At The City 2

With my fingertips under my chin, I continued to ponder about what happened earlier.

"Just what the hell is that man talking about...?"

The more I thought about it, the more question began to appear inside my head, trying it's best to think of the best explanation about earlier.

It's making my head spin...

"Admin..."

Suddenly, a man from the vision overlapped his face inside my mind. It was from one of the memories I've seen a few days ago.

Currently, the [synchronizing memories] is still at 0.957. It was still nearing 1 percent at most even though it's been three years since it appeared.

I glanced down on the key from my hands for a moment, then tilted my head toward sky before sighing deeply.

Just who is he...? I inwardly thought inside my mind. Although the man looks really familiar, I still couldn't grasp the feeling of seeing his face up close.

For a moment, what the man said earlier echoed on my ears.

-𝑊ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑙 𝑖𝑠 𝑓𝑎𝑘𝑒. 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝑑𝑒𝑓𝑒𝑛𝑖𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑜𝑓 𝑡𝑟𝑢𝑡ℎ 𝑑𝑜𝑒𝑠𝑛'𝑡 𝑒𝑥𝑖𝑠𝑡 𝑖𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑠 𝑤𝑜𝑟𝑙𝑑. 𝐼𝑓 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑤𝑎𝑛𝑡 𝑡𝑜 𝑠𝑒𝑒 𝑤ℎ𝑎𝑡'𝑠 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑒𝑛𝑑, 𝑓𝑖𝑛𝑑 𝑖𝑡.... 𝑃𝑙𝑎𝑦𝑒𝑟.

Something is not right in this world.... Somehow this is what my institution was telling me.

....Just what does he mean by 'Player'?

"Since the orb was not with me, I should probably check this key out after we got back at the palace." I said to myself, while placing the key back to my pockets.

With a sigh, I went ahead towards one of the shops I saw earlier when I surveyed my surroundings.

It was a sword shop.

After I went inside, I saw many sets of swords like longsword, rapier, sabre, cutlass and also, small sword, placed on the shelf just beside the entrance for the customers to check out.

Though, my attention was not focused on either of those swords I mentioned. It was on a certain sword-katana that was hanging on the wall, that has symbolic runes written on it's blade.

"This...."

Using my fingertips, I stroked across the length of the blade. The moment I did that, I noticed that the runes engraved in the sword began to light up from where I stroked them.

With a wide smile on my face, I immediately took the sword from the wall and placed it in the counter.

But....

"That's not for sale." Was what the clerk said. Hearing this, I felt like a bombshell dropped, as my smile stiffened.

Gripping onto the sword's scabbard tightly, I forcefully kept the smile on my face. "What do you mean by 'not for sale'?"

"Like I said, it's not for sale. Didn't you see the sign placed at the bottom of the wall saying it's NOT FOR SALE?"

Slightly turning my head to where she was pointing at, my face stiffened more. After letting out a fake cough, I took out a small sack of gold coins from my pocket and placed it on the table.

The moment the customer beside me saw this, they all swallowed a mouth full of saliva seeing the lots of money placed on a table.

"Is the three gold coins earlier not enough? If so, I could add five-no ten if that's what you want."

"Che! Like I said, IT IS NOT FOR SALE!! A certain person already came in here earlier and bought this sword before you, so no!!"

"I see... Well then, I want to meet him. I'll tell him myself that I'll be taking this sword instead."

Slamming her hands onto the table hard, the clerk gave me a disgruntled look, saying, "I already told you, this sword is not for sa--!!?"

"Oh my, what do we have here?"

Before the clerk could even finish her sentence, a woman that was covered in veil over her head, while dressed in black gown came inside the shop, cutting her last sentence.

"Oh, miss Chelsea! I'm so glad you're here." The cleck let out a sigh of relief. "This boy over here has been causing trouble in the shop for a couple of minutes now, saying that he wanted to buy the sword your brother-- I mean, sir Mason bought earlier."

At that moment, my expression turned shock after hearing what the clerk said.... She was his brother?

Chuckling in a very polite manner, the woman in veil looked at me with a smile before turning her attention towards the clerk from earlier.

"Oh, no. Don't worry, he can take it... That was meant to be my brother's gift for him anyway."

Hearing this, the clerk grew veins from her forehead as she looked at me annoyingly. Then, turning her head aside, she placed the sword back on the table saying, "You heard what she said, take it."

I exhaled a lot of air after I heard her say that, then took the katana from the table, tying it on my waist.

I was about to thank the woman for what she did, but she just shook this off by saying "I'm just returning the favor" with a wink.

After that, Chelsea and I left the shop heading to where the others are, which is in the cafe I mentioned earlier.

While we were walking, Chelsea-the woman in veil from earlier looked at me with a smile, saying, "What Cossette said about you was really true. You really don't hold back when you have something in mind."

"Eh.... I see.... Anyways, how's she right now?" I asked, tilting my head to the side.

With a chuckle, she replied, "You really like getting straight to the point, aren't you?.... She's fine. She just left two days ago, the same time you reached this place." Slightly turning her head to face me, she continued. "You know, there hasn't been a day where she hadn't mentioned your name. Although she always repeat her story, Cossette seemed to be fond of you a lot.... And I thank you for that."

I was just about to open my mouth when suddenly, someone grabbed my shoulder, pulling me from the opposite direction as her.

When I looked to the two who was holding my arms tightly, my expression turned frown.

"What the hell are you two wearing?" I asked.

Finally letting go of my arms, William took the ridiculous-looking glasses off his face. "Oh, you mean this?"

Persia also wore a glasses, but unlike William, her glasses seemed to be normal compared to him.

When I saw this, I pointed this out to William. "You know, it would still be acceptable if you wore the same kind of glasses as your girlfriend."

He looked down after hearing what I said. Seeing this, I looked at him more annoyed, saying, "Stop with the puppy act. It would have been more better if you were a girl." Sighing, I continued. "Anyways, after we're done eating, we'll immediately go back at the palace."

""Yes!"" Both of them nodded at the same time.

***

After we reached the palace, we were immediately greeted by King Adam himself at the entrance. It only took a couple of minutes for him to finish, as we immediately went back on to our room after that.

"Haaa...." Stretching my arms up, I sat down to my bed and opened the drawer on my right, taking the orb out, and placing it to my lap.

"Now, then.... I hope this work." Taking the key out of my pocket, I inserted it to the keyhole in the middle of the orb. The moment I did that, the orb began to light up in blue, as it released an holographic light that appeared above the orb as a blue dot.

I tried letting go of it, but somehow, it felt like it glued itself on both of my hands. The moment I tried taking it out by force, it felt like the skin from my palm was being torn off.

The blue dot from the middle began gathering particles that came out from the orb, then shoot it directly on my forehead.

I wanted scream out in pain, but it seems like that no matter what I do, no words came out of my mouth as if it was being forced to stay inside my lungs for a reason.

After a few seconds, my body began to levitate without me knowing, as the beam from my forehead began to get stronger, almost like it was trying to drill inside my mind.

Then, not long after all the lights went inside my head, my body was suddenly thrown hard to the wall, as I fell on the ground.

I was about to past out when my door suddenly opened, revealing William, Ryan and Persia staring at me with shocked expression.

The two children immediately ran forward and tried to help me get up, but right where I was about to be put in my bed, Adam walked in with a serious expression.

I was just trying my best to keep myself awake when suddenly, my mind turned blank, making me lose all my consciousness.

The last thing I saw was Adam muttering something with a serious expression.

"Sorry... But, this is a problem only you can solve."