Volume 5 Chapter 21 Rebooting a Broken Toy
Edited by: Kanaa-senpai
Deep within the deepest reaches of the Great Underground Cavern, where the roots of the World Tree pulsed like veins through the earth, a newly carved stone chamber lay hidden. It stood within the sealed zone, a place even ordinary elves were forbidden to enter.
As I pushed open the heavy stone door, the familiar mustiness of the underground vanished behind me. In its place came a biting chill and a strange scent that tickled the nose—a sterile blend of starched linen and sweet incense oil reminiscent of preservative myrrh. The air carried the artificial cleanliness of a morgue awaiting its occupants, mingled with the atmosphere of an elite sanitarium.
”Master,” Elie called, her voice sharp with manic excitement. “At last. At last, the logic has connected.”
The head researcher was waiting in the antechamber. Ink and reagent stains marred her lab coat, her silver hair had fallen into disarray, and yet the eyes behind her glasses blazed with feverish intensity.
With trembling hands, she presented a thick bundle of parchment—the legacy of the Ancestor, hidden in the deepest vaults of the sealed archives and forbidden even to successive generations of elders.
”I have successfully deciphered the structure of the lost forbidden-class technique you ordered me to analyze: ‘Regenerate,’” she said with academic precision.1 “For thousands of years, no one in this village has been permitted to touch it.”
”Splendid,” I replied. “Well done. You seem to have worked quite hard.”
”Indeed.” Elie’s lips curled upward. “The philosophy behind it differs completely from ordinary healing magic. This is not restoration. It is a forbidden art that defies the laws of God itself, redefining a shattered vessel and forcing it to restart.”
Taking the parchment, I inhaled the scent of dried ink and scanned the ancient symbols covering the page. To any ordinary mage, it would have been an impenetrable maze of ancient script and geometric sigils.
(Hm?)
Yet the moment I looked at it, a strange sense of familiarity stirred within me.
Layer upon layer of circles and lines spread across the parchment. As my gaze followed the seemingly chaotic paths, memories of the electronic circuit boards I used to salvage from junk shops in Akihabara surfaced unbidden. The symbols were entirely different, yet the logic governing the flow of power was the same.
The swirl marked an energy reservoir, while the intersecting lines bled off excess load through a network of bypasses. Even without reading the text, the structure revealed its purpose: where to pour Mana, how to regulate it, and where to release it. The physical pathways emerged with startling clarity, as vivid as a grease-stained wiring diagram.
(So this is how it connects. At this junction, I spike the voltage and force the motor to turn.)
The logic unfolded before me as naturally as breathing.
”In other words,” I said, pointing to a section of the diagram, “if I bypass the damaged circuits and flood this point with Mana, I can forcibly reboot a system that’s stopped, correct?”
Elie drew in a trembling breath. “Ahhh… as expected of you. To gaze down upon the logic of this world itself and grasp in a single glance what should take centuries to reach…”
”I understand the theory,” I said. “Let’s move on to a practical test.”
Returning the parchment, I stepped deeper into the chamber.
At its center, beneath the pale blue glow of a magic lamp, lay a single body upon a stone pedestal.
Jessica.
She was the daughter of the slave merchant who had abused children in the streets of Niver. I had executed her with my own hands and immediately subjected her to a resuscitation process. Since then, she had remained here as little more than a biological display piece.
The output of the Extra Heal spell I had used on her appeared to have been excessive. The whip marks crossing her body and the bruises left by strangulation had been reset down to the cellular level. Her ample chest rose and fell with clockwork regularity, while only the faint sound of her breathing disturbed the silence. Her cheeks held the warmth and elasticity of living flesh, making her stillness all the more unsettling. Yet her eyelids remained stubbornly shut, as motionless as carved stone. Since that day, she had not blinked even once.
”Biological activity remains extremely stable,” Elie reported as she approached the pedestal, crystal sensor in hand. Her fingertips drifted through Jessica’s blonde hair with an almost possessive tenderness. “Circulation, respiration, digestion, absorption—all systems are functioning according to specification. However, that is the limit of observable activity. Feeding relies entirely on swallowing reflexes, and excretion remains uncontrolled. Had I not continuously supplied nutrients and spirit energy through tubes, the body would have reached its physical limits long ago.”
”Hm. So consciousness has not returned.”
I leaned over Jessica’s face.
She looked as though she were peacefully asleep.
No matter how loudly I clapped beside her ears or pinched her cheeks, however, her eyes never moved.
”Correct,” Elie said, adjusting her glasses. “There are no defects in the physical vessel or Mana circuits. The problem lies in the core. The archive of memory remains blank. There are no avoidance responses to pain, no pleasure-induced secretions, no signs of self-awareness. The damage to the brain has been repaired, but the signal carrying the ego and its memories was severed. As she is now, she is merely a beautiful shell.”
”I see. A machine with a brand-new chassis and an engine that won’t start.”
”But Master…” Elie’s gaze turned almost sticky. “This is precisely where the theory becomes relevant. Retrieving a soul once it has passed beyond the veil defies the laws of God. Yet if we apply the reconstructed ancient technique—’Regenerate’—and rebuild the neural network with greater precision before applying a Mana load at the very edge of its tolerance, we may be able to reignite the remnants of her ego.”
”Reignite the ego, huh?”
”Yes. There is no guarantee her original personality will return intact, but the probability is high that we can restore her to a state where she can comprehend language and respond to external stimuli.”
A smile tugged at the corner of my mouth.
”Interesting. Let’s do it.”
I pressed my right palm against Jessica’s forehead.
Warm.
Mana flowed from me into her body. Beneath her skin, I sensed the pulse of blood and the faint hum of bioelectrical activity. I imagined a forced bypass through damaged pathways, followed by a sudden surge. Burned-out synapses fused together under the pressure of Mana as I hammered overwhelming power into stagnant thought circuits like an electrical current.
”‘Regenerate.’”
Golden light erupted from my palm, bright enough to sear my vision, and swallowed Jessica’s head whole.
Snap. Crackle. Pop.
Inside her skull, I heard the phantom sound of something burning and sparking as violent signals raced through empty circuits.
Thump.
Jessica’s body jerked violently.
A wet gasp bubbled up from the back of her throat.
”Ah… h-hyuu…!”
Snap.
Her eyes flew open.
Clear ochre irises stared into the light.
They were not hollow.
Her pupils darted wildly, searching for something to anchor themselves to. At last, they found me.
A single blink.
Her dry lips trembled before a ragged whisper escaped them.
”…A…u…? W-where… am I…?”
Her unfocused gaze traced my silhouette as understanding slowly took shape.
Then past and present collided like crossed wires.
Her ochre pupils shrank to pinpoints.
”…Y-you…”
That single word told me everything.
She remembered.
The man standing before her was the one who had killed her, destroyed her family, and taken everything she had ever possessed.
I met her stare with a faint smirk, watching recognition harden into something far darker.
—
Summary:
The protagonist and researcher Elie successfully decipher the forbidden technique ‘Regenerate’ in a secret chamber deep underground. They test this technique on the reanimated but catatonic Jessica to jump-start her stalled consciousness using the protagonist’s Mana. The experiment succeeds, but Jessica immediately regains her traumatic memories and recognizes the protagonist as her destroyer.
—
Trivia:
Jessica was previously executed and then resuscitated by the protagonist.
The protagonist perceives magic logic through the lens of electronic hardware maintenance.
Elie’s clinical obsession with research subjects borders on the psychopathic.
—
Translation Notes:
Notes:
• Elie – An eighteen-year-old virgin research director with pale skin, glasses, and silver hair hiding her eyes. Sold into slavery by her parents to reduce mouths to feed, she now wears a white coat, functioning as a cold, calculating assistant. Driven by an obsessive, mad fervor for forbidden magic, her chilling, detached attitude leads her to treat buyers and others as research specimens to be corrected.
• Man – A roughneck wearing a hat who participated in a group assault. He suffers the loss of his right arm and later his left arm during an experiment by the protagonist before being stored.
• Jessica – A blonde-haired woman with ochre eyes, a glamorous yet athletic physique, and a sharp, small face featuring drooping eyes and puckered lips. Reanimated from death as a modified biological vessel, her tear-ruined face masks a captive harboring a burning, murderous resentment toward her captor for her family’s murder. Her initial fits of rage and defiance are forcibly suppressed by chemical agents.
• Ben – Struan’s son and Torben’s nephew, this young man served as a callous guide at their base, assisting in the family’s slave-trading enterprise. After confessing to his role in Mia’s death, he was bound by Stone Ball magic and drowned by Ryuichi. His corpse was later stored in the Interdimensional Space as a trophy of the protagonist’s retribution.
• Ryu – A man with Interdimensional Magic who leads a growing household. He acts as a provider and protector for his slaves, while maintaining a pragmatic and blunt personality.
Please bookmark this series and rate ☆☆☆☆☆ on here!
Edited by Kanaa-senpai.
Thanks for reading.
Leave a Reply