< 60 : Divine Protocol (1) >
Dream.
In a deep dream, I was walking alone on an empty street.
I knew it was a dream, even though I was dreaming.
Lucid dream.
In this imperfect world, I understood who I was.
Thud. Thud.
Only the sound of my footsteps echoed clearly in the empty street.
Without any reason, I just repeated walking forward, and then I saw a human figure at the end of my sight.
“Hello?”
A black-haired girl with a black umbrella.
She was dressed in black as well, and her eyes looked at me.
The girl in black had eyes that were like a bottomless abyss.
The more I looked into them, the more I felt like I was being sucked into somewhere.
It didn’t feel like meeting a person.
I stared blankly at the girl for a moment and opened my mouth to her.
“You are…”
“Wait. There is a condition for asking questions about each other.”
“A condition?”
I asked a question at the girl’s words.
The condition for asking a question.
The question I wanted to ask was nothing more than a simple self-introduction.
Even for asking just a name, there was a condition attached.
She was truly a difficult opponent.
Since it was just a dream anyway, I decided to listen to what she had to say without delving too deeply into it.
The girl nodded her head when she heard me and told me about her condition.
“You have to win a game against someone else before you can ask them a question.”
“A game? What kind of game?”
“Well, it could be a board game like chess, or something like poker or dice.”
“Do I really have to go through such trouble?”
I didn’t hate games, but I didn’t feel like playing them in my dream either.
Just to ask for someone’s name, I had to play a game first.
Why should I bother with such hassle to hear someone else’s name?
But the girl was very stubborn.
She ignored my complaining attitude and continued to tell me about her condition.
“The rules have to be fair for everyone. Only the winner of the game can ask the other person a question.”
“Are you saying you want to ask me something too?”
“Only if I win, of course.”
She was nothing more than a stranger I met in my dream.
I could easily answer whatever she asked me.
It’s not like my secrets would leak out even if I spilled them here.
It didn’t matter much whether it was a trivial or a difficult topic.
Yet she insisted that she would only ask me after winning a game.
My subconscious must have created the girl in front of me, but she had a rather strange personality.
“Fine. If you want it that much, let’s play a game.”
I reluctantly accepted her proposal, seeing how eager she was for a game.
It wouldn’t hurt to try and see who would win.
If I won the game, I could also hear an answer from the girl in front of me.
Not that it would be anything more than a cliché response from my subconscious.
When I agreed to play a game, the girl asked me what kind of game I wanted to play.
“What game do you want?”
“A game. What game should we play…”
“Any kind of game is fine.”
“Then let’s do poker.”
Maybe it was because it was a dream, but my head felt slightly fuzzy.
If I played a game like chess in this state, I might lose without putting up a fight.
That’s why I chose poker, which was a relatively intuitive game.
When I picked poker, the girl pointed at the floor with her finger and said,
“Now that you’ve chosen the game, you have to make it.”
“Make what?”
“The tools for playing the game.”
She unexpectedly asked me to make the tools for the game.
She must have thought that I could make them since it was my lucid dream.
After all, this is my dream. There’s no reason why I can’t do whatever I want.
I thought about how to make the tools for poker as the girl requested.
I wished for a table for poker to appear on the floor, and suddenly, an empty table materialized out of thin air.
I felt a strange sense of wonder as I saw the table that appeared in front of me in an instant.
“…This really works.”
“Do you need chairs too?”
“Chairs… Yeah. Let’s make some chairs.”
Making chairs was not much different from making a table.
As soon as I imagined the shape of a chair, a pair of chairs appeared around the table.
It was amazing that I could create anything I wanted just by thinking about it.
Every time I made something, I felt like I was an omnipotent god.
The girl quickly sat down on one of the chairs and put down her parasol.
I also sat down opposite her and created some cards in my hand.
“How are we going to play?”
Shuffle shuffle shuffle.
As I fiddled with the newly created cards, the girl asked me about the rules of the game.
There were many different types of poker.
The one that was most familiar to me was seven-card stud, where four cards were revealed.
It was the most common way of playing poker that I had experienced online and offline.
I also knew how to play Texas hold ’em to some extent.
I shuffled the cards in my hand and answered the girl’s question.
“Let’s play seven-card stud… No betting, just one round.”
“You mean, we’ll decide the winner with one game?”
“Yeah. This is not a situation where we can stay for long.”
This is a dream. Sooner or later, I’ll wake up.
There’s nothing more frustrating than waking up from a dream before the game is over.
Besides, we only have one chip each.
That’s why I suggested playing one round to determine the winner.
As soon as I finished shuffling the cards, the girl nodded and said.
“That sounds good to me.”
“Is it okay if I deal the cards like this?”
“Sure.”
I distributed the cards according to the rules of the seven-card stud.
There were only two people and no betting time, so the card distribution was done quickly.
After receiving all the cards, I checked my own cards without showing them to the girl.
Four cards were revealed.
If I combined them with the cards in my hand, I had a pair of tens.
“…”
A pair of tens.
To be honest, it was not a very good combination.
I looked at the girl’s face over the cards in my hand.
Did she have a better combination?
She looked at me with a relaxed smile on her face.
I didn’t feel much value in the pair of tens I had in my hand as I saw her expression.
‘It looks like I’m going to lose.’
Judging by the cards that were revealed, the girl already had a pair.
If I showed my cards as they were, I had a high chance of losing.
I stared at the cards in my hand and started to think of a way to win.
There was no way to change the outcome with the conventional method.
So, naturally, the idea that came to my mind was an unfair one.
‘In this dream, can’t I change the cards as I please?’
I could make a table and chairs just by thinking about it.
Making the cards I wanted would be nothing.
With that thought, I tried to do it on the cards in my hand.
What I wanted was the strongest poker hand, a royal flush.
As soon as I wished for the best hand, the cards in my hand changed into what I wanted.
With the royal flush in my hand, I showed my cards on the table and said.
“I won.”
“It seems like you used some dirty tricks.”
“…”
As soon as I showed the royal flush, the girl showed her cards and said.
The girl had a full house.
If I had played the game normally, I would have definitely lost.
I couldn’t help but feel a bit guilty at the girl’s remark.
She saw through my cheating.
Maybe it was because this was a dream, and my subconscious was transmitted to her.
“This is the only time I’ll let you get away with this.”
But the girl’s complaint was all she said.
She didn’t make a big deal out of my cheating.
She scattered her cards on the table.
And then she looked at me and asked.
“So, what was the question you wanted to ask so badly that you resorted to such a dishonest method?”
“Question?”
“You must have had a reason why you wanted to win.”
The question I wanted to ask her.
I stared blankly at her eyes and thought about it, and then I reached the first question that came to my mind.
There was only one question that I wanted to ask from the beginning.
Her name.
That simple name was what I had to go through this annoying game for.
I erased the cards on the table and asked her.
“What’s your name?”
“Name… That’s an important but simple question.”
“I made all these things just to ask you that.”
As I said that while erasing the table and cards, the girl covered her mouth and smiled slightly.
Thump.
The girl got off the chair and picked up her parasol again.
The black parasol cast a shadow over her head.
The girl’s jet-black eyes looked at me as she picked up her parasol.
“Okay. I’ll tell you.”
“…”
“My name is———.”
The faint voice of the girl in my ear.
Her name, which echoed clearly in my ear one letter at a time, ended.
I woke up from the dream.
***
“What a weird dream I had.”
After taking a shower and boiling some water for instant noodles, I grumbled as I looked at my smartphone with the game on.
The image of the girl I met in the dream flashed through my mind as I looked at the game screen.
A dream of playing poker with a stranger I met in a dream.
Even if I went to someone who could interpret dreams, they would only tell me some nonsense.
It was definitely a side effect of watching a video of card magic before going to bed.
I reflexively uttered her name as I recalled the memory of the girl.
“Estelle…”
The name of the girl that I could hear through the game.
It was probably just a mix of some memories from somewhere.
Anyway, we would never meet again.
It was a meaningless name in the end.
I put aside the story of Estelle and turned my attention back to the game screen.
“It’s nothing. I should just play the game and forget about it.”
The first thing I looked at on the game screen, of course, was the event message that was printed out last night.
Maybe it was because I had acquired quite a lot of karma in the meantime.
My player level had gone up by one without me noticing.
I checked the changes that occurred as my level went up by looking at the messages that popped up at the bottom of the screen.
The message box at the bottom of the screen was filled with messages related to leveling up.
You have reached level 9.
<Eye of Observation (Lv.8)> has grown.
<Eye of Observation (Lv.9)> has been achieved. You can observe the continent with a clearer vision than before.
The first thing I could check was the message about <Eye of Observation>.
The level of <Eye of Observation> skill had gone up again as my level increased.
The graphics had changed to a more crisp and vivid appearance than before.
If the previous graphics had a casual feel to them, the current graphics had a more realistic feel to them.
But still, the proportions of the characters were still somewhat distorted.
I checked the changes in <Eye of Observation> skill and mana amount and scrolled down further.
Warning: Excessively biased karma in one direction may trigger <Causality Adjustment>.
<Balance of Karma> has tilted.
A low-level <Causality Adjustment> has occurred.
Causality Adjustment Progress: 7%
The adjustment progress was still at 7%, which was not much different from before.
I thought it would go up faster as time passed, but there was no drastic change yet.
At this pace, I felt like I could grow smoothly for a while.
“And… I got a new skill.”
As I scrolled down a bit more, there was also a message saying that I had acquired a new skill.
A new skill that I got without a skill book.
It had been a long time since I got a skill through leveling up.
It seemed that the benefits of leveling up were not limited to the total amount of mana.
I looked at the description of the new skill with anticipation.
You have acquired <Divine Response Device (Lv.1)>.
This skill only responds to characters with the <Fanatic> trait.
The skills activated through <Divine Response Device> will consume your mana.
<Divine Response Device> skill applies a 24-hour cooldown for each individual character.
The skills accessible by characters with the <Fanatic> trait vary depending on their divine contribution.
The name of the new skill was <Divine Response Device>.
Unlike the previous skills, this skill had a very complex description.
First of all, this <Divine Response Device> skill was not the type of skill that I could activate directly.
Characters with the <Fanatic> trait could use it individually according to their own will.
Of course, even if other characters used the skill, the cost would be paid with my mana.
In other words, it was a skill that was similar to a macro that automatically activated my skills depending on the situation.
“It seems like this skill allows the cultists to cast magic when they pray to me.”
Characters with the <Fanatic> trait could choose one of the shared skills and use it.
Of course, it was not a system that allowed them to spam skills without any restrictions.
They had to meet a certain level of value called divine contribution in order to use the skill.
Moreover, if the same character wanted to use <Divine Response Device> again, they had to wait for 24 hours after using the skill.
It was a skill that occasionally allowed them to use magic, not a skill that made all characters into apostles.
“I can also set the skills to share.”
As I scrolled down the description of <Divine Response Device>, there was a separate setting option there.
I looked down at the individual setting option of <Divine Response Device>.
There was a list of skills that I had along with buttons to set access permissions.
Skills available for sharing: <Lightning> / <Lightning Arrow> / <Barrier> / <Giga Lightning>
The skills that I had acquired through magic books were all displayed there.
Of course, special skills like <Apostle Selection> or <Eye of Observation> were not registered.
I had to acquire skills through magic books in order to register them in <Divine Response Device>.
Also, the minimum divine contribution required to grant access permission varied depending on the mana cost of each skill.
For the most costly skill, <Giga Lightning>, only Eutenia and Roan could meet the divine contribution requirement.
“Hmm…”
I looked at the required divine contribution and accumulated contribution of each cultist.
As I kept looking at the description of <Divine Response Device>, I naturally had one thought in my mind.
I don’t have enough magic skills.
There are not many skills that I can share with the cultists.
As I looked at the skills on the list, a devilish temptation slowly rose in my heart.
“I feel like doing some more gacha.”
The thing that came periodically as I played the game.
It was none other than the urge to spend money.
