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I entered che Hidden. Forbidden, Sacred Zone and moved toward the church on the isolaced island. Dark clouds covered che sky.
Once I entered the church, I heard the pipe organs echoing. I moved along che hall where four pendulums swung. marking time. Finally. I reached the altar. Every time I returned here, I thought of myoid boss.
I met Watarai through a Auke of fate. I had graduated near the top of my class and after interviewing with CC Corp., I expected to work in their creative division. I was shocked when they instead threw me into administration.
Initially, I was depressed and didn't care much about my work or my performance, but Watarai, my boss, turned me around. He taught me the importance of debugging and working in the system administration section. He taught me the importance of the Cobalt Knights and our mission to remove any bug, no matter how small.
"In an offline game," he once explained to me, "a player can cheat all he wants and there are no consequences. It's no big deal, because he's really only cheating himself out of the total gaming experience. However, when someone cheats in an online game, it affects orner players. Nor only is it unfair, but it also destroys game balance."
Watarai's eyes gleamed when he talked about it. "When someone cheats, part of The World shifts; and the more cheaters, the greater the sh ift, until The World eventually becomes unhinged--driving away both players and business. So it's important, from both a business and gaming standpoint, to keep everything fair. We must not allow anyone to cheat. No matter how small the bug is, we must delete it. Because the system must run smoothly."
Watarai always made sure everything ran smoothly. As Captain of the Cobalt Knights, he ran a Pole Arm named Albireo. However, an incident in the church changed him.
It was here that he first encoumered the Vagrant AI, Lycoris. It should've been a simple debugging task, but something had happened that day, which altered Watarai forever ... He had failed.
The Cobalt Knights had chased and cornered the AI into the church, but somehow she had managed to defy the basic laws of cyberspace-and escaped.
At the time, I was a rookie and didn't think much of the failed mission. Wararai, on the orher hand, became obsessed. He never left his office and hardly slept for days, until he tracked down and finally destroyed the AI.
I'm not sure what happened during his hunt, but afterward, he started acting strange. Worse, he starred to break down mentally as well as physically. I also noticed that he talked more and more about God.
"Only God could be omniscient enough to understand and even interact with everything in the system." he once told me.
"God?" I repeated.
"At least what I call 'God,' "he clarified. "Even though no individual can ever grasp the system as a whole, it's still progtammed for anyone to look at any of irs pieces. The entire World ex ists in binary code and is stored in Akashic records. The World that we witness is displayed on a screen. It's not reality. We're witnessing the illusion of reali ty, what the Hindus call maya. It's really just a shadow world. But the system itself is alive, and constantly operating every moment of every day. I call that system God."
He continuously referred to God whenever he tried to explain The World to me, but he never seemed to be able to fully express his thoughts. Ultimately, he gave up trying, though I always wondered if he wasn't hiding something that he just couldn't keep secret.
"Kamui."
I turned to see who was interrupting my thoughts. I found another Cobalt Knight approaching. It was Yukino Makimuta, a young woman who had only been with the company tor a year.
"What is it, Yukino?"
"I'd like to discuss a problem."
"Can this wait until tomorrow?"
"No," Yukino mumbled.
I arranged to meet her in the cafe downstairs after work.
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