Ashes of Gods: Return of the Blade Emperor - 6 Begin

Hearing those words, Allan was shocked. He looked at Shesmu in the eyes, and seeing how serious they were, he knew that this wasn’t a joke. He hurriedly covered Shesmu’s mouth and gestured him to not talk. They made their way out of the park without even responding to Mike’s greeting, leaving the latter confused. The duo entered Allan’s car before he drove off.

“What’s going on? Where are we going?”

Allan looked at Shesmu for a second, before continuing to drive without responding.

Suddenly, a metallic voice announced, “Allan, it is advised for your safety and the safety of your passengers to activate the auto-driving system. It is known that accidents are a million times more likely to happen with a human driver rather than the fully automatic driving system.”

“Activate manual mode, turn off all assisting and recording systems.”

“Allan, are you sure about this? This action may lead to harm to you and your passengers. You will be fully responsible for any accident that—”

“I know all of that!” Allan shouted in response. “Just turn off everything.”

“Roger that.”

With all the systems turned off, Allan kept driving without talking with Shesmu. By the end of an hour, they were outside the city and into the highway.

After fifteen minutes of more driving, Allan took off the road and parked at the outskirt of the forest that surrounded the highway. The two then walked into the forest. By this point, Shesmu already knew what was going on in Allan’s mind. That’s why he didn’t talk.

After more than an hour of silence, Allan finally talked.

“Here is a history lesson for you, Mark. Since it seems that you needed one. After the massive industrialization that happened with the AI boom of the 2020s, there weren’t many places left that didn’t have cameras or recording devices sitting at every corner. Right at this moment in time, there is at least a few thousand creepy weirdos sifting through files of a recording of someone’s bathroom where his daughter is taking a piss. And you, somehow, thought that the park wouldn’t have at least a few thousand eyeballs goggling at us while you make your legendary speech.”

Allan turned around to look at Shesmu with disappointed eyes as he emphasized the last part. He turned back around and made his way through the bushes and trees. “However, some forests are an exception to this rule. After some treaty I don’t remember which, they decided that some green spaces need to stay as they are with no human intervention.”

He then turned around, and with a grandiose pose, declared, “And this forest, my friend, is one of them.”

“Dude, I really missed you.”

This groovy, larger than life character that Allan had, was something that disappeared in old Allan long ago. Maybe it was the stress of the pro play, maybe it was just a normal effect of growing up, but Shesmu missed this Allan.

“What do you mean you missed me? Wait! Don’t tell me! Did I die in the future and you came back to save me?”

“Haha, do you really want to know? Aren’t you afraid of looking into the Pandora box?”

Hearing Shesmu’s teasing voice, Allan backed out a bit, afraid of what’s going to come. “No, no, you’re right. One shouldn’t look into the future. I have watched too many movies to see where that goes.”

The two looked at each other for a second before bursting out laughing. After the turmoil that happened the past few days, Allan’s company was the one saving grace for Shesmu. However, looking at him, and remembering the sore state Dawn left him in, Shesmu frowned.

“Hey, Allan, I need to talk to you about something.”

“Oh, what’s with the face? Are you gonna tell me that I’m suffering from a chronic incurable illness and that only you have the medicine for it?” Allan joked around.

“Something of the sort,” responded Shesmu. “How long until your contract with Dawn expires?”

“Oh, in like a week or so. They sent me the mail for the renegotiation, yours is before, right?”

“Yeah, it’s in two days. I’m supposed to meet them today at eight pm.”

Allan in response before asking, “Did you contact your lawyer then? You can’t get scammed like last time. Like holy damn, even while being one of the best assaulters in the league you still get paid like a 3rd tier player.”

“I’m not gonna renew the contract with them,” Shesmu responded simply.

“Oh, did you get a massive offer from someone else? Who was it? DragonForce? TSA?”

“No, I’m not gonna quit Demon Heart actually.”

Allan stayed silent for a moment before chucking, “Is this some kind of joke? Why would you do that? You’re eighteen, you still have like ten years before retirement. You still haven’t even gotten your first million-dollar cheque yet!”

“Oh, believe me, I’ll get that and more. It’s just that if I stay under anyone, it’s my sanity that I’m gonna lose.” Shesmu then stayed silent for a few seconds before continuing. “You… you too should get out of Dawn. They are just bad news overall.”

“… I’m guessing this whole talk is because of something that happened in the future. They pulled out some weird crap on us, didn’t they?”

Shesmu nodded with his head in response.

“The bastards,” Allan seethed. “So, what’s the plan? What do we do after we get out of Dawn.”

“There is this new game that I want you to play. Ashes of Gods.”

“Oh, it’s an O9 game, right? But what about it? I looked at it, it has nice concepts. But that’s what O9 always was: Nice concepts, trash execution.”

“This one is different,” Shesmu replied. “Dude, I come from the future, this game is gonna be the bomb. By year two, it was the most popular game on the planet. The government itself got involved with it. They started making government-sponsored jobs inside the game, dude! Has that happened in any game before?”

“Okay, okay, you got me interested in that. When is it coming out?”

“The beta is in four days,” Shesmu responded. However, before he could continue a cold gust of wind made him shiver with his whole body. “Dude, it’s getting cold. Let’s go back to the car and then we continue talking.”

Allan was hesitant a bit, “Yeah, but what about the microphone recorders and stuff. You don’t want people to know that you’re coming from the future, now do you?”

“Yeah, I’m not stupid enough to talk about it in there, we’re just gonna talk about the game and that’s it. It’s not gonna raise any flags.”

Allan gave Shesmu an unimpressed look at his response. “Oh, really? Then what about before in the park?”

Shesmu got embarrassed at the mention of the earlier incident. “That’s something else.”

Allan rolled his eyes. “If you say so.”

The two then made their way to the car and then into the city. They talked all the way about Ashes of Gods and what prospects it showed. However, Allan had to, unfortunately, miss the open beta as his contract with Dawn wouldn’t be over by then. He did promise Shesmu to join him once the live servers come out though.

After being dropped off by Allan at his own house, Shesmu went to his bedroom and ordered a Dreamscape Capsule from the Omega9 website. The shipment would take six hours.

The next few days went by without much to talk about. He would meet Allan every day at seven, go to the forest outside the city, and tell stories about what happened in the future. The adventures they embarked on, the treasures they found, the bosses they fought. They would keep talking until Allan would have to go to his usual training sessions with Dawn’s Resonance.

In the meantime, Shesmu would research every corner of the internet. Even if the hope was miniscule, he needed to check if the unknown sender would leave a hint to his identity somewhere. Unfortunately, Shesmu’s efforts were all in vain.

The day came, July 1st, 2041. Shesmu calibrated his body to the capsule before turning it on. He then entered the capsule and closed the lid. The light dimmed and he could barely see the honey-colored hue of the glass lid.

Begin

Finishing his mental command, the darkness surrounding slowly started shifting into a blinding light. At the same time, a female robotic voice sounded in his head.

Boot… System Ω9 3.2 Active – Ashes of God