Chapter 40: Weird Inspection
"NO FREAKING WAY!" Blake shouted in surprise.
Due to the sudden shout, most of the passersby glanced in his general direction to see a young man looking at his phone with bulging eyes. If he's not careful then both of his eyes would've popped out of their sockets.
Realizing that he was shouting out loud, Blake scratches the back of his head.
He quickly bowed in every general direction as an apology for his rude behavior before he quickly sat down again, his hand covering his mouth while he read the thread a couple more times to make sure that he was not dreaming.
'Is this really real...? I can exchange Gold for real money?!' Blake ponders in silence.
Surely something like this would be straight out of a dream, and even if it was inside the developers' plan, it would take a long time to be implemented. However, it's only been days, and this announcement has already come out.
Just earlier he was fretting about money, and God gave him another path again.
Leaning back to the tree trunk again with a face filled with reverie, Blake looks up to the dense branches and leaves of the tree he was under, 'No, I should've known that this is going to happen sooner and later'
The game is not a regular game, so this kind of thing should be expected.
"Say, why do you think the government hides the fact of the game?" Blake asked curiously.
Upon hearing this, Salana puts her fingers on her chin in thought, "In my world, our leaders told us exactly the truth about the game. So if I had to guess, then maybe your governments are greedy and want to make sure they retains their power even with the change the Lunaris game would bring"
Blake listened to this and nodded his head, he also thought of the same thing.
It's true that the leaders of the world hid the fact that the game is a matter of life and death for the entire human race, the threat is palpable and would be real soon enough. Even then, there should still be a system in place to connect the game with the actual world.
Of course, Blake could already think of a couple of evil reasons why they did this.
First of all, it's possible that the big corporations decided to create this exchange system as a getaway to create guilds in the Lunaris game world, and still hide their true intention behind monetary gain.
With this exchange system, the excuse of investing in the game is acceptable to the public.
But the real reason is not for monetary gain, these big corporations definitely wanted to create guilds inside the game so that they could also be a monopoly to power, and become even more influential while sacrificing regular people beneath them.
Something that is only done to fuel their insatiable greed for power.
Reaping exclusive items and strong players into their ranks to name a few, is very beneficial for their future. If they succeed, their influence will grow leaps and bounds when the actual world completely merged with the Lunaris game world.
Secondly, creating guilds inside the game would need a huge amount of wealth.
Based on the thread he reads earlier, the exchange system can only implement in-game currency to real-world currency. Doing it in the opposite direction would've been impossible since the game came from a higher entity.
The new exchange system provides a way to take advantage of people's ignorance.
If the leaders of the world that owned big corporations couldn't exchange actual money for in-game currency through the game itself, then they could take advantage of regular people to trade out their in-game currency for real-world money.
Using that method, it wouldn't take long for the big corporations to get enough wealth.
'Since there are millions and millions of people playing the game, then garnering a million or even ten million gold wouldn't be a problem for them. Although guilds will also benefit the players too, the give-and-take ratio leans heavily to the big corporations' Blake thought, rubbing his chin with his eyes closed.
While he was pondering, Salana can tell that knowing the truth forces Blake to think.
Salana didn't expect that knowing the truth, in a way, is also a privilege for Privileged Players in this world. The fact that they know the truth first through their Personas is a natural advantage over the other players.
In her world, this problem doesn't exist so the truth has no value. But not in this world.
Blake is starting to realize it now.
Although he was quite sure about his assumptions, these are still his speculations.
Even if he wants to take advantage of knowing this fact, he doesn't know how the exchange rates are determined, "People will sell their Golds early on. But as the game progresses and the world merges, there will be fewer people that would want to exchange Gold for your world's money" Salana shared her thought.
Blake nodded his head, he also foresaw that kind of thing to happen.
'I can probably time where I sell my gold and buy it when the exchange rate lowers, but like investing in general, I need immense equity to gain substantial results. I need more gold. Should I offer Jockey services? I have an idea but I need Salana's input for that. For now, let's have fun first'
Knowing that he could now exchange Gold for real money, he wanted to try it out.
Not intending to exercise anymore, Blake went back to his apartment building. Jogging throughout the way to burn his stamina, he bump into Victor when he was about to enter the building who seems to be in a hurry.
"Victor? Are you okay?"
"Oh, Blake! Can't talk right now, someone said there are police officers in front of my room"
Without even giving any further explanation, Victor zoomed through the stairs.
Blake, on the other hand, is looking at him weirdly. Not only because of the sudden police officers that came to visit his apartment but also because of Victor's avatar. It seems he also played the Lunaris game, yet he's still level 1.
Although that is the case, Blake was more concerned about the posture his avatar is taking.
Normally, the avatars of people playing the game take a straight and relaxed stance. It's the same as the avatars in other regular games. But Victor's avatar takes a weird stance, it's pointing its dagger at Victor's back.
Just that stance alone makes Blake feels uneasy, almost as if the avatar is trying to kill him.
"Salana, care to explain what's wrong with his avatar?" Blake asked.
But upon hearing this, she turns her head towards him in confusion, "Hmmm...? Explain what? Whose avatar? I didn't pay attention to what you're talking about, I was watching the ice cream truck outside. It looks good"
"Really? An ice cream truck? What are you, a five-year-old?" Blake asked in disbelief.
However, Salana sticks up for herself as there was no such thing inside her world that is filled with blood and war, "I'm going to have a physical body, of course, I'm going to plan on what I'm going to do"
"Nope, you're not leaving my sight even if you have a physical body" Blake replied harshly.
Although Salana wanted to say something, she could only pout and grumble to herself before she followed Blake walking up the stairs. Instead of going to his room, he kept going up until he reaches the floor where Victor's room was on.
Peeking through the hall from the stairs, he finds one of the doors was opened.
It was definitely Victor's room, there are sounds of people conversing inside. Blake decided to get close and eavesdrop for a moment, he wanted to know why would police officers are visiting his room.
On top of that, he also remembered that there are many police officers roaming about lately.
"I'm sorry for disturbing your home, Mr. Victor. But we're here to ask a couple of questions if that's not too much for you. We will really appreciate it if you can cooperate so we will not waste more of your time"
"Of course, I'll be happily obliged"
"We wanted to ask if you happen to see a VR Helmet box. It's quite intricate and fancy, you wouldn't miss it if you saw one. Here's the photo of the box if you don't mind taking a look"
Upon hearing this from near the door, Blake widened his eyes.
'VR Helmet Box? Are these police officers searching for the Limited PK VR Helmet?' Blake thought in surprise, it seems like that's the case. If it's a regular VR Helmet, then the police officers' description is rather off.
So it has to be the Limited PK VR Helmet, there's no other explanation.
"Hmm... I don't think I saw anything like this. I also have a VR Helmet myself. But anyway, if I saw it I would definitely report it to the authorities, you can rest assured"
"Of course, here's our contact information. Please, if you saw it, give us a call"
"Alright"
Blake was quick to rush over and hide inside the janitor's equipment closet hearing that their conversation has come to an end, he stayed hidden and silent while the two officers walked past the closet and head downstairs.
When the coast is clear, he walked towards Victor's room silently.
Seeing that Blake popped in front of his room, Victor raised his eyebrows, "Blake? Why are you on this floor? Are you curious about the police officers?" He asked, but he then waved his hand. "Don't worry, I'm not a criminal"
"What's that in your hand?" Blake points at the information card in Victor's hand.
Looking at the information card, Victor shrugs his shoulders, "Those police officers said to contact them if I saw a missing VR Helmet. It's quite weird for police officers to have an information card, shouldn't we just call the regular hotline?"
"Yeah, weird..." Blake uttered also in confusion.
A moment later, Blake walks out of the room and heads over to his room.
Glancing over to Salana, he then asked the same thing as he still feel uneasy, "Did you see his avatar? It's really posing as if it was about to kill Victor. Is that normal or should I warn him about it?"
"It happens. When you died too many times in the game, it could happen" Salana replied.
Noticing that Blake still doesn't understand what she meant, she then explained, "If you are so bad at the Lunaris game, dying multiple times in a row, the game will judge the player as unworthy and possibly kill the player off in the real world. It's some sort of natural selection"
"Are you serious? Why didn't you tell that to me sooner?!" Blake exclaimed.
If he had known that earlier, then he would've warned Victor to not die too much in the game.
But deciding that he would tell Victor later as now he needs to change the place where he placed the Limited PK VR Helmet, he went down to his floor yet his steps stopped when he saw the front of his room.
Standing right in front of it were the two police officers from earlier.
"Hello there, is this your room?" One of the police officers asked with a friendly smile.
Despite the friendliness of the police officers, Blake could only force out his own smile as a bead of cold sweat trails down the side of his face realizing that this situation is very, very bad for him.
'I- I'm fucked!'
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