The next few days were not too eventful. Since the huge monsters had been dealt with, the Guild Members and Basilicom agents could fight the usual monsters around the city of Lowee with relief that the greatest risk in their nation was gone.

Of course, it didn't mean that everything is over. To lessen the burden, IF's group has also accepted many quests of many kinds and helped out the city however they could. Right now, IF and Compa were helping the city's hospital and Guild to deal with the injured soldiers. The last one of the trio has also joined with the active Hunters to eliminate the monsters surrounding the city while collecting materials to fix things up and ingredients to make all sorts of potions.

After two weeks, the Oracles and IF's trio had made a meeting (through video call) and talked about the current problems in all nations. Right now, every nation Kuro has crossed has their problems lessened significantly and was in the process of returning to its glory. Lastation, however...

"Nothing?"

"Nothing." The Oracle of the last nation replied. "Our nation never encountered any monsters that resembled those that hit yours. However, we got a rumor about a ghost of an armor wandering the entire nation. Considering that there was actually no strange damages, we didn't pursue further. And since Magic appeared in Leanbox..."

"We could make a safe assumption that the 'ghost' in Lastation is Brave." Chika continues. "With the CPUs' last encounters with him, we have reached the conclusion that he is a good person who was just deceived by ASIC."

"Did you try to approach him?"

"Unfortunately, that seemed to be impossible, miss Histoire. Everything was just rumors, and we had no clear pictures or locations the person could appear. Every rumor marked at different places and had not many connections with each other."

"...Did you hide something that could possibly be his?" Everyone turns to look at the masked man. "Either he was looking for something, or he was trying to do something that he couldn't while he was... alive."

"...I will be right back." Kei excused herself and moved away from her office table.

"The same with Magic, huh?" Chika asked, referring to how the mad woman was in Leanbox.

"Yes."

"But...if those two appeared... then where are the rest?" Mina asked in concern. "The creepy monster and the one who guarded the Yard when we were trying to save the CPUs. I think their names are Trick and Judge, right?"

"...Depends. Did you remember how those two acted?" Kuro asked, knowing full well what they were, but he did so just in case if he remembered wrong.

"One of them was a fighting maniac." IF replied. "The other... urgh." She definitely didn't want to speak about that pervert.

"...From what I read from the reports, that other... was a pedophile."

"Yeah, thanks for reading the files." IF was glad that she wasn't the one having to say that vile word. "Out of the four, Trick was the most disturbing one to deal with."

"...Magic in Leanbox." Kuro summarized. "Possibly Brave in Lastation. Lowee and Planeptune had no sights of these... Felons, right?" That earned him nods of confirmation. "...And Trick DID manage to somehow brainwash the CPU Candidates of Lowee?"

"That's true." Mina sighed sadly. "Thankfully the others snapped them out of the..."

"I'm back." Kei returned, and the others dropped the current conversation. "There are some common points: Some locations have children residents, others were ASIC factories once before we raided them. While I could understand the latter..."

"I think it did fit his personality." IF commented. "Uni once said that all Brave did was to bring happiness to the people especially the children who couldn't afford it. His soul might try lingering and protecting the people he swore to do so."

"Then, I have to..."

"I know." Kuro knew what Histoire was planning to say. "Having a person like that on our side is going to help a lot."

"Then I believe I will send people to look out for him in the meantime for miss IF's group's arrival."

"Please do, miss Kei." Histoire is pleased that everything started to...

"Madam Oracle!" The meeting came to a halt as one of the Basilicom agents rushed into the meeting room with a scared expression. "The Killachines are reactivating!"

"WHAT?!" Everyone except Kuro and Kei shouted in disbelief as the Oracle of Lowee quickly asked: "How is that possible? We have TWO Mascots to lock them down!"

"But our security cameras showed that they just got up and ready!" The agent said with his hands shaking in fear. "And top of that..."

"Trick." Slamming his hands on the table to shock the agent (which caused him to actually stop shaking for a moment), Kuro stood up and turned to surprised IF and Compa. "I believe we will need to return back to Planeptune after this." He turned back to the screen which had the Oracle of Planeptune's surprised face. "Miss Histoire, alert your agents and army and look out for any sights of the last Felon."

Taking a second to recollect herself, the Tome nodded. "I will make sure nothing will happen to Planeptune."

"Good. IF, Compa, direct me to where those Killachines are. We waste no time."

Half an hour later

"How long can we hold these things back!?" One of the Hunters shouted to his comrades while firing his laser gun directly towards the rampage Killachines' faces, but other than slowing them down, there was no damage on them whatsoever, or that the damage was immediately healed up.

"Does it look like we can hold them!?" Another shouted back, holding his shield up and blocking the bullets firing from some of the Killachines' body-mounted guns. "Now we freaking know why the CPUs have troubles with those ones unlike the ones in the wild!"

"And we're not even talking..." The one right next to him ducked down to avoid getting his head blown from a stray shot. "About that damn thing on the back! How the F*&K can we kill a ghost!?"

"We have to stay our ground to wait for THE SOLUTION to come!" Spamming Healing spells for the front lines, one of the Medic-role mages shouted through the radio. "We're LUCKY that we didn't have to deal with the strongest Felon!"

"WATCH OUT!" The front line immediately spread out so they wouldn't get crushed by the maces the Killachines used to try to smash the squishy Hunters. "Get back! Do NOT attack them head-on! Just keep them at safe distance!"

Upon the alert of the Killachines being reactivated, every available Hunters and Guild agents in Lowee was called and deployed to World Labyrinth to stop the robots from destroying the nation. Having reports of how the CPU Candidates fought them in the past, the Hunters had created multiple formations to avoid getting casualties if they needed to fight them without the CPUs. However, what they didn't expect was the ghost of a dead Felon fighting with the robots, causing the plans nearly getting thrown out of windows if Trick was more serious in killing them. Instead, the pervert lizard occasionally swung its long tail towards the front line, nearly knocking the Hunters down if they didn't see it coming.

The fight has been dragged for a while, and the Hunters were getting low of strength. They could try holding against the Killachines for a bit longer, but with Trick against them...

"...Flowers?" A question of confusion is asked through the com. That caused some of the Hunters to look around and, indeed, multiple pink floras started appearing from beneath them, emitting a gentle aura around them that somehow sued away the fatigue in them. "Okay, this helped! Whoever is doing this, keep it up!"

"I'm afraid that's all I could provide you for now." A robotic voice replied through the com. "Once I defeat Trick, I will use the spell again. For now, please keep the Killachines in check."

The moment the flowers withered, the air's filled with dreadful atmosphere, as the Killachines' surrounding areas were filled with sharp black strings, temporarily stopping their movements for a moment before they destroyed them with their melee weapons. That's a bad move from the robots, however, as the strings were sharp enough to cleave through the mace, destroying one of their two main weapons. Some tried to shoot the strings, but they remained intact.

Seeing the opportunity, a Hunter leader issued the order: "Suppress those Killachines with ranged spells! Do NOT let them get back up!"

...

Emitting from the shadow of the Killachines, Kuro quickly dodged the stray shots from them before stopping meters before the ghost of the dead Felon, who's giving him a nasty look. The area somehow was distant away from the rampaging robots, so it's one-on-one. Using the mask, the dead man started the conversation: "First Magic, now you. Seems like you Felons are still very tough even when you have died."

Or at least, that's his attempt for one-sided conversation, because Trick didn't respond with words, and instead swung his tongue towards Kuro as an attack. He quickly jumped out of the way, pulled out one of the revolvers and started shooting a whole cylinder of Fire-imbued bullets towards Trick's face. The bullets, unsurprisingly, passed through his opponent because they were still in the physical realm. Quickly dropping the empty cartridges out of the chambers, Kuro started channeling the Dark energy and made them bullet-like and inserted them into the chamber while dodging the tongue attacks. He released another six shots to the ghost, and this time all hit square to the face, causing Trick to flinch back in surprise and pain.

Kuro then ran towards the boss, avoided another tongue swing and jumped up to his right arm. He stabbed his scissors into the arm, causing Trick to swing the arm frantically to try to throw Kuro away with his left arm assisting the task, which Kuro shot the left arm to avoid getting swatted. After a few constant stabs, Kuro commanded the strings to wrap around the wounds then tightened them, cutting the arm off. He then jumped off just in time the boss roared in anger and pain as it started swinging both his tongue and remaining arm around to try to catch Kuro, with the right arm slowly fading away.

'At least I know I can have a chance.' Kuro thought in his mind, then made a call as he dodged the attacks: "IF, did you have a view of where the Mascots could be?"

"Good news is that we found them. Bad news is that they're broken, again. And we just beat up the two old buddies, again."

"Can you fix them?"

"We're going nowhere until you deal with Trick."

"...I hate that kind of problem. Okay, hold on a minute." Firing a Dark Bullet into Trick's left eye, Kuro ducked into his own shadow and started searching for the boss' core. To his surprise, it's nowhere inside Trick's current body, or anywhere around their battlefield. Quickly jumping out of his shadow then rolling to the right to dodge, Kuro called back to IF: "We have another problem. I can't kill him again." He quickly explained after hearing shouts of disbelief from the other end: "I couldn't find his core. Something is wrong here."

"Couldn't you ask that... one who controlled you in Leanbox to find it?"

"Human and... whatever Trick is, have different cores. And even if..."

His self-explanatory stopped when he noticed Trick has stopped attacking. Then, for some reasons, his only intact eye widened in possibly shock and fear as the CFW's body expanded and exploded into mist. Kuro didn't expect this outcome at all, and he didn't even see anything attacking him...

"Uh, Kuro..." IF called back. "We found the core in Underling's coat, and we smashed them."

"...What is he?" Kuro asked both her and himself. "That aside, have you started fixing the Mascots?"

"Broccoli is already on it."

"Then I better go and help dealing with..." He noticed a stray 1 caliber bullet heading straight to him, so he ducked into his shadow again then re-emerged back. "The Killachines along with the Hunters then. Meet you later."

Once the Mascots were fixed up and the Killachines stopped blasting everything up, Kuro helped the Hunters bringing them to where they would be sealed again. He then met up with IF's group who tied up the last two dedicated members of ASIC and kept up on them and the Mascot.

"No losses. Lowee's Hunters must have trained hard to deal with this problem." Kuro said after greeting with the group.

"Blame the monsters for Planeptune's problems." IF pouted once then turned serious. "We have a bigger problem. Someone smashed the Mascots, not these two. They were just here to call back Trick. And he's... something."

"=/= That's so vague." Kuro then turned to the Mascots and asked: "Who broke you two?"

"We didn't know. The person was covered up good." The original one answered.

"However, we could feel the power of the Deity of Sins coming from them." The copied one continued. "Whatever the case, it's going to be problematic."

"...So he, or she, was the one giving you the core." Kuro turned his face up to the ceiling of the cave and asked, obviously directing the question to a certain duo. "Did you see their appearances?"

"Like I would tell you." A certain rat managed to retort, temporarily ignoring the fear they might experience again in Planeptune.

"That's a big mouth for someone going to jail again-nyu."

"X.X This is getting ridiculous... where was the last time Trick died again?"

"It's LAN Castle." Compa replied. "He captured Histy and brought her there when we were distracted by ASIC, so we rescued her and beat him."

"...We're having way too many unknown factors." Kuro pulled his mask out which caused the criminals to flinch in fear, and the mask continued as he rubbed his face in annoyance. "X.X Deity of Sins' possible return, Lastation having a unique monster or not, one CFW not located, the last CPU's whereabout..." Taking a deep breath, Kuro put the mask back. "Let's get one thing at a time. Miss Mascots, you two should find a better place to hide."

"Of course."

"Since there's no longer problems here, we should..."

An explosion suddenly occurred, and again, the victim was his mask. The same kind of shot in Leanbox again got fired from an entrance towards its previous target. However, when the smoke was away, the mask was unharmed as Kuro turned instantly to where the shot was fired, but saw no one again. The others also started looking around to find any possible dangers... and after about thirty seconds, nothing else happened.

"What's with the mask drawing the shot?" Kuro had to ask with an annoyed expression on the mask. "Thanks MAGES. for teaching me how to reinforce it with magic."

"I guess they want to instant-kill you, again." IF guessed. "You saw anything?"

"Nothing." Kuro shook his head. "Another added to the list. Let's just get out of here first before whoever out there decided to shoot me again."

Midnight

'Everyone should be asleep at this point.' Sitting up in his bed, Kuro looked around to check if anyone was in his room, only to find a soundly sleeping Pinkie. Quietly getting out of the bed, he then quickly merged himself with the shadow and started making his way back to where Uranus could possibly be after the castle collapsed.

About half an hour later, he reached the outer area of the ruined. Returning back to the physical world, Kuro opened the light on his mask and started navigating through the dungeon.

Another ten minutes passed, and he saw the broken coffin. He then saw the spirit of the deceased CPU near it...

"You still needed answers from me?" The goddess quietly asked, not facing him yet.

"...I need to make sure some of my knowledge is correct." Kuro confirmed his intention. "Do you know any cases of any CPUs being 'corrupted'?"

"...If what you told me about Gehaburn is correct... Then I would be one of its victims." She then turned to him with a sad emotion written on her face. "The others sacrificed themselves so I could deal the fatal blow... but you know the result."

"Was there other records?"

"None, if my memories serve correctly."

"...No one has confirmed the death of the last CPU." Kuro then stated. "And I got shot twice, one in Leanbox and one right after we dealt with the phantom of a CFW and fixed the Mascots. Both were energy shots."

"...Only two CPUs in current era used guns. And one of them is confirmed dead..." Uranus connected the dots. "And since I happened..."

"...I would have to ask you to not say this to anyone." Kuro demanded. "The world's already in chaos. The moment this info leaked out, the chance we lost Gamindustri could reach to nearly a hundred percent."

"I doubt anyone would even try to find me, and able to see me at all." Uranus stated, then asked: "Young adventurer... you seem to know well of Gamindustri's past. What are you?"

Kuro didn't answer at first, as he started checking around to see if anyone was eavesdropping or not. He then walked to Uranus and reached his left hand towards the Goddess' right head, and his knowledge started flooding into her mind.

A few moments later, Uranus' expression turned shock as Kuro retracted his hand. "...It..."

"That's how I knew things around." Kuro nodded. "However... There were a LOT of mismatched info from what I knew compared to what I found here, I can confirm that you are real."

"...That... is a lot... to take." Uranus bit her left thumb, her mind trying to make sense of what she just received. "...What will happen to this world..."

"All we can safely say is that we will stop whatever evil is out there with all we have. And we won't be able to do so without everyone's combined determination and strength." Kuro took a moment to stop before continuing: "I managed to save the people back then by making myself 'the monster' in their eyes... but I can't do it here. Not when people still have hope."

"...I sympathize with your struggle." Uranus found her voice back. "You should put your trust more in your companions."

"I do. I just... couldn't shrug the possibility..." Kuro shook his head to throw away such bad scenes. "I just can't."

"...Maybe 'she' could help. From what I have read, she was indeed just sealed away. However, we knew not if she was still around, or if 'other one' existed."

"...I will talk with Histoire about it then. Thank you for listening to me." Kuro nodded gratefully and started gathering shadow...

"Do you believe in miracles?"

"...Fifty-fifty. What are you implying?"

"You might find out soon."

"...Goodnight." With that, Kuro retreated into the shadow and started heading back to the Basilicom.

"...'The CPUs are born from the people's faith'... Enough faith for a person..."