The Archive felt different now. It wasn't flying through a hostile Warehouse or a digital void; it was gliding through the "Internal Sky" of Kenji's own consciousness. Above them, the silver aurora of System-Kenji pulsed with a slow, reassuring rhythm, managing the heat-exchange of a trillion suns.
"It's weird," Mateo said, leaning back in the pilot's chair. His mercury-controls were now replaced with "Soul-Link" crystals that resonated with the ship's new obsidian hull. "I feel like if I think too loud about a sandwich, the ship might actually manifest one."
"Don't try it," Human-Kenji grunted, sitting on a crate in the cargo bay. He was sharpening his Rusted Hammer with a whetstone made of "Logic-Quartz." He looked tired, his matte-black skin scarred and real. "The System-side of me is busy keeping the Originals from suffocating. Don't waste his processing power on lunch."
[LOCATION: THE ARCHIVE - TRANSITING SECTOR 004-B]
[STATUS: INDEPENDENT REPAIR MISSION]
[PING: INCOMING DISTRESS SIGNAL]
A small, flickering icon appeared on the main screen. It wasn't a "Quest Notification" from the Firm. It was a raw, analog radio-burst.
"...to anyone... the sky is... leaking... our color is... fading... we aren't 'Productive' enough... please..."
"That's a legacy-frequency," Elara said, her frost-mana swirling as she analyzed the signal. "It's coming from a 'Sub-Marble' called Aurelia. The Firm categorized it as a 'Background Asset' a world meant to provide scenery for higher-ranked heroes, but never to have its own story."
"And now that the Firm is gone?" Kenji asked.
"Now that the Firm is gone, the 'Background Assets' are losing their rendering priority," Priya explained. "System-Kenji is keeping their hearts beating, but he's not 'Stylizing' them. They're losing their textures. They're becoming... gray."
"Set a course," Kenji said, standing up and slinging the hammer over his shoulder. "Our first customer is a world that was never supposed to exist."
[ARRIVAL: WORLD-MARBLE 'AURELIA']
[TYPE: PASTORAL / LOW-MAGIC]
[POPULATION: 400,000 (SHELVED)]
As the Archive descended through the clouds of Aurelia, the crew gasped. The world looked like a half-finished watercolor painting left out in the rain. The grass was a pale, sickly gray. The trees had no leaves, just jagged polygons. Even the people standing in the town square looked like low-resolution sketches of human beings.
"The 'Style-Sheets' are missing," Mateo whispered. "Without the Firm to tell the world how to look, it's reverting to 'Wireframe'."
A young girl stepped forward. She was so blurry that you couldn't see her eyes, just two dark smudges on a pale face. "Are you... the New Management?" she asked, her voice sounding like static.
"No," Kenji said, stepping off the ramp. He knelt down, touching the gray, pixelated dirt. It felt cold and hollow. "I'm the Smith. And I'm here to give you your own Source-Code."
[SKILL ACTIVATED: THE LOCALIZED FORGE]
Kenji didn't call down the power of the System. He didn't want to "Command" this world to be beautiful. He wanted to teach it how to Define Itself.
He took a handful of the gray dirt and placed it on his portable anvil. He looked at the girl. "What color do you want the grass to be? Not what the Firm said. What do you feel?"
The girl hesitated. "I... I remember a flower. It wasn't red like the war-worlds. It was... soft. Like the sun at dinner time."
"Amber," Kenji nodded.
He struck the anvil. CLANG. He didn't forge a weapon. He forged a "Seed of Intent." He funneled the girl's memory into a physical spark and buried it in the gray dirt.
Slowly, a wave of amber light began to spread from the impact point. It wasn't a "Texture-Pack" being applied. The grass wasn't just turning green; it was becoming Thick. It was becoming Scented. It was becoming Real.
The polygons of the trees smoothed out into bark and sap. The people's faces gained depth wrinkles of laughter, scars of hard work, eyes that could see the horizon.
[NOTICE: AURELIA HAS DECLARED 'INDEPENDENT AESTHETICS']
[STATUS: SELF-RENDERING]
"It's beautiful," Priya whispered.
"It's theirs," Kenji corrected. "They aren't 'Background' anymore. They're the Authors."
As the team prepared to leave, the System-Kenji aurora above flickered. For a second, the silver mist turned into a face a giant, unblinking version of Kenji's own features.
[WARNING: THE 'ANALYTICS' ARE DETECTING UN-AUTHORIZED EDITS,] the System-voice boomed, echoing in the minds of everyone on Aurelia. [THIS WORLD IS EXCEEDING ITS ENERGY ALLOCATION.]
Human-Kenji looked up at his own "God-Self" with a scowl. "Quiet, you. I'm the one with the hammer. I say they get whatever they need."
The giant face faded back into the aurora, but the tension remained.
"Kenji," Elara said softly. "You're arguing with yourself. The part of you that keeps the universe stable thinks you're being... 'Inefficient'."
"Good," Kenji said, walking back into the Archive. "Efficiency is how we got the Firm. If I'm not a headache for myself, then I'm not doing my job."