Brain in a Tank

Nothing could be seen.

Nothing could be heard.

As if all five senses had vanished, nothing could be felt.

All he could do was think.

‘What kind of situation is this?’

His vision went dark and when he came to his senses, this was the situation.

He couldn’t understand what had happened at all.

Even though he wanted to figure out what was going on, with no senses he couldn’t do anything, and he couldn’t even tell how much time had passed.

‘Did I not make it to the real world? Did something go wrong when I touched my brain? Please don’t tell me I have to stay like this forever? Hey, Kim Ganghyeon. Kim Ganghyeon!’

-Ungh…

Kim Ganghyeon’s voice was faintly heard before cutting off immediately.

Though he wasn’t sure what was happening, he first needed to do something about this endless darkness and silence before he went insane.

He needed some kind of stimulation, anything at all.

After desperately wracking his brain, Yuseong finally had a thought.

The status window didn’t appear before his eyes but rather manifested as an image in his mind.

If that was the case, perhaps he could bring up the status window even without his senses?

‘Status Window.’

Name: Kim Ganghyeon

Class: Brain Eater’s Food

Level: 154

Title: Cultivated Human

Strength: 0

Agility: 0

Wisdom: 328

Constitution: 0

Magic Power: 25

Spirit Power: 311

Skills: –

‘It worked! …Wait, what’s this? Class is Brain Eater’s Food? And what’s with these stats? Why are there no skills?’

The status window was completely different from when he first checked it.

The level had decreased, the class and title had completely changed, and strength, agility, and constitution had gone beyond even K-14’s record low of 1 point among all clients he’d seen to record an absurd 0 points.

‘Class is Brain Eater’s Food and title is Cultivated Human. So the real Kim Ganghyeon was captured by a Brain Eater and being cultivated as food. Is the virtual world like a pasture to keep the brain thinking and developing?’

While calmly analyzing the status window, one thing caught Yuseong’s eye.

Spirit Power.

And quite a large amount at that.

With this much Spirit Power, he could use Eye of Truth.

Though he couldn’t see detailed things like flows without the medium of vision, he could at least sense his surroundings by dispersing Spirit Power.

‘Everything’s filled with liquid. This is solid. Don’t know the material but it’s a cylindrical capsule. Am I trapped inside? Something’s lying nearby… Gloves and shoes? Could these be the Thousand Hands and Gravity Shoes? So that’s where they went – they fell here?’

While calmly assessing the situation, Yuseong spread his Spirit Power to the immediate vicinity to figure out why he couldn’t move his body.

And his thoughts immediately froze.

Yuseong had thought the reason he couldn’t feel his senses and his physical ability scores were 0 points was because of some terrible drug or being trapped in some special device.

But the situation he sensed with Eye of Truth was incomparably more horrific and hopeless than any of that.

‘There’s no body!’

This wasn’t a metaphor or anything else.

Literally, there was no body.

There was only a brain.

To put it simply, he was a brain in a tank.

‘…’

He had imagined all sorts of situations, but a brain in a tank hadn’t even crossed his mind.

After being momentarily stunned by the massive shock, Yuseong soon gathered his wits and began considering ways to overcome the current situation.

‘First, there’s nothing I can do in this state. I need some means of interacting with the outside, whatever it may be. Thorny Vine? No. The tank is completely sealed so I can’t send it outside. Then…’

Yuseong opened his inventory and selected one icon.

[Spending 40,000,000 karma points to withdraw Sophia’s Custom Android (S+)]

[Insufficient karma points]

[There may be penalties if karma points go negative. Would you still like to withdraw the item?]

Exactly double the karma points spent to withdraw Thousand Hands.

This would drop his karma points to negative 60 million, but Yuseong chose ‘Yes’ without hesitation.

* * *

In the empty subspace.

Alice, who had been passing time watching movies stored in her artificial brain, was momentarily startled by her suddenly changed view but quickly gathered her wits and surveyed her surroundings warily.

‘A quest!’

Though she didn’t know what kind of quest it was, the mere fact that she had been summoned meant it was definitely no simple matter.

Alice instantly entered combat mode.

Small plasma gun in her left hand, lightsaber in her right.

She deployed weapons hidden throughout her body and floated elven arcane magic stolen from Lorraine around her.

‘Where’s Mr. Yuseong?’

The first person who should be visible was nowhere to be seen.

Alice carefully surveyed her surroundings while maintaining her guard.

Strange mechanical devices and robot arms moving here and there attached to the ceiling.

Glass tubes filled with Unknown Liquid densely placed everywhere.

Upon realizing there were human brains inside those tubes, Alice gritted her teeth remembering what her original had done in the past.

“Mr. Yuseong! Mr. Yuseong!”

As Alice searched for Yuseong, familiar items caught her eye.

A pair of black gloves and metallic shoes.

If her eyes weren’t mistaken, those were definitely Yuseong’s equipment.

As she approached to pick up the items, she felt something strange and stopped in her tracks.

“What’s this?”

The glass tube behind the dropped items.

Energy was being emitted from inside at regular intervals.

As Alice tilted her head puzzled, she activated Eye of Truth due to the strange feeling.

And was shocked.

Energy was gathered on the outside of the glass tube forming letters asking for help.

“C-could it be, Mr. Yuseong?”

-Help me out here.

“Of course I should help… No, first prove that you’re really Mr. Yuseong.”

Though she had heard all sorts of things could happen in quests, she still couldn’t easily believe that a brain in a tank was Yuseong.

-I think I saw your mouth move, but sorry, as you can see I don’t have ears right now so I can’t hear sounds. Either infuse your voice with magic power or form letters with magic power.

“Prove that you… are really Mr. Yuseong.”

-That hairpin I bought you in Gwanghwamun, you don’t like it? Why aren’t you wearing it?

“That’s obviously because I only wear it in safe places since I’m worried it might break… Could it really be you, Mr. Yuseong?!”

-Of course it’s me, who else would it be.

“Oh my goodness. How did you end up like this?”

-It’s a long story. I’ll tell you later, just help me first. Don’t forget to grab the gloves and shoes.

“Hmm.”

Alice looked at the glass tube with concern.

Though she desperately wanted to help, she had no idea how to go about it.

Whirr.

“Huh?”

Alice looked up at the sound.

One of the robot arms attached to the ceiling came down and grabbed the glass tube containing Yuseong.

As the connection to the unknown machine was severed and the glass tube rose into the air, Alice snapped back to her senses and leapt up to cut off the mechanical arm.

“Phew.”

She caught the glass tube before it could hit the ground.

However, her sigh of relief was short-lived as her expression hardened at the sound of sirens blaring from all directions.

“What should we do?”

-Let’s escape from here. We have no information and the situation isn’t good.

Nodding her head, Alice picked up the glass tube and ran toward a nearby passage.

How long had they been running?

People carrying weapons appeared from the opposite end of the passage.

“Intruder!”

“Kill them!”

The people opened fire without warning.

Though it would have been catastrophic if even one bullet had hit the glass tube, the shield she had deployed in advance blocked all the bullets.

Alice pointed her plasma pistol at the enemies and pulled the trigger with an indifferent expression.

Zap!

With a sound like electricity arcing, one person turned to ash and disappeared.

The startled people fired even more intensely but were no match for penetrating the shield.

Nothing much changed after that either.

Though drones and physics lasted a bit longer, they couldn’t inflict any damage on Alice, and she handled the attacking enemies without difficulty.

“Maybe we don’t need to run away?”

-No, we absolutely must escape. And as quickly as possible.

Given the class name “Brain Eater’s Food”, there was definitely a Brain Eater in this world too.

And this place was a farm for raising Brain Eater’s food.

There was a strong possibility that a Brain Eater was nearby and would come to investigate after detecting the commotion.

Sensing the urgency in the text, Alice swung her lightsaber at the wall.

If they weren’t underground, they could escape by breaking through the walls in a straight line.

Slash! Slash! Slash!

After cutting through walls several times.

Alice finally managed to break through to a path leading outside.

However, Alice hesitated instead of immediately going outside.

-What’s wrong? Is there a problem?

“Ah, no. I was just surprised because the outside view was unexpected.”

-What do you mean?

“The sky and clouds are spread out.”

-Wait, this facility is floating in the sky?

“If my eyes aren’t mistaken. Anyway, I’ll escape now…”

-No! Stop!

Yuseong hurriedly stopped Alice.

This world’s Civilization Grade was 0.99.

Based on his experience so far, it was impossible for a world with this level of Civilization Grade to create a flying facility, especially one this large and heavy.

That left only one possibility.

‘The Brain Eater must be levitating it with telekinesis.’

If they went outside now, they would more likely run into the Brain Eater instead.

-We need to stay here. Is there nowhere to hide?

“There’s no place to hide, but there is a way to hide.”

Alice and the glass tube containing Yuseong became transparent.

She had deployed a stealth field that made anything within a certain range invisible.

Alice moved to a corner and shortly after, people began gathering around the hole she had made.

“Did they jump from here?”

“No way. They must be hiding somewhere.”

“More importantly, how did the intruder get in here? What’s going on?”

“They were carrying a capsule, maybe we should check who…”

Woooooong!

When an enormous howl echoed from somewhere, the arguing people instantly turned pale and scattered in all directions.

Yuseong was just as tense.

A very familiar howl.

Though he couldn’t hear the sound, he could feel the waves contained within it.

-…We need to get information. Quietly catch just one person.

Without even a second’s hesitation, Alice snatched a man passing in front of her.

The people who were all busy going their own way didn’t notice that someone had disappeared.

“Mmph?”

“Um, I have something I’d like to ask if that’s alright?”

“Mmph! Mmmph?!”

Crunch.

Pressure like his neck bones would break.

The man had no choice but to nod obediently.