Chapter 53

Common Ground

Stay-at-home Wifey’s sister… had worked for my mother’s company?

And my mother’s company had created the first installment of Safe Zone, the very game I had been transported into?

None of it was easy to process, but the first thing I asked Stay-at-home Wifeywas—

“You were transported into a game made by the company your sister worked for, and you didn’t find that strange?”

The thought that my mother might somehow be involved had briefly driven me out of my mind.

But this bastard had known from the beginning that he had been transported into a game connected to his own sister, yet he had remained completely carefree. I couldn’t believe it.

Stay-at-home Wifeyanswered with his usual innocently stupid expression.

“I told you, my sister’s company made the first installment. Safe Zone Online is probably around the fourteenth game in the series.”

I didn’t think the installment number was the important part here….

“Didn’t you ever think that you might have been transported here because your sister made the game?”

“She didn’t make it.”

What was he talking about now?

“You just said your sister worked for the Salvation Project.”

“She did work for the company, but I doubt she had anything to do with developing the game. My sister’s a doctor.”

“A doctor?”

“I told you I used to be sickly.”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“She became a doctor because she wanted to cure me. Then she suddenly said she was going to work for a game company, so I did think it was a little strange.”

First of all… this bastard was probably going to be no help whatsoever.

If his only reaction to his doctor sister joining a game company had been, That’s a little strange, then of course he wouldn’t have thought much about being transported into a game made by her company.

But did that mean my mother had hired a doctor at her game company?

“Why would a game company need a doctor?”

“She said she provided medical consultation or something. I don’t know the details.”

“……”

I didn’t know much about my mother’s company either, so it was only natural that Stay-at-home Wifeywouldn’t know the details of his sister’s workplace.

I suspected there had to be some connection from the moment Luna Moon appeared with my mother’s face….

I had once speculated that the game called Safe Zone might be an imitation of this world.

That someone had created a passage connecting to this world in the form of a game.

Maybe that company was my mother’s.

Perhaps that was actually a relief.

Luna Moon having my mother’s face didn’t necessarily mean that my mother and Luna Moon were the same person.

If Luna Moon merely wore the face of the person who had created the game, I might be able to shake off at least some of the discomfort.

One thing was certain.

Our transportation into this world had not been a coincidence.

At the very least, Stay-at-home Wifey and I had both been deeply connected to this game.

I didn’t know about the others.

After thinking for a moment, I said,

“Someone in my family worked for that company too.”

Telling Stay-at-home Wifey that my mother had founded the company seemed a little risky, so I only revealed that one of my family members had been connected to it.

“What? Seriously?”

Stay-at-home Wifey jumped in surprise. Only then did his expression finally turn serious.

“Then… could our being transported here have something to do with that company?”

Yes, you bastard. Now we’re finally on the same page.

“It would be a pretty big coincidence if there were no connection. We’ll have to investigate what kind of influence it had on our transportation.”

“How are you going to investigate?”

“We have Taejeong. And we can ask the other players whether they know anything about the Salvation Project.”

“Oh, right. You said you could use the chat system.”

I wondered how many of them knew about the Salvation Project.

Some players might know about the project, as I had, without realizing its connection to the game.

Most players were gaming addicts, so there were probably plenty who didn’t even know what companies their family members worked for.

There were probably thoughtless idiots like Stay-at-home Wifeytoo.

Perhaps some had already guessed why they had been transported here.

After all, the players with unlocked systems who were connected to me—the ones I had identified—made up only a tiny fraction of all the transported people.

“If all the players share some common connection… we might be able to discover why we were transported here. Maybe even a way to go back.”

I had mentioned the possibility of returning to motivate him, but Stay-at-home Wifey’s expression remained dark.

“A way… to go back?”

“Why? Is there a problem?”

“To be honest, I don’t really want to go back.”

“What?”

Come to think of it, when I’d said that dying might send him back, he had only thought about it for a moment before dropping the subject.

Had he not been worried that something might go wrong?

Had he been debating whether he wanted to return at all?

He had said that his original body was sickly, so it wasn’t entirely incomprehensible.

I had suffered from a lifelong dopamine deficiency in reality, so I didn’t miss the real world very much either.

And Taejeong had said he was happy to have been transported here because it meant he could clear the game.

That bastard T-Bastard… did seem to want to return, though.

“But didn’t you say your sister became a doctor just to cure you? You seemed to have a good relationship with your family. Wouldn’t going back be better than dying like a dog here?”

“I won’t live much longer even if I go back.”

Damn.

I hadn’t particularly wanted to hear such a heavy story.

“I’ll probably live longer if I survive the Second Apocalypse in this body.”

“I-is that so…?”

It occurred to me that the players transported here might share something else besides a connection to the Salvation Project.

Perhaps they were all people for whom life in this world was better than life in reality.

***

The first person to greet Plato when he returned home after six long years at the military academy was Anton, roaring at the top of his lungs.

“What in the world did you do during your graduation speech?”

Anton looked disheveled, as though he had rushed home from somewhere.

Rather than commenting on his father’s appearance, Plato replied indifferently,

“If you were so curious, you should have attended the graduation ceremony.”

Anton looked as though his blood pressure had shot through the roof.

“You brat! I already heard that from Lord Haydam!”

“You met Lord Haydam?”

Plato looked briefly surprised, then smiled faintly and nodded.

“If you had such an important appointment, it’s understandable that you couldn’t attend the ceremony.”

“Y-you little….”

Anton was rendered speechless by the sheer audacity of it.

Realizing that getting angry would only hurt himself, he took a deep breath and dropped heavily onto the living-room sofa.

“…I heard you received a standing ovation during your graduation speech.”

“Did Lord Haydam tell you?”

“Yes. He said I would regret missing it for the rest of my life.”

Plato looked immensely pleased that Haydam had praised him to his father.

“So you really did receive a standing ovation. I thought you didn’t get along with your classmates.”

“They cared about the zone just as much as I did.”

Anton’s brow furrowed slightly.

“You gave a speech… for the sake of the zone?”

“Yes.”

Anton had assumed that Plato’s graduation speech would be nothing more than nonsense about how they should all swear loyalty to Lord Haydam.

This answer was both unexpected and ominous.

The commander himself had attended to deliver a congratulatory address, yet Plato had apparently given a highly political speech.

Still, his son didn’t appear to have been shot.

More importantly, Haydam had probably ordered him to do it, so Anton assumed he had not incurred the commander’s displeasure.

“What did you say that earned you a standing ovation?”

“I said that from now on, the academy should admit every eleven-year-old child—not merely the children of a handful of officers or those who receive their sponsorship.”

“What?!”

The commander was not the only person who attended the graduation ceremony.

The officers who formed the ruling class of the zone attended as well.

And in front of those officers, Plato had criticized the privileges enjoyed by them and their children?

The son of the highest-ranking officer among them had done so?

H-Haydam, that little…!

Anton understood immediately that this had all been part of Haydam’s strategy.

Banning officers from participating in the subjugation campaign really had been a move to exclude them.

But Anton had never imagined that Haydam would use the children of the very class he sought to exclude to openly rebel against them.

The fact that the cadets had given Plato a standing ovation meant the other graduates agreed with him.

The officers had witnessed their own children and sponsored cadets supporting Plato’s position with their own eyes.

That would make it difficult for them to claim that this was merely a political attack orchestrated by Haydam.

“Wait. What about His Excellency? What did His Excellency say?”

“His Excellency naturally supported our proposal. He announced that after the subjugation campaign, academy admissions would no longer be based on recommendations but on an entrance examination. Every eleven-year-old child in the zone would be eligible to apply.”

“What? It was decided that easily?”

“He told anyone with an objection to raise it then and there, but no one did.”

“Ha…!”

Only now did Anton understand what Haydam had meant when he said Anton would regret missing the graduation ceremony for the rest of his life.

Had Anton been there, the matter would never have passed so easily.

Anton sponsored quite a few children himself.

For the officers, turning their own children into commissioned officers was important, but turning their sponsored children into officers was equally crucial.

Once a sponsored child became an officer, they naturally joined the sponsor’s faction.

That officer would then sponsor other orphans, raising a new generation of young officers who strengthened the faction further.

This was the system through which factions had maintained their power in the zone.

Haydam had shattered it with a single graduation speech.

And he had used Anton’s own son to do it.

He’s squeezing everything he can out of another man’s son in exchange for a single adjutant position…!

At this rate, both Anton and Plato would become targets of the other officers.

Of course, there would be nothing to worry about if Haydam protected them.

But would he truly take responsibility?

Anton still couldn’t forget what Darling Outsider had said.

—Is he really going to make Plato his adjutant? Did you confirm it properly? Haydam seems more than capable of using an adjutant position to scam someone.

As I thought… I can’t trust him. I need to prepare some safeguards.

The sole consolation was that the academy’s admission system had only changed from recommendations to examinations.

Haydam had not completely forbidden officers from sponsoring children or barred officers’ children from entering.

That meant they still had plenty of opportunities.

There was no guarantee that an examination would be free from corruption.

Winning over a few professors will be child’s play.

Then, as though mocking Anton’s very thoughts, the commander announced the person responsible for preparing the academy’s entrance examination a few days later.

“The first entrance examination will be written by Haydam.”