Ch35. Rogue System
Kurt woke up drenched in cold sweat, startled with Nikolai gently poking him.
"You looked like you were having one hell of a nightmare, my friend."
"I was." Kurt retorted, panting heavily. "I need a shower." He got up, staggering a bit, and almost bumped into Nikolai. "Sorry."
Nikolai looked at him, frowning, but shook his head, dismissing any thoughts.
"I just wanted you to know that your laboratory is ready, and we don't need to move the things from here to the basement. I bought some new stuff for you."
"What are you? My rich foster dad or something?" Kurt laughed faintly, but humorously.
"Friends must look out for each other, right?" He smiled, leaving the room.
But he stopped in his tracks, and turned around.
"Also, Kurt, we need to talk about Silence later, okay?"
"Sure."
But Kurt wasn't thinking straight. All he could think about was that oppressive sensation of being smashed to death by the unknown force in his dream.
"What the hell was that..."
He turned the cold water on, and let it wake his muscles up. Meanwhile, he opened his system window.
"What the fuck..."
He clenched his fists, flexed his muscles and jumped a few times, still feeling his strength and speed, and from underneath the running water noise, Kurt focused his senses to see if he could still feel and hear everything else outside.
Everything still worked perfectly.
Everything 'but' the system window.
It looked even more glitched than before.
"Why is it like this?" Kurt let out a tired, angry groan, finished showering, got dressed, and got ready for breakfast.
***
"What are you going to do now that you have a secret identity, Kurt?" Nikolai asked while shoving a muffin into his mouth. "I mean, you are kind of a ghost without your register, which means that, if you can't come up with a plan to make you and Silence two separate beings, the monitoring division will quickly find out that you are the one who attacked their chief, and they will sure come after you."
"The only problem, if I don't have a register, I can do pretty much nothing without your backup, man. And it's not just the monitoring division... It's a whole guild I'm fighting against..."
"Wait, you didn't tell me this, explain." Nikolai shoved another muffin into his mouth and waited.
"So, there's this purist guild that preaches about the wielders' supremacy, and they want to rule society above the government. They're called New Dawn, and were founded by my father, which probably means that they were named after the Dawn Guild. Anyway, they were sought as an urban legend, since regulars disappear from time to time, but as I found out, Leblanc, from the monitoring division is behind it, along with, probably, the whole division."
"Which explains the public opinion seeing the disappearances as a mysterious circumstance, and believing this New Dawn to be an urban legend..."
"Precisely."
Nikolai laughed.
"And here I was, thinking that turning the Black Market into a guild was a crazy idea."
Kurt choked on his coffee.
"You WHAT?"
Nikolai smiled mischievously, squinting his eyes and looking directly at Kurt.
"You heard me. I even got in touch with a friend of my father's who's closer to me than to him, in order to help me with it. I thought of meeting her in two or three months, BUT since you too need some tech expertise to work in your favor, I can arrange a meeting with her sooner than that. What do you think?"
"What do you have in mind?" Kurt even seemed to forget the system issue for a moment, amazed by Nikolai's wits.
"I was thinking that you should go back to school. That way, it'll be way easier to conceal the identity of Silence, if you start going out there saving people and stuff."
Kurt stopped with his coffee halfway to his mouth, his eyes a bit wide.
"Go... Back to school?" The thought made the food turn in Kurt's stomach, he breathed in deeply, and faced Nikolai. "I don't think I can do that..."
"Because of the Red Oracle and everything that happened with the Shadow Guild?"
Kurt nodded.
"Do you trust me?" Nikolai sipped his tea and raised his brow towards Kurt.
"With my life, man." Kurt sighed, smiling faintly.
"Then listen to what I told you yesterday. It will all be alright, and maybe you will even find some help. What do you have to lose?"
Kurt finished his coffee, got up, stretched himself and sighed again.
"I'll give it some thought, okay? I'll let you know."
"My system is more glitched than yesterday, so..."
At that moment, Kurt's eyes went wide with realization, and he looked at Nikolai with a strange fire in his eyes.
"What do I have to lose... Right? That's a bit depressing, but you're right after all. Talk to this friend of yours, I'll go back to school. I don't know if Evellyn will ever want to talk to me anymore, but if there's anyone who might have an answer to why my system is acting up like that, it must be her."
Nikolai gave a soft, mischievous smile.
"That's my brother!"
***
After they got back to headquarters, Kurt went to the basement, in order to check how his laboratory looked, and it looked amazing.
Clean tables, flasks, beakers, test tubes, and the pots were all unboxed over one of the tables.
"You never cease to impress me, Nikolai..." Kurt smiled. "I'll put it to good use once I get the system functioning properly again."
He went back upstairs and heard Nikolai talking to someone on the second floor.
'A special delivery, today?' Kurt frowned, walking towards the second floor.
He tried activating [SHADOW WALK], just in case, receiving immediately after his attempt, a glitched message from the system.
[*%& PLAYER %$# LOST *$&#" OVER THE SYSTEM]
[SKILL LEVELS DECREASED IN HALF]
Kurt gritted his teeth at the letters in front of him.
'You're going too far with whatever you're trying to state here, but let it be...' He huffed. 'Remember what I told you when I awakened? I meant it. I'll destroy you if you don't behave, even if I don't know how, I'll find a way."
[YOU %@$NOT OVER¨$%&# THE *******]
After seeing the glitched message, he felt a tingling pain in the back of his head, but gritted his teeth even harder, choosing to ignore it, and kept walking up the stairs.
He stopped suddenly, his eyes going wide with the memory.
"Wait... The nightmare... It's you!?"
Ch36. Everything Starts with an N
When Kurt arrived at the second floor, he noticed that it wasn't that Nikolai was getting a special delivery, but just that he was talking to a holographic projection on his holowatch.
"Oh, you're here, Kurt. Good, come here." Nikolai called him, and Kurt approached, raising his brows at the projection.
"it's nice, isn't it? It's a new piece of tech in which the government is working to better communications and streaming services. Nadia was kind enough to send me, but it took a while to arrive and I just found it on my desk."
"Nadia...? The girl you're speaking with?" Kurt looked confused.
"So he's the runaway guy who cut Laurent's hand out?" The woman in the projection asked.
She was stunning beautiful. Dark green eyes, red curly hair, freckles all over her face.
She reminded him of Evellyn, but more mature, and without the mysterious aura of when they were at her work study at the guild.
"Exactly. Kurt, meet Nadia Cross. Nadia, this is Kurt, and he's been one of my most valuable friends and assets in this last few weeks."
Nadia smiled at Kurt, who blushed a little bit, but smiled back and waved a silent hello towards her.
"So, since my silent brother here isn't going to talk, I'm going to spill the beans right away. We need to go over your place, because Kurt needs to retrieve his register and go back to school."
Nadia looked at Kurt, then at Nikolai, scratching her chin.
"Let me see if I got it right. You want me to 'retrieve' his register?"
Nikolai smiled brightly.
"Exactly. The monitoring division tortured him and erased his register, but he needs to go back to school for reasons I can't discuss with you without his permission."
"Hum, guys?" Kurt raised his hand. "I'm here, you don't have to talk about me like I'm not in the room." He smiled awkwardly.
But his heart beat faster every time he looked at Nadia.
Was it because she reminded him so much of Evellyn? He remembered the way her lips touched his and shook his head violently, feeling the slight pain from the incident at the stairs.
"Join the conversation then, my friend."
Kurt nodded and began to talk.
"Yes, I need to retrieve my register, because just creating one from scratch won't do."
Nadia looked at Kurt with a gleam of interest in her eyes.
"Hum... Another risky job that would probably get me in prison faster than I could say vodka?" Nikolai nodded, smiling. "Right, then. I'll send you the address and you meet me there after the Legends of Aluria finals end. I'm not missing this game for the world!"
Nikolai chuckled and muttered "Nerd" under his breath, but Nadia laughed and sent a few kisses before ending the call, making Kurt even more uncomfortable than before.
"What are you two, if I'm not intruding?" Kurt squinted his eyes towards Nikolai, but Nikolai just shook his head slightly.
"She's just a bit of a very extroverted friend. Did you like her?"
"She reminds me of Evellyn, the Red Oracle."
Nikolai hummed and looked at Kurt, a slight tone of mockery permeating his voice.
"So you like this Evellyn girl, yes?"
Kurt kept silent, but the slight red on his cheeks gave it away.
"Oh, so 'that' is why you were so reluctant on going back to school... You don't know how to look at her after what happened..."
Kurt just looked around, trying to find a specific and very interesting spot on the office walls when Nikolai passed by him and slapped his back.
"Tough up, my dear brother! You won't get the girl unless you take the shot. Besides, there are more pressing matters that we need to attend now, right?"
"Yeah. So," Kurt finally felt a bit more comfortable in the situation "what did she mean by the finals of Legends of Aluria?"
"Brother..." Nikolai stared at Kurt, deadly seriousness glowing darkly in his eyes. "You do know about the existence of the internet and online games, right? It's the twenty-third century after all."
Kurt glared at Nikolai and slightly punched him in the shoulder.
"Idiot."
They laughed, and then Kurt replied.
"Of course I know about the internet, but never played online games. I just know the basic concept, so... This Legends of Aluria is an online game?"
"Wait!" Nikolai frowned. "You know about the internet, but never played a game before, so how are you thinking of showing the video you recorded of Leblanc trying to kill the man from before?"
"I, hum, was thinking of letting you handle this?"
Nikolai chuckled.
"Oh boy, it seems like we have a whole world to show you. But... What was the word like, back in your previous life, then? Weren't there any live streams, content creators or anything of the sorts?"
Kurt sat down, tool a deep breath, and asked.
"Do you really want to know?"
Nikolai looked apprehensively at Kurt, but nodded, and Kurt started speaking.
***
After Kurt told everything he remembered, Nikolai was speechless. He never imagined that wielders could represent such a threat to society as he knew it.
When he heard Kurt say that he was killed by Quintus, supposedly a member of the Shadow Guild, but nothing more than a spy working for his father, owner of the Dawn Guild, he thought it was okay.
That it was nothing but an isolated problem.
"We can't let the same thing happen to this version of your life."
"I guess that's why I came back, right?"
"Yes, but how do we stop it?" Nikolai looked worried, for the first time after he told his father he was going to drop school and quit the family.
"First, we need to find a way to stop the New Dawn guild," Kurt looked determined "but for that to happen, I need my system functioning properly again, and I need Evellyn for that."
"So you need to go back to school and try talking to her. And to do so, we need Nadia."
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