"Employee Justin, your body and mind have both reached their limit. Return to the main break room immediately and rest."
X spoke into the microphone, his voice calm and decisive as he directed the employee who had just exited the containment unit on the screen.
"If you still feel unwell, go to the storage cabinet and grab a bottle of grape soda—the one produced by the 'WellCheer Soda Machine.'"
"Employee Faust, proceed to Training Department Containment Unit No. 2 and perform an Insight task on O-02-62…"
"All Security Department staff—report immediately to Security Corridor No. 2 and suppress the Crimson Dawn: 'Begin the Celebration!'"
"Control Department members, head to Control Corridor No. 6… Intelligence Department members, move to Training Department to provide suppression support…"
"…Hello? The new analysis report is out? excellent. Thank you, Snake—ah, I mean, thank you, Yesod."
After several arduous work cycles and rounds of data analysis, there was finally some good news regarding the newly arrived O-02-62.
This Abnormality, strongly suspected to be "High Bird," had a relatively broad range of work preferences. Aside from Repression, which it strongly disliked, its preference values for the other tasks ranged from Average to High.
However, there were also two pieces of bad news.
First, judging from its maximum PE-box yield and the number of boxes required to unlock its information, this Abnormality's danger level was unquestionably WAW.
It was likely the most dangerous Abnormality X had contained since assuming the role of manager.
Second—and far worse—its damage type was the most terrifying of all:
Blue Damage—Soul Damage.
The Manager's Manual described this type of damage as death itself. It directly eroded the soul and was even more dangerous than Black Damage.
(Red Damage: physical, reduces health.
White Damage: mental, reduces sanity.
Black Damage: erosion, reduces both health and sanity.)
Put simply, Blue Damage deducted both health and sanity based on a percentage of total capacity.
No matter how strong an employee's body or mind was, it made no difference.
In the face of Blue Damage, a Level V employee and a Level I employee were equally fragile.
What made things even worse was that, at present, none of the E.G.O armor developed by the company had Blue resistance lower than 1.0.
Even the best-performing armor sets extracted from several HE-class Abnormalities—
Magic Bullet (HE, from Der Freischütz, contained on Day 12),Fragment of Frost (HE, from The Snow Queen, contained on Day 8),Gaze (HE, from Schadenfreude, contained on Day 13),
—all had Blue resistance values of only 1.5.
That meant any Blue Damage taken would be multiplied by 1.5.
Fortunately, thanks to consistent overtime training, X now had several experienced Level V employees. Dealing with such a dangerous Abnormality was not entirely impossible.
Taking Justin from the Control Department as an example:
She was equipped with Magic Bullet, giving her a Blue resistance of 1.5.
Each work cycle inflicted a base damage of 5–7 points, averaging 6. Multiplied by the vulnerability factor, that became a very real 9 points of simultaneous health and sanity damage.
A Level V employee could theoretically endure this amount of damage eleven times, leaving both health and sanity at just one percent.
Of course, this was nothing more than a cold theoretical limit.
X did not consider himself a heartless demon—he would never push his employees to the brink of death like that.
If the damage values fluctuated even slightly, a veteran employee could die or suffer a mental collapse on the spot, which would be a catastrophic loss.
Because of this, X assigned only the two Level V employees with the highest discipline ratings (which affected work speed and success rate) to take turns working on O-02-62.
This minimized the risk as much as possible.
Even so, the efficiency of PE-box collection was painfully low.
After each work session, employees had to spend a long time resting in the break room before they could recover from the sensation of their souls being torn apart and attempt another task.
"Mm. Just as I thought—this Abnormality really is a WAW-class headache."
Watching the steadily filling Abnormality encyclopedia on the screen, X nodded to himself.
"And its true name is… Judgement Bird."
"Aside from its extreme dislike of Repression, its preference for the other three work types is average…"
"It has the potential to escape. Its Qliphoth Counter maximum is only two points—but the trigger conditions are strict. The counter only has a chance to decrease when work results are 'Bad' or 'Normal'…"
"Good. That means as long as top-tier employees are assigned, it remains fairly docile and easy to manage."
"E.G.O development requirements… roughly 150 PE-box for the weapon, and 120 for the armor…"
He clicked his tongue at the staggering numbers.
"That many PE-box just to develop a single set of E.G.O? As expected of a high-ranking Abnormality…"
HE-class E.G.O typically required only 30 to 50 boxes. Jumping straight into triple digits was indeed exceptional.
X was about to move his gaze away from the equipment panel—when he suddenly froze.
"…Wait. Did I read that correctly?"
He instinctively leaned forward, staring hard at the rating icon beside the E.G.O equipment entry.
"A WAW-class Abnormality… and the E.G.O it produces is actually ALEPH-class?"
After the initial shock, his surprise gradually settled.
"…Thinking about it, this kind of thing isn't entirely unheard of."
X opened the encyclopedia entries for several other Abnormalities.
"The TETH-class 'Cracked Armor' produces an HE-class weapon—and a precious Blue-damage one at that."
"The HE-class 'Der Freischütz' produces a WAW-class weapon…"
"So a WAW-class Abnormality producing ALEPH-class E.G.O… isn't impossible after all."
The implications of that realization lingered heavily in X 's mind as he continued overseeing the day's operations.
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