Shinichi rolled out of bed with a muffled groan. He'd only had about four hours of sleep, but his alarm insisted that it was time to get moving. He smiled as he stood and looked back at the bed while his wife grumbled sleepily about the cold space that had replaced him, and pulled the free blankets into a tighter cocoon around herself.
As he pulled on the clean clothes that he'd picked out the night before, Danika asked reluctantly, "You want breakfast?"
"No, I'll get something on the way," he promised gently and smiled again as she sagged in relief, and sank back into sleep before he had his socks on.
"Love you," he told the immobile form fondly as he filled his pockets and scooped up his phone. There was no response, but he knew that sometimes she heard him.
He walked as quietly as possible as he passed Ryuske's room, and then laughed when he discovered a minute later that his adoptive father was already in the kitchen.
"Here," Ryuske told him, as he handed him a travel mug.
"You're up early?" Shinichi suggested.
Ryuske's face crinkled into a smile. "Late," he replied succinctly.
"It is barely morning," Shinichi replied in a tone of commiseration.
"Luck in your day," Ryuske responded cheerfully, before adding, "I'm going to sleep."
"Rest well," Shinichi replied with amusement. The warm cup in his hand told him that the elderly man had stayed up a bit later just to make this exchange.
Despite the early hour and his own lack of sleep, he walked out to the car with a smile. Naoki was waiting with a sour and sleepy expression that lightened as his eyes met that smile. Underneath was still producing new music, and Shinichi silently thanked his family for the smile that spread from one tired member to the next as they began their day.
--
A few hours later, Danika gazed at the bug report doubtfully. It complained, 'Everything my friend Kurozero says randomly is coming true!'
She checked, and the complaint had already been verified by a person from the third division. She wrinkled her nose at the screen as she considered the notes. Kurozero's chat logs for the last couple of weeks were… ordinary teenage chatter as far as she could tell, although they did seem to enjoy making bold pronouncements.
The list of 'random truth incidents' was varied, and not all of them were predictions of success or failure as she'd half expected. There were also statements like, 'Fairies will drink all the mead before we get back!', 'The snow will melt by afternoon!', and 'The King of this country would cry if he could see this!'
Kurozero was not a cleric, soothsayer, or sage. Their path was that of magic, but their title proclaimed them a 'Hero and a Novice'. The skills obtained so far didn't seem to give any kind of special knowledge, and sounded more suitable to a performer than an adventurer.
It wasn't until she pulled up Kurozero's appearance that Danika felt suspicious. The character was actually a very fluffy looking young cat. She summoned the Jade Emperor's eldest son, who was a frequent visitor to her workspace these days, and asked him directly, "What about this character is making almost everything that they say come true?"
The God of Luck flicked a pointed ear at her, but turned to look at the image of the young cat. Despite having to live his most recent childhood as a full human, he had retaken his original position as the King of Cats as soon as he'd unlocked his ability to transform again.
"Very smart?" he suggested thoughtfully.
Danika repressed the glare that she almost instinctively directed at the cat, and asked, "You've been rewarding his good guesses?"
"No," he replied dryly. "Good guesses are own reward."
She considered it for a moment and then shook her head. It wasn't impossible for someone very bright to find the game too predictable, but the chat logs she'd read didn't give her the impression that Kurozero was such a person. The brilliant people she did know definitely had their own quirks, and the conversations had seemed too average, apart from their strange accuracy.
After a moment she summoned the Jade Emperor, who wrote the storylines that the characters who played the game would travel. She asked the emperor, "If it's not luck, can you find any reason that the things this character says are coming true? Is it some quest effect perhaps?"
The young God of Luck twitch his long tail with annoyance, while the Jade Emperor replied serenely, "I cannot find another reason for the consistently accurate predictions, but they are generally over 80 percent correct, so it meets the possible conditions for hacking, even though I can't find any trace that the player is doing so."
Danika blinked and then regarded the Kurozero character with more alarm. "You think they could be hacking the game without leaving a trace?"
"Is not," the God of Luck stated before vanishing.
The Jade Emperor shrugged. "Probably not," he agreed, "but I see no other reason for the high accuracy of Kurozero's pronouncements."
--
A few hours later Danika gazed thoughtfully at the beautiful garden in front of her.
She'd followed Kurozero in the invisible administration mode for nearly three hours after their school released them for the day. She knew that they'd been in school before the gaming session because they'd said so several times. The bug reporter, Shiroun apparently attended the same school, and even shared some classes from their homework discussions.
"Princesses will admire us for our accomplishments!" Kurozero shouted dramatically as he and Shiroun finished their current task, which had been gathering windflower seeds from the garden.
Danika thought that the windflowers looked suspiciously like what she knew as buttercups, and that they were thus not very princess inspiring collections. But within the minute a tiny fishy face popped out of the decorative pond, and one of the goldfish princesses announced enthusiastically, "Oh my sisters will love this!"
Danikaa's eyebrow arched as the fish vanished, and then a few moments later dozens more little fishy princesses apparently traveled along the edge of the world into the decorative pond. The greatest dolphin bard had once carried her character ZipZing through the watery paths within Living Jade Empire, but she suspected that they hadn't arrived as quickly and gracefully as the fishy princesses.
They danced around the pond for a few minutes, and then began making admiring comments about the two boys. Kurozero and Shiroun were currently sorting the seeds they'd acquired into paper envelopes, apparently oblivious to the princessly admiration. If the Jade Emperor's answer hadn't assured her that the game wasn't making the things Kurozero suggested happen on purpose, she would have assumed that this was simply a rather flashy demonstration of Living Jade Empire's customized quest functions.
One of the goldfish princesses suddenly transformed into a young human girl, and both characters jumped back in shock, as she almost shouted enthusiastically, "My sisters and I agree that your work here is quite admirable!"
Kurozero recovered quickly and shouted back enthusiastically, "Thank you! We have collected many beautiful flower seeds, and the elderly will surely benefit!"
Danika blinked and checked the quest information again. It was true that the elf who'd requested the seeds was several hundred years old, but she suspected that he'd be insulted if he knew he'd just been called elderly.
--
Three more of Kurozero's random pronouncements had come true before Danika brought up the character sheet of the friend who had reported the strange outcomes.
She studied it for a while, and then stared at Shiroun's character sheet for a long silent moment before silently throwing curses toward the God of Luck who had suggested that Kurozero was very smart, and had also insisted that the character wasn't cheating. It was luck that was bringing the character's words into digital reality, it just wasn't his own luck.
The source was an odd skill that suited a roguish combat path. "Rumor's Truth" both allowed a character to ascertain the veracity of a rumour, and increased the chances of hearing truthful rumors. Kurozero's tendency to make random pronouncements was simply triggering his friend's skill.
Danika frowned at the skill for a moment, wondering if she should turn down its effectiveness on things that were said by friends. After a moment she shook her head as she imagined other friends reporting rumors they'd heard from sources they'd found. It would greatly decrease the effectiveness of the skill.
She summoned the God of Luck again, and told him dryly, "I found the skill that's supposed to be increasing the chance that rumors heard by Shiroun will be true."
"Are very smart," he complimented. "But not very fast."
She couldn't argue, since she hadn't realized the effect Shiroun's skill would have when she'd looked through things the first time. "You could have told me?" she suggested.
"Asked wrong question," the little cat replied smugly.
Danika couldn't even scold the young god, since he was being truthful and true to his character with his taunting reply. She had already realized that she'd restricted the Emperor's reply by indicating that it hadn't been luck.
"Since it was happening within your domain, it was still your interpretation of the conversation that mattered wasn't it?" she asked the god a bit severely.
He avoided her eyes for a moment, but then protested defensively, "Automatic interpretation."
Danika wasted a few more minutes of her day arguing with the cat before realizing that she'd heard similar arguments between Shinichi and Naoki over song lyrics, and suddenly she smiled.
The god of luck eyed her warily, and then narrowed his eyes suspiciously in a human fashion.
"It's alright," she announced. After a moment she began writing a reply to the character who had both filed the bug report and was actually the source of his friend's strange accuracy. The truth was the simplest solution.
'Kurozero's pronouncements are being interpreted as rumors by your own skill. I'm giving you an ability that will let you voluntarily suspend a passive skill if you wish to,' she wrote. Then she added more specifics about using the new skill.
She applied the high level skill from the path of a monk to Shiroun's character, and sent the message. Kurozero's random accuracy had just been set into the hands of a friend, but in a way that was just a reflection of life.
The god of luck huffed hard enough to make his whiskers jiggle, but didn't seem displeased by her solution as he washed an ear, and Danika smiled.