After the Mewtwo ended, Lucy's face was flushed, telling him not to quit the game temporarily, and then she was the first to exit the Mewtwo.
Mercer counted silently for a few seconds, and when he returned to reality, she had already gone into the bathroom.
Mercer hesitated for less than a second before going into the bathroom as well, enduring her embarrassed complaints as he thick-skinnedly took a quick shower.
Wearing only pajama pants, after being driven out of the room by Lucy, Mercer laughed and returned to his own bedroom—Rebecca was truly carefree, Mercer had thought she'd have some trouble falling asleep.
But when he returned, she was already sound asleep, limbs sprawled in all directions.
Mercer cautiously rinsed his pajamas, threw them in the washing machine, and then crawled into bed.
Rebecca mumbled in her sleep as she turned over: "You're back? Is Lucy better or am I better?"
Mercer was startled by her words, but upon closer inspection, he found she had her eyes closed, smacked her lips, and then hugged his arm like a little piglet in her sleep—this girl clearly understood everything, knew everything, yet somehow managed not to care.
In some ways, it was truly a testament to her incredible composure...
Rarely indulging in flights of imagination, Mercer couldn't immediately fall asleep, still reminiscing about the events in Mewtwo. Rebecca's petite body was warm in his arms, in stark contrast to Lucy's initially cold body.
Not sure when it might be possible to have both...
...
For Mercer at the moment, happy times were merely a brief respite.
Even though such joyful times were once his dream life, the immense pressure still forced him to keep moving forward.
Shortly after speaking with Lucy, Mercer formally began to advance his consciousness upload and analysis plan.
Ultraman's words had indeed struck a chord with him—though Mercer always considered himself to be human, one question was something he couldn't avoid.
He knew better than anyone that he was not originally from this world.
In fact, ever since the ctOS System was developed, Mercer had been gathering information about the possible existence of a 'fourth wall'.
Unfortunately, most of the information he collected he already knew in advance.
Harboring a certain fear—perhaps worried that once he figured something out, he wouldn't be able to stay in this world anymore, Mercer had always strongly resisted exploring the reason for his traversal, or his past.
But Ultraman was right; if he didn't even understand what he was, how could he promise anything to others?
If one day his consciousness was suddenly stripped away and he returned to his body in reality, what would happen to everything in Night City? A dream?
Reading a novel and seeing such an ending, Mercer would have cursed the author's ancestors for ten generations. If something like that happened to him, he might truly wish he were dead.
On the other hand, Mercer also wanted to verify whether he could use the Relic and if he could escape death by preserving consciousness data.
The risk in dealing with Saburo was exceptionally high, and besides Saburo, Mercer also had to consider possible assassinations by other large corporations, attacks by wandering AIs, or even the sudden outbreak of corporate wars.
Not wanting to die cluelessly, he needed a strategy to stay alive. In times of crisis, even living as data would be better than being one hundred percent dead, right?
With complex thoughts in mind, Mercer decided to conduct the experiment at the underground base of his Spark Team.
There were complete large-scale server arrays there, which could delete masses of backup data when necessary to make room for his consciousness data, and it was absolutely safe and controllable. More importantly, Mercer felt it might be a lucky place.
Overall, Mercer tried to avoid the stadium, a place with an ominous vibe—it wasn't surprising that he felt a little superstitious at the moment. No matter how calm he pretended to be, at the moment of trying to decipher the secrets about himself, anxiety was inevitable.
Mercer wouldn't recklessly use himself as a test subject first; instead, he directly grabbed two death row inmates. One was a Cleaner Fish captured trying to lure a child from Dog Town.
The other was a murderer who had committed bloodshed in Night City and then murdered again after fleeing to Dog Town.
After multiple iterations of consciousness uploading and then redownloading the consciousness data while connected, Mercer became thoroughly familiar with the operations of the Soulkiller Program.
Through multiple uploads, Mercer also reaffirmed one thing—that perhaps humans really do have souls. At least during the multiple upload processes, the core consciousness data of these two individuals remained unique and unchanged.
This implies that if all humans were to be datafied, the core consciousness data of each individual would be distinct, just like humans have different DNA, perhaps representing the differentiation of human souls.
Not only is DNA different in the body, but even the core of consciousness data is different, further convincing Mercer that perhaps all his secrets lie within the core of his consciousness data.
Before uploading the consciousness data, Mercer cautiously initiated a cleanup operation, ensuring the safety of Dog Town under the sweep of the Sky Net System, drones, and Netherworld Dogs.