The smell of rain. Not simulated, digital water from Floor 14. Real, dirty, smog-tinted city rain.
Yuto hit the pavement hard, rolling across wet asphalt before slamming into a rusted chain-link fence. Above him, the sky wasn't a wireframe grid or a painted ceiling. It was the grey, overcast sky of Neo-Tokyo, illuminated by the flickering neon signs of a nearby noodle shop.
Isabella landed with a heavy splash in a puddle, coughing wildly. Kurenai hit the ground feet-first, cracking the concrete pavement beneath her boots. Ayase landed gracefully in a crouch, while Shion face-planted directly into a pile of damp cardboard boxes.
"We're out," Shion muffled from the cardboard. "We actually made it out without paying."
Yuto slowly sat up. He looked at his right arm. The bandages were scorched black, but the agonizing, tearing heat of the Vault Pressure was subsiding. Without the Babel System's oppressive physics engine constantly trying to tax and process his mass, his body could finally breathe. He was still hoarding a terrifying amount of energy, but the immediate threat of death had vanished.
"Where are we?" Isabella asked, staring in awe at the towering skyscrapers, the cars driving by in the distance, and the lack of health bars floating above people's heads.
"The real world," Yuto rasped. "The slums of Sector 4. It's where I lived before I dove into the Tower."
He didn't waste another second. He ignored the pain in his bones, kneeling in the wet alleyway. He raised his hands and did something he hadn't done in years.
He initiated a withdrawal.
[System Echo: Withdrawing 1x Soul (Rin Kurosawa).]
It wasn't a purchase. It was a transfer of assets. A gentle, pulsing blue light emitted from Yuto's palms. The geometric red prism materialized in the alleyway, hovering above the wet asphalt.
Yuto placed his hands on the admin-code. "Unlock."
Because Yuto had assimilated the VIP Ledger, he had the master password. The red prism dissolved like sugar in hot water.
A pale girl in a tattered hospital gown fell forward. Yuto caught her instantly, pulling her into his chest. She was incredibly light, her breathing shallow but steady. She wasn't pixelating anymore. The Code Default disease was gone.
Rin's eyelashes fluttered. She slowly opened her eyes, looking up at the wet, rainy sky, and then down at the boy holding her.
"Yuto?" Rin whispered, her voice weak but entirely human. She reached up, touching his face. He looked older, hardened, and his right arm radiated an impossible, terrifying heat. "You... you're so big now. Did... did you pay the Guild?"
"No," Yuto smiled, a genuine, tearful smile that finally broke through his cold, miserly exterior. "I didn't pay them a single fragment, Rin. I bankrupted them."
Rin stared at him, bewildered. Then she looked past him, seeing a towering Oni woman stretching her shoulders, a beautiful samurai inspecting a nearby vending machine, a blushing gladiator girl, and a succubus eating a discarded wrapper.
"Yuto," Rin asked softly, "who are they?"
"They're the Vanguard," Yuto said, helping her sit up. "They helped me."
Before Yuto could explain further, the neon sign of the noodle shop at the end of the alley began to violently flicker. Then, a nearby streetlamp exploded.
"Alpha?" Kurenai asked, looking around as the electricity in the entire block began to surge.
Yuto looked down at his right hand. The Babel System was gone, but the assets weren't. He had carried the digital equivalent of seventy-five thousand Vita-Fragments, a Mythic Chest, and the CEO's administrative ledger directly into the physical world.
The modern human economy wasn't built to handle a teenager walking around with the localized GDP of a small country compressed into his soul. His sheer, offline net worth was actively warping the electromagnetic field of the city.
A sleek, black corporate hover-car slowly descended at the entrance of the alleyway. The doors opened, and several men in sharp suits stepped out, holding mana-detectors that were blaring like air-raid sirens.
"Master," Shion gulped, floating over to Yuto's shoulder. "I don't think we're done with creditors just yet. The human corporations felt the server crash."
Yuto stood up, helping Rin to her feet. He looked at the corporate agents, then glanced at the Vanguard.
"Looks like the real world needs an audit, too," Yuto said.