It took a full minute before Hong Min could force his trembling body to stand. The taste of bitterness and vomit was still in his mouth, and the image of Arda screaming in silence was etched behind his eyelids.

  404 broke the silence that had fallen over the dead control room.

  "While examining the skeleton," he said in his quiet voice, "I found this metal disc in the pocket of its clothing. The engravings on it match the structure of the palace."

  He held out his hand, and in his palm was a heavy metal coin. But Hong Min ignored it for a moment and turned to him with red-rimmed eyes.

  "Arda..." he said in a hoarse voice, "Are you truly unaffected? We killed him!"

  404 looked at him and tilted his head slightly. "He attempted to neutralize me. I neutralized him first. This is the logical sequence of events to ensure survival."

  Hong Min exploded. "Logic! Always logic! Is that all you have?!" he screamed, but his cry was hollow, filled more with pain than anger. Then he bent over, placing his hands on his knees, and felt a wave of shame.

  "Damn it..." he whispered. "It's my fault. I'm sorry... I'm sorry I yelled at you. You... you just don't understand."

  He calmed down a bit, reached out with a trembling hand, and took the coin. It was cold and heavy. On one side, there was a delicate engraving of an old key, and on the other, a silhouette of the giant palace.

  "So this is the key..." he said in a low voice. They had found a way in. But this brought him no sense of victory.

  "What a foolish king," he muttered sarcastically as he stared at the coin. "He makes a special key for a palace that isn't even guarded by a single wall, and then he puts a monster in the forge? There's no logic to this place."

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  He looked at 404, and some of his old determination returned to his eyes. "Let's go. To the palace."

  The long journey back through the dark corridors began. Hong Min was completely silent, lost in his thoughts. When they reached the "Path of Flame" again, he felt that the heat itself had subsided, as if the spirit of the place had died with its guardian.

  But as they neared the crossroads, they heard a familiar and unsettling sound. A sharp, metallic scraping, "ch-ch-ch," but it wasn't coming from a single creature, but from hundreds.

  The "Path of the Gear" they had fled from was now empty. All the "Scrap Pests" had moved on, invading the corridor that Arda had been guarding.

  Hong Min froze as he saw the swarm moving slowly in the corridor before them. 'They were afraid of him...' he thought with a cold dread. 'They were afraid of Arda. Now that he's dead, there's nothing to stop them.' Their own actions had opened the way for this new emergency.

  The swarm didn't wait to notice them. 404 moved.

  What happened next wasn't a battle; it was a harvest.

  404 charged forward like a storm of black steel. The "Ash Blade" drew deadly arcs in the air, cutting down not one monster, but three or four with each swing. There was no strategy; there was no need for one. It was just absolute efficiency, an overwhelming force cleansing the corridor of the pests, which scattered like dust in the face of a hurricane.

  Hong Min stood at the entrance of the corridor, watching in silence, his mouth agape at the sheer spectacle. He had seen 404's strength before, but this was something else. This was mastery, a terrifying control.

  After a few minutes, silence fell once again. The corridor was filled with the wreckage of hundreds of metallic creatures. 404 stood in the midst of this destruction, not panting, without a single scratch on him.

  He turned slowly and looked at Hong Min, who was still frozen in place.

  "I must fulfill the order and find feelings," 404 said suddenly, his quiet voice sounding strange amidst all the wreckage. "I do not understand what you are feeling now after seeing all this. But I want to understand."

  404's words shook Hong Min, pulling him out of his shock. He looked at the massive being standing before him, then at the destruction around him, then at the key in his hand. He slapped his forehead with his palm and let out a sarcastic, weary smile.

  "Sure, you desert goat," he said, some of his old spirit returning to him. "Didn't we already agree on this? Let's go, we have a palace to open."