Infinite Throne

   Chapter 1170 Dimensions

  D City.

   Down the block.

   Located in the lowest slum area of ​​D City, even "sunshine" has become a luxury. The sun can't be seen here all year round. There are only iron-gray steel plates, endless as far as the eye can see, erected above everyone's heads.

  Neo deliberately changed into a white-washed formal suit.

   He has been unemployed for over a month.

   In his last job, Neo was in charge of one of the processes of canning in a canning workshop.

The reason for losing his job is because he discovered that the "meat products" used in the cans were mostly rotten meat that had passed the shelf life. After adding various flavors to disguise the odor, they were canned and sold. He asked the supervisor to question, five Minutes later, he was kicked out of the processing room.

   The next day, he received a summons from the court, saying that he had slandered the reputation of the former company and wanted to pay a large sum of money.

  Neo remembered the unhappiness of his last job, sorted out his formal clothes in front of the mirror, cleaned up his mood, and walked out of the apartment. Although Neo felt that the content on the screen was weird everywhere, and he wondered whether the computer had been hacked many times, but out of necessity for survival, he still came to the screen with the optimistic idea of ​​"trying and not getting pregnant". Last marked location.

   When he saw this place, the secret passage was outrageous.

   In his impression, the address on the screen was clearly a "unfinished building" that was about to be demolished a month ago.

   It is said that he was spotted by a rich man in Shangjie District, bought it at a low price, and planned to transform it into a "green light district" with good quality and low price... It is a place that all men understand.

  Going out early, in order to save the transportation cost of a mere 10 credit points, Neo, who walked for nearly an hour to the designated location, was shocked by the traffic situation in front of him and was speechless.

   The location of the unfinished building that was supposed to become the "green light district" of a poor man's paradise turned into a magnificent building at some point. The dark red walls are covered with patterns of bats, and the corners of the bats' mouths are wide open, as if expressing a blatant grin. The style of the whole building is full of post-modernist art style.

  The entrance is also made into the shape of a "bat". The open gate is set to resemble the bat's exaggeratedly open mouth. At the end of the line, Neo watched helplessly as the poor people dressed in dog-like clothes entered the high-rise buildings in an orderly manner. In a trance, he gave birth to a strange illusion that "they were all eaten by bats".

  This strange delusion made Neo shudder subconsciously, but when he came back to his senses, he realized that his trembling was a bit inexplicable.

   Standing at the back of the team blankly, Neo simply asked the candidates in front of him when he had nothing to do.

   It stands to reason that in the slums, the number of poor people who have time to play on the computer will never cause such a situation of empty streets.

After    asked, Neo suddenly realized.

It turned out that the strange "recruitment notice" that had been hacked into his computer and typed out on the screen not only appeared on his screen, but also appeared in holographic advertising windows in the street, cheap mobile phone information, paper flyers on the ground, broadcast sounds in vehicles, Multiple radio stations, in every way he could think of, were advertising this newly emerging "Beautiful Dream Life Experience Hall".

   "Brilliant."

   Everything echoed, Neo silently gave a like for this "company" that appeared in the next block, and queued up quietly.

   A morning has passed, and people who go in can only get in.

   He secretly asked the front again. It is said that there is a back door. It is said that the company left through another exit in order not to disclose the recruitment method, whether it was successful or unsuccessful.

  The nervous Neo was relieved again.

   After waiting for a long time, it was finally his turn.

  …

Entrance.

  Behind the big mouth of the bat, it was pitch black, like a deep black hole.

   And ten meters away, an ordinary door stood in the depths of darkness, with a light on in the center of the door beam wall. The light is not strong. At first glance, the upper part of the door is bright and splendid, but the lower part seems to be immersed in a dark quagmire, half bright and half dark.

   Neo took a breath and opened the door.

  Behind the door is a bright passage.

   Neo breathed a sigh of relief, and when he came here, he finally felt a little earthly atmosphere, not so weird.

   There seems to be no other staff in the company. But fortunately, there are corresponding signs in the passage leading to the application site.

【turn left】.

  【Go right】.

  【Go to the third floor】.

  【The second door on the right, open】.

   "Please take a seat."

   In the empty room, there are only four walls, and in the center is a long table that looks like it.

   Behind the long table is a young interviewer wearing a white trench coat.

   In front of the youth stood a cardboard folded into a triangular stable structure, with a letter "L" written on the side facing the door.

  “L?”

   Neo recalled the content on the screen last night, and secretly said, the last word of the multiple-choice ellipsis was not garbled.

   Sitting on the stool, Neo calmed down instead.

   He began to look at his interviewer.

At first glance, the interviewer's facial features didn't seem surprising, but Neo was very nervous and shrank his body subconsciously. He had the illusion that the other party would cross the table at any time, revealing a hideous face and punching him to death - when Neoli When I cleared up my weird "illusion", I couldn't help but feel funny, how could an interviewer casually kill a candidate.

   There was a faint smile on the other's face, which made Neo calm down involuntarily and stopped thinking about it.

   "Neo, it's you... I've been waiting for you for a long time."

  L looked very happy and rubbed his palms hard. After he said something that Neo felt inexplicable, the young man coughed twice and held up a blank piece of paper.

   Neo was a little stunned. He observed for a while when he started, but there was obviously no paper on the table.

   "As usual, now to ask a few... small questions."

   Neo nodded and sat upright.

"Name."

   "Neo."

"age."

   "38 years old."

"old."

  “?”

   The young man smiled and put down the paper, only then did Neo notice that the paper was blank and there was nothing wrong with it. Neo suddenly had the illusion of "being tricked".

   "Thirty-eight-year-old middle-aged, living in a garbage heap, single, unmarried, accomplishing nothing, and doing nothing. Faced with the 'instructions' on the road, you have no doubts, follow the rules and execute them numbly, hehe, you, no."

   Neo bowed his head.

   suddenly realized that the "application" had already started when he stepped into the door.

  Wait.

  I doubt the slogan given by your company, is there something wrong with me?

  He raised his head, unconvinced, ready to give his opinion.

   "Shh."

   The young man raised a finger: "Angry? Yes, you know how to be angry. Then, enter the second stage of the assessment."

   Neo's eyes flashed, and the young man crossed the long table and walked in front of him.

   His first reaction was: It turns out that he would really step over and hit people!

   The youth quickly stretched out **** and poked Neo's forehead.

  咣.

  Neo's eyes darkened.

   Before losing consciousness.

   A gentle voice whispered in his ear.

   "Sleep."

   "Have a wonderful night."

  …

  Torrential rain was like smoke, washing the earth.

When    Neo opened his eyes again, he had come to another completely different "world".

  The ground, the embers of the stars, were extinguished in pieces under the downpour.

The    world, in front of Neo, stepped into complete darkness little by little.

  The torrential rain falls and gathers into turbid torrents, which converge into new "lakes" and "rivers" on the ground full of ravines and potholes.

   But these rivers and lakes are no longer clear and beautiful. They are mixed with metal residues and scorched earth, and they are constantly surging, and they look like dirty tar.

   Neo looked at the desolation and despair in front of him in shock.

   He bowed his head and found that he had no body.

   He only had one "vision" left, and in shock, he was helplessly watching the world in front of him come to an end.

   "Any ideas?"

   In Neo's silence, L appeared beside Neo.

   Unlike Neo, L is wearing a cool and clean white trench coat, with his hands on his back and sunglasses on his face, which is dashing and calm.

"what…"

   Neo subconsciously uttered a syllable, he couldn't actually make a sound, but when he was "thinking" about uttering a syllable, he heard his "heart voice".

  L smiled and said, "What if I said it was a nightmare?"

   Neo then remembered that he was applying for a job as a salesman in the "Dream Life Experience Center".

   It was mainly about the scenery in front of him, which was incompatible with the "beautiful dream", which made him forget the original intention of applying for the job.

   did not wait for Neo to answer.

  L's voice changed, and he said: "If I tell you again, this is not a dream?"

   Smell.

   for a split second.

  Neo felt cold "all over" and his soul was numb, as if there was an electric current passing through his soul, piercing his worldview.

   He did not answer L's two questions.

   Actually, these two questions are the same question: do you think the scenery in front of you is a dream or reality.

   "Do you know why I fell in love with you?"

  L smiled and raised an index finger in front of Neo's vision.

   "Among the many phantom residents, you are one of the very few who have a tendency to 'awaken' without any 'external influence'."

   "Everything in the world has meaning if it exists, and if there is an effect, there is a cause."

   "I thought at first that 'awakening' was an uncontrollable factor for it."

   "But I found out later that maybe I was wrong in the first place."

   The youth bowed his head and looked down at the world.

   Even through a layer of sunglasses, Neo seemed to be able to perceive the indifference behind the sunglasses.

   "Is there a possibility, from the beginning, there is no so-called 'unreal' and 'real'."

   "Is there a possibility, for which, 'unreal' and 'real' are not relative concepts."

   "It was born of the 'virtual', for which the virtual is the 'real'."

   "It's just that there is a 'dimension' between the two."

   "It underestimated me from the beginning,"

   "But actually, maybe it's because I've had too much contact with someone who is too high, and I always feel that these guys are just that."

   "But God, why is such a low-level existence."

"so,"

  L looked at Neo.

   "I understand, your 'awakening' is not a 'mistake' for it."

   "It's the 'necessary thing' that it wants to evolve and move to a higher level."

  L speaks more and more esoteric, Neo seems to understand.

Snapped.

  L snapped his fingers.

   When he regained his senses, Neo had already sat back in the room with four walls.

   The young man was sitting opposite, resting his chin in his hands, looking at him with a smile.

   Neo was like taking a nap.

   had a void dream.

   But the clothes wet with cold sweat behind him, the numb scalp, and Neo, who was still in shock, could not convince himself from the bottom of his heart that everything he "seen" just now was a false dream.

  L pushed the paper to Neo.

   On the blank paper that was supposed to be blank, I don’t know when, there were a few more lines of words.

   is exactly the same as the words that appeared on his screen last night.

   But, when Neo took a look at the scorched landscape in a strange way, the same content, in his eyes, gave him the opposite feeling.

  【If, the world in front of you is illusory. 】

  【So, do you want to know the 'truth' of the world? 】

  【Do you want to…really live? 】

  【or,】

  【Do you believe that there is a god? 】

  【YES/NO? 】

   The youth conjured up a brand new pen like magic, and gently pushed it in front of Neo.

   "Well, now enter the signing process."

   "Refused to sign, you can go back now. You will forget what happened today."

   "Agree to contract..."

   "I will take away your 'easy mediocrity',"

   "In return, I will pay you the 'truth of the world'."

"So,"

   "YES, or...NO?"

   Neo hesitated for a moment.

   gritted his teeth.

   At the end of the paper, write “YES” hard.

  …

  …

   on scorched earth.

   Destroyed Area 11.

  The traces of people in Wanjing are gone, the sky and the earth are lonely, only the sound of wind and rain.

  Torrential rain fell, washing away the dirt and dust on the surface.

   They sent several groups of death squads out to explore.

   Bring a radio search device.

   Repeated exploration allowed the thirty-six survivors in the ark to truly confirm a cruel fact.

  On the scorched earth, on this dead planet, they are the last survivors.

Now.

  The former Alice-101 felt that a "name" was something that inferior beings could not distinguish between "individuals".

   But now, she is proud of having a name.

  Because, my brother said,

   "name" is a form of self-expression for any life after having "self".

  “NieR~”

  “NieR~~”

  “NieR~~~”

"Hee hee hee."

   "L said, humans laugh."

  In the room.

   From time to time, Neil's electronically synthesized female voice is heard.

   Sometimes sad, sometimes happy, sometimes snickering.

  It's usually fine.

But in the dead of night, this cry, like the cry of a female devil, but also like the whining of a grieving woman, is very strange. Among the survivors, there are several young survivors who can't sleep all night, stuffing their heads into the bed. , shivering.

   But the party involved didn't think there was any problem with this. She felt good about herself, and her humanoid bones that were hot from time to time made her feel like a girl to be married.

   "There will be problems if this goes on."

  Bella couldn't take it anymore.

  If Neil is fine, we will be frightened.

   A sensible and reasonable omnic is placed in the ark, and it is not a big problem.

   But a crazy omnic... it's not just a "problem".

   After discussing with the elders, Bella disarmed, entered the room, and prepared to have an in-depth communication with the awakened omnic.

  Although they accepted Neil temporarily, even the elders were unsure about how to deal with it.

yes.

   No one can make up their minds.

  After the spark came, the world was destroyed, and there was a barren place on the scorched earth.

  No food, no energy, after the "formatting" of the 11-area surface, as Nemesis expected, nothing useful was left.

  Torrential rain on the scorched earth has been falling for three whole days.

  This continuous torrential rain is not so much a "bad weather", but rather a "big cleaning" after "formatting" to clean up the remnants of the world.

   "Neil said that L is its 'brother'. Then the question arises, is 'L' a human or an omnic?"

   "If it's human, when the 'spark' falls, no one can survive on the surface."

   "L is clearly not an inhabitant of the Ark."

   "If it is an omnic, does that mean that there are such a special group of 'awakened bodies' in the omnic?"

  Bella has a secret conversation with the elders.

   She spoke her mind.

   On the seat, the elderly elder coughed from time to time, covering his mouth and nose with a dirty rag.

   After coughing for a while, the elder replied in a hoarse voice: "No matter what kind, as long as there is something in the world that 'it' cannot control, it will be our 'hope'."

   "Yeah, hope."

  Bella's expression darkened. The elders had nurturing grace for her, and she was equivalent to her parents. Over the years, she had seen with her own eyes that the elder's health was getting worse and worse. After the sparks descended, both humans and omnics were wiped out. It seems that peace has come, and there is no other crisis outside except for the harsh environment, but in fact, they have been sneaking to different waste disposal stations over the years, stealing discarded nutrient solution and synthetic biomass, and thus survive.

   Now that District 11 has been "formatted", the omnics have perished and all the factories have been destroyed. They can't survive this "cold winter" by relying only on the remaining food reserves.

   is at stake, referring to the thirty-six humans surviving in the ark.

After the    discussion, the elderly elder was also undecided.

  The worried Bella came to Neil.

   (end of this chapter)