"Long story short, I have no idea where this thing came from. It showed up out of nowhere in the middle of the test!"
Inside the virtual space, the female Rover parried and dodged the female Tacet Discord's relentless attacks while shouting a summary to her counterpart.
Despite being in a simulation, sweat ran down her back. The creature was furious. In the moment Rover had intervened, she'd not only evaded its strike but landed a cut of her own.
That wasn't provocation. That was provocation squared.
"Unforgivable... must... eliminate..."
The Dreamless lunged at her again. Rover pulled a Sword from his Tacet Mark storage and hurled it at the Calamity Class monstrosity. It bounced off without effect, predictably. Against something at this level, a thrown blade was a mosquito bite. In reality, a single swing of the Dreamless' scythe could annihilate an army. But damage wasn't the point. He needed its attention.
She'd been fighting this thing alone before he arrived, trading blows with a top-tier Tacet Discord far longer than anyone should have to. Drawing aggro was the least he could do, buying her a few seconds to breathe.
And as the pieces clicked together, he remembered this part of the story.
"Right. So that's what this is."
Good news: this isn't a life-or-death crisis.
The Dreamless before them was a virtual Frequency construct. Even if he and the female Rover stood still and let it carve them apart, the worst outcome was waking up in the real world. This was still the testing space built to evaluate her combat ability.
As for why he'd appeared here, the answer was almost certainly their strange connection. When she'd been in danger, their Frequencies resonated and his consciousness had been projected into the simulation.
An impossibility for normal people. Not even twins could do this.
But the two of them could, because their Frequencies were identical. Their existences were mirrors of each other: you are me, I am you. The only difference was which body housed the soul. When one of them was in danger and their mind sharpened to a razor's edge, the other would sense it. In the real world, sensing it wouldn't have helped him reach her. But in a virtual space, his consciousness could cross any distance through their link.
The enemy itself, though, was pure coincidence.
"This is probably Threnodian data stored in the research institute's systems. It's only a data fragment, but it has enough awareness to react. The moment it detected a Rover in here, it went haywire!"
His lip twitched as the full picture came together.
Threnodians were the antithesis of Civilization, born alongside it. The stronger the Civilization, the more terrible the Threnodian it spawned. They fed on Civilization's destruction by instinct.
And worse...
Threnodians were immortal.
A Civilization as powerful as Jinzhou's would naturally produce an equally terrifying Threnodian. At some point during the struggle against it, Jinzhou must have captured a fragment of its Frequency for research purposes.
Before losing her memories, the female Rover had defeated Threnodians multiple times. She could never destroy them outright, but each time she'd beaten them into a dormancy so deep they couldn't stir again. Until now.
When she'd entered this virtual space for testing, the Threnodian data fragment stored in the institute's systems had sensed its ancient nemesis. A Rover had come again. Even as nothing more than recorded data, the recognition triggered a violent response. It had summoned this Calamity Class Tacet Discord as its weapon.
"I don't even know where to begin with this!"
Rover crossed two Swords to block the Dreamless' scythe, working through the explanation using knowledge from his past life. He couldn't blame himself for not predicting this. The game had never spelled it out directly, only offered some vague, hand-wavy lore dump that raised more questions than it answered. All he wanted to do right now was shout at the developers. Kuro, you absolute trolls! Where's my compensation ten-pull?!
"But now that I know you're nothing but a Frequency construct, the solution's obvious. Abby, you're up!"
He summoned Abby and threw himself sideways as the Dreamless' scythe tore through the space where he'd been standing, a blow that could have split a mountain. The Calamity Class boss's stats were absurd. Neither of them could take it head-on.
Together, they could hold the line without falling.
But there was no opening to strike back.
Unless...
"Leave it to me! Nobody attacks my Rover and gets away with it. I'll eat you alive!"
Abby locked onto the Calamity Class Tacet Discord without a shred of fear and charged. Its small mouth opened wide and inhaled. The Frequency data composing the Dreamless began to thin, wavering like a candle flame in wind.
But Abby's eyes went wide too.
What... what IS this? It's hollow? There's no flavor at all! I got a counterfeit! I want a refund!
"Of course it's a fake. It's virtual," Rover said.
No matter how perfectly the appearance and abilities were replicated, the Frequency powering this Tacet Discord was data. Nothing more. Abby could devour a Tacet Discord's chaotic Frequency like food, which meant this simulation was a "fake meal." Not even worth calling a ready-made dinner. And unlike devouring the real Crownless, there would be no power feedback, no level-up for either Rover.
"Stay away... from Mother... from the Threnodian...!"
In its final moments, the Dreamless cried out in defiance.
It wanted to warn its creator. This time's Rover was dangerous. There was one more of them than before, and the thing that could devour their kind, Abby, had fully sided with the enemy.
...
"Ummm, so what just happened? I feel like I ate, but also like I didn't?" Abby patted its round belly in confusion, smacking its lips. The sensation of "almost-eating" was deeply unsatisfying.
"Rover? Rover! Respond if you can hear me! What's happening in there?! I'm coming to... hm? The system's back online? Rover, can you hear me?"
With the Threnodian data purged, the virtual testing space had stabilized. Baizhi's voice broke through from outside, sharp with anxiety.
Every trace of her usual ice-queen composure had evaporated.
"Let's talk outside. I'll contact you on the Pangu Terminal."
"Okay. And... thank you. For coming to help."
"Come on. Like I wouldn't?"
She leaned her back against his, and he did the same. They sat there, propping each other up, and their hands found one another without thought. The most natural thing in the world.
They stayed like that for a while, letting the tension drain. When she finally left the virtual space, his consciousness snapped back to his body in the real world. A red-haired girl and a blue butterfly hovered over him, worry written across both of them.
"Are you okay, Rover? You went quiet all of a sudden and..."
Danjin peered at him with concern. Mid-conversation, he'd gone completely still, eyes shut, unresponsive to anything she tried. It had terrified her.
Shorekeeper was even worse. The blue butterfly circled him in rapid loops, scanning his physical state. Only after confirming nothing was wrong did she settle, visibly relieved.
"I'm fine. A small accident, that's all."
He pulled out his Pangu Terminal and called the female Rover, who was at the research institute surrounded by an equally worried Baizhi and Yangyang.
After explaining as much as both sides could reasonably follow, Baizhi announced she would run a full system diagnostic on the institute. Until she could guarantee absolute safety, his scheduled physical examination would be postponed.
"No problem. In that case, we'll move on to other plans. I'm heading into the field to farm Tacet Discords and level up my Data Dock."
"Sounds good. I've cracked part of Magistrate Jinhsi's cipher token. Some of the clues point outside the city walls. Let's rendezvous out there."
"Uh, about that token, you could actually..." He caught himself. "Never mind. I'll show you when we meet up." No point explaining over a call. I'll just demonstrate what real gamer problem-solving looks like in person.
They were both Rovers now. No need to play the puzzle-solving game by the book when you had powers that could brute-force the answer.
The call ended just as Uncle Wei finished reinforcing the Originite: Type II. Rover took it back and glanced at Danjin, who was examining her own freshly repaired Sword.
"So, Danjin. Want to head out into the wilds together?"
"Hm?" She blinked, then broke into a smile. "Sure! My blade's fixed. Perfect time to test it."
And with that, the Tacet Discord killing machine and Jinzhou's Little Reaper formed a party. The wilds beyond the city walls were about to have a very bad day.