Chapter 23

Search thy Quest

Their search for his descendants went smoothly after two hours. They first checked the place where he was born, then to the place where he moved, then the registry of his grand children, leading them to a place in the Central Territory, a month’s travel time from the City of Aarun.

“Who would have thought that one of Christofer‘s living descendants was a war veteran.”

“Yeah…”

Siva could only stay silent as he unwillingly listened to the conversation behind him while focusing on how Volt operated their team’s investment, the [Cyclone], in the city hangar.

He had seen many of these things flying around and over the forest and the city. Even in the video played in the underground society, Goldwyn City, that lost teaser video of RPG: Terroa also showcased these marvels of technology right after the Mechanical Wings display. It was said to have been one of the oldest designs, yet, one of the basis designs for quick travels in and out of Walled Cities. For users, buying one of the basic unmodified [Cyclone] could cost 20 Million Zentra and that’s already four months worth of playing the game.

This only showed how much money these guys are making by being hired adventurers and explorers in Terroa. Not only they enjoy the game, they also earn money, in-game currency and real time currency.

Siva computed in his mind how long before he could buy one for himself. Hunting Herons, those T-Rex look alike not only require extreme concentration, he also had to be moving all the time just to avoid dying. Four of them, in their best quality game, costs around Z160k after two hours of fighting. And that was really tiring.

The most expensive monster he had yet to hunt was the three horned C-ranked monster, the mini rhinos, the Sigma.

But hunting them wasn’t easy. They are the hardest amongst all his game since not only they are agile monsters contrary to their large bodies, they also had thick scales that becomes an absolute defense against his air attacks.

Including them, if he had to fight for a whole day, he would have to be first exhausted to his limit before earning Z900k. Sacrificing food, rest, and becoming a homeless wandering warrior for five days would have to be enough to give him the money to buy one basic unmodified 2nd hand [Cyclone].

But then again, for that Cyclone to be enough for a moving living quarters for a traveling warrior, he would have to buy some accessories, spare parts, maintenance equipments, the Windstone that was very expensive, and he also had to modify the inside of the ship to make it seem to be able to support life.

All of this added to the computation, it would simply reach an astonishing amount of over 50 million Zentra.

In short, owning a Cyclone not only becomes limited to rich people, one would have to also become adept in fixing it in case it broke down.

And seeing Volt expertly manipulate it…Siva could only sigh.

“Alright.” Volt’s voice echoed as the Cyclone started to lift itself up from the Hangar base. “To the North!”

The three girls fastened their seatbelts and watching them, Siva did the same. The hangar roof opened up and an NPC signaling flags and light points hovered on the side of the 12m long 5m wide rectangular tube with wings and large boosters at the back.

The mechanical engine started to make a sound and the light indication that the Hoverstone panels at the base of the ship had closed flashed red. And at the next instant after the NPC outside Siva’s window brought his flag down, Volt pressed a button on his panel and a sudden jolt was felt by the whole ship as the view up front became a scene of what it seemed to be riding inside a wormhole.

But the jolt only lasted for a moment.

Unlike the feeling of riding an airplane in real life, there was no such thing as pressure inside the Cyclone.

It was because the base and the body are imbued by the so called Blackrock that the pressure inside was maintained to atmospheric density and its attribute that can cancel gravitational (and anti-G) pull preserved the feeling as if you are still in the ground.

Siva saw the people inside the ship unlocked their seatbelts and so he did the same. They all faced each other and Anna brought food from the trey in one of the cabinets inside. She handed the food one by one to each member of the team, including Volts, who left the pilot seat and joined in on them.

“Don‘t worry.” He told Siva when their eyes met, “I put the ship in autopilot. We’ll reach the next city after three hours so we have time to rest inside.”

Then Samara added, “So let‘s talk about this quest you are after, Siva, where did you find this name?”

“Yeah.” Hawkeye leaned closer. “Who is this Eclaire that I saw at the top of your list?”

“That‘s the author of a book, Clemente‘s Demise.”

After he spoke the words, their expressions became understanding. They realized that all these time, they were being led down the path of a treasure hunter from the forgotten unanswered rumor of the map inside the novel. But who would have thought, one of the person they know would actually find an answer to that riddle.

From time to time, Siva would notice the change in the scenery outside the window.

The forest would sometimes become a barren land, then the large rivers would become forests and even the mountain ranges at the side became more prominently seen with its bright ice caps and blue edges.

The world inside is a different world…

As he thought of this, Siva slowly drifted on to sleep.

He had turned off his auto log off system and so as he was sleeping inside the game, it would be just like sleeping in real time. Their main difference is just that you wake up inside the game and not in the real world. And also, since real world time is the one used while sleeping, if you sleep for 8 hours, it would be 24 hours inside the game.

This kind of scenario rotated for the next four days.

All commercial Cyclones travel at a fixed speed of zero to a maximum of 600km/hr within a second, once airborne. It is a fixed number, with a computed ratio of how much Windstone is going to be used up going from [point A] to [point B]. These machines had intelligent AIs that compute their travel path from the downloaded map and links it to their destination’s airfield database to prevent problems, especially accidents.

There’s already an existing airway on the database of every Cyclone. It’s been divided into height, depending on the destination with an onboard laser radar guiding system, adopted from the real system from Jet Raptors in the real world.

It was one of the attractions of this game, Terroa, part of the 90% reality logline that pulled the attention of air plane fanatics. If the distance from the origin to the destination exceeds 1000km, the height the Cyclone had to travel would be around 5km above sea level.

This is set so that there would be no accidents in midair and also to establish a system of traveling in the sky, just like how it is in the roads below.

In this regard, Siva wondered on the system that controlled and regulated this world and to how much of memory did it require to maintain such vast amount of information. What more, if this world had this kind of large detail, the system that operated this world is a lot more of an unbelievable task in itself.

Whoever created this world surely had it all planned out up to the smallest details. This world, Terroa, was not just a game anymore. Just like how its tag line said, 90% reality, almost everything else in this world is real.

Then he thought of his brother. It may be a world of numbers, a world created from zeros and ones, but it still felt realistic to the point that you could actually live here.

Is it possible?

He shivered on the thought as he opened his eyes.

The first he noticed was that the girls were looking at the view outside the window. They were already on the descent maneuver and Volt on the pilot seat was doing some flashy things of pressing buttons and swiping off panels that popped up on his view.

“Oh you‘re awake.” Agatha’s face greeted him with a smile. Siva yawned and straightened his bearing, then he looked outside and asked back.

“Where are we?”

“Hagonoy.” Answered Hawkeye. “We‘ve arrived in our destination.”

“Already? How long was I asleep?”

“22 hours.” She replied. “We’ve already logged out twice in rotation since you fell asleep and we are here now after 28 hours of travel.”

“A month’s travel was shortened to this extent.” Siva sat straight on his chair and combed his hair, though there was no need to since it combs itself to its fashion.

“You didn‘t turn on your auto log-off?” Asked Volt.

“Yep. It‘s because it‘s a hassle to log in and wait for the confirmation sequences.”

“You‘re weird.”

“I know.”

And then Siva yawned again forgetting the speech.

Hagonoy.

It was a developed city that measured the size of the island of Manhattan. And despite its large size, it was still considered a mid sized Walled City in Terroa, a mere half the size of the City of Jeremiah, the Central Territory’s capital city and this continent’s largest city.

In terms of market, Hagonoy features a lot of modern attractions from advanced technological concepts for all weapons and gadget freaks, and also to a vast collection of NPC shops, fashion houses, Guilds, and even the one event that players of this world all wanted to be part of, the Coliseum. The Walled City of Hagonoy is a large city and just like Bangkok, one can get lost here easily.

As soon as they had parked their Cyclone in hangar bay number 44, from a stack of over two hundred on three sides that looked like parking slots on a shopping mall, a pedestrian bridge emerged from the edge of the trimmed side and they all stepped into it.

“It feels like we’re inside a large spaceship.” Agatha commented and Siva smiled along with the others.

Walking towards its registry table, Volt, as the leader was the one who stamped the signature on their arrival logs. This system had been imposed after the War of the Braves, 50 years ago, according to the game’s history.

The purpose of this is to record who’s entering and going out of their territory, watching over the citizen, and also looking out for reported fugitives.

But with the current condition of the world, Siva thought, this system is only effective for those who had entered the city through legal means. What about those who sneaked in or sneaked out through the gate? Or in the sewage? Or in the trash trucks? Or in the cargo vans and trucks entering from land?

Siva smiled as he thought of those circumstances.

Now that’s what I call playing the game.

But truth be told, once you’re a fugitive, until your case had been resolved, you will be pursued and banned from certain places and of course, all NPC with regards to law and order would automatically recognize you.

And, depending on the weight of the crime, the punishment ranges from one week frozen account to a month of unable to play the game. Of course, that is still a paid expense for the game.

System. Business. Money.

This bitter words pulled of the smile on Siva’s face and until they were already outside the hangar area, the seemingly lively Hawkeye locked her arms on Siva’s.

“Let‘s go have a stroll.”

Then Agatha snatched the other arm. “Let‘s watch a few movies before we work.”

Samara saw this and she pouted, pulling his shirt.

“I want to go too.”

And Volt scratched his cheek while actually holding his sword as if readying to fight.

“I was actually planning on joining the coliseum‘s monthly competition. Wanna come with me?”

Though all of it was tempting, Siva let go of a long sigh and released himself gently from the arms and the hand grabbing his cloak. He told them, “It‘s alright if you guys go on ahead. This is my personal quest after all, I won‘t force you to come with me.”

Hearing that, Volt sheathed his sword and gave Siva a light punch on the shoulder. “Hey, hey, hey…that‘s not right! I thought we agreed to go on a hunting once?”

Hawkeye seconded. “Yeah!”

“That‘s right.” Samara had her hands on her waist.

“Uhum…uhumm.” And Agatha was pouting while nodding vigorously.

Siva lightly scratch his head as he smiled. He gave them all a shrug and started to walk towards the western gate’s direction.

“It’s eight in the morning. We have a long day ahead of us.” And then he turned around and motioned for the other guys to follow. “Are you coming with me or not?”

The four exchanged glances. Nodded. And then they all shrugged and had a smile as they followed his back.