World Keeper

The four of us spent what felt like most of a day out on the water, relaxing in the boat with our lines cast. Every now and then, one of us would order a drink, which appeared next to us, or our bobber would… well, bob. There were a few moments of excitement when we felt a tug on the line, and we managed to catch a small bucket of fish, which Terra was more than happy to offer to cook for us.

To my surprise, the fish that we caught seemed fairly normal. No tentacle monsters, human-faced fish, or giant sharks that wanted to devour our boat. In fact, I was able to recognize a few of them from my original world.

After we all enjoyed a grilled fish dinner, and were on our way back, Ryone glanced over towards Terra. “That was still a type of game, wasn’t it?” She asked curiously, to which Terra nodded her head. “Then, shouldn’t there have been some way for us to earn points while doing that?”

Terra chuckled, shaking her head slightly. “Remember that points aren’t typically awarded for multiplayer experiences, because the competition can easily be skewed by a bad faith participant. If you were to fish alone, you could earn points based on the difficulty of your catch. Still, fishing doesn’t give very many points for the time that it takes.”

Ryone pursed her lips, but seemed to accept that answer. As we arrived back in the city of the meeting space, we were able to see just how much the territory had grown. There were several buildings that I didn’t recognize mixed in with the familiar features.

Walking closer, the four of us soon saw Udona, who seemed to be sitting on a bench alone, focused on something in the distance with a smile on her face. “I wasn’t expecting to see you here without Aznod.” I said with widened eyes, snapping her to attention and getting her to look over.

“Hmm? Oh! He went to play at the restaurant. He managed to create a game with the staff there, where he would try a dish that they made, and then attempt to recreate it himself. He seemed to be having fun, so I didn’t want to bother him.” She said with a brilliant smile on her face.

“What are you doing out here, then?” Irena asked curiously, stepping closer as if that would let her see what Udona was looking at.

“I’m watching Lifre’s live stream.” Udona said with a giggle, catching the four of us by surprise.

“She’s doing a what now?” The words were out of my mouth before I even fully registered what Udona had said. “You can even do that here?”

“Yeah, it’s actually pretty fun. There are a lot of streamers back home, but they can’t do stuff like this because of… well, the laws of physics and whatnot. Just focus on the idea, and a list should pull up. Her stream name is MinaSan, by the way.”

Of course it is… I let out a sigh, knowing full well what that meant in my old world. Terra even let out a snicker, catching the reference herself.

“Everyone, huh? Did you tell her about that?” She asked playfully, and Udona shrugged.

“Maybe? It might have been in some shows that we watched together in the past. I am not really sure. Either way, she looks like she’s having fun.”

As Udona said that, I found the option to open her stream, seeing that it currently had sixty-three viewers. At the top, right corner of her screen was a red number, which caused me to perk my brow. “Eighteen? What’s that mean?”

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“That’s how many ‘bad ends’ she’s had. She set it up so that chat could pay for anything to happen. She’s been killed by monsters ten times, natural disasters three times, magical traps three times, and giant meteors twice. Honestly, I think people like watching her comedically try to fight against an obviously unfair situation as much as seeing her winning.”

My eye twitched at that, but I let out a sigh. “As long as she’s having fun. Has there been anything interesting?”

Udona tilted her head, thinking. “She’s been live for about three hours now. But she did a montage of her trekking through a forest to find a city. I think that it’s probably been a few days in there for her, since it showed her camping out. That city was destroyed by a surprise volcano, though… the chat seems to have mellowed out by now.’

“From what I can tell, they’re trying to drive her into some chaotic war that they’re engineering, buying little options here and there to create a narrative. I think that one of them is using this as a test to see just how much freedom the chat has in altering her experience.”

I couldn’t help but blink again when I heard that. Lifre is actually subjecting herself to… okay, it’s Lifre, I really should not be surprised at this point.

“Right… let me know when she’s done streaming, then.” I said, getting ready to go find another activity to do with the girls.

“Oh, she said that she plans to keep going until the last day of the meeting.” Udona spoke up, causing me to nearly stumble in surprise.

Again, I reminded myself. This is Lifre that we are talking about.

Lena bit her finger as she looked at the asset list provided to her. She had made it through ten levels, but the difficulty was only getting higher and higher. Every time, she created a defense protocol with the mindset of ‘what would I do to get past this?’, and then trying to correct any exploits that she found.

However, the enemies created by the system seemed to be more and more convoluted. After the tenth level, Lena began to see monsters with memetic properties, perhaps even void entities. She didn’t know how to create a defense protocol around the concept that half of the defenses would suddenly turn against the Keeper.

What was worse was the asset list, which seemed to be woefully underprepared for what she was tasked with defending against. Granted, there were advanced weapons and barriers, and entire armies that she could deploy. But… an army wasn’t going to stop a planet-eating fish. If anything, the more assets she had at her disposal, the more concerned she was about the enemy that she would be facing.

Lena wasn’t sure if this was the intended difficulty level of the game, or if this was the system targeting her because of her attempt to break the rules earlier. When that thought crossed her mind, however, she shook her head. The system only worked as long as it was unbiased. This was… simply a case of her skills not being a good fit for the game.

With a resigned sigh, she left the game. She wasn’t surprised to see that Lifre wasn’t there, giving a small smile and inwardly promising to make it up to her later. For the time being, she decided to try out the other game, Capture the Keeper. She was far more confident in her abilities when it came to infiltration and deception.

Closing her eyes, she let the game begin, taking a moment to steady her breathing, before her eyes opened. She was standing on a street corner in what appeared to be a normal city, foot traffic all around her. In the back of her mind, she felt something akin to a compass pointing her into the distance.

Lena walked calmly, easily blending in with the crowd around her. Perhaps because it was to help with the immersion, but the rest of the civilians were kitsune, just like her. Given her appearance, she was able to walk through the streets with a smile, without attracting any unwanted attention.

The closer she came to the target zone, the more the crowds began to thin, and she had to start taking detours in order to not provoke suspicion. Eventually, she noticed the target moving, and found a high building, from which she could observe more of the area.

Avoiding the onlookers, she made her way up the stairs and to a window, narrowing her eyes to follow the mental compass. In the distance, she saw an unassuming, human man with black hair walking through a secure compound. Lena’s eyes went wide, turning away from the window. “Okay, I know you did this on purpose this time!” She shouted towards the sky, stomping a foot on the ground. “I can overlook the defense game being unreasonably hard, I might just not be that good with defense planning.”

“But, in the offensive game, where it is implied that you are training operatives to eliminate a hostile Keeper, why is it him?” She nearly hissed the last few words, pointing towards the window, where she had seen Dale walking through the nearby compound. “Are you trying to test me, and see if I am going to betray my Keeper or something?”

There was no answer to her question, only silence. “I know that you’re watching me. If this was a standard program, following the obvious logic of the game, the Keeper should have been a kitsune. Making the target Keeper my Keeper is a clear manipulation of the game rules.”

A small chuckle emerged from the air around Lena, and the entity that she had met before appeared. Once again, it assumed the face of Terra, an amused smile on its lips. “This isn’t any form of a test. I was just curious to see what you would do. Would you steel your heart and carry out the mission, or would you back out because of the desire to protect your Keeper?”

“That’s not a very unbiased method for you to use.” Lena said, gritting her teeth. However, the entity kept that same smile.

“Is it not? You might think that you are receiving a unique treatment, but that isn’t so. Many people get a similar result. The more interesting their skills and personality, the more likely they are to experience this. In fact… there was another from your world that had the same experience, a year ago.” The entity recalled. “I believe it was the woman that you call ‘senior’?”

Lena’s eyes widened at the idea that Tsubaki would be put through this same farce. “What did she do…?”

The entity couldn’t help but chuckle at the memory. “She snuck into the compound, arrived before the Keeper, and explained that she had been tasked with capturing him. And then, she knelt down and offered him her head. After she failed the level, she never tried to enter the game again.”

Lena’s fists clenched at that. She had to admit, that did sound like Tsubaki. “Listen, can you just make the game normal again? Infiltration is my thing. I don’t want my biggest talent to be tainted in this meeting because the system was forcing me to use it to capture my own Keeper. Besides… wouldn’t that go against your own rules? If this experience is actively diminishing the enjoyment of the players, you’re violating your own code.”

The entity thought it over for a moment, before nodding. “Very well. Honestly, most people just leave the game and re-enter it, as a means of ‘refreshing’ the game, and find that the Keeper has gone back to normal. If it wasn’t for our earlier encounter, I wouldn’t have even answered your call.” With that, the entity vanished, and Lena let out a sigh of relief. She turned around, facing the window, only to see a red dot aimed at her through it. Her eye twitched, before she let out a sigh, understanding the situation.

“...Okay, yeah, I was kind of loud back there.” She said, before finding herself back at the game’s starting menu.