1 Stolen Retirement

"You will be saving all sorts of worlds, they said," Theo whined under his nose while working his magic on a small laptop. His fingers danced on the keys, turning letters into lines upon lines of simple orders.

He didn't need to bother creating complex hacks, the inbuilt algorithms would do all the work for him. All he had to do, was specify what kind of job he wanted the program to complete.

"Life full of exciting adventures awaits," he ranted softly, pulling himself away from the screen and looking up.

The night view of the city from the top of the tallest building around was breathtaking. Thousands of lights danced around in a perfect visual symphony.

Theo's eyes moved even higher.

A myriad of stars shone down upon the planet's face, creating an image a city view could only ever hope to replicate.

But he wasn't out in the cold of the winter's night to stargaze.

Theo looked down at the screen and sighed.

"That should do," he muttered before confirming the changes and booting the program up.

The algorithms transformed his simple orders into complex data arrays. The data then went through the wire, directly to the massive antenna set up right by Theo's side.

He wasn't the one to set it up. He simply made use of the clean work done by the military whose lab Theo was in process of hacking.

"Battles for the fate of the continent; duels with demon lords; taking revenge for betrayed heroes," he muttered while idling away while the programs on his computer did their magic.

The data of Theo's programs shoot through the sky, transferred directly into the military satellite tasked with researching a certain spectrum of the local star's activity.

[Connection established.]

A string of words appeared on the feed.

[Modifying the drivers of <sensor_array_1> and <sensor_array_2>]

'This should take a while,' Theo thought and stood up. He then moved to the side, to the glass panels that separated the viewing platform from the ordinary part of the roof.

An unkempt face covered in yesterday's untrimmed beard. Dark circles below the otherwise beautiful, blue eyes.

'Not much of a hero, huh?' Theo thought while staring at his own reflection. He then twisted his head away, unable to bear the sorry state he was in. "At least, after this job, I will finally be able to get my life off," he muttered before stretching his arms to the side and yawning.

Theo glanced over to the screen of his laptop, curious to see if the job was finished.

[Driver modification completed.]

[Tracing callback to the lab.]

[Hijacking the return connection.]

[Connection to the lab established.]

The progress of the task was stuck on one of its last phases. And before long, the last two lines of text appeared as well.

[Past results of sun-scan altered]

[Traces of interference erased.]

"It's done," Theo sighed. A wave of relief washed over his entire body, carrying away all the pressure and tension. "It's finally over," he added, struggling to fully accept the fact.

'No!' Theo shook his head. 'Nothing's over yet!'

The strict part of Theo's soul took over. Nothing was finished before the last step of the procedure.

Theo moved back to his laptop before pressing a special key on its side. This simple action brought forth three results.

Upon activation of the key, the entire software on the laptop died off, formatting every piece of both stable and temporary storage. Then, when the button was fully pressed, the capsule of acid at its end broke, melting down all the pieces of hardware that shouldn't exist in this world.

Lastly, a single spark set the melted mess of the laptop on a strange, chemical fire that quickly turned this cutting-edge piece of technology into a bunch of unstable elements.

'A single gust of wind and all the traces of my interference will be gone,' Theo thought.

But he wasn't one to leave anything to fate.

And so, rather than waiting for the wind to disperse the mess that he made, he took a step forward and kicked it all away.

'Connect to the hive,' Theo thought. And differently to how things would be for a normal human, something inside his mind clicked.

<Hive operative> A strange, robotic voice appeared in Theo's head.

'Task completed,' Theo shortly reported.

<Good, now they won't stumble into the technology they are not ready for>

The hive responded in its usual, emotionless voice. Whoever was handling Theo's case clearly couldn't be bothered to speak, opting to use text to speech function of the hive.

'Now, let's talk about my life off,' Theo thought.

His lips quivered, their corners moving slightly up.

'I have some suggestions,' he continued before the hive could reply. 'I thought something between a hero king or maybe an overpowered harem lord…'

'Wait, no, just wait a second!' Theo instantly went from relaxed to a panicked state. 'Those were just stray thoughts, let me…'

The robotic voice of the hive filled Theo's brain with more than just words.

It filled Theo's consciouses with compulsion.

'Wait, fuck, no!' Theo's eyes went wide… but he could no longer control his body.

The hive-controlled version of himself took three steps of a run-up before jumping from the edge of the roof.

A small, round object materialized within Theo's hand. His thumb sneaked into the hole of its pin while the rest of his fingers held the leaver down.

Theo's body accelerated toward the ground at a worrying rate. The people below turned into dots, then ants, before Theo could see all the details of their outfits and faces.

Theo's face nearly struck the ground at a speed that would instantly shoot him straight back to his original body… when his fingers relaxed, letting go of the leaver.

Ting!

Theo's body stopped mid-air.

The people around continued to mind their business, undisturbed by the floating human in the middle of the pedestrian path.

The hive finally spoke again.

Theo's initial panic already turned into anger.

He was about to finally spend the life of his lives. A time that he would remember for centuries to come. A bait that the hive would dangle before his brain before pushing him to work even harder.

And now they were going to steal it? The life of that he worked nearly a century for?!

Theo's anger turned into wrath.

'Not even a word of apology for fucking with my holidays?!' he thought furiously.

But it was no use.

His emotions wouldn't get translated over the text-to-speech functionality that his handler was using.

Theo's anger turned into wrath. And now, it turned all the way back to panic.

'Wait, please, stop!' he pleaded with all his might.

A clean slate meant wiping all of his memories and replacing them with the ordinary life of the planet's locals. That was already annoying, but a clean slate also meant he would lose all of his strength and mana that he trained his entire life for!

'I don't want to start from a fucking scratch!' Theo begged in his thoughts while his body simply rolled in the air before stepping on the pedestrian path.

The causality ordnance broke all the physical rules within its radius of effect. That's why he could change from falling to his death to walking on the street without any consequence of actually falling.

Oblivious to the existence of such technology, local passersby could never connect the dots. That's why, they went on with doing whatever they were doing before, unable to spot anything strange in Theo's impossible movements.

'Just wait for one damn second!' Theo turned from begging to screaming his mind off. Still, with his body fully in control of the hive, he could only do so within the confines of his mind.

<Oh, chill the fuck up!>

The operator behind the hive's voice finally snapped, letting go of its emotionless tone in favor of the true display of what he or she felt.

The emotionless voice of the handler cracked, revealing the true state of that person's mind. And the wording he used was as precise as it was packed with hidden meanings.

'I'm not the first to be sent over?' Theo froze. 'Did they stumble upon a mission one of us actually failed?'

For a single instance, Theo forgot that all his thoughts would be transmitted over.

<Not one of us. There were a total of seven failed expeditions so far> the handler reported with a heavy voice. <When the core decided to pull them back… their original essence was scrambled, so we could only learn very little>

The original essence. In layman's terms, it was the soul of all the heroes cooperating within the bounds of the hive. The true persona projected upon their countless reincarnations.

This method of visiting all sorts of words allowed the hive to modify the body to suit the specifics of the local situation; make the heroes invisible within the crowd of locals. And up until now, there wasn't a single force within the universe that could remotely affect a hero's essence!

Theo took a moment to sort his thoughts.

'So this is what I'm getting instead of the life off that I worked so hard for?' he thought, although not as angrily as before.

Something deep within him started to wake from its long slumber. A strange emotion Theo didn't feel in ages.

<This is a problem we cannot ignore. That's why we are pushing with the clean slate> the handler informed. His voice returned to its usual, emotionless tone. <We will embed your mission into the support that we will provide…> the handler hesitated. An event Theo went through for the first time. <Basically, the Core believes that the core part of the essence of the seven missing heroes is somehow stuck in that world. And it will be your task to find and recover them>

Theo closed his eyes. He then took a deep breath, trying to rein in the strange feeling of agitation that was climbing up his spine.

'And a clean state is supposed to keep me from being detected by whoever hunted down our colleagues?' Theo asked, just to confirm his guess.

After ages spent working within the hive, he figured out the way the core members thought things through.

<That's right. And your support package is set to be as adaptive as possible. As such, there will be some delay before it activates>

The bubble of unreality started to tear. First cracks appeared, heralding that its effect would wear off soon.

'I understand the situation,' Theo thought, fixing his posture to ensure no part of him would appear out of the ordinary once he would step back into reality. He also gave up on his attempts to rein in his innate nature, allowing the feeling of excitement to fill his soul.

That's how this job was supposed to be. Looming danger, a real threat but also a proper reward. Such was the hero path he expected to repeat upon his reincarnation.

'For such is my duty,' Theo thought right as the bubble of unreality broke, forcing all the rules of the universe back upon the area he was in. 'My pleasure,' he thought, taking a step to the side and walking off the pedestrian path, right under the mask onto the oncoming traffic.

'And my desire,' Theo thought when the grill of the semi-truck struck his side.

Thankfully, right before the pain of the crash could kick in, Theo's mind dissolved into nothingness.

<Good luck, o hero> the handler muttered the traditional phrase, ignoring how Theo was no longer able to receive it. <For the trial that awaits rests upon your shoulders now>

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