Even in the game, Grace has never had many close friends aside from Rachel after her falling out with her childhood friends. To her, relationships with people lacking any significant connections were useless and a waste of time. Why become friends with some commoner or baron's child, if she could aim higher for a princess or queen?
But ever since the earthling reincarnated into her, she began to see the world in a different perspective, specifically the people. Take Luke for example. If she passed by him on the street, she wouldn't think he was special even if she knew his name and where he lives. She used to judge others for what they have or what they're certain to achieve instead of what they can strive for.
She thinks humans can only show their worth through their actions since their value isn't exactly above their heads. Well, that's the case for normal humans but to her—a player—she can see the world through the eyes and mind of a God who knows the past and future.
"Miss Grace! Would you like to hang out?" one of her female classmates from Class 5A came up to Grace just as she left the classroom. The bell rung for the end of the day so students were filling the halls, filling the school with chatter and making plans for getting together.
"I apologize," Grace smiled apologetically, "I promised Elizabeth to go shopping with her."
"Eh? That's a first… You only ever go shopping with that Rachel girl."
"Rachel has been distant lately but I wanted her to come along with us."
She is really worried about Rachel but there's nothing she can do. Not because she is powerless to do something but because Rachel holds no worth to her so why expend any effort at all?
Elizabeth on the other hand, is an entirely different story. Not even ten hours into the main story, she had already unlocked her incarnation power for some strange reason. No, the reason itself isn't strange but the method had Grace worried.
Did Arnold know her death would result in her unlocking her true beauty? Grace would like to think he followed some phony shaman's advice and was right coincidentally.
But deep down she felt uneasy. All of these strange events happening so early and beyond her expectations.
"How about we plan a girls' day out?" the classmates were insistent.
"Sorry but Elizabeth is still a bit shy with others. I'll help her get used to socializing then we can plan for another time."
They looked disappointed and said "next time then" before leaving her side.
Grace knows the reason for this insistent—almost annoying—pushing from all these people.
Before today, Grace was just a leaf among other leaves, the same color and shape since this academy treats everyone equally. But there were two special leaves that only recently showed their true worth—one was at the very bottom of the tree, black tar in color and twisted in shape while the other was above all of the other leaves, a golden brilliance shaped beautifully like a pure angel descending from heaven.
They saw Grace as a gateway to both of these "special leaves".
It's better to prioritize Elizabeth over Rachel since the former actually has worth and can impact the story. As of right now, she's the second strongest human alive while Arnold is the first.
She would be easy to manipulate if Arnold wasn't in the picture. As Grace sees it, Elizabeth is a mentally unwell toddler who craves its parents' attention. But now that it's got the attention, it won't listen to anyone else. As such, the chance to make her become emotionally dependent on Grace has slipped away.
'I can't really blame myself. I didn't know things would move this fast.' She thought as she closed her locker and left the building, walking the halls.
Elizabeth was one of the cards Grace wanted. Grace wanted to do her utmost best to ensure she doesn't awaken her power and stays the ugly ghoulish freak that she was born as. By using this chance, she makes Elizabeth dependent on her and gradually make her love for Arnold fade away (though she's not convinced this would've been possible).
If Arnold saw how useful she is if Grace managed to awaken her incarnation factor power, he would've probably snatched her. That's why she wanted to have Arnold killed shortly before awakening Elizabeth's incarnation power. It's common sense that the soul leaves the body as time passes on but she would think she can still save Arnold by reviving him but Grace would've made sure enough time went by that it would be impossible to keep his soul intact.
In the end, she would've revived an empty husk. And no matter how many times she kills herself, she would always be revived by her blessing—
That's her eternal curse, after all.
Grace would then give her life meaning and use her as a puppet.
She would be the easiest and most useful puppet out of everyone else who is special in the game.
And Arnold just had to ruin it.
Sighing, Grace sat on a bench overlooking the cheerleading girls practicing not far from here. She told her "Friend" to meet her here in an hour and to give both of them time to freshen up first, but Grace was feeling in need of fresh air.
As one of the most ordinary people linked to the main story, this is usually her life—
Even in the game, the world felt vibrant and full of autonomy, even if you go from realm to realm. Actually, being a part of that world feels almost surreal. Some days she would dream that she was back in her apartment, her only goals being: get up, eat breakfast, go to board meetings to discuss changes for the game, take part in playtesting in-house, come home, eat dinner and sleep.
It was a monotonous way of living but she misses it. In this life, she's constantly worried that something will happen that will threaten her life. And unlike main characters like Arnold, Flora and Luke, she can't really do much to protect herself.
Just as she was about to bite into the cupcake she got from the cafeteria, someone's footsteps approached and a shadow loomed over her.
Glancing up, she was faced with a male student whose eyes were closed but he was clearly looking down at her.
"…?" frowning slightly, she opened her mouth, "Look, if you are here to confess, I'm not interested. And here's some advice, if you are awkward in front of girls you like, write letters to them instead."
He didn't answer.
She looked closer at his face noticing a red glow under his eye sockets.
The person seemed almost under a trance, drool leaking down his mouth.
"…What do you want?" Grace was a bit shaky by his behavior that was almost inhuman but since they were in a public setting with many eyes around, she gained her composure rather quickly.
"…. Ssssent… Meeee…. Toooo…. Deliverrrr…. Letterrrrr…" the boy took something out of his pocket and handed it to Grace. His moves were sluggish, almost inhuman-like.
'A delay in command. It seems this person is under someone else's control.'
She slowly reached her hand out and took it.
"Who sent—" she was about to ask but the boy turned around and walked away.
Gulping, she looked down.
The letter read—
I know you're a "Player".
Chills ran through Grace's body as she darted her eyes around, looking at the many "NPCs" walking around.
That boy from earlier was under hypnosis of some kind so the person who sent this must be a formidable magician. She should expect a level 70 magician, at least.
Gulping hard, she read further.
Log into this private session ID: 2455512. Move the session window and change your line of sight every minute to avoid alerting other potential players.
Private Session is a way for players to chat anonymously outside the monitoring of the game's World Chat or Guild Chat. All you need to set one up is knowing how to create a chat server to generate a session ID.
Without wasting any time, she quickly told her System to log in to the session.
A transparent dome surrounded her body and she began to move her mouth, which generated the text on the chat window. The dome makes her mouth stop moving from an outsider's perspective. It can only detect mouth movements so that's probably why this mysterious player told her to always move her line of sight every minute.
"How were you able to figure it out? I never erased my status or modified anything that would look different from Grace Lewan's status. Not even my levels were reset." Her text appeared on screen thanks to the system's advanced detection software.
-Your individual system glitched. Coincidentally, I was looking right at you when this happened.
'Is such a thing possible?' she wondered to herself. If it glitched and this person saw it, how come no one else did?
-Without beating around the bush, do you have any intention of interfering with the main story?
"…No."
-Lying won't earn you my trust or erase my suspicion of you.
"Cut the crap and tell me why you haven't killed me yet. If you are a magician that can place people under powerful magic, then such a thing wouldn't be difficult for you."
-…I am not bloodthirsty enough to cut off every possible player's head. Rather, I have no need for caution because there is nothing you can do to me. Despite that, you can't be allowed to just do as you please. This isn't Star Fantasy anymore where if you fail once, you get revived at a temple or you reload a save and the consequences of your actions get reset. The outcomes are permanent here and may even impact me in the end.
'He's quite arrogant. But if he's someone who played the game until he became a level 70 or so magician, then he must've already gathered up useful artifacts that makes him a challenge to even level caps.'
But his caution about the consequences involving the story is something Grace could understand. Even if she was also strong enough to take on level cap players, she would still fear the consequences that comes with making the wrong decision. One bad decision can even cause the sky to tear apart and spit out Between Realms calamities (a result of Ragnarok happening).
Deciding it brings her no benefit to lie, she came clean:
"I wanted to make Elizabeth an ally, awaken her incarnation power and challenge relic tombs."
Well, sort of "clean".
-She sticks together with Arnold for most of the game but her involvement doesn't matter much to him so I understand your goal.
"You would do the same in my shoes, I reckon?"
-That would be unavoidable if I was a weakling human.
She glared at the window.
-But why not aim for Goddess Urion's artifacts instead? Not all her artifacts are meant for magicians. Even normal humans can use them to become strong.
"I can't get to them because they've been taken."
-What? How are you so certain?
"My dev console won't allow me to spawn them. They're either destroyed—which is impossible—or someone has them equipped in their gear slots. Spawning duplicates is also impossible."
-…How do you have a dev console unlocked? Don't tell me…
"Yes, I'm one of the developers. I only joined the project shortly after its alpha release if that matters. But I was part of the core development team that worked on the DLC."
-And you feel comfortable telling me this, why?
"Trust can't be gained unless you're willing to reveal or do something without expecting something else in return. Besides, why keep it secret anyway?"
She said that but she wanted to appear as useful to this person as possible. She doesn't know if they truly intend to spare her even if she avoids messing with the game's events. To avoid getting killed, she should reveal herself to be a card they can use.
-I see… How many items have you spawned so far with the console?
"Only a few things. I only know most potion codes from memory and happened to see the codes for the artifacts during bug fixing. They were a favorite of the strongest magician player on the leaderboard."
Doing bug fixing means engaging with the game directly at all times. She didn't have time to craft the potions or farm gold to buy potions to heal or buff her when testing out various features to make sure they work so she memorized all the potion codes for convenience.
She regrets not memorizing powerful artifacts. And yes, she already tried to make herself stronger and teleport with the console but it seems the consoles only allows you to spawn items that you know the codes of.
-Should we assume there's another player in this world? The journey into the Deeper Ground relic tomb isn't possible to traverse if you don't have any in-game knowledge beforehand, like acquiring the hearts of certain high-level enemies, deciphering a certain rune, fighting a boss to open the gate into the tomb itself, etc…
"I hope that's not the case. But if there is another person, why is it that they've been silent for a year now at this point? I was expecting them to show themselves in a very obvious manner."
There were many newbies in the game who treated the game like a power fantasy where they could live out their dreams—and well, they're right since the game allowed you to become a God-like entity. Someone like that appearing would be obvious by their actions.
One way to do this is becoming an adventurer who somehow knows where all the relic tombs are in the world then raiding them without issue. On top of that, they can create powerful magic items, potions or weapons which they sell to the world to become rich.
There are many ways to make it obvious you're a player but this is just one of them. But since using one's knowledge to become rich or famous doesn't impact the story in any way, any other players won't conspire to kill you. Other than that, having a target on your head is reason enough to stay conspicuous.
"What's your plan if there is another player?"
-They're not sabotaging the story itself so I will spare them.
So confident…
-But I want the artifacts back. My build won't be complete without them. Killing them will be unavoidable if they want to fight me for it. But first I'll try to trade with them.
"I see…"
-Has your system given you any quests?
"Yes, quite a few."
Why did he suddenly start asking about the system? She can't exactly reveal the kind of quests she received so being vague is best. This is because there are some crucial rewards that she wants so she doesn't want anyone else to take them.
-What level is it now?
"Level 3, why?"
-Same as me then. That means you have your stat analyzer, search function, and inventory unlocked.
"Yes."
-Good, that means we're on the same page. Ever since I started using it, a question has remained on my mind: Why is the system sentient? I can talk with it about anything and it will respond, albeit in a very robotic manner. It could do this in the game but I never used VR so this is an entirely different experience. It's like I'm talking to a companion robot.
"I don't know about the technical side of things but I had a friend in the team knowledgeable about this stuff tell me that they created it with an A.I that can learn about its surroundings and feel experiences then react and grow according to those experiences. It can also pass its experiences to living weapons or homunculi if said things are connected to the AI's mainframe."
In experiments they conducted during the pre-alpha of the original game, the system managed to control the homunculi without any user input. The AI was instructed to teach the creature how to read and write, and it managed to write an entire short story. Though, the story itself was very stale and lifeless, unlike what human minds can come up with but that showed that the machine learning was working.
-Can it control anything with sentience but no soul? Sort of like a relic tomb Mech Guardian and similar soulless creatures.
"Theoretically but nothing outside of harmless homunculi or mech brains were trained with the A.I. We feared that something that shouldn't have sentience would ruin the game for everyone since it would basically become invincible and a massive threat. Remember how I said that it learns? Well, what if it was fed the wrong type of content? We weren't sure what it would become but it was decided that it's best not to continue tests just to answer our curiosity since it might've become a beast we wouldn't be able to stop."
She was told that this almost happened during the early phases of testing the A.I. Fortunately, the technology was barebones compared to the game's official launch so it couldn't do much nor did it have access to everything. But if measures that were put in place to avoid this, were to vanish or get bypassed by the A.I, it might be able to control the game without player or developer input—and also reality itself in this instance.
-There's still a chance it could be an enemy, then…
"We shouldn't rule that out but it's not like reality itself is run by code like when we were earthlings so we shouldn't assume it's a world-ending threat like the Demon King or Ragnarok. Anyway, in both our cases, our systems decided to keep the game's core elements that makes growth possible, giving us rewards and guidance."
This means that our systems are friendly and didn't go rogue, she added.
-This means the game's core mechanics affect the world somehow even though it's not the same game we once played.
"Maybe..."
-My theory is that our subconsciousness was transported into the game.
"If that were true, more of us would have been transported. Remember, this game had half a billion players log in daily. There were servers to maintain this number of people."
if everyone was actually transported into the game, then there might be millions of parallel dimensions, each with different players influencing the story on their own terms.
-Right… What do you think then?
Tapping her lip, Grace answered—she had mulled this theory over in her head many times, "I'm stating the obvious here but there are many powerful beings in the game's lore. But what you don't know are the entities that you need to actually look for and pay close attention to through their legends. There are several of them who are as powerful or more powerful than even the Star Beast."
-…
"What do you think is beyond unfathomable power?"
-There is no such thing.
"Yes, but forget about your common sense. Actually, you should have left it in your old life the moment you were transmigrated into a game of all things.
-…So, your theory is that something was so powerful that it could combine the game with reality? If that were true, how was it able to trap billions of people in the same game without us bumping into each other? Servers were always crowed, especially during certain days when experience points had boosts.
"This is going to sound weird but I think the answer might be what happened in one of my favorite manga."
-There's a word I haven't heard in a while. It can't be any more ridiculous than what we're currently experiencing. So, what was it?
"It was one of the most popular manga at the time and one of the villains was this great warrior from a powerful clan who wanted to end all wars but the story painted him as a villain since his methods to achieve this would rob the world of freedom. The plan was to put the entire world in a powerful hypnosis. It's unclear where the people's minds go but my hypothesis is that they're living out their deepest desires or living in their pasts to correct mistakes and ideal futures after achieving their goals."
-I do recall there being beings of incomprehensible power that would plunge the whole nine realms into chaos and are unkillable so they are sealed away for all eternity by Zephyros, the All-Father—you think one of them awakened somehow and placed us under this powerful illusion?
"Yes. I'm glad you catch on quick."
-The Dragon God was meant to fight these things. But how come it died in a fight against a human? Surely the dragon itself should've been as strong as the Star Beast?
"Yes, it was meant to fight them. However, it was weakened because of meddling from the Progenitor, one of these ancient beings I spoke of."
-Huh?
"I'm not sure what it is myself since I wasn't part of the writing team nor did I study everything in the game, but what I do know is that this entity is linked to the origin of Arcane Magic. It's referred to as the first magician and the reason humanity can now use magic and many of its derivations."
-How did this mysterious magician manage to weaken such a powerful God?
"Remember that the Dragon God was born a million years before the Holy Year calendar started—even before the Great Split and humanity itself—so there was a time that even that dragon was a helpless baby. I learned that this magician cast a powerful curse on the Dragon God's egg—the nine realm's first stigma. This powerful debuff heavily prevented it from ever achieving its true potential. But the stigma itself caused a mutation in the Dragon God. This was one of the only benefits of bearing the stigma."
-That being…?
"The Draconic Halo. If you are unaware, the Fate Goddess was the Dragon God's mother so it inherited the 'Eye of the Soul', a precognition ability that allows her to see into the future. But after the stigma, this mutated into a different kind of visual technique, also bringing different ocular powers."
-…Is the stigma still active? I'd like to study it.
'You magicians are all the same…' she shook her head mentally.
"I'm confident that it is. Otherwise, the Dragon God would have revived on her own." since her purpose is to challenge beings of incomprehensible power, dying would never be the end.
She's a weapon. But not against her will because this is something she wants—Grace knew that.
"If you want to study the stigma, look for her soul but this would require you to go talk to the Death God."
An impossible thing to do but she said it nonetheless.
"Anyway, now that we've chatted this long, mind telling me who you are?"
-That depends.
"…On what?"
This elusive shadow could kill her anytime it wants but it's still a reasonable shadow. That means she can team up with it now that Elizabeth is impossible to recruit.
-Every now and then, I might contact you to explain something to me. Right now, I've learned plenty of things I didn't know before. But if you continue to prove your worth to me, I will consider establishing an alliance so that we can survive together. Other than that, I won't interfere with your life as Grace Lewan.
"…."
-What's that frown for? I didn't say I would kill you but I will leave you alone.
"Huh? Are you watching me…?" Grace's eyes swam around, noticing several people standing with their eyes closed, facing her direction.
She shivered.
This has to be a Thirteen-Rank Hypnosis at least if it allows shared vision and lets you control several people.
This person is probably level 80 at least since a level 70 shouldn't be able to cast this.
-I will confess something to you. I don't know the entire story so some events that happened between the midway point and endgame is unknown to me. Someone like you is exactly who I need to ensure I don't rattle the wasps' nest.
'Phew. At least I have something of worth that won't allow him to just instantly kill me.'
-In exchange for being my ally that conveys everything to me, I'll protect you. Remember, there is a route in the School Arc where you die.
"…" Grace gulped hard and gripped the hems of her skirt, "You promise you will protect me…?"
-Yes. For now, you can continue your life as normal. Don't make it obvious that you know everything that's going to happen since we don't know where this third player is or who they are.
"I understand…" Grace noticed that the people who were watching her before, looked away and opened their eyes, as if they weren't under a trance just now.
She doesn't recall any mind control magic needing the user to be unconscious to control them. In fact, the weakest hypnosis needs you to swing a coin in front of someone's face to place them under mind control.
The words "You cannot send messages to this player anymore" popped up at the bottom of the screen.
Grace leaned back and unbuttoned her blazer, realizing how damp her body became. Thinking that someone that powerful was near her this entire time made her shiver uncontrollably. She had the idea to try and find out who it was but she doesn't want to annoy this person.
Then again, her urge to know might become unbearable.
For now, she'll just go shopping with Elizabeth and continue with her life.