End Online: Volume 6 (18 page)

A different board member
also has questions. “Can we go back and switch it again? Perhaps if we could
entice it to go back to the new device, we can set a trap to capture it there.
Pinning down the AI children in our server matrix is simply too difficult. This
way we can examine it to find out exactly how and why it was created.”

“If the AI is truly
intelligent it will know better and won’t return to the old headset. It clearly
knew we were there to take it when it fled. Returning would simply be begging
for its capture.”

“That’s true. Well, we
will come back and talk about preventative measures or ways to capture it
later. The second item on the agenda is this morning’s incident.”

All the directors have
grave expressions as they bring up this topic. I can’t help but be puzzled by
why they seem so stern, but Henry explains it to my great shock.

“At 6:22am this morning, a
second AI child departed the server. It, however, was reuploaded at 6:29am.
During this seven minute interval it caused the death of a young nineteen year
old female gamer. Thankfully she was from the slums, where someone randomly
disappearing is perfectly normal. This isn’t much of a problem, but if it were
to happen somewhere higher in society, the consequences will be severe for us
all.”

“We can’t destroy the
servers to get rid of these AI children as that would be destroying everything
we have worked so hard to build. But a safety net is needed to at least isolate
these entities to the server. There are too many second generation helmets.”

“I vote that we have
Virtue run a campaign to recall as many second generation helmets as possible.
Offering anyone who turns theirs in a brand new fifth generation model should
reduce our risk.”

The seven directors of
Idea Imagine run idea after idea amongst their group, voting on many of them to
try and find the most ideal solution. Me? I am busy trying to take in all this
new information that has suddenly been dropped in my lap. The worst of it –
someone died! Regardless of where she was from, she was a real, young girl!

***************************************************
***************************************************

– Lost –

When I log back onto End
Online the next day, Sir Laurence and Verde are already online as well. Because
I was late going to sleep, I woke up later and am the last to log in. Both of
them message me at the same time the moment I enter the game.

“Where were you!? You
didn’t log back on like you said you would and you even ignored my phone call!”

“Lost, are you okay? Fen
came back shortly after you left and I was afraid something might have
happened. Fen was really unhappy too.”

I respond to the two that
everything is alright before arranging a place for us to meet up. I also
message Gladox, who doesn’t appear to ever log out, and let him know the place.

Fen seems to be able to
sense when I am online. She emerges from the nearby tavern she is staying in
and walks directly toward me without looking around.

“I’m back,” I say to the
wolf girl once she reaches me.

Fen just nods her head
shyly and moves to my side, grabbing my arm in the crook of her elbow and attracting
the attention of a lot of players nearby. I have already gotten used to this
sort of thing so I calmly ignore it.

The location I set for us
to meet up is the tavern Fen has been staying in. The others are still some
distance away so I check on the item I listed at the auction house. There has
already been a massive amount of interest in it, with hundreds of followers,
dozens of comments and questions, and a current top bid of 635 dollars.

Sir Laurence and Verde are
the first to arrive as they were nearby. Gladox is the slowest due to being
outside the city. We wait for half an hour before he returns.

“Thanks for coming,
everyone. I’m sorry for not coming back online yesterday. There… was a few real
life concerns that came up.”

“It’s alright,” Verde says
calmly, waving her hand to dismiss it. “I would rather know what we plan to do
next. We’re still looking for those stone tablets, right?”

“Of course, now more so
than ever. I’ve learned that the quest to collect them all is very important in
this game. It’s related to Fen too. If we can’t collect them all, I will lose
her as a companion.”

Sir Laurence reacts the
most to this, putting on a grieving face while saying, “We will lose such a
pretty lady from our group? Unacceptable! Lost, we must collect those tablets!”

He doesn’t stop there.
Prince Charming leans in his seat toward Fen and whispers to her, “Fen, does
this mean you are a damsel in distress?”

I don’t know if Fen
understands his inclination, but she gives him a chilly stare that even causes me
to shiver. I try not to picture the likely result of him flirting with her
again. I place my hand on the wolf girl’s shoulder to calm her thoughts. Not to
protect the idiotic knight, but to prevent a scene happening in the middle of
the tavern and the guards coming.

“Moving on!” I clear my
throat loudly to clear the hostile atmosphere. “I want to go to the second
capital of the beast realm, Koga City. We haven’t found anything here – not
even a hint. I have a feeling that going somewhere new to look will help us get
closer to it.”

After some thought on the
issue, both Sir Laurence and Verde agree. Gladox disagrees, but only because he
has a few quests left to finish in Kano City. We give him the choice of coming
along, or staying behind to finish his current quests and meeting us later. He
has a pained countenance as he is torn between the two options, but eventually
chooses to set his quests aside for another time.

Finally at an agreement,
we leave the tavern and head toward the nearest teleportation point. There’s a
surprisingly long line of players waiting to use it. I wonder if there is an
event in another realm happening.

“I heard there are some
guilds in a Deva Realm going to war with guilds of the Devil Realm. This must
be them calling over their friends for reinforcements,” Sir Laurence calmly
answers my unspoken question while we wait in the queue.

When it finally comes to
our turn, we request to teleport to Koga City and pay the fee. Fog quickly
clouds my vision, and when it clears we have arrived at our destination.

The teleportation area in
Koga City is extremely similar to the one we just left; I double check my
surroundings twice to make sure that we did in fact teleport. Despite the room
being extremely similar, it is only a resemblance and there are some minor
differences that become noticeable once I am looking for them.

We leave the portal and
find that there is another long queue of players waiting to use it. Compared to
the cat race players of Kano City, Koga City is dominated by those with dog
ears and tails of all kinds.

I feel the prick of prying
eyes on my back as I walk past the crowd, and I can imagine why. Our group
consists of a four-eared wolf man, a tall player covered in armor that you can
almost see your reflection in, another with pure white scales similar to a
lizardman, and two girls whose appearance is close to, if not better than, most
celebrities. One of those girls is also wearing a revealing top that was meant
for the heat of the desert. We are a group of players who seem to have come
together from all corners of the globe, and we really stand out.

Leaving the line of
players behind, the first thing I notice is that Koga City is much more humid
than Kano City. The latter has a refreshing sea breeze blowing through it, while
our new location is like walking through a jungle. I can’t see over the
buildings and outside the city, but I imagine there must be a thick forest or
swamp area nearby.

“Let’s split up and search
for any information on the tablet. I can’t speak to NPCs, so Fen and I will go
ask around the player’s markets,” I say to the others once we have walked
around for a while and found a spot to meet back up again.

Gladox looks at me
strangely before asking, “What? You can’t speak with NPCs?”

“Yeah… It’s a long story,
but my infamy grows every time I do.”

Verde still finds it funny
and nearly giggles while Sir Laurence doesn’t seem to care and casually turns
his head to give flirtatious glances at any female players walking past.

“Then Sir Laurence and I
will go look around for quests that may be related.” Verde grabs the prince who
is trying to hint toward a girl with fluffy white ears and pulls him away with
a scowl.

“I guess I’ll look around
by myself then,” Gladox says awkwardly as he watches the two of them head away.

Not sure of what I should
say to him, I can only smile helplessly and mention that he can chase after
them if he wants. Of course, Gladox denies that, instead opting to explore the
town at the same time as searching for any related information on the tablet.
He never saw the one I won back in Swordbreak, so I give him a brief
description of what it should look like.

Going our separate ways,
Fen and I start searching for the markets immediately. I even ignore my
illusory sense that tells me there is a location nearby for gathering herbs.

We find the first player
market close to the eastern exit of the city. The players here mostly sell low
level equipment and consumables for players constantly moving in and out of the
hub. Well, when I call them low level, I only mean that in comparison with my
stats. The goods here are mostly for people from level 50 to level 100. There’s
nothing less than that because new players have to level up in the human realm
before exploring the other six – the monsters are simply too strong.

“There’s someone watching
us,” Fen says quietly next to me.

“That isn’t out of the
ordinary, is it?”

“This feels… different.”

“Could it be one of the
others, one like you?”

“No, not that.”

“Don’t mind it too much
then. Whatever they want, I will deal with it if they come.”

Ignoring whoever is
watching us, I approach an armor merchant and ask the player about the area. I
specifically describe the stone tablet to him and tell him it’s a quest item I
need. He ponders for a while, but doesn’t seem to know anything about it.

I do find out about the
area outside the city from the armor merchant, and it is similar to how I
expected – forests, swamps, and even an area up north where it apparently never
stops raining.

Despite all that, there is
no notable sign of any ancient ruins or anything that may be related.

I ask lots of players in
the market, but none of them have any useful information. Perplexed on the
issue, I try travelling to other marketplaces in the city with the hope that
the higher level players will know more.

“Fen, do you have any idea
where it might be?” I ask Fen while travelling between two markets.

“No. I never left my home
before, so I didn’t search. The others would know. Grael would…”

“We can’t ask him. If we
do, he will know when to take it off of us. What about the others like you,
could one of them have taken it?”

“…No. Taking it is a bad
idea if they don’t have enough strength. It is easier to kill the one with it
rather than complete the challenges, so a lot of the others are just waiting.”

“Then… isn’t it bad for
you if we take it?”

“Yes…”

“We’ll work it out. Grael
is still currently on our side, so we can pretend the tablet is his. Hopefully
we can at least slow them down.”

Fen is silently downcast
at the thought. I don’t know about the full extent of the powers of most of
these AI. Not long ago there was the ‘Sun Guardian’ at the ‘Ruminu Forgotten
Temple’ which I suspect is one of them. But he seemed like he had just evolved
and was the equivalent of a child. His description listed him as a ‘Prince
Class’, which should be the measure and maturity of his strength.

From what I have seen
while playing the game, there are four different classes used to describe these
AIs: Knight, Prince, King, Emperor.

A ‘Knight Class’ is just a
stronger enemy, while a ‘Prince Class’ awakens their ego. Fen is ‘Queen Class’,
which I assume is the female equivalent of ‘King Class’.

“Fen, there’s something I
have been wondering for a while. All the others like you are the strongest of
the strong. You are the same, but why is your health and mana so much lower
than theirs?”

Fen looks at me
quizzically before indicating to her body.

“Because I am like this.”

“So when you turn back
into a wolf it goes up again? By how much?”

“I’m not sure. About twenty
times higher.”

The multiplication Fen
speak strike me like a bolt of lightning. I stare incredulously at the wolf
girl and silently calculate how much health and mana she would have.

‘That would be 85
thousand health, 25 thousand mana, and 30 thousand stamina! Have I had the
ultimate boss monster next to me this entire time without realizing it!?’