Chapter 9: Seeking the Steed by the Drawing

Yuki rubbed his forehead, trying hard to recall the details. If memory served him right, this little creature’s ultimate fate was to die under Tregear’s attack, sacrificing itself to protect him...

Tregear, too, once had a—what was it? A pet? A companion? Or perhaps a creation? He named the little creature “Snack,” which, in the language of the Land of Light, meant “tiny one.” Was this the scriptwriter’s malice at play?

He vaguely remembered that when Tregear beat the “tiny one,” even the background music shifted, growing gentle and sorrowful. In the tangled web of cause and effect, Tregear was forced to kill his Snack with his own hands. The beam he fired at Taiga ultimately killed the “tiny one” as well. Afterwards, even the rationale he repeated was always the same—if he didn’t kill “it,” greater destruction would ensue.

They, and it, could not exist on this planet.

Pulled from a whirlwind of thoughts, Yuki noticed the next video was already playing on the screen. The scene appeared to be in a warehouse-like setting. Three people, all wearing identical brown and yellow uniforms, gathered together as if engaged in conversation. One of them evidently spotted the camera, walked over, removed his sunglasses, and in the next moment, the video cut off.

Was this… almost as if they wanted Earthlings to notice their suspicious behavior?

Yuki watched the video in silence, listening to Director Sasaki’s complaints: “You want us to investigate the identities of these three suspicious individuals? Maybe you should go to Section Four? We at Aegis aren’t your Foreign Affairs Department’s outsource company—we provide security services: personal safety, asset protection, network security…”

“Oh, come on, you know we’re short-handed at the police station. We’re swamped! Internal collaboration is just way too inefficient!”

“But the cases you handle are far too dangerous! Isn’t it fair for me to classify this as a high-risk task?”

“Oh, hey, this is just the preliminary investigation. We don’t need you to make any arrests!”

“That’s not so certain. Last time we took your case, Ayu and the others were attacked during the investigation phase.”

They ended up sending the suspect straight to the hospital.

“Exactly! Your Ayu and Yuki are way too rough—afterwards, we have to write piles of reports...!”

“What a joke, the suspect was armed!”

After much back-and-forth, Director Sasaki finally gazed at the deposit check in his hand, a satisfied smile on his lips. Officer Sakura, promising to treat everyone to barbecue after the job was done, fled in haste.

Ah, truly worthy of the title “Director.”

Still, operations would have to wait until Officer Sakura sent over the confidentiality agreement. Everyone needed to sign the contract before they could proceed, since some police materials were classified. The security company Aegis also had to avoid such risks.

That night, Yuki left work and headed home, constantly scanning the ground, hoping to find the spot where he had been attacked last time. Yet, he found nothing unusual—no traces of blood or anything else. After all, over ten days had passed; the police must have cleaned up the scene after photographing and gathering evidence.

Someone being shot dead in the street was a serious crime with terrible impact. The police would certainly hurry to erase anything that might frighten local residents.

After arriving home and setting down his bag, Yuki took a loose-leaf notebook and pen from the drawer. He drew a grid for the fifty Japanese syllables, then filled in all the basic, voiced, and semi-voiced sounds.

Next, he grabbed another sheet. One hand holding the pen, the other pressing on the Taiga Light Key, he copied down every symbol from the Land of Light visible on the interface, then began searching for patterns...

Soon, he had filled half the sheet.

He had expected the task to be arduous, but it was much faster than he imagined. While the script of the Land of Light looked tangled and complex when lined up together, knowing its correlation with the fifty syllables, with this preconception, it was like seeing the answer before the riddle—the solution came naturally.

The script was almost always composed in a left-right structure, similar to the radicals in Chinese characters. Yuki easily noticed that the right half of the script only had five variations, corresponding to the five vowels. The left half, of course, had ten forms.

The rest was just a matter of matching shapes.

Among the characters on the Light Key’s interface, all five right-side forms had appeared, and six of the ten left-side forms were present, meaning thirty decoded characters so far; the rest awaited completion.

As for voiced and semi-voiced sounds, they were simply indicated by adding two dots or a small circle to the left half of the character, straightforward and practical.

With this, most of the interface’s script was decrypted.

The first item on the first page, “Core,” generally referred to enhancements of comprehensive physical attributes. From top to bottom: Strength, Stamina, Movement Speed, Mana Limit.

Yes, you read that right—Mana Limit. As mentioned earlier, the Taiga universe included the concepts of magic and mana!

At this moment, “Core” had one distributable point.

The second item on the first page, “Offense,” consisted almost entirely of enhancements for attack damage. From top to bottom: Attack Speed, Cooldown Reduction, Critical Chance, Critical Damage.

Here, “Offense” also had one distributable point.

In Diablo 3, Paragon points are assigned in the order: “Core,” “Offense,” “Defense,” “Utility.” The first point goes to “Core,” the second to “Offense,” and so forth. Paragon points can’t be mixed; each tab can only be enhanced using points allocated to it.

The third item on the first page, “Defense,” featured enhancements focused on survival.

If possible, Yuki truly wished he could invest all Paragon points in “Defense.” He recalled a funny video from Earth where Zeta, though a rookie on the battlefield, had maxed out his defense and resistances. Surrounded by three or four space dinosaurs called Zetton, he endured over a dozen fireballs without a scratch. The video’s creator even added a health bar for Zeta: as he staggered under the impact of a trillion-degree fireball, the bar shrank just a millimeter at a time, as solid as a rock—the comments exploded with “Don’t scratch anymore, Zetton!”

Surviving is the prerequisite for dealing damage; that’s the truth.

However, with zero distributable points under “Defense,” Yuki could only sigh helplessly.

Clearly, he needed to figure out the source of Paragon points and farm them efficiently to enhance himself… During Taiga’s absence, how could he protect this Earth?

No, for a mere human to claim he could protect the planet—was that not hubris? Let alone how he would do it; faced with fifty or sixty-meter-tall monsters, what could he possibly accomplish?