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“Agh… Cough… Ack! Ah… Cough!!”

With every cough I tried to force out, a brackish taste surged up my throat. I violently spat out the complete culture medium, custom-made for Anastasia alone. My mind, overwhelmed by the torrent of information I had never learned all at once, prioritized recalling what I could see and what was happening to my body.

Crack…

“It hurts…!”

Ignoring the stinging pain in my throat, I instinctively scratched the floor I was lying on, and an even sharper pain from my fragile fingertips assaulted my brain.

It wasn’t as if the shards of glass scattered on the floor would suddenly come to life and attack me, but the intense pain, unlike anything I had ever experienced, made my arms push against the floor, forcing me to stumble backward onto my rear. My body was abnormally sensitive.

Splash…!

Fortunately, the pool of culture medium that had spilled from the broken test tube prevented further injury… but I had no time to be grateful. The gruesome scene inside the lab finally came into view.

“………Gulp.”

A light, barely clinging to a half-severed wire, flickered intermittently, revealing glimpses of the dark interior.

The aftermath of an explosion and fire had left everything scorched black, and even the relatively intact tiles were riddled with sharp bullet holes. And that wasn’t all. The puddle near my body was green culture medium, but the liquid splattered elsewhere was either electrolyte solution or… bright red blood.

To top it off, holographic panels glowed in the darkness, making it look exactly like the opening scene of a famous horror movie.

“Ugh…!!”

As I became aware of the fear that was rising within me, a chill ran through me, and I instinctively drew my bare legs together and wrapped my arms around them. My soft breasts were pressed against my knees, distorting their shape, and my petite body, a blank canvas except for the culture medium smeared here and there, was emphasized. I had to think. I had to think. Letting trivial emotions control me would accomplish nothing.

I am Anastasia, the proud citizen of South Korea, specimen number RoTG-71214. If I couldn’t overcome this much adversity, how would I ever survive in the future…?

“What was that just now…?!”

A primal feeling, something that made me recognize myself as me, was being eroded, and a scream burst out involuntarily. It was an unpleasant sensation, like two substances that could never mix, like water and oil, had been put in a bottle and shaken until they actually blended together. I didn’t even have any culture medium left in my esophagus, but I felt like I was going to throw up.

And more than anything… everything was too vivid to be just a dream.

The cut on my finger, the cold, the headache, the disgust, and finally… the vibration.

Thump…

The liquid pooled on the floor rippled slightly. The dangling light swayed from side to side, and the electrolyte solution clinging to the ceiling dripped down with a plop.

I was wrong.

This lab scene wasn’t exactly like a horror movie at all. The most important thing that should have been there was missing.

In the scene I had witnessed with my drowsy consciousness before this catastrophe occurred, there were clearly a lot of people. Whether they were researchers or strike team members, they had been caught in the explosion and bled enough to flood the floor. So why wasn’t there a single corpse left?

Thump… Thump… Thump…!

“Haa… Haa…!!”

The vibrations, as if responding to my scream, grew closer and closer to this room, and my breathing involuntarily became ragged.

It would be best if the sealed door did its job, but if it had, that unknown cleaner wouldn’t have been able to clean up the corpses so neatly in the first place. The heavy footsteps made my common sense picture a burly thug, but Anastasia’s knowledge conjured up images of robots or droids, extremely common by Neo Haven standards.

If this was a dream? I could just wake up. But what if it wasn’t a dream?

Clang!! Clang clang!

I quickly moved my helpless body and violently shook the dangling iron bar, trying to tear it off. But this pretty, damn body of mine couldn’t even detach a support that was almost completely loose, and I just flailed uselessly.

Thump! Thump! Thump!!

It was coming.

There was no more time to waste on the unyielding bar. Instinctively, I reached for something easy to grab with my small hands for self-defense, but the more dangerous weapon was actually very close by.

Crack…!

“Ugh!!”

I grabbed the sharpest piece of test tube shard I could find on the floor. If I aimed well at a vital point with this makeshift weapon, which was practically a knife, even a large creature could be taken down in one blow…!

“…Ah. Shit.”

Thump—!!

Those vain hopes vanished as a droid, each of its fingers the size of my arm, smashed through the wall and forced its way into the lab. In place of where its face should have been, there were only three holographic scanners emitting a chilling red light, perhaps to avoid missing its target. Its legs were normal, just two of them, but it had so many hands that, in addition to the two attached to its shoulders, it had four more growing out of its back.

Unlike the base arms, which had fingers and joints, the ends of the mechanical arms growing out of its back were equipped with saw blades, needles, pincers, and gun barrels… its purpose was clear to anyone. A crazy killing machine.

Clang!

“?! Let go! You fucking bastard…!!”

There was no time to resist.

The droid, approaching with instantaneous short-range acceleration, grabbed my slender waist with its pincer arm and restrained both of my arms with just four fingers. And the way it controlled its strength was so exquisite that, even as my legs flailed wildly off the floor, I didn’t feel any particular pressure.

Clatter…!

The shard I hadn’t even managed to swing fell to the floor.

The resistance was so pathetic compared to what I had grandly planned that it brought tears to my eyes. Then at least, with the same neat skill as its strength control, I hoped it would end this nightmare painlessly… and I closed my eyes.

• Contrary to your strong will, your compliance is excessively high, Code Name Anastasia. If this continues, it is anticipated that significant difficulties will blossom in achieving the life expectancy calculated by the Doctor. –

“……What?”

Whether I asked or not, the droid carefully, cautiously, unfolded my mangled hand as my struggles ceased, scanned it, and began to heal it.

• Administering Regeneration Serum RS-03. After injection, remaining RS-03 residual quantity… 0. In the event of future injuries, you must use Original Serum. You must be careful with asset management. –

A needle was inserted into my outstretched palm, and the serum was injected. At the same time, the tips of the droid’s fingers opened, and small tweezers popped out, removing all the foreign objects embedded in my wound before it could even heal. The way it spoke was infuriating, but… nothing could be resolved unless I assumed this droid was an ally.

“What… what are you?”

• Accepting ambiguous question. I am a unique object created by Paradise Corporation, a Carebot from the caregiver robot series, equipped with parts from Exatech Corporation’s automatic interception droid model, Interceptron. Also, I am a high-performance android prepared by embezzling research funds to help specimen number RoTG-71214, Code Name Anastasia, completed by Doctor Makarovich, survive the lab’s self-destruction and perform the Implant procedure. –

“Oh… really…?”

With just one question, Neo Haven terminology spewed out haphazardly.

Mega-corps that didn’t even treat their employees’ lives as assets because there were so many replacements. Carebots, often seen in hospitals or family homes. Interceptrons, which hung like part of the interior and then popped out.

I didn’t like the fact that someone I didn’t even know said they had created Anastasia, whom ‘I’ had created with all my heart… but thanks to it, I was able to face reality.

This was a research lab of Enama Corporation, obsessed with human experimentation.

This world was Neo Haven, the hell of all gamers.

• You must have been designed excellently, but you are experiencing difficulties with mental control. We will begin moving to the Operating Room quickly. Please prepare for impact. –

“What the fu… Kyaaak?!”

Bang bang bang bang—!!

I was about to unleash a torrent of curses at the arrogant droid. But as soon as the thing, holding me snugly in its arms like a newborn baby, began sprinting down the lab corridor at full speed, I involuntarily let out a scream befitting my body.

Thump! Screeeeeech—!!

As befitting a mega-corp’s secret lab, there were no stairs, so the droid forcibly ripped open the sealed elevator bulkhead and jumped down into the deeper underground, scraping against the walls.

In the blink of an eye, with rough but meticulous handling so that nothing would break, the thing arrived at a pristine underground operating room.

A metal bed with all sorts of blades, surgical laser irradiators, and needles aimed at it. It looked like I would never get up again if I lay down, but why did it make me feel so calm?

The sanctuary of power-ups that Neo Haven players had heard tens of thousands of times.

Cyberware upgrades were possible elsewhere, but bio-Implants could only be installed and upgraded in this operating room. It wasn’t for nothing that Neo Haven addicts had created OR maps of the entire Emerald City.

Even though I hadn’t said anything, the droid, watching me hesitantly lie down on the operating table on my own, began to operate the touch panel.

• Thank you for your proactive cooperation, which is different from before. We will proceed with the operation to minimize any inconvenience for Code Name Anastasia. –

“It’s all for my sake…!”

I stammered out an excuse because I was too embarrassed to say that I had succumbed to the anticipation of superpowers or enhancements.

The jumbled memories and information… I could take my time and go over them slowly after the surgery was over.

Beep beep. Beep beep beep. Beep!

[ Anesthetic cartridge damage confirmed. Calculating loss rate… Loss rate 100%. Terminating operating sequence. ]

“……?”

• ……. –

While I was blankly staring at the ominous system message displayed on the monitor hanging from the ceiling, the thing betrayed me.

Beep beep!

Clang!!

Restraints popped out of the bed and bound my body.

No way. It couldn’t be. No sane person would recklessly perform major surgery to implant bio-Implants into the nerves without anesthetizing the patient….

Beep!

[ System override complete. ]

“You fucking! Crazy bastarddddddd—!!”

As soon as the fired laser lodged in my shoulder, I let out a desperate scream and fainted.

The good thing was that I didn’t wake up again during the surgery, at least.

The bad thing, on the other hand, was that my flown-away consciousness witnessed a strange world….

Instead of Neo Haven. A world where only the game Neo Haven Prime existed.

There, I, Anastasia, was no longer the protagonist. I was a sub-heroine who could be romanced, and even had an unnecessarily large fanbase.