World Keeper

Chapter 1068: Logistical Lament

Clover and Lydia waited within the security room, staring intently at the door and ready to attack the moment that it opened. They felt the gentle rush that came from breaking the barrier, and heard multiple alerts that doors were being opened at various points in the ship. “Three? No, five of them.” Clover muttered softly, estimating their numbers based on the position of the doors being opened, as well as how long each door remained open.

Thanks to this, he was able to map it out in his head. There were three sets of monsters roaming around, and two of them had the doors open for an unusually long amount of time, indicating an additional entity passing through.

They were in a security room, so they could vent the ship, but what would that achieve? These monsters came from the outside in the first place. All he could do was place a hand on his helmet, activating the radio. “This is Clover Kyr. Please, make no attempt to respond directly to this transmission. Responses will not be received due to risk of memetic contamination. Instructions should have been broadcast from this ship’s computer.”

“I will now elaborate on the situation. Myself and Lydia Kyr are contained within a security office near the ship’s mess hall.  Currently, there are an estimated five memetic entities on the loose. These entities are invisible to information bypass equipment, but will infect anyone who observes them without such methods. These entities have begun moving more erratically after passing through the barrier, likely due to a sense of pain or stress caused by the barrier itself.”

“Upon death, the entity will be reborn from any and all infected individuals, leading to an increase in population. The marked quarantine zones mentioned in the ship’s transmission contain additional entities born from quarantined individuals. It is likely that more such entities will be created when the existing ones are exterminated. This is all of the information that can be provided without risk of infection.”

“In order to assist the quarantine crew, I will be broadcasting the location of all entities in real time, based on the passages they take in the ship. Again, make no attempt to respond to these transmissions. Until the quarantine crew arrives at our security office, I will assume that all incoming transmissions are the result of memetic infection.”

Standing at the station, Lavender’s eyes began to glow as she read through a transcript of the message. There was a power covering her eyes, preventing her from absorbing any of the information on her first read, and merely confirming or denying the presence of any supernatural power within the transcript itself.

After she finished reading the page, she shook her head, and the glow vanished. “There’s no problem with this one.” She said, reading the page again, this time to properly check the contents of the transmission.

After she was done reciting the contents, she set the paper into the first of two stacks of transcripts that had been coming in. The first stack were transcripts that were free of memetic influence, while the second was heavily redacted, with all memetic influence censored before allowing others to view it.

It had only been an hour since the first ships were launched, but already over half of them had returned, carrying some sort of memetic threat. Of those that hadn’t returned, there were some that had already dealt with their threats, others that managed to escape safely, and even a few that had completely lost contact mere minutes after departure.

Lavender was just about to speak when she heard the computer whir into motion again, already printing the next transcript. She let out a solemn sigh, the glow once again returning to her eyes. Almost immediately, she squinted, bringing her finger to the page. She felt the presence of memetic power within the text, and brushed her finger over the offending words. When she did so, the words were erased, replaced with a black line.

“Priestess Lavender!”  One of the quarantine crew captains returned. “We’ve finished clearing the Dauntless, per your instructions. Six monsters were eliminated, and ten crew were recovered safely!”

Lavender simply nodded her head, gesturing towards the ‘safe’ pile. “Take the next one from that pile.” Although the censored pile had the more dangerous situations, there was little that she could do about that. Many of those would need her or one of the other priests to personally attend the quarantine process. The other two were already out handling other vessels, so only those with relatively safe entities could be dispatched.

The captain nodded his head, grabbing the paper from the top of the pile and reading through it. He gave a small grimace as he read the reports. An enemy that could only be fought in a condition where it was invisible. “Regarding Transcript 34, I would like permission to take a disruptor pulse with us. There is the chance that it might disconnect the monster from its infected targets.”

“Granted.” Lavender nodded, continuing to censor information on the page she was reading. Once she was done, she read through what little remained, letting out a sigh. “Send the order. The Navigator has been lost to a cult-type entity. The late captain disabled all weapons as per instructions from the Security Manual, but the infected are attempting to reactivate them. This vessel needs to be destroyed.”

The captain paused, before giving a solemn nod. He turned to leave, Lavender pinching the bridge of her nose. When Priscilla had asked her to take up this post, she hadn’t expected to have so much business in one day. If anything, she thought she might go weeks without a single incident. And, that was almost true… for the weeks where ships were unable to leave.

As part of her preparations for this job, she had established a number of powers for herself, which led to her being the natural choice for the logistics commander. The first three of these were her combination of the Detection, Defense, and Black domains. The Defense domain covered her eyes, preventing her from obtaining any form of information from what she should have been looking at. The Detection domain detected any supernatural energy within that information. Finally, the Black domain is what allowed her to completely remove the infected information, without risk of further contamination.

This combination led to where she was now, with a computer that automatically printed out transcripts of all incoming transmissions from potentially hazardous targets. Meanwhile, the other two priests at this station were specialized either in fighting memetic monsters or in removing their effects from victims.

Priscilla… Lavender called out softly in her mind. Please tell me that the other stations are having an easier time?

Would that I could. Priscilla responded in an equally soft tone. Spica and Lorek have relatively few difficulties, with only three percent of ships having to return due to improper shielding. Most of the worlds are similar to yours, with the exception of Deckan. There, as many as ninety-five percent of all ships that left the station were either forced to return or lost contact. In every realm, only ships leaving through the lanes themselves have been guaranteed safety.

We need better shielding against these monsters, at least long enough to break away from their pursuit. Lavender complained, hearing the computer next to her whirring to life. As before, she activated her abilities to scan through the information.

I’m aware, and have already sent the report to the necessary research foundations. However, without more information, they can’t create a suitable shield. The models that they copied from Fragments of Acidia don’t seem to be strong enough for what we need.

When she heard that, Lavender paused, remembering her days playing the game. As I recall, all ships currently have a unified energy source, typically some form of mana reactor?

That’s right. Priscilla responded, though did so in a questioning tone.

In Fragments of Acidia, the pilot had to synchronize their energy with the ship, allowing it to pull from them. Furthermore, the only ships that were licensed to explore outside the network were those with Fragment-class shields. Maybe it takes divine energy to power these shields fully?

Priscilla immediately refuted that claim. Fragment refers to both gods and fallen in that game world. They might make a distinction when it comes to artifact creation, but not ship designs. I already brought up that possibility with the research teams. The problem we’re facing is that the monsters here are more dangerous than the ones in Fragments of Acidia. Those in the game might share the theme, but their power has been turned down to a rather low level, as far as the void replication abilities are concerned.

Lavender let out a long sigh. Confirming that there were no memetic influences in the transcript she was reading, she scanned through the information without obstruction, pausing slightly. Priscilla, you may need to contact the Keeper.

I will do so if there is an emergency. What brought this up?

An entity aboard the Journeyman’s Hope. It was successfully captured and detained by the crew. However, in the process of doing so, they discovered its memetic effects, which integrate with the world system itself. Those who remain in the presence of this monster will have their levels depleted at an average of one per minute, leading to widespread memory loss.

Whenever this monster is killed, the killer receives a new class, with a class name that seems to have corrupted text. The abilities of this class are similarly unreadable.

Priscilla paused when she heard that. I thought you said that the monster was detained, not killed?

That’s where things get strange. Lavender nodded her head. The monster appears to be capable of respawning at its point of death, five minutes after its defeat. To avoid the problem of a potentially spreading memetic class, they have instructed the same individual to repeatedly kill this creature until they were able to safely contain it.

I see… Priscilla hesitated. I’ll make the call to the Greater Pantheon, and inform them of this problem. Each world seems to have some special monsters based on the attributes of the monsters that attacked during V-Day. As I recall, Earth’s original monster was a game-type one, so this is likely the reason.

Ashley sat in her office, reviewing the code for her new game that was soon to launch. There was a small smile on her face as she confirmed that there did not seem to be any problems with the code that her team had written, before her smile suddenly dropped. She had received a report from Priscilla about a monster with an ability to grant an unknown class.

Without hesitation, she immediately ascended to the Admin Room, rushing towards the office building where her team worked. “Everyone, the tests for Ascension are on hold.” She announced, startling the team. “There is a monster contained on a ship in Earth’s system, the vessel known as Journeyman’s Hope. This monster is influencing the world’s system. I want a full report on my desk as soon as possible. Everything that you can find about this creature’s interference in the system, and what path it took to access it.”

“This is a breach of our system’s security, and we need it fixed immediately.” As soon as she gave the order, the programmers were pulling up various screens, investigating both the monster and the world’s system to look for any damages.

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