Chapter 55

The Love Zone Player

I folded my arms and slowly began speaking as I looked down.

“So….”

The white-haired child kneeling before me had both hands bound, and his eyes trembled nervously.

His lips twitched as though he wanted to protest that this was unfair, but he soon pressed them tightly shut.

I raised my head and asked Lucas and Bones,

“You brought him here because it looked suspicious that he was lying in the snow?”

“…Yes.”

To summarize the situation, this was what had happened.

Lucas and Bones had gone farther ahead to scout because they wanted to avoid me.

This area was too close to the zone for large monsters to approach, so they had found nothing unusual.

Then they spotted something small wriggling amid the snow.

When they approached close enough to see clearly, they found a child lying there, clutching his knee.

Ordinarily, the two of them would have hurried over to check his condition.

However, thanks to me, both of them had developed a phobia of children collapsed in the snow, so they remained extremely cautious and observed him closely.

As a result, they realized that the child was deliberately pretending to be injured.

When they looked around, there were no signs that he had been desperately pursued or had fallen. His footprints were neatly preserved.

Most suspiciously of all, when they stopped approaching and simply stared at him, the child began to panic.

And so the two of them had thoroughly tied up the tiny child and dragged him before me.

My early education really paid off.

Even though they had handled the situation perfectly, neither of them looked particularly comfortable.

They had brought him because of what they had learned, but their expressions suggested that they were still unsure whether this was truly the right thing to do.

However, there was no possibility that they had mistakenly restrained an innocent child.

Because I could see it clearly.

[Name: Long-Tailed Tit
Title: One Who Evaded a Formidable Enemy
Affiliated Zone: Love
*This player has not unlocked the system and cannot receive friend requests.]

So he’s a Love Zone player.

Had God sent him?

The title “One Who Evaded a Formidable Enemy” could be obtained by escaping from mid- or large-class monsters at least ten times in succession.

Considering he possessed such a title, he must have encountered plenty of monsters on the way here. It was impressive that he had managed to travel safely all the way from the Love Zone.

Now that about three months have passed since we were transported here, players with titles are starting to appear.

I didn’t know why a Love Zone player had come all the way to the Cola Zone and tried to lure away NPCs.

But it seemed his acting had failed because my adorable cadets had already undergone complete mental reconditioning.

I raised both hands and clapped a few times for Lucas and Bones.

“Good work.”

Lucas flinched, apparently still unused to me speaking down to him.

Bones, who had already learned my true nature during the previous training simulation, remained expressionless.

“But….”

Lucas glanced down uneasily at the child he had forced to kneel and spoke.

“No matter how I look at him, he seems like an ordinary child. Didn’t we go too far?”

“No. Refusing to approach carelessly was an excellent decision.”

I strode over to the Love Zone player and pulled up the hem of his trousers.

A knife was revealed, hidden inside the heel of his shoe.

“W-wait…!”

Lucas was greatly startled when the weapon appeared.

He stammered as he pulled the knife from the heel and examined it.

Sunlight reflected off the snow and flashed across the blade.

“It has been properly sharpened. It isn’t exactly unusual for children in our zone to carry weapons like this, but….”

Truthfully, at least in our zone, there was no reason to become suspicious merely because a child possessed a knife.

However, there was something unusual about this particular knife.

“It appears slightly different from the knives issued to child soldiers.”

It had a different design from the knives used in our zone.

Even in the game, the details of weapons differed depending on the zone.

Weapons created by different people under different conditions were bound to vary slightly.

“I suspect it came from another zone.”

“Another zone…? Are you saying this child came from somewhere else?”

“I’ve never seen his face at any of the charity parties, so he probably crossed over from another zone.”

A knife had been discovered on the child, and now there was even talk that he might be from another zone.

The team members began murmuring among themselves.

Unlike the newly commissioned officers, who had never encountered residents from other zones, Meursault had experienced similar situations several times before.

He calmly asked me,

“What will you do?”

“Well… we’ll temporarily suspend the search and interrogate him.”

“Interrogate him?”

Meursault frowned slightly and asked with evident disapproval,

“You aren’t planning to do it personally, are you, Lord Haydam?”

“Wouldn’t he feel more comfortable talking to someone his own age?”

The team members began exchanging glances.

…Why were they sharing such disrespectful looks when I had merely offered to speak with the child because I was also a child?

Meursault stared at me for a moment before muttering,

“You must have something you need to hear from him.”

This bastard Meursault had learned to understand me without explanation.

From the fact that I insisted on interrogating the child here instead of simply taking him back to the main camp, he seemed to have realized that there was something I personally needed.

Meursault spoke to me in a strangely coaxing tone.

“Very well, Lord Haydam. I will have a temporary tent erected.”

“Thanks.”

“However, you must not go too far. He is still a child.”

What?

“I’m… technically a child too.”

“Lord Haydam… do you possess a conscience?”

“You still consider him a child even though he was carrying a weapon, but you don’t consider me one?”

I looked at the others to see whether they agreed with him, but everyone hurriedly avoided my gaze.

Hah. These bastards.

Once we return, I’ll make them run another training simulation.

***

Inside the temporary tent, only the Love Zone player, Long-Tailed Tit, and I remained.

Everyone else had gone outside to stand guard.

Once the others disappeared from sight, the first thing I did was use the confiscated knife to cut the ropes binding Long-Tailed Tit.

I thought it would be better to release him and lower his guard rather than leave him restrained.

Even if he tried to flee across this snowy plain, he would be caught again within seconds.

Despite being freed, Long-Tailed Tit remained pressed flat against the ground as though frozen in place, nervously darting his eyes around.

I gave him plenty of time to think before sitting on a folding chair a short distance away.

“You can speak comfortably now. There’s no one else here.”

Although I had deliberately created an environment where it would be easier to talk, he hesitated and did not readily open his mouth.

Judging from how terrified he looked, he probably had not come to this zone with good intentions.

“I have no intention of harming another player. So you can speak freely.”

I lied without the slightest hesitation and showed him false kindness.

After a brief pause, he spoke in a barely audible voice.

“You’re… Dopamine Addict?”

He recognized me immediately.

I had already confirmed that his system had not been unlocked.

It appeared that God had told the players in his zone quite a lot about me.

If God had told him that Dopamine Addict was in the Cola Zone, then the moment Meursault called me “Haydam,” it would have been easy to deduce that I was Dopamine Addict.

Home Protector was the only person who had directly heard from me that I was pursuing the Illegitimate Child route….

But any player could probably infer that much without hearing it from me personally.

Since he already knew who I was, there was no need to speak indirectly.

“What is a Love Zone player doing all the way in the Cola Zone?”

“…!”

His eyes widened.

“H-how did you know that I’m a Love Zone player?”

“What? How did I know?”

I was about to say that I had obviously seen it through the system, but then I closed my mouth.

Something is strange.

Since he had heard about me, I assumed he naturally knew about the system as well.

But he seemed genuinely shocked that I had immediately identified his zone.

God, you bastard.

He hadn’t told the players in his zone about the existence of the system.

The system only opened for those who possessed meteorites, so unless a player with a meteorite explained it to the others, they had no way of learning that it existed.

Come to think of it, God had once said something strange.

—There are quite a few players in our zone as well. But all of them have decided to serve me.

At the time, I had wondered what he meant….

Was he pretending to be an actual god while hiding the existence of the system?

It seemed God was using my Cult Leader route to run a scam.

And he wasn’t targeting only NPCs.

He was treating players as targets to be conquered as well.

But if that’s the case, something doesn’t add up.

If God had not revealed the system to the other players in his zone and instead used it as though it were some kind of divine power….

Why had he sent this player, Long-Tailed Tit, to me?

If I told this guy about the system, God’s entire deception could be exposed.

While I remained silent, lost in thought, Long-Tailed Tit seemed to find his own answer in my silence.

His face brightened as he asked,

“Just as the Man-God said, you also received a divine revelation, didn’t you?!”

A divine… revelation?

What kind of ridiculously edgy name is that?

Since he used the term “divine revelation” instead of “system,” it seemed God really had told them nothing about it.

But… Man-God?

Wasn’t that a term used for a powerful shaman?

Then again, whether it was a “cult leader” or a “shaman”….

God had probably created a fraudulent religion in his zone and appointed himself as the shaman who received divine revelations.

Judging by the extreme reverence with which Long-Tailed Tit referred to the “Man-God,” this bastard had clearly fallen for it.

Trying to tell someone like this that he’s being deceived would probably have the opposite effect.

If he had traveled all the way to the Cola Zone in the body of a child merely because God ordered him to, then his faith had to be fanatical.

In any case, out of all the possible zones, he had started in the Love Zone.

That meant that even though he looked terrified now, he was almost certainly insane.

God had carefully prepared him by claiming that I had also received a “divine revelation.”

So even if I pulled items out of my inventory or recited people’s personal information through Character Inspection, it would not prove the existence of the system to him.

Even if I explained the truth about the system, there was no guarantee he would accept it positively.

I would be lucky if he did not dismiss it as an attempt to slander God.

To people who could be fooled by something as ridiculous as a Man-God, what mattered was not the truth.

What mattered was having someone to depend on.

God had probably sent one of his players to me so readily because he was confident that even if I denied their religion and spoke about the system, they would not easily believe me.

The outcome he wanted was probably for me to reject their faith.

Then he could incite his followers to become hostile toward me.

However, there was one thing God had overlooked.

I had no intention of denying the false religion he had created.

The Cult Leader route was originally a strategy I had invented.

There was no reason to destroy a fraudulent religion someone else had worked so hard to build.

I could simply exploit it.

God, I’ll make good use of the follower you sent me.

“Um… Dopamine Addict, sir? You did receive a divine revelation… didn’t you?”

Long-Tailed Tit had grown anxious because I had remained silent for so long.

He cautiously asked me again.

I looked at him and smiled gently.

“Exactly. I, too, am an apostle who has received divine revelation.”