.Hack//ZERO SE:2010

SE:2010

Balmung glared at Orca, not bothering to hide the foul mood he was in.

“I did what I had to do.”

Orca muttered an excuse, but Balmung’s expression did not change.

“Then at least follow it through to the end.”

At that, even Orca couldn’t help but make a hollow laugh.

“You’re the one in charge of communications.”

“Don’t decide that now.”

“I misspoke. I meant negotiations. Interpersonal relations are your forte, after all.”

“That’s basically the same thing, isn’t it?”

Orca scratched his head.

“I put a lot of effort into getting this all written down. You read it, didn’t you?”

At Orca’s question, Balmung nodded begrudgingly.

“…Obviously.”

“The only issue is, now I don’t know what to do next.”

“Just send another e-mail.”

“It’s not that easy.” Orca sniffed. “She refused, so that’s the end of it.”

“Have you actually tried?”

“Yes.” Balmung snarled at Orca’s simple reply. “So, for the time being, we’ll have to settle for finding the next best thing.”

“Fine. I’ll accept that.”

Balmung sighed loudly, but the atmosphere finally started to feel a bit less tense.

The World had been experiencing a lot of bugs lately, but thanks to the speed at which CC Corp. was handling them, there wasn’t a lot of chatter about it. That said – Server outages, abnormal transfers – things of that nature never used to happen at all within The World.

Orca and Balmung’s sense of urgency was growing, but their investigation was slow getting underway.

Just as he had been starting to feel impatient, Balmung found a strange post on the BBS.

It hadn’t made any sense, but something about it had stuck with Balmung. And when he showed the log to Orca, he felt the same way.

The post itself had quickly disappeared into the sea of other posts, and though he had kept it archived, when he extracted it and searched again, he hadn’t been able to find it.

And then two days ago, Orca had dug through Balmung’s private logs to find what they needed and decided to send an e-mail to the poster since he was at least somewhat good at writing.

The e-mail had simply said that he wanted to get in touch and introduce himself – he had wanted to avoid giving a bad first impression.

However, he had received no reply after sending it out, and when he tried a second time, he got an alert that his address had been blocked by the recipient.

He wanted to say that it wasn’t all that strange. He had laid it on pretty thick in his introduction, so he may have come off as some annoying guy that just wanted to brag. The more he pushed, the worse he would look.

It was a lackluster conclusion completely unbefitting of the Descendants of Fianna.

“There’s still that little Wavemaster, right? The one who seemed to be a fan of yours?”

“……Yeah.”

Balmung scrunched his expression like he had smelled something rotten.

“Wasn’t it a friend of hers who claimed to have seen Aura in the first place? What happened with her?”

“I was invited to a dungeon.”

“And?”

“She asked if I could tag along with her and her friends.”

“Ah, I see.”

Orca nodded. He didn’t really get it, but he could tell there was something going on.

“Wait, what? Didn’t you say you don’t give out your member address? When did that change? No way, Balmung, did you contact her yourself?”

Balmung’s expression grew more and more sullen with each question.

“She told me to keep it a secret from you, Orca.”

“……I see.”

“I have no idea what that child is thinking.” Orca had to resist the urge to burst out laughing as Balmung whined about his poor fortunes. “Maybe we should have spoken with Helba after all.”

“Woah, woah! What did you just say?”

Orca looked at Balmung and realized that he was actually being serious.

Balmung had always said he would never step out of line in order to get things done. He must have been under real pressure now to be suggesting this.

“That isn’t like you.”

Knowing his partner’s impatient nature, Orca tried to console him.

“But-”

“Don’t push yourself.”

“You can’t say that, Orca.”

Orca shrugged when Balmung snapped back at him.

However, he did understand his partner’s impatience.

“You don’t have to rely on Helba; you still have that Wavemaster, right?”

So, Orca tried to disguise it as a joke.

“I’m not so sure about that.”

Balmung stiffened his shoulders in annoyance

“We have no reason to assume her information isn’t legit at this point. It’s not a bad plan to take a chance following her lead. It’ll be easier than trying again with Helba.” Balmung didn’t respond for a moment, but then mumbled something Orca didn’t catch. “What was that?”

There was a slight pause, and Orca could see that Balmung was feeling embarrassed.

“I’m not very good at this.”

Balmung confessed, admitting it as if it were some embarrassing nickname.

Needless to say, Orca really did burst out laughing at that.

Then quickly, Orca tries to appease the sullen and soft-spoken Balmung.

“By the way, I found this strange character in Mac Anu the other day.”

“Your sense of humor is bizarre.”

“No, I mean it. They were really strange.”

“……In what way?”

“She was a cat.”

“Huh?”

Balmung raised his eyebrows into a look of scorn.

“A cat-person was sitting on the banks of the canal.”

The World was filled with all kinds of people.

There was always a possibility that such a thing would be included in a future version update, but for now, there were no fairy or beastmen race option for players to choose from in character creation. With the exception of Grunties and Fountain Spirits, the only non-human creatures in the game were the enemy monsters.

“A cheat character?”

“Probably. It could have been an NPC, though; I tried talking to her, but she wouldn’t respond.”

“If it were an NPC, it should be the other way around. An NPC that doesn’t talk would be pointless.”

Tool Smiths, Record Keepers, and the other shopkeepers. Each of the NPCs in charge of the in-game shops will ask for the player’s business and provide explanations for anything when necessary. The only limitation was in the number of dialogue options they had for certain tasks. That was just how they were designed.

“And also, what was it? That grass that’s used as cat toys – the fluffy kind?”

“Aromatic Grass?”

“Yeah, that. She had some.”

“And how does that matter?”

Balmung was having a hard time trying to imagine this strange character that Orca was describing.

“Sorry. It’s kind of difficult to explain.”

Her body was covered in purple and white fur, and her pupils were vertical slits like a cat’s; however, her ears were as tall as a rabbit.

She wore bright green armor the shade of malachite, but it was made of a soft material that conformed to the curves of her body.

She never made eye contact with Orca, and when he spoke to her, she wouldn’t respond. Not only that, but he hadn’t been able to use any items on her. In other words, as far as the system was concerned, she was being treated as no more than an in-game structure like a building or bridge.

“What on earth was it, then?”

“I have no idea.” Orca admitted helplessly. “I thought it was unusual, so I went and stuck around for a whole hour.”

Balmung wanted to say he had too much free time, but he held his tongue.

“And?”

“And that’s it. Nothing happened.”

“You’re an idiot.”

“I know.” Orca nodded in agreement. “But you do have strong character. You have an air of nobility, and I never get tired of watching you work. It’s like being in a pet store and not wanting to leave the play pen, or being at a Takoyaki shop and not wanting to stop eating. No, wait, maybe that’s not a good analogy. In any case, I’m never bored when I’m with you.”

At Orca’s sudden enthusiastic praise, Balmung could only stare at him with a look of utter dismay.

“In the end, I wasn’t able to communicate with her at all, she eventually left, and that was that.”

Orca spoke with a tone of regret.

“Didn’t you try to follow them?”

Balmung suggested, but one look at Orca’s expression told him the answer.

“She was fast. Faster than a Goblin with Ap Do cast on it.”

Orca’s lips quirked up in a rueful smirk.

“That’s concerning.”

“Right?”

“No, that’s not what I mean.” Orca was starting to get excited, but Balmung cut him off. “What does it mean? What would be the point of an NPC that doesn’t speak or try to interact with the players at all?”

“Well, it’s not like there aren’t plenty of more lively NPCs already.”

“Don’t be foolish, Orca.” Balmung snapped at him. “You said so yourself, didn’t you – that they were an unusual character?”

There was no such thing as random chance in The World. Everything that happened or appeared here was created for a pre-planned purpose.

If that cat-like NPC Orca saw wouldn’t take any action at all, then there must have been another agenda behind it.

There must be a reason for it to take no action. A goal that could only be achieved by watching and waiting.

While muttering something to himself, Orca crossed his arms.

“Seems like more of that type have been showing up these days though, like that ‘Aura’ girl, for example.”

“What is CC Corp. thinking?”

Balmung felt a wave of dizziness wash over him.

Because of the nature of online games – outside the interpersonal relationships people built up with one another – a player’s role within the system was always clearly defined.

Fortune and success came as a result of defeating monsters, increasing your stats, and collecting items. While misfortune and failure were defined by being defeated by your enemies and dying.

Despite the shock and regret they might feel as a result of those deaths, every player was given the means and opportunity to overcome any and all obstacles set before them.

And as long as one was willing to put in a certain amount of time and effort, overcoming those obstacles would eventually become a simple matter for them.

Though on the flip side of that, by channeling a player’s anger and regret towards failure into a drive to improve their skills in the game, The World was able to make a business out of it.

Players would eventually get tired of the game if it were too difficult or too punishing.

But a little bit of frustration could be a great motivator to continue playing.

In this case however, what Balmung found himself feeling now was more abstract. He felt a vague sense of unease and anxiety with what was happening around him.

And obviously, those weren’t the kinds of emotions Balmung wanted to feel when playing a game.

Events in The World were always announced in advance in order to get the players excited for them.

But this just made Balmung feel dizzy.

How much of a player’s reactions and feelings could be predicted?

He felt like he was starting to lose control.

“I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.” Orca stated the obvious, leaning forward with a straight face. “We may never find the answers we’re looking for. The only thing we can do for certain is look more closely at the things we can see from our vantage point at the top.”

“Right.”

Balmung nodded in agreement.

“It’s not easy to just sit back and watch, though.”

“That’s true, Orca. Especially for someone like you who likes the hands-on approach.”

At Balmung’s sarcasm, Orca smirked in a way that revealed his devilish intentions.

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