on that particular condition. I agreed. The races on Tanatos were starting to heat up, and the keeper manipulated them on both the mental and physical levels to make sure Sagie became the stumbling block that kick-started everything else. That way, the players following him would see the tears of mothers, the graves, and the empty homes. They’d hear that everything was Sagie’s fault. If that had just been the case in one spot, it would have been one thing, but it was everywhere on Tanatos. After the battle for the portal, when I stepped out to meet your group, he dropped down from the tree to claim his reward. But he accused me of betraying him and lying to him when I explained how to claim it. That was when the pseudo-intelligence kicked in and latched onto something outside of him. And in letting the pseudo-intelligence gain complete control of his consciousness, Sagie enabled the keeper to walk right in. A very slight seventh-level effect was exerted on the crowd of players to instill in them a general feeling of hatred. All they could see was a player who had brought misery on Tanatos. The keeper used Sagie’s pseudo-intelligence to manipulate him and intensify all the negative emotions he was feeling, which was a smart move, as I can’t sense manipulations going on from within. It was a delicate game of minds that fell outside my sensitivity range. Anyway, that’s what triggered Sagie’s massacre. But it didn’t end there. The keeper had allowed one of the locals to create a weapon that does damage from the first world order. Yes! The limitations placed on the trial should have eliminated that possibility, but the keeper allowed the weapon to be created for emergencies. And when Sagie kept venturing outside the realm of the predictable, the keeper decided that this was just such an emergency. Aurin’s interference, however, was completely unexpected. The keeper thought it was great at first as Aurin was capable of killing Sagie, but after Reiji talked to him, Aurin decided to tie his mind and health to Sagie’s in order to figure out why Reiji was standing up for him. Due to the bodily contact, Aurin realised that a foreign stream of consciousness was forcing a faulty emotional field. Somebody was trying to kill Sagie in the real world by making him activate a resonance. When Aurin left for the astral, the keeper pulled out the last ace left up his sleeve in an attempt to clean up the evidence that he’d been manipulating a player: he tried to destroy the pseudo-intelligence and he was successful. He really was. If it hadn’t been for Aurin jumping in at the last minute to kill the keeper, we would never have discovered the truth. Sure, you can’t wipe the logs, since they were made by the Fukai race along with the game, but nobody would have raised the incident with the council of keepers. And nobody would have checked the raw logs. As far as what I promised Sagie goes, his family will be resurrected, and his sister returned to her parents. I’ll personally make sure they’re safe. As for Sagie, the council of keepers apologizes and requests that we don’t disclose the violation. They have good reason, too. The interworld is the only place we can talk where we can be sure nobody’s listening in, and their offer is to boost humankind’s chances in the next six trials as they move toward a second-order world. That’s two trials for each player the keeper directly manipulated. The trials happen every five years, so that means humankind will have a better shot at moving up to a second-order world for the next thirty years. What do you think? I’d say it’s a great offer. It’s an opportunity for an entire civilization!”
Akashi looked at Tiamat, unsure of what to say. It was undoubtedly an attractive offer. He had no choice but to accept it. Humankind had buried the truth on multiple occasions for the common good. But Sagie was a chosen one! He was someone who could take humans to the next level, elevating Earth’s entire civilization in the alliance. Just like Akashi himself, he was entirely capable of getting his team to a second-order world and even beyond.
“But what about Sagie? He was injured with a first-order world sword, and he already moved up to a higher world. What did they do with him?”
“You’re not going to like it. I contacted humankind’s senior judge in Papilio, giving him a brief description of the situation. Sagie spent less than a minute there before leaving. None of the judges or caretakers was able to locate his whereabouts, and the keeper left the world for an emergency meeting of the council of keepers. It would break the rules of the game to kill him, so that won’t happen. You and I are aware of what’s going on, too. On the other hand, they can accuse him of crimes against the world and force him to accept some kind of punishment. I suspect he was sent to a hidden location that’s impossible to access or escape from. Most likely, they’ll replace the Papilio keeper and have the new one announce that he can’t say where Sagie is. He’ll say there was a violation, say there’s some kind of punishment going on, or refer me to someone else, but he definitely won’t say that he doesn’t know.”
Akashi felt like a bucket of slop had just been dumped on him and called water.
“You mean to tell me that they’re going to force Sagie out of the big game? That’s not just making a new character; that’s blocking him completely. And after everything he’s done? Whose fault is it what happened? Sorry for the expression, but they’re trying to screw us.”
“And that’s exactly why they’re offering us such generous compensation. You know very well that the life of one person is far less valuable than the interests
Comments (0)