Rin merely sat there without responding to my accusation, covering her eyes for awhile. After the food finished cooking, she took the cooked meat off the fire, she began nibbling on it.

In my silence, I watched Rin eat with a complicated expression. She didn’t seem particularly happy and instead seemed to be actively trying to ignore me.

I inquired with curiosity, “I’m right, aren’t I? You think I’m a fake of some kind.”

Rin flicked her eyes away as she nibbled on the food, “There’s a high probability you are.”

“Okay.” I didn’t have a way to convince her otherwise, I won’t even try. “Let’s suppose I’m a hallucination or mental attack.”

“If that’s true, you should be paying more attention to your surroundings!” I exclaimed watched her eat. “What are you even doing? Covering your eyes and escaping? You should be trying to figure out the reason for the hallucination and how to escape. If it’s a mental attack, that means there’s an enemy in the area that you have no information about.”

As I scolding her, Rin frowned and turned her gaze back toward me. I could stop myself from relaying my exhaustion to her. “So… why are you sitting around doing nothing?”

Although I was real, so she wasn’t in danger. Her reaction to my existence is entirely wrong. Rin would be in serious danger if I was a fake.

“I’m assessing the situation.” Rin replied with her gaze turned away.

“Assessing the situation?” I snorted. “It certainly doesn’t seem like it. Seems more like your trying not to change the situation at all.”

With analytical eyes, Rin turned back toward me and stood up. “It’s certainly a strange situation. The extent of the illusion seems to be limited to your existence. You have physical presence, but the surroundings haven’t changed. Neither have any abnormal noises or scents appeared.”

“Judging by your the tone, wording, phrasing, and non-hostile nature. Whatever created you is still assessing the situation and revealing further information is problematic. At the very least, you’ve with specifics spoken relating to my ability. Beyond that, you’ve spoken with mostly generalities with few details filled in. Therefore, the illusion should be self-created and self-sustaining.”

“If I’m attacked, then I’ll know it hasn’t learned the specifics of my ability and learn more information regardless.” Rin calmly replied.

So Rin is paying attention. That’s good. However… the plan Rin just mentioned has a major problem.

She’s using herself as bait.

“Haven’t I told you before to avoid relying on your ability. You aren’t invincible…” I protested, rubbing my neck.

To be honest, while I knew this entire theoretically situation was made up. I stopped myself from talking about Rin’s weakness. There was the slightest possibility I was wrong… Maybe Rin was right and I was some kind of artificial creation? I wouldn’t take risk that slightest chance.

If I was wrong and whatever was targeting her was monitoring our conversation? Wouldn’t I be telling essentially telling it Rin’s weakness at that point?

“You shouldn’t be taking risks.” I standing up, pacing back and forth with frown.

Rin’s idea is entirely based on waiting until she is attacked before reloading without taking any precautions. Although maybe that’s normal for her.

“Nevermind, it’s not my place to lecture you.” I shook my head. “Do you mind telling me the number of days and years since arrival? Until you’ve proven otherwise, I’m going to continue working off the assumption that I’m real and here to stay.”

“Day one hundred and three in the first year.” Rin replied with a nod before returning her attention to the fragrant meat.

“Thank you.” Raising my finger, I pondered the situation before glancing back toward. “So what have you been doing in the meantime? What the current plan?”

Rin had returned to her seating position and didn’t respond verbally, merely gazing toward me.

“What is it?” I asked with confusion.

Taking a bite of the food, Rin savored the flavor before speaking. “I told you, revealing further information is problematic.”

Rolling my eyes, I plopped my butt back on the floor. “Fine. Can you tell me how you plan to deal with the Kara situation?”

“…” Rin stared quietly toward me, without providing any kind of response.

“Uhh? Hello?” I waved at her. “I don’t know if you’ve failed to notice, but I don’t exactly have the basilisk manual anymore? Even if I did, it probably wouldn’t work now that you know about that strategy.”

“That’s none of your business.” Rin muttered and indifferently stated. “A plan is in development.”

“That… is completely unhelpful.” I mumbled to myself, “Okay, wow… Yeah, that’s about as unhelpful as a sentence can get.”

Listening to her voice, I could tell the plan had hit a hitch. She seemed to be under the impression that giving me further information was a bad idea… which, to be fair, it is.

That is if I’m a fake. Far as I can tell though, I’m not.

“Hmmm… Is that why you’ve delayed moving forward?” I realized, as I thought about it carefully.

From my perspective, I’d only thought about how it would affect me if she reloaded… but it would also require her to rescue Kara again. Last time was partly a fluke. Doing it again would be a miracle.

It’s possible she’s been having trouble accomplishing that and travelled back to the beginning multiple times for more inspiration. For example, she might be searching for a specific artifact that encouragers healing.

“Maybe some kind of healing artifact?” I mumbled to myself. “But… where to find one. Have tried looking using Stanley?”

“There’s no healing artifact.” Rin retorted.

“What?”

“No such artifact existed.” Rin stated calmly.

I was dumbfounded. How could a healing artifact not exist? Isn’t it an obvious thing to try and create an artifact that can heal people?

“How is that possible?”

“If it existed, I would’ve found it already.” Rin commented.

“Alright…. Let’s look at this from another perspective then. If we cannot find a method ourselves that allows for her safety, what about finding help?”

“…”

“You know? Specifically search for someone with a healing ability and intervene to have them join the Decima game?”

“…”

“Can you give me something? I feel like I’m talking to a brick wall here.” I tried to probe Rin into talking.

Watched as Rin took a deep breath and sighed. “I cannot do this anymore.”

Listening to her statement, I felt confused. “What do you mean?”

“Leave me alone. If you’re real, accept my wishes and leave me alone. You don’t need me to save you from every little thing anymore.” Rin stood and began walking away.

“Rin…” I watched her walk off.

Closing my eyes, I breathed deeply and accepted the reality. “Rin, wait… Stay here. I don’t plan to stick around if you’re not here.”

“I’m finished here anyway.” Rin shook her head and continued walking.

Watching her walk away, I felt empty. I sat for awhile before I prepared to leave.

Well, what should I do now?

Several ideas immediately popped into my head, but honestly none of them were any good. The main idea is to try and enter the Residential Zone early. I’m decently confident that I could crack the protocols around the teleportation beacon to open it early.

Staring at the heritage site, a question popped into my head… Do props inside the heritage site still exist?

Pulling out the fox-necklace from around my neck, I stood up and entered the heritage site. Turning my gaze toward the podium where the necklace sat before.

It was empty.

I felt oddly disappointed, it seems the plan of duplicating items failed.

Err… well, actually Rin was just here. She might’ve taken the necklace and inheritance herself. The infinite duplication plan might only be put on temporary hold instead of completely failed.

If the fox-necklace existed in this timeline that means there are two versions of the same item in this timeline… but if I took the second version and Rin reloaded again (assuming I kept my memories and items like before), wouldn’t that make a third version of the item?

Isn’t that infinite items? A real life duplication bug?

Sadly, the plan seems to have failed before it could properly get started. Whether Rin actually took the necklace or not, Rin’s ability to reload was a necessary component in this infinite duplication glitch.

Then again, provoking the universe by physical duplicating matter might not be the best idea. Even now I had a vague feeling of crisis. As if something was searching for me. The time shard seemed to be only providing a disguise and, when I dropped it, something briefly noticed my existence.

I left the heritage site behind and decided to implement the next part of the plan.

Heading to the Residential Zone early.

Gazing around the valley, I vaguely remembered the exit beacon’s location.

While I could try to find heritage sites or temples… the idea felt empty and pointless. I have better things I could be spending my time on. I didn’t have a reason to stick around in this zone.

I could recreate some simpler artifacts anyway. Meaning I didn’t exactly need to be spending time searching for them.

Duplicating the arrays on boots of teleportation was relatively difficult, but possible.

Of course, anything from the Mad Craftsman is way too complicated to copy. I don’t even understand where to begin. If the other arrays are similar to an old computer, the Mad Craftsman’s arrays are a quantum supercomputer.

They aren’t exactly comparable.

Still, learning about arrays has caused me facepalm several times.

As it turns out, the boots of teleportation are easily rechargeable. By slowly and steadily inputting mana into the arrays of the boots, the cooldown can be drastically reduced. Not to mention each boot can be used separately for a lower effect teleportation.

I feel like a cave man given a gun and instead of pulling the trigger, I used the gun to beat people to death as a stick.

The analogy isn’t exactly accurate, but it isn’t far off.

The main problem with is with my skills as an artificer is that I don’t have a deep foundation. I could only exactly replicate the affects of existing artifacts. If you asked me to change them or modify them in any manner, I could only shrug and tell you it’s impossible.

I might as well be a copy/paste machine.

That’s partly why it’s better to travel to the Residential Zone and examine the simpler artifacts from easier zones. Examining simpler artifacts should allow me to build up my foundation. While I’m there I can search for someone with a healing ability and a Decima game token.

I don’t plan on letting Kara die.

If I remember correctly… the guild leader of the Eternal Turtle had a token. While I vaguely remember other people, such as the twins who died, I wouldn’t have an idea on how to find them.

Also I need to learn the common language of this universe, otherwise I’m going to be stuck unable to communicate with people who haven’t learned English.

Wondering around in the general direction, I managed to find the beacon’s location. The circular stone clearing in the middle of the forest.

It was actually far easier than I thought. The teleportation beacon attracted mana like moths to an open flame. I only needed continuously head toward the direction with the highest density of mana.

Unlike last time, the stairway down into its depths was nowhere to be seen. People clearly weren’t intended to use the teleportation beacon yet. It occurs to me that not only am I going to need to bypass the defensive security measures, I’m also going to have to fight the flame monster underneath.

I don’t remember much about that monster? Only that it was supposed to be decent powerful compared to other monsters in this zone.

It shouldn’t be much of a problem though. I should be able to bypass it.

…Will the flame monster escape if I unlock all the security measures, though? Whatever I’ll find out if I succeed in opening it. I didn’t plan to stop even if it would.