25th June 2043.

Ayumi's 'tour' took a little longer than planned as they decided to take her to their favorite spots. First, Suzuki introduced the newcomer to their building's gym and the Gladiator testing facility on the basement floors, where they agreed to schedule some training in the evening.

Once done, they bought Ayumi a bike before Jade and Saeko led the way to the famous clothing stores so she could choose which best matched her tastes. Then they went to the electronics stores so she could order any accessories or devices for her room.

Ayumi placed a few orders Saeko gladly paid for and followed Usman to his favorite restaurants. Incidentally, they passed a grocery store, but only Suzuki took a serious look inside. The rest could not cook, so expanding their order variety was much more critical.

Finally, with all the daily necessities taken care of, Taiga led the group to the amusement park, where they spent most of the afternoon playing games and getting in rides. By the way, Taiga and Usman sparked a bet on what would finally break Suzuki's monotonous expression. Contrary to their guesses, neither the haunted house nor the gigantic rollercoaster fazed the young man.

No, Suzuki scowled and then released a faint smile when he got challenged by a random stranger while playing a fighting game in the arcade room. Initially, he lost, prompting a scowl until he ultimately won by a small margin.

"What a competitive brat," remarked an amused Taiga before dragging Suzuki outside before he could request more battles to prove his win was not a fluke.

Exhausted from all the running around, the group floundered into a café booth. "Hey, Jade, any response from the other teams yet?" Asked Taiga as he looked across the table at the mocha-guzzling young woman.

"Yeah, a couple," Jade honestly answered as she whipped out her phone. "They want to meet as soon as possible to discuss and share information. They will make their decision after listening to us."

Taiga's brow rose. "Oh? There're actual teams out there with common sense? I thought it would be a lot harder to bring them to the table."

Saeko knowingly smiled and winked at Jade as she licked the caramel coating on her French Vanilla latte. "I imagine you added a few excerpts from our deductions to sweeten the bait."

"Hehe, yeah," Jade confirmed with a smirk. "Most of these guys are pretty competitive. Even if they don't want to work with us, I imagine they'll do everything possible to squeeze intel out of us."

Suzuki looked up as he nursed a cup of orange juice. "What do you know about the teams?"

Jade wryly smiled as she looked at the young man's cold eyes. Taking pleasure in Suzuki's curious frown, she revealed, "You're very familiar with at least two of them. Silver Spear and Nature's Vanguard. Remember them?"

"How could he forget?" snorted Usman. "We just finished a long battle against them in-game."

"We?" teased Taiga. "I don't remember seeing a certain golden cat."

*cough* *cough* "What do you know? Merchants fight hard, too, you know?" Usman downed a cup of black coffee as he shamelessly defended himself. "It's not easy generating funds to arm an entire army. Arrows don't make themselves, you know?"

"Hehe, whatever you say, boss."

Usman wanted to strangle Taiga just once, but fortunately, there were a few adults in the café.

"Leaving their in-game personalities aside, do we know anything about their real-world counterparts?" Ayumi asked as she sipped her coffee from a teacup.

"Quite a bit, actually," Jade revealed with a grin. "People post so much of their lives on social media that it makes hacking boring." The young woman took a mini-projector from her backpack and placed it on the table. "First, let's start with Silver Spear. Their boss, Brilith Loneheart, is Yokina Natsu IRL."

Suzuki's eyes narrowed. "I recognize her. Met her at the Gladiator training halls."

"Oh? I didn't think you ever left your room," teased Jade as she tapped on the Natsu's picture. "According to her postings, she grew up in Hokkaido, saddled under a lot of debt from her parents' degenerate gambling habits. She's been working in seedy establishments since she was seven years old to pay off her debt. Initially, she joined King's Journey to farm gold to pay off her debts but lucked into a rare class. That's when her fate changed. Natsu formed a powerful guild and, through selling exotic loot, managed to accrue enough money to pay off her debts. She formed a new gaming studio, Silver Spear, until the game closed. According to King's Journey's forum posts, Silver Spear was very ambitious and deadly. They aggressively expanded shortly after forming, eliminating any guild, Resident, or Summoned who dared resist. Genaco probably recruited her after seeing her outstanding performance."

Ayumi lightly massaged the teacup's rim as she pondered, "The strength of will to preserver under adverse conditions, intelligence to plan her redemption, courage to implement said plan, and decisiveness to eliminate any foe on her path." The young woman slightly scrunched her brows. "I hope she has not developed an accompanying ego; otherwise, her traits would be perfect for cooperation."

Saeko glanced at an array of smaller pictures next to Natsu's. "What about her teammates? What can you tell us about them?"

Jade looked at the pictures. "They're part of her guild from King's Journey. It seems Genaco purposely put former teammates together to facilitate cooperation."

"Yeah, that I can confirm," said Usman with a nod. "Although Genaco made it seem like they randomly picked the teams, they already had the background on every participant's in-game character. Creating a team that practices both in-game and outside the game is much easier. It would not make too much sense if teammates were wary of each other due to being on opposing guilds in-game."

"Exactly," Jade affirmed as she pulled up five pictures. The first depicted a giant, buff bodybuilder holding a trophy at some competition. The next showed a small girl licking a lollipop while painting on a canvas. The third was a dark-haired female teacher with kind eyes in a classroom. The fourth displayed a teenage girl wearing large glasses while sunbathing at a beach. Finally, the last picture depicted a stylish young man in a business suit with an aggressive, cocky gaze. "Takahiro Ken, a gym enthusiast, joined King's Journey to help save his local gym. Kuoshimida Akiyo, a sixteen-year-old genius from Kyoto with a rare condition that stopped her growth at a young age; Yamazaki Hitomi is a student lecturer at a prestigious University. By all accounts, she seems to play games to relieve stress from work. Kazue Saito is an heiress to a conglomerate. I can't find any concrete reason why she would choose to risk her life volunteering for this program. Finally, Nakahara Akiko is the last son of a middle-class family. His elder brothers have successful careers as doctors, which seemed to put a lot of pressure on him to surpass their legacy. He attempts to surpass any record they had in his school, from basketball to grades, but mostly falls just short. He might have joined the game to prove something to himself."

"That... is pretty detailed," muttered Saeko, staring at Jade like she was looking at a ghost. "You got all of that in a few hours?"

"Pfft... Nope! I hacked into Genaco's personnel files a while back to look for someone. These just happened to be among the many files I downloaded then. It did take some time to sort out the relevant ones, though."

"Good job," praised Suzuki, causing Jade's cheeks to redden delightfully. "What about Nature's Vanguard? I'm especially curious about their leader. He seemed... different."

Jade nodded. "Yeah, his story is a bit... odd. His IRL name is Tsukosen Kimuri. At twenty-eight, he's one of the oldest participants in Genaco's project." As she spoke, she pulled up an image of a listless man smoking a cigar while leaning against a bike. The jacket he wore, and the other bikemen surrounding him suggested he belonged to a bike gang. Sure enough, Jade's next words confirmed it. "He used to lead an infamous biker gang in Okinawa. He himself doesn't have much of a social media presence, but I got something after piecing scattered intel from newspapers and his members' profiles. He joined the gang sometime in high school and quickly worked his way to the top. Along the way, he fought many rival gangs and won, catching the eyes of some local yakuza. Under their coercion, he joined, but on the condition, he formed a tiny family with his biker mates. The details are sketchy from here, but roughly three-four years ago, he suddenly quit, and he lost a lot of his aggressiveness, turning into a kind of pacifist who sits on the grass and stares at the sun all day. Somehow, he got dragged into King's Journey a few months before closing. And I guess his performance was good enough to warrant getting called up."

Jade tapped on the screen, pulling up five pictures. "Tsukuda Taidan, the skinny guy with glasses, is Kimuri's, right-hand man. He was responsible for organizing most of their operations while they were yakuza. I don't think that has changed. Nobu Ueda was a junkie Taidan took in after Ueda saved his life from an ambush. Hamasaku Rokuro, Kawaguchi Ryo, and Nakamura Tomomi are not original members of Kimuri's biker gang. They joined during the gang's yakuza stint. Due to their age, I also suspect they're the ones who pulled him into King's Journey."

"The head of a biker gang turned yakuza turned gamer." Suzuki frowned slightly as he parsed the information. "If the games are anything to go by, yakuza families should have steadfast loyalty to one another."

"Especially if they chose to quit alongside their boss," added Usman as he rubbed his chin in thought. "They must've paid a painful price to leave the yakuza. It's not an organization where you hand in a membership card and leave."

"Yes, but something is off," muttered Suzuki. "The man Kashi fought with did not seem to be a very opinionated guy. It's hard to believe he leads a guild with that attitude."

Ayumi pointed to the glasses-wearing man. "In that case, we should target this Tsukuda Taidan guy. If he agrees, Kimuri should follow."

"Perhaps. We'll see how it goes during the talks." Having finished that report, Jade tapped on her screen again. "We can't go into much more detail, or we'll be here forever, but the remaining two teams are standard gaming companies IRL. In-game, Titan's Breath primarily operates out of Elysium Cove, while there's strangely little news on Devil's Grin. Their name popped up on forums early in the game, but there's been no trace of their presence in weeks. They're headed by Nagashiki Kaido and Narasu Chimei, respectively. Interestingly, Titan's Breath is a family gaming studio. Most of their employees come from the Nagashiki family."

"A family business." Ayumi softly tapped her teacup as she remarked, "They will be a tight-knit group, so we will not have to fear internal fighting if they join a mission. Unfortunately, our in-game intelligence forces have not made much in-road in the Elysium Coves. By virtue of being a series of independent islands, there are heightened political tensions and aversions to strangers. But the name Titan's Breath does sound familiar. I will look into my notes tonight to see if I wrote down any concerning characteristics."

"Thanks, that'll be helpful." Suzuki thanked his old partner and then clenched his fist as he looked at the rest of the table. "Has this new information changed anyone's mind? Are we still in agreement to set up a meeting to cooperate with the other teams?" When no one nodded, Suzuki turned to Jade. "Set the meeting for 6:30 pm. I'll book the café for two hours so we are not disturbed."

Usman's eyes widened into saucers as he watched Suzuki make his way to the counter. "That's something we can do? Rent out an entire café?"

Jade shrugged. "Ain't cheap, but should be doable. Have you looked at your salary lately?"

Curious, Usman searched for his profile on his phone. Under his clearance level, he saw a number with an inordinate amount of zeroes. "What in the ever living fuck!?" The young man's soul nearly left his body as he quickly ran through numerous calculations. "Damn it! After two to three years, I could build a business and never have to work again with this!"

"Yup!" Jade nonchalantly confirmed. "Our salaries are night and day compared to the regular participants too. I think they're really treating us like an elite unit. Even the compensation package reflects that we might be expected to risk our lives soon."

"That's not unexpected," Suzuki stated as he returned to his seat. "Genaco would not spend so much time training us if they did not expect us to use these skills for something. Oh, and I've booked the store. We will be good for the next three hours."

Jade glanced askance at the stoic young man. "Aren't you scared at all? This isn't a game. If you die, you die for real. No resurrections; no second chances."

"Death will come for me regardless," muttered Suzuki as his gaze froze in apathetic despair. "The least I can do is attempt to influence how and when I die. If I can die protecting those who should be protected, it will be a worthwhile death worthy of their sacrifice."

Ayumi's eyes dimmed as she understood more than most the only thing that haunted Suzuki at night.

Taiga, meanwhile, latched onto something else, "Those who should be protected, huh?" The young man widely grinned as he teased, "Is it so hard to say 'my loved ones?' No? How about 'friends?' Come on, Suzu-chan, I know you've got it in you."

If looks could kill, Taiga would have already combusted into dust.

Fortunately, with a soft clang, the door's bell rang, drawing everyone's attention to the listless young man who walked into the café while chewing on a leaf stalk.

Tsukosen Kimuri scanned the café, and his eyes lit up when he spotted Suzuki's table. Recognizing the abyss-like gaze, he waved as he walked over. "What a coincidence. I happened to be in the record store next door. So, what's this plan you want to talk about?"