Chapter 167: Velber: Winning the Simulation, Losing Reality
Noah watched the simulation unfold, his anticipation growing for what was to come.
After all, Manaka Sajyou had arrived and Velber had been captured. The crisis of the second volume should have been resolved by now. He wanted to see how far his simulated self could take this plan and exactly what would happen next.
[Following your own vision, you continue to complete the internal architecture of your domain.]
[You take the time to fully unleash the authority of your Blessing of the End. First, you restore the Divine Era Blessing to the land, and then you begin bestowing blessings upon your subordinates—the administrative officials, the knights, and even the maids.]
[Ordinary knights and maids receive a unified blessing, while those like the administrative officials, the candidates for the Knights of the Round Table, the commanders and captains of other knight orders, and the head maid are pulled aside to receive individual, specialized blessings.]
[Furthermore, based on the model of the Starship, you forge unique Divine Artifacts for those who received these independent blessings.]
[In the process, you also begin the formal founding of the Knights of the Round Table.]
[Because the organizational model has changed, the current Knights of the Round Table only selects members from the high-ranking officers. Members like Lancelot and Lamorak, after joining your faction, are deployed to independent knight orders for tempering and leadership experience, rising through the ranks step by step.]
[Just when you feel ready to push forward with the construction of the world's Grand Crown, you discover that things like the "City of the Huns" have begun to reappear.]
[Such attacks are naturally no longer a problem for the current you.]
[However, the enemy only appears once, baiting out a wave of civilization energy before vanishing again.]
[Suspecting there is something deeper behind this, you begin a thorough investigation.]
[You investigate for a long time. Occasionally, a "City of the Huns" responsible for collecting civilization energy crashes down, but by relying on Vivian's prophetic abilities, you repeatedly thwart the enemy's wanton actions. Still, you are never able to uncover the mastermind behind it all.]
[Even prophecies fail to reveal who the opponent is or where they are hiding.]
[At this stage, even if you aren't entirely certain, you form a hypothesis.]
[When Manaka Sajyou captured it previously, Velber must have undergone another split. However, this time it did something very clever: it left the majority of itself behind as a decoy, while the "real" self escaped as the small portion that should have been discarded, carrying only a tiny fraction of vital data.]
[The entity behind these current actions is likely that remnant.]
[You search for Velber constantly, but it remains elusive.]
[It is not until Velber feels the time is ripe—having collected a significant amount of civilization energy over the years—that it feels partially recovered and begins to act openly again.]
[You treat this matter with the utmost gravity.]
[During this process, you also devise a plan to completely destroy Velber.]
[That plan involves locking onto the enemy's most vital core data from the very start. This way, its survival method of splitting and hiding would no longer be effective.]
[After searching the entire Earth to no avail, you finally find Velber reappearing in deep space.]
[It is located within an asteroid belt in the solar system. Upon arriving, you first discover that the material of the asteroids here is exceptional—far better suited for building a Starship than any known material. Secondly, you encounter Velber, which has already forged a new body using these special asteroids.]
[You engage it in direct combat.]
[Despite its long preparation, Velber ultimately loses to you, the wielder of Excalibur and Avalon. However, just as you lock onto Velber's vital data and prepare to delete it, you realize that even after deleting that data, the enemy is not fully under your control.]
[The weaponized body controlled by Velber lets out a weak, mocking laugh.]
["I knew thou wouldst think thus; I knew thou wouldst act so."]
["Even thou couldst not have imagined that those seemingly vital data points were not my source. For me, the truly essential data is but this negligible speck—like dust upon a precious treasure. Thus, even thou wouldst overlook it."]
["I indeed have no way to defeat thee, but I refuse to accept failure."]
["Everything is within my calculations."]
["Perish along with me!"]
[Having seized the wrong core consciousness, you are caught in the blast when Velber detonates the entire asteroid belt. Because you had used Avalon during the preceding battle, you are unable to avoid the fallout.]
[Umbral Star Velber is dead.]
[You are also dead.]
...
Seeing this result, Noah let out a long breath.
To say he was angry wouldn't be quite right. In fact, he almost wanted to laugh.
In the simulation, he had indeed been tricked by Velber, but that was just a simulation...
"The truly important data is just that tiny bit, right? I'll remember that!"
Noah hadn't expected that Velber could achieve so much with just a sliver of data, even going as far as taking him down with it.
Well, this time, he would be more decisive.
When he eventually tracked down Starship Velber 02 in reality, he would lock onto every single microscopic bit of data. After devouring its entire database, he would delete it right then and there!
Velber could never have imagined that Noah possessed a simulator.
In the simulation, it probably thought it was the end and that there was no harm in being a bit talkative. Consequently, its most critical weakness had now fallen into the hands of the real-world Noah!
"Go ahead and self-destruct, go ahead and calculate. Heh."
Noah first confirmed the plan for his side, then looked at the second volume, which still hadn't ended even after reaching such a conclusion. He suppressed his restless heart and chose the reward tag: [(Mythic) Planetary Core].
"Can't rush this... I'm not someone naturally gifted in schemes and strategy, so I need to calculate everything carefully first."
"Besides, if I kill Velber too early, I wonder what Manaka Sajyou will bring as her tribute instead..."
Noah opened the page for the completion conditions of the second volume.
He noticed that the first entry—the plot thread for Titan Altera—was already marked as completed.
Thinking about it, that made sense. Back in the simulation for the first volume, he had already seen the ending where the Titan destroyed everything. Then, in these three simulations, he had seen the ending where the Titan was controlled by Velber, the ending where he saved the Titan and resolved the Velber threat, and the ending where the Titan died... Her story arc was indeed mostly exhausted.
However, Manaka Sajyou's entry was not yet marked as complete.
Her role in the story so far... once she brought information as a tribute, and another time she brought Velber's database as a tribute...
"Does that mean if I solve the Velber problem too early, Manaka Sajyou won't have a new tribute to offer?"