Insomniac Player

The room looked at him. The President let out a mocking laugh. "You didn’t contact authorities because you didn’t know. In a world where every piece of knowledge is one thought away, where you can think a question and the system hands you the answer." He glanced around the table before settling back on Damien. "That’s the single dumbest answer I’ve heard all year. I’m starting to genuinely doubt your intelligence."

Damien said nothing.

The President rose and walked slowly toward him. "Fine. Let’s say that’s reasonable. Why not contact Sir John?"

His expression flickered. "..."

"You hid your identity from the government, from John, and associated with other players without disclosing your background."

"Is having friends a crime now?"

"It is, if the intent behind them is malicious." The President turned. "General."

The Iron Marshal looked up.

"You keep calling this man an asset. An asset doesn’t hide itself from its own region."

"He was gone two years," the general shot back. "He came home to a world that doesn’t resemble the one he left. Give him time."

"Time?" Another minister cut in. "He’s already produced abnormal results. He should be traumatized by all of this. Instead he got sharper and started negotiating with giant monsters."

Damien’s eyes narrowed.

The minister caught the look. "What? You think we wouldn’t have that recorded?"

Damien said nothing.

"We don’t know what connection exists between him and today’s gatebreak."

"There isn’t one," Noah said. "No evidence of any."

"Those creatures recognized him by name."

"They recognized his class. That’s not the same thing."

"That distinction stays disputed until proven."

The room dissolved into argument, voices overlapping until the President raised one hand.

Everyone went still. The Minister of Internal Security adjusted his suit.

"I have a recommendation." Damien turned toward him. The man’s voice stayed level. "Until his identity, the system abnormalities, his disappearance, and any potential connection to the Hollow Giants are fully investigated..." He paused. "Damien should remain under government confinement."

Silence dropped over the table.

Damien’s expression went flat. Noah moved before anyone else could. "No."

At the same instant, the Iron Marshal stood, chair scraping back hard enough to echo. "Absolutely not."

The room’s whole temperature shifted. Guards outside pushed the doors open on their own, military players filing in. The Iron Marshal didn’t even glance at them, eyes locked on the ministers.

"You summoned a player who fought voluntarily to defend Tycho." His voice dropped, quiet and dangerous. "You interrogated him for four hours." A beat. "And now you want to lock him up without a shred of evidence?"

"Temporary confinement," the minister corrected.

"Call it whatever helps you sleep at night." The general’s eyes hardened. "It’s a cell."

Noah stepped up beside Damien’s chair. "For the record, I formally object to this recommendation."

Twelve politicians stared back at both of them. Damien looked slowly around the room, guards stationed at every door, a Level 338 general standing openly against the council, Noah at his side, and twelve suits watching from across the table with nothing in their expressions he could read as friendly.

His pulse climbed. Strangely, though, the fear had already burned itself out somewhere in the last four hours. He leaned back in his chair and settled in to see exactly how far these people were actually willing to go.

◇◇◇

Far from Viremont, another city watched Tycho burn on every screen it owned. Drakemire, the city that used to be called London.

At the top of a black-glass tower, a man sat alone in a dark office, an entire wall of floating screens arrayed in front of him, every single one showing Tycho, burning streets, Hollow Giants, players fighting through the wreckage.

The footage had already flooded the Worldwide Server, hundreds of new uploads landing every minute, players, civilians, drones, government observers, guild scouts, all of it pouring in at once.

He ignored most of it. One clip held his attention, and he’d already watched it three times through.

A Hollow Giant fell. Players scattered. Someone shouted, and then..

"Stop." The footage froze. He leaned in. His eyes settled on one figure. Black clothes, mask covering the lower half of his face, dagger in hand, gear that read low-level next to the monsters looming around him. The masked player was pointing across the battlefield, directing traffic, and high-level players were actually listening to him.

He let the video roll again.

"Fire team, stay on that one!"

"Don’t feed it a second attack type!"

He froze it again. Pulled up another clip. Same masked player, this time with a Level 100-plus reinforcement stepping in behind him mid-order.

The footage ended. He sat still for a long moment, then touched the communication screen beside his desk.

"Connect me."

A pause, then: "Sir?" His assistant’s voice.

He pointed at the frozen image. "The masked player. See him?"

"Yes, sir."

"Find out everything about him."

"Guild affiliation?"

"Don’t know."

"Does he have a name we can search? An alias?"

"Not sure yet."

"Region?"

"Twenty-One."

The assistant hesitated. "Anything else to go on?"

His eyes stayed fixed on the black-clothed figure. "His exact address."

"Understood, sir."

The call ended, and he opened another contact immediately.

It rang twice before someone picked up.

"What?" Music blared through the line, voices shouting somewhere behind it.

He frowned. "Where are you."

A lazy voice answered. "Club."

"It’s the afternoon."

"So?"

He closed his eyes, exhaled once. "Of course you are."

"You sound tense. What happened?"

He glanced back at the frozen figure on the screen. "We need to go to Viremont."

The music kept playing for a few seconds before the voice sharpened. "Why?"

"Found something interesting."

A pause. "How interesting?"

He let a faint smile show. "Interesting enough that I’m calling you personally."

The music cut out entirely. "Give me twenty minutes."

The line went dead. He stood, and behind him the screen still held Sleepless frozen mid-gesture, one hand lowered, ten dead Hollow Giants scattered around him.

◇◇◇

Secretariat of Region 21

"You do not have that authority." The Iron Marshal’s voice rattled the room.

The Minister of Internal Security stared him down. "The President holds emergency detention authority, full stop."

"Not for this. Not for a First Generation player." The general planted both hands on the table. "Detaining him means the Prime Minister needs to be in this room. And anything touching regional military classification means the Field Marshal gets informed too."

He pointed at the President. "Neither of them is here."

"Correct," the President said, unmoved. "They are not."

"So we wait."

"So we proceed without them."

"...What?"

The President leaned back. "I’m not letting an unidentified security risk walk out of this building because two officials happen to be unavailable today."

"He’s identified."

"Disputed."

"His face matches every record."

"Insufficient."

"System identification confirms it."

"Potentially compromised."

The Iron Marshal laughed once, hollow, nothing behind it. "So nothing can prove his innocence, because you’ve already ruled out every possible piece of proof in advance."

The President didn’t bother responding to that. He turned to the guards instead. "Detain him."

Noah went rigid. "Sir..."

"That is an order."

Two military players stepped toward Damien. He stayed seated.

His eyes found Noah’s. Noah’s fists clenched at his sides. He could argue with an interrogation. He could voice disagreement out loud in a room full of ministers. But this was a direct order from the President of Region 21, issued inside the Secretariat itself, and there was no room in that for a soldier to say no.

Noah’s head dropped slightly. Damien watched it happen and felt nothing close to anger. He understood exactly what this cost him.

A soldier stopped beside his chair. "Hands."

He looked at the man, then at the President. "You’re actually serious about this."

"Until the investigation concludes," the minister answered for him.

He sighed and held both hands out. Metal closed around his wrists.

Click.

➤[Player Restraint Equipped.]

➤[Active Skill usage restricted.]

He raised an eyebrow. "These cost a lot?"

He glanced at Noah again, still not meeting his eyes. He gave him a small, easy smile anyway. "It’s fine."

Somehow that made it worse for Noah...

The Iron Marshal didn’t sit back down, his calm gone strangely flat and cold. "I want it recorded, officially, that I oppose this detention."

"Recorded," the President said. "And when the Field Marshal arrives, I’ll explain my reasoning to him directly."

"You will have to."

Damien stood. The guards closed in around him on every side.

He looked down at the cuffs on his wrists and thought, briefly, of Salma’s threat to Noah earlier that day. A short laugh escaped him. She was going to be absolutely unbearable about this.

Then...

BOOOOOOM!

The entire building shook.