Chapter 2:
My Questioning, the Shocking Truth, and My Lack of Understanding
I TOOK THE MAN to a large nature park next door to the shrine and set him down on a worn-out bench. This place had a beautiful reservoir, stunning in the early spring when all the cherry blossoms were out. In midwinter it was practically deserted. The flowers were just buds right now, but they still did a good job of hiding us from view.
We were far enough from where I left the three other people that, even if he could control them from a distance, it would take them some time to get here. I didn’t want Carol seeing what I was about to do, so I told her to go play in a spot where I could still keep an eye on her.
“Here goes!” she announced. “Aw, it didn’t work.”
She was busy entertaining herself with some crappy yo-yo she’d won at one of the stalls; hopefully she wouldn’t get bored.
I glanced around to confirm there were no witnesses before shaking the man’s shoulder. Seated beside him, Destiny swayed its body in time with his blond spikes, as though entranced by their movement.
“Whazzat? What’s going on?” The man yawned, his words a slur of confusion, but when he caught sight of me, his eyes flew wide open. “H-hey, you—ngh! I can’t move!”
He wanted to run, but he couldn’t move any part of his body below the neck. He was stuck on the bench
“You’re not going anywhere. Take a look.” I tried to smirk threateningly. I had no idea if it was convincing or not. Destiny hunched its shoulders up and shot me an exasperated look.
I guess it’s not convincing, then. You’re pretty expressive for a lizard.
The man didn’t have time to evaluate my acting skills. Now that he realized he couldn’t move, his face turned pale, and his mouth clamped shut. A perfectly natural reaction for someone in his situation.
“Wh-what did you do to me?!”
I moved close, getting in his face. “Shut up. Cause a fuss, and I’ll paralyze your head, too.” I picked up Destiny and made sure he got a good look.
“What, the lizard did somethin’ to me? C’mon, man! Look, if you lemme go now, I’ll forget this ever—no, keep that gross lizard away from me! And say something, dammit! Just keep that thing back!”
He was terrified of Destiny. I got the feeling he was trying to run, but of course his body didn’t even twitch.
“I told you not to make a fuss. Hey, Destiny. If he shouts again, could you paralyze his lips for me?”
Destiny nodded, its tongue slipping in and out of its mouth. The man shook his head from side to side in a panic.
I grinned. “Do it.”
With every muscle below his nose frozen, the punky man was immobilized. His eyes were stretched so wide in shock that it was a wonder they didn’t fall from his skull. He wasn’t going to give me any more trouble.
“I’ll unpetrify your mouth now, but if you shout again, it’s gonna be your nose and mouth. If you understand what I just said, blink twice.” I smiled, trying to keep the threat in my voice. He blinked several times, not just twice. I had him completely at my mercy. “Destiny.”
Destiny padded toward the man. It placed one foot on his body and blinked once. The color immediately returned to the man’s lips.
“I can talk…”
“Right. I have some questions for you. Don’t you dare lie to me. Okay?”
“G-go ahead. Just don’t kill me!”
“I won’t have to if you’re good.” He was more frightened than I expected. Maybe I went too far. “First question. How exactly do you control people?”
“Duh—Uh, I mean, with the power I got from the game.”
He’d been on the verge of taunting me again before I held Destiny up to his face.
“So you can use the miracles in the real world, too?”
“That’s right, yeah. When you destroy villages and kill people and stuff, you level up. At some point you get the ability to use the miracles in real life. You sure are d—uninformed, sir. So you’re still at level 1? That means your lizard isn’t using a miracle or anythin’?”
The last part of what he said was too quiet for me to make out, but the rest had me blinking at him in surprise.
There were levels in the game? And they gave you the ability to use miracles in real life? That was crazy!
Wait, I remembered something about this. I cast my mind back to a certain message I saw when I played the game for the first time.
“This is a list of miracles you can perform. As your village improves and your population increases, you will unlock more powerful miracles.”
By “more powerful miracles,” I assumed it just meant that I would unlock different kinds of miracles, not that my current miracles would level up. I had to meet conditions to level up as well. Corrupted gods needed to destroy villages, and major gods needed to improve their own settlements. By fulfilling these conditions, players could level up to use their miracles in the real world. I already knew this was no ordinary game, but how many times was it going to blow my expectations apart?
“Question number two. Who asked you to get them Carol and the holy book? What do they want them for?”
“I dunno that much. I swear I don’t know! I just got an email with your address tellin’ me they’d pay me. I’m being serious. I mean, I thought it was real suspicious at first, but then I thought that there are hardly any people who know about this game, right? And money’s all y’need to buy more points, and more points meant more miracles. I thought it was worth a try, even if it turned out to be a grift.”
He really was in it for the money and nothing else. I needed to learn more about the person who sent him the email, but he didn’t seem to know much.
“Next question. Why didn’t you just get me drunk or something and then use your temptation miracle on me?”
All it took was a weakened mental state to control someone, right? It would’ve been quicker for him to pick me as his miracle’s target.