novelraw Chapter 227 – Must Accept
Chapter 227 – Must Accept
[A bo?ded partner? has voluntarily ?nd one-sidedly entered in?o a subservient relationshi? with you. There is nothing you c?n do.]
A what has what? I was minding my own business, mindlessly staring off into nothing in my glass cell, when my lovely (and kinda broken) VISS Driver gave me the most ridiculous notification I’ve seen.
[New bond skill aut??atically acquired: Master of the Sword: Gives the ab?lity to heal the self-inflicted wounds of the Sword of Violence. Dominant side of the bond ski?l.]
Huh…
I’m so lost… I’m so utterly lost…
Who did that? What the hell are my girls doing? A new bond skill? Seriously? Master of the Sword, Sword of Violence… Seeing a lot of swords here… Who among them uses swords? Carol? Yeah… It’s probably her… Wow… Sword of Violence… She got a second powerful skill, huh? Amazing… What an hardworking girl.
I guess the VISS Driver’s still works for that… It’s not fully working like it should. I never got a skill forced on me before, but it’s not completely offline.
I’ve been here for a few weeks now, and I’m doing a lot better. I was able to get a good grasp on my current condition since then. And on the state of the VISS Driver. I can’t use any skills for whatever reason, but my passives seem to work just fine.
The people here have been trying to keep me weak with drugs and what not, but they’re huge fools.
My Psychological Attack Resistance has been neutering everything they’ve inject me with, and I’ve regained almost all my strength. From my few tests, the abilities I get from my stats are unaffected by the problems of the VISS Driver. I could break this glass with a single punch whenever I want.
But I wanna wait a bit…
I don’t have my items… I don’t have my skills… Even if I could break out of this cell, I’m not sure I could make it out.
And… There’s someone else I’ve been worried about.
“*Tap tap tap!* Hey, Reia! How are you doing? Good whatever time of day it is. How’s your job going? Doesn’t it get boring coming to check on me every day?”
“You’re too energetic for a weakened specimen…” Reia tapped something on her tablet after a quick side glance.
Stop it! You’re not supposed to write about that! Are you trying to report me?
Believe it or not, we’ve been getting along great. Most of the researchers that were often around earlier got new stuff to worry about. Reia’s the only one who still comes here every day for long periods of time. I’d be so lonely if it wasn’t for her. And if it wasn’t for Psychological Attack Resistance identifying the loneliness of being in a cell as a psychological attack and protecting me from it.
We’re kinda… gaming buddies now? I mean, we’ve never played together, but we’ve been talking about games and anime often. I’m pretty sure she just sees me as a break from her usual work. Not that I’m complaining.
“But no… It’s not boring… It’s just work.” Reia said. “I still get interesting challenges when I’m not here, and I get do what I want most of the time.”
“Challenges… You like challenging yourself?”
“What else is there to do?” She shrugged like it was the most obvious thing in the world. I shouldn’t be surprised… The games she likes leaned more towards harder games. Good taste. In games, that is… Can’t say I like being in tough places in my life. I mean, I’d rather not be here.
“Is that how you made it to an important position even though we’re the same age? I’m happy for you… Do they fill you in about all the complicated stuff?”
“Depends on what you think is complicated.”
“In this case, I was referring to the truth. The portals aren’t actually dangerous, right? They lead to another world, and the PSF just says that to keep the average agent away from the truth. Are you one of those kept in the dark?”
Should be fine for me to tell her that. Either she knows and I get some new information or we do a little subterfuge by spreading information the PSF doesn’t want spread.
“The portals… Yes… There’s another world. It’s interesting… We still don’t know what causes them…”
“Oh…” She knew, huh…? “Then… Since we’ve been talking about games, did you know the other world is the world from a game?”
“Mhm.” She nodded.
“Ahahahaha… Of course you wouldn’t… All the traces of the game disappeared at some point, so I’m not expecting anyone else to rememb- Wait! You do!?”
“Mhm… But I don’t remember much about the game.” She stepped closer to the glass.
“You too? I also don’t remember much… It was an okay game, I think…? Like, it was good, but nothing too impressive. But wow… I seriously thought I was the only one who remembered it… What do you still remember? Let’s trade info.”
“There are actually others like us.”
“Really? You mean other people that remember the game?”
“The PSF tracked them when the portals started appearing. But everyone’s the same. There’s no one that remembers anything in depth.”
“You gotta be joking…” Did everyone pay as little attention as I did when playing the game? “Well… I guess it wasn’t that big of a game… Makes sense it didn’t leave an impression on anyone.”
“No, it doesn’t.” Reia’s expression suddenly turned serious. “No matter how average a game it might have been, there’s no reason for us to assume the enjoyment of the game across the players doesn’t follow a normal distribution. If we consider the people like us who have forgotten most of the game as small fans and people that disliked the game as non-fans, there should also be big fans that liked it and remember a lot. With a small sample size, we could have a situation where not a single big fan exists, however, there are enough small fans like us that the non-existence of a big fan is a clear statistical anomaly.”
“That’s a lot of jargon to drop on a poor defenseless girl like me… What does that mean?” I asked.
“It means that something out of the ordinary happened. Given the number of people like us, who forgot a lot, that have been found around the world, there should be two or three people who liked the game a lot and remember it perfectly.”
“Huh… Can’t that just have been a coincidence?”
“It’s an anomaly.” She calmly averted her eyes. “Even the people who worked on the game barely remember working on it. Why do you think that is?”
“Wait…” Even the people who worked on it? Memory manipulation… Information manipulation… Must be the same reason why there’s nothing on the web. “Did the PSF wipe their memories?”
“No… The PSF’s not at fault here. They’re the ones most desperate for that information. Be it the memories or any physical traces of the game. It all disappeared at some point without any trace. Likely when the portals first showed up. But my personal theory aligns with yours. Our memories were partially wiped… Everyone’s memories of the game were affected.”
Our memories of the game were manipulated? Is that even possible?
“That theory ties everything together. The thought that the game that’s the basis for the other world is a mediocre game is probably a big mistake.”
“What do you mean? Cause I still remember playing it! I was skimming through the dialogue, and while the gameplay was nice, it wasn’t anything groundbreaking. The game was a cult classic, and most people were on the same boat as me. Outside the cult.” I said.
“You can’t be sure those memories are accurate. If my theory’s right, when the portals first appeared, every trace of the game along with a lot of memories and our feelings for it disappeared.”
“Huh… So you’re saying I liked the game far more than I think I did? The reception was much better?”
“Most likely.” She said. “Think about it. If you remove a fixed number of memories from every person who played it, with most people being small fans and only some being big fans, all the small fans would completely forget the game. The big fans would lose just as much, but because they have more, they would still have some memories and feelings remaining. They would become the new small fans, while the previous small fans forget everything and appear as non-fans. If we look at it that way, it’s likely that the game was one of the best games ever made and that it left such a great impact on us that it was impossible for all memories to be wiped.”
“Woah…”
That’s really out there, but I can’t deny it makes sense. Even looking at my own memories… I did spend a lot of time playing it… Everything blurs together, sure… But there are other games that I also wasn’t as impressed by that and played less but still remember more… It is strange… The world of Balterra… Its game… Were they actually things I loved?
“Bu- but… If we liked it that much, wouldn’t we remember the basics about it? I sure don’t. Like, what was the game even called? Do you know?”
“Mhm… It’s Siphon of Infinity.”