svetikya Chapter 60 The Last User
Chapter 60 The Last User
The light in Genichi is uniform.
It wasn't natural light; there was no angle, no source. It was the kind of light where you couldn't find the source, yet the entire space was illuminated—uniform, not glaring, falling on every corner, without shadows or blind spots. Xie Chengzhou noticed this when he first entered Yuan City and noted it in his memo: "Light source: Unknown. Uniformly diffused, no shadows." Later, as he entered more often, this became background noise, and he stopped paying attention. But every time he stepped in, that feeling of "no shadows" would still make him pause slightly, as if his body sensed "the rules here are different" before his mind.
The temperature was two or three degrees lower than outside, the kind of temperature difference you wouldn't notice until you left. It was clean, windless, and free of the random air currents that are common outdoors. The ground was paved with flagstones, a color between gray and beige, which made a slight echo when you stepped on them. The texture was uniform, completely different from the sandy sound of the dirt roads outside.
Old Zhao walked in, paused for a moment, took the thermos off his waist, weighed it in his hand—it was empty—then hung it back up, and continued walking, his pace unchanged.
Li Gong, standing next to him, bent his left fingers slightly to check the feeling, then released them.
Xie Chengzhou followed behind them, opened the memo, and found page #004.
They found a spot near a pillar and sat down. There weren't many people in Origin City at this time—if Origin City had a time system at all—and the players coming and going were scattered. Most people walked with a purpose, their steps quick and unhurried, the kind of gait that indicated they knew where they were going. Occasionally, someone would pass by, glance at them, and continue on their way.
Old Zhao leaned against the pillar, stretched out his legs, first his right leg, paused halfway, then continued, finally stretching it out fully and steadily. He placed his thermos on the ground beside him without saying a word.
Engineer Li sat next to him. His right shoulder was slightly lower than his left shoulder, and his muscles were not fully relaxed yet, but he was much better than when he first came out of the dungeon. He was in a state where he "could stop," not one where he "needed to stop."
Xie Chengzhou sat down, spread the memo on his lap, and began to organize the rules for #004.
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There are five explicit rules for #004, which he has verified one by one in the copy:
"Rule 1: The rate of water level rise is positively correlated with the area of structural damage." — Confirmed, the water level jumped after the expansion joint expanded, and the water level fell back after repair, indicating complete data.
"Rule 2: Seepage creatures are sensitive to construction behavior, and construction behavior triggers retreat." — Confirmed. After mortar injection, seepage creatures move upstream, and large individuals disappear at the 32nd minute. The mechanism has been verified.
"Rule 3: Expansion joints are the weakest nodes in the structure and also the key intervention point for the rule." — Confirmed, the waterstop strip + mortar sealing is effective, and the expansion joint is the core operation object of the entire instance.
"Rule 4: Passing the level with non-item items: First time." — To be verified. Whether Feng Bo took the ore out, and whether it is still there after he took it out, is unknown.
"Rule 5: A third party exists within the copy." — To be verified. The source of the third set of footprints is unknown. The researcher's manila notebook mentions that "someone wrote it in, it's not constitutive." The information source is singular, and more data points are needed.
He marked each of the five rules one by one, marking the confirmed ones with "✓" and the ones to be verified with "?", and then flipped to the hidden rules page.
The implicit rules are derived by himself, not given in plaintext in the copy:
"Hidden Rule 1: Construction Changes the Rules." — Confirmed, this is the most crucial discovery in this instance and the foundation for what he currently considers the most important cross-instance deduction.
"Hidden Rule Two: Heat is an effective variable for repelling seepage agents." — Confirmed: Old Zhao's thermos cup hot water repelled seepage agents; after construction and repair, the large individuals disappeared. Two data points show that heat = an effective repulsion method.
"Hidden Rule Three: The presence of the dam keeper is not a threat, but a source of information." — It has been confirmed that the dam keeper provided the crucial information that "part of the dam's structure was designed in," and is the only entity in the instance that actively provides information.
"Hidden Rule Four: The dungeon scenes have a real historical background and are not generated out of thin air." — He paused for a moment at this point.
This was the first place he stopped during the tidying process.
He stared at the line of text for a while.
"The dungeon scenes have a real historical background; they weren't generated out of thin air."
He found a new data point for this hidden rule in #004—the ore Feng Bo discovered had a geological background that "shouldn't be here," artificial cutting marks, indicating someone had placed it there. This wasn't an automatically generated item from the instance; it was something left behind after someone had existed in and used this space.
He flipped back through this implicit rule to see if there were similar data points in the first three copies.
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#001 Wasteland.
He flipped to page #001 and reviewed the records from that time.
The wasteland is an abandoned factory, the factory supervisor is a threatening entity, and the explicit rules concern sound and vibration. Among the details he noticed in the instance, one he marked as "to be categorized": "Next to the machine on the east side of the factory, the tools are arranged abnormally—wrenches are arranged from left to right according to their size, and the last wrench is not on the same line as the other tools. It is the position where it was taken out and put back after use, not its original position."
He noted this down because the placement didn't seem like it was "automatically placed when the copy was generated," but rather like it was "put back after someone used it." However, he didn't have time to analyze it in depth at the time, so he marked it as "to be categorized" and continued working on the copy.
Now he lists this one separately and writes next to it: "#001·Last User Trace·Candidate. Tool Placement: Returned after use, not in its original position."
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#002 Underground Pipeline Network.
He turned to page #002.
Pipeline copy, crawler threat, control room, water level control, note.
A note.
He found the record in his memo: "Source of the note: Unknown, pending verification."
The note was found next to the control panel in the main control room. It was handwritten and contained a string of numbers, which he initially identified as the valve operation sequence, a conclusion that later proved correct. However, he never verified the note's origin—it wasn't a copy of the explicit rules, nor a system prompt; it was a handwritten note, folded and placed in a crevice of the control panel, as if someone had simply slipped it in after use.
He wrote next to it: "#002·Last User's Trace·Candidate. Note: Handwritten, folded, and tucked into a crevice. Source: Someone who used this space."
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#003 Offshore construction site.
He turned to page #003.
#003 is the instance with the most deaths: Wang Bo, Zhang An, Lin Xiao, Fang Yuan, Lao Chen, and Liu Feng—six people in total. He wrote their names down in his memo, one line per person, with the cause of death listed after each name, which was the cause of death he could confirm.
He lingered on this page for quite some time.
It wasn't because he was upset, it was because he was searching.
Where is the trace of the "last user" of #003?
He went through the details of #003 again: the construction site, building materials, scaffolding, construction tools, completed structures, and unfinished structures—
Then he remembered.
Chapter Three: Construction Records
He found a construction log in the copy; it was incomplete, handwritten, and recorded the construction progress of the site. The last line showed the date "Day Fourteen," and then the record stopped; there was no fifteenth day. The paper itself was worn, had water stains, and a folded corner, indicating it had been frequently read. He took it to the control room and used the data inside to help determine the structural load-bearing points.
That construction record wasn't an automatically generated copy; it was something that someone actually worked on and documented at the construction site.
He wrote next to it: "#003·Last User's Trace·Candidate. Construction Record: Handwritten, worn, water stains, folded corners. Last Record: Day Fourteen. Source: People who worked on this site."
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#004 Dam.
The most obvious trace of the "last user" is in #004: the chalcocite piece that Feng Bo discovered has artificial cutting marks and does not belong to the local geological background; someone put it into the deformation joint. This is the clearest piece of evidence among his four copies so far.
He wrote next to it: "#004·Last User Trace·Confirmed. Ore: Artificially cut, non-local geological background, placed in an expansion joint. Source: A person who existed in this dam space."
Then he put the records of the four copies together and looked at them.
#001: Tool placement method; return tools after use. #002: Handwritten note; fold and tuck into gap. #003: Construction record; handwritten, showing wear and tear; last recorded day fourteen. #004: Ore; manually cut and placed in the expansion joint.
He stared at the four lines of text for a while.
Four copies, four traces, different in form, but they have one thing in common: these things were not generated by the rules system of the copies, but were left behind by someone who actually existed in this space and actually used this space.
He weighed this conclusion in his mind, feeling its weight.
If this is a pattern, what does it mean?
The first possibility is that the scene in the copy originates from a real space that actually existed. It wasn't generated out of thin air; rather, a real space at a certain point in time was "captured" into the copy system. These traces were brought in along with the capture—tools used, notes written, and documents recorded in that space were all brought into the copy.
The second possibility is that the replica scene is generated, but it references real historical data during the generation process. These traces are "details copied in" during the generation process, not real usage traces, but highly simulated replicas.
The third possibility is that these traces were deliberately placed there—not brought in during the creation of the copy, but actively placed there by someone after entering the copy, with the purpose of leaving some kind of signal or verifying a hypothesis.
He wrote down all three possibilities in the memo, noting the current supporting and rebuttal evidence for each.
The strongest possible supporting evidence is that the ore in #004 is geologically incompatible. If it were an item automatically generated by the instance, it wouldn't generate an ore that "doesn't belong to the local geology." This detail itself indicates that the ore wasn't added by the instance system.
A third possibility cannot be ruled out—the researcher's parchment notebook. He entered this copy four times, and he had the ability to actively place things in the copy; the ore in #004 might also have been placed there by him. However, this does not contradict the first possibility—the ore might have been brought in from real historical space, and the researcher discovered it, which is why he came four times.
He wrote in his memo:
"Cross-copy pattern hypothesis v1: Each copy scenario contains traces left by the 'last user'."
"Data points: #001 (tool placement), #002 (handwritten note), #003 (construction record), #004 (ore)."
Confirmation rate: 60%.
"Items to be verified: ① Whether all four traces are genuine usage traces, rather than simulation details generated by a copy; ② Whether there is a copy without traces of the 'last user'; ③ Whether the content of note #002 has informational value beyond the copy itself."
"Inference: If the assumption holds true, the likelihood that the replica scenes originated from real historical locations increases significantly."
He paused his pen there, looking at the last line of text.
"The likelihood that the dungeon scenes are derived from real historical locations has significantly increased."
This is not a conclusion that can be easily included in a report. If the replica scenes are real historical spaces, where did these spaces come from? At what point in time? What happened after that point in time—where did the factory workers, the pipeline maintenance workers, the construction team at the construction site, the dam keeper go after that point in time?
He went through these questions in his mind, but found no answers. He marked them all as "to be verified" and then closed the page.
Beside him, Old Zhao pulled his leg back, stood up, hung the thermos back on his waist, weighed it in his hand—it was still empty—then took a few steps toward the information market, stopped, and glanced back at Xie Chengzhou.
"Are you going or not?"
Xie Chengzhou closed the memorandum.
"go."
He stood up, put the memo in his pocket, and followed.
They walked a few steps, with Engineer Li following behind. The sound of their footsteps echoed evenly on the stone pavement, a sound unique to Yuan City, different from the sound of sand on the dirt road outside, and different from the echo of the concrete floor in the dungeon. It was the sound of this space itself.
Xie Chengzhou took a few steps, touched the memo again to make sure it was in his pocket, and then let go.
"The last user".
He didn't know who the person who used the wrench in factory #001 was, who the person who wrote the note in pipeline #002 was, who the person who recorded the fourteenth day at construction site #003 was, or who the person who put the ore into expansion joint #004 was.
But they were there.
They used those spaces, left those traces, and then disappeared, vanished after that point in time.
He put the matter in his mind for a moment, without reaching a conclusion or feeling any emotion, just letting it weigh on his mind, and then continued walking.
The information market was ahead, and the sound gradually grew louder. It was the unique rhythm of human voices and the exchange of information—low and dense. It was a sound he had never heard before on the construction site, but he had heard it four times and was beginning to get used to it.