Unpredictable Path

Art's hands were tied by a glowing red thread; it had the same width as a piece of hair but was as long as the flag. It gave off heat when Art tried to break it.

"Come on now, just follow me."

"I mean, I already am..."

Marigold and Arch led the way as Art was behind them; they saw some monsters here and there but were incinerated by Marigold's skill.

"Do you not run out of mana?" Art asks as he follows behind her.

"Of course I do; it's just that I have reached the highest flame affinity to the point that the flames around me give me mana." Marigold desperately tries to hide her prideful face.

"I assume you have reached [Flame Manipulation]?"

"Yep! I'm a genius, aren't I?"

While Art and Marigold were talking, Marigold summoned a flying fire butterfly, which flew around them.

"I can control them too!"

The fire butterfly flew onto her fingertips; she crushed the butterfly, which turned into embers.

"How did you obtain manipulation of elements?"

"I'm simply great!"

They reached the door through which Marigold and Arch entered and climbed through a ladder that led them out of the labs.

Outside of the palace, officials of the kingdom were handcuffed with magic as they walked in a line.

The citizens were celebrating as they looked beyond the broken walls to see people cheering the Order of Truth's troops.

Marigold waves at the crowd as she smiles.

"Look how happy the people are; most of them were probably tired of the king's actions."

Arch nods in agreement, but Art has another thought in mind as he watches the crowd.

'The storyline is progressing too fast; it should have been 23 days more before the invasion.'

'Was I the cause? ' Art thought to himself as he saw the massive wall broken down.

The story was not meant to progress this quickly; there was a dramatic change in time.

"Ramiel's Gift."

The book pops into his hands. Marigold notices the book and feels suspicious.

"What're you trying to do...?"

"I'm just trying to read."

"There's nothing, though..."

Art with his hands tied turns to the next page; it flipped through without any problems.

After the Order of Truth successfully invaded the Kingdom of Eclipse, they destroyed the dungeon below without giving it a chance to regenerate, permanently breaking the dungeon so everything could return to normal.

'Something definitely changed."

Art reads the situation that was meant to happen in the book until it reached the end of the page. which he could not access.

Art dropped the book on the ground as Marigold questioned his actions. They reached an outpost nearby where Art was interrogated. Art sat on a chair as Marigold's thread tied itself around him and the chair, making him unable to move away from it.

"Are you a spy?"

"No."

"Are you someone from another kingdom?"

"If you define a kingdom as a place that houses civilization, then yes."

"Are you related to the order?"

"No."

"Do you know what was happening to the Kingdom of Eclipse?"

"Yes."

As Marigold calmly questioned Art, Arch went to him, patted him on the shoulder, and stared into his eyes.

"Let me hold that book."

"Okay?"

Art summoned the book from his hand, and Arch took it and held it. Marigold got bored and started eating snacks while Art was still tied to the chair.

Arch sighs to himself; he is tired and too much has happened just a few days after getting teleported in the game. Things were not going well.

Art murmurs to himself about having a peaceful and quiet life.

Arch finished the inspection and went to Marigold as she continued eating more snacks. Startled by him appearing behind her, she choked on her snacks and coughed.

"So what are the results?"

"Nothing special; its name is [The Codex], but aside from that, there are no special properties like ancient magic, primordial magic, forbidden magic, or demonic magic."

"So we just wasted our time."

"The only property that caught my eye is the [Indestructible], quite rare and odd for a normal book."

"Should I report this to Yuki?"

"Best to do that."

Marigold excitedly leaves the post, and Art and Arch remain. Arch looks at Art in pity, so he goes to sit next to him as he holds the book in his hand.

"You don't seem like a bad person, so why were you involved?"

"Erm.."

Art knew about the experiment, but it would be too suspicious for a person to know about it; it was also a quest from the system, so he can't really say that. Art is trying to think of an excuse that would allow Arch to not continue asking.

"A prophecy...?"

"Come on now, I have a skill that detects lies."

Arch pinched the red, glowing thread that wraps Art, snapping the thread and losing its glow as it drops to the floor.

"I'm not one to judge someone by their actions; you will have to justify yourself in the face of one of the truthseekers."

Arch gently placed the book on the ground near Art.

"I don't know what this book is, but I'm quite interested in it; judging by how you use it, it seems like you can see what is inside the book."

Art did not speak, as both of them looked eye to eye.

"I am right, aren't I?"

Art did not answer.

"That's fine; I won't ask any further."

Arch got up and was about to leave the post.

"I trust you don't leave this area until further notice."

Arch left the post, with only Art remaining.

Art stood up and walked around the tent post in circles without anything to do; he just kept walking around until someone arrived.

It had been 5 minutes and no one was coming. He considered escaping out of the area, but that would cause too much trouble for him in the future.

Art wanted to obtain their trust; he had to wait until someone arrived; he needed connections.

Art wanted to establish mutual trust with the Order of Truth for future assistance from them, as they are one of the strongest factions.

"When are they going to be here?" Art says as he looks at the cold, hard metal floor. Bored and tired, he lies down on the floor.

He notices pieces of paper and an ink pen with a quill underneath the chair. Bored and with nothing left to do, he takes them and uses them.

Art dipped the quill in the ink, and the ink itself was still quite wet and usable.

"If this world is truly a game, that means the concept of a backdoor system still remains."

Art wrote a command that was only accessible via the command script for the game, basically a cheat for the people who made the game.

-:Command_2(Type:3)((ALIAS:DEV))[CommandPanel:TRUE]_

"Will this work?"

Art finished writing and stared at the paper that was written with the command. A panel appeared in front of him, but instead of being blue, it was black.

[Unauthorized access to the system has been detected, deleting the anomaly.]

The contents of the paper turned and morphed into an incomprehensible mess; it was as if a person had pasted every color and created a color that didn't exist. When Art sees the paper, he gets a severe headache and hallucination effect; he loses his balance and senses whenever he even sees a speck of the paper. In a daze, he quickly looked in the opposite direction, in which the effects of the paper were significantly reduced, but he could still feel its eerie presence.

"That was definitely risky as hell."

Art avoided looking at the paper, but he was still curious about one thing.

'What would happen if I were to say the command...? '

Saying the command directly would give the authorized person cheat-like controls over the game, but when Art witnessed what happened with the paper, he dared not do it.

"Yeah... nevermind."

Art continued to wait while avoiding looking at the paper. He could hear a soft, cheerful humming; it was getting closer to Art.

"So, she's going to be the second truthseeker I meet."

The post's room began to become chilly, and Art's sweat was removed from his pores. A snowflake lands on his head as the room starts to freeze.

"[Ice Manipulation]—there's only one person with that skill in the Order of Truth."

Clusters of ice shards form around Art, and a throne appears before him, made and carved of ice with intricate details, with the middle of the back of the throne showing the symbol of the Order of Truth, a balance scale with an eye in the middle.

"Just as the data given, you really are the same!" A silhouette appears behind the throne and sits on it; a woman in a dress while wearing a white sun hat crosses her legs and stares down at Art.

"I'm pretty sure you know me, correct?"

"You're Yuki Snowcrest, correct?"

"That's good, I don't have to do the introductions."

As Yuki sits on her ice throne, she notices the disturbing paper on the ground behind Art and points it out.

"What is that?"

"Honestly, I don't know."

Yuki lifted her hand and opened her palm; a gust of cold air surrounded the paper and flew towards her hand. Immediately she felt uncomfortable and was feeling the effects Art had experienced. Unsure of what to do, she threw the paper into the air.

Yuki clenched her hand as the paper was still in mid-air. In an instant, a thick layer of ice contained the paper, which fell and damaged the ground with its weight.

Yuki had a relief expression as a block of ice sealed the paper.

"Phew, another anomaly has been contained."

The block of ice rolled towards Yuki, and she placed the tip of her fingers on the block of ice.

"Now then, I'd like to say a few words with you."

Art felt nervous and anxious; he felt a cold shiver go through his body. Yuki could feed Art's tension and laugh it off.

"No need to be nervous; it's not like I'll kill you or anything."

She offered for Art to stand as she handed her hand to him with a friendly demeanor.

Art knew, however, that she was not such a careless person.

"Ah... yes."

An ice shard appears behind Art, which has turned into a chair.

"Please sit; I want to know more about you."

Art looks behind him to see the chair, and although Yuki was offering him to sit, Art knew it was a trap.

In the game, her personality when treating suspicious people is to let their guard down and capture them; the chair trap is one of them.

"No thanks," Art hesitantly answered.

Art summoned [Ramiel's Gift] and threw it on the chair. The moment it landed on the chair, it became bound with frozen ice, which made the book stuck in place with no escape. Art worriedly faced Yuki while pretending to act natural.

"I already know," Art told her as he was screaming internally in a panic.

The book vanished from the chair, and the ice that bound the book retracted back into the ice chair.

Yuki raised her left hand and clenched her fist again. The chair made of ice shattered into pieces and merged with the surrounding ice.

"It seems you know something about me."

Yuki rose up from her throne and walked slowly to Art, who grabbed his chin as he was standing.

"I think we will meet often after this."

Yuki let go of Art's chin and sat back again on her throne. The ice around them pulled itself out of the ground and flew towards Yuki's right hand, which turned into a spear made of ice.

"Promise me you'll answer honestly, 'kay?" Yuki smiled again as she rested her arms on the throne. Art, with no other choice, nodded in agreement.

"Good, first answer this question: What is your class? Your element affinity? Are you involved with any underground organization? And do you know something about the Kingdom of Eclipse's experiments?"

"Healer. Creation, no, yes." Art answered straightforwardly, no sugarcoating nor any long words.

"What do you know about the experiment?"

"an extremely powerful catalyst made by the blood of humans."

Yuki's spear made of ice shattered in her hand, and the temperature around her started to become colder as cold gusts of wind started to violently flow around them. Yuki's face was still smiling, but Art could see she was suppressing her anger.

"But don't worry! The catalyst has been destroyed by me and it should no longer be possible to fully finish it." Art tried his best to convince Yuki not to go on a rampage, but in the end Yuki calmed down a little but was still angry inside.

"That's good. What about the people?"

"Art became silent; he knew a lot of people died for the creation of the catalyst, and he did nothing to free those people that he had a chance to free, avoiding eye contact with her while feeling guilty inside.

"I see... it's fine." The temperature became a bit warmer, the gusts of cold air stopped, and she regained her calm.

"Anyway, back to the topic. Did you say you were a healer?"

"Yes." Art returned to facing her eye-to-eye.

"I was expecting you to be a mage of some sort, maybe like a curse mage."

"That would have been good, but as of now it's a matter of survivability."

"You said you had creation affinity, correct? Do you know how to use it?"

"Somewhat, yes."

"That's quite rare; there were only a few creation element wielders within the past 100 years, though all of them were useless since they could not even use it properly. Oh, I'm really sorry if I offended you."

"No, it's fine."

No one could actually fully use creation magic due to their inability to fully imagine something that didn't exist in the world. That means they didn't even know what it looked like; they were only able to use the exclusive skills given besides the main concept of the element, which was to 'create' things.

"Last question, how did you obtain the information about the experiments?"

"I'd rather not answer that."

"But you would break the promise."

"Sorry, I can't share sensitive information, like how you always spend an absurd amount of money on masks and hats."

"Alright, that's fine, I guess—wait, how did you know that information?"

"Erm..."