"It seems you've decided to press on."
In the very same break room of the Extraction Team where Ye Lan had been yesterday, stood an old man, perhaps in his fifties. He held a gentleman's cane and wore a grey, pinstriped suit jacket over a rosewood-colored vest.
His face was deeply lined with wrinkles, while his full beard and slicked-back hair were impeccably groomed. A solid black tie was knotted at his collar. From the sharp creases on his clothes to his shoes, polished to a mirror shine, everything about him adhered to a strict, impeccable etiquette.
Standing opposite him was Manager A, who stared silently at the old man, awaiting his next words.
"Your mind and body have long been eroded by a merciless reality. Are you truly confident you can continue?"
A didn't speak, merely watching him in silence.
Receiving no reply, the old man shared a moment of silence with A before seeming to relent. "Fine. Regardless, you must have many questions about what's happening here. For instance, 'Who is this old man before me? Why does he have my voice and my face?'"
"A person cannot see themselves without an external aid. Think of me as a mirror that reflects you... To be precise, a shattered mirror. This old man is but a shard from that broken mirror, and his name is Abel. Drowned in anger and obstinacy, waiting to be forgotten by the world. I, just like you, chose to press on, but saw no turn for the better. Every night, I tossed and turned, plagued by nightmares."
The conversation between the two—or rather, between A and a facet of his own personality—continued, but the day's work could not be halted for their sake.
Waking up in his dormitory, Ye Lan found that the wounds on his body had been completely healed by the regeneration reactor. Not a single scar remained on his naked body.
He walked into the bathroom, and his reflection in the mirror offered a slight smile. Today was the 47th day of the current cycle. Only four days remained until the launch of the Seed of Light.
Four days. In four days, he could finally escape from this endless loop.
Beep beep!
The display on the washstand lit up, and Central's face appeared before him on the light screen once more.
"Bad news. Our attempt to enter The City via aircraft has failed. The only message the agents managed to send back was a single sentence: 'There are no stars above The City. What are those shining things?'"
"There's even worse news, isn't there?" Ye Lan asked with a cheerful smile. Central's words today were something he was hearing for the first time in countless loops. His time had truly moved forward by a day.
"Indeed, there is. A new incident has broken out in the area outside The City, known as the Ruins. We won't be able to provide you with an evacuation route for the time being."
The old woman known as Central wore a look of sincere regret on the screen, but what she was truly thinking... Ye Lan couldn't figure it out when he had just arrived in this world a decade ago, and he certainly couldn't figure it out now.
Finishing the conversation, Ye Lan walked out of his room, humming a tuneless little ditty in high spirits. In the elevator, he ran into Netzach, the Sephirah of the Security Team.
"Well, if it isn't our star employee. That sorry state you were in yesterday gave everyone quite a scare."
The Sephirah, whose shell still bore traces of Enkephalin, slapped Ye Lan hard on the back. "You actually took on that Claw all by yourself! Haha, after I heard the news yesterday, I was so shocked I had to go get some Enkephalin from Hod."
Discreetly moving the mechanical hand from his back, Ye Lan asked, "Didn't you quit?"
Seeming to understand Ye Lan's concern, the man who once used the psychoactive drug to escape reality blinked his mechanical eyes. He knocked on his own shell with a clang and said boisterously, "Ah, it was a celebration! Even if it was a trial we salvaged, it was still a Claw, right? Besides, there's no beer here, so what else is there but a little Enkephalin? Don't worry, it was just a tiny bit. I'm not running away anymore."
"I hope so..."
Ding. The elevator announced its arrival, and the two of them walked into the cafeteria together.
"We were the first who could enter the 'Well of Humanity.' We have existed for a very long time, but as time passed, our existence was gradually forgotten and denied—now, only a few can sense our presence."
Back in the break room, the conversation between Abel and A continued. Or rather, Abel's monologue to himself—or perhaps A's own—carried on.
"Only a very few. Carmen was one of them. She perceived and believed in our existence. She even tried to persuade us. If our existence could be proven, she too would have the chance to enter the 'Well of Humanity.' She firmly believed that only through the 'Well' could a cure for the world's deep-rooted malady be found. And so, we continued the unfinished research Carmen left behind, and we succeeded..."
"...This discovery allowed arrogance to take root in our subconscious. We came to believe we could rekindle the forgotten flames of life. However, the path we took was no different from that of Prometheus. So in the end, what did we truly accomplish? What did we gain? What we lost far outweighed what we obtained."
After breakfast, on his way to the locker room, Ye Lan met Hod, who was preparing to greet the new recruits. As the Sephirah of the Training Team, she needed to provide the new employees and clerks with the training manuals she had personally written.
"Morning, Hod. I saw your antenna from a mile away. Are you sure that's not a microphone?"
In his cheerful mood, Ye Lan teased Hod about the antenna on her shell, but the joke was evidently a bit too much for the timid angel.
"Th-that... It's not a microphone! And... don't make jokes about my antenna!"
"Ha, hahaha!" Hearing Hod's retort, Ye Lan laughed heartily. "Hod, have you noticed? You've become much stronger than before. You've truly moved on from what happened back then, after the Core Suppression."
"Eh?"
Leaving a bewildered Hod to wonder how he knew about that time, Ye Lan walked into his locker room. The Twilight E.G.O. suit he had worn yesterday was laid out for him. It seemed A intended for him to start work today in the same equipment.