Latludious returned to the game, just after Vvy left. He headed toward the research lab, passing a hundred players running between the dungeons, all sweaty, out of breath, but with plenty of strength.

“What a game,” said one. “I pay money to carry cannonballs for ten hours straight.”

“Will you shut up already?” Shouted the other one to him. “We're doing this to prepare for battle, if you don't like it, go to the woods.”

“Sorry, I forgot to ask you, a fool, what I should do.”

To the east, the mage saw Gra, who was giving orders left and right. Latludious did not stop, though he admitted to himself that the parade amused him. He went inside the laboratory and walked down a small corridor to a closed sector and presented his pass; there he descended a long winding staircase and entered room number two.

“Any results?”

The scientists turned in his direction. They were men in their early and mid-forties, wearing white and black hoodies with the words Top Secret in blue letters and strange goggle-like glasses.

“You delivered the subject too late. While we were testing their blood for mutagens, the first one went insane and ate the second one alive.”

Latludious glanced at the baby Alrawn, who was beating its head against the thick protective glass of the aquarium, with small holes for air.

“Do you need anything?”

“No. We'll dissect it, shred it into molecules, and see what that gets us.”

“Go ahead. If you learn anything, inform me at once.”

***

Yleen logged into the game an hour before the meeting. In his HUD he saw an unread message from Illyseh:

He’s one of us.

Yleen took a cold look at each letter and called steward Mercyaa to him and asked him what he’d seen during the night.

“We kept an eye on every player. During your absence, Ronnie walked around the fortress, but did nothing suspicious, except avoid meeting...”

“I figured that out. Suffering from insomnia?” asked Yleen.

“Yeah. I bet he’s a former soldier.”

“Go on,” replied the lord as he read other messages in the HUD.

“Latludious spent half an hour in the lab, then went offline. Vvy was back in the game around 5 a.m. Maybe earlier, didn't keep track of time. He went to the foot of the Orodrim Eoul mountains and met someone there.”

“With whom?”

The manager hesitated. He took off the hood of his camouflage and sat down on a chair. His face was still hidden under the impenetrable mesh mask. He put the butt of his Simonov automatic rifle on the floor beside him and cleared his throat and continued:

“One of the players' aliases is Nika. The one that killed Ronnie in the desert.”

Yleen stopped reading his private messages and looked intently at Mercyaa.

“He won at chess,” he said to himself under his breath. Then he raised his voice and continued, “Go on.”

“She is a member of the ‘Hashashin Guild’.”

“Assassins?”

Mercyaa twisted his head as if drawing the infinity sign and said:

“Not proven, but I'm inclined to think so. I've done some research. They do what they do by completing personal quests for players or guilds, get points for it, and thus advance to the top of the rankings in the ‘Diplomacy Victory.”

“Vvy, the motherfucker put a target on our backs. I'm calling off the operation. And I'm kicking these sneaky fucks out of our fortress. Let them go wherever they want.”

Mercyaa got up and nodded and headed for the door. When he pulled the handle, he turned toward Yleen and said:

“Maybe we should give the scouting mission the green light? In spite of everything, this hike is very important.”

Yleen tightened his fists and clenched his teeth and slammed his fist into the table for blood.

“We play respectfully and honestly, Mercyaa. Why cooperate with those who want to cheat us, not just us, but all the other players! Now our whole game revolves around politics, my friend, we can't take any chances. Any careless move, any wrong decision will sink us.”

“So it is, sir. However, you say it yourself: accusing based on personal hunches does not lead to good things. What if we're wrong? We don't know exactly what's going on. The decision to cancel the hike will affect your image, rest assured. Top Secret will make a big deal out of this on the forum and say you have no proof and they will be right. And then you will accuse them of conspiring with the Hashashins, and call them mercenaries or murderers. If they have the brains to kill players bypassing the system, they also have the brains to ask for direct or circumstantial evidence, which you and I don't have. All we know now is hearsay, sir. Besides, with your consent or not, Top Secret will go in the dungeoun. We can't follow them forever, can we? Let me tell you the plan, and if you like it, that's what we'll do.”

Yleen called him over with a gesture of his hand. Mercyaa closed the door and walked closer to him:

“To be honest, I'm 99.9% sure that Top Secret wants to be the first to enter the lands beyond the mountains. In that case, even the "enemy of the race" debuff won't affect them. They will do anything to get rid of you by the end of the campaign. I doubt they need military power before then. The Hashashins will be in the shadows the whole time, looking for a good opportunity to assassinate you. Of course, they won't kill you directly, but they'll probably rig something, maybe dig a hole or set a trap for you, supposedly for the monsters. Then the system won't identify them as killers. All we have to do is make a video and a screenshot, and we'll use it to prove their collusion,” Mercyaa said with a cough, “I don't like the word collusion. I beg your pardon. Plans, I mean. Without that, they will destroy us. We don't have to work from the shadows and engage in meaningless battles. Nor are we afraid of death. So, if they attack head-on, they will lose immediately. We all understand that. Therefore, you will watch and record their actions in the dungeon, and I and the team will block the entrance and wait. If the Hashashins don't show up, there will be nothing to worry about. So far, Vvy could talk to them about anything, the weather, monsters, flowers, girls and so on. If we play it right, we'll win, gaining the trust of all the players and leaving Top Secret at the broken bucket.

Yleen turned to face him and said:

“Are you a part-time lawyer as well?”

Mercyaa nodded.

“Okay. I’m convinced. You're in charge of the plan. You will report to me through PM, and I in turn will not turn off the video recording for a minute.”

“Do you have enough memory on your hard drive?”

“No. I'll do a private live stream, it’ll be saved on SpeakBook cloud.”

“Clever. In case we need proof, we'll make the record available to the public.”

Yleen nodded his head and scratched the table with his nails.

“Can I go?” Mercyaa asked.

“I wanted to discuss one more question with you.”

“I'm all ears.”

Yleen told about the research team's battle with the dragon and all the information he had been told earlier and asked:

“What do you think?”

"Honestly, sir?"

“No drama. “

“Illyseh is right. Gra and the others are preparing to fight against a monster they know nothing about, except for one thing – it's big and weak. And if it's not? We don't really know anything about it. No vulnerabilities of the dragon, no characteristics of its behavior. Whether it is a conscious being or an unconscious one. What does it want? Why did it attack the Flying Fortress in particular?”

“They all survived the battle with it. It turns out it's not that strong.”

“With all due respect, sir. Anything could have happened there.”

Yleen looked out the window, propped his cheek with the fist of his right hand.

“What are we gonna do?”

“Wait for them to make a mistake.”

“Does the game come out before the first mistake?”

“So it turns out, sir.”

“I don't like this situation.”

“I think they don't like it too.”