Chapter 55

Chapter 55
Crossing my arms, I lowered my gaze and slowly began to speak.

“So…”

The white-haired boy kneeling before me had his wrists restrained, his eyes trembling with nervousness. His lips quivered as if he wanted to object to some unfairness, but he quickly pressed them shut.

I raised my head and questioned Lucas and Bones,

“You brought him because he was sprawled out in the snow and seemed suspicious?”

“…Yes.”

The sequence of events, once straightened out, went as follows.

Lucas and Bones had ventured out a bit further to get some distance from me. This sector was close enough to the primary zone that massive monsters would steer clear, so they had not encountered anything unusual until they noticed a small figure wriggling in the snowy expanse. Upon moving close enough for a clear look, they saw a young child collapsed on the ground, clutching his knee.

Normally, the two of them would have sprinted over immediately to check on the child’s well-being. However, because of me, both had developed a severe phobia of children found collapsed in snowfields, prompting them to observe the boy with extreme caution. Consequently, they noticed that the child was intentionally faking his injury. There were no signs of a desperate chase or anyone taking a tumble, as his footprints remained neat and orderly. When they simply stood their ground without stepping any closer, the kid started to panic. That completely gave him away as suspicious.

Thus, the two of them carefully tied up the young boy and hauled him in front of me.

Their basic training had certainly paid off.

They had handled the situation competently, yet both still wore anxious expressions. Their discipline had compelled them to bring him in, but their faces revealed uncertainty over whether this action was truly acceptable. There was zero possibility, however, that they had mistaken a harmless child for a threat, because I could perceive the truth plainly with my own eyes.

Title: Evad
Affiliation: Love Area
Player who has not opened the system. Friend requests unavailable.

A Love Area player, then.

Had Shin dispatched him here?

The designation “Evader of Strong Enemies” was an accolade earned by successfully evading mid-to-large-scale monsters more than ten consecutive times. Catching sight of him bearing that title meant he had crossed paths with quite a few beasts along the journey here, yet he had somehow managed to travel all the way from the Love Area completely unscathed.

Roughly three months had passed since the possession phenomenon began. Players possessing titles were starting to emerge now, it seemed.

I still had no clue what motivation could drive a Love Area player all the way to the Cola Area merely to lure an NPC. Yet my reliable cadets had long since undergone mental conditioning, meaning this boy’s little performance failed to fool them in the least.

I lifted both hands and offered two quick claps for Lucas and Bones.

“Good work.”

Lucas flinched at my casual tone, still unaccustomed to it, whereas Bones, having already witnessed my genuine nature during the previous tactical simulation, maintained a deadpan expression.

“However, sir…”

Lucas looked down toward the child he had forced onto his knees, clearly troubled, and spoke up.

“No matter how I analyze this, he is just an ordinary kid. Aren’t we being overly severe?”

“Negative. Refraining from approaching him carelessly was objectively sound judgment.”

I marched over to the Love Area player, hauled up the hem of his bound trouser leg, and revealed the blade concealed within the heel of his footwear.

“Ah—wait—!”

The instant the weapon came to light, Lucas panicked and fumbled the knife free from the shoe. Sunlight reflecting across the snowfield struck the steel and made it gleam.

“It looks distinct from the standard issue knives given to child soldiers.”

Precisely. It featured a different contour compared to the blades utilized in our sector. Even within the game, the weapon specifications of each region remained distinct, and armaments forged by different hands under varying conditions inevitably varied slightly.

“Most likely an item originating from another territory.”

“From another territory… Are you suggesting this child hails from a different zone?”

“I have never spotted his face at any of the charity gatherings either, so he almost certainly migrated from elsewhere.”

The discovery of a hidden weapon on the child, coupled with the likelihood that he belonged to another district, caused murmurs to ripple through the team. Unlike the newly commissioned officers who were laying eyes on a resident from a foreign zone for the first time, Meursault, who had navigated similar crises before, addressed me with relative composure.

“What are your intentions?”

“Well… we will suspend the search temporarily and subject him to questioning.”

“Questioning?”

Meursault’s eyebrows narrowed slightly; his tone suggested he was far from thrilled.

“Surely… you do not plan to conduct it personally, Heydam?”

“Wouldn’t it go smoother if someone of his own age conversed with him?”

At that remark, the team members began exchanging sidelong glances.

I was simply offering to handle a young boy because I happened to be a young boy myself. Why were they exchanging such blasphemous looks?

Meursault scrutinized me for a brief moment, then muttered softly,

“So there is information you require from that boy.”

Meursault, you sly fox, you could read me instantly. I could easily have hauled the kid back to the main base camp instead, yet I insisted on an immediate interrogation; he had already deduced that I needed something specific from him.

Meursault spoke in a manner that bordered on coaxing.

“Very well, Heydam. We will set up a provisional tent for your use.”

“Just refrain from treating him too harshly. He remains merely a child.”

What?

“I… am also a child, you realize.”

“Heydam… do you possess any conscience at all?”

“You are willing to treat him gently even though he carried a concealed weapon, yet you refuse to extend the same courtesy to me?”

I glanced around to check if the others shared this sentiment, but every single one of them averted their gaze.

Ha. These scoundrels.

Once we returned, I was definitely subjecting them to the training simulator once more.

Inside the hastily constructed tent, only I and the Love Area player, LongtailedTit, remained. Everyone else had stepped outside to maintain a perimeter. Once the rest were out of sight, the very first action I took was using the confiscated knife to slice through the cords binding him. Granting him freedom and lowering his guard seemed preferable to keeping him restrained. Even if he attempted to sprint across this snowy wasteland, he would be recaptured within seconds.

Even after being freed from his bonds, LongtailedTit remained flat against the floor as if paralyzed, shifting his eyes nervously to assess the environment. I afforded him ample time to collect his thoughts, then settled onto a folding chair a short distance away.

“You may speak freely now. No one else is present.”

Even though I intentionally created space for a dialogue, he hesitated and refused to speak easily. Judging by how thoroughly terrified he looked, I doubted he had traveled to this region with pure intentions.

“I harbor no desire to harm a fellow player. Therefore, you may converse comfortably.”

This shameless display of feigned goodwill caused him to hesitate a moment longer before he finally replied in a voice so faint it nearly vanished.

“Are you… Dopamine Addict?”

He recognized me instantly.

I had already verified moments prior that the system remained closed to him. Shin must have shared extensive details regarding me with the players in his own sector. If he had learned from Shin that Dopamine Addict resided within the Cola Area, then the moment Meursault addressed me earlier, he would have readily deduced my identity.

The sole individual who had directly informed him that I was currently pursuing the illegitimate-child route was Home Protector, yet any player could have figured that out independently. Since he seemed aware of who I was, I could converse with fewer restrictions.

“What business brings a Love Area player all the way to the Cola Area?”

His eyes widened in surprise.

“H-how did you realize I was from the Love Area?”

“What? How could I possibly not know?”

I nearly added that I simply checked via the system interface, then caught myself.

Something felt amiss here.

I had presumed that if he possessed information about me, he would naturally be aware of the system as well. Yet he genuinely appeared astonished that I had identified his zone with such speed.

Shin, you absolute fool.

He had neglected to inform his own subordinates about the existence of the system. The system unlocked exclusively for individuals holding a meteorite fragment, meaning anyone else remained entirely oblivious unless a player possessing one chose to explain it. Reflecting on it now, Shin had dropped a peculiar remark previously.

-There are quite a few players stationed in our zone as well. However, all of them elected to serve me.

At the time, I failed to grasp the implication. Was he genuinely playing deity without ever mentioning the system? It increasingly appeared that Shin was running an elaborate scam based on my cult-leader route, targeting not only NPCs but players alike.

Yet if that supposition held true, a detail still failed to align.

If Shin was concealing the system from the players in his sector and leveraging it as a form of divine authority, why dispatch this player named LongtailedTit to me at all? Disclosing the system to this kid would shatter the entire deception.

While I maintained my silence, weighing these considerations, LongtailedTit appeared to discover an explanation within my quietness. His expression brightened as he inquired,

“Just as Manshin claimed—you received a divine revelation as well, didn’t you?!”

Divine… revelation?

The fact that he utilized the term “divine revelation” rather than “system” made it evident that Shin truly had never mentioned the framework.

And… Manshin?

That referred to a traditional shaman, did it not? Well, “cult leader” or “shaman” amounted to the same thing. Shin had established a cult within his own territory and cast himself as the mystic receiving visions from a deity. Judging by the extreme honorifics LongtailedTit used when uttering “Manshin,” he had clearly fallen completely under the spell.

Telling someone in this state that he was being defrauded would merely trigger a backlash.

If Shin had commanded him to drag this child’s body all the way to the Cola Area, his devotion bordered on fanatical. Regardless, out of all the starting zones available, this individual had originated in the Love Area, implying that despite his current terror, he remained deeply unhinged.

Shin had carefully planted the notion that I, too, had received a divine revelation. Consequently, even if I retrieved items from my inventory or recited external data via character inspection, it would never function as proof of the system’s mechanics. Furthermore, even if I revealed the factual truth of the system, there was no guarantee he would accept it well. I would consider myself fortunate if he did not simply dismiss it as an attempt to defame Shin.

For individuals susceptible to something as fragile as a Manshin, what mattered was not objective truth, but rather something to lean upon. Shin had sent his player to me precisely because he was confident that even if I denied the divine revelation and began discussing the system interface, this boy would steadfastly refuse to believe me. The scenario Shin envisioned likely involved me rejecting their belief system, thereby provoking his followers into treating me as a hostile entity.

However, Shin had overlooked a single crucial factor.

I harbored zero intention of dismantling the cult he had constructed. The cult-leader path was a strategy I had personally devised.

Someone else’s meticulously cultivated cult? I would simply hijack it for my own ends.

Shin, I intend to make excellent use of the faithful follower you delivered to me.

“Um… Dopamine Addict? You… genuinely received a divine revelation, correct?”

When I remained quiet for an extended duration, LongtailedTit grew slightly uneasy and asked with caution. I gazed at him and replied with a gentle smile.

“Precisely as you stated. I, too, am a messenger of the divine who has been granted revelation.”