Chapter 246: Ruins of Civilization (II)

The ruins received them without ceremony.

One step off the last slab of paving and the world changed its rules entirely — the engineered certainty of ground that had been laid and maintained gave way to something that had been neither for years.

The surface underfoot was a sedimentary record of accumulated collapse: old concrete at the base, then brick rubble, then broken glass, then the fine grey powder of things that had disintegrated past the point of being identified.

The government agent — Ishiki had mentally labelled him Black Suit for convenience, as he had given no name and offered no conversation — moved with the practiced efficiency.

He kept a precise three meters behind Ishiki, neither closing nor widening the gap. His hand rested at the sidearm on his right hip. It was not necessary to point out that he was a player and that too at least an Adept.

’He’s good,’ Ishiki thought. ’He’s also going to be a problem.’

He said nothing about this to Shiro. Shiro was walking two paces to his left and one behind, in the instinctive positioning of someone who had trained for flanking cover without ever needing to be told to do it.

He was reading the ruins with curiosity… it was all foreign to him and it did arouse a feeling of despair in his heart.

“First time coming out here?” Ishiki asked.

Shiro flinched once and answered. “Yes, I have only seen this place from afar. I have read that this place and everything on ground was like a slum area.”

Ishiki scowled at that sentence but didn’t dare say anything. He was not going to argue on that.

“Heh… This place was very much developed for dregs.” Shiro said, pointing at a ruined and rusted vending machine.

Ishiki fought back the urge to say yes it indeed was and instead followed with. “We can only imagine how pretty the Floating Island must have been.”

Which in turn was the truth, because he had never went there as well.

“I have heard that there are almost 20 players from that era. And two of them are even very young… hmm, one of them is the current Major, Yuki Koyo. There is a rumor that she was the princess of Neo-Tokyo back in the day.” Shiro added.

Ishiki heard that and swallowed hard. He could feel cold sweat down his back. After all, keeping a secret identity was not an easy work and looking at his Corruption… it was not wise to continue it.

“She is very scary and powerful I have heard.” Ishiki said. “By the way, is she an adept?” He couldn’t help but ask.

It was not daily he got to know more about Yuki. he sometimes even wondered if she thought about finding him or something.

’Huh? what am I thinking?’

He shook his head and regretted asking it, but before he could change the topic he heard the black suits guy speak for the first time.

“Princess Yuki completed her second trial two years ago, and she completed her third trial just a few months ago. Currently her reactor core is that of Elite Tier.” His voice was stern and on the point.

But more important than that, Ishiki looked at him with his jaw hitting the ground. Did he just hear that correct… third trial?

“Cough,” Ishiki blinked a couple of times and looked straight. “Oh, that is great. What about the other people from that era?”

The guy was silent for quite some time before replying. “How high is your post? I need to make sure that I can tell internal information.”

’What internal information bastard… I am their comrade.’ He almost snapped. “High enough, I just never had interest in such things. I am a field operative.”

The black suits nodded and imparted the knowledge. “There are exactly 165 players from before the fall who are still alive. More than 100 of them are already at Elite tier and the rest are adept.”

’Yeah no I am still an Innate.’ Ishiki corrected him inwards. But that he realized was not something good…

’Fuck, I thought i was okay. who would have thought that bitch Kenji was so slow.’

While all this, Ishiki suddenly realized something and stopped mid stride. They were almost a kilometer inside the ruins and he found a very familiar place.

His jaw tightened as he remembered. This was the place he had first met Kaori. He was dropped here by the system… and he was saved by Kaori.

Thinking back then he almost laughed, his thoughts were chaotic and he had no control over his Corruption.

“Ahh, I am sorry let’s move on.” He found that it was effecting his mood.

As they waled forward the ruins offered nothing but the particular aesthetic of a world that had been abandoned mid-sentence.

There was a few shops that were somehow stills standing… their doors gaped open, their interiors dark and gutted, the merchandise long since gone — taken by scavengers in the first years, or by the salvage teams thereafter.

He too was once a part of such team and now he thinks about it, only he is left. well, Kenji is too… but he is a monster now.

Then he saw a familiar place where he first killed Xenons in utter darkness. Back then Kenji had helped him… by faking his goddamn skills of course.

Ishiki walked past it without slowing.

’I used to walk this street,’ he thought, and then closed the thought before it opened into anything larger. There was no productive version of that line of thinking right now.

Then suddenly he froze and his eyes widened. He turned back and saw that everything was different from what he had just seen, mere seconds ago.

He was not standing at the street of his past. He couldn’t be… because his home and the camp are closer to the 11th ward.

’What the fuck.’

On that note. He was alone… Shiro and the black suit guy was nowhere to be seen.

He… had been tricked.

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