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Volume 4
Chapter 17: That Night, Project Salvation
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“CARL! GET YOUR ASS UP HERE, NOW!”
One call, one voice, that’s all it takes for Tech Engineer and Head of the Technical Team in the Panorama Main Server’s location Carl Hanes to run up the elevator and knock on the doors of the office of President Ethan.
No matter what the reason for this summons are, when the president is this noisy it’s sure that he’s either in his usual bad mood or that he IS in a very bad mood.
By the way he received the call and the way President Ethan screamed for him to go up, Carl knew better than to provoke the President to add more veins to his head.
The moment he entered he office, Carl snappily stomps his feet together and saluted like a true marine.
“Carl Hanes reporting as ordered s—Gwah!”
He was just in time to dodge a flying Unicorn.
“Shut the tramp and tell me why, why is my god damn mission for you still not solved by now?! TELL ME!!”
“P-President…”
“Don’t P-P-P-President m-m-m-m-m-me! Just tell me the damn reason why those Rogue Programs are still in my system!”
“Waaaa…!! Yes sir! YES SIR!” With a stiff reaction to avoid another flying trophy, Carl swiped the air and a semi-holographic panel appeared in front of the fat and noisy president.
“This is?” An annoyed brow was raised at Carl and the president leaned back to study the report. “Hmm…”
Taking this silence as a cue, Carl cleared his throat and began to present his report with utter surety in his clear stance.
“After the attack in the North, our group traveled to the south direction where we got wind that there is a weird event that occurred in a newly discovered Walled City called Aarun. Specifically, it was in a forest called Kali in the East Gate.”
“Hmmm…”
“After a few days of investigation, we found out that there are two separate and yet connected events that had happened before the War of the two Powers.”
“Hmm… hmmm…”
“The first event happened exactly three months, two weeks, and three days ago, real time, where an NPC shop was reported to have been attacked by muggers and that an old man, deemed to be a player, saved the shop and the keeper. But during the event, the NPC keeper was heavily wounded and so the player, as said to have been part of his C-ranked mission, stood in place of the NPC keeper for about two months.”
“Hm?! A C-ranked mission that lasts two months?”
“Yes sir. From that point on, we immediately thought that it is perhaps one of the Rogue Programs we were looking for.”
“That’s logical. And the second?”
“The second event happened exactly two weeks after the incident with the said NPC shop. Monsters in the Forest of Kali started to disappear and a player the local players nicknamed «Volume Hunter» started to appear in the City.”
Reading and swiping the panel, a pop up window appeared in front of President Ethan, prompting Carl to continue his report.
“The connection between the two people is that it was reported that the Volume Hunter frequents the said NPC shop until the Volume Hunter appeared again in the Walled City of Loire ten days after the war in Buendia Valley.”
A frown appeared on Ethan’s face and he flipped the panel he was studying to Carl so he could see it.
“Carl, you were talking about the Volume Hunter here, right? So why am I looking at the picture of The Destroyer with a label saying that it was taken in Aarun one continent away from Buendia Valley?!”
The tensed Carl swallowed, clear his throat, and then he exhaled to prepare.
“S-Sir,” —and president Ethan crushed a figurine who had a masculine body and lifting a ball, Olympic trophy some years ago, using only his right hand. Carl gulped down a big full of stocks. “S-Sir the connection is that there was a news in Hagonoy that The Destroyer had slain a Dragon and sold it live back in Hagonoy. But before that, the girl you are looking at in that picture is, according to my spies, a member of the real world The Union named Rafaela, also known as The Witch of Aarun. There are reports that said the two departed together. As they left, the old man in the NPC shop also vanished without a trace nor a message to anyone. Until…”
On the next panel that Carl showed President Ethan, there was a video of six people riding Sand Worms in a dessert near Buendia Valley.
In the video was a girl that Ethan perfectly knew and in the place where she was taking the video, Carl paused the video in time to display a face.
President Ethan’s face turned red, green, then blue, and then purple. He was angry. So angry. So infuriated, in fact, that Carl trembled when he felt his anger from the distance 10 feet away.
“This face…” Ethan spoke through his gritted teeth. “I will never forget this face.”
“According to Kathleen Brew, it was a video she took a few days before the War in Buendia Valley erupted. A player who rode with them commented on this video introducing the old man as the NPC Shop keeper back in Aarun. As you can see, sir, it seems that Doctor Alfred Pegasus has managed to copy himself inside the Janus System so that the update would also trigger the activation of the three Rogue Programs.”
“But this,” Carl was puzzled as Ethan’s voice seemed to come rather calm. “Didn’t the police reported that Pegasus have been kidnapped?”
“It seems that’s a lie sir.”
“How so?”
Carl summoned a window and in it was a report that had a stamp with the logo of CIA [TOP SECRET].
“How did you…”
“I hacked into the CIA database and found this report stating that Doctor Alfred Pegasus’ finger prints have been found in the arrested sniper’s shoulder pad in that tragic traffic accident that happened half a year ago in the Philippines that killed the Kingsley Doctors.”
“My god… is this personal vendetta for what happened in the first lab five years ago?”
“It’s the same angle the CIA is looking at sir.”
“Now it all fits in.” President Ethan’s face sank in the comfort of his palms as he rubbed down his face atop his desk. “And how would this affect our pockets?” He said and raised his head to look at Carl in the eyes.
“Sir, if I may,” Carl put his hands behind his back and firmed his bearing. “I don’t think that the three Rogue Programs will forever be in the shadows. More so that The Destroyer had discovered this.”
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Carl summoned another panel and in it was the video the Helium Guild posted about him defeating a dark skinned man in a coliseum.
“This is?” Ethan raised a puzzled look.
“S-Rank mission. Success.”
“S-Rank?!”
“And the one who completed that mission is none other than The Destroyer himself, sir.”
“My God… is he… is he Pegasus? Or is he one of the Rogue Programs? This is so fast! Even if we say that he is a pioneer player, it doesn’t necessarily mean that a mission with this difficulty level can be easily solved by a single man! This is just plainly impossible!”
“Please do remember sir that he also defeated a Dragon back in Hagonoy. Not only that, he also stirred quite the trouble back in the War of the Two Powers.”
And as if remembering something, Ethan’s eyes went down to the panel he was reading and continued to skim off and swipe up to read the rest of the report that Carl sent.
“Wait, I remember you mentioning that name before when you wanted to add members in your team?”
Carl’s eyes rolled to avoid Ethan’s.
Beads of sweat formed on his face as he loosened his collar to breathe.
“That’s… uhm… when I was still not aware of the things that happened in Aarun… sir.”
Ethan gritted his teeth as he was about to throw another trophy at Carl but stopped midway and calm down on his own. Maybe perhaps sensing that it was a useless act to display his frustration to Carl.
But Carl thought, that was a rare feat for the President.
The fat guy came back to reading the report and after a few moments more, his eyes widened as he expanded a window to see a detail in the report more clearly. And just when he finished he narrowed his eyes on the panel as he read the words.
“This last part in your report… is he really able to use abilities inside a Walled City?”
“That’s also just a report from Terroa Day Today that I just saw a little while ago, sir. And it was reported by none other than Kathleen herself.”
“Hmm… I smell something fishy here.”
“One of our management agents said that Kathleen had specifically told him about ‘knowing more in regards to Terroa’s inner workings’. It doesn’t seem to sound that she was talking about Pegasus’ way in the system as we can be positive that she is not that aware that she had once been with him.”
Ethan rubbed his double chin. “Yes. That’s another one of the angles.”
“Angles… sir?”
“Think about it Carl, the old man she once ride with in the dessert near Beundia Valley doesn’t seem to be the haughty and ill-tempered man we know of…”
Carl could only nod at that as he thought to himself that President Ethan was talking about himself there. He spent a few megabytes of his memory reserve to laugh at that part to himself silently… later.
“—this is clearly just an NPC with his face. And taking into account the things she said, I can assume that there is someone else who knows of the inner workings of the story of the game better than us, supplying her with information about the things that happened.”
“It is indeed an angle sir.” Carl nods in understanding.
“And, looking at the way Kathleen acts, it seems that she herself is not in the full know of what actually is happening inside Terroa.”
BLAG!
Carl jolted in surprise as another trophy broke, crushed in the president’s desk.
“God damn it. And here I thought Pegasus had already forgotten that failure. That miserable bastard is trying to get us from his failed experiment!”
“And he’s using either the Rogue Programs or his copy to exact that revenge?”
“Maybe.”
“And his goal, sir?”
“I could only think of one. Revenge. The Kingsleys’ son accidentally interrupted his project and although he said that everything was alright at the time, knowing his tendencies, he likely can’t let go of that failure.”
“Whoa! Scary. I know him as a perfectionist but to this extent is just…”
“You don’t know him better than I do, Carl. Pegasus is beyond just perfectionist. I remember him talking about a world where people can sense danger a mile away and have super human senses and strength. His Mefisto Program was his pride but it got destroyed when the kid accidentally defeated it in an Alpha experiment.”
The two in the room stayed silent and it was at that exact moment when Carl realized that President Ethan stamped the table and crushed another trophy.
“Damn it all, Carl. We can’t move on like this. Not if we’re stuck with all these uncertain elements!”
“Ah, sir, regarding Miss Brew’s informant…”
When Ethan raised his head to Carl, a light bulb was lit in his consciousness.
Both of them knew who would be dubious enough and bright enough to trick everyone to play the game he is setting. There is only one name they could think of that could connect everything in a single file.
““Augustus Laniary.””
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A car was traveling in the single road leading to the big dome in Goldwyn City. The underground lights and the ceiling stars, the buzzing, noisy, busy streets of this secret underground city all flashed and passed by the tinted windows of his limo making trains of images.
Inside the four-wheeled custom Mercedes Classic is the man whose wit and canny cannot be measured in any scale.
He remained fixedly seated on his seat and smiling as wide as he ever did, replying to the man on the panel summoned on his car’s communication’s tray.
“Yes. Yes, I understand. I will look forward to it then.”
After he said those words, Augustus closed the panel and Dante’s face on the line nodded down to confirm the exchange of gestures.
His eyes under his white Domino intently stared at the view outside the window, to the big dome to where his car and mission lay.
After a few minutes that seemed to have lasted longer, the car stopped in front of the mansion entrance and his personal guards positioned themselves at the front and the back sides.
Greeting him is the witch of the west who wore a still seductive frown despite the ill-temper. It had both the alluring elasticity of her vibrant gracefulness and also the ever famous curves which made her known.
“So you came after all.” Augustus greeted her but the woman did not reply with the same smile.
“I am merely here to see your plans fail. I want to be the first to laugh at this foolish program.”
Augustus stopped in front of her and the woman in her blue gown leaned slightly back to avoid Augustus ever knowing that she was blushing. Augustus smiled as to see her suffer and he passed through her smoothly with a gentle stride.
But before he could get away, Augustus leaned back at his right shoulder saying “You have no idea.” and went to continue inside the main hall wearing a grin.
Augustus led the way inside the big dome and they all came into the far stretching gallery leading inside the large ceiling room where hundreds of masked men also assembled in orderly seats.
When they saw Augustus’ uniquely colored mask, the spotlight was pointed at his direction and Augustus put up his hands victoriously at the clapping hands.
“This is the night that will decide the fate of this planet and the future of the world…”
The woman behind him widened her eyes and the face behind her Maskara contorted on the message.
“—For tonight, the world shall witness the power that technology has upon us. You all will be the messengers of the weakness of humanity, the bearer of the sins that mankind had put upon themselves!”
“A.G.!”
From behind the woman, two masked men held her arms that rendered her struggles weak against the brute locks of her captors.
“Be angry, be mad at me, dear cousin, but know that this is not my decision alone.” Looking back at his shoulder once again, Augustus’ words froze her. And from her line of sight, she saw The Father seated in the very center of the balcony seats upstairs.
“This is… this is madness!”
“It is not, cousin. For what you know of this plan is not its real purpose. We are merely here as spectators to an even bigger event thousands of years in the making.”
“Thousands of… what are you…”
“What we are here to do, however, is to speed up the process at which destiny will change two worlds’ very own history. Don’t you want to see it too?”
Rafa, the witch of the west, held her breath. Through all her contacts and power, influence, wit, and her own ability to comprehend the references Augustus gave away, she stopped struggling as realization and truth dawned at her consciousness.
“Terroa.” She muttered and lost the will to fight.
Augustus didn’t confirm her doubts. Instead, she ended her struggle and the men who held her arms let it go.
She herself can’t take her eyes away from that world, and most especially to the way it was built. From just a large empty databank in a secure facility somewhere in Switzerland, to the whole separate universe at which they now enjoy, that world that was only a dream from novels and stories before, is now a true alternate reality.
But despite its current success in the market, it’s still an incomplete world. It doesn’t need a deep information network to know that what happened five years ago is proof of its incomplete universe.
And what more, what she herself had wished to happen in that universe is being done by the very man she had once wished to go away.
Rafa had traveled far not knowing the real purpose of this gathering in the Philippines. But now that she had learned of it, she just can’t wait to not see it end.
“With this plan, Rafa, you will finally see the complete version of that universe. Isn’t that what you want for your little sister. Rafaela’s her name, I believe?”
“Just shut up and move it.”
Taking that as a prompt, Augustus’ eyes went back on the masked men on the audience. He saw them remove a device from their seats and put it on their heads like a music headset. It was the NL-Device.
“Ladies and gentlemen! It is time!” He yelled and the crowd exploded in a thundering roar of applause. The woman behind him who welcomed him frowned even more as the half mask’s vacant side showed discontent.
After a prompt connecting to the net, they all looked up and waited for the main man to end his speech.
“The time of silence had finally ended. Go and spread the seed of freedom! Live on! Live in Terroa!”
A moment later, a unified call was made—
[Game Start!]
—with a sudden puff of breath, the hall fell silent.
From his delighted eyes, Augustus removed his mask and turned around. “Now that it’s out of the way,” he uttered, smiling at Rafa. “Don’t you think it’s about time to restart Project Salvation?”
Rafa only glared at him while gritting her teeth and a laughing Augustus turned back to the masked men as he stomped the smooth floor with his golden cane.
“I wonder how our special guest will react… fufufu, I can’t wait to see the fireworks. Haha… Hahaha… Hahahahahahahaha….”