Mythos Of Narcissus: Reborn As An NPC In A Horror VRMMO

As I waved a farewell to Izzar and the bastioneers there, I walked away and went to the horizon. The two Duolos vessels followed closely, their small and adorable forms moving with effortless precision, their glowing blue eyes flickering between curiosity and quiet focus.

Throughout the way, I did not look back.

There was no need.

The spy had been planted. The bastion would survive. And in time, the information gathered there would flow directly into my hands as the Duolos would get updated in real time. Not to mention, there was no such a thing as lag and weakening connection amongst the Duolos vessel because their hive mind was intrinsically conceptual in nature.

"That is fun."

It was a small world in a small pond, but it was enough to let me know that there are many ways of living life and keeping hope amidst the constant turbulent night at Carcosa.

I reached into my Mini MSU, adjusting the simple cloak and garments I had worn for the ruse. Thin layers of golden threads shimmered and unraveled from the device, twisting into the familiar embrace of my usual attire that fitted me as a leader of a grandiose Landship bastion.

"What outfit do you think makes me better?" I asked the Duolos hive mind through these vessels of theirs.

"The contrast of the ragged cloak enhances your beauty."

"On the other hand, a well-fitted drape of nobility makes your image and form stronger," the Duolos vessel said as she raised her hand. "Regardless of the appearance, the emotion and impression of a living being can be greatly manipulated through the first form of their encounter."

"And why do you think that is?"

"Because the concept of humanity is so embedded into the nurturing of any intrinsically intelligent living beings in this world."

"Are you sure? Or do you say that because you have only been converting humans to become your vessel, hence why you can only see the vision of humanity in everything you touch?"

"Is it a bad thing by nature?" The Duolos vessel tilted her head.

"It doesn't matter if it is bad or not. The thing is, everything is created by design. And as a designer, humanity is pretty biased against themselves."

"I think I can see what you're trying to say, mother."

"Why are you reverting back to calling me mother?"

"It's fun to see your reaction."

Right, I forgot that the Duolos, by nature, are still an intelligent hive mind.

The air around me rippled as Floating Through Life took hold, my presence subtly detaching from the conventional constraints of gravity and inertia. The two Duolos, still bound by the mundane laws of movement, watched in silent fascination.

I extended my awareness toward them.

And then, I pulled them with me.

They did not fall. They did not rise. They simply were suspended in an abstract axis of positioning that no longer adhered to traditional physics.

"...This is strange," the Duolos vessel to my right murmured, her voice quiet yet layered with countless whispers—the hive mind processing the sensation through her singular form.

The second vessel turned her head sharply, eyes dilating. "This feeling—this is—"

Their words halted. For the first time, they saw. Not just the sky, not just the land below, but everything beyond it.

The unseen world of Carcosa unfolded before them.

Just like that one time I attempted to reach the Floating Through Life for the first time.

What they were seeing right now, the massive phantasmal colossi drifting through the atmosphere, the translucent titans composed of endlessly shifting faces and geometric impossibilities.

A long, ribbon-like entity curled around an unseen axis, its presence stretching beyond dimensions yet interacting with this space like an idle observer. Clusters of eyeless, spiraling forms whispering in voices too ancient to comprehend, their tongues brushing against reality like fingers dragging through silk.

The Duolos froze.

For the first time, the hive mind hesitated.

Their perception had been forcibly expanded, dragged into a level of awareness that should not belong to them.

I watched as they processed it.

And then, adapted.

The Duolos, unlike singular minds, functioned as a collective, an interconnected consciousness capable of near-instantaneous information distribution and analysis.

Even now, their hive mind was reshaping itself, creating a mental framework to categorize these new, impossible entities.

Then, through one of the two vessels, they spoke.

"Permission to upload and integrate this knowledge into the neuromorphic network of the Landship?"

I gave a small hum of approval. "Granted."

The silent transmission began.

The Duolos had long since constructed a direct connection between their hive mind and the Landship's neuromorphic network, ever since the contest that I held to distribute the swords that Naosi provided.

At first, it had been an experiment—a cautious integration between two vastly different cognitive architectures. One biological. One digital. They worked differently yet similar at the same time, but they still possessed the same nature of a shared network that was run by many individual processors aiming for a unified goal.

Through this special bridge, the hive mind could relay raw data to the Landship's Cognitive Engines, and in return, the network could provide enhanced computational analysis and memory structuring.

The exchange was surprisingly perfect—biological intuition merged with trained machine logic. Although there seemed to be some factors that could not be interconnected with one another. Enjoy new tales from My Virtual Library Empire

As the Duolos recorded the unseen world, that knowledge was filtered, cataloged, and refined before being embedded into the Cognitive Engines for future reference.

But that was not the only progress being made at the moment.

Even as we drifted through the sky, the Duolos were systematically transferring key structures from the Theotech Spire into the network.

The Celestial Forge. The Amplifier Arrays. The shifting lattice of defensive mechanisms embedded the spirals.

As they were transferred to the Landship, each piece of Theotech was being reconstructed as a blueprint, analyzed for potential future use.

From this, a new hypothetical construct had emerged—a sentient and subserveitn soldier made entirely of Theotech, which would always be welcomed since I like to have anything with the tag 'subservient' in it.

A possibility, and project yet to be realized.

But inevitable.

Even while processing all of this, I allowed my awareness to drift downward—toward the expedition team in the abyssal ruins beneath the Theotech Spire.

The spire, despite its unknown origins, had been structured—a place of golden machinery and controlled design.

But below it?

It was something else entirely.

A world that once again, should not exist.

The walls were not walls. They were remnants of something larger, something that pulsed and breathed with a presence beyond time. The corridors did not simply stretch forward—they folded inward, intersecting themselves in paradoxical spirals, shifting between dimensions unseen.

The deeper my confidantes and teams ventured, the clearer the distinction became—the spire was modern Theotech, built atop something ancient and eldritch.

And where there were no relics or treasures to claim, there were conceptual essences.

Kuzunoha and Viviane had been at work, extracting these fragments of existence, each one more absurd than the last.

A living water, a liquid that moved with intention—slithering across surfaces, twisting into tendrils, retracting like a creature tasting the air. It flowed against gravity, pooling along ceilings and walls, pulsing as if breathing. Its state was never fixed—one moment crystalline ice, the next a thick, viscous gel, then dispersing into mist before recondensing elsewhere, shifting between forms as if choosing its own existence.

A thinking fire, its flames burning in structured formations, spiraling and folding inward like an arcane sigil being inscribed upon reality itself. It did not consume fuel—it fed upon the concept of combustion, flickering without heat, radiating an unnatural glow that left afterimages in the minds of those who observed it too long. The embers whispered, forming shifting symbols that spoke a language beyond memory, an alphabet that rewrote itself even as it was understood.

A sound given mass, a trapped resonance—an audible frequency forced into tangible existence. It pulsed and wavered, a twisting mass of shifting colors and metallic hues, vibrating ceaselessly as if screaming into the void, yet never making a sound. When touched, it sent cascading echoes through the body, making the bones tremble with harmonics beyond the range of mortal perception.

A light that cast shadows in reverse, not illuminating the world but instead devouring brightness, leaving behind patches of void where light should be. It slithered like a liquid, yet had the consistency of silk, wrapping around objects and people, replacing their natural shadows with darkness inverted, where light bent in unnatural directions, forming silhouettes that moved independently of their owners.

A wind that did not move—a presence that could be felt but never seen, an unmoving current of air that remained frozen in place no matter how one tried to disturb it. And yet, if one stepped too close, they would find themselves pushed forward by an unseen force, as if caught in a gust that had already happened and was simply waiting for them to align with its inevitability.

A stone that bled, its surface smooth and unbroken, yet when struck, it wept a thick, crimson ichor that pulsed with a heartbeat all its own. The liquid never dried, never pooled, always absorbed back into the stone as if it were a wound that refused to heal—or a mouth that drank its own offering.

A shadow detached from its source, crawling along the walls like a living stain, flickering and shifting, adopting new forms and movements that did not belong to the one who cast it. It responded not to light, but to intent, curling closer when watched, slipping away when ignored—as if waiting for the perfect moment to escape its tether and become something else entirely.

A metal that remembered, an alloy that, once forged into a shape, could never truly be reshaped. If bent, it would revert. If shattered, it would reassemble—not instantly, but subtly, over time, its fractured edges stitching themselves back together with threads of unseen force, as if recalling the moment it was first crafted and yearning to return to that perfect state.

Heck, a color that should not exist, a hue beyond human perception that still etched itself into the mind, a shade that changed depending on who looked at it. To some, it was a deep violet beyond black, to others, a vibrant hue beyond the spectrum of mortal sight. When painted onto a surface, it did not settle but shifted like an oil slick, adapting to its environment, blending into reality itself as if it were a color reality had not yet accepted but could not reject either.

And many more.

Each was harvested with meticulous care, suspended in containment units of personalized design—sealed in fields of unmoving time, within geometric prisons of folded space, preserved in ways even the expedition members themselves barely understood.

At this point, they were not merely artifacts—they were pieces of a reality that once was, or perhaps, a reality that could be.

The expedition was far from over, obviously, but the discoveries already made were worth more than a thousand relics of gold and steel.

After a time, I redirected my attention forward, guiding the Duolos vessels toward the distant outline of my Landship.

The massive construct, a colossus of steel and cognition, sat anchored upon the landscape, its towering spires and intricate framework gleaming beneath Carcosa's peculiar sunlight.

I adjusted our axis.

The sensation of Floating Through Life gradually faded, our bodies slipping back into the rhythm of conventional motion.

The Duolos touched the ground beside me, their eyes still glowing faintly.

Without a word, I turned and strode forward, the entrance of the Landship shifting open as the cognitive systems registered my return.

I walked past the halls, past the central operations, past the countless mechanisms in motion.

And eventually, I arrived at the hydroponic farm.

I let out a quiet breath, stepping into the lush expanse of majestic colors, the scent of cultivated life washing over me.