End Online: Volume 4 (6 page)

My entire mind goes blank
from fear and I can barely even hold onto the memory of what he just said. The
only thing in my mind is a single word.

‘RUN!’

“Mr. Lee. Please refrain
from what you are doing. It is entirely excessive.” Another middle aged man in
beginner clothing appears next to him via some kind of teleportation.

“…” Mr. Lee glances at the
other man, insanity showing in his eyes.

Just at this moment, Fen
reappears near me while glaring at the two men. Anyone can see the dangerous
hostility she is exuding.

The rapier in front of me
suddenly vanishes into smoke as Mr. Lee takes a step back, conceding to the
other man’s request. The two of them completely ignore me and disappear as fast
as they appeared.

“Lost… is everything… okay?”
Fen asks in worry.

Still in panic mode, I log
off and return to reality as fast as I can.

***************************************************
***************************************************

-Mikhail-

“Why must you make things
difficult for me?” I sigh while looking at Mr. Lee.

“What are you talking
about? I am merely asserting my position to protect my daughter!” Mr. Lee
responds obnoxiously.

I look at the man who
probably knows that he went too far, just is too prideful to admit it. The
whole incident of him confronting and harassing that player would not have
happened if I was there. I was forced to log off temporarily in response to my
superior’s orders regarding an update on the situation. It turns out that the
central artificial intelligence, Xilbril, has produced a small number of new
‘children’.

This is on top of the fact
that we could not enter the underground dungeon called ‘Lords’ Cathedral’. In
normal situations, this would not warrant any further investigation, but I am a
system administrator with full access rights; there is no possible way I should
not be able to enter any area. The follow up investigations from the company
revealed a small number of ‘children’ coming into existence recently.

During my short absence,
Mr. Lee turned off a few of the administrator privileges we granted him to
reveal himself in front of that player and proceed to interrogate him.

What I do find interest
in, is that other girl who appeared near the end. For some reason, something
about her does not seem normal. I had quickly viewed both of their player
status’ after turning back on ‘Invisible’ and ‘Ethereal’.

The girl is an NPC under
the ‘companion’ status. It is quite possible the man is doing some quest where
she is accompanying him. The strange thing is how she appeared all of a sudden.
Upon logging out, she will naturally disappear as well. But she should not be
capable of leaving and reappearing while he is still logged on.

The player in the cloak is
a bit of a surprise as well. His level is above the average, but his stats are
simply monstrous. In all my time monitoring the system, I have never seen
anything quite like it.

“Mr. Lee, as you can see,
the targets you requested to preside watching over are no longer here. Let us
log off for now and return when they do.”

“Fine,” Mr. Lee grumbles.

“And please, try not to
interfere with the players in the future. A part of being an administrator is
understanding what is appropriate and what is not.”

Silently, we both log off
and return to the real life. I remove the VL from my head and watch Mr. Lee do
the same. As soon as we are both up and have stretched our legs, I turn around
and speak to the other man.

“Mr. Lee. I thank you for
your patronage today. Will we be expecting you again tomorrow?”

“No. Unfortunately, I am a
busy man with a company to run. I can’t be here playing games.” He seems quite
displeased that he can’t directly look over his daughter, but my boss has
already promised him we will do so.

Saying farewell, I watch
the corporate shark leave and finally begin to breathe freely again. Being the
type of shark that he is, he creates an atmosphere that is difficult to breathe
in.

Now by myself, I decide to
do some follow up investigation. Showing my employee pass on the way in; I
enter Xilbril’s and End Online’s central processing array. The neatly organized
matrix of cubic data processors and information storage never ceases to amaze
me.

Plugging my laptop in one
of the cubes on the ground floor, I connect with the system and run my analysis
program. Naturally, my computer itself is nowhere near enough the analyze this
system. I am merely connecting to it and using my computer as an input and
visual output; the central processing array is doing all the work itself.

From my computer, I first
search for the most intriguing part of my encounter; the NPC Fen.

“Strange,” I murmur to
myself.

Even if I had a minor
typing error, the system should at least give me a few alternative options as
to what I could be searching for.

“Are you operating against
me, Xilbril?” I ask out loud, aware that the system can’t actually hear me.

Trying a different
approach, I next search for the player with the abnormal stats; Lost.

‘Xilbril is hindering
my investigation! There is no possible way I can be mistaken about a player.
His data should definitely be here!’ 
I
shout in my mind, greatly shocked.

I run several further
searches, and even try a few other methods to search. However, each and every
search returns zero results.

Doing my best to ignore the
inconvenience and find a way around this problem, I try searching on the rest
of Lost’s party. The data for Verde, Sir Laurence, Mason, and Matrix all appear
with no issues. The only problem is when searching up Fen and Lost.

I try using different
administrative commands and tools to control the search, and everything seems
to be operating exactly as it should, but there are still zero search results.

“H-How can this be? The
data can’t possibly be gone! They were logged on a mere hour ago!” I shout my
frustration, letting a lot of my stress go as I do so.

‘No matter. You may
think you have outwitted me, Xilbril, but I know exactly where they are going
to log on.’

Giving the array a one
last challenging stare, I hastily leave the room and walk back to the where my
VL is waiting. The room I use to enter virtual reality is right next door to
the newly refurbished office leading the investigation into the missing AI
‘child’. There are only four members on the team, and that includes the man
leading the team; my boss, Henry.

“You’re back already?”
Henry asks, showing a concerned attitude. “You really need to relax and take a
break. Otherwise, your health will end up failing you.”

“Sorry, sir. I have been
incredibly busy lately. There is simply no time to rest right now.”

I pull out a nutrition bar
from my pocket, opening the packet and quickly biting into it. It is extremely
important to have enough energy to remain fully alert at all times, but also
fill the body with the necessary vitamins and minerals to stay healthy.

“So? What have your
investigations found out so far? Have you managed to locate any traces of that
block of data which went missing?” Henry asks the moment I finish my quick
snack.

“Sorry, sir. I haven’t.”

“And what about the cause
behind Mr. Lee’s daughter’s amnesia? Is there any progress there?”

“No, but I believe I may
have a lead on that one.”

“What kind of lead are you
talking about here?”

“One of the players she is
partied with, Lost is his name, and an NPC companion with him. The companion seemed
out of the ordinary, and even had a bug with its speech. The player himself had
absolutely monstrous player stats as well.”

“Hrmm…” Henry places a
hand on his chin, deep in thought. “And what exactly makes you regard this
situation so highly?”

“Well, I went to run a
search through the mainframe on the player and this NPC. No matter what I
tried, they never appeared in the search results. It is impossible!”

“And you are sure that you
didn’t make a mistake, typing in the wrong names.”

“No, I viewed their stats
directly, there are no mistakes.”

Henry once more enters
into a deep thought, thinking about the current possibilities.

“Sir, I believe we should
focus our attention on this man. This player who has stats beyond what should
be possible.”

“No, I think we should
focus our attention on this NPC beyond anything else.”

“Sir? It is only a bugged
NPC companion. Why should we focus our attention on that?”

“Mikhail, you are young so
you may have overlooked it. But in all my time, I have never seen Xilbril create
anything short of flawless. To suddenly see a decrepit program. It is either
something not created by Xilbril, or intentionally created that way.”

“What do you mean? Not
created by?”

“What I am saying, is that
it could be a third party program. However, there is nothing in this world that
can infiltrate Xilbril’s defence and get into the game. Especially operating
from an external terminal. This leads me to believe that there is something
more to this.”

“I-I understand. I will
take care of investigating the NPC called Fen.”

“Good, now go get some
rest!”

“Y-yes sir.”

The time is nearly 11pm
and the office is practically deserted. The only people around are a few people
staying late due to having an enormous amount of paperwork to sift through.

I sincerely doubt the
people I am monitoring will log back on any time before tomorrow morning, so I
quickly head home.

My twentieth floor
apartment is conveniently near my work; only a ten minute drive away. Arriving
home after a long day at work, I still feel all the energy leaving me despite
how many nutritional bars I had consumed.

Setting my alarm for 5am,
I quietly change into a pair of grey cotton shorts and pure white tank top.
Quickly slipping into the sheets of my bed, I escape the chill in the air.
Before my head hits the pillow, I am already asleep.

***************************************************

My senses hazily return as
I try to open my eyes. Squinting my eyes, I am blinded by the golden ambience
of the early morning sun filtering in through my eyelashes. Feeling a warmth on
my stomach, I squint further as I struggle to lift my head up and look down at
my body.

I realize that in my
sleep, I have practically kicked the sheets off while my loose tank top had
been messily pulled up, exposing my well conditioned body to the naked warmth
of the sun.

‘Isn’t it rather
bright this morning?’ 
I think to myself
while relishing in the warmth on my skin.

‘Wait… the
sun!’ 
I instantly become wide
awake.

Rolling over in a panic, I
hastily extend one hand and grab my alarm clock. I swear loudly upon seeing the
time to be 8:36am. I hope that Lost hasn’t logged on and left the area yet.

It takes me twenty minutes
to find some clean clothes and arrive at work. I apologize profusely to Henry,
but he only complains about me needing to rest more.

From there, I immediately
enter the small room I use to lie down and log into End Online. Placing the
helmet on my head, I rush to enter the game.

***************************************************

The mist fades away from
my vision and reveals the internals of a hot and humid temple. A few speckles
of dust blow free from a stained glass window along the dome like ceiling. The
few strands of sunlight entering the windows act as magnets, drawing the thin
specks of dust floating through the air into their golden radiance.

‘What!? I didn’t log
off here!’

I raise my body up,
sitting upright on the resurrection altar. I try to operate my administrator
controls, only to find them gone from where they used to be.

I dash out of the temple
with a body feeling both tense and sluggish. The fitness is completely unlike
my body back in real life, making it hard to operate this one.

As soon as I exit the
temple, the unfolding sight completely takes my breath away. The hazy blue sky
above me stretches to the endless reaches of the earth. The countless brown
brick and sandstone houses extending below me. Tens of thousands of shade
cloths extend between the buildings, sheltering the residents from some of the
blistering heat.

Turning around, I see a
circular building of such size that my jaw unconsciously drops open. The
building is made of reddish-brown brick, with decorative sculptures lining
small arches in the various levels of the building. Enormous tapestries hang
down from bronze poles extending from the rooftop. The thickness and weight of
the cloth prevents the tapestries from swaying much in the wind.