Silence.
For a few seconds, silence reigned in this room, both Avatars looking at each other. Eventually, Noah broke the silence.
"What?"
"Listen to ," Nightingale raised his hands to calm him down. "I know it sounds crazy, but what if you were just kidnapped?"
"Kidnapped?" Noah looked at him. "Are you crazy? Who would kidnap ? And why? What do I have that a kidnapper wants?"
Nightingale’s eyes narrowed. "Your skill".
"Huh?"
Nightingale clasped his hands together, his hands gleaming with a cold light. "This is my theory. Instead of the fantastical scenario of being reincarnated or transmigrated, this is what I believe".
"We’re in an age of rapid technological developnt, mostly neural technology. Heck, a few years ago, we witnessed the first A.I-enhanced human".
"With A.I and neural technology, a lot of things can happen now".
"Deaf people can hear, blind people can see, all through integrated IOT sensors that can seamlessly fuse with the human body".
Nightingale face changed, looking at Noah with an unamused smile. "Did your really just ask what a kidnapper may want by kidnapping you?"
Noah was confused, staring at him.
Nightingale chuckled at his confused face. "You really don’t know how high your status was, or should I say is, right?"
"Warstar is more than just a ga. In many ways, it’s already a religion".
"A few years ago, nobody would have imagined that the final of an eSports ga would be played in Wembley Stadium".
"Wembley Stadium is one of the best stadiums in the world!"
"In a lot of ways, video gas were just that, gas, a way of relaxation for people but with Warstar, all of that changed".
"Warstar introduced sothing new, a thrill, a world, an adventure unlike any other that the world has never seen before".
"Nations adopted it like it was so international treasure".
"As one of the first countries in the world to adopt the ga, England’s passion for Warstar is well..., you should know more than since you were in the thick of it for over 10 years".
"You asked what a kidnapper wants with you".
"Well, in case you don’t know, in England, God Noah, you were and still is the poster boy of Warstar".
"In the ga loved by millions, you set yourself apart".
"You were not just a pro, among the best, you were the best of the best".
"The benchmark, that is what you are, the Godfather of Warstar".
He paused. "...The Battle God".
"So yes, crazy people do actually see a lot of value in kidnapping you if they wanted to implent certain ideas relating to the ga".
Nightingale raised two fingers up. "I think at least one of these two scenarios is what actually happened to you".
"First, either the Warstar developing country itself is trying to implent neural technology into the ga to launch a VR version of Warstar".
"If this is the case and they’re eting a lot of challenges, to implent it, if they need to experint, I don’t see a better experint target than Noah Harrington, the pro player widely known as the Godfather of Warstar".
"And if this is not the case, then the second scenario is if another ga developing country wants to usurp Warstar, most likely a ga company that is focused on developing VR gas".
"If they want to dissect Warstar from inside out to create a better version of the ga, a VR version, and they need to experint, then like I said, there’s no better test subject in the world than you".
Nightingale looked at Noah. "This is what I think happened to you".
Silence.
For a few seconds, almost a minute after Nightingale spoke, Noah could not talk, just staring back at him with a dumbfounded expression on his face.
Suddenly assaulted by an image of his body locked inside a lab, most likely an underground lab, with nurous wires connected to his body and his brain, testing different teletry, sustaining his body in so biological fluid even as he was stuck in the ga, Noah shuddered.
"This... this..."
This was too much for him to take.
Well, Nightingale was not the first person to think about this.
Noah had been trying to avoid the train of thought for a long ti, but at the back of his mind, it nagged.
What if he was kidnapped?
He tried not too think too deeply about it but when soone else other than him placed it before him like this, with rock-hard argunt, unable to refute it, Noah felt like an invisible hand was grasping his heart, slowly enclosing it.
"This..."
At that mont, Nightingale suddenly smiled. "And who knows? Maybe I’m just rambling and you really transmigrated".
Noah shook his head. "I think you’re right".
"I didn’t tell you this before but stuck inside the ga, I had to learn new things and adapt to my strange state to continue playing the ga".
"Yes, I can move my body like I’m truly living inside the ga but then, I noticed that to fight and use skills, I don’t even need to train".
"All I need to do to use a skill is think of the real-life input and automatically, the skill will be triggered".
His eyes narrowed. "This aligns more with the idea that I was kidnapped than if I was transmigrated".
"If I truly transmigrated, why do I need to know the input of a skill using a keyboard and mouse to activate it?"
Laughing mirthfully, his eyes darkened. "Most likely, when I think of the right input for that skill, their VR technology registers it and is what is enabling to use skills so seamlessly".
Hearing that, Nightingale’s face also turned solemn.
He couldn’t hide behind the mask of nonchalance anymore. "If this is true..., then this is serious".
Noah kept quiet, dark thoughts going through his mind.
"What will you do? Will you tell your friends?"
Noah shook his head. "Not yet, I’ll just tell Aria for now".
Thinking of sothing, Noah smiled and looked at Nightingale. "Boss, if I rember correctly, you have a lot of money, right?"
Nightingale shifted uncomfortably, but then he answered. "Yeah, I guess".
Noah took a deep breath. "Then please, can you use your money to scour the earth and look for where my real body is hidden, kidnapped?"
"Rescue ".
He hesitated, and then he added. "I want one last chance at glory, and stuck being kidnapped, I can’t do it".
"Boss, I need your help".
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