Asura in Arknights

The only saving grace is that there are no dangerous wild animals here; otherwise, the already difficult days would probably be even more challenging.

Nearly half a year has passed since Roy was stranded in this strange place, and he has begun to doubt why he is still alive.

"Damn it... not much harvest today, if this keeps up we'll run out of food..."

After finishing his exploration for the day, Roy looked at the half-bag of hardened bread in his hand with some distress. This was his only find after searching three blocks, and the food was not even enough to replenish the calories he had consumed throughout the day.

But he had no choice but to do this; if he couldn't find enough food, he would starve to death in this godforsaken place sooner or later.

The supplies he carried with him on the mission were already used up in the first month, and Roy had been eating expired food scavenged from all corners of the city during that time.

This strange place seems to still maintain a certain connection with reality, as things occasionally end up here.

From a single coin to a wrecked truck, all sorts of random things were found, from completely different eras. Roy even found a newspaper published several centuries ago in the early days of the Great Knights' Territory.

If you could take this thing out with you, you might be able to sell it for a lot of money.

Aside from some potentially useful parts, his main purpose was to find food. Fortunately, bacteria and other microorganisms seemed unable to survive in this world. Although the food Roy found was expired for who knows how many years, it was still edible after some processing.

The comfortable life he has lived over the years has not caused Roy to lose his former skills; on the contrary, this harsh life has reminded him of his days as a bounty hunter in the wilderness.

The same hardship, the same tedium, the only difference is that Roy is all alone here.

That's right, he was the only 'person' there.

With his only haul for the day, Roy quickly returned to his base before nightfall.

There is no danger here during the day, and the whole world is deathly silent, but when night falls... everything becomes eerie.

Roy was unaware of the characteristics of this place at first, and therefore paid a heavy price.

He subconsciously shrugged his left shoulder, where there was a palm print that he couldn't erase no matter what he did—the price he paid for his carelessness on the first day.

This base was converted from a factory. Although it took Roy a lot of effort, it was the safest place in the surrounding area, enough to help him get through these difficult nights.

All the channels connecting the factory to the outside world were sealed off with wooden boards and industrial adhesives, not even the ventilation channels were spared.

After entering the factory through the side door, Roy skillfully picked up the wooden planks and various tools placed to the side, turned around and blocked the door. He had done this process hundreds of times, so he was very familiar with it.

Although it will take some effort to dismantle these things tomorrow morning, it's the only way to ensure safety tonight.

In the corner, an Originium generator was humming. Perhaps due to insufficient power, the industrial lights on the roof were not very bright, and there were still many places inside the factory covered in shadow.

It's amazing that even though the quantity is small, it's still possible to find Originium in this godforsaken place. This familiarity brought Roy some comfort.

But generators are relatively rare.

For some reason, although this world is extremely similar to reality, most things in it only have an outer shell, and the inside is a jumble of things that are completely incomprehensible. Only a small number of parts are actually useful. The simple generator in the corner was pieced together bit by bit by Roy using the parts he scavenged.

Although the power is not high, it is barely enough.

After putting the half-bag of dry bread he found today into the storage cabinet, Roy counted the remaining supplies and found that if he ate sparingly, the food should last for about half a month. This discovery made Roy's expression somewhat uncertain.

Half a month... It sounds like a long time, but it's far from enough for him.

If he can't find a new food source within two weeks, he'll probably have to resort to eating those strange plants that grow in the city.

The place exuded an eerie atmosphere. If it weren't for the circumstances, Roy wouldn't have wanted to touch anything here at all. He only dared to eat the food that had obviously flowed in from outside.

As for the water he was drinking, it also came from this world... Roy selectively ignored this question.

When living in this world, don't always try to understand everything. Sometimes, playing dumb can make life easier.

He took a piece of bread and put it in the water until the two were completely mixed into a paste. Only then did Roy tilt his head back and swallow the bowl of unknown substance.

This is his dinner tonight.

Having solved his hunger problem, Roy returned to his makeshift workbench and glanced at his phone, which was charging on it.

The phone couldn't find any signal at all, and the text message that had been edited was still stuck on the sending screen. Roy would take some time every day to check it, hoping to see a message indicating that the message had been successfully sent.

Although the chances are very low, it is indeed possible to receive signals from the real world here.

Roy couldn't figure out the hidden pattern, so he could only try a clumsy method.

Edit a text message and write a simple script to make the phone continuously try to send the message 24 hours a day. As long as it can receive a signal for even a moment, it can successfully send the message.

This is also an important reason why he has been able to persevere to this day.

"The same as always today..."

Roy picked up his phone and fiddled with it for a bit. Looking at the zero-bar signal in the corner of the screen, he couldn't help but let out a bitter laugh. "I hope Lady Monique doesn't hate me."

There are very few things that Roy would regret.

Whether it was choosing to join the Unarmored Alliance back then, or choosing to help Kane half a year ago, Roy has no regrets, even though this wrong choice has led him to his current predicament.

He understood the principle of equivalent exchange. He enjoyed the large sums of money he earned through the Unarmored Alliance, but he also had to pay the price for it. Roy had long been prepared for this.

If you walk by the river often enough, you're bound to get your shoes wet. This time it's just his turn.

But just three months ago, Roy did something he deeply regretted.

In a miraculous coincidence, Roy made a phone call to reality, and for a moment he was so bewitched that he believed the bastard's words and begged Lady Monique to help them escape this strange world.

Roy now wanted to slap himself twice; in fact, the moment he said it, Roy already regretted it.

But a miracle is a miracle precisely because it lasts only a very short time. Roy only had time to state his request before the call was cut off, and he hadn't even heard Lady Monique's reply.

Given Lord Monique's temperament, after receiving that phone call, she probably just wanted to yell at him a couple of times and wouldn't actually go through with gathering those materials as he requested...

Roy wanted to use this reason to deceive himself, but unfortunately he couldn't.

Because he was so aware of Monique's duplicity, Roy could guess what she would do even without hearing her answer.

All Roy wanted to do now was send out the text message he had already prepared, telling Lord Monique that he didn't need to come to rescue him, and that his assets stored in various parts of Kazimierz also needed an heir.

Unfortunately, several more months passed, and the miracle never happened again.

Roy's feelings went through a very complex process, from unease to anxiety, and finally to calmness.

Although he knew the question was incredibly silly, Roy still glanced at the shadowy areas of the factory and couldn't help but ask, "So, is your plan even feasible?"

As he spoke, something seemed to move in the darkness, making an unsettling wriggling sound.

The wriggling sound continued for a while before a male voice answered Roy's question.

“You ask me this question almost every day, but my answer never changes—yes, according to my calculations, as long as the burst of energy is sufficient, it is indeed possible to open a passage between here and reality. Isn’t that how we came to this space?”

“You mean ‘enough’? That’s the total energy generated by several small natural disasters,” Roy said sarcastically. “And when we came in, wasn’t there only one medium-sized natural disaster? How come it’s multiplied so many times in your mouth? At that point, half of the Great Knight Territory would probably be blown to bits.”

"You may have misunderstood something."

As the man's voice rang out, a... twisted monster emerged from the shadows.

Its shape still vaguely reveals some human features, but much more of it has been twisted into bluish-black scales, releasing a damp aura that Roy finds very unfamiliar.

Now, the monster speaks in human language, saying, "The natural disaster six months ago was just the aftermath of the passage opening. What we are trying to do is the exact opposite: we want to open a passage by artificially creating a natural disaster. The difficulty is naturally on a completely different level."

“Ayin…”

Roy murmured the name the monster once possessed and involuntarily took a step back.

"Don't come any closer. The way you are now... I find it hard to believe what you're saying."

"Pointless guarding. If I really wanted to hurt you, you should have found somewhere else to hide instead of sharing a room with a monster like me."

The monster said this, but it still stopped and retreated back into the shadows. "However, it's understandable. People lack trust in their fellow human beings who look similar, let alone aliens whose appearance is completely contrary to aesthetics."

"...You don't sound like an alien at all."

"So, it's just a change of body. I am still me. And this appearance is only temporary. This kind of creature's life form is far superior to that of humans. Once I complete the transformation and fully master this body, I might be able to return to my previous appearance... provided that I can still remember what I look like."

"Stop talking, I don't want to end up like that," Roy said with a look of disgust.

Ayin, the former chief scientist at Ball Pharmaceuticals, was someone Roy had heard of before, but had never met in person.

In the upheaval six months ago, this important figure, like Roy, became one of only two people trapped in this world.

The difference is that Roy seems to have simply been forgotten, while Ayin being left here is his punishment. Ayin played an indispensable role in that incident; without his involvement, things would never have escalated to that point.

Unlike Roy, this guy doesn't mind eating the things in this world at all. The plants that grow everywhere here become his food source. Compared to the miserable Roy, Ayin seems to be living quite comfortably.

As the only two people still alive in this world, the two naturally came together so that they could look after each other.

After a period of research, Ayin believes that if enough energy can be detonated in the real world, it may be possible to break through a passage to the real world. It might also be feasible on their side, but since there is no precedent, Ayin cannot be sure.

That's why the previous incident happened. Roy accidentally contacted Monique and asked her to help him collect enough Pure Originium to blast open a passage to reality.

"Let's continue our previous topic."

Back in the shadows, Ayin spoke up, “Considering that the energy of natural disasters is too dispersed, if a medium-sized natural disaster could open a passage, wouldn’t this world have already become riddled with holes? At least there would be quite a few people like us who have been stranded here.”

But that wasn't actually the case. Although everything here looked dilapidated and decaying, Roy couldn't find any trace of anyone else.

They seem to be the only outsiders in this world.

"Of course, if we can concentrate all the energy into one point and unleash it, the energy required should be greatly reduced. We couldn't do that before, but now it's different."

Although the energy density of Originium is very high, it is not easy to confine this energy to a very small area while detonating Originium.

However, because of the 'black stone' that suddenly fell to this place half a month ago, Ayin drastically changed her previous plans.

Chapter 79 Let's leave everything to fate.

It was an ordinary day, and Roy and Ayin were both doing their own things.

Roy packed the necessary items for the mission, preparing to explore a slightly more distant area this time to see if there was anything he could use.

As before, Ayin was studying several special stones that were similar to Originium, but completely different from it.

Since Ayin didn't waste the food he found, Roy let him do whatever he wanted, and Ayin's knowledge was indeed still useful now.

Then they saw an unusually huge vortex appear in the sky, and something fell from the center of the vortex, landing in another block not far from their base.

Such an unusual phenomenon naturally caught the attention of the two. Roy became extremely vigilant and eventually recovered a fist-sized black rock from the spot where the object had fallen.

Since he couldn't figure out what the thing was for, and he couldn't bear to throw away something that looked so precious, Roy simply brought the stone back and gave it to Ayin to see what he could figure out.

He's the chief scientist, so figuring out what this thing is shouldn't be too difficult for him, right?

Clearly, Roy, whose highest level of education was only elementary school, misunderstood something, but in terms of results, Ayin did actually make some progress.

“This is a piece of biological tissue, and some of its internal activity is still preserved,” Ayin explained her discovery.

“Biological tissue? That’s useless, it doesn’t look like you can eat it anyway.” Roy seemed quite dismissive.

He felt a little regretful that he had wasted a whole day and ended up with this thing.

"This organization seems to have the ability to assimilate..."

At the time, Roy didn't pay attention to Ayin's words.

However, the next day, Roy discovered that Ayin had grown some bluish-black scales on her body.

Since they were all in the same boat, Roy asked Ayin a few questions out of concern, but Ayin said she was perfectly fine and in surprisingly good condition, so Roy didn't pay any attention.

Over the next few days, Ayin underwent a transformation at a visible speed right under Roy's nose.

At first, strange scales only grew on some of the more noticeable parts of its body.

When Roy returned from his trip, he began to emit an unpleasant fishy smell, and his figure seemed to have become somewhat hunched.

The next night, Roy was shocked to discover that Ayin had almost lost her human form and turned into a hideous monster.

The thought of spending a night with such a monster sent chills down Roy's spine. What was even more terrifying was that even after Ayin had transformed into that monstrous form, he greeted Roy in an extremely strange voice as if nothing had happened when he woke up in the morning.

Roy couldn't help but ask Ayin how he had gotten himself into this state.

He replied, "It's simple, I just ate the thing you brought back."

"Are you crazy? Why would you eat that stuff?" Roy was also somewhat relieved; in this situation of food scarcity, the first thing he thought of was whether that stuff was edible.

If he ate it, he'd probably end up looking like this.

“Because I think that would be useful,” Ayin explained.

Sure enough, Roy simply couldn't understand what this guy was thinking.

Then, a day later, Ayin had almost turned into some kind of mollusk and completely lost her ability to speak.

Roy did try to kill the monster, but its regeneration speed was simply too exaggerated. With the weapons he had, he couldn't inflict much damage, so he had no choice but to give up.

He couldn't very well try using his limited Originium to see if he could blow this thing up, could he? Roy didn't want to go back to a primitive society without electricity; he still needed to send a message to Monique.

Moreover, given how quickly this thing changes, who knows what it will become in a couple of days?

What happened next proved Roy right. Just a few hours later, Ayin was freed from her mollusk state and began to regain her language abilities.