"Keep it short, Mod. I know your time is precious."
It was impossible for the Moderator to ignore the sarcasm in Asura's tone. They were clearly a bit caught off guard, standing completely still in their all white outfit while their eyes remained on him. He made no moves to move down from his throne, opting to just look and listen from there.
It made them seem small and short at the height he sat, which made him grin.
They sighed but continued their duty. "I know you are well aware that there was an error in the systems earlier. I just wanted to ask if you knew or saw something on the system windows during the breakdown."
He could not help but grin wider, though he shook his head at them. "Just keep seeing the error messages, I didn't see anything else."
They raised an eyebrow at him, but he had the same attitude and expressions either way.
"What? You don't believe that I really saw nothing aside from the standard error message?"
They sighed, shoulder slumping slightly. They tapped on their tablets, reporting back in a questionnaire style about what he had answered them.
"If there is any other signs of disturbance, make sure to report to us." They left him alone after saying that.
He whistled, having a wider grin on his lips at the revelation of all of this.
'This is going to be much more fun than I was expecting it to be.'
.
.
.
[TAVERN, 22:03]
The tavern had always been lively, at least at their side of the world. Always filled with various monsters and humanoids, including the Bosses whenever the night falls. The crowd always got rowdier as the night went on, after a little too much drinks, many start to soften up considerably.
Which had always been a good way for the informants to listen for secrets and earn money by selling it to the players later.
"A hot guy called me ugly, can you believe that?! Me, being ugly?!" Natt, the slime boss, cried out while holding onto an empty beer glass.
The woman sitting right next to her murmured, "Well, you probably just isn't his type."
"But most men couldn't even —"
"Most isn't all, Natt. You can't say that they are exactly the equal."
Whether or not the woman was attempting to cheer Natt up, she had started to vent and cling onto the poor human. She seemed like just another one of the workers within the tavern due to the outfit she was donning, a brown overall with a white shirt underneath.
"I have forgotten to ask you if you wanted to do a bet if Natt was going to cry over someone again yesterday." Irena leaned over slightly to whisper into Asura's ears.
He shook his head before taking another swig of his beer, the burn down his throat made him let out a soft groan. "Well, it would be a little uncommon for Natt to not cry over something, or someone."
Irena's white pupils stared at him, then going back to look at Natt who was two tables in front of them.
"You seem oddly excited today, did something good happen?"
"Do I now?"
His grin showed off some of his sharp teeth and there was no denying that hint of amusement in his gaze, even as he was just staring at something that happened almost daily. He glanced over to her, shrugging before chugging down the rest of the beer. He yelled at the nearest waiter to refill his cup, his grin only growing a little wider.
"Did the mods come find you earlier?"
"They did yes. They asked me about a glitched system, but since my system window was fine before they came by, I said I saw nothing."
He placed his arm on the table, making the wooden table tilt towards him. "Oh, they said it was glitched?"
"That was what the moderator that visited me claim, yes."
She raised an eyebrow at him, "Did you see something, 'Sura?"
"Depends on if you would believe what I'm about to say next."
He did not say anything afterwards, waiting for the waiter to return with another glass of beer. He snatched it from the waiter's hands, then gulped down half of it in one go. He lets out a long sigh, letting the burning feeling on the back of his throat calm his thoughts.
"Have you ever thought about if we were real?"
She raised an eyebrow at him once more, taking a small sip of her apple juice. She stared at the liquid, watching it tilt and swirl with every movement of her pale fingers.
"If you mean by if we have had a life outside of these walls, yes."
"Right~? It's an interesting thought really."
"We are characters, or well now real people, stuck in a game that made us. What made us sentient? What made us not act like true NPCs programmed by the game developer? Is it because the game has merged with 'reality', or is there something else to all of this."
Her eyes narrowed, but it was not due to him suddenly bringing up the topic.
"What happened, Asura?" Her tone was much firmer, even more stern than usual.
He leaned closer to her, dropping his voice down to a whisper, "The system error was due to someone gaining control over the whole system momentarily."
Her eyes immediately widened, her hand gripping onto the glass tighter. "How could —"
"I'm not so old that my eyes have stopped working right, Irene. I can reassure you that that is exactly what I saw."
"Of course, now we do have a bigger question in our hands. Who did this?"
"So... you have any ideas."
A sigh escaped her lips as he leaned away from her, back to their usual distance. That grin of his felt like it was permanently etched onto his lips for the time being. It felt much less like that blood thirsty, malicious grin he had when he fought. It felt more genuine, almost child-like, which only set off every single nerve in her body.
'He's definitely going to play around with this.' Was the only thought she had in her head about his intentions.
His question did peak her interest even further, making her actually start to analyze the situation despite how little information they had about all of this.
"We know that there is someone whose authority is above the moderators. But is it only one person, or is there still people higher up in the hierarchy that we didn't know? But even then, they wouldn't be taking over control of the systems by brute force since they have the influence to..."
He concluded, "So it's either the players, or people like us, the NPCs."
"I'm much more inclined towards thinking that it could be the players. They do have enough reasons and motivations to actually do such things."
She drank finish the rest of her apple juice before she continued speaking, "But no matter who we think did it, it only gives us more questions than answers."
'What's their primary goal? Is it really just to figure out the secrets of the 'game'? Who is behind this? And most important of all... Why didn't the one responsible for overseeing the whole system stop this from happening?'
"I guess we don't have to think too hard about it for the time being, yeah?"
"But seriously, what did they offer you to make you this interested all of the sudden?"
"Well, take a guess~"
"Must be something related to fighting."
"Bingo~" His chuckled out loud, downing the rest of his beer in one go.
He stood up from his seat, looking around before he found where the table that was in the middle of the table was. He hardly cared about who was seated there and what was on the table, just putting his leather boots right on it.
He shouted on the top of his lungs, "Everyone, could I get your attention for a second?"
The tavern suddenly went completely quiet, as everyone's attention were directed towards him. He smirked, then shouting, "Drinks are on me tonight!"
At that announcement, the entire tavern goes into an uproar, getting the already rowdy crowd even more rowdy. If he had cared a little more about the poor people that ran the tavern then he would not have dared said any of these things.
He felt someone grabbing his ankle, then lifting it before slamming him onto the ground. He was forced to take a look at the patrons of the table he stepped on, only to see the one person that he could not avoid arguing.
"Paladin." His smirk grew wider at the sight of the long blonde-haired man.
"You demons really don't have any manners." Paladin felt his nerve twitched just at Asura's voice.
A confrontation was definitely expected.
Irena sighed as she watched the two men start to have an argument while fighting against each other. She shook her head, lowering herself to try to shrink more onto her seat so nobody else could notice her unless they tried to.
"You two childish men..."
Right as she opened her eyes after a blink, she noticed the system window suddenly appearing in front of her despite knowing that there were no players that could challenge her at this time.
"What is..." She trailed off, skimming through the text before taking a peek at Asura.
"How strange..."