Chapter 16

Progress

“’tion!” The commander with mask yelled. The men in black SWAT uniform with weapons stiffened their bodies and the commander added. “It‘s zero fourteen! Who the hell was in-charged of you?”

At the angry question, one voice from the uniform appearances of the SWAT guards spoke up.

“Permission to speak sir!”

“Granted!” The commander replied firmly.

Then from the left side, the one at the very tip of the lined men moved and eased his posture. And though his face was hidden in the seemingly Knight Combat Mask, his voice sounded clearly behind the covering.

“It was Captain Socorro sir!”

At his answer, the commander angrily spat, “What the hell is wrong with that kid?! All of you, at ease! Eat for god sakes! And for the next twenty minutes, I want you girls to be full and standing there on guard! Do you understand me ladies?!”

“Sir yes sir!”

And there was silence in the room.

“What the hell are you waiting for?! Time is kicking and if you don‘t scram it will kick you in the butt! Go!”

And the men all broke out from their lined formation running towards the only way down from the 5th floor. Siva gave way for them and saw a few reaching for their backs with prepared foods.

And as the commander also went down with them, he turned his attention to the closest MIB with him, and the SWAT guard looked up and removed his mask.

“Whew, you saw that huh.”

An NPC. Siva thought.

“Does that happen normally?” He asked courteously. The man gave a large bite on his lunch and he even went as far as offering Siva some of it. “No. I‘m alright with my own.” As he said, Siva also summoned a bread from his inventory. Since he was already here, why not share meal time with an NPC.

“It doesn‘t happen normally. Captain Socorro is just a newly assigned officer and so he was still busy with the paperwork and such.”

“I see.”

“By the way, I often see you here. Are you fond of the History of Terroa? Not many hunters and travelers are going in this corner of the city so I kind of made it a habit to remember the faces of the usual visitors.”

“Ah! You have a good memory.”

“Not really. It‘s just that, though there are new faces everyday, you visiting the book for four times a week is not common. Actually, you‘re the only person to ever do that. Are you searching for any specific topic?”

On those words, Siva paused and thought for a bit. In his silence, the MIB noticed the book in his hand and he laughed heartily as to he recognized the book.

“I see. Clemente‘s Demise. Hahaha…”

Siva‘s brows curled. “You know this book?”

“Yeah!” The man answered. “There was a time when many adventurers and travelers came here holding that book and during that time, we had to be specially alert just to stop them from touching the Book of Legends.”

“I also heard that story. But I just came here and I really don‘t know anything else aside from the rumors that this book contained a treasure map.”

“And you believed that?”

Siva took a bit of his bread, in lined with the guard swallowing a spoon full of his boxed lunch.

He just shook his head sideways. “No. Fortunately, I became aware that it was a hoax and so I just brought this book as a ticket. I actually finished reading it and I can be sure that there is nothing that‘s really vexing in this book. Though I should comment, this is a good novel.”

“Hahahaha…I thought so too. GULP. And honestly, I was a victim of that rumor too. I even thought that the handwritings of the author meant something aside from the words itself. But I was wrong. It was really just some random numbers.”

“Ah these?”

Siva opened the book and showed the man the said numbers written all over the book. In every sentence, there were numbers. Sometimes a single digit, there are times it was two. But there are many times that it was in a group, like the ones in the preface, there were already visible groups of numbers that made no sense.

“Yeah. Many code breakers tried to solve the secret of those numbers but none of them succeeded.”

“I thought so.” Siva agreed and closed the book.

“But I was a step ahead of them.” Suddenly, on the guard’s boastful words, Siva’s curiosity kicked in.

Since in the first place, NPCs are also quest givers, so when an NPC is talking about a topic it would either be a key or a clue. Or if not, then it would be those rare times that it was just nonsense talk.

Why didn’t I thought of that before?

“What do you mean?” He asked the guard. “There is no meaning behind these numbers. I myself had tried to decipher it.”

“Well, what did you came up with?”

“Nothing.” Siva shrugged and the acting came as effective as he wished it to be. Though in the first place, he really did found nothing.

“There is a technique I used to decipher it. And I bet ya, it was the easiest, most common, and actually the very first thing any code breaker would think of.”

“And that is?”

“Words.”

“Words…..words?” Siva was actually puzzled.

“Yeah words. Those numbers are words. But…that‘s just how far I went. Because after that, I was lost.”

Siva’s heart was pounding in excitement but he still did his best to control his emotion. He finished his meal and asked for his name.

“Gilberto.” The guard answered. “And you?”

“Siva. My name is Siva.”

“Oh, what a name. Well then, I guess our talks has just got into an abrupt end. But I bet that this is not the last.” As he spoke, their stand in leader had come up along with the others more from the fourth floor.

Gilberto then put his helmet back on. With a nod and a thumb up, he bade farewell for their meeting and Siva waved a hand as he went down hastily while Gilberto came back to his job.

With no wasted time, Siva went inside a cubicle and he opened the book wide on the table.

“Open Tablet.” He commanded and a holographic pen and paper materialized in front of him.

Next, he summoned the reference window, his old data logs regarding the rumors, and a browser window for accessing the internet. He then typed in the keyword for the rumor regarding Clemente’s Demise novel.

In the browser, the thread about the rumors of the map came in as search results.

He clicked the first one he had read before and read the contents again starting on the top. You cannot read a thread without being a member of the site so for that sake, he logged in using his personal account and used a pseudonym for posting a reply.

[This case is not yet solved.] He typed in as soon as he finished reading everything.

He didn’t care if the thread had ended a few months ago or if he would be branded a new fanatic. But in his desperate situation, he had no choice but to at least hold on to something he can put his effort to. And this time, that would be this rumor. He decided to give it a shot but the longest time he allotted for it was a month.

After that, if it doesn’t get any result, he will have to put his all to go to the Kingdom of Alxandria and go after the rumors of The Armor of Avalon.

As he finished reading the online thread and actually memorized certain important parts on the first breakers’ findings, he found Gilberto’s words somewhat true. In short, after the breakers have actually found the words, it was there that they got stuck. Some even went as far as jumbling the letters of the words and truthfully, there were over thousands of words in there and god knows just how painful it is to actually jumble them up.

Why didn’t I thought about that?

It was actually a simple way to find the meaning of the numbers in the novel. For every sentence, there was a number and that number corresponds to the words in that sentence. It was obvious and yet he didn’t realize.

But there are just too many words and it would take him forever if he would jumble it all up just like those people did before him.

Instead, he wrote the first twenty words he saw in his holographic pen and paper.

The words were: force, its, never, doubting, Terrans, he, easy, protector, ravaging, on, very, immortality, descents, even, none, came, end, from, intent, and notable. After he had noted the first twenty words, Siva started to use some sort of an algorithm to solve the relevance of the words.

The first one he used was to put them all in a straight sentence. No. It didn’t work out. He then started to put a few conjunctional words when necessary and even if the sentence were completed, it still did not make sense.

“Do I really have to use all of the words together?”

But then it would take so many days to solve it!

Siva trashed the idea.

But what he did was to add more words so he added the next ten words in there.

Declare, total, honestly, enhanced, people, rocks, on (…the other hand), verbally, intelligence, and defended were added on the list. And just by looking at them, he immediately knew, he would end up with the same “no” as a result of the same method.

And so he tried and it really is. Putting them together to create a sentence isn’t a working method.

His next move then consisted of lines and angles.

Siva used the table light and mirrored the words in their original place to see if there are actually some sort of direction they were going but all he ended up was a few triangle and irregular lines. They did crossed in on some words, even letters, but they still meant nothing. The line and angle technique was a waste of two hours.

And then he realized, there are actually thousands of ways to decipher it and if he could think of them, he’d be an old man before he could finally find a clue.

It was here that he also realized how and why those first code breakers gave up on this puzzle.

Their conclusion that the numbers were just there as guides, and doesn’t actually point out on the words that he just wrote down was becoming truer and truer. He can feel the laughing voices of the critics behind him.

After eight hours of doing nothing but trying many styles and ways to make out something on the words, he finally landed on the conclusion that maybe he did a big mistake somewhere. After that, he guessed that his first mistake came from the words itself.

What if it doesn’t mean these words?

As he thought of that idea, he felt the chill of truth crawling on his nape and back.

His mind worked, he shook his head and convinced himself. Going for a break, he went outside and bought food and had a meal. To relax himself, he drank cold tea to lower down his tension.

Was it a mistake?

As he reflected on these thoughts, he closed his eyes and leaned back. When he opened them, the night sky of Aarun greeted him, filled with stars and no moon.

He thought, the ways to solve this problem had as many stars there are in this night sky.

“Ah…what a beautiful sky.”

He felt relaxed looking at this kind of view.

How many days has it been? Weeks? Months? He actually never felt this relaxed ever since that happened.

Life is full of disasters. I just luckily landed on one.

Siva sighed heavily and noticed an old man beside him, also staring at the same stars as him in the bench.

“Good evening.”

“Hmm? Did you just wished me good evening or you actually meant that it was a good evening whether I want it or not? Or…you did meant that you felt good in this particular evening? Though I should say it is really a good evening. Or maybe are you just simply saying that it is an evening to be good on?”

Siva was utterly surprised.

What was that supposed to mean?

“Well, maybe…all of…them…I suppose…” And he raised a brow at which the old man smiled.

“Ahahaha…I was just quoting someone.”

“Sure. I guess.”

“You looked troubled when I saw you there earlier so I tried to do what you were doing and I found it very amusing.”

Siva tilted his head and narrowed his eyes. “Are you following me?”

“No.” The old man responded with a strong voice.

“But you just said….”

“I said ‘when I saw you earlier’ or are your ears just there as designs to make you look human?”

Siva became speechless. This old man here has a lot of problems, including his speech and his way of saying things that doesn’t make any sense. Or perhaps, he then thought bitterly, saying deep things with deep meaning leaning on to the direction that it actually doesn’t make any sense.

Wait…that doesn’t make any sense.

“Did you just thought I was an NPC?”

Those are the words that shocked him most.

“No I didn’t! But while we’re on the topic, so you mean you‘re not?”

“How insolent! Do you not recognize me, you damn brat! We just talked about weapon improvements on the shop not long ago!”

“What?! You‘re the shop owner?!”

“Fool! I‘m just the shop keeper! And being a keeper doesn‘t make me the owner!”

“No! I mean, you look different. You look old!”

“I am old, you freaking bastard! Can‘t you see?”

“No, I‘m sorry. I mean, does wearing a welding mask as hat with an apron can actually change the looks that much?”

“Hmm…” The old man rubbed his beard. “You do have a point. I sometimes see myself more handsome without them.”

Suddenly, Siva felt his world gone cold. “You‘re not at the slightest bit handsome. You‘re an old man.”

“I am old. Or are you actually blind and were just pretending to see me?”

“…”

“Ahahahaha…I‘m just kidding. Kids these days, you are all so easy to trick! Ahahaha…”

“You really are the Shop Keeper.”

“I am. I just told you that, right? Or are your ears just there to really make you look human?”

“Please don‘t go back on that topic.”

“Ahahahaha…anyways, what‘s bothering you?”

“Many things.”

“And they are?”

Siva paused as he read the man’s expressions. Yeah, users of the Neurolink Device are not limited to young people. And in Terroa, hunting monsters aren’t the only way to earn a living and actually play the game.

Some of the users entered the game to sight see. And there are those like this old man that entered the game to experience many things, including working on shops to become weapon smiths.

“Actually, I‘m working on a problem and I can‘t find a way how to solve it.”

“Are there clues?”

“Yes. Actually, the clues were given. It was just that the scope of the problem was too big, I’m overwhelmed by its entirety.”

“Ahahaha…you know kid, you‘re actually stupid.”

The comment was straight on the wound and he felt somehow hurt that it came from the old man.

“Don‘t rub it in.” He retorted.

At his reply, the old man stared up and Siva had no choice but to do the same.

The stars were scattered, looking like the same sky on where he grew up. Manila. In there, you can’t really see the night sky, even if it’s full of stars, because the nights in Manila are full of sparkling lights of the ads that blinds the beautiful view of the stars.

The only place you can actually go stargazing is when you’re on the rooftop of a tall building or when you’re actually in the province, somewhere high up.

“You know kid, I‘ve met people like you before.”

Siva looked at the old man who kept on staring at the stars and replied in honest curiosity, “Really?”

“Yeah. You think you‘re strong alone so you try to solve your problems alone. Then you crave for that which you can‘t reach so you can have something to be busy for, while actually forgetting your real problem.”

“What‘s that…”

Siva stopped in the middle of his sentence when he realized the truth on the old man’s words.

In short, I was distracted.

“…do you see these stars?” The old man pointed up.

Siva followed his finger. “Yeah?”

“That‘s your problem kid.”

“How did it became my problem?”

“First, you‘re easy to trick. You followed my finger without thinking. You did not even try to ask yourself just why and how it happened. Second, because you’re thinking too much of the problem, you‘re forgetting to actually ask the very basics of questions.”

“But…I tried it before.”

SIGH. “Kid, if you did you could have found your answer and not be here right now.”

Again, wise simple words and yet it had a profound meaning that was so deep, it was almost invisible. Siva asked himself what that question was. And he still did not find any answer. He was still distracted.

“So what are those questions? No. Wait. I know what you‘re gonna say. You’ll tell me that it was up to me to find that out.”

“No.” The old man’s expression was dead pan. “I actually planned to help you out but you said all those things so I change my mind. And yes you‘re right.” The old man stood up and fixed his clothes. “You must find that on your own.”

Siva tried to follow the old man but he somehow had some secret skill that each step he took looked a bit wider than normal. In just few seconds, he was gone.

Left with more questions than answers, along with his puzzled mind and chaotic thoughts, Siva went back to his bench and sat down heavily. He gazed up to the stars and sighed. He pondered on the conversation he just had and even to the fact that he was surprised to learn of the old man’s identity.

When he had spent a good two hours trying to find a way out of his predicament, he felt drowsy that he did a yawn loud enough it distracted the other players.

Then, he went back to the library. Good thing it was a 24/7 library and that inside his cubicle, he can sleep and think at the same time.

Just to make sure, he turned on the automatic log off system that let’s you log out of the game when you fell asleep. He stretched out the back support of the chair and leaned back to it, letting his arms rest on the side. He then read himself to sleep, reading the words he had written in his tablet and actually dedicating a few bytes of his brain memory to it.

After a few moments, he found himself dreaming.

In his dream, he was still thinking of the words that he wrote down. The words flew up above his head and there were the stars and the words floating in the dark night sky. Siva was floating beneath them, wearing his silver colored polo with a design on the left sleeve and the black slacks and his combat boots, with his cloak on above it all.

Face-its-never-doubting-Terrans…he thought of the words over and over, even in his dreams, he read it and looked for ways on how to solve it.

He lined it up, he lined it down, he jumbled it, made a few words, jumbled it again, took the numbers and the letters instead of words, he even put all of the words together and used the numbers to pick out particular letters from the words.

It was still nothing.