[A bo?ded partner? has voluntarily ?nd one-sidedly entered in?o a subservient relationshi? with you. There is nothing you c?n do.]
A what has what? I was minding my own business, mindlessly staring off into nothing in my glass cell, when my lovely (and kinda broken) VISS Driver gave
the most ridiculous notification I’ve seen.
[New bond skill aut??atically acquired: Master of the Sword: Gives the ab?lity to heal the self-inflicted wounds of the Sword of Violence. Dominant side of the bond ski?l.]
Huh…
I’m so lost… I’m so utterly lost…
Who did that? What the hell are my girls doing? A new bond skill? Seriously? Master of the Sword, Sword of Violence… Seeing a lot of swords here… Who among them uses swords? Carol? Yeah… It’s probably her… Wow… Sword of Violence… She got a second powerful skill, huh? Amazing… What an hardworking girl.
I guess the VISS Driver’s still works for that… It’s not fully working like it should. I never got a skill forced on
before, but it’s not completely offline.
I’ve been here for a few weeks now, and I’m doing a lot better. I was able to get a good grasp on my current condition since then. And on the state of the VISS Driver. I can’t use any skills for whatever reason, but my passives seem to work just fine.
The people here have been trying to keep
weak with drugs and what not, but they’re huge fools.
My Psychological Attack Resistance has been neutering everything they’ve inject
with, and I’ve regained almost all my strength. From my few tests, the abilities I get from my stats are unaffected by the problems of the VISS Driver. I could break this glass with a single punch whenever I want.
But I wanna wait a bit…
I don’t have my items… I don’t have my skills… Even if I could break out of this cell, I’m not sure I could make it out.
And… There’s soone else I’ve been worried about.
“*Tap tap tap!* Hey, Reia! How are you doing? Good whatever ti of day it is. How’s your job going? Doesn’t it get boring coming to check on
every day?”
“You’re too energetic for a weakened specin…” Reia tapped sothing on her tablet after a quick side glance.
Stop it! You’re not supposed to write about that! Are you trying to report ?
Believe it or not, we’ve been getting along great. Most of the researchers that were often around earlier got new stuff to worry about. Reia’s the only one who still cos here every day for long periods of ti. I’d be so lonely if it wasn’t for her. And if it wasn’t for Psychological Attack Resistance identifying the loneliness of being in a cell as a psychological attack and protecting
from it.
We’re kinda… gaming buddies now? I an, we’ve never played together, but we’ve been talking about gas and ani often. I’m pretty sure she just sees
as a break from her usual work. Not that I’m complaining.
“But no… It’s not boring… It’s just work.” Reia said. “I still get interesting challenges when I’m not here, and I get do what I want most of the ti.”
“Challenges… You like challenging yourself?”
“What else is there to do?” She shrugged like it was the most obvious thing in the world. I shouldn’t be surprised… The gas she likes leaned more towards harder gas. Good taste. In gas, that is… Can’t say I like being in tough places in my life. I an, I’d rather not be here.
“Is that how you made it to an important position even though we’re the sa age? I’m happy for you… Do they fill you in about all the complicated stuff?”
“Depends on what you think is complicated.”
“In this case, I was referring to the truth. The portals aren’t actually dangerous, right? They lead to another world, and the PSF just says that to keep the average agent away from the truth. Are you one of those kept in the dark?”
Should be fine for
to tell her that. Either she knows and I get so new information or we do a little subterfuge by spreading information the PSF doesn’t want spread.
“The portals… Yes… There’s another world. It’s interesting… We still don’t know what causes them…”
“Oh…” She knew, huh…? “Then… Since we’ve been talking about gas, did you know the other world is the world from a ga?”
“Mhm.” She nodded.
“Ahahahaha… Of course you wouldn’t… All the traces of the ga disappeared at so point, so I’m not expecting anyone else to remb- Wait! You do!?”
“Mhm… But I don’t rember much about the ga.” She stepped closer to the glass.
“You too? I also don’t rember much… It was an okay ga, I think…? Like, it was good, but nothing too impressive. But wow… I seriously thought I was the only one who rembered it…
What do you still rember? Let’s trade info.”
“There are actually others like us.”
“Really? You an other people that rember the ga?”
“The PSF tracked them when the portals started appearing. But everyone’s the sa. There’s no one that rembers anything in depth.”
“You gotta be joking…” Did everyone pay as little attention as I did when playing the ga? “Well… I guess it wasn’t that big of a ga… Makes sense it didn’t leave an impression on anyone.”
“No, it doesn’t.” Reia’s expression suddenly turned serious. “No matter how average a ga it might have been, there’s no reason for us to assu the enjoynt of the ga across the players doesn’t follow a normal distribution. If we consider the people like us who have forgotten most of the ga as small fans and people that disliked the ga as non-fans, there should also be big fans that liked it and rember a lot. With a small sample size, we could have a situation where not a single big fan exists, however, there are enough small fans like us that the non-existence of a big fan is a clear statistical anomaly.”
“That’s a lot of jargon to drop on a poor defenseless girl like … What does that an?” I asked.
“It ans that sothing out of the ordinary happened. Given the number of people like us, who forgot a lot, that have been found around the world, there should be two or three people who liked the ga a lot and rember it perfectly.”
“Huh… Can’t that just have been a coincidence?”
“It’s an anomaly.” She calmly averted her eyes. “Even the people who worked on the ga barely rember working on it. Why do you think that is?”
“Wait…” Even the people who worked on it? mory manipulation… Information manipulation… Must be the sa reason why there’s nothing on the web. “Did the PSF wipe their mories?”
“No… The PSF’s not at fault here. They’re the ones most desperate for that information. Be it the mories or any physical traces of the ga. It all disappeared at so point without any trace. Likely when the portals first showed up. But my personal theory aligns with yours. Our mories were partially wiped… Everyone’s mories of the ga were affected.”
Our mories of the ga were manipulated? Is that even possible?
“That theory ties everything together. The thought that the ga that’s the basis for the other world is a diocre ga is probably a big mistake.”
“What do you an? Cause I still rember playing it! I was skimming through the dialogue, and while the gaplay was nice, it wasn’t anything groundbreaking. The ga was a cult classic, and most people were on the sa boat as . Outside the cult.” I said.
“You can’t be sure those mories are accurate. If my theory’s right, when the portals first appeared, every trace of the ga along with a lot of mories and our feelings for it disappeared.”
“Huh… So you’re saying I liked the ga far more than I think I did? The reception was much better?”
“Most likely.” She said. “Think about it. If you remove a fixed number of mories from every person who played it, with most people being small fans and only so being big fans, all the small fans would completely forget the ga. The big fans would lose just as much, but because they have more, they would still have so mories and feelings remaining. They would beco the new small fans, while the previous small fans forget everything and appear as non-fans. If we look at it that way, it’s likely that the ga was one of the best gas ever made and that it left such a great impact on us that it was impossible for all mories to be wiped.”
“Woah…”
That’s really out there, but I can’t deny it makes sense. Even looking at my own mories… I did spend a lot of ti playing it… Everything blurs together, sure… But there are other gas that I also wasn’t as impressed by that and played less but still rember more… It is strange… The world of Balterra… Its ga… Were they actually things I loved?
“Bu- but… If we liked it that much, wouldn’t we rember the basics about it? I sure don’t. Like, what was the ga even called? Do you know?”
“Mhm… It’s Siphon of Infinity.”
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