"How are you feeling?" Eliza asked as the station wagon, they were riding zipped through the roads of Town Solen.
Trex who is currently looking outside the window like a kid imagining a running man was startled and look at his new mother.
"I'm okay, I uh. There was this green crystal in my room. It changed my room. I might have played it through the morning. Sorry," Trex stumbled on his words as he explained everything.
He felt weird at this moment, he didn't know why he was feeling flustered. In his memories, not even Jonathan was this timid.
Hearing his explanation, Eliza who was sitting in shotgun, and Illana, who was driving, was startled.
A small thread of mana shot out from Eliza towards Illana. And while Trex noticed it, he had no idea what it was.
Suddenly, the thread dispersed.
Eliza's and Illana's expression did not change, however, the full ten seconds of silence made Trex feel terrible.
"Hahaha," a sweet laugh suddenly mesmerized Trex. Hearing his mother laugh that way… it made him feel happy too. "Even without your memories, the first thing you do was to game," Eliza happily explained.
Illana, who kept her gaze on the road, also had a faint smile.
"Well, you should probably rest your eyes. Even though the thaumi soup energized you, if you played all night, you still should rest your eyes," Eliza continued.
"Oh... Okay mom," Trex answered.
The moment Trex closed his eyes. Another thread, much thicker than earlier, connected Eliza and Illana.
After a short while, Eliza smiled. "Maybe we're just being paranoid," She mouthed silently.
——
Inside Trex's mind, the moment he closed his eyes in reality, his eyes opened in the metal world.
The lonesome metallic tree remains tall in the solitude of cold metal and neon lights.
Except, somewhere up high within the bald branches of the tree, is a leaf.
Something that never appeared before.
Sensing his desire to check on the leaf, OS's voice resounded in the world.
["The weird leaf. Do you want to examine it?"]
"Yeah," Trex answered, curiosity laced his voice.
From the cold metal, neon light shaped a squared on the floor he was standing. In the next moment, the metal extruded itself from the ground and began to float towards the leaf.
Trex was momentarily surprised, lacking the knowledge of the mysterious metal world, he suddenly remembered.
"What exactly is this place?" He asked the OS.
["Analysis incomplete, research uncompilable. Estimated time of completion: twenty-eight days."]
"Oh…" Trex remained quiet.
Moving this way in this world. Nothing felt more familiar to Trex.
The lack of air resistance, even air itself. Filled with metal, neon lights and the only thing that is missing is plastic.
A thought appeared in his mind.
"Is this the world inside the smart mind?"
["Chances of that being true is over 90%"] the omnipresent voice replied.
"Doesn't that mean my own memory and the smart mind's memory is separated?" Trex continued.
["Chances of that being true is over 77%"]
The problem of memory still plagued Trex. Without a way to expunge unnecessary bits of Jonathan's memory, losing his newborn consciousness is in extreme peril.
Before he could finish his thoughts, ["You've arrived."]
Focusing on what's in front of him, a banana leaf appeared in front of him. Its green glow gives it a sense of nature that the metal world severely lacks.
Grabbing over the leaves, Trex was surprised.
Like the game console, the moment he touched the leaf, the area around him turned into the holographic world of Spellworm.
"This... What is this?" Trex questioned no one. It was just a sudden burst due to doubt.
Still, OS still thought of it as an actual question.
["This leaf appeared the moment you fell asleep. I scanned it for the few minutes you've slept and learned that this is similar to the source code of the game."]
Trex was shocked.
Deep within him, a very deep desire was born.
Whether it was his original goal, which was to create games, or Jonathan who designed Trex this way as he, himself, was also a prospective game designer. The fact that he could continue making games, Trex felt exhilarated.
"How do we access this?" Trex immediately asked.
["I suggest only doing so after this world's analysis. Even though I hypothesis that this world really is the smart mind, it was never this huge, nor real. Still. When you touch it, a dew forms which crystallizes?"]
Hearing OS's findings, Trex was like a kid in a museum wanting to grab everything he saw interesting.
With a swift caress, the green glow of the leaf sublimated in the steam as a small droplet formed. The dew began to move towards the tip of the leaf. When the droplet left the leaf, it immediately crystallized. Instead of falling, the crystal remained floating right in front of Trex.
Watching everything so closes, Trex was astonished. For that short while, a feeling of being overworked washed over him.
It was as if the CPU began to turbo to speed help in the code compilation.
Unknowingly, bullets of sweat formed in his forehead. "What just happened?" He asked OS.
["System Temps went over 90 degrees, seems like something else happened. This did not occur when I attempted myself."]
Trex began to feel himself. Finally, he noticed, the energy running within his body depleted. It was also then that he realized, he's a Chede now possessing a human body. Due to his experience as a computer, he never noticed the energy that was flowing within him. It was no different than how it was before.
Then his skin, it was now very red but not burnt. If he were a human, spending those few seconds over 90 degrees Celsius in temperature would have resulted in fourth-degree burns. In the end, he only suffered something akin to a sunburn.
After realizing changes in his body, he shifted his focus on the crystal. It was green, the same as the Spellworm crystal.
Softly, Trex grabbed the crystal and suddenly the metal world lit up.
In the far horizon where nothing seems to exist, green streak of lights spread out as grassy lands spawned in chunks.
Simple foliage grew as trees slowly erected. After a short while, the ground became rough as hills slowly formed until it got higher and higher. However just abruptly, the land stopped generating.
The green crystal in front of Trex had long gone which had turned into the new land.
Similar to what he had met in the game, the land that has been generated that is closer to the metal world was a meadow that opened towards the forest. Deep within the forest is a running river that goes all the way to the mountain.
Confused why the land stopped expanding. He stared at the floating island dumbly.
["This seems to be the last area you've visited in the game."] OS reminded him. ["Seems like you're thinking abilities had been reduced."] OS added.
Realizing it, Trex nodded dumbly. Not realizing he just admitted to the OS's banter.
His nod froze and finally caught on. But before he could rebut...
"Dear, we're here," a sweet voice echoed in the world. It was the voice of his mother.
——
Opening his eyes, he realized they were still on the road.
Finally, he reacted to his mother's voice and nodded.
"Are we there yet?" he spoke unconsciously like a kid.
With a smile, Eliza pointed at the right side of the windshield. There was a small clinic with the signage 'Sherman Clinic' written in a banner.
"Here we are" Illana said as she parked at the side of the road in front of the clinic.