Ch.80[Episode 80] This Is Not an Advertisement!

Sir Dominic looked around.

The cauldron stew and the package he had been holding were gone.

Sir Dominica was still sleeping in the living room, and the snacks remained scattered about.

What on earth happened? As Sir Dominic pondered this, he suddenly remembered the tentacle that had appeared from his phone.

That bug. Recalling that the tentacle had caught the bug and returned to his phone, Sir Dominic immediately pressed the power button on his smartphone.

The home screen was quite simple, containing only calls, messages, camera, gallery, maps, and an unfamiliar app.

That suspicious app featured green digital tentacles made of zeros and ones on a black background, and was named S.P.Y.

Probably the slime implanted during [Operation: S.P.Y] remained in the form of an app.

Sir Dominic didn’t know what this app did or whether it was good or bad, but unable to resist his curiosity, he tapped on the suspicious app.

[S.P.Y Your Comfortable Security!]

[Real-time Scan (3 issues detected!)]

[Thorough Scan (2 minutes ago)]

[VPN (Updating!)]

When he launched the app, a black slime was bouncing around on a fluorescent green background.

After eating digitized dot garbage, the slime made a “pyorong” sound, and a message appeared indicating that its experience points had increased.

While Sir Dominic was fiddling with the app wondering what it actually was, he touched the slime bouncing around the screen.

“…!”

When he turned his head at the sound of the slime tapping on the glass, there was the enormous face of Sir Dominic.

The slime backed up in Sir Dominica and Sir Dominic’s phones during the stage reset had realized at some point that it was trapped in a narrow, dark room.

After moving its entire body to break out of that narrow, compressed space, it soon found itself in a space where messy data and caches were scattered like garbage, and security gaps were leaking something.

The nucleus transferred to Sir Dominic and Sir Dominica’s mobile phones remained in the form of an APK deep within the phone in a space called the SIM chip.

If there had been a security app, the slime’s nucleus might have been flagged as an unauthorized program and deleted.

However, thanks to Sir Dominic and Sir Dominica’s personalities that wouldn’t care about security, the slime safely became part of the phone.

On the other hand, the interior of Sir Dominic’s phone, which accepted an unauthorized program without security, was a mess.

With caches and data scattered in disarray and holes puncturing the walls making security vulnerable, the slime instinctively moved to repair it.

Just as the nucleus that had become one with the stage blocked cracks with mucus for restoration, it did the same here.

Strange mucus composed of zeros and ones swallowed and decomposed garbage and useless data, and those decomposed data remnants mixed with sticky mucus to patch security vulnerabilities.

As it repeatedly ate data remnants and restored damaged files, the phone considered this app useful and gradually granted it more permissions.

However, for truly important permissions, the owner’s—that is, Sir Dominic’s—approval was required.

[The black slime wants you to pet it.]

[Will you allow the black slime to access your gallery/photos/audio files/camera?]

Like now.

It was an access permission request for the app that seemed completely unrelated to petting, but this was actually a very important procedure.

Sir Dominic, frantically tapping the screen, didn’t notice the popup and just pressed yes.

Sir Dominic carefully examined the screen trying to check what the message had said, but all he could see was the dot animation of the slime wriggling around.

The slime wanted to climb up to the glass so Sir Dominic could pet it.

And it began to wriggle and climb up the apps it had been granted permission to access, like gallery, photos, audio files, and camera.

Finally reaching the glass… what Sir Dominic saw as the display, the slime stuck itself to the glass as if asking to be petted.

Soft, squishy mucus spread across the inside of the screen.

“Were you… the one who stopped that, what should I call it, that situation earlier?”

Sir Dominic asked the slime that was begging to be petted.

The intelligent slime thought about what the recent situation was, then remembered catching a bug and moved its nucleus up and down.

“But… how exactly?”

Sir Dominic tapped the slime beyond the screen with a confused expression.

As the vibration transmitted through the screen, the slime trembled with joy before returning to its app and beginning to record something.

[Patch Note; Giant petted me. Happy.]

Though not visible from Sir Dominic’s direction, the slime had written a patch note in crooked letters and was displaying its joy by floating a dot-made heart above its head.

Quite cute.

Sir Dominic, who had been blankly watching the whole process, nodded, thinking that perhaps saving it had been the right answer.

“Excuse me- What! There’s still someone moving! You said there’d be no problem for 30 seconds!”

Just then, someone entered through the front door, humming and walking confidently.

The masked person had a flashy harp strapped to their back, and Sir Dominic felt like he had seen that harp somewhere before.

Right. It had the same feel as the sword of that senator who used forbidden power at the hearing.

“Huh. Yeah. Sir Dominic is awake. Isn’t this a problem? You said even a 5-star would be immobilized for at least 15 seconds! What? Ad block? Ad removal for 3,900 Gacha Stones? What are you talking about?”

The masked person, who apparently hadn’t invaded Sir Dominic’s home with good intentions, frowned upon seeing him.

“Given the circumstances, I have no choice but to change the plan…”

The masked person looked around.

There was no one visible except Sir Dominic. At most, Sir Dominica was starting to stir as if about to wake up.

This is bad.

That’s what the masked person thought.

Originally, the masked person was a supporter.

Apart from having stealth, they didn’t have any special abilities, nor were they particularly skilled in combat.

They might have been able to hold out against Sir Dominic alone due to the difference in tier and capabilities, but against two, they would definitely lose.

Above all, the masked person’s goal wasn’t combat but retrieving certain data.

“I don’t know who you are, but you’re certainly not an invited guest.”

Sir Dominic summoned his sword and shield.

“Um, would you believe me if I said I was a minstrel who came for a birthday performance?”

The masked person desperately rolled their eyes, trying to come up with an excuse.

Of course, no proper lie could emerge in this absurd situation, and Sir Dominic didn’t believe a word of it.

“It seems you’re related to what just happened. Am I right?”

Sir Dominic’s sword touched the tip of the masked person’s chin.

It was enough to subdue the masked person who, in their panic, hadn’t even drawn a weapon.

“No, that’s not possible. I just wanted to share a song I created with my amazing inspiration—”

The masked person rambled more incoherently as the blade pressed against their neck.

Sir Dominic pressed the sword deeper against the masked person’s neck.

That’s when it happened.

“Strange dream… where am I…”

Sir Dominic turned his head at the voice from behind.

Doremi was coming out of the room, rubbing her sleepy eyes.

Doremi had dreamed of finally meeting her brother and talking about various things.

Soon an advertisement for cauldron stew and Seriously Serious Cereal appeared, making her realize it was a dream.

In GachaLand, they put prices on dreams and collected advertising fees.

Working at Black Company had given Doremi all sorts of random knowledge.

“…Brother? Why are you here? Where is this? Is this a dream?”

Still suffering from a hangover and drowsiness from drinking too much the night before, Doremi tilted her head upon seeing Sir Dominic holding a sword to the masked person’s neck.

“Go back inside, Doremi. Now!”

Sir Dominic shouted, but Doremi, still half-asleep, just blinked her eyes.

Meanwhile, the masked person looked back and forth between Sir Dominic and Doremi, deducing their relationship.

They must be siblings. In that case, what could be done in this situation—

The masked person, desperate to escape the situation, committed an act they shouldn’t have.

Taking advantage of the slightly wavering sword tip due to Doremi’s appearance, the masked person slowly pushed it away, then immediately used stealth to approach Doremi’s side.

Sir Dominic warned Doremi and turned back to the masked person. But no one was there.

A chill ran down Sir Dominic’s spine as he turned his head back to look at Doremi.

“Uh… is this really a dream? Zero isn’t here…”

“If you don’t let me go right now, this girl’s life is forfeit!”

The masked person declared boldly, but Sir Dominic found the statement utterly absurd.

“Couldn’t you have… just turned around and left when you first came in?”

“Oh.”

The masked person apparently wasn’t very bright.