Episode 16. I Picked C. (2)
“You're saying he doesn't kill?”
Claire tilted her head, voicing her skepticism at the utterly baffling claim. They'd sniffed out her hiding spot on the rooftop, grabbed Sephirah, and subjected her to some bizarre experiment—and that was supposed to be pacifism? She couldn't find even a thread connecting the dots.
“You're not just making excuses because you let her get away, are you?”
“No, that's not it...”
“And this isn't a joke?”
“I'm dead serious.”
“Eueue...?”
Claire's voice pitched higher than usual, as if screaming, I have no idea what you're talking about right now. Not that this was the first time—it always seemed to happen around Aiden, for some reason.
“So, you're saying he's a total scumbag who does awful things... but stops short of killing?”
“Yes, that's it.”
“Doesn't that make him even more dangerous...?”
“Uh...”
Now that he thought about it, she had a point. No, her take actually made way more sense. If all of Eldi's experiments involved bloodshed, he might accidentally—or otherwise—take the life of some innocent NPC or even another player.
No, it's a little different.
But Aiden's conviction held firm. Just as he could sometimes judge situations pieced together from scant evidence, a strange certainty gripped him.
“Do you remember how many players had died and vanished before their numbers swelled to 128?”
Building on that certainty, Aiden laid out his hunch. Claire lifted her head slightly and replied.
“Hmm... It showed 27, so three, right? One killed by a player, and the other two... yeah.”
“There were no players killed in places we couldn't see.”
“True, you would've known if even one had died.”
Claire seemed convinced, at least. Her expression didn't darken. They couldn't fully verify innocent NPC deaths, but Eldi claiming he had no intention to kill rang true—at least on that specific point.
“Just occurred to me—maybe he doesn't outright kill them? Like, keeps them alive just enough to run his experiments.”
“Pardon?”
“And then we sneak after him and find a basement full of people being experimented on...!”
Aiden said nothing as he watched Claire rattle on excitedly. He could guess her train of thought, and how dead serious she was about it, but it was hard to respond.
“Mister?”
“Where'd you even get that idea?”
“...From a book?”
“What kind of book has that in it?”
“You know, like a dark wizard dabbling in human experiments...?”
Figures. What kind of books did she read to come up with this stuff?
“That's all exaggerated fiction. Forget it.”
“Okaay.”
“Focus.”
“Okaaaay...”
Claire drooped her head at the light scolding. Her response made Aiden wonder if she'd actually heard him.
He resolved not just to decide, but to show her something concrete, and steered back to the main topic.
“It's not entirely baseless, so to answer: no, I don't think so.”
“Hmm... why not?”
“If he was dead set on experimenting like that, he couldn't have held back from killing players.”
Aiden pressed on.
“Eldi entered around the same time as Hasselhoff. That was his only window.”
“A week ago, right?”
“Yes. Given how he keeps talking about getting caught up in changes, he probably noticed something like Sephirah did. The 'experiments' are part of that.”
“Players can communicate, but only one can exist per world...”
Claire quietly recited what she'd heard from Aiden. They could share info and chit-chat via community features, but multiplayer wasn't possible. It was twisted info fed to an NPC, but it helped her grasp the players' confusion.
“So players probably see each other as total strangers. They might feel some camaraderie, but nothing deeper than shared hometown roots.”
“What a realistic analogy...!”
“Hm... Anyway, if he forced experiments on strangers with no attachment, what do you think he'd test first?”
“Hmm.”
Claire supplemented her imagination with book plots and answered.
“They share being players, so... maybe check if they're exactly the same?”
“That's plausible, but I think he'd probe something else.”
“Something else?”
“What happens to 'experience' if you kill a player? What becomes of the dead player?”
For a moment, Claire's eyes shadowed as if Aiden had darkened. She held her breath and whispered back.
“Yes...?”
“Makes sense, right? Especially since players can grow stronger by killing each other.”
Silence fell.
Aiden might be wrong, but it was plausible. For players who'd only communicated online until now, 'player-on-player killing' was uncharted territory. With 29 others besides themselves, sacrificing one for data seemed harmless. Eldi struck Aiden as the type who'd think that way.
“But he didn't. Whatever the reason, it means he holds back from anything excessive. So, a pacifist?”
“Yes... or so I suspect.”
Eldi hadn't left a single scratch on Claire, even when facing her head-on. If not coincidence, he had some self-imposed rule. Something vague like spare the important ones.
“...Feels like a sick word game. 'Doesn't kill' covers a lot.”
Unlike Aiden, Claire seemed displeased even by that fact. Her voice grew quieter, steadier. Did he think it was fine as long as he didn't kill, even if he ripped out tongues or mangled limbs from hands to elbows? Claire wished for some grander motive.
“So, what's your plan? He hasn't killed anyone, sure—but doesn't that make him more dangerous?”
“I think there's still room to watch.”
“Watch and wait...? For real?”
Claire turned and stared at Aiden. She wanted to snap outright, but settled for a sullen look. She disliked the "watch" answer.
“And after watching?”
“We'll persuade him. He chases curiosity, so if we play it right, we might find common ground...”
“What makes you think you can?”
Claire remembered every warning Aiden had given. Strangers who appeared out of nowhere, hid in daily life, and turned the world into their playground using unique powers and knowledge. Players. Human in form, not purely evil morally, but unbound by laws or rules—chasing thrills alone. They felt no pain. They swept up in emotions without guilt. They committed atrocities without hesitation, strong enough to leap past normal thinking. Childlike purity birthed their madness, but it could be reined in. That middling nature made Aiden hesitate, Claire thought.
“You make it sound fine, but you don't fully trust even Sephirah over there.”
“...”
“And among players, the most trustworthy one's still... just her. Right?”
Sephirah, Sephirah, Sephirah. Lately, that fake-sounding alias slipped off her tongue more often. Reasons enough: as the first player, she'd approached Aiden out of pure curiosity; their first meeting wasn't wholesome, but she'd stayed friendly.
Acts pretty simple, honestly.
But Aiden didn't fully trust Sephirah—or players in general. So Claire didn't either. Her thoughts on Sephirah hovered on the ambiguous edge, but that was it.
“If even those closest are hard to trust... filling growing slots with only good ones sounds impossible.”
“Claire.”
“...Yes.”
Aiden answered her question.
“I've never once chosen to deal with players of my own accord.”
Claire's face hardened. She realized her weighted question meant nothing.
“...Right. Of course.”
“Yes.”
“Sorry for saying something dumb, mister.”
As Aiden looked at her, Claire averted her eyes and dug her thumbnail into the back of her other hand. Embarrassed. She'd heard everything yet overlooked the key point.
Aiden—and Claire—weren't with players by choice. Unknown folk had infiltrated daily life, causing havoc, so they sought any way to counter it. Adjusting to swelling player numbers? Aiden knew it was unrealistic. Yet he tried every idea that came. No one else would if he didn't.
“No matter how I look at it, you've gotten tangled in something huge.”
Claire raised her voice again, staring at the man beside her. Clumsy topic shift, but Aiden rolled with it.
“Same here. Who knew the guy I decided to tag along with was in this mess.”
“Heh... no, it's fine. My choice too—and it's interesting?”
The surroundings were quiet. No one else around, so a lull in talk naturally hushed things. But the content stirred an aching pang in his chest, fresh as ever.
“...Mister, you said you don't deal with players by choice.”
“Yes, unfortunately.”
“So, what do you want right now?”
“What I want... you mean?”
“Yeah, just curious.”
Aiden pondered the sudden question for a few seconds. But nothing concrete surfaced, like when called to voice an opinion and your mind blanks.
“I just...”
So he voiced the first thing that came.
“Want to go back to before there were players.”
Blissfully unaware that without them, he wouldn't exist.
