One Last System

Mia's soft body was the greatest anti-stress ball that I could ask for. Surrounded by nothing but her warmth, I could put my mind at ease.

"This doesn't hold up, dear," Mia muttered. Even though she spoke against my guess, there was no disrespect in her voice. "How could this be the same world? Didn't you tell me that there was no spiritual energy on earth?" she pointed out.

And it was a valid point. A valid point... that brought me back to a very important saying, one that I never expected to see from this end.

"With technology advanced enough, you couldn't tell it apart from magic," I whispered.

It was a common quote back on earth, often used to treat those of a lesser civilizational level with disregard. And up until now, I was on the other side of the equation, looking down at those not blessed with advanced technology.

'It's a weird feeling,' I thought, immersing myself in the sea of Mia's long hair. 'To be the uncivilized one,' I thought, pretty sure about my assumption of what this entire thing called magic was.

"What do you want to say with this?" Mia asked, gently rubbing her hands against the back of my head.

"There is a chance that what we consider magic is just a new technology that I'm personally not familiar with," I replied before lowering my head and resting it on top of Mia's shoulder.

Maybe it's something that I lacked back in my first life, maybe it was something completely natural, or maybe I had this kind of disposition... But just cuddling with Mia while talking leisurely about important topics was what I could only consider the height of my life.

"Wait a second," Mia's muttered, her body tensing up. She then pushed herself out of the hug before looking me directly in the eyes. "I'm still not familiar with the stuff from the alleged past... But as someone who recognizes this place, do you think its creators wished for someone like you to discover it?"

Hearing Mia's question, I understood why her body tensed all over.

Sure, there was something pushing the two of us together in the background. And sure, there was some kind of hidden force that seemed to orchestrate some of the disasters I had to go through.

Yet, when it came to this place, despite unlocking it only by copying my very status from the system, I never really thought about the intent behind it!

"Now that you mentioned it..." I muttered, thinking hard about our situation.

'Was this just a fluke?' I asked myself, trying to put myself in the shoes of whoever created this fake city. 'Or was copying my status on that rocky screen a proper way of gaining access to this place?'

The answer to my last question would determine the intention behind the gate created in such a puzzling way. And with how, as far as I knew, there was no technique in this world that would allow one to check their statistics; only people with a system would be capable of entering this place!

"I can feel how hard you are thinking," Mia whispered, leaning herself back on my chest as she laid the side of her head on my shoulder and then pushed it up to catch my earlobe with her mouth.

It was... weird feeling to have Mia's lips and tongue caress this part of me, yet it definitely wasn't unpleasant. And soon, with Mia's saliva covering my ear, I got to enjoy this mind-numbing experience.

And it was in this joy that I managed to finally connect the dots.

"There is no way someone without a system could enter this place," I muttered, revealing my conclusion. "And that means whoever designed this place was also responsible or at the very least aware of the system appearing in the far-off future."

That was the baseline of the situation we found ourselves in. Just by estimating the age of this structure by the erosion on its outside and then adding the connection its gates had with my system...

This combination of information could only mean three things.

First, the creator of this structure was aware of the system's existence and made use of it to lock the place shut, only allowing those with the system inside.

The second possibility was that the creators of this underground city somehow knew systems would appear, leaving this place as the legacy of their civilization to those deemed worthy of unlocking it.

And lastly, there was still a chance that this underground city actually had nothing to do with me, my system, or anything else.

Being the IT guy myself, I knew how many things could go wrong in apps or programs of even small scale. Just a single user handling the site with weird resolution settings could be enough to set the entire server afire.

And with the construction of such scale followed by a scheme that reached through the long ages only to pick me?

'Damn,' I cursed under my breath. 'By the Ockham's razor's rule, this is the most realistic scenario,' I noticed.

Because certain things, assuming that magic indeed was just a form of advanced technology, would be the same both for musketeers fighting under Austerlitz as they would be for the soldiers of all three world wars, and they would remain the same for space commandos fighting off an alien invasion in a future of my own making.

They were all subject to the passage of time.

As humans were unable to break free from the fourth dimension, they were doomed to follow it in a single direction. And while the outside of the compound clearly was a subject to erosion and stacking of layers of sediment over the ages, the insides...

The insides somehow managed to split free from the grasp of time, seemingly unaffected by the slow yet constant processes that could doom entire cities to crumble in a few hundred years.

'And we are speaking about thousands of years, if not longer,' I thought, looking around the place only to confirm my doubts.

The walls appeared to be made from some sort of concrete and then smoothened on the outside.

'But what kind of concrete could stand for hundreds of years?' I thought, pinpointing one of the reasons why I couldn't fully trust this place.

This was the very reason why I didn't want to assume that me being here was all planned by some higher force. Because that would mean there existed a force capable of somewhat enforcing their will over the time periods that my tiny, human brain couldn't even comprehend!

"Arty, I will ask again," Mia spoke up when her expectation to hear my answer failed. "Do you think that whoever built this thing actually aimed for you to find it out?"

Mia's words forced me back to reality. Yet, when it came to posing an answer, I still hesitated.

"There are two possibilities. Either you are right with your guess, or our being here is completely random and accidental," I replied.

???????????????? ???????????????????????????? ???????????????????????? ???????????????????? ???????? ????????????????????-????????????.????????????

Between some massive force influencing events ages after it was born and just some silly mistakes assuming my answer to the puzzle was correct for seemingly no reason...

I was more inclined to believe in the second version. After all, even something as silly as writing numbers in a different way than they were recorded in the system could result in a massive bug that led to the gate opening up.

Yet, the fact that I could recognize this place, the fact that secret spots that I discovered in the game also appeared in the exact same spots in this world as well...

"But I'm more inclined to believe someone wanted me to find this place," I finally added, putting an end to two-way answers.

There were just too many coincidences. Too many things that wouldn't make any sense if this were all a random occurrence. I still couldn't be sure, but in order to move forward, I had to do with certain assumptions.

"Is there any way for you to find it out?" Mia suggested, rubbing her cheek against my shoulder.

"There might be," I replied when an idea popped up in my mind.

Back when I collapsed, Mia carried me all the way back to the special room when we were in before. Whether she hoped I would conjure some sort of medicine or if she just returned to the last place she considered safe, it didn't matter.

Yet, what mattered, was how I could verify Mia's suggestion right away.

"If I were the creator of this place and wanted someone to find out my intentions, there is one place that I would leave some hits at," I muttered, only to bring forth the customization menu of the local system.

'Thinking about this, the fact that I can use the system of this place is also a big hint,' I thought before shaking my head and then sorting the customization menu through documents.

And as if responding to the deepest wishes of my heart, the proof was right there. A single document in the form of some sort of crystal with a strange name.

"To whom it may concern," I read out the document's name out loud before waving my hand and purchasing it right away.

Thankfully, contrary to the other options in the menu, this particular document was pretty cheap, barely putting a dent in the amount of mana I had.

And yet, when the slightly-blueish crystal appeared in my hand, I hesitated.

But then, eager to find out what the truth was, I pressed the only button present on the stone.