Divorce (7)

Shin Eun-jo said Meursault was not a romanceable character.

Romanceable character was not a term anyone used in the Safe Zones. The Safe Zones had always been a game about clearing areas, after all.

The fact that she had still put that phrase in her mouth led to only one conclusion.

"Don't tell me you played that otome game too?"

Shin Eun-jo's answer came back crisp and clean.

"Middle-Aged Romance Simulation? Sure, I played it."

That otome game…

Was it some massively famous title? Was I the only one who had never touched it?

No, hang on.

"Shamans play otome games now?"

"I played it because I'm a shaman."

"Ha?"

I did not know much about otome games, but even I could tell that the sentence I played an otome game because I'm a shaman was nowhere near ordinary.

"What business does a shaman have with an otome game? You do cyber gut rituals or something?"

"I played that game for client management."

These days shamans had to play otome games to manage their clients?

"MZ shaman… is that what this is?"

"I have no idea what you're imagining, but a client simply brought me a game ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠he had made and asked me to look it over—whether it would sell. I played it. That was all."

The more surprising part was that someone had taken an otome game they had made themselves to a shaman for review.

…Wait.

"A game he made himself… you said?"

"That's right."

"That client told you he personally made the game? You're sure?"

"I'm sure. Every revision note I sent him by email was later reflected in the Safe Zones."

The revision notes were reflected…?

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"I already told you. The client brought it to me because he wanted to know if the game would land. But it was boring. So I asked him to change a few things."

"What did you ask him to change?"

"Things like Commander Hayden's age and looks. I don't go for middle-aged men."

Ah. So that was why, for a title called Middle-Aged Romance Simulation, Commander Hayden had looked suspiciously young.

Those were this girl's revision notes made real.

If everything Shin Eun-jo is saying is true, then before she possessed anyone she met the developer of Middle-Aged Romance Simulation… the representative of Cthulhu Games.

In some ways that might be far more tightly bound to this mass possession than the fact that my mother was the head of the Salvation Project, or that HomebodySpouse's older sister had been a Salvation Project employee.

Player possession had begun with that otome game, after all.

I need to sort out the timeline.

Before I did that, there was something I had to confirm with Shin Eun-jo first.

"The person you met was the representative of Cthulhu Games, right? Not some other game company."

At that, Shin Eun-jo's eyes went wide.

"Yes! That's it! Cthulhu Games! It was written right there in the email address, I know it was! How did such a simple name refuse to come back to me until now?"

"That representative. Man or woman?"

"A man. He looked a little like Commander Hayden."

Right. Someone else, then.

I had half wondered whether the head of Cthulhu Games might have been my mother as well. But if the person Shin Eun-jo had met was a man, then the one who set all of this in motion was not my mother.

I felt a strange, unnameable relief.

For now, if I think through the development order of the game we possessed into…

Luna Moon and Daphne had possessed into this world through the otome game, and we had only been mass-possessed through the online Safe Zone a full ten years after Luna Moon's death.

Putting everything I had heard so far together, the projected timeline looked like this:

Something like that?

I had placed the Salvation Project's game after Luna Moon and Daphne's possession because if a Safe Zone game had already existed by then, it would have been natural for Daphne to at least consider that what she had fallen into might be an apocalypse game rather than an otome title. But Daphne had given no sign of knowing anything about the end of the world.

And once I lay it out this way…

Sorting the timeline made one thing certain at last.

Luna Moon really was my mother.

It makes the most sense to assume that Mother, after dying in the game as Luna Moon, returned to reality and built a game with the exact same worldbuilding as the one she had seen.

For reasons I still did not understand, she had clung to making that game even while neglecting me, her own child.

The problem was that even after accepting Luna Moon as my mother, I still could not see why she had gone so far to re-create the Safe Zone.

If Mother herself had only been a victim of possession, then the one who started everything should have been the representative of Cthulhu Games.

So why had Mother followed after him and made a game of her own?

And the fact that I had possessed into the online Safe Zone without even knowing it was the game she had developed…

Was that really a coincidence?

For the first time, I wanted to go back to reality.

There was far too much I wanted to ask my mother.

And that was when it happened.

A message rose before my eyes.

I had seen this message once before.

The same one that appeared when I got my hands on Luna Moon's Ring!

When that message had shown up, the system had opened for the first time.

Which means if it's appearing again now…

I knew it!

The first time that message appeared, it had not said Opening the system but Partially opening the system. Even then I had assumed more of it remained locked away.

Apparently the system expanded every time you edged closer to the so-called secret of the apocalypse.

I scanned the newly opened entries as fast as I could so Shin Eun-jo would not grow suspicious.

Ranking and Shop had never existed in the Safe Zones, but even those did not surprise me much.

The problem was what came after.

Logout?!

It was still locked, but the word was unmistakably there: Logout.

Logout was possible this whole time?

And that was not the end of it.

The notification of a message from the game developer blinked at me as if urging me to open it at once.

I told Shin Eun-jo to join me tomorrow when I met Daphne, then hurried back to my room.

I needed to examine the newly expanded system.

The first thing I opened was Ranking.

When I selected it, a set of guidelines appeared first.

I had wondered how they even ranked people in a Safe Zone with no levels and nothing that converted into a score. So titles were the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠metric.

And the reason ranking existed at all was apparently the rewards.

I had half hoped there might be back pay from the last few months, but the rewards only applied from this point forward.

Which meant that even if other people were on the board, they could not claim anything unless they had unlocked the expanded system. Not a problem for me.

Pretty steep gap between first, the mid ranks, and tenth.

Those points were probably a currency for the Shop that had opened alongside everything else.

Only after the guidelines finished did the ranking itself appear.

"Huh…"

HomebodySpouse ranking ninth ahead of Dentist without even having system access was already surprising enough.

But first and second both reading Dopamine Addict meant the Unicorn Area player's nickname really was Dopamine Addict.

How was that even possible?

Then I opened the Shop and was forced to be even more surprised.

I had received fifty points.

According to the guidelines, first place got a hundred and second through ninth got fifty…

Which means I'm in second?

That should not have been possible.

As a full-zone clear reward I had inherited every title I had already earned. The idea that another player held more titles than I did did not make ordinary sense.

Seriously… what even is this guy?

Well. Ranking was purely title count, so it should not interfere with future clears. Still, the existence of that person left a bad taste I could not quite spit out.

For now… finish looking at the Shop.

…Was that how the Unicorn Area player had been messaging other people? By buying Notes?

Then that would mean he unlocked the expanded system ages ago and has been stockpiling points…

Thankfully, aside from the Note, most of the stock was recovery potions and food—nothing that looked especially game-breaking.

A System Unlock Ticket for a hundred points, though. Expensive, but useful on paper. Whether any player would actually spend a hundred points doing someone else a favor was another question.

There seemed to be more items past that, but a lock sealed them from view, with the note that ten thousand points would open the rest, and that titles could be cashed in at ten points each.

With nothing particularly tempting on the shelves, would anyone really grind ten thousand points just to crack that open? Better to wait until someone else did it, then unlock only if the goods looked worth it.

All right. Now…

Time to examine the problem child: Logout (Locked).

It was labeled locked, so I ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠did not expect an instant logout just from tapping it—but I touched the entry anyway.

Even setting aside the requirement that every single player open their system…

Does that mean this function will eventually be usable?

Logout was actually possible?

Was that why the Shop sold System Unlock Tickets—because you had to open everyone else's systems before you could leave?

"……"

Originally I had had no intention of going back at all.

But now I had things I wanted to ask my mother. I could not simply ignore a function like this.

There would be players who wanted to return, too.

Which means… I'll have to expand other people's systems as well.

The problem was that I still did not know how I had taken "one step closer to the secret of the apocalypse" this time. With Luna Moon's Ring there had been a clear causal chain. This time the system window had simply appeared while I was sorting the timeline, and I had no precise guess as to the trigger.

I'll think about that slowly…

What remained now was to check the message from the game developer.