The Cold Snake's Offer
BAR Breeze, in the heart of the Entertainment District. In one of its VIP rooms, a man in a suit sat at his ease, idly turning a glass of liquor in his hand.
Before long, the door opened and the 'appointment' he had been waiting for stepped inside. A mask and glasses concealed the visitor's face, but the man recognized him at a glance.
"Ryu7017. Or would you prefer I call you Ryu Hwi?"
"Gabriel Darius."
Ryu Hwi pulled off his glasses and mask as he entered the room, then fixed Gabriel with a ferocious glare. Gabriel took the fury in those eyes in easy stride.
"Before I hear why you called me here, let me ask one thing."
"Saint Yggdrasil General Hospital?"
Gabriel had struck the source of Ryu Hwi's rage with perfect accuracy.
"So you did find out about the experiments. Faster than I expected. Do you have an excellent collaborator, perhaps?"
According to Wolya, the security protecting Saint Yggdrasil General Hospital was on par with the classified intelligence of a national agency. That was why gathering information had taken so long—and yet Gabriel called it 'fast.' Had he expected it to take far longer still?
"A pity. The materials prepared with such care are no longer necessary—one bargaining chip, gone to waste."
Despite his words, Gabriel showed not the slightest trace of regret. Ryu Hwi clenched his teeth hard enough to grind.
"So it's true, then—that Latia and Linzea are running 'human experiments'?"
Humans of Unknown rank or below, patients with no guardians, patients with little time left to live—admitted to Saint Yggdrasil General Hospital, they had vanished without a trace. At first, illegal organ trafficking had been suspected, but the deeper the investigation went, the more suspicious things surfaced.
Wolya's report had stated plainly that Saint Yggdrasil General Hospital was conducting some form of human experimentation. According to information obtained by crossing some seriously dangerous lines, the hospital contained restricted-access zones where some manner of experiment was underway. And the report went so far as to name those behind it: Latia Soft and Linzea Guild, the hospital's own sponsors.
"For example..." Gabriel took a sip of his drink and continued. "Say there is a patient whose sole guardian has been stripped down to Unknown rank and can no longer pay for treatment."
Who he meant needed no explanation.
"A life that will end anyway—would it not be better put to use for the advancement of humanity?"
"Gabriel!!"
Ryu Hwi closed the distance in an instant and seized him by the collar. His mother had been admitted to Saint Yggdrasil General Hospital. Back then, working day and night without rest to earn her treatment fees, Ryu Hwi hadn't even been at her side for her final moments. If Gabriel's words were true, then Ryu Hwi's mother had been...
"Now, now, calm yourself. It is true that Linzea has no shortage of people who talk like that, but I was not involved."
Gabriel took hold of Ryu Hwi's arm. In that instant, pain flared as if his arm were being crushed, and Ryu Hwi desperately struck the hand away. The imprint of fingers remained on his arm.
"Linzea Guild has grown too large. Too many captains at the helm—it can no longer control where it goes. By the time I learned of the 'experiments,' matters had already progressed beyond the point of return."
"And you expect me to believe that?"
"Believe it or don't—that is your prerogative. Incidentally, do you know what kind of experiments they conduct there?"
Wolya's report had contained records of the 'human experiments,' but not their purpose.
"Conversion experiments."
At those words, it was not Ryu Hwi who reacted, but YggON, who had been listening quietly beside him.
"Of course, I do not mean converting account data into a different game labyrinth. Humans today connect to their account avatars inside the labyrinths through access devices."
Ryu Hwi held his tongue and listened. He had a rough idea what Gabriel meant by 'conversion experiments,' but there was nothing to gain from reacting rashly. Ryu Hwi could connect to a game labyrinth by converting his physical body itself into data, but other gamers merely linked their minds to their account avatars.
"I don't know the exact reason, but it seems some people were not satisfied with that alone. In time, their eyes turned to Yggdrasil Items—objects that, though labyrinth data, had been 'converted' and realized in reality. Seeing them, they thought:"
Could a 'human' be converted and sent into a game labyrinth?
YggON had said that the method humans currently used to access Yggdrasil was primitive. Someday, perhaps, an era would come when other gamers, too, would convert their bodies just as Ryu Hwi did. There had been those who caught on to that possibility. And the method they chose to make it real was...
"That is what the human experiments were for. Many were sacrificed for those experiments. Your mother's name was on that list."
"Gabriel!"
"I will say it once more—I did not lead those experiments."
Rage boiled up from deep within him. He felt the impulse to storm Linzea Guild that very moment and smash it all to pieces.
YggON's voice echoed at his ear. Desperately suppressing the seething emotions, Ryu Hwi glared at Gabriel.
"Why are you telling me this? If this comes to light, Latia Soft and Linzea Guild won't walk away unscathed."
"You think far too lightly of power that answers to no one. Linzea may well come to an end, admittedly—but Latia will take hardly a scratch. Latia's CEO is Platinum, and once one reaches that rank, a matter of this scale is 'merely' that. It cannot deal any real damage."
"Merely, you say?"
"Merely. The company's image will take a hit, but Latia Soft will not collapse. Someone other than the CEO will be punished in its place, and that will be the end of it."
Ryu Hwi had never yet met a 'Platinum'-rank human. But Gabriel, Gold rank, had met them many times—and had experienced firsthand just how unreasonable they were.
"Linzea is called the greatest guild because it stayed in Latia's good graces. But to them, it is nothing more than a piece to be discarded at any time."
"What?"
"What, disappointed? The targets of your revenge turn out to be nothing special after all?"
Bringing down Linzea Guild was one of Ryu Hwi's goals. For the man who stood at its head to dismiss it was the same as dismissing that goal outright.
"Cut the bullshit." Ryu Hwi spat the words out.
"Whatever you people are, nothing will settle my grudge unless it ends by my hand. Even if you crumble before I can take my revenge, I will chase you down to the very end and destroy you."
"You would not even balk at dragging them from their graves, then? Heh heh."
Linpel Darius had regarded Ryu Hwi as a thorn in his eye, and together with Linzea had driven him to ruin.
"Then let me be blunt."
As if to say the games ended here, Gabriel met Ryu Hwi's eyes with a cold gaze.
"I shall open the way to the 50th floor for you."
It was a strange thing to say. The front line of the assault currently stood at the 47th floor—how, exactly, did one 'open the way' to the 50th? And it made no sense for him to send Linzea's enemy up there, either.
After a moment's deliberation, Ryu Hwi arrived at an answer.
"You've been sabotaging the assault on the Tower."
"Sharp insight, too?"
Gabriel confirmed it.
"Just as you say, we used certain means to delay the Tower's conquest. Top secret, even within Linzea."
"Why would you do such a thing?"
"Because Latia Soft's 'pigs' wanted the glory of World of Phantasm to last."
Gabriel pointed a finger at Ryu Hwi.
"The plan was to delay the conquest by at least two years. But your appearance changed everything."
"Two years? I'll clear it within six months."
"Tremendous confidence. But if it is you... you really might manage it."
Gabriel knew Ryu Hwi's words were no empty boast.
"At first, I intended to uncover the secret of your account. I believed the special one was not you, but your account."
YggON circled round and round above Gabriel's head.
"We attempted analysis after analysis to learn your account's secret, but the only conclusion we reached was that it went beyond simple errors or bugs into the domain of the system itself. It is a realm current human technology cannot explain, no matter what we do."
There was much about Yggdrasil that human technology could not yet explain. The UR YggON system, too, stood far beyond the reach of modern science.
"With too many unknowns to analyze, I thought it better to put it to use instead."
"That's the part I don't understand. Aren't you the ones who are supposed to stop me?"
"Linzea, yes, would have to stop you." Gabriel acknowledged the point.
"But 'I' will not. I have circumstances of my own."
What on earth was Gabriel Darius scheming? Ryu Hwi could not fathom his true intentions.
If Gabriel is telling the truth, I could conquer World of Phantasm in a single stroke.
Ryu Hwi deliberated for a moment, studying the man before him. Those snake-like eyes, impossible to read, had been fixed on him the entire time. A cold snake—a man whose depths could not be plumbed.
Ryu Hwi made his choice.
"I refuse."
"Your reason?"
Even at the refusal, Gabriel's expression did not change in the slightest.
"Has there ever been enough trust between us for me to swallow your word whole?"
"And?"
"For smashing Linzea and World of Phantasm to pieces, I have no need of your help."
"Insufferably arrogant. But the you of today has earned the right to be."
Gabriel tipped his glass and poured its contents away.
"No gamer in World of Phantasm will ever beat you."
"......"
Gabriel rose from his seat as if nothing bound him there any longer.
"I never thought you would accept my offer. So from this point on, I shall act as I please."
"And what exactly do you intend to do?"
"You will know soon enough. Well, then... if you are curious, you had best be logged in next Monday."
With those final words, Gabriel left the room.
Next Monday. Gabriel was resolved to do something.
What the hell is he planning?
YggON's lens blinked as it watched Ryu Hwi—as if waiting to see how he would take it.
'That man' had made his move.
Asea of GA-ES realized that the moment she had been waiting for had finally come.
"Ryu7017's existence. The conflicts with the labyrinth's residents deepening by the day. With World of Phantasm's very survival now in danger, we have no choice but to move."
GA-ES's 'Guild Master' looked up at the sky—the blue sky of the game labyrinth World of Phantasm.
"Far sooner than we planned. The methods, the course of events—everything has been thrown completely off. Is all of this, every last bit of it, the result of Ryu7017 tearing through everything?"
At the Guild Master's words, Asea bit her lip hard.
"But do not worry. The ones who laugh last... will be us—GA-ES."
The Guild Master's voice rang out.
"The hour has come to spread our wings as we please. Now, we will become the masters of this sky."