16 February 2024
Granzam, 55th Floor
Even as I saw the light shining through the stairs leading up to the roof, the feeling of being outside didn't seem to register in my eyes.
Giant metallic walls seem to fill my vision, as I looked around, and tried to trace my sight up at the top of these towering chunks of steel, which easily surpassed the building in height, so much so that it would take another copy of this building stacked on top of it to barely look over the walls if one stood on top of it.
Behind me, more metallic walls, albeit shorter than the first ones, stood at seemingly random angles, but were positioned to form paths made solely by the walls themselves. Due to that, small gaps between the walls can be found, possibly wide enough for a player without any armour equipped to slide through with relative effort.
The walls I was apparently staring at were the ones that bordered the city of Granzam; in other words, I was now at the edge of the city, although I couldn't tell where exactly I was in this maze-like safe zone.
"I'm glad you read my message." A voice reached my right ear clearly.
I turned at the only other player at the roof of the building, standing by the simple metallic edge that separated him from a 3-storey drop down to the hard, rigid metal below. He was wearing his red and white guild uniform, exactly the same as I had seen him a few days ago.
"Kyozo of the KoB, right?" I strolled towards him."To think you can send me a message. I mean, my username's hard to spell without any context."
Kyozo simply nodded. "Asuna told me. I needed to directly message you for a personal reason."
I sighed a little. It was honestly surprising for a player whom I thought never knew how my username was spelt to be able to send messages to me, but that had cleared my confusion up on that matter.
"Right, I don't want to take long over here, I need to be back in my guild base soon." Kyozo went on. "I'm sure you're interested in what I wrote in my message, don't you?"
It was my turn to nod. "Information about the source of the PKs. I can't ignore that."
Kyozo was the last player I expected to know anything about the PK surge, but he seemed confident in claiming to know something about it. The player whom I once thought was quite reserved turned to face me directly.
"Have you heard of the canyon maze on the 43rd Floor?" He started off with a question.
Ah. My eyes narrowed at him. The moment he mentioned that field dungeon was when I had wanted to anticipate whatever he was going to say next, as I knew all too well about the 43rd Floor to expect anything great from it.
Whenever a Floor was cleared by the Assault Team, I would always make it a point to visit all the areas that the next Floor had to offer, since the map in my system menu never showed the details of an area I had explored before unless I had gone there myself. The map would automatically lay all its details out, including the locations of the field bosses whenever I discovered them.
Whatever I never discovered would still come up blank on the map. Since then, I made it a habit to explore every area on a Floor, even if it would take tons of HP potions for me to encounter them as a solo player (these days I would explore Floors while Drifting with my client parties).
Back then, it would take at least a fortnight of non-stop exploring to completely cover a whole Floor, especially for those below the 30th Floor or so, due to their gargantuan area sizes. After that, the Floors gradually became smaller, and would now take just about under a week to cover, on average.
While I had completely covered all the Floors so far (except for the recently opened 55th Floor), the only Floor that I hadn't truly explored in its complete form was the 43rd Floor, which had a field dungeon full of canyons located somewhere in the middle. It wasn't the enemy monsters that made this area so hard to travel around, but rather that it was designed so that the canyon walls formed paths that intersected with each other at times.
Essentially, it was a maze with giant walls. There were discussions about the maze at that time, with the most popular one suggesting that there was something special waiting at the center of the maze. I hadn't heard of anything that proved that theory, though, but it was soon widely accepted as the objective of the maze.
Even with the map recording the paths as I tried to find my way to the center, I soon had gotten lost, before eventually tracing back my path out of the literal labyrinth. To this day, the map of that canyon maze was still incomplete in my system menu.
I wasn't the only player who had this problem. Many other players had their tries in navigating the maze, but gave up like I did. The strangest part about the maze was that it had entrances in any direction possible. Despite that, the futile attempts kept piling up.
"I'm not a fan of going for another attempt at navigating that abomination." I replied, as I put my hand on my head in slight frustration.
Kyozo gestured me to the metal barrier, which I didn't mind heeding, as I went and rested my arms beside him. The scenery I was seeing at the height of 3 stories consisted simply of metallic walls, as I turned at Kyozo, who only had a hand resting on the barrier. He started to speak in the softest tone he could manage, probably hoping that it would be soft enough for me to hear clearly.
".....I know what's at the center of that maze."
I stood staring at him in utter silence. There was a reason why I gave up on trying to navigate the maze at the time, and that was because no one else did. Even the info brokers were stuck at the issue, and had learned nothing new on the maze, let alone having been to the center of the maze even once.
"Have you been there before?" I asked in a tone as soft as he had whispered.
"No," Kyozo replied. "But I had a......friend.....who claimed to have gone there."
At that moment, I felt the urge to turn around and walk off. The credibility of whatever information Kyozo was going to give me seemed to be dangerously dropping. I wasn't sure if I could trust an indirect account about an area that I had never been before.
Still, he was the only player who had wanted--albeit suddenly--to contact me about the source of the PKs just because I needed clues on it. I simply tilted my head slightly towards him, as he stared blankly at the giant walls.
"Your friend, huh?" I rested my head on my left hand in a laid-back manner. "I'm listening."
Kyozo nodded a little, and after taking a deep breath, continued with an explanation.
"At the center of the canyon maze lies a settlement. You know, buildings and stuff, just like the safe zones here. What's different about that place is that it isn't a safe zone. It's never safe there, from what I heard from my friend."
"So, the settlement isn't run by NPCs or anything?"
"No NPCs, no.....it's entirely run by orange players."
That was news to my ears. Players' cursors turn from green to orange when they attack other players, which put them in dangerous circumstances. Being banned from entering safe zones and having enemy monsters attacking the player on sight were a couple of the disadvantages an orange player has to live with until their orange cursor turns back to green after a few days.
"Orange players.....is your friend one too?"
"It's hard to say. Plus, it worries me that she's over there and I can't do anything about it. She never told me how to get to that settlement, either."
"To think that you know stuff that the info brokers don't."
"I'm not particularly proud of that, though."
On hearing him say that, I chuckled a little, before getting back on track in the conversation.
"Is there a name for that place?"
"My friend called that place........Katalysis. She described it as a safe haven for orange players, especially those who stayed orange often."
"So it's a settlement for PKers....."
"That's pretty much all I have on that place. Besides her, I've never known anyone who've been there. Katalysis's still quite a mystery, you know."
Kyozo then brought down his system menu, and a while later, an item transaction window appeared in front of me. Only one item was displayed on the window. A record crystal, used for recording either visual or audio input.
I accepted the item without a word, as the record crystal materialized on my right hand. After softly touching the crystal, an image displayed itself before me, showing two smiling faces together. One of them was Kyozo, and the other was a female player who has strikingly long red hair.
"That's my friend, Kira, who told me about Katalysis." Kyozo explained. "If you're planning to go there, find her for any help you can get. She should be the only player you can trust in that place."
"And.....please let me know if she's doing fine. As her close friend, I can't bear to see her alone in that danger."
The image vanished back into the record crystal, as if it was fading back into the crystal, where it was rightfully stored.
"Well, whatever information the info brokers don't know is what I call plenty, Kyozo. A miracle, even." I covered it with my hand, before pocketing it. "I'll try to find Kira, though without guarantee. However, it's weird that you didn't tell Heathcliff about this. I could definitely tell he knew nothing about it when I saw him the other day."
Heathcliff, being the Commander of the KoB, should have known the existence of Katalysis, supposedly. It would have been natural for Kyozo to have told him sooner than anyone else, since the KoB was committed to dealing with the PKers, alongside Floor-clearing responsibilities, which was their other main duty.
Kyozo stared down at the greyish ground 3 storeys below, as if not wanting to address the point I had brought up about the crucial information he had just given me.
"I would have told him eventually....."He sighed as he stood off the thick metal, his hand resting on it as he turned at me ever so slightly. "I just didn't want to tell him now. Not when we're busy with our new guild base. Besides, I fear that Heathcliff might jump to conclusions about Kira. KoB doesn't take orange players lightly. Not one bit."
The KoB member looked at his system menu, which he apparently hadn't deactivated. "It's about time. I should get back, or else Heathcliff would find out." He started to head for the stairs leading below.
Leaning off the metal barrier, I stared at his back without a word, before noticing him stopping a while later, turning back at me with a face full of worry. His eyes were--if I would imagine--practically pleading at me about his concern for a friend he probably treasured dearly.
"Please. You're my only chance at getting in contact with her without the KoB interfering."
"....."
I didn't know how to reply to that voice with a tone that had suddenly turned desperate. It was already going to be hard trying to find Katalysis. Finding a player who was last seen there would prove to be abysmally difficult as well.
"Any message you want me to pass on to her?" I finally responded with an offer. I didn't want to sound like I wouldn't bother to find Kira if I could.
Kyozo pondered about it, before giving me a quick answer. "Tell her to come back. She can't bear that burden all by herself."
With that, he turned back to the stairs. I could hear his footsteps clanging rather noisily with the metallic ground as he reached the ground storey. I didn't even need to look over the metal barrier to know that he was already out of the building.
Out of the corner of my eye, a black-coloured arm hooked over the metal barrier. The player whose arm it had belonged to followed suit, as the black-clad trench coat landed onto the roof. Sounds which was likened to the clopping of horses rang clearly on the entirely metallic platform. His black boots must have been quite hard to have produced such noise.
"Quite the modest fellow, wasn't he?" Krieg, Sky Company Leader of Horizon's Edge, touched his cap in habit, ever discreet in his way of greeting.
I held up a low hand to return back the greeting--and the discretion. "Seems so. By the way, you owe me for letting you on a chance to level up your Climbing skill."
"We'll see about that, my friend." Krieg chuckled a little. "If it did get raised a level, you next weapon enhancement attempt is certainly on me."
Before I had gone to see Kyozo, I had invited Krieg to eavesdrop on the conversation by hanging off the roof that whole time. I also told him that hanging off on the cliff could probably earn EXP for his Climbing skill, which he had been wanting to level up in order to make his scouting expeditions more seamless than ever (Apparently Sky Company has been starting to do more than just their main duty of inter-guild negotiations).
Even though Sky Company had done all their best in investigating the PK surge, they weren't making leaps and bounds with their progression. The info brokers they went to either had no relevant information to sell off, or had the same kind of information each, so often so that Krieg soon regretted wasting col on what each of them had to say about 'that goddamn canyon on the 43rd Floor'.
Apparently, that was all Sky Company knew about the source of the PK surge.
"In any case," Krieg got to business. "That information about the PK surge had more juice than I had originally thought."
"Surprised me, too." I strolled over to him for a bit. "I believe this should be about enough for you to investigate further. The reliability is questionable, of course, but worth digging into."
"Certainly," Krieg touched his cap again. "This will definitely be brought up in tomorrow's guild meeting. I trust that you're won't be late again for that, won't you?"
"Your reminder certainly won't make me late for this one." I gave a slightly mischievous smirk as I pulled the hood of my coat over my head. Krieg knew all too well how my irregular Drifting routine got me late to guild meetings, but there's no reason not to be late for the next--and the most important--guild meeting of all.
"About that fellow.....and his request...." Krieg pointed out. "I believe we should keep that confidential, just between the 2 of us."
"Goes without saying," I replied, trying to speak with a slightly quieter tone. "He risked himself to leak stuff his own guild should have been informed of first. I'm kinda worried for him, actually."
"Which is why I'll settle his request personally. Don't leak this out to anyone. Finding someone who might be an orange player over there might backfire, but even if she proves to be as helpful as Kyozo claimed, I should do homework on her by myself before I can share it with the others."
Krieg touched his cap with a light bow, which was one of his few ways of showing his approval.
"A wise decision. As such, I won't be poking my nose into this matter. My current investigations have already got my hands full, anyway. I'll be seeing you tomorrow, then."
He then headed to the metal barrier and vaulted over it like no big deal, into the 3 storey drop. A while later, I could hear faint clopping footsteps coming from below.
After making sure that my hood was on, I headed for the stairs leading below, with both my hands firmly in my coat pockets. In one of them, my hand held the record crystal tightly, as if determined to never let anyone know that it existed.
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