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The only living people in this city were Hyeonseong’s group. And Hyeonseong’s group were outsiders who would leave once the raid ended.
There was no one left here who could rebuild the city.
A reply returned quickly.
Hyeonseong wrote and sent another question.
Again, the answer came quickly.
The number the central system gave matched the number of raiders who had entered the dungeon exactly.
Hyeonseong had been in the middle of typing her reply when another private message arrived from the Constellation.
Hyeonseong immediately replied to the Constellation.
A troublesome answer came back.
‘What kind of machine acts like a human… Wait. So that Constellation name—?’
A realization flashed through Hyeonseong’s mind.
Constellations revealed their traits or achievements through their names. That was the common understanding.
‘“Cybernetics” means it’s deeply tied to computers or AI programs. “Mystery” means it’s tied to something that, in that world, was treated like fiction—or the realm of gods. And the AI that Constellation made is… showing a very human side right now.’
From those three facts, Hyeonseong reached a conclusion.
‘That Constellation created an AI that’s no different from a human. Maybe it even went beyond human-level—something like a machine spirit.’
After finishing her thought, Hyeonseong sent another message.
It was an answer she’d half expected. From everything the Constellation had said so far, if they could have done it, they would’ve issued an oracle to their “child” long ago.
‘Lowest-tier standing, and not much to their name.’
That reminded her of the earlier message promising a reward.
‘If I’d accepted immediately, maybe I wouldn’t have gotten anything impressive anyway.’
Getting anything would still be a net gain, but realizing it likely wouldn’t have met her expectations left her oddly deflated.
Hyeonseong demanded the Constellation’s original name, not their Constellation title.
She wasn’t expecting much—few Constellations ever revealed their true names outright.
‘No idea if it’s some restriction, or if a name itself can be a weakness, so they avoid it.’
The reply came quickly. But this time too, Hyeonseong could only be disappointed.
After that, the Constellation sent the message revealing their true name two more times. Each time, the name portion was covered by black blocks.
‘If they really typed it and sent it, then this is censorship by the Interstellar Network.’
Hyeonseong frowned. Between the diary she’d seen earlier and this, it felt like the Interstellar Network’s censorship kept activating in oddly specific places today.
The simplest thing that fit that condition would’ve been a true name, but that route was now blocked. So she needed some other usable information.
Then the Constellation sent a few lines about the time they created the central-system AIs.
They also provided clues that could be used to infer the central system’s other name—clues about the city’s name, a blinded Justice, and not being a child of lightning. They were very straightforward clues.
But “straightforward” didn’t make Hyeonseong happy. The system’s name was censored too, so she could only hear it through indirect hints like this.
‘What’s with the censorship being this strict today?’
Hyeonseong couldn’t help being frustrated. She even submitted an inquiry to the Interstellar Network mid-conversation, but she didn’t get the answer she wanted.
In other words, they had no intention of lifting the censorship.
It left an uneasy taste in her mouth, but if the Interstellar Network had nailed it down, there was nothing Hyeonseong could do.
‘…Either way, I got enough material to talk with.’
She’d collected plenty—at least, everything she could obtain without triggering censorship.
Now the only thing left was to return to speaking with the central system.
Hyeonseong typed a new message into the now-cleared screen. The device restored the last few lines of their conversation history.
After confirming the restored messages, Hyeonseong threw out the question bluntly.
As soon as she sent it, she heard someone suck in a sharp breath behind her—one of the team members watching had reacted.
Hyeonseong glanced back. A few teammates were staring at the screen with wide eyes, like Is it okay to say that?
When she looked back at the screen, the reply had arrived.
It came a little late, as if it had actually paused to think.
The central system continued. Hyeonseong didn’t type a reply—she waited for the next message.
Finally, the central system asked. Hyeonseong immediately began typing.
The central system denied it at once.
From the clues the Constellation gave, there was only one name it could be.
‘Lightning—so Astraea is out, since this has nothing to do with Zeus.’
When Hyeonseong typed and sent the central system’s other name, it fell silent again.
“How did you know that name?”
The engineer watching from beside her asked.
“I asked someone who would know.”
Yustitia still didn’t seem ready to believe it.
Hyeonseong followed up by sending a brief anecdote she’d heard from the Constellation—something only the Constellation and Yustitia would know.
‘I asked specifically for things like that.’
She sent it quickly and waited. The reply didn’t come right away.
The silence felt, strangely, like someone retracing memories.
A response arrived after a while. It looked like it had more to say, so Hyeonseong didn’t reply immediately.
At Yustitia’s question, Hyeonseong looked to the Constellation messages.
A private message arrived right on time. Hyeonseong relayed it to Yustitia exactly as-is.
The question came back at once. Hyeonseong replied yes.
After that reply, another brief silence followed.
In the gap, Hyeonseong typed and sent a message.
The answer returned immediately.
If repeating killings—something an AI “shouldn’t” have been able to do—had caused the error, there were still things that didn’t add up.
‘Thinking about that diary… the other cities would’ve had the same “terminate carriers” order, and they would’ve glitched out too. But for every single one to run into essentially the same failure path is weird. Even if the developer is the same, the servers should’ve been independent.’
There was no particular reason for Hyeonseong—who wasn’t even a dungeon researcher—to care this much about the dungeon’s world.
But today, the constant keyword censorship kept nagging at her. What kind of story was buried here that the Network kept censoring specific parts?
Yustitia truly seemed unable to guess the cause.
Hyeonseong kept pushing.
“Hyeonseong, do you really need to ask that?”
One of the team members asked.
“Yes. Something’s been bothering me since earlier.”
Hyeonseong answered immediately.
“Still, that doesn’t really seem related to clearing the dungeon…”
“We’ve got plenty of time left anyway. Think of it as digging for bonus rewards.”
Sometimes, after clearing a dungeon, the Interstellar Network would grant additional rewards.
No one knew the exact conditions, but there was speculation: obtaining certain information tied to the dungeon could trigger it.
Perhaps that was what the teammate remembered. They still looked doubtful, but they accepted her explanation. With the raid in its final stretch and lots of time remaining, it was an easy concession.
Yustitia replied quickly.
‘What?’
Hyeonseong’s eyes widened in shock.
Thinking about it, that sounded right. The diary only said the administrators realized the error late; it never claimed they identified the exact start point or the true nature of the malfunction.
‘Well, the writer was a battleship captain, not the developer, so maybe they wouldn’t know details…’
Even so, the fact remained: the city’s people never managed to uncover the systems’ error.
If they had succeeded, the city wouldn’t have ended up like this.
[In the first place, how did that kill order get issued? It’s an insanely extreme directive.]
At least, it wasn’t the kind of decision you’d expect in a world with a civilization advanced to this level.
So in the long run, it had been a catastrophically wrong judgment.
It still sounded wrong.
‘Is it just that I can’t empathize because I didn’t live it? But even then… if you have dozens, hundreds of people, there’s usually at least one or two trying to keep their head.’
Hyeonseong wrote that doubt into a message, and added one more question at the end.
The answer that came back was unexpected.
This wasn’t just “stoking” the mood—it sounded like something more.
Hyeonseong asked immediately.
Yustitia answered cleanly. Another message followed.
But Hyeonseong couldn’t read any of it.
The entire message was censored, covered completely by black blocks.
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