Ch 17: Let the Games Begin
Vert gave a sigh as she checked off yet another box on her gigantic to-do list. Even after slaving away for four days straight since her return, she barely seemed to make a dent in the massive amount of work that had piled up during her absence. She knew it was her job to deal with such matters but the sheer amount of mind-numbing tasks made her briefly wonder if retirement was an option for her yet.
"Focus Vert," she told herself while shaking her head. "You've been through far worse than this before. Besides, you're far, far, too young to be thinking about retirement already."
With that minor boost to her vanity, she finished delivering her latest batch of Holy Pineapples to the local town mayor and headed back towards the main city.
Unsurprisingly, the 'work' that Vert had been dealing with had simply been all of her backlogged MMO quests. Chika and the Ran Rans were the unfortunate ones that had to deal with the real work as they frantically tried their best to keep the country running. As for the CPU who should have been dealing with all of this, she had instead locked herself in her room and had devoted herself back to her beloved game.
"Hm... perhaps I should check up on our guild storage while I'm in the area."
After taking a quick sip of her favorite green soda (her tenth bottle of the day in fact), Vert moved her Enchanter towards the center of the city where all of the guild houses were located.
Upon arriving at her 'humble' five-story tall, beautifully furnished house, she was greeted by a rather interesting conversation.
"...really true you can actually swim in lava in this game?!" Ruby's enthusiastic voice was heard over the room's general chat.
"Indeed you can my dark apprentice!" Tanaka answered, his avatar performing his usual 'dramatic flair' gesture. "However, only those who can awaken their true hidden potential can achieve such a feat! Luckily for you, I can show you the path to enlightenment! First, you must channel the chaos of the Abyss into-"
"Please stop confusing the poor girl with your nonsense," Nayru, the highest level Bard of their guild, said with an exasperated sigh. Ignoring the Summoner's resentful outburst at her interruption, she turned to address Ruby while strumming a cheerful tune with her harp. "All you have to do to swim in the lava pools safely is attain a minimum Fire Resistance of fifty percent along with a Health Regeneration buff. Killing a Molten Frog during the weekend events will get you both of these so you should wait until then."
"Or," Tanaka countered, "you can offer me a mere pittance of a thousand Gold and immediately attain my Cursed Shrouds of Immortality!"
"That's just your old equipment from two expansions ago!" Nayru pointed out disapprovingly. "For goddesses' sake, stop trying to sell off your outdated junk to the new recruits!"
Deciding not to end up like poor Ruby and get stuck in the pair's argument, Vert quietly sneaked out of the main room.
"Honestly, when did my guild become so weird?" she wondered aloud as she entered the adjoining hallway.
"Oh?" a mischievous voice suddenly said. "Did I just hear our great leader bad-mouth the entire guild? It probably wouldn't be good if everyone hears about this. Still, I guess I could keep quiet about it... for a small fee of course."
Vert let out a large sigh as she turned her avatar to the side to find a small blonde Merchant smiling back up at her.
"Lola," Vert greeted her Guild Treasurer. "What have I told you about blackmailing fellow guild members?"
Lola's avatar briefly used the 'thinking pose' gesture before answering. "Um... Not to do it unless it was absolutely necessary?"
Vert just used the 'face-palm' gesture in response before continuing to head towards the storage room. To her dismay, Lola happily followed along after her.
"By the way, I actually have a new budget plan laid out and-"
"Talk to Kotori about it," Vert quickly cut her off. The last time she had agreed to listen to one of Lola's new ideas, she had been stuck with her for nearly five hours straight as the money-loving girl spouted off a bunch of economic jargon that she could barely make sense of. And in the end, all of it had just been an extremely convoluted way of asking to get paid extra for being the Guild Treasurer.
Lola let out a loud huff over the voice chat as her avatar used the 'pouting' gesture.
"Well I would if I knew where to find her," she complained. "I've been wanting to talk with her for a while now but she's been busy running around all over the place like she's on some sort of secret mission or something."
Vert was about to express her confusion about this when she remembered the reconnaissance mission that she had assigned to Kotori way back when. Apparently the Tsundere Battle Mage had not been joking when she said her investigation into the new raid-clearing guild would take some time.
"Really," Lola continued on, "if she's looking for information, she could have just come to me about it. I would have even given her a fellow guild member discount for it."
Vert had to suppress using the 'roll your eyes' gesture at this. While she did not doubt that Lola could procure any sort of information if asked to, she also knew that the little money-grubber would demand a ludicrous fee for it in return. More than likely, this was the reason that Kotori had chosen not to ask for her aid in her investigation. Well, that and the fact that Lola was just as likely to sell the information that she was looking into the new FGL guild to the highest bidder as well.
As they continued to walk along, Vert could not help but look at her Guild Treasurer with a suspicious gaze. If there really was a mole leaking information to the new guild then Lola was definitely up there as one of the prime suspects. While the money-loving girl was loyal to the guild for the most part, it would not be the first time that she had made some shady, under-the-table dealings with one of their competitors. Granted, all of those transactions had resulted in their guild coming out on top in the end so it was hard to fault her for those. (Vert would never tire of recalling the image of Kirito crying for an entire month about losing his Legendary-rank coat collection for a measly five Silver and a Goblin's loincloth; Lola still refused to tell anyone how she had managed to con him into such a deal.)
Deciding to check up on her suspicions, Vert spoke up again to question the tiny Merchant.
"Are there any large business transactions you're currently engaged in?"
If the brief pause was anything to go by, Lola was rather caught off-guard by the sudden inquiry. While this could have been a sign of her guilt it was just as likely that she was merely surprised by the fact that Vert of all people was showing interest in her work.
"Not at the moment," Lola answered, her tone making her confusion apparent. "Why are you asking?"
Unlike her br... Sync, Vert had never been much good at reading people. The lack of a physical face to go by also did not help in this situation as she struggled to figure out if Lola was lying or not just through the tone of her voice. After a few awkward seconds, Vert realized she would not be getting anything out of her impromptu interrogation and quickly tried to redirect Lola's attention.
"Oh... um, I overheard Tanaka trying to sell off his old equipment again in the main hall. I figured if you weren't busy, you would be interested in it."
The bait worked as intended as Lola immediately used her 'rub your hands together greedily' gesture.
"Summoner equipment prices are at an all-time high right now. If I can get my hands on an entire set of them..."
The tiny Merchant's words trailed off into a rather evil-sounding laugh as she turned around and merrily skipped down the hallway without a backwards glance.
Watching her go, Vert could not help but feel like she had just added fuel to the fire by sending Lola into the middle of one of Tanaka and Nayru's arguments. Offering up a silent apology to Ruby (who would no doubt still be trapped between the two), Vert continued on towards the storage room with a sigh.
"Perhaps it's time I posted a minimum sanity requirement for my guild..."
Thirty minutes later and Vert was dutifully continuing to check up on their guild's inventory. And by that she meant she was busy being AFK while taking her second afternoon snack break.
"Hm... maybe I should consider cutting back on these sweets a bit," she mused aloud as she finished her giant tub of ice cream. "I wouldn't want to end up ruining my perfect figure after all."
After briefly considering it for a moment, she let out an amused laugh.
"Oh what am I talking about? A professional gamer such as myself needs all the calories I can get to stay at peak performance. And besides, I can always just use Neptune's HDD Diet Plan if needed."
With that said, she reached over to the snack tray that Ran Ran had delivered to her room and stuffed a deep-fried Twinkie into her mouth.
As she enjoyed her heavenly (diabetes-inducing) snack, Vert could not help but once again appreciate just how handy having the Ran Rans around actually was. Not only were they doing all of her work for her, they even provided her with expedient room service at routine intervals. Unlike Chika who refused to bring in food for her during her gaming sessions (something about her darling needing the exercise that walking to the kitchens provided), the Ran Rans dutifully delivered everything she wanted to eat directly to her desk. Considering her Oracle's general disapproval of her eating habits, it was easy to guess that it was Sync who had told them to provide her with the room service beforehand.
At the thought of the boy, Vert's eyes immediately went to her new naked butler figures that were on the top shelf of the display case next to her desk. A faint smile appeared on her face for the briefest of seconds before being replaced by a troubled look. Just like every other time that she happened to glance at the figures.
Despite her concern for him - and she was finally willing to admit that she did worry for him... a bit - she had yet to leave her room and visit him personally. The main reason was that she was unsure of how to approach him after everything that had happened but it was also due to the fact that he was still recovering. According to the Ran Ran she had questioned, he had briefly regained consciousness the day after their arrival but had soon gone back to sleep afterwards. Figuring that Sync would be the one to barge into her room if he was well enough to be up and about, Vert had simply decided to wait for him to make the first move.
"He should have shown up by now," Vert noted, a hint of worry leaking into her voice. "Is it possible that his condition somehow worsened during the past few days?"
Inside her head, her logical side gave an exasperated sigh.
'You know, you could just go and visit him right now instead of fretting about like this.'
Vert did not answer immediately as she grabbed a large triple-chocolate eclair from her snack tray and took a bite.
'I know what I'm doing,' she replied mentally, mouth too full to answer aloud. 'It's just... I'd rather not actively seek him out at the moment if I can.'
Logical Vert rolled her eyes in such an exaggerated manner that Vert could practically feel the motion.
'I honestly can't tell if you're just being lazy or if you're still too insecure of your own feelings to go see him.' Not giving her main self a chance to respond, Logical Vert retreated from the forefront of their mind with a dismissive wave. 'Do what you will,' she called out behind her. 'As long as you keep the boy alive long enough for me to get my answers, I don't care what you do.'
Recalling their past conversation, Vert gave a quiet nod to herself. Having come this far, she was determined to see this through all the way to the end.
After all, her pride as a gamer would not have it any other way.
Four days ago...
"What exactly is the deal with that boy?!"
With a deep scowl on her face, Vert continued to relentlessly pace back and forth in the kitchen area of her inner mind castle. After tailing the trouble-making brat all the way up the broadcast tower to question him and only getting a few snippets of frustratingly vague answers in response, the CPU was understandably in a bad mood.
"'It's not my feelings you should be so concerned about but rather your own,'" Vert said, repeating the boy's words back to herself. "What in Gamindustri is that supposed to mean?!"
For once, she received no answer from her lively personas. Of course, this mostly had to do with the fact that almost all of them were still inside the meeting hall arguing with each other about the boy. The only other aspect of herself in the kitchen with her was Apathy Vert who, fittingly enough, seemed completely indifferent about the situation as she went about making some toast for herself while listening to her mp3 player.
"Maybe all of this is just another prank of his," Vert theorized, not caring that her only audience member was not paying the slightest bit of attention to her. "Maybe he wants me to think there's some hidden meaning to his words and actions when there actually isn't so that I'll drive myself insane on a wild goose chase."
Vert continued to silently ponder the likelihood of this possibility until she noticed a small wisp of black smoke coming from nearby.
"Your bread's burning," Vert distractedly pointed out to her apathetic self.
With no change to her neutral expression, Apathy Vert silently popped out the burnt bread from the toaster before putting in a fresh slice.
Vert, meanwhile, returned back to her previous musings.
"Argh! This is getting me nowhere!" she eventually cried out. "I'm fairly certain he was being serious during our encounter but none of what he said makes any sense!"
Luckily for Vert, her logical aspect took this moment to enter the room before she could start tearing her own hair out in frustration.
"So this was where you were," Logical Vert said, her annoyance quite plain to see. "I wanted to speak to you about- Why do I smell something burning?"
Both Verts simultaneously turned towards the toaster as Apathy Vert replaced her newly burnt piece of bread once again.
"Okay..." Logical Vert trailed off before focusing her attention back to her main self. "Ahem. As I was saying, I wanted to have a word with you about the boy."
Vert gave a loud groan to this. "Please don't tell me you also think he's some sort of tragic, suffering figure that we've been mistreating this entire time."
Logical Vert adjusted her glasses with a huff as if insulted by the notion.
"Don't lump me in with those sentimental idiots. Need I remind you that I was the one who was busy arguing against that ludicrous idea from the start?" She gave an irritated shake of her head before continuing. "No, the thing I wanted to discuss with you pertains to your recent... chat with the boy."
Vert looked puzzled for a moment before her eyes lit up with expectation.
"Did you figure it out?!" she asked eagerly. "Did you actually manage to solve the mystery behind his words and uncover all the secrets surrounding the boy?!"
Logical Vert simply gave a sigh to this as she crossed her arms. With her expression set in a grim frown, she let the silence drag on for a while as if debating whether or not to go through with whatever she had been planning to say. She eventually relented though when she noticed her main self nearly fit to burst with all the pent-up anticipation.
"No, I haven't uncovered everything yet," she announced, much to the disappointment of her other self. "However," she went on, "his latest interaction with you did shed some light on a few important matters that I've been curious about."
"What sort of matters?"
Oddly enough, Logical Vert hesitated once more before shaking her head and replying.
"To put it bluntly, I believe that the boy is not actually the Leanbox CPU Candidate."
Vert let out an immediate cheer upon hearing this.
"Yes! I knew it! I knew he wasn't related to me!" Her celebration was short-lived as the sharp glare her logical self sent her quickly put a stop to her childish behavior. "Ahem. I mean, what made you come to that conclusion?"
Logical Vert adjusted her glasses with a scowl before replying.
"Just like you, I've had my doubts about his claims since his initial appearance. His improper connection with our share crystal and the fact that he's a boy was enough for me to be suspicious but not enough for me to confirm anything one way or the other. However, his recent actions and words provided me with the evidence that I needed to come to a conclusion."
"Well? What was this decisive piece of evidence?"
Rather than dramatically pulling out an incriminating photograph or something of the sort, Logical Vert simply asked a question of her own.
"Answer me this. If you suddenly found yourself with a sister but she adamantly refused to accept you as her sibling, how would you feel?"
"Um..." Vert trailed, completely caught off-guard by the seemingly random subject change. "I'd... imagine I would be rather hurt and depressed at being rejected like that." Her expression quickly changed into an accusatory glare when she guessed where her logical self was going with this. "Hey! I thought you said you didn't support the theory about the boy being some tragic figure!"
Logical Vert gave a tired sigh as if she were dealing with an idiot (which, given her default status as the smartest persona in their mind, was not too far off the mark).
"You're missing the point," she explained. "If the boy truly was our brother, then there should have been at least some indication that he was feeling hurt by your rejection. However, no such indication could be seen at all. And I don't care how good of an actor you are, there is no way someone could have failed to showcase any form of emotion when your only existing family member continuously rejected your very existence at every turn."
Vert winced at the accusation but held her ground. "We can't confirm that. He's clearly well-versed at hiding his true thoughts and-"
"And that's where the evidence I talked about earlier comes into play," Logical Vert interrupted, a small hint of triumph in her voice. "During your encounter with him in the lobby, you managed to make him drop that cheerful mask of his for a split second. Instead of looking upset or depressed like you originally guessed though, he displayed a completely different emotion than what was expected. Tell me, what exactly did you happen to see right at that moment?"
Vert looked confused about what her counterpart was getting at but answered anyways. "He looked... worried."
Logical Vert nodded. "To be more precise, he wore a worried expression right when you chose not to deny your relation to him."
The glasses-wearing persona brought a hand up to her chin in a thoughtful manner as she began pacing across the room.
"Now, these are the facts what we know for certain at this point." She raised her free hand and held up a finger."One. The boy wants people to believe that we're related. His constant referral to us as 'sis' is more than enough proof of this." She raised another finger. "Two. He does not feel the least bit upset about us rejecting his claims. In fact, he seemed almost... satisfied whenever we did so. While this leads us to the possibility that he's been simply hiding his inner turmoil, the final point proves that this is not the case." She raised a third finger as she came to a halt. "Three. For whatever reason, the boy does not want us to think of him as our actual brother. It's fine for everyone else to assume that we're actual siblings but the moment you showed the tiniest hint of actually believing in this yourself, his facade momentarily crumbled and he showed just how worried he was about the matter."
"That last point's not exactly certain though," Vert countered. "What if that worried look of his was aimed at something else?"
Logical Vert casually lowered her hands and gave a thin smirk to this. "Ah, but you're forgetting about your latest meeting with him. When you asked if he was upset with you, or to be more accurate, when you showed concern for him, he froze up again and dropped his cheerful act. Even his answer could be seen as a subtle way of telling you to drop your concerns regarding him."
'It's not my feelings you should be so concerned about but rather your own.'
Vert's eyes widened as she realized that what her logical self was saying made sense. All of those instances by themselves could be passed off as mere coincidence but together they were starting to form a pattern.
"Now you see what I'm getting at," Logical Vert said, noticing her reaction. "If we take all of these points into consideration, it's clear that his actions and behavior do not match up at all with that of a real younger brother."
Triumphant music seemed to fill the room as Logical Vert victoriously stated her final conclusion with a dramatic finger point.
"Ergo, the boy is not the actual Leanbox CPU Candidate!"
Vert stared at her other self in amazement for a few seconds before a thoughtful frown crossed her face.
"Hold on," she said, rapidly going over everything that had just been revealed. "If what you said is all true, then who exactly is the boy? What's his purpose here? And how did he manage to establish a link with our share crystal?"
The background music screeched to a halt as Logical Vert adjusted her glasses with an embarrassed cough.
"I... did not think that far ahead," she admitted sheepishly. "I was only focused on proving my point about him not being the Leanbox CPU Candidate."
Vert could not help but facepalm at this with a loud groan. Clearly her stress was starting to affect her entire mind if even her logical self was starting to behave in such a ridiculous manner.
"Okay..." Vert eventually sighed, deciding to break the awkward silence that had filled the room. "At least we managed to prove that the boy is not my actual b... br... related to me. That's one less thing to worry about."
Logical Vert gave another cough to this.
"I believe it is fair to warn you that there is still a minuscule chance that my deduction was somehow wrong. It's highly unlikely but considering our luck so far, I feel it's better to put up a disclaimer."
Vert decided not to dwell on the possibility of her being related to the boy any further as she quickly disregarded her logical self's comment and continued talking.
"The big question now is who the boy really is and what his intentions are."
Logical Vert put some thought into this for a few seconds before giving a snort.
"Maybe he actually is an alternate-dimension prince who's pretending to be the CPU Candidate in order to hide himself from a Blight Witch," she said sarcastically.
Rather than dismissing the idea as expected, Vert instead put on an extremely thoughtful look to this.
"You can't be serious," Logical Vert deadpanned, seeing her main self's expression. "I was making a joke. Don't tell you're actually considering this?"
"You have to admit, it fits in pretty well with what we know so far though," Vert argued. "If he was some kind of prince in hiding, it explains why he wants everyone to believe he's the CPU Candidate while not caring about my rejections of him. And going by common tropes, he's probably trying to prevent me from becoming too attached to him in order to spare my feelings for when he inevitably has to return back to his home dimension."
If there was ever a need for a visual definition of the word 'exasperation', then Logical Vert's current expression would have perfectly fit the bill.
"There are so many holes in your theory that I don't even know where to begin." She took a couple of deep breaths to compose herself before deciding to point out the biggest flaws. "Okay, first, if the boy really was a prince-in-hiding, then why would he choose to take on a role that would make him visible to, oh, I don't know, the entire world?! Secondly, how would any of this explain how he managed to connect himself to our share crystal?!"
"Um... maybe he's trying to use the old technique of hiding in plain sight?" Vert defended half-heartedly. "As for the share crystal... er... He could have... um... That's to say... magic?"
Seeing her logical self regarding her like a total idiot again, Vert tried to go on the offensive.
"Hey! You also came up with a theory about how he's not the CPU Candidate and you don't see me making fun of you for it!"
"I supported my theory with actual facts and observations! All you're doing is coming up with baseless fantasies and trying to twist them into matching with the circumstances!"
"I am doing no such thing! In fact, I have support for my theory too! I... um... Oh! Remember how I wished I could be part of an adventure game that involved a prince and a Blight Witch? It's an extremely common plot element for an ill-conceived wish like that to come true in a very convoluted manner just like what we're experiencing right now! See? That proves my theory about him being a prince!"
Logical Vert slowly removed her glasses before smashing her head repeatedly against the kitchen counter.
Vert, meanwhile, was drawn back to her thoughts (delusions) as she put on a pondering look.
"Although, now that I think about it, none of this exactly feels like much of an adventure game. There hasn't been much exploration involved and we haven't even been offered a single, pointless side-quest yet. In fact, I've spent almost all my time debating with myself about the situation and making simple choices on what to do next. Based on my knowledge, this fits in more along the lines of the visual novel genre than anything else."
Logical Vert face planted a couple more times for good measure before dazedly getting up and putting her glasses back on.
"The idiot thinks we're in a visual novel now," she muttered, her sarcasm levels apparently unaffected by her concussion. "Even after Neptune's already told us that we're-"
"I know exactly what we're in," Vert quickly cut her off, stopping her other self from shattering the fourth wall and accidentally summoning the aforementioned meme lord into their mind again. "And I'm not saying we're in an actual visual novel game. All I'm saying is that everything that's happened so far shares a large amount of similarities with a basic visual novel setup."
Logical Vert seemed very tempted to raise an objection but eventually chose to concede the point with a weary sigh.
"Fine. I suppose you were our gamer persona before taking charge of this madhouse. I won't question your expertise on this particular matter." She gave a brief pause before pinning her main self with a sharp glare. "However, that does not mean I am endorsing the rest of your stupidity. You can continue to believe the boy is some sort of alternate-dimension prince all you want but the fact remains that we lack the information needed to make a solid judgment. And the only way we'll obtain this information is by continuing to observe the boy so you better make sure to keep him alive."
Vert raised an eyebrow to this. "Keep him alive? Are you afraid that something's going to happen to him?"
"And you call yourself the gaming expert," Logical Vert muttered, rolling her eyes. "Look, even I can tell that the boy's obviously triggered a death flag and-"
"A death flag?!"
Logical Vert winced at the loud outburst but otherwise kept up her glare.
"You really haven't noticed? I figured anyone with basic trope knowledge could tell that the boy's going to be dead by the end of... whatever charade this entire event is."
"But... but... where's your proof?" Vert demanded, starting to panic a bit. After all, the last thing she wanted was to have a dead child on her hands.
Logical Vert gave a sigh as she crossed her arms. "Just do a basic cross-analysis of the boy's behavior with classic trope set-ups. In fact... You said our current situation resembled a visual novel game correct? Then apply his character to a standard formula and tell me how you see things playing out."
Vert did as asked before answering with a nervous frown.
"With our current set-up, there's two main endings that could occur," she hypothesized. "If we continue to keep our distance from him, he'll disappear without a trace and the unanswered questions that surrounded him will continue to haunt us for the rest of our lives. On the other hand, if we try to get close to him, he'll probably end up dying or vanishing right as we begin to become attached to him. And of course, that's not taking into account the thousands of other bad ends that could occur before we even reach those two possibilities."
Logical Vert gave a nod. "That's a rather generalized summary but you can see what I'm getting at."
Vert had to make a conscious effort to keep from fidgeting about nervously.
"What are we going to do?! Histoire's going to kill me if he ends up dead on my watch!"
"That's the reason you're worried about him?" Logical Vert gave a faint scoff before continuing. "Well, no matter. All you need to do is use your gaming knowledge to steer the boy away from any potential bad ends he runs across. If this scenario really is like a visual novel, then I'm sure a gamer like you will have an easy enough time dealing with this task."
Vert, however, did not look so sure. In general, visual novels tended to be notoriously difficult to predict. Even with all her knowledge and expertise, she could easily end up making a choice that led directly to a bad end. Something as innocuous as what sort of tea she chose to drink in the afternoon could somehow end up with the boy being killed by a psychopathic vampire in a school hallway. Even worse though was the fact that she would have no way of telling if she was already stuck in a bad end route or not. For example, she could have a touching heart-to-heart moment with the boy (complete with a CG artwork and everything) and think that she had successfully completed the game only to find out the next day that he had hanged himself in his room or something equally as awful. Add in the fact that the boy was already giving off such obvious death flag vibes and things were looking extremely bleak for her.
"This... this is impossible," Vert eventually murmured in a despondent tone.
To her surprise, Logical Vert put an encouraging hand on her shoulder.
"There's no point in giving up before you've even tried," she said, her voice sounding more stern than derisive for once. "The boy's survived for this long even without our direct intervention so things might not be as bad as you're making it out to be. If it makes it any easier, just think of all this as an actual game. While you might be a senseless idiot in most regards, even I won't refute your skills as a gamer. And as far as I now, there hasn't been a single game that you've failed to beat thus far."
Vert stayed silent for a long while before giving a large sigh.
"Fine," she said in a resigned tone. "If this really is following a standard formula like you proposed, then I suppose I'll just have to keep an eye on him. As troublesome as it is, I won't just sit by and-"
She stopped when she noticed something out of the corner of her eyes. Turning her head, she was completely bewildered to find an enormous tower of burnt toast stacked almost to the top of the kitchen ceiling. Apathy Vert, the obvious creator of this strange work, did not seem to realize she had an audience as she continued to monotonously hum along to whatever song she was listening to over her mp3 player. As Vert and Logical Vert continued to watch with open mouths, the indifferent persona pulled out another bag of bread from one of the kitchen cabinets and continued to perform her bizarre bread burning ritual.
Perhaps it was due to all the stress and anxiety that had been building up throughout that day but Vert finally felt something snap at the ridiculous sight.
"WILL YOU STOP BURNING MY BREAD ALREADY?!"
Back in her room, Vert gave a large sigh as she finally gathered up her nerve to go check up on the boy. While she was fairly certain that nothing serious would happen to him again right after a major event like the fan riot, she decided she could use the peace of mind that seeing him alive would bring. Plus, she could use the opportunity to finally thank him for the present he had gotten her.
At the thought, she glanced up once more at the naked butler figures with a brief smile before she quickly shook her head.
"No, bad Vert," she admonished herself. "Don't grow attached to him or you'll end up making him disappear."
Once again, she was reminded of just how difficult her task actually was. Asides from keeping the boy safe from external dangers, she needed to make sure he was not feeling completely rejected by her while also making sure that she did not grow too close to him. It was a precarious balancing act that she still had no idea how to pull off and was honestly why she was dreading facing him again. Still, ignoring him completely was out of the picture at this point so she figured she might as well choose to approach him on her own terms.
"Well... maybe after I finish just one more quest," she muttered, her focus immediately turning back to her MMO.
Scarfing down the last double fudge cheesecake bite on her snack tray with her free hand, Vert moved her avatar back towards the guild's main lobby.
As she entered the room, she saw that Ruby, Tanaka, and Nayru were still together. Thankfully, the latter two seemed to have ended their previous argument as they were sharing some recent gossip with their third member instead. Lola was nowhere to be seen which Vert assumed meant that Tanaka had refused to sell his old gear to her once again.
Deciding not to interrupt the three, Vert quietly made her way over to the room's exit.
"... heard? Apparently, Kurumi's part of the guild that beat the newest raid wing."
Vert immediately froze at Nayru's bit of news. Her curiosity immediately piqued, she raised the volume on her headset as she fixed all of her attention onto the room's general chat.
"Who's Kurumi?" Ruby asked.
"Only the most fearsome temptress this server has ever seen," Tanaka answered ominously. "Her dark beauty is matched only by her unholy powers to control the very fabric of time itself! It is rumored that-"
"She's an extremely high-level player with a penchant for teasing and flirting with her teammates," Nayru translated, once again leaving Tanaka to rant about her interruptions in the background. "She was also the only level-capped Chrono-mage during the last expansion before she suddenly decided to become a free-lancer and disappeared."
"Chrono-mage? I don't think I've seen that class before," Ruby stated.
"They're an extremely difficult class to use," Nayru explained. "Their main mechanic revolves around managing a secondary 'time gauge' in addition to their basic mana. Based on my understanding, if you happen to have too much or too little of this time gauge filled when trying to use certain abilities, you'll end up inflicting some serious debuffs to yourself and your party members instead. While their trademark skill of lowering their ally's ability cooldowns are extremely potent, most raid leaders don't want to take the risk of taking one along in their parties. It's far too easy for them to slip up during a high pressure raid setting and end up debuffing their entire team by accident during a crucial moment. As a result, not many people decide to put in the time and effort into learning the class."
"I think I get it," Ruby said, using her 'nod' gesture. "So this Kurumi person is the only one who plays this class right now?"
Tanaka chose to answer this one. "There are a few others but none of them are as well-known as the Dark Temptress. Legends say that she trained for an entire month without ever logging off to completely master the class. I, for one, believe she must have used her dark powers to create an army of clones to keep playing for her. No normal human could ever-"
To everyone's surprise, Kotori chose this moment to barge into the room. This, in turn, brought attention to Vert who was currently standing frozen next to the door.
"Ah! Kotori, Vert!" Ruby greeted enthusiastically. "We haven't seen you in-"
The rest of her words were lost as Kotori wordlessly dragged Vert into a private room.
Oddly enough, the Battle Mage did not immediately give out her report to Vert as expected as she instead started pacing her avatar back and forth while muttering incomprehensibly over the voice chat.
"Um... Kotori? Are you alright?" Vert asked worriedly. When she failed to get a response, she decided to try and start up the conversation herself. "Have you heard? It seems Kurumi's decided to come out of the shadows and joined up with FGL."
This finally managed to get a reaction from the agitated redhead.
"Oh, I've heard," Kotori growled angrily, still refusing to stop her avatar from pacing. "That conniving, no-good, brother-seducing..." The rest devolved into incomprehensible mutters again as she continued to vent her anger.
While Vert had pieced together from past conversations that Kotori and Kurumi apparently shared some sort of history with each other in real life, this was the first time that the Tsundere was openly talking about the mysterious Chrono-mage. As curious as Vert was, she knew from experience not bother an already agitated Tsundere so she simply waited for Kotori to get everything out of her system instead.
After a few minutes, Kotori finally came to a halt as the sound of a candy wrapper being crumpled up was heard over the chat.
"Sorry about that," the Battle Mage said, her voice slightly muffled from the candy she apparently had in her mouth. "I just hoped I'd never have to personally cross paths with her in here and ..."
Vert could easily picture Kotori shaking her head before changing the topic.
"Anyways, I looked into the rest of FGL like you asked," she reported, returning to her normal business-like tone. "As it turns out, the group really is an actual social guild. Most of its members aren't even equipped well enough to get through the previous expansion's raid, let alone the current one."
"What?! Then how did-"
"Let me finish," Kotori growled. After waiting to make sure Vert kept her mouth shut, she continued. "I had to do some serious digging around but I eventually learned that the guild's leader, Amadeus, started becoming more active recently. According to my sources, Amadeus generally tended to stay offline for extremely long periods of time and left the day-to-day running of the guild to his advisors. However, he recently started coming online more often and spent most of his time in private chats with various players. It's hard to confirm for sure but I'm fairly certain that's when he assembled his team."
"His team?"
"I'm talking about the team he cleared the raid with. From what I can gather, Amadeus decided to bring together various talented free-lancers to create a special, raid-focused group within his guild. Unfortunately, I don't have much information on the individual members due to them barely interacting with anyone else in the guild. The only exception is Nigh- I mean, Kurumi and that's only because she's been having fun harassing their new recruits. Not that I'm really surprised by that kind of behavior from her."
Kotori quickly stopped herself from going on another rant and brought up a large holographic screen instead.
"Anyways, what I did manage to get is a clip of FGL clearing the last boss of the first wing. I had to pull in quite a few favors with the higher-ups to get this but I'd say it was worth it. It's... well, just watch."
Leaning forward in anticipation, Vert watched as the video began to play.
The recording opened up to show the all-too-familiar visage of the giant Demon Alpaca. Apparently, the battle had just started at this point in the video as the giant beast was currently at its full ten bars of health. Vert quickly glanced down at the name displayed on the HUD they were viewing this through and confirmed that the recording was from the point-of-view of Amadeus himself.
"Wait," Vert interrupted, focusing back on the battlefield and immediately noticing something strange about the scene. "Am I counting wrong or are there only six people in the raid right now?"
"Yes, there's only six," Kotori confirmed. "Now be quiet and watch."
Vert could not suppress the feeling of confusion and dread as she looked back at the screen. Generally, raid parties in 4GO2 consisted of twelve people in total. The implication that this Amadeus person had somehow managed to clear the raid wing with half the usual number of party members made her even more anxious to see what was going to happen.
To her utter bewilderment, nothing much seemed to occur on-screen for quite a while. As far as she could tell, Amadeus and Kurumi (the only other person who was standing still long enough for her to read the name of) were busy casting random spells in the back as if warming up for something while the rest were simply dodging the alpaca's attacks.
Just when Vert was about to question whether this was simply some sort of prank video, it happened. At a signal that was probably given through their private chat, the team assembled together before proceeding to... melt the giant Alpaca.
Well, not literally, of course. But the speed at which the boss's HP went down practically made it seem that way. In a massive flurry of attacks, the alpaca immediately went from ten to eight bars as it temporarily entered an invulnerable state as it shifted its attack pattern.
"What just...?"
"Quiet!"
Deciding to hold her questions till the end, Vert watched as the party dodged the alpaca's acid spit attacks before unleashing all hell on the boss once again. Based on the massive amount of inputs appearing on the screen, Amadeus was clearly doing something but Vert's unfamiliarity with his class along with the speed at which he used his abilities made it nearly impossible to follow. What she did manage to notice though was that the rest of his teammates' abilities all appeared to have an extremely short cooldown for some reason.
Just as she was about to shout out that the group was obviously using hacks, she remembered the main ability of the Chrono-mages. Suddenly, the massive amount of actions displayed on Amadeus' screen made sense to her. Someway, somehow, he was managing to apply his cooldown reduction buff to all of their individual party members while simultaneously managing his time gauge levels and avoiding the boss's attacks. Not only that, Vert was sure he was also coordinating his team's attacks over their private chat as well.
The rest of the battle continued on in much the same fashion. Amadeus would constantly provide his team with a cooldown reduction buff while Kurumi supported him by buffing the few people that he could not reach at the moment. As for the rest of the party, they were free to throw out their own buffs, debuffs, heals, and attacks like they were going out of business. One thing that Vert noted though was that the group lacked the innate teamwork and coordination of a long-time raid group. While each of the party members seemed fairly skilled in their own right, they made several minor mistakes in their positioning at various times which would have undoubtedly ended up in a wipe for any other team. However, the constant stream of healing and short-term invulnerability spells were more than enough for the group to safely plow through the opposition.
In what felt like no time at all, the last of the alpaca's health bar was evaporated as the video came to an end with the giant monster exploding dramatically into a shower of fluffy sparks.
Not surprisingly, Vert was stunned silent by all of this as she continued to stare open-mouthed at the screen in front of her for what felt like an eternity.
"How... How is this possible?" she eventually breathed out. "That amount of multitasking... it... it shouldn't be possible!"
"Well apparently it is," Kotori answered grimly. Having seen the video beforehand, she was clearly not as in much shock as her leader. "As per the rules, the Game Masters were given the full video to make sure that the winning team were not implementing any sort of hacks. After several days of investigation, they decided to rule this as a legit run."
Vert was at a loss for words before her mind quickly went into full-on denial mode (something she found herself doing far too often lately).
"No, this has to be a mistake. They... Amadeus... he's probably one of the GMs in disguise or-"
"This isn't the time for one of your baseless conspiracy theories," Kotori quickly cut off, giving Vert an uncomfortable feeling of déjà vu . "If we don't figure out an actual way to deal with this, we're going to end up losing every single one of the first clear bonuses for this expansion!"
This successfully managed to grab Vert's attention.
"S... Surely, the GMs won't allow FGL to implement such an unfair strategy against the other raid wings?" she said uncertainly. "Amadeus' group is doing nothing more than taking advantage of the developers' oversight on just how overpowered the Chrono-mage abilities actually are."
Kotori's avatar shook her head. "If you're expecting some kind of nerf to the class then you can keep on dreaming," she said, crushing whatever faint hopes Vert had. "I checked in with one of my contacts in the higher-ups and he said that they're all simply impressed that someone's finally managed to fully utilize all of the Chrono-mage's abilities. If anything, they probably want Amadeus to succeed so that they can get more data on both his class and his skill."
"But... but this isn't fair!" Vert tried to argue. "While I will grudgingly admit that Amadeus himself might have some skill, the rest of his team were just spamming abilities! All of the other raid guilds had to spend days practicing with their entire team for this! It simply isn't right to award a single person for essentially carrying the rest of his team while ignoring the guilds that had to put in actual work!"
"Now you're just whining," Kotori grumbled, using her 'roll your eyes' gesture. "Despite what you think, FGL had to practice for their run as well. If what I learned is true, then this video of them clearing the run was actually their fourth attempt. And while their teamwork was extremely sloppy compared to ours, it was obvious they were sticking to some sort of plan instead of just mindlessly mashing buttons like you're implying."
A heavy silence filled the room as Vert realized that no outside help would be forthcoming.
"What can we do then?" she eventually asked despondently.
To her surprise, Kotori actually provided an answer.
"There's only one thing we can do. We need to find and stop the mole that's been leaking information to Amadeus." Seeing Vert use her 'questioning expression' gesture, she elaborated. "Putting aside his skill and unique party set-up, Amadeus only managed to get through this raid wing because he somehow knew about all of its mechanics beforehand."
"But you said FGL went through this wing multiple times," Vert reminded. "Amadeus could have just used those previous runs to scope out the place."
Kotori used her 'shake head' gesture. "Even if he is some sort of gaming genius, figuring out an entire raid wing's worth of mechanics in just four runs is impossible. I hate saying this but Glasses-man is one of the smartest players I know and apparently even he couldn't map out all of the mechanics until his eighth try. And this was with him having researched several of those mechanics beforehand."
A faint spark of hope began blossoming in Vert once again.
"So Shiroe was correct about suspecting the presence of a mole passing along raid information to FGL then," she summarized, using her avatar's 'thinking pose' gesture. "If we can stop Amadeus from getting his hands on the next wing's mechanics, he'll be forced to waste his time mapping out the place manually."
"And that'll give us the chance we need to get through the place first," Kotori finished with a 'nod' gesture. There was a brief pause before she continued on in a grim tone. "However, the GMs and developers won't offer us any sort of help on this matter. As long as Amadeus wasn't hacking the game or stealing information directly from them, they won't intervene in a case of guild-to-guild espionage. It'll be all on us to find the spy and stop him or her."
Vert bit her lips as she realized just how serious the issue had become. The fate of the entire ruling structure of the guilds in the server now hinged on whether or not they could catch this mole. If things continued on as they were, all three of the main raid guilds would stand to lose their reputations as well as all the influence and power that came with it. And if that happened, then all those countless years they had spent on building up their power would come crumbling down in an instant.
"Did you happen to find any clues pertaining to this mole during your initial search?" Vert asked.
"Unfortunately, no," Kotori said, her frustration over her own lack of answers clearly coming through in her tone. "I was too busy trying to unearth as much as I could about Amadeus and FGL to put much resources on that front."
"Don't blame yourself," Vert quickly reassured her. "You've uncovered far more about Amadeus and his guild than I could have ever hoped for and for that I sincerely thank you."
Not surprisingly, Kotori immediately became flustered over the praise.
"It...It wasn't like I was doing it for you or anything, stupid!" Kotori shouted, her obvious reddening face almost transmitting from across the screens. "I... I was just doing my job! After all, someone has to make sure you don't run this guild into the ground!"
Vert just gave a mental laugh at the Tsundere's reaction as she waited for her to calm down.
"Hmph! A... Anyways, there's no guarantee that the mole is even in our own guild," Kotori eventually said, returning back to her business-like tone. "You told me that the reason Glasses-man contacted you and the Gary-Stu is because he couldn't figure this out by himself either. As much as I hate the thought, you'll probably need to cooperate with them again if you want any chance of finding this mole before the next raid wing is unveiled a few weeks from now."
Vert gave an audible groan at the thought of having to meet up with Shiroe and Kirito again. Still, given the circumstances, she really did not have much of a choice.
"I'll contact them as soon as you have something to report to me," she answered. "Knowing those two, they won't say anything unless I have some news to share with them first."
Kotori used a 'nod' gesture before moving over to the room's exit portal. Before she went through though, she suddenly seemed to remember something as she stopped and turned around.
"Oh, I almost forgot. It's only a minor detail but it seems Amadeus hasn't been online for quite a while recently. No one in his guild seems to know why but I figured his sudden disappearance can't mean anything good."
Vert was just about pass off this information as inconsequential when a figurative pair of dots seemed to connect in her mind.
"When exactly did he stop coming online?!" Vert almost yelled, her heart pounding in her chest as she prayed that what she was thinking was not true.
Kotori seemed rather taken aback by her leader's panicked tone but answered anyways.
"I don't have an exact date but about a few days ago. Hm... now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure my contacts reported that he stopped coming online around the same time you went offline as well." She paused to give Vert a 'suspicious gaze' gesture. "Do you know something about this?"
"No," Vert answered, perhaps a bit too quickly. "I was just mistaken. Anyways, you can get back to searching for our potential mole. Contact me as soon as you come across anything important."
Kotori continued to stare at her boss for a while longer before giving a curt 'nod' gesture and exiting the room.
Vert, meanwhile, logged off from her game right away as she tried to calm herself.
There was no way that her conjecture could be right. Shiroe had told her that Amadeus had been the guild leader of FGL for years already. The rest of these current events had to be nothing more than a simple coincidence.
After all, why would Sync of all people be involved in her game?
The more she thought about it though, the more she could not help but doubt herself. Amadeus had reappeared from one of his long offline sessions at roughly the same time as the boy. Not only that, Amadeus had displayed some rather odd behavior during his latest reappearance by suddenly recruiting a bunch of players and creating a special-ops raid team for no discernible reason. Was it possible that Sync had hacked or bought the original Amadeus's account then? And was he doing all of this just to mess with her?
Vert shook her head as she tried to view this logically. The boy had only been around for a couple weeks at most. Even if he had gotten his hands on a high-level account, there was no way he could have displayed the skills that she had seen on the clip that Kotori had shown her. But then again, she had no real way of knowing if that was true or not either. She still lacked any concrete clues as to who or what the boy really was and he had never actually displayed any of his gaming skills in front of her. For all she knew, he could be one of those mythical Game Wizards who supposedly lived in the faraway dimension known as 'California'.
Vert gave a loud groan as she buried her head in her hands. The last thing she wanted was to have her two problems intertwine like this. She already had enough on her mind with trying to keep the boy from activating his death flag without also suspecting if he was trying to sabotage her MMO lifestyle as well. And the worst part was that she was currently at an impasse as far as both mysteries were concerned.
She suddenly raised her head as she realized something. Actually, there was one thing she could do. She could just visit Sync right now and question him directly. There was no guarantee that he would provide her with any answers - if their last talk was anything to go by - but perhaps she could still gather some tiny shards of truth from their interaction that would help her piece together the giant puzzle her life had suddenly become.
Glancing at her naked butler figures once again, she made up her mind with a determined look as she finally got out of her chair...
...only to find a giant green portal hanging over her room.
"What in the-?"
The rest of her words were drowned out as a torrential mass of cheese wheels suddenly rained down from the portal. Vert immediately found herself buried underneath the massive flood of cheese as her room began to fill up all the way up to the ceiling. Soon enough, the door to her room was forcibly pushed open by all the cheese wheels that had accumulated inside as a large amount of them cascaded into the hallway.
"UWAAAAAAGH!"
Unfortunately for her, Chika happened to be passing by right at that moment and found herself being immediately swallowed up by the sudden wave of cheese that had appeared.
The good news was that the portal had disappeared by this point which meant that the cheese wheels spilling out into the hallway lowered the room's cheese levels to about two-thirds as opposed to completely submerging it.
After swimming/climbing upwards for several seconds, Vert finally managed to make her way to the surface of the newly formed Sea of Cheese. Taking in several deep breaths, she looked around before spotting three people that had not been in the room before.
"Woohoo! That was fun!" Big Nep shouted excitedly, her arms and head just barely poking out of the cheese wheels surrounding her. "Let's do that again!"
Next to her, a pair of legs were seen sticking out of the cheesy ocean. Judging from the black leg warmers with buttons attached to them, the legs most likely belonged to one Uzume Tennouboshi.
"Why does this keep happening to me?" the tomboy's muffled voice was heard asking in a sad tone.
Vert, however, was mainly focused on the blond boy who was calmly sitting on top of all the cheese with a strange wooden staff in his hand. Realizing he was being watched, he looked over at the dumbfounded goddess with a wide smile.
"Hey sis!" Sync happily called out. Without waiting for a response, he reached down with his free hand and picked up a particularly large wheel of yellow cheese before holding it out to her. "Gouda?"