Chapter 29
CHAPTER 29
A strange email arrived.
Subject: Provision of Information
From: Anonymous
Message:
I may have a hint on how
to recover the comatose.
If you’re interested, please
come to the Theta Server’s
Empty Fateful Abyss.
29I’ll be waiting.
I talked to BlackRose and found out that she had received an email with almost the exact same text.
“I was just thinking about talking to you. What should we do?” she asked. “This message is pretty suspicious.”
I crossed my arms.
It was definitely suspicious. In the first place, does this anonymous sender know why we want to recover those in a coma?
“Well, I think I’ll go,” I said after thinking a bit.
“I don’t have enough information at this point. I’ll have to gather any clues I can find…”
The destination was a pure white area. However, it was not snowing.
There was nothing, as if someone forgot to make the background graphics. There wasn’t even BGM. It was a strange area that was different from the place where you fought the Reaper.
For a while, BlackRose and I stood there and looked at the scenery.
“Hey, this place…,” BlackRose said after a while.
A harsh, high-pitched sound rang around the area.
We shrugged at each other.
The space a few meters away from us became distorted and a PC appeared.
It was no ordinary PC. No, in a word, it was not even a normal PC. It was the PC body of an NPC, or non-player character. A fat merchant character.
However, it was obvious that there was a real person operating it.
He crouched at us with his arms folded. It was as if a bear, having woken up from hibernation, was examining breakfast after a long absence.
Suddenly he opened his mouth.
“I am Lios, a system administrator for The World.”
The man’s rusty voice echoed throughout the hollow stage.
We were overwhelmed by the man’s intimidating air and stood up.
“A System Administrator…”
BlackRose muttered in a soft voice.
“You lot are getting too involved. You realize that don’t you? If you hadn’t gone around doing all these unnecessary things, the situation wouldn’t have gotten this bad.”
I remembered Linda and Helba’s warning.
“Be careful, you can’t trust the officials.”
“You are already being watched.”
BlackRose came forward.
“That’s not the case. We are…”
“You use non-specification skills and repeatedly get caught up in non-specification battles, which we call hacking.”
Lios decided.
“The previous server trouble was caused by your hacking activities. We can no longer afford to leave you to your own devices.”
“We can’t abandon the people in comas!”
BlackRose shouted.
“The chain of troubles is the result of thoughtless hackers spreading a virus. We have no reason to simply stand by and watch. We are still investigating the causal relationship between the comas and The World. However…”
Lyos took a step towards us.
“Apart from that, to prevent further deterioration of your situation, your-“
He pointed at me.
“Your PC needs to be deleted.”
“What?!” BlackRose shouted.
“Your PC is in violation of the software license. An irregular installation. You did that yourself, didn’t you?”
I was at a loss for words.
“I hear no objection. So, allow me to delete you…,” Lios said as he reached out his hand.
Suddenly I jumped to the attention, holding my dual blades in my hands.
Delete me, you say? This was no joke.
Until now, I couldn’t trust the system administrators who had done nothing, ignored my comments, and did not take any decent measures. They cannot just leave the matter to this Kite.
“Hmm…” Lios moaned in the back of his throat. “Do you want to be a system administrator?
Next to me stood BlackRose, who had her large sword at the ready.
“Shut up! We’re beginners! We have nothing to lose in this game!”
It was a great way to be defiant, but now we were hopeful.
Just then, dozens of merchant PCs, all in the same style as Lios, making it look like Lios was flickering to the left and right. They all glared at us with their arms folded like Lios. It was a strange sight.
We took a few steps back.
A merchant to the right of Lios spoke.
“We are the Urkuk Pig Racing Squad,” a merchant to the left of Lios said.
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“My King, leave this to us.”
Lios himself made an expression as though he was chewing on worms, and took a step back.
As if on cue, the merchants quickly jumped forward and formed a circle around me and BlackRose.
What a move it was. They kept their arms crossed, stood firmly, and did not move their feet. They had moved as though gliding. It was like a hovercraft.
“Deal with the Heavy Blade after…,” one of them said.
“First, we’ll get rid of the bracelet…,” another said.
A frightful excitement came over them and they descended on me.
I tried to compete but it was useless. Perhaps their parameters were set as high as possible on the authority of the system administrator or something.
I was quickly knocked down on the ground.
“Kite!”
BlackRose shouted, but her scream was immediately muffled. It was like she was eating something.
One merchant PC stood in front of me.
“Now, I will delete you!”
The right hand of the merchant PC slowly descended toward my face.
There was nothing more I could do. There was no escape.
No, there was one thing. With the power of my bracelet, perhaps I could—
It was no use. I shook my head in desperation.
Using the power of a bracelet on humans would be exactly the same as the Reaper. What Balmung calls a hacker. I couldn’t do such a thing.
Now, the right hand of the merchant PC was trying to grab my face…
Suddenly something happened.
Without any warning, the merchant PC vanished.
After a moment of silence, other merchants began to yell.
“Damn you, Kite. What did you do?!”
I shook my head as I laid on the ground. I didn’t do anything.
Suddenly, a cloudy haze, like a darkness, began to enter the area.
The merchants who seemed to be aware of the danger ran at a dash, leaving me there.
I felt someone standing to my left.
“Oh my, this doesn’t look good,” said the person. The tone of that sneering voice was familiar.
“Hmph, who are you?”
“This area should only be accessible to us!” a merchant roared.
“I don’t hate this kind of energy. I really like it. Hehe.“
One of the merchants jumped.
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“You’re a damn hacker! What’s your name?!”
She was struck by his tone.
“My name is…,” she said. “Helba, Queen of Darkness.”
She extended her right index finger and touched the merchant’s fist.
As soon as her finger touched touched his fist, the merchant’s PC body seemed to be covered in a haze and disappeared in an instant.
As if nothing had happened, Helba smiled down at me lying on the ground.
“My my. It’s not like the hero to grovel.”
I pushed myself up by my hands.
Watching this, BlackRose was about to prop herself up with her sword.
“That’s alright. You two can stay where you are.”
Lios, who was watching behind from her, came out, spoke to the merchants, then turned to Helba and me.
“Helba, you’ve often come out in front of the system administrators…”
“I was concerned about you lot, Lios,” Helba said with a smile.
“What?”
Apparently, they seemed to be old friends.
“Lios, do you want to become a Lost One too?”
Helba turned her face and pointed at me.
“If you used data drain here… what would happen?”
“I wouldn’t do that,” I said, but didn’t sound as firm as I thought.
“I know. You’re not stupid, boy. The dumb blockhead is this man.”
“What?!” Lios growled.
“You eliminate what you can’t manage. That’s something only a stubborn person does. You’re okay with deleting something without knowing how it works? The boy’s PC has strong protections that an administrator cannot tamper with.”
“That’s why we can’t overlook it. We are system administrators. We remove non-spec code,” Lios said in a low voice.
“Helba… of course this includes you. I think you can safely leave this area.”
“But I want to have a pleasant chat,” Helba said in an amused tone.
“But you can do either. Thinking about it, it might be quicker to beat a stone than to grind it round. Hehe.”
“Umm, is that okay?”
I stepped in between them.
“I won’t say anything about this PC anyway. I just want to help my friend.”
I looked back and forth at them.
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“That’s really it, Helba. Admin person. What should I do?”
It was a deceptive truth.
If it was successful, I’d want to throw out this tricky game right away.
But if I failed, I can’t let go of Kite no matter what.
“I’m sorry, boy,” said Helba.
“I don’t have the answers, nor does that blockhead. Hehe.”
“Hmph…”
“However, if this world’s design was based on the Epitaph of Twilight… there may be some hints there…”
Oh, I thought for a moment. That was a term I hadn’t heard. The Epitaph of Twilight?
“Nonsense,” Lios said as though spitting.
“Lios. Did you know that the code name given to the chief of the system administrators was the name of the King of Light in the epitaph?”
“I’m not interested.”
“I had no idea. Hehe.“
Helba grinned and laughed.
“Managing them is not controlling them. Why don’t you look at these kids a little more?”
“You’re speaking in a way that hackers understand,” Lios said.
“You support them. That alone is enough for the boy to be dangerous.”
“It sounds terrible, but the Internet is spread all over the world. If problems get worse in the future, can you take responsibility? Is your decision really right?”
Lios was silent at Helba’s admonishment.
“…Helba, would you please return the subordinates you erased?”
“Please don’t worry. I just paralyzed them and sent them to a safe area.”
“How much are you illegally tampering with the data?”
“Oh? That’s not something I can enumerate.”
Helba and Lios stared at each other. Their eyes met with an electrifying gaze as though sparks were coming forth.
Lios turned away first.
He turned to me and spoke.
“…I’ll call it off at this point. I’ll tell you my decision later. Please wait for contact in the real world.”
I saw BlackRose release her tension in her body. I did the same.
“That’s right. Hehe. Well, see you.”
Helba put her right hand in the shape of a handgun and stroked her temple with an animated gesture. It looked like a haze effect covered Helba’s whole body and she disappeared as if being erased.
When I turned around, Lios and the merchants were gone.
In fact, the area had changed.
BlackRose and I were left alone in a rainy field.
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