Victor rather effortlessly towed the massive boar’s lifeless body behind himself, blood dripping from the carcass as he dragged it back toward the village to be dismantled. While the weight of such a creature would render it an insurmountable task for an ordinary human, Victor’s strength was at least five times that of an average adult, but even that wouldn’t suffice to tow it so easily; it was only possible through the assistance of magic or the infused mana in his body.
All of a sudden, the Master Shadowlink Mark on his left wrist began to glow, and a holographic screen was projected before him.
“Hmm?”
Framed within the screen was Lizbeth's face as she urgently spoke. “Master! Your Discord account has been bombarded with multiple pings by the players!”
“Hold on. You can do video calls with this thing?” Victor was a bit dazed.
“Yep! Why wouldn’t I be able to?” Lizbeth tilted her head.
Indeed. Victor should have realized it sooner. If he could connect to the vast expanse of the internet on Earth, then the idea of seamless, shorter-distance communication should have been a total no-brainer.
“Naturally, there’s a distance limit, though,” Lizbeth added. “It could at most cover a one-hundred-kilometer range with the current level of the Nexus Tower, but that’s not the main concern here.”
“What’s up?”
“As I said, the players who received their placements are reaching out to you for confirmation. It appears they are feeling rather unsettled by the deliveries or something... Humans there can be quite peculiar,” she remarked with a shrug.
“I see…?”
Victor terminated the call with Lizbeth and launched the Discord app, sitting under the shade of a nearby tree. To his surprise, approximately a hundred unread personal messages were flooding in from the five participants he had fooled. Each message inquired about the peculiarities surrounding the gaming capsules.
Frowning, he navigated to the group he had established beforehand, realizing that the source of the issue originated from this text:
MikeIsHandsome1000x: “@everyone Did you all receive the gaming capsules? Mine just arrived… (Or should I say appeared?) not too long ago.”
Mike then proceeded to recount how a large package had appeared inside his store and to find that the content was a futuristic-looking gaming capsule. Furthermore, he wrote that the console seemed to respond exclusively to him. When he donned the accompanying helmet, he alone could witness an activation countdown.
PleaseBugMeNot: “Are you sure that’s a gaming console? Sounds more like an overly complicated massage chair to me. By the way, I’m still not at home, so I don’t know. Maybe the others have received it the same as you.”
SuperNovaX: “Uh, guys…”
PleaseBugMeNot: “Hmm? Have you received the delivery? Is it the same way as Mike?”
SuperNovaX: “It’s worse than that. Do you think a delivery can pass through a locked door? I mean, I’m sure I left the door to my apartment locked… So how come it was already inside my room when I came back from university? I even checked with security, but they said that no one had come to deliver it. Did a ghost come and deliver this or something? 😱”
PleaseBugMeNot: “You sure you aren’t making things up? That sounds a little too creepy, alright!”
Storm Bringer: “You’re lucky that you’re living alone. Meanwhile, I’m residing with my parents, and when they saw the gaming capsule at the front door, my mother immediately interrogated me, questioning where I had stolen such a device from!"
ZeroXScyth: “I mean, I haven’t received mine yet. But are deliveries so advanced these days? Autonomous delivery using drones has become more popular in recent years, I hear. But it has never been for something that big, at least not covertly.”
PleaseBugMeNot: “Lol. I never knew you were still living with your parents @Storm Bringer. What are you, a mama’s boy?”
Storm Bringer: “Shut up, you!”
MikeIsHandsome1000x: “I partially agree with Zero. Drones might explain some of it, but they aren’t invisible. The stealth and precision are too mind-boggling for that. Honestly, it’s as if magic is responsible for all this. Sounds ridiculous, but I can’t think of any way to explain all of this! Oh yeah, there was one other peculiar thing…”
ZeroXScyth: “My thoughts exactly on the drone, and what peculiar thing??”
MikeIsHandsome1000x: “Has anyone seen a strange guy wearing a black mask? I didn’t personally see him, but one of my employees might have spotted him during the mysterious delivery.”
PleaseBugMeNot: “Might have? What’s with the uncertainty?”
SuperNovaX: “Now that you mention it, a security guy I spoke with did mention something similar. He seemed a bit out of sorts while talking about it. I also didn’t think much of it at the time, though.”
ZeroXScyth: “But isn’t this strange? Sightings of people dressed similarly, in different locations, almost simultaneously. Our far locations aside, let’s not forget these aren’t small packages we’re talking about either. Could this be some sort of advanced technology at play? It reminds me of the saying, ‘sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.’”
If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.
Victor frowned at this. Actually, even he didn’t know exactly how these gaming capsules were delivered to their respective houses. If he had to guess, Mike jokingly hypothesizing that it might be magic was probably true. Perhaps it was connected to whatever the previous headmaster had left behind in his original world, in which case involving these mysterious men wearing black masks.
However, to be able to traverse large distances in a short period of time must mean that it had the involvement of a high-rank Magus. But for an aloof, powerful Magus to willingly become a courier that delivered the gaming capsules… Something just didn’t feel right.
It might be some sort of magic puppet, but Victor had no way to ascertain things himself. Well, those gaming capsules couldn’t walk themselves there, could they?
Storm Bringer: “That’s the problem! Because of that, I almost got into trouble. Hear me out; it may sound a bit funny and saddening, but my mother almost reported me, believing that I was involved in some shady business. Luckily I stopped her by convincing her to imagine me talking to the police: ‘Yes, officer, I received a mysterious package from another dimension, and it contained a gaming capsule with a fully immersive VR game!’ They’d probably think I had too much mushroom pizza.”
SuperNovaX: “Haha, exactly! I can already picture their faces trying not to burst out laughing!”
Storm Bringer: “Right? And when I mentioned that nobody else could see anything, they’d think I’ve gone cuckoo! ‘Oh, so you’re the chosen one with special powers, huh? Did you get that from a comic book or your grandma’s bedtime stories?’ Even my mother stopped with her nagging when I told her that.”
PleaseBugMeNot: “Pfft! Duuude, that’s hilarious! 🤣 🤣 🤣”
ZeroXScyth: “Guess that dissuaded us from reporting to the authorities as well.”
The conversation after this derailed from its original objective and continued with its absurd humor. Even Victor himself couldn’t help laughing… Gee, these players sure have good imagination; their made-up story is almost right on the money.
MikeIsHandsome1000x: “Haha! There’s one more chilling detail I forgot to mention, though: The creepy twists don’t end here. You see, I’ve purposely filled in the wrong address to check if it’s a scam, but guess what? The package was delivered to my actual address!”
PleaseBugMeNot: “Just stop…”
SuperNovaX: “Gah! (°△°|||) I won’t be getting much sleep tonight!”
Storm Bringer: “Damn, just when I was starting to forget about this whole thing…”
ZeroXScyth: “Knowing the real address is actually simple. Remember that we have to input our email when we register? Maybe it tracks our address from a previous purchase on an online store or something. Or they could have checked our IP addresses. Also, I reread the Terms and Services for the game, and it mentioned that they were using a new type of technology for delivery, but there was no detailed information about what it was.”
If Victor wasn’t wrong, Zero worked as a consultant to a large corporation, hence explaining the pragmatic and analytical approach in providing the answer. It was expected from the server owner of a large Discord server.
Scrolling down further, the discussion circled back to the peculiarity of the gaming capsule. Someone even suggested selling it to a console company. Unbeknownst to them, even with modern tools at their disposal, their attempts would barely leave a dent in the device, let alone be able to break it open. Thankfully, the previous hilarious discussion prevented them from doing just that.
ZeroXScyth: “Let’s wait until @CyberWarlock comes online. Making a fuss about this right now won’t help. For now, I will try to reach out to him through a DM… Oh, and I just now received mine as well; I didn’t see any masked man, though.”
The rest of the people in the group eventually shifted their focus to discussing recent trending news, though a sense of restlessness lingered. Some of them took brief breaks to grab a bite or attend to personal tasks, yet the prevailing unease was evident. Within the hour, impatience surfaced again, and one member couldn’t resist asking for an update on Cyber, to which Zero responded.
ZeroXScyth: “No, he hasn’t gotten back to me yet.”
PleaseBugMeNot: “Guys, I scrolled up our server chat and reached out to this internet guru about our situation. He thinks it’s all part of some elaborate dark conspiracy by a secret organization that rules the world. Check out this screenshot from our chat.”
He promptly shared a screenshot showing his conversation with someone online in the group. Reading through the content of the screenshot made Victor frown. Seriously? Just how astray is this guy’s imagination?
Storm Bringer: “This guy must have all the time in the world! 🙄”
ZeroXScyth: “I skimmed through his reasoning, and while it’s interesting, we can’t take what others say at face value, can we?”
SuperNovaX: “But what if it’s all true? What if once the countdown hits zero, some AI starts embedding itself in our brains or something equally crazy?”
ZeroXScyth: “Come on, that sounds more like something you’d see in a Sci-fi movie.”
PleaseBugMeNot: “Argh! I can’t take this anxiety anymore! I will send him a DM as well!”
Storm Bringer: “Me too.”
SuperNovaX: “Me three!”
MikeIsHandsome1000x: “Me four?”
And that was pretty much how Victor’s Discord account was bombarded with an endless stream of messages. Victor scratched his head in amusement at the commotion the gaming capsule deliveries had caused within the group.
CyberWarlock: Sorry @everyone. Just got back from work, so I had no time to check my phone or laptop. Anyway, I was about to inform you all that those men wearing black masks are indeed our couriers, and we have indeed partnered with a new autonomous delivery company. The reason our couriers only loiter about for a moment is to check whether the gaming capsules are delivered correctly. If our service has caused confusion, please accept our sincerest apologies. And no, it’s not some conspiracy.”
PleaseBugMeNot: “The Messiah is here!”
MikeIsHandsome1000x: “No wonder.”
ZeroXScyth: “Thought so…”
SuperNovaX: “Phew! Glad it was not a ghost nor a conspiracy. But it doesn’t answer my initial question of how it appeared inside my room.”
CyberWarlock: “Rest assured, our delivery company has an extensive network and getting a spare key is not a difficult thing.”
Storm Bringer: “Cyber, are you sure you’re not working with the government or any special agency?”
CyberWarlock: “Well, I can’t divulge all the details as it pertains to the company’s secrets. Sorry.”
Storm Bringer: “No worries. You probably signed an NDA with them.”
ZeroXScyth: “Agreed. Knowing this at least clears up some of our confusion. Thanks for the clarification.”
A slight grin crept onto Victor’s face. These players that he’d handpicked were easier to fool than he had expected. He had no worries about them becoming the first apprentices of his academy. To them, the bizarreness of the delivery was inconsequential as long as they could try the game. Why fret over minor details when the bigger picture was so promising?
CyberWarlock: “Oh, and one more thing, I want to inform you all that the server will be open tomorrow afternoon at exactly 06:00 P.M. ET. So make sure you’re not late. Before that time, be sure to have your meals and needs taken care of. Although the gaming capsules are designed to support prolonged use, it’s important to remember they are still in the testing phase.”
Satisfied that everything had gone well, Victor closed the holographic screen and continued hauling the great boar that had become limp from its immense blood loss. The sun had risen high — it was nearing noon and the villagers should have all the supplies he requested ready by now.
Like a bolt from the blue, a growl appeared from Victor’s stomach, catching him off guard. Well, he hadn’t eaten for a whole day. Not even Elemental Adept Magi could escape from not satisfying their bodily needs like any ordinary human. However, as one progressed to higher ranks as a Magus, they could endure longer periods without needing to eat or drink.