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Chapter 706: Watching

“Ah… sorry.” Her sister surprisingly took the comment to heart, her ears pressing flat against her head. It was something of a sore point for her chaos twin that she was unable to easily increase her control over her power. Unlike herself, the twin did not have a suitable point of reference to build off of, and the greater goddess Terra was unable to help her.

Thus, whereas one of them was able to easily grow stronger by relying on the advice of Terra, the other one had to stumble over numerous roadblocks in order to determine how their power worked. It was only natural that a faint feeling of bitterness would arise from that, which the divine twin could clearly feel through their shared connection.

When the chaos twin felt the sudden spike of wariness from her sister, she let out a sullen sigh. “Look, I don’t hold it against you or anything like that, really. It’s not like either of us had a choice about this. If anything, I blame fate itself. Which, given the circumstances, is pretty ironic.” There was a wry smile on her lips as she said that, earning a faint chuckle from the other sister.

“Well… maybe I can help?” The divine twin asked, leaning over to hug her sister. “Two heads are better than one, right? Between the two of us, I’m sure we at least count as one and a half.”

The chaos twin thought about it for a moment, before nodding her head. “Alright. Let me tell you what I’ve figured out so far, then.” After saying so, she took a deep breath.

“Before, my power of Stories was able to parse through the information existing within the world to look for iconic figures. My power is rooted in the void, which means that it operates by reading and manipulating relevant information. Unfortunately, after we ascended, it… took a bit of a turn.”

“What do you mean?” The divine twin pressed for more information, causing her sister to pat her on the back.

“I’m getting to that. Now… anything that can be considered a story within the world is included as part of my domain. Everyone is the main character of their own story, though, so my domain parses the information for all sentient life. I can use filters to narrow down the results, but that is still a lot of people for me to look through. So… let’s go over what we have of this guy as an example?”

The divine twin nodded her head, thinking back to the prophecy. “We know he was human… and his hair color was shifting between brown, black, and gold. The length of the hair kept changing, too. His face… he had rather angular features, and a short nose. He wore a suit, and his job seemed to have something to do with making deals?”

The chaos twin nodded in agreement. “Right. For now, let’s assume that the black and gold hair was caused by influences from both the void and divine properties. So, after that we have a human male with an angular face and short nose, who works in some kind of business where he has to make deals. That narrows it down to… two hundred million results, give or take.”

The divine twin’s eyes went wide, and she turned to stare at her sister’s book. “Uhm… could we use the link to the void beast to track him? There can’t be that many people in those results that have void connections, right?”

At that, the chaos twin gave a sullen sigh. “Eight hundred and ninety thousand. Turns out that there are a lot of people in the world that have void connections, though most of them are really small. For instance, most of them walked by a void disturbance without realizing, and a trace of it was left on their bodies.”

“These connections are largely harmless, or else we would have heard of it making a big scene a while ago. But it makes my job much harder, because I have to look at each profile to determine the level of connection, and the compatibility that the person has with our prediction.”

“Right…” The divine twin seemed to understand what her sister was going through now. “How many have you managed to get through, so far?”

“Today? Just over seven hundred… If we can’t figure out another way to narrow down the results, it could take me years to get through all of them.”

“Right.” The divine twin closed her eyes, sinking into thought. “You said that your domain parses their life stories, right? And that’s how it gets all of those ridiculous profiles?”

“That’s right.” The chaos twin confirmed, looking at her sister to see what idea she had come up with.

“Is it a first person or third person narrative?”

“First person, why?”

The divine twin gave a playful smile, opening her eyes to look at her sister. “We know he’s got big plans coming up that would shake the world, right? Can you use that as a filter? Someone with extreme ambition and the ability to see it through?”

The chaos twin blinked, thinking it over. “I can try. It couldn’t give me any more results, at the very least.” After she said that, she turned and placed her hand on her book, focusing on the new filters that her sister had come up with.

The book radiated a dark energy, and the sisters could see black threads lashing out into the void around them. Soon, those threads began dissolving one by one, while others retreated back into her book. Once that was done, she flipped it open to take a look, blinking slightly.

“Well?” The divine twin asked. “What’s it say, Firma?”

“You know what… fine, I’ll be Firma for today.” The chaos twin said with a small grin. “Just for that help, because we now have six entries to deal with.”

The divine twin jumped to her feet in joy, wrapping her arms around her sister while cheering. “You did it! Should we give this list to Tsubaki and the others now? They’d be able to do more with it than us, right?” Now that they had narrowed it down to the single digits, it would clearly no longer be possible to disregard them with a casual glance. Each one would take far more study in order to tell if they were suitable for the prophecy or not.

Firma thought it over, shaking her head. “Not yet. We still have to consider the possibility that the shifting hair color didn’t represent any sort of influence from other energy types. Let me get a list of those that match these filters with those hair colors, as well.”

“Alright.” Terra grinned. “It can’t add that many more people, right?”

Firma once again gave a bitter smile. “Most people nowadays can change their hair color with just a slight bit of effort, especially those in the demographic we’re looking for. Golden blonde hair is popular for those wishing to stand out and take center stage, while black hair has become popular for those wanting to either mimic the Keeper or blend into the background.”

“You mean…” Terra’s face lost a shade, and Firma nodded.

“That’s right, there will probably be far more results for those two hair colors.”

“Is everything on schedule for next week’s beta test?” Julius asked casually, reclining in his seat as he read through the reports submitted by his employees.

Following his question, a voice spoke up from the projected reports, the terminal offering a direct line to his secretary as well. “Of course, sir. We’ve sent out the invitations, and those who agreed should have received the early installation link last night.”

“Did you make sure to include the Non Disclosure Agreements I gave you?” His voice was slightly urgent as he asked that, making the secretary pause.

“That’s right, sir. I don’t know why you insisted on writing them yourself, but our legal team confirmed that it was safe to use, and sent them together with the programs. The agreement serves as a quest scroll, and they won’t be able to retrieve the program until they have agreed.”

Julius furrowed his brow, focusing as a card materialized in his hand. The image of the card depicted a lovely lycan woman sitting at a desk wearing a tidy suit. “You should have a bit more faith. Don’t worry so much about the details.” He said as he stared at the card.

The image of the lycan in the card seemed to shimmer, before her voice once again came over the channel. “Of course, sir. I’m sorry for doubting you. By the way, there were a few copies that were sent back after the recipient refused to sign the agreement.”

Julius looked at the card in confusion at that. If someone had a problem with a simple NDA, they would typically not apply for a beta test in the first place. And, if they just wanted to be able to talk about it, they’d sign it without giving too much care for the contents. Naturally, including it in the form of a quest scroll meant that the NDA had a bit more effect, but they would still be able to discuss the contents with their friends. It was unusual for people to get to the stage of receiving the NDA before turning it away.

“Do you remember who they were?” He asked, focusing on the card again. Once more, there was a shimmer before the secretary spoke.

“Their profiles are saved within the computer. Would you like me to pull them up and send them to your terminal, sir?”

Julius gave a knowing smile when he heard that, nodding his head. “Please do, Prina. That’s a big help.”

There was a moment of pause while the secretary worked, before her voice sounded out once again, this time seeming far more confused. “Sir? The profiles have disappeared from the server.”

Julius’s eyes went wide as he sat upright, looking at the reports on his own terminal. “Say that again, Prina?”

“The profiles for the beta testers who refused the NDA have disappeared. It looks like they’ve been deleted from the server.”

“Get the Internet Security Department on this right away. I want to know who hacked our server to delete these files.” Even without taking into account the obvious case of concealing the identities of the testers, the simple fact that their server had been hacked in such a way indicated that they had cause for alarm. Any business would be fuming at such a situation, no matter how legitimate their operation.

“Understood, Mr. Kyles. Should I ask the expert to act, as well?” Prina asked, causing Julius to think about it for a moment. The ‘expert’ of the Internet Security Department referred to an artificial intelligence that they had hired. Due to her effectiveness in the field, she was able to demand quite the high salary, and would be paid each time they used her services.

“Do it. This is an urgent matter. Tell her that she can have double her usual budget if she can solve this quickly.” Julius felt a twinge of mental pain when he made that promise, but it had to be done. Even if double her usual salary was more than he personally made in a month, it was a small price to pay to ensure the completion of his plan. Sadly, he wasn’t confident enough in his ability to make cards out of artificial intelligences like her, or he could have surely lowered her asking price further.

As soon as he made the promise, the lights in his office dimmed. “I’ve heard your proposition, and I accept.” An almost playful voice spoke up from his terminal. “Reading the access logs. Trace records identified. Server address identified. Accessing local camera feeds, and compiling playback footage.”

“Sir Kyles, would you like to see for yourself?” The expert asked, a faint chuckle following her words. Julius hesitated for a moment, before nodding his head.

“Show me.” He said, and the reports he was looking at vanished. In its place, he saw the camera footage displaying the front lobby of his office building. As the door opened, he watched himself enter, walking with a relaxed posture to the elevator. “What time was this footage taken?”

“Last night, just after midnight.” The expert responded. In the projection, the receptionist greeted Julius, asking if he hadn’t gone home yet for the night. Julius simply responded that he had some last minute work to attend to, and made his way to the server room. There, he opened up a terminal and deleted several files, going so far as to use a strand of divine energy to completely wipe the traces of those files from the server.

Naturally, Julius knew that that was not really him. Julius himself had gone home early the previous night, having spent too long manually writing the NDA’s and exhausting himself. “You’re telling me that I came here and did this myself?”

“Obviously not.” The expert responded, another image appearing within the projection. This one showed Julius entering his home early in the evening, before fast forwarding all the way until morning. “There were no spatial fluctuations from the area surrounding your home, so it is unlikely that you personally went out of your way to do this.”

Julius, meanwhile, had a rather difficult expression on his face. “Jessie… who does that camera belong to?” It was footage aimed directly at his house, from an angle that Julius knew should not have a camera.

“Hmm? Let me check…” The expert went silent for several long moments. “According to the sales report matching the camera’s serial number, you purchased this camera six weeks ago. However, going back through the access logs and recordings, I can’t find any traces of it being used for anything other than recording video feeds in three-day intervals. After three days, the footage is automatically deleted, and it does not appear to have any connected backups.”

Julius was growing distraught as he realized what that meant. Someone had been taking steps for over a month to monitor him, with the camera appearing to serve no other purpose than to simply let him know that he was being watched

That was when he noticed a faint image in the bottom corner of the camera footage. It appeared to be… an icon of an eye, a sharp blade splitting it down the middle. The icon appeared familiar, but he couldn’t quite place where he had seen it before. “Jessie, can you run a trace on this logo?”

“Let me check.” The expert said again, going silent for a few moments. “I’m sorry, but this image is too common. I can pull up over a thousand businesses that have some form of eye with a split like this. Perhaps the feeling of recognition comes from how common it is?”

“Maybe…” Julius hesitated to agree, as the image seemed to be important. Though, he couldn’t suspect that every business that used a similar icon was connected, if there were truly that many. Could he..?