13. YoRuHa

Year 2030.

Medical technology in the Cairo World had advanced significantly.

Blood tests, immune function screenings—including immunoglobulin complements and lymphocyte subset ratios and absolute values—all came back normal.

In other words, Lino had truly escaped the shadow of death.

Returning home.

While packing, he found a will.

Ah, yes, he had written a will for himself.

And considering how life changed daily, he updated it every week.

Lino was a man who liked to prepare for the worst.

He faced even death with a fair and pragmatic attitude.

But to be honest, Lino’s inheritance was almost negligible.

He had prepared a hard drive filled with a terabyte of food supplies for the elderly men who frequented the downstairs chess parlor.

For the internet café owner downstairs, who had no emergency exit, he left a pen—just in case of fire, so the trapped owner could write a will with the help of firefighters.

For a certain underage male tenant on the twelfth floor, he left a large-sized women's outfit and lubricant.

For a property manager lady who often scolded him, he prepared a model of a water meter.

For a neighbor frequently away on business trips, he left over thirty photos and addresses of the old men his wife brought home during pregnancy.

All these people had once cared about Lino.

Most notably, for Dr. Xu, who treated him, Lino left a treasure map—the treasure being a hair growth tonic.

At the bottom of the will, he wrote:

“All my life, I’ve lived amid sickness and fragile days, yet you all shone like the primal fire. Now that I am dead, for your warmth and the value of your existence, I have put over three hundred self-portraits on this hard drive. Feel free to choose whichever you like; all are in black and white.”

Lino smiled as he read what he had written, then burned the will.

He then put all his medications away in a cabinet and sealed it with a sticker.

Inside were strong painkillers, which were considered contraband in society—best kept hidden.

He then took stock of his assets.

A few seconds later, he began to worry again.

He had always prepared for everything in life—except for recovery from illness. Had he known this day would come, he would have earned money diligently…

1,266.5 yuan—his entire fortune.

Though he owned a two-bedroom apartment in the city’s prime area, his liquid assets were too scarce; he had to find ways to make money.

Outside, the sun shone brightly.

Daytime was not suitable for work.

As mentioned before, Lino was a comic artist.

To put it nicely, a manga creator; realistically, an unemployed drifter who had to pay his own social insurance.

After his mother passed away, he could have capitalized on his rare disease by starting a livestream account, crowdfunding, and counting money at home.

But he was an odd man.

He could obsess over trivial matters without restraint but secretly wanted to preserve a strange sense of dignity.

In his philosophy, money could be tricked, earned, or stolen—but never obtained without labor, for otherwise, what distinguished him from pigs waiting in the sty to be fed?

The result of maintaining such principles was poverty.

Lino’s serialized comics received good online feedback because his artwork was truly excellent—every time he looked in the mirror, he saw a walking human scanner.

But his irregular updates meant subscriptions were poor—praised but not profitable.

Nowadays, comics were drawn on graphic tablets, which were fast but expensive.

So Lino deceived himself, believing only ink-dipped pen drawings had soul.

Eventually, he convinced himself of this.

This caused his submissions to be highly irregular; while others posted two color comics a week, he could only manage one black-and-white comic every two weeks—any success at all would be a miracle.

Because of his health problems, comic editors dared not pressure him.

Also, creating comics required inspiration, and Lino was easygoing, never forcing sudden bursts of creativity, so... he was even poorer.

One day, he messaged his editor on a chat app: “I want to update weekly.”

About two seconds later, his landline rang; the editor asked if he had lost his phone…

Lino answered with tired eyes, “Yes,” then hung up.

“Better finish some work before talking to him.”

He needed to earn money through comics or other means to buy a fake ID and work as a host.

That was the daily reality.

He then focused on the earlier task.

In the “Detective” mission, what concerned him most was the cult’s symbol—“yoruha.”

Police reports suggested this word might refer to a tribe called “Ruba.”

But considering the “Endless Corridor” was filled with game worlds, Lino’s first association was something else.

Yoruha.

YoRuHa.

The name of an organization from the game NieR: Automata.

This discovery was why Lino chose not to delve deeply into the mission.

He dared not imagine the chilling truth behind the mission.

Maybe the cult and the murder case involved extraterrestrials; probing further might increase the mission’s difficulty drastically.

If this were a mission in another world, he would figure out how to break the rules and cause trouble.

But for a real-world mission, he couldn’t afford the consequences of escalating difficulty.

After tidying his room, he took out an old camera and set it up in front of the sofa.

He sat down.

“Endless Corridor, player Lino, number 5900.”

[Return to Endless Corridor?]

“Yes.”

...

When Lino returned to that “login space,” just as his eyes adjusted to the light, he suddenly heard:

[Contact with a special game world sharing the same worldview]

[YoRuHa—NieR: Automata]

[You may now choose this world as your next mission location or opt for a random mission]

[You have four hours from hearing this message to decide; after that, the train to this mission will be canceled]

“As expected.”

Lino stroked his chin, then opened the mission tombstone and reviewed the mission details again.

Script missions had monthly participation limits.

Four real-world scripts.

Two mission scripts.

Choosing a mission script would randomly assign him to another game world.

“Other” was ambiguous—did it mean a game existing in the player’s world, or a game in some unknown world?

Another troublesome question.

However, once you found game information connected to the real world, you could open a direct train to that game world.

That solved an early problem for Lino.

Information was the most important weapon.

Knowing the details of the world would make the mission much easier—or so he hoped.

“Pending NieR.”

Lino stood and glanced back at the Blood Pool where the Probability System resided.

He walked over as several distorted little figures fished a white card from the Blood Pool.

When Lino took the card, a panel appeared before his eyes:

[Cleared script “Detective.” Based on completion method, “Slightly Damaged Poké Ball” upgraded in quality and gained new functions.]

The white card emitted a glow in his hand.

Soon after, a black-and-white Poké Ball floated before him.

[Random Stat Mod Poké Ball]

[Quality: Common]

[Hint 1: When target HP falls below a theoretical 2%, there is a 75% chance of capture]

[Hint 2: Can capture any creature within the script but cannot be used on players, including yourself]

[Hint 3: Captured creature’s stats will be redistributed according to total base stats]

[Description: A certain trainer used this ball to capture a strength-type warrior; upon release, the warrior transformed into a mage.]