Five days had passed since my arrival at the Restus’ hometown, and I had made quite a lot of progress. As I had expected, the Admin did make an announcement that night, and I was able to stalk, er, I mean follow the strongest bunch of Aspirants and chat with him in private. Let’s just say that they will be more than cooperative with me from now on, and were more than happy to do what I instructed. It’ll still be a few weeks before I see the results of those instructions, but I had my hopes up.

In that time, I had also made frequent stops back to Pandora to continue my operations as Dr. Walter. News of a new horror stalking the night had just started to become widespread, and I could tell that there was a lot of pressure on Ryan’s guild to do something about it. It also didn’t help that a lot of the Aspirants who were casualties of my activities were associated with him in one way or another. It’ll only be a matter of time before he comes up with a strategy against me.

My other Restus lackeys were busy spreading their influence as well, and I had gathered quite a following of believers. I think I’ve converted close to 10% of the entire Restus population at this point, and it’ll only be a matter of time before more fall into my influence. The only trouble was keeping this new cult of idiots quiet so that they wouldn’t alert anyone important.

I was just about to check up on all the minions running about when Molly appeared before me.

“We have trouble, doctor,” she said before giving me a strange look, “And… never mind, I’ve grown used to your strange forms.”

Right, I’ve been a Xollon for so long that I’d forgotten all about it.

She nodded, “Still, it’s good to know what you really look like now; it explains a few things on my end.”

Well, I wasn’t a Xollon, but I didn’t see the point in correcting her.

“What did you need, Molly?” I asked.

“It’s the Director,” she sighed, “It’s my fault, honestly, I thought that child would know better so I didn’t supervise her.”

I raised an eyebrow. What the hell’s wrong this time?

“She followed your instructions and set up one of those Trial things,” the doll explained.

I nodded, waiting for Molly to continue. I didn’t know that you could create a Trial, but I guess the Overseer did say that I had all the tools of the Site at my disposal, so giving Pandora’s Aspirants a bonus challenge wasn’t out of the question.

“And…?”

“And in the two days that she’s been in charge, about a quarter of the strange patients under your care have died.”

I looked at Molly, not believing what I heard, “I’m sorry, what?”

Molly sighed, “You heard correctly. Although to be fair, after reading on the species your patients are to be pitted against, anything less than what she did would be hopeless. But… I’ll admit that Abby had grossly underestimated how fragile the patients were here, even when she was trying to be as careful as possible. She’s trying to salvage the situation now, but it’s an uphill battle.”

I just continued to stare at her, my maw open. Great, more things to take care of. Between trying to make sure that my idiot Restus lackeys behaved, my semi-regular haunts in Pandora’s streets, and just the overall stress of making sure that all my plans would finish on time, I really didn’t need something else going wrong. At the very least most of my operations here with the Restus were already well underway and needed minimum supervision.

I sighed. There was still too much to do though.

“Um, if it’s any consolation,” Molly continued with a mumble, I could swear she was avoiding eye contact with me, “The ones who have survived have improved dramatically, and they should be more than capable of fending off your supposed foe if they make it through the madam’s training. It’s just… I don’t think you’ll have very many patients left if Abby continues.”

“I see…” I muttered as I forced my annoyance back, let’s look at the bright side, at least they’re getting stronger faster than I could ever make them, “I’ll go back; where is the Director now?”

“I’ll take you to her,” Molly replied, “She’s in some strange dimension, don’t think you’ll find it yourself. Hold on tight, this might be unpleasant.”

Without waiting for me to answer, Molly’s hair engulfed me. Whatever method the doll chose to transport me was horrible, even as a Xollon. It felt like the worst-designed rollercoaster ride ever with a few tracks missing along the way. I was only too thankful to have arrived at my destination with the contents of my stomach intact.

“You did better than I thought,” Molly said when I could see again, “Most people who travel that way lose a limb or two.”

Wait, what? I gave her a scathing glare since I wasn’t sure I could trust myself to speak right now. My stomach felt like it was still in knots.

Stolen story; please report.

“Relax,” she laughed, “I was joking… well, mostly. I knew you’d be fine.”

I grumbled in response. I wish people would stop believing in me like that.

“Anyway, hide in here for a while,” she added, pointing to a dark corner. “I’ll notify Abby.”

I only now had time to survey my environment. I was in some kind of back room with, maybe a janitor’s closet or something. There was some cleaning equipment around but the small room was otherwise empty.

“It’s the only quiet place I could find,” Molly answered when she noticed my confusion, “And you should probably go back to a more familiar form if you’re to take over for Abby.”

“Good idea,” I answered absentmindedly as I undid my transformation and returned to my weak human form, “And has anyone ever told you that you’re really good at taking care of others?”

I meant that as well; Molly always seems to know what to do and say in any given situation. She made for the perfect caretaker, albeit she could be a little gloomy and prone to sarcasm.

“I have,” she answered simply, “The madam’s due to arrive any second now. She can explain what’s going on.”

And like Molly said, the door swung open, and out came the Director wearing my new human suit.

“Ah, William…” she said with an awkward chuckle, “I uh, I might have made a mistake. I’m sorry!”

I shook my head, “It’s fine, Molly said you were just trying to ensure that the patients make it alive through the upcoming war.”

“Yes…” she answered, “I’ve read up on the Restus species’ characteristics, and compared them to the patients that I knew of. I’ve done the bare minimum to ensure that your charges had at least the prospect of surviving.”

“But they’re weaker than you thought, I know.”

She nodded, “It’s worse than I thought. Some of these patients wouldn’t even last an hour back home. I have no idea what’s wrong with them.”

She must be talking about the B Group then, the fact that so many in that category even bothered to show up and were willing to improve was a nice surprise if it wasn’t for the fact that we probably lost a big chunk of Pandora’s manufacturing classes.

“So what Trial did you set up?” I asked.

“It’s best if you see it yourself,” she sighed, “It’ll take too long to explain everything, and you’re bleeding patients by the minute. You have a little helper called Jordan, she can give you the progress report when you take over.”

“And I’m free to make changes whenever I want?”

“Yes,” she replied, “You still have full command of the situation. Uh, I’m sure that you can salvage the situation, Will! I apologize again…”

“It’s fine,” I assured her, “Let’s get changed and I’ll assess the patients. Are you able to get out of here yourself?”

“Thank you, Will,” she answered, “and Molly can get me out. Just take a left through the door and you’ll be by the control center.”

I nodded and quickly swapped positions with her. I could still never get used to putting on a skin suit, it just felt confining. Molly took the Director away in short order and I casually made my way out of the storage closet and back towards the control center.

“Lord W,” Jordan greeted me with a smile when I “returned”, “Good to see you back.”

She got up from the main seat overlooking a big display; it was turned off at the moment. The rest of the room was staffed with various Central workers all scuttling about (some quite literally, there were a few insectoid creatures working here) doing whatever it was that was needed for a Trial to run. Others were at desktops and workstations typing furiously, and a casual glance at the screens told me that I had no idea what any of the stuff did. Every worker briefly stopped what they were doing to salute me before returning to their tasks.

I nodded, “Thank you, Jordan, so what’s the current situation?”

The ghost of a snarky smile appeared on Jordan’s otherwise flawless face before disappearing just as quickly. Yeah, I could already tell that the prognosis wasn’t going to be great, but let’s hear it anyway.

“Well,” Jordan stated, “The good news is that the average level of the combatants undergoing your training has risen by 17; this is unprecedented growth, but I am sure that this is par for the course for someone like yourself.”

“But?” I said, keeping my tone even.

Now Jordan could hardly even bother containing her glee, “But your numbers have decreased by another 1500 or so from my last report. From the original 20,255 Aspirants that have chosen to enter, we are down to 11,571 after day 2. If it’s any consolation, the frequency of deceased has been going down, but I am sure you have planned for that as well, Lord Arbiter.”

Holy shit… that’s almost 50% of Pandora’s population down the drain after just two days. What the hell did the Director choose to make these people undergo?

“A new batch of survivors is due to start the games,” she said again, now even the pretense of hiding her joy at Pandora’s miserable state was gone, “Would you like to observe this time?”

“Yes,” I muttered.

Jordan bowed and started up the big screen in front of me, “As you will, Lord W.”

As the screen fizzed into life, I saw that various groups of Aspirants, each containing about 5 - 10 people, teleported into what appeared to be a deserted ghost town. Other screens appeared before me, all showing the same ghost town but with different Aspirants being dropped in; I’m assuming that they couldn’t fit all 11,000 humans in one location so they’re employing multiple sets. I was reminded once again about how scary Central’s reach and power was. Here they could casually deploy its Aspirants into parallel dimensions just for a simple request of an Arbiter.

Jordan’s eyes darted for a moment before she chose one screen to focus on and dismissed the rest of them.

“This one should represent the average of the Aspirants,” she explained, “Please enjoy the show.”

I wanted to see the point of view of Jae-Hyun and the others, but I doubt they would have any trouble thriving no matter what Abigail threw at them. My time was better used trying to assess the general strength of the current Aspirants - I’ve never really had a chance to do that so far, now that I thought about it - and why so many of them were dying.

“I can still make changes to the training, correct?” I asked.

“Of course, Lord W,” Jordan answered with a little too much enthusiasm, “You are the one in charge here, after all. Please make additional changes as you see fit. Your last intervention only increased the fatality rate by 1.5 times, but I am sure that there is a deeper reason for doing that.”

“Yes…” I replied evenly, doing my absolute best to ensure that Jordan didn’t get any more satisfaction out of the current situation, “There was.”

“I expect nothing less, Lord Arbiter,” she smirked, “Would you like some popcorn? I hear that humans enjoy such snacks when watching an entertaining spectacle, and I think this will be most entertaining.”

“No,” I muttered.

Let’s just see how bad the current situation was…