Reincarnated In a Cthulhu World And Everyone Is Obsessed With Me - Chapter 40

Chapter 40: Metamorphosis

When Gustav woke up, he saw Archer pacing back and forth at the door. The boy held a sparkling object—the small glass sphere Gustav had given him days ago. Now, it had been carved into a delicate glass butterfly, its wings so lifelike they seemed ready to flutter. Depending on the angle of the light, the butterfly changed colors. Archer was engrossed in the play of light.

Gustav snorted. This was clearly Xia’s handiwork.

Archer ran over, carefully tucked the butterfly away, and signed: “I’m going to play with Mr. Painter.” The “Painter” was a bartender at the black market who spent his off-hours sketching. Gustav waved him off.

…

Later, Gustav met Xia Mingyu. “Don’t go to the arena today,” Gustav warned. “The Ruin is in turmoil.”

Sea Amber, at the peak of her power, had just personally executed one of her lovers in bed—the master of the black market—because he tried to seize her authority. She was now moving to consolidate her grip on the city’s entire trade network.

“So, the ‘Butterfly Lord’ is you?” Gustav asked with a chuckle. “And the one who provoked Sea Amber yesterday… also you? You’re quite the heartbreaker. Half the Sentinels in the Ruin are obsessed with you, and even Sea Amber spared you.”

Xia Mingyu smiled thinly. “I didn’t realize being a ‘precious prey’ was such a glamorous title.” Beneath the smile was a cold self-mockery. He had learned his first lesson in the apocalypse with bone-deep pain: Never cede your power to others.

“Come with me,” Gustav said. He tapped Xia’s cane with a platinum ring on his finger, and the cane magnetically guided Xia toward him.

They descended into a hidden basement. If Xia could see, he would be shocked; it was a perfect miniature of a high-end research lab. Gustav had hidden his secrets beneath the filth of the Ruin. The mental pollution here was intense, but as Gustav noted, the best way to hide a leaf is in a forest.

“Tell me,” Xia Mingyu said, “did you used to work for the Research Institute?”

Gustav let out an ambiguous laugh. “Something like that.”

…

Gustav addressed Xia’s earlier proposal for the White Dove Academy. “Xia, you want to be an idealist educator, but some things cannot be taught. You use mental power to temper weapons because of your S-class talent. It’s a flick of a switch for you. To others, it’s unimaginable. No matter how perfectly you record the method, it remains a display of your unique prowess, not a guide for the masses.”

“So,” Xia mused, “the Academy lacks a curriculum because there is no method that fits everyone?”

“Exactly,” Gustav confirmed. “And as for the ordinary people? They don’t die because their physical skills are poor. They die because they aren’t ‘chosen’ by the delirium. Without a barrier or a suit, they are dead before they ever need to throw a punch. You have high mental stability, Xia—you can’t imagine the damage they face.”

Gustav looked up at a massive, metallic human brain suspended in liquid mercury within a glass cylinder. It was a terrifying, beautiful construct that defied the laws of space.

“You aren’t the first to try and change things,” Gustav said. “I had an ambition once. I wanted to apply these metals to ordinary people. I failed with prosthetics, but I succeeded in the First Base.”

Xia was stunned. “The First Base? The star-net chips?”

“The First Base is a ghost place,” Gustav grumbled. “I thought it would be a turning point, but it was just a drop in the ocean. So I came here to study prosthetics. I haven’t abandoned ordinary people, Xia. But think: what if the delirium is a cosmic filter? What if it’s selecting a new species?”

“I don’t deny that possibility,” Xia said evenly. “But humans have no right to create a second filter. No one has the right to discard a life.”

…

Gustav, intrigued by Xia’s unwavering idealism, placed a device on Xia’s head.

Suddenly, Xia’s soul felt detached. Information flooded his consciousness, reconstructing a lakeside cabin in a world of bright sunlight. He could see.

“Is this a hallucination?” Xia asked.

“This is my second project: Project Metamorphosis,” Gustav’s voice echoed. “A ‘Brain World.’ In my ideal world, there is no apocalypse, no delirium. Everyone—including ordinary people—lives in eternal peace and happiness. If you woke up here, would you question the reality?”

“The flaws are many,” Xia noted, touching a ghost-like door. “Is the truth not important to you?”

“Rotten reality is inferior to hopeful falsehood,” Gustav stated coldly. This was his plan for humanity: a generation raised entirely within a digital dream, unaware of the horror outside. A few selected ‘maintainers’ would keep the system running. It was a mercy of eternal bliss.

The project had been classified and buried by the Research Institute. Gustav had built a prototype alone, but his ambition had withered with time.

“If someone wanted to break out of the dream, have you provided an exit?” Xia asked.

“Metamorphosis was banned before I could solve that,” Gustav admitted.

…

Gustav removed the device. “If I had enough information, I could calculate the trajectory of a coin from flip to fall. If we had enough data, we could predict our fate. To me… God is infinite computing power.”

As they walked back onto the decaying soil of the Northern Ruin, Xia Mingyu pondered. Lady Theresa said God was composed of logic and science. Gustav said God was infinite calculation.

Xia wondered: What does my ‘God’ look like?