Bab 2: The Revelation
After checking the frames for two whole days there was nothing new that Max had found about this mystery ARG. With every new episode of an anime release, there were new frames to be added but aside from that, the community had nothing to go on about. People were now doubting if this was really an ARG or some elaborate prank. Max was also starting to doubt himself. Yes, he wanted the money in order to live a more relaxed life and possibly push the day he had to start working, but if the whole internet couldn't solve this how come someone like him could? He was average in every sense of the word, so yeah, there was no hope. Still, it shouldn't hurt to check what others were doing and who knows maybe he might get a sudden flash of brilliance and get the prize money.
Max saw that the others tried to check the images itself in order to find codes or some puzzles but it was a dead end. Some people tried to contact the broadcasting company but they couldn't get an answer. Throughout this whole ordeal, there was something gnawing at Max's mind. He did not know what it was, but there was definitely something. Maybe he really could solve this ARG.
In the morning of the third day of his graduation, Max got up as usual. As soon as he finished his breakfast he holed up in his room again and decided to check the forum for more clues. He hoped that someone would finally find a clue and share it. Then again if it was himself that found the clue he definitely wouldn't. Maybe it was the same with this ARG. Maybe some people have already proceeded to the next stage but simply didn't inform the common masses. He hoped that wasn't the truth but the more he thought about it the more likely it seemed. Max tried to distract himself by looking at the forums. He was surprised to see that there was a message in his mailbox. He hadn't sent any messages to anyone and it was pretty rare to see someone message him privately since he mostly hung out at the clubs about light novel reviews.
Once he checked who it was from he was shocked. It was from FireSpark097. Spark was an old friend that Max hadn't heard from for almost 2 years now. The PM was titled "Did you check the ARG thread?" Since it was about ARG Max was curious about what this pm contained.
"Hey! How have u been doin since the last time we talked? Anyways smol talk aside did u see the thread about weird the weird pics that was spread around in all the anime? I know it might sound crazy but dont they look similar to our old RP characters from Autumnfall? I am at least pretty confident that one of them is Jaime. Sure, they don't look like the appearance pictures we used in the club but the character just behind the throne on the left side looks exactly like how I imagined Jaime in my head! I am also asking the others to make sure. Anyway, waiting for ur reply! Have a nice day :3"
Wait, what? Could it be possible? No way that true! But what if...
Max didn't waste any time after reading the pm and immediately check the thread to see the pictures again. This time when he started to look at it again he instantly noticed the guy standing in the throne. He had white hair and blue eyes with a military tag hanging on his neck just like the one Max was wearing right now. The moment he saw it, there was no question in Max's mind. He was definitely Linri. The character he spent 6 years of role-playing with. The character that can almost be called his second persona.
Once he thought about it Max couldn't help but feel a little nostalgic. He had poured at least 2 hours of his time every day for 6 whole years. He probably would still be RPing with him even now if not for Luxor being a douche bag and deleting the club in a fit of anger, just because people didn't like him being tyrannical. Max could swear that he was the most egotistical person he had ever met be it online or IRL. After their work was deleted like that, the guys in the club tried to create another RP club and continue there but no one had the motivation any more so one of the most prominent RP clubs in Animeworld was disbanded just like that. That was 2 years ago and Max hadn't played any kind of role-playing game ever since. It just didn't feel right. Maybe it was because he felt too much connection with Linri or maybe it was because of his memories but he thought Linri looked at him furiously in the picture. Well, that was most likely because of his unsolved issues with the club, but this was good news. He had a leg up on others in this ARG.
The moment his nostalgia was over Max started to pay attention to other characters in the picture. Now that he knew their origin he could see the resemblance between them and the ones his friends played. So Max didn't take long to answer Spark's message. There were tons of questions in his mind and his 'old' friends probably had the answers to them.
're: Did you check the ARG thread?
Yeah I've been doin fine thx for askin. The answer to ur question is yes. I can confirm that the guy sitting on the throne is my character Linri and I can probably name all the other characters. They are definitely from the times we used to RP in Autumnfall High school Club. So did u hear anything from others like Ai or Gendor? From what I can see their characters were there too. I think that this is some kind of ARG so do u think someone from the club created this game? Could it be that someone is making an anime out of our club? Well that would be cool but I can see that it failing hard so what's with the pictures and in such a grand scale at that. If u find something I will be waiting for ur reply. Even better if ur online handle is the same, we can create a vanilla talk group and discuss whats goin on there.'
Now that he had replied to Spark another important question was on Max's mind. Should he share this info with the others in the thread? At first look it seemed like the right move after all with the scale of this ARG there was no way that he could find all the clues but he was ahead of the others by a large margin since he had a lead and he also said it before if Max had a clue that other's didn't he would not have shared it with others. This way even if he could not solve the ARG at least others could not either and he could just take his sweet time solving it. Well, there were also the others who had their characters in the picture, so he did not rule out cooperating with them, but that was his limit. Aside from his old friends he was not going to share this with others.
When he was considering what to do now Max noticed there were over 500+ replies in the Zelka09's thread for discussion. The immediate thought he had was some idiot disclosed the connection between this game, Autumnfall and the pictures.
Max started to read through the thread and found out that the reason for the booming of the thread was a cryptic audio file. The poster of the audio file's account was already deleted and the title of the file itself was gibberish so Max couldn't understand the reason why people made such a big deal of it. The file itself may very well be someone playing a trick on them.
Of course, this didn't stop Max from opening the audio file. The voice inside was disturbing to listen to and it was some gibberish language that Max couldn't understand. Slowly Max started to get dizzy and finally fainted.
Hadiah
-- Hadiah diterima Status Power Mingguan
-- Peringkat
Power 
-- Power
stone