Even though there was no Rift in the game right now, it wasn’t particularly shocking or anything.
I don’t know about others, but I’m the type who scrapes the game to the bottom, always expecting and accounting for new updates while playing.
And I had somewhat thought about this new type of Rift before.
“Even if it’s new, it’s just recycling existing content.”
Even if new content comes with updates, as long as it’s from the same game, it’s bound to feel stale eventually.
Besides, it’s not even completely new—just a mix of what already exists?
With enough prior knowledge and a solid grasp of the original map structure, I could probably figure out the strategy pretty quickly.
Even if multiple things are combined, they likely don’t completely break away from the existing rules.
Of course, that doesn’t mean the strategy would be easy.
Even if it’s recycled, it’s still new. For now, I’m completely clueless, and that’s a fact.
And… that’s where Grain steps in.
All that talk about having enough prior knowledge, but in the end, it’s still a cry for help. How lame.
Ah well, isn’t life all about helping each other?
I asked Grain, who approached me, to activate her trait.
And… maybe a little excessively.
“…What do you want me to do?”
“Just scan this direction and figure out what structures are where. Let’s say… about 100 of them.”
“Do you even understand my trait?”
“Of course I do.”
Her baffled reaction was completely normal.
If you understood her ability, you’d never give such an order.
Grain’s trait: [The Observer Who Proves the Existence of All Things].
Her alias is “The Eye of Sauron.”
As the grandiose name and alias suggest, it’s not an ability you’d just use for scouting.
But if you push the trait too far, it opens up Grain’s corruption route… so practically, using it beyond a certain level is almost impossible.
Calling it “scout-specialized” is putting it mildly.
Anyway, aside from that risk, her ability is objectively broken beyond words.
Basically, if she can’t detect, analyze, or perceive something, it might as well not exist.
Not just physical objects, but even invisible energies like magic.
Heck, even—
Even if you can’t see it, you could still figure out stuff like the components of air turning into liquid.
She lives in a super science-y world… you know, the kind that’s hard for a humanities person like me to even understand.
So, as long as she’s by my side, I figured nothing could sneak up on me. Every phenomenon is visible to her eyes.
The only thing she seems to have trouble recognizing right now is my dodging or parrying. But hey, whatever.
Also, thanks to her trait, she can vaguely understand things beyond her knowledge just by observing them.
I mean, I only read about this in the description, so I’m not sure how it feels… but her practical grades are probably sky-high because of it.
When she reads a problem, her trait acts like a cheat sheet, helping her understand it.
If you go further, she can even manipulate everything around her just by activating her trait… but using that would mean she’s already corrupted, and her brain would melt in seconds, so it’s not even worth discussing.
Of course, that doesn’t mean using her trait in a normal way is easy on the brain.
Just look at how messed up she got from Seria’s magic right now.
A human brain normally only takes in as much information as it can handle. That’s how you avoid overload.
But Grain’s trait breaks through that limit and forces way more information into his head… so of course, it’s gonna hurt.
That’s why he’s always cautious and wary when meeting new people.
He has no idea what abilities they might have… or if he can even handle that information.
That’s why she initially refused to let me join the Student Council. It was all because of this.
…I went on a bit of a tangent, but the conclusion is this.
What I asked of her would put a huge burden on her brain, so it’s impossible.
Yeah, I get it.
To keep track of 100 scattered objects in your mind, you’d need to observe a huge area.
Even in an empty space, cramming that much into your head would knock you out cold. And in a Rift, where anything could be lurking, you might just lose your mind if you’re unlucky.
What I said probably sounded to her like, “Hey, just shove a bomb in your head and blow it up.”
But as always…
There’s always a way.
“Actually, you know there’s a way to do it, right, senior?”
“…How do you know about that…?”
If using the trait puts too much strain on the brain, then why not just not use the brain in the first place?
It’s not like I’m even using the trait to its full potential anyway. Just dump more of the burden on it. Like using a CPU.
That method was actually possible.
It was an official game mechanic that even explained the principle in the game.
Grain himself had mastered how to use the trait as soon as he got it, so of course, he could use this method. No need to explain or make him understand anything.
“From now on, just shift all the burden of using the ability onto the trait itself.”
“…How much do you know about my trait? I never told you.”
“There’s a way to know everything.”
“Kinda scary. Well, I knew you had a lot of secrets.”
But even as she said that, she hesitated.
Of course. There’s a big problem with this method.
If you forcibly use the trait like a CPU, it gets recognized as a connection to reality, and the ‘door’ opens.
And if the trait tries to come out… if you can’t stop it, Grain will be devoured and corrupted by the trait.
Think of it as a living trait…
It’s not certain because there’s no dedicated story for Grain, but he probably tried this method when he first got the trait and almost got devoured.
That’s why he hasn’t touched this method at all.
“I know what you’re worried about. But just trust me this one time.”
But if it were really that dangerous, I wouldn’t have suggested it in the first place.
“Can I really trust you?”
“Of course. Don’t worry, just do as I said and focus on analyzing the structure.”
“What do you mean don’t worry… Can I really trust you?”
But since he kept repeating the same question, clearly not convinced, I had no choice but to play my trump card.
“Man, have you been deceived your whole life? If something really goes wrong, I’ll give you all my assets, plus Seria’s entire fortune.”
“…Wait a minute. Rudion? Why are you putting my assets on the line too?”
“Alright. Fine. If you’re going that far, I’ll trust you.”
Seria sneakily tried to interject about my unauthorized gambling, but I ignored it and moved on with the flow.
Anyway, since I went that far, Grain…
She seemed to reluctantly accept it.
“Alright, let’s do it.”
“Yes. Please take care of it.”
Her eyes closed. But those were just the eyes of her physical body. The true eyes she possessed couldn’t be hidden even by her eyelids.
The next moment, she was engulfed in the illusion that something was watching her.
Front, side, back. Even from above her head to beneath her feet. The sensation of her entire body being scrutinized made goosebumps instantly rise.
Seria, who seemed to feel the same, approached me with a flustered expression.
“Ru, Rudion? What is this…?”
“It’s Grain senior’s ‘serious mode.'”
Grain’s peak, where he offloads all calculations to his unique trait, allowing him to grasp everything about anything.
But now… with a side effect.
Gurgle-
Gurgle-
A hole tore open in the air, and from it, a bizarre octopus-like monster, something straight out of a Cthulhu myth, began to crawl out.
It wasn’t actually related to Cthulhu, but you could think of it as his trait manifesting in that form.
It gradually emerged and began to approach Grain, who was still with his eyes closed.
“…Are you sure this is okay? Should I really keep this up?”
“Yes, don’t worry and just focus on what I asked you to do.”
Of course, I had no intention of letting it reach Grain.
I immediately drew my sword and sliced off the octopus tentacle that was trying to wrap around Grain’s body.
Whoosh-!
The tentacle exploded on the spot.
That’s right. This was exactly why I confidently told her to use her trait.
This octopus… if you parry its tentacles, they just get removed. It’s a parry mechanic, after all.
Is it because its very existence is a trait? You don’t even need to time it—just swing, and it counts as a successful parry.
Since its target was Grain, it posed no threat to me. All I had to do was keep swatting it away whenever it got close, so it wasn’t particularly dangerous.
Squish, squish, squish, squish, squish.
“Ugh, gross.”
Though the visual horror was a bit overwhelming.
A 3-meter-tall mass covered in tentacles of various sizes.
It looked kinda cool in the game, but seeing it like this, it’s really disgusting.
But what can I do? It’s the method I chose.
‘At least it’s odorless.’
Thinking as positively as I could, I faced the countless handshake requests from the octopus monster.
