For Elias, setting up his own gaming avatar didn't take long, and for the next two hours after that, he had done nothing but game.
Dorian's avatar was leading an invading group of cyberpunks into his territory to snatch some kind of Core that supplied energy to the region, and Elias had to control his avatar, leading a group of Mechs to stop him.
At first, all Elias could imagine was the thought of getting Dorian a little humble. After all, if gaming skills were to be graded, Elias was quite sure he should at least be a grandmaster.
While he and Dorian had met only a few hours ago and could barely be called friends, he felt that he at least owed it to the Aragus to keep his dripping ego in check.
But...
Unfortunately, he was the only one getting humiliated.
Dorian was a... monster at this kind of stuff.
No matter how much Elias tried to maneuver, trick, or bait the cyberpunks into a dead end, the Aragus would overcome it with ease that made it seem as though he had seen through it at a glance, before giving him and the group of Mechs led by his avatar the thrashing of a lifetime.
"Damn it!"
And to make matters worse was that stupid hologram screen that now lit up above his head, showing everyone just how much he sucked.
[Player: Big_Daddy
Opponent: Turtle_Turtle
Game: Mech Mayhem
Win Rate: 5%]
What made Elias particularly irritated was the stupid, smug grin that had been plastered on Dorian's face the whole time, and the weird victory dance he pulled as if to rub his losses in his face.
"The bastard!"
But even at that, Elias couldn't deny the fact that he was enjoying himself.
The [Game Haven] was quite a fantastic place.
With the LED screen easily towering over him, watching the video game on screen felt like stepping into a whole new world.
What made it even better was the video quality. The shit was so good that it was almost indistinguishable from reality.
As a result, the entire thing felt dangerously immersive, so much so that sometimes Elias felt as though he had become his avatar and stepped into the game.
While Elias would have wanted to try out the VR, which should logically offer a much more realistic experience... he heard that it came with an age restriction for anyone under eleven, so he wouldn't have been able to bring Lizzy along.
And speaking of Lizzy—
"No! Bad puppy! Bad puppy!"
She had been playing some kind of strange game for the past hour that involved grooming pets, her avatar doing stuff like bathing, feeding, and caring for a group of little animals, even singing them to sleep.
Elias couldn't help but feel like she must have gotten the inspiration from the pet store she had been ranting about, where she met that so-called Brawny... wait, why does he feel like he got the name wrong?
Whatever.
Once in a while, she giggled and laughed when she messed around with the design of the creatures or gave them funny dresses.
And she had eaten quite a lot too. A lot of very sweet stuff.
In fact, Elias had no doubt that if he hadn't put a stop to it immediately, much to her dismay, the little girl would have been sugar high by now.
And a sugar-high Lizzy, now that was certainly going to be a nightmare.
Even now, her cheeks were flushed and a lollipop dangled lazily from her lips, and a few times she raised her little fists to pump them into the air... something that Elias could bet she picked up from Dorian.
At least she didn't start doing his weird dance, else Elias doubted he would have been able to remain so calm.
But now he couldn't remain calm, for another reason.
The LED screen flashed brightly.
[Game Over
Winner: Turtle_Turtle
Winning Performance: Absolute Suppression]
Elias couldn't help but snarl.
"Hey, that's not true at all. The system is exaggerating things. You only won by a fluke, okay?"
Dorian ran his fingers through his hair, the edge of his lips curling into a grin so irritating that Elias wanted to punch him.
"I know, I know. Being so impressive is such a chore."
Elias snorted, rolling his eyes.
"I will be back. I need to go use the bathroom."
Dorian waved him away with a grin. "Take your time. After all, you need a lot of tissues to dry your tears."
"Fuck you!"
Lizzy was still playing her game and barely noticed when he left, so Elias didn't bother telling her anything since he would be back in a jiffy.
The male bathroom wasn't hard to find. The large square plaque above the doorway that read [Male Bathroom] was so bold that it was practically one of the first things to be noticed the moment one entered the [Game Haven].
The walls of the bathroom were lined with smooth, silver panels, thin strips of white light glowing between them and illuminating the entire floor.
There were about seven stalls lined up along the opposite wall, each of them enclosed by automatic doors.
Strangely, Elias found himself alone in the bathroom, which made sense since there weren't really so many people in the [Game Haven] to begin with.
He made straight for one of the sinks at the other side of the wall that had clear mirrors fixed into its surface, water rushing to his hands the moment he placed them right below the tap.
Then he brought them to his face, letting out a sigh of relief once he felt the sweet coolness of water on his face.
"Hah, now that's the spot."
Playing games for this long without a break made Elias feel like his head was hot as fire, so this worked to clear his mind and grant him a moment of reprieve.
Now that he was here, though, Elias had many things to think about.
Many things that he had been conveniently ignoring the whole time but were still staring him right in the face and begging him to address them.
"What does he want?"
Dorian Aragus was the son of a Duke.
Elias still had no idea how someone like that had ended up in the D Wing, after all, he doubted the Concordia Labs would be so bold as to put the child of a Duke in such a place... even if he was thought to be weak.
But there was no particular reason for Dorian to associate himself with a commoner.
Although the rules within the Concordia Labs made it such that the Candidates, both nobles and commoners, were equal regardless of social hierarchy, in the outside world, someone like Dorian with an outstanding family legacy and tons of protectors shouldn't concern himself with people that were deemed as lessers...
Nobles... nobles mostly moved because of benefits. So what could someone of the exalted Aragus bloodline probably benefit from him?
Why was he so adamant for them to remain friends?
Or was he just overthinking it and Dorian Aragus was someone who didn't give a fuck about stations?
After all, there was still Cherry, who, although hailed from a noble family, didn't exist on the same level as that of the Aragus.
But Elias still felt a little adamant about writing it off like this.
After all, while Dorian felt playful and totally carefree, people were hardly so simple. Human beings were complex creatures at the end of the day.
Elias couldn't help but harden his face now.
"Did he notice anything about me? Or someone told him... something?"
That wasn't particularly impossible. In fact, there was a possibility that Henry, the leader of the scouting squad, might have already spread a rumor about his Weaves, prompting people to take notice.
But it was possible that he was just being unreasonably cautious. But what if he wasn't?
"Ugh! Where is Elyndra when you need her!"
After the incident with the Fatesinger, the tiny gremlin had waved him off, telling him she was going to sleep. And she just disappeared with a poof!
In fact, if Elyndra did possess some kind of drawback, Elias could bet that it was probably related to sleeping!
And that made him jealous, because that was something she still enjoyed doing even without it acting as a drawback anyway.
Elias raised his head slightly upwards, looking at his reflection within the clear, glass mirror.
His features seemed to be a lot more mature, far more than they had been in the past. It felt like he had added a few inches in height, reaching 6'3", and his dark hair had grown longer, the black, glossy strands extending messily to reach halfway down his face.
"Thinking about it, I will be turning sixteen in a few days."
It felt like time had slowed to a crawl, when in reality, it was moving quite fast.
It had barely been a week from the moment Arvenelle was attacked up until this moment in time, and yet so much had happened already.
It made Elias wonder if, from the moment he had awakened, his life was already cursed to be this... 'exciting'.
Yawning, Elias scratched the side of his hair.
'Time to head back, I guess.'
He shouldn't leave Lizzy for long anyway. In fact, he shouldn't have left her alone with Dorian in the first place. What had he been thinking?
He was just about to walk out of the bathroom door when—
Ping
An automatic door to one of the numerous stalls that lined the bathroom slid open, and out stepped four people...
Elias tilted his head, one of his eyebrows raised.
By their body outlines, he could clearly identify two of them as female and the rest as male, but he couldn't say for sure because they hid their faces behind funny-looking, polished silicone masks.
And they were all dressed like clowns.
For a brief moment, the four of them stood still as if taken by surprise, their eyes locked on him in a staring contest.
There was only one thought running through Elias's mind, though.
'Is there some kind of cosplay I am not aware of?'
Then they turned away from him at the same time, ignoring him as they stepped ahead of him through the door.
Elias rubbed his chin, his face amused. He walked out of the door, half surprised at the fact that they seemed to have disappeared.
"I will just forget I saw anything."
In the next few minutes, he would come to regret those words.