Is this how it feels to be hard-sold hydrogen water?
It was annoying enough that the dragon had ridiculously gone and made a provisional contract on his own, and on top of that a quest completion had popped up because of it, which left me even more troubled. Is this what 'drive off and tame the dragon' meant?
<Contractor. Can you not walk a little more smoothly? It shakes badly up here.>
"If you're going to complain, fly with your own wings!"
<With my body small, flying is hard as well. Moreover, when the contractor has legs, why would I do such labor?>
This shameless guy. If this weren't a game I'd flip the whole table.
My neck felt about to break, so I was just grinding my teeth when it suddenly hit me. Wait, I'm inside a game right now, aren't I? I can log out anytime, can't I? Of course, the game's precautions did tell me to log out away from the NPCs' eyes, but even so it'd just be treated as sleeping anyway.
I made up my mind and stopped dead.
<Contractor?>
Contractor my foot. I'm logging out, you wretch.
I selected logout right away in the system window floating before my eyes. When I pressed the virtual panel, the world soon went black and reality came back as if a connection had been cut.
From however long I'd played, the electrode patches had gone soggy with the moisture rising from my skin. Plus the connected lenses were so dry it took quite an effort just to take them out.
"2 a.m.?"
This game's insane.
Playing the game makes time fly. Well, I'd logged in before reaching Tintagel and even saved the dragon. Even if time flows faster than in reality, it makes sense if three or four days passed in the game.
To reclaim my lost sense of time I got out of bed and stretched. Ah, right. I've got to look over the Goldrish Games missing persons summary again too. Can I get 4 hours of sleep before work?
I sat down at the computer and pulled over a memo pad. The white screen of the booting computer quietly lit my face in the dark room.
***
"Albion, Albion! What's wrong all of a sudden?! Snap out of it!"
Erman was first to grab Albion's shoulder as he collapsed and shake him. The dragon flew up in surprise, and at the sudden turn of events even Pidrin and Daren ran over in alarm.
"What's with this kid? Did he eat something bad?"
"We haven't eaten anything so far, so that can't be it!"
"Albion, are you okay? Albion?"
Instead of pushing Erman away, Estan himself flipped Albion's eyelid and checked his pupil. After a moment he took his hand away.
"He appears to have fallen asleep. Please don't worry too much, my prince."
"......He fell asleep."
"He's sleeping? Does it make any sense to suddenly fall asleep while walking?"
"You wouldn't know, but such patients turn up now and then at the royal castle infirmary. Those who collapse during ordinary daily life, or those over whom drowsiness pours beyond their own control. There have been such reports, but if it isn't that......"
Estan looked up at the dragon far above.
Its size differed from yesterday, but it was definitely a strange creature, neither lizard nor anything else. A body covered in hard black scales. It looked cute, but its blazing golden eyes still stirred fear.
"......That dragon may have had some effect on this attendant. I wouldn't know."
At those words everyone looked at the dragon.
They all clearly remembered the conversation that had followed after the dragon settled on Albion's head. Precisely speaking, the talk in which the dragon only made screeching sounds and Albion alone babbled.
Words like contract and fairy blood they couldn't fully understand, but one thing was clear.
That Albion could use curses and magic and talk with a dragon, and on top of that was someone special enough for a dragon to cling to him using a contract as an excuse. Even that he might be someone mixed with fairy blood, now almost forgotten.
Estan asked himself. Is Albion really a commoner attendant? Wasn't he just a for-show attendant King Calhog had picked up in Tintagel and attached to the prince?
Then how could he heal a dragon, talk with a dragon, cast curses, heal, and remember things that now only passed by word of mouth and had faded?
As Estan looked down with unease at the soundly sleeping Albion, Erman slowly stood. That he looked straight at the dragon had not changed.
"O Dragon. Is it because of you that Albion collapsed?"
"My prince!"
"Hey, hey, hey! Why are you saying something like that now?!"
Pidrin and Estan pulled at Erman, but he held firm. Undaunted even before the dragon looking down this way, he spoke in a crisp voice hard to believe of a twelve-year-old.
"Albion is my one and only friend. So even if you are a dragon, if you harm my friend, I cannot stand by, on my name."
"M, m, my prince!"
Daren screamed. Estan's face stiffened. Half or not, did he not know how weighty an oath it was to stake the name of a prince of Loegria?
The dragon slowly beat his wings, staring fixedly at Erman. Sparks crackled from his small nostrils. After circling once in the air, the dragon landed not on Albion's head but on Erman's.
The three stopped breathing. From the standpoint of humans who couldn't communicate with the dragon, they feared when it might show anger. But Erman looked into the golden eyes regarding him from atop his head.
<Kiik.>
"......You are saying you did not knock Albion down on purpose?"
<Kkii. Kiik. Kiiii.>
"So...... you care about Albion just the same, you are saying?"
<Kkiek.>
The dragon spread his wings. Daren, watching the sight blankly, stammered.
"Y, y, you can understand the dragon's words too, my prince......?"
"Ah, no, I cannot. But if the dragon disapproved of us, he would not have come up onto my head like this."
<Kkiek.>
"So you just guessed, more or less?"
"I do not know why, but somehow I feel I can understand a little. Why that is, I do not know myself. Is it hard for you all to tell?"
Pidrin rolled her eyes. As if to say how could anyone communicate with a being they'd never seen in their life. But Estan, somehow, could understand.
Erman had spent 5 years in the royal castle tiptoeing around the moods of his stepmother, his father and the attendants; wouldn't that be enough to tell a dragon's yes from no? Feeling uneasy about that fact all alone, Estan gestured with his chin at Albion.
"My prince, then Albion is likely to wake up two days from now this time too. Let us carry him as we have so far."
"Very well. Pidrin, would you help?"
"Ugh, why's it always me......?"
Pidrin grumbled and hoisted the limp Albion on her back. Albion's closed eyelids didn't so much as stir. After peering worriedly at Albion on her back for a moment, Erman, with the dragon on his head in Albion's place, quickened his steps again.
There was still a long way to Puil. So it would be okay to tell him slowly after Albion woke.
That they mustn't go back to the royal castle like this.
***
Even if I said good morning, there was no one to hear it in the warehouse office with only me in it.
I set down my bag and turned on the old laptop. After dutifully sending the editorial department the three press releases received today, I had nothing to do. Well, it's a department thrown together for a demotion, so is that only natural?
I took out the investigation notepad I'd brought along. The yellow paper with notes on the Goldrish Games-Brigantes Chronicle missing persons investigation unfolded.
[Missing persons info: young new workers. Brigantes players. Game addiction. Depression? By what route? Simple missing cases? Game controlled brainwaves? With connected lenses and electrode patches? Human control? No belongings. CCTV secured, no signs of abduction. Family trouble? Relationships?]
Even looking again, there was depressingly little information. Holding my forehead, I put together in my head all the stories I'd picked up at the police stations I'd gone around to and the foil-hat tipster's claims, but.
'......There's no link.'
That only users who played Brigantes Chronicle were going missing was suspicious. I was playing myself to identify problems the game might have, but there was nothing to speak of yet.
What's important is that Brigantes Chronicle is a game released by Goldrish Games. It's also the first virtual reality game to use connected lenses.
Going further, Goldrish Games is an entertainment subsidiary of Goldcrest. And lastly, Goldcrest has a record of cult rituals in abandoned mines and suspected cult proselytizing by senior executives.
That much alone is suspicious enough, but the reason I keep stubbornly linking the Brigantes Chronicle missing persons to Goldcrest's cult record is.
'The way the people disappeared is exactly the same.'
The way cults lure people is mostly similar. Isn't that obvious just from looking at the unlicensed religious orders running rampant in Korea?
They pick a target, approach and lure them, and once the victim's faith deepens, they persuade and brainwash them into unconditional devotion to the religion. Some of them deliberately incite the victim to clash with or rebel against family and acquaintances, designing it so that the victim is isolated within the community.
The victim doesn't notice the isolation is by outside design, and instead relies even more on the order in place of estranged family and friends. And in the end, claiming to devote themselves to the religion, they abandon everything and disappear.
In such cases, since the victim wasn't forcibly abducted but disappeared, all the family can do is file a missing persons report. If the victim's a minor the police have room to step in, but if an adult, not even that room is given. Because it's a matter an adult decided for themselves in a situation where they can clearly express their will, no one else can forcibly suppress it. The so-called right to liberty.
So in the end, Brigantes' missing players, broadly speaking, show a pattern similar to victims who joined cults, and the possibility of Goldcrest's influence can't be ruled out.
If only there were a solid link between Goldcrest-Goldrish Games-Brigantes Chronicle missing persons, if hard evidence, not some hunch, even a tiny clue, could fall into my hands......
The fingers tapping meaninglessly at the keyboard suddenly stopped.
"......If I made it myself."
I know it's a crazy idea.
Normal people would give up here, or else monitor missing persons sites till their eyes fell out for anyone newly registered, while putting in calls to police they know. Hoping that when a new missing person turned up, they'd have left behind even one small piece of evidence.
I'm a reporter, not a detective or a cop. Nor am I an upright journalist crying out for justice like the ones often seen in movies. My motives are impure. I just want to give those who bowed their heads to Goldcrest, and Goldcrest's cult bastards, the finger for all to see.
So I know myself that doing this is getting in too deep. Also that it might be better to pretend I don't know.
But there are things that can't be undone the moment you've recognized them once.
Ending my brief hesitation, I picked up my phone. I pressed an unfamiliar number, and as soon as the ringing stopped I opened my mouth.
"Hello. This is Reporter Seo Jae-won. Would you happen to have time this evening? There's something I'd like to propose to you in person. About your younger sister and that game."