Chapter 157 - Eldlich Schreiber

We finally arrived at the KAWAII Headquarters, the towering glass structure gleaming like a monument to elegance and eccentricity. The aroma of spicy tteokbokki still lingered from the white paper bag Myrrh and I carried, promising a warm treat after the long trip.

But the moment we stepped into the conference room, the sight before us made me freeze mid-step. Agent Feena sat with her legs crossed, exuding effortless grace as she sipped tea from a porcelain cup, her pink hair glinting under the chandelier’s soft glow. Across from her sat someone completely unexpected—a petite girl with twin ponytails, her hair split into a striking two-tone of pastel pink and ocean blue, like cotton candy meeting the summer sky.

“Oh, your excellency!” Myrrh clapped her hands with unfiltered excitement, her emerald eyes sparkling. “It’s nice to meet you!”

“Oh, the entitled brat is here,” I muttered under my breath, dropping the tteokbokki bag onto the polished mahogany table with a dull thud. “Why the hell are you here?”

Before I could enjoy the satisfaction of that remark, a sharp pain shot through my foot. “Ow!” I yelped, nearly hopping in place as Myrrh’s heel dug mercilessly into my toes.

“Hey! Be nice!” she hissed, her polite smile never faltering.

“Okay, okay!” I surrendered, biting back a groan.

“Haha.” The Kaiserin’s laugh was soft yet brimming with condescension, like a silver spoon clinking against fine china. She set her teacup down with aristocratic precision and smirked. “A lovely afternoon to you as well, Myrrh. Same to you… goon.”

This fucking brat! One day, I swear, I’ll slap her, hard enough to echo through her royal bloodline. I’ll just have to start saving for bail first. But mark my words… one day, the Kaiserin will taste the holy wrath of my backhand!

“Please, have a seat,” Agent Feena said, her gentle tone a stark contrast to the tension crackling in the air. She gestured to the vacant chair beside her with the poise of a seasoned diplomat.

Myrrh, cheerful as ever, slid into the seat next to the Kaiserin, their conversation blooming like flowers in spring. Meanwhile, I dragged myself to the chair on Myrrh’s other side. No way was I sitting between that self-proclaimed empress and the pink-haired tea-sipping hag. If hell had a waiting room, that would be it. I’d rather stick close to Myrrh—the one sane soul in this circus of madness.

“Before we begin,” Agent Feena’s voice carried a rare softness, like porcelain threatening to crack, “I want to congratulate you two, not just for saving the world, but for preserving the very fabric of our reality.” Her eyes flickered with something unspoken, something heavy. “However… since you lost your dear friends, I wasn’t sure how to approach this meeting. Should we celebrate… or mourn?” She exhaled slowly, her fingers tracing the rim of her teacup. “After all, they erased themselves from existence for our sake.”

The room fell into a brief silence. The faint hum of the chandelier above seemed louder than before.

“What were their names again?” The Kaiserin asked suddenly, tilting her head with childlike curiosity, though her sharp eyes glimmered with an unsettling regal authority.

“Neil Orbeus… and Fei Xian,” I said, each name rolling off my tongue like fragments of a broken melody.

The Kaiserin closed her eyes and gave a graceful bow, her lips curling into a serene smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. “We shall hold a special memorial for those who have fallen. It is thanks to them that the War against Seraphoss ended without countless more lives lost.”

Agent Feena rested her chin on her hand, her expression distant, as if searching through fog. “Those names… they sound strangely familiar,” she murmured. “I’m certain I’ve crossed paths with them, even if only briefly.” Her brows knitted as she leaned back, staring at nothing. “And yet, the memories aren’t there. It’s as if they were… overwritten.” She gave a bitter smile. “The only proof I had was Myrrh’s report, and honestly? Reading it felt like standing in a dream I couldn’t wake up from.”

My gaze shifted toward Myrrh. She sat quietly, twirling a strand of her long greenish-blonde hair around her finger, her usual cheerful demeanor muted. I hadn’t known she submitted a report to KAWAII HQ about everything that happened during the battle against the Cosmic Goddess. She must have carried that weight alone while I was drowning in my own thoughts. Always working hard, even when no one noticed.

Finally, I broke the silence. My voice sounded rough, heavier than I intended.

“So… what exactly happened during the war last night?”

“As the Kaiserin said earlier,” Agent Feena continued, her voice calm yet edged with gravity, “there were no casualties, except for the two you mentioned. When the Cosmic Tree reset reality, it erased every scar, every ruin, as if the war had never taken place. Overnight, the world returned to normal. But the memories…” Her eyes darkened slightly. “They remain very much real.”

“I believe this has happened before, right, Big Sis Feena?” The Kaiserin tilted her head, curiosity laced with something sharper.

“That’s right.” Agent Feena gave a slow nod, her fingers drumming lightly on the table. “Fourteen—no, fifteen years ago.  When the Cosmic Beasts pierced through Earth’s defenses and twisted the fabric of reality itself.” Her words hung heavy, like the shadow of a wound no one dared to touch.

And then—

Something inside me cracked open.

A flash seared through my mind.

White. Endless white. A sterile room drowning in light.

Children, dozens of them, clad in loose white robes, their faces pale and hollow, like marionettes waiting for a string to pull. Doctors loomed over them, their black robes brushing the polished floor, their faces hidden behind grotesque plague masks, the glass eyes glinting with a cold, insect-like gleam.

And then the blackboard, looming larger than life, its surface scrawled not with letters but with endless streams of binary, white chalk digits crawling like worms across the dark slate.

For some reason, the code burned into my mind with terrifying clarity, as if it had been carved there years ago:

01001101 01100101 01100011 01101000 01100001 01101110 01101111 01110011 01110011 00100000 01000110 01100101 01101100 01101100 01101111 01110111 01110011 01101000 01101001 01110000 00100000 01001111 01110010 01101001 01100101 01101110 01110100 01100001 01110100 01101001 01101111 01101110 00111010 00100000 01010110 01101111 01101001 01100011 01100101 00100000 01101111 01100110 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01001111 01110101 01110100 01100101 01110010 00100000 01000111 01101111 01100100

Each cluster of numbers echoed in my skull like an alien hymn. My breath hitched. My stomach churned. The blackboard seemed to lean closer, swallowing everything.

“Zaft?”

Myrrh’s voice shattered the vision like glass. I blinked hard, heart hammering in my chest, and reality snapped back to the polished conference table, the soft glow of chandeliers, the faint spice of cooling tteokbokki.

“Huh? Oh… Myrrh.” I forced a shaky smile, wiping the cold sweat from my temple.

“You spaced out for a second,” the Kaiserin remarked, her tone almost playful, but her sharp gaze dissected me like a scalpel.

“I-I’m sorry, Your Excellency.” Myrrh quickly bowed her head, her ponytail swaying as she forced a bright, apologetic smile. “Zaft here… he was the sole survivor during the Cosmic Beast attack fifteen years ago.” Her voice softened, like she was stepping carefully over shards of glass. “He still suffers from… trauma and survivor’s guilt. So, if possible, we’d appreciate it if we didn’t dig too deep into that matter. He’s also been dealing with… anxiety, especially after we lost our friends.”

The Kaiserin’s expression shifted, her aristocratic poise melting into something almost… human. She lowered her gaze, lips pressing into a thin line before she offered a shallow bow in my direction. “Oh… I apologize, Zaft.” Her tone was gentle, but when her eyes flicked toward Agent Feena, they hardened like tempered steel.

Agent Feena read the silent message loud and clear. With a single nod, she straightened in her chair and shifted the atmosphere like flipping a switch. “Understood. In that case…” She reached out and tapped her sleek datapad.

A soft chime filled the room as a shimmering hologram bloomed above the table, the blue light painting shadows across our faces. The figure that materialized was of an old man, tall and lean, his presence radiating an eerie, commanding aura even through the projection. Snow-white hair cascaded neatly past his shoulders, framing a face carved with deep lines of wisdom—or malice. His beard and mustache matched, giving him the air of some ancient philosopher, though the jet-black formal attire spoke of power and precision. One gloved hand gripped a silver-tipped cane, its polished surface catching the flicker of holographic light like a serpent’s fang.

I squinted at him, my brain trying to connect dots that didn’t exist. Then, instinctively, my mouth ran ahead of me. “Isn’t that… Cthulhu Grandpa?”

Agent Feena gave me a sideways glance that carried the weight of a thousand unspoken sighs. “You can call him that if it helps you sleep at night,” she said dryly. “But according to our database, his real name is Eldlich Schreiber.”

I rubbed my chin, trying to shake off the uneasy feeling crawling up my spine. “I feel like I’ve heard that name before…”

Myrrh tilted her head, her eyes flicking toward me. “He’s the Founder of the Neo Terrestrial Reich, right?”

“That’s correct.” Agent Feena’s tone was sharp, almost like a blade sliding out of its sheath. “However, the timelines don’t add up. Eldlich Schreiber should be at least ninety years old by now, clinging to life with the help of cutting-edge medical tech. The last time our intel confirmed his presence on Earth’s surface, he was practically a walking corpse, skin stretched thin over bone, surviving only because of a portable dialysis and blood pump system.”

She swiped her fingers across the air, and the hologram shifted with a soft ripple. The next image hit me like a cold slap: a man who was barely human anymore—sunken cheeks, skin hanging in folds like wet parchment. Dozens of tubes and wires snaked into his nostrils and mouth, feeding him oxygen and whatever vile concoction kept his decaying body alive. Around him stood actual terrorists, their AK-97 rifles gleaming under harsh fluorescent lights.

The sight dug into my mind, unearthing another memory—Dianca’s voice. Her quiet confession echoing in the hollow corridors of my thoughts: I am the Third Apostle of the Cosmic Goddess.

Third. Which meant two others existed—maybe still out there. And if Dianca was already that powerful… what about the others?

“Maybe…” I muttered under my breath, the words tasting like iron. “Maybe he cut a deal with the Cosmic Goddess… and became immortal.”

“That’s the thing,” Agent Feena’s voice dropped to a near whisper, heavy with something I couldn’t quite name. Her pink eyes narrowed, burning with restrained fury. “Back when you defeated the Cosmic Goddess, Eldlich Schreiber didn’t fall. He kept fighting. Even after her defeat, even after reality reset, he remained. Immortal.” Her hand clenched slightly, the leather of her gloves creaking under pressure. “He wiped out our entire squad that day. I was the only one who crawled away alive… barely.”

“How did you survive, then?” I asked, my voice low, almost hesitant, like I wasn’t sure I wanted the answer.

“It was all thanks to your friends’ Cosmic Tree,” Agent Feena replied, her tone calm but edged with something brittle. “Right before Eldlich Schreiber could finish us, reality was rewritten.”

The words hung in the air like dust motes in still sunlight. Silence settled over the conference room, thick and suffocating. The only sound breaking it was the soft, almost obscene noise of the Kaiserin chewing tteokbokki, her delicate jaw working methodically as if this wasn’t a conversation about survival, death, and gods. The spicy aroma of the dish clashed with the sterile chill that had seeped into the room.

That sound snapped me back to another thought—one that had been needling at the back of my mind since the war.

“B-by the way, small brat—” I stopped, caught her sharp glance, and quickly corrected myself, “I mean… your excellency…” My throat tightened as I forced the words out. “About the WMD Series… How did you activate that on my system?”

The Kaiserin froze mid-chew. For a second, her doll-like face was unreadable. Then she swallowed slowly, the sound of it strangely loud in the silence. Her small hand rose, palm facing upward, and it glowed.

Glowing, sky-blue circuits lit up under her pale skin, crawling across her fingers in intricate patterns like living veins of light. The luminous etchings pulsed faintly, as if alive, casting a ghostly hue over her face.

“I do not know the entire mechanism myself,” she said finally, her voice soft, almost melodic. “But my mother told me that the Archonlight System was created by the same god you formed a contract with.”

My breath hitched.

“The Archonlight System,” she continued, her glowing hand curling slightly as if holding something unseen, “has been the shield of mankind here in Xyraxis, keeping us safe from the Cosmic Beasts. And its origin…” She smiled then—an innocent, almost childlike smile, but one that made my stomach twist. “Its origin lies with Mechanoss.”

Mechanoss. The name crashed through my thoughts like a falling tower, dredging up echoes of binary code and the whispering void of my flashback.

“I just figured out,” the Kaiserin said sweetly, tilting her head like a porcelain doll, “that your WMD Series follows the same principle.”