”

She stood silently behind the door and clicked her tongue. “Then when can I get paid? It's been two weeks—today’s paycheck day!”

“The money has already been added to your digital wallet,” he retorted. “Check again.”

She frowned. Did they just get around to updating everyone’s paychecks? She walked back to her desk and opened her HPP profile.

Employee Name: Julie-Anne Kafka

Employee Codification: B34

Status: Intern

Employment Date: Friday, April 19th, 2041.

Department of Mythological Affairs

The Cyberhawks [Division 004]

Soul Weapon: N/A

The same information she’d seen countless times. She scrolled down to the financial section.

Balance: $14,243

Her jaw almost dropped. She knew the HPP paid well, but seeing the number still amazed her. This was only the amount for two weeks worth of pay—not even her monthly salary.

I am going to get so many SSR pulls with this… Her mouth was salivating at the prospect of burning through all that cash.

No wait, I need to send some back to my mother…

She then remembered there was still no way to contact her. Julie sighed.

And there was something else to be sad about as well: her PC had no games installed on it.

Shit…

She sank into her seat even further. Even with the amount of money she was making, there was no point to it if she couldn’t spend it on the things she wanted to spend it on…

This quarantine is killing me!

Julie wasn’t even sure why she was being kept here. Yes, she did get marked by IRE A-1549, but even now, a week later, she had still not shown any of the symptoms common in other victims. In fact, she was perfectly sane.

The only thing she could think of that was abnormal were her dreams. This was one of the reasons why her insomnia was so bad, aside from the workload.

Ever since that incident, she had been marked by weird dreams about a large space filled with… Things?

Incomprehensible things. She had no idea what she was looking at half the time. Even with the lucidity of it all, she couldn’t make out anything or even remember what she sees after she wakes up. The only thing that was consistent between each of these hallucinations was the silhouette of a man hung on a cross. She couldn’t make out his details, but a sinister smile was always present on his face, and a simple quote always radiated in her mind the moment she noticed his presence.

“Reality breaks where fiction is created.”

Seriously, what the hell is up with that guy. Her cheeks puffed with annoyance. Why the fuck would you drag me into those stupid dreams only to speak to me in riddles. At least have the decency to tell me what you want if you plan on ruining my sleep.

She sighed. There was no way she could consult the organization about this. There was no telling what they would do. Heck, just a simple suspicion of being corrupted landed her in a week long quarantine—there was no way in hell she was going to risk facing a worse fate if she revealed more to them.

But on the other hand, there was little she could find out about this on her own. She had considered asking Dr. Miguel countless times, but even with his kind smile, Julie knew that he too couldn’t be trusted. No one in this god forsaken organization was truly kind—all of them had their own twisted histories.

I’m probably the most normal person in HPP, she chuckled to herself.

Suddenly, her monitor flashed with light, startling her. She squinted her eyes while staring at the screen. Weirdly, it had changed away from her company profile page on its own.

It was only after she read the words being displayed that she understood what was happening.

“Scribe-of-Worlds!”

She glanced at the domain name: scribe-of-worlds.com. It was the same as the one she had seen on Soren’s computer that day.

“Fuck!”

Just as she was considering running away, the screen changed again.

A simple window popup appeared before her with the following words.

Quest: Unlock your Soul Weapon.

Time Limit: 23:59:49

Failure Penalty: Death