As requested, my uncle shuts the door behind us.
"Sit down." Ghostdoctor gestures us to sit on his bed.
"What do you want from us?" Eleanor as cautious as always, has her guards up.
"I wat to join your alliance."
Huh?
"You wanted to join Ice Age, I backed out, there's a spot open right now, why haven't you take that?" My uncle presses.
"I don't want it anymore."
"Why not? You've been pursuing a spot in our alliance for two whole years, all of a sudden you just don't want it anymore?"
He nodded, then gestures us to take a seat yet again.
Ken took a seat, he was breathing really heavily, must've been exhausting for him.
Eleanor stood in front of Ken, with a strict face on to face Ghostdoctor with utmost cautions.
"Well I'm sorry, as a member of this alliance, I do not accept you into our alliance." My uncle said.
"Why not?"
"Our team still don't have a Mage, and there's only one spot left for it."
I guess it's really a big deal in this game to have one Mage in a team, Eleanor has emphasized this point before too.
"That's exactly the reason why I want to join."
"You wanted to take the spot of our Mage back in Ice Age too, are you insane?"
"Don't you ever stop and wonder why Mages are so much more powerful than what their power level suggests?"
That question left both my uncle and Eleanor speechless.
I'm not in the game long enough to know how strong Mages are compared to other classes, but judging by their reaction to Ghostdoctor's question, there had to be a considerable gap between Mages and other classes.
"They want every team to have at least one Mage, and they did a great job at that, it was very difficult for me to find you guys, a team with potential to win the tournament that hasn't recruited a Mage." Ghostdoctor answers his own question.
"Who's they?" Eleanor inquires.
"The one who created the games."
"Huh? What are you talking about?" My uncle questioned in confusion.
"Haven't you realised?" Ghostdoctor pulls out the pair of scissors from earlier, still stained with blood.
He spins it on his fingers and brings it close to his face, then holds it firmly right next to his cheek before whispering dramatically,
"We're all still alive."
"Harh?!" Uncle was utterly disturbed by that statement, he took a step back involuntarily and his jaw dropped dramatically.
Eleanor and Ken was also startled by Ghostdoctor's unprecedented comment on the game.
Ken stood up from the bed and stared at Ghostdoctor in shock, while Eleanor's pupils constricted and her body tensed.
"What are you talking about?!" Uncle rejects the idea.
"So this and that pair of scissors are real and not just some item in the game then?" I accepted the idea and asked while holding up the morse code translator.
Unlike my uncle, I don't find this revelation that much unexpected.
"Yes, yes they are."
"Why have you only disclose this information to us?" I inquired further, clearly Ghostdoctor knows a lot about this mysterious game.
"I've said this before, there's no Mages in your team."
"Correlation?"
Ghostdoctor cleared his throat, seems he's about to divulge a buttload of information now.
"Since I've told you the game isn't real, you will now wonder how does magic exist in this world.
Magic users, or the Mages, their magic appears like fireballs, like energy blasts, but they're nothing more than illusions conjured up by a drone next to them, an invisible drone.
That drone has wiretaps on it, aside from the tracker in all of our earpieces, that's how they keep track of players. It's why Mages are so overpowered, they're ensuring every team has one of their surveillance device."
"Wha-" uncle's still confused, but I simply cut him off by continuing my discussion with Ghostdoctor.
"If that's the case explain this." I summoned my greatsword from my inventory, then swung it through Ghostdoctor.
Obviously, it phased through him.
"If the game is fake, this is an illusion too, shouldn't there be a drone near me to conjure it?"
"Weapons of other classes are far simpler to trick the brain into thinking it's reality. Your sword, his shield, her gun, his daggers, can all be explained with this." He tapped on his earpiece. "The earpiece sends false nerve impulses to your brain, making your brain interpret the wrong information."
Right now, I felt as though I am indeed wielding the greatsword, as if it's real, I could feel it's weight and the sensation of it's rough grip.
If it's fake...
I clenched my fist that was 'holding' my sword, it felt painful for a fraction of a second, then the sword turned translucent, phased through my fingers and dropped to the floor.
This proves it, Ghostdoctor wasn't bullshitting us, he was telling the truth, and everyone who saw what I just did also realised that.
My uncle also did his own experiment after seeing mine. He conjured an ice spike on his palm, and lowered his finger on the spike slowly and steadily.
It was painful at first, felt like a needle, felt exactly like how being penetrated by a sharp object would feel, causing my uncle to grimace.
But no wound or blood is ever observed, my uncle's finger went right through the spike like it's nothing, because it is indeed, nothing.
Seeing this scene and experiencing it first hand himself, my uncle gasped loudly.
"The weapons work in Campaign and Endless, explain that." I inquired further
"That's the two thing I'm uncertain of about the game, Campaign and Endless."
"You don't know how they work?"
"I don't."
I thought for a while, and decided this question will be the best to ask,
"Why are you telling us these?"
"You're sharp, Frostbite's nephew."
Asking him how he knows all these is unnecessary. We've already proven that it's true, this is true information, learning it's origins won't enhance the usefulness of these information.
What I want to know, is the usefulness of these information, why is he telling us these? Does this benefit us in any ways? Is there a way to exploit this information?
"Like I said before, Mages are overpowered and like I said before again, they all have a drone following them, I know for a fact that's true even in tournaments, not sure if it is for Campaign and Endless though."
"What you're saying is, Mages aren't as overpowered as they seem, they just have a weakness no one knew about."
"Precisely, you take out the drone, you take out the Mage, they can be deemed useless the second you reap them of their drones. That's the case in tournaments, not certain about Campaign and Endless once again."
"You're telling us since Mages aren't as overpowered as they seem, thus we shouldn't find a Mage in our team, we should recruit you instead."
"And we'll win the tournament by means of...pretty much cheating, by eliminating all the Mages of opposing team easily."
If Mages are as overpowered as I've heard so far, they're easily the trump card of every alliance, taking them out with an easy way will make every match an effortless victory.
"Excuse me, sorry, I still don't get it, the game's fake?!"
How are you still stuck there uncle...
"I thought we're far past that, Frostbite." Ghostdoctor seemed disappointed in my uncle.
"Yeah but it's a big deal and you two just accepted it like that, y'all didn't even discuss it much at all, I need solid and concrete proof of what you're saying is true."
"Is your weapons being fakes not convincing enough?"
"How could it be?! You're telling me this game I've been in, and grinding for three whole years is fake, how could that be enough proof?
You don't even know how the main game, the Campaign and Endless works."
"Do you not feel alive? You're breathing, you can feel tired, you can feel pain, you still piss, you still shit, the time works the same in the game as in real life. I slit the throat of someone with this scissors and killed them, in a place where weapons shouldn't function, isn't it obvious?"
"So what? What's the earpiece? Just some high-tech system made by whoever they are, the gamemasters, to what? To trick us?"
"It all adds up doesn't it?"
It still took some time, but eventually uncle dropped his tense arms and head, and somewhat accepted the fact that we're in a fabricated reality.
Eleanor accepted it quite a while ago, and has since then been by Ken's side to comfort him, calming him down from the abrupt and shocking news.
"I still can't believe it..." Seems I've misread my uncle's body language, he still stubbornly refuses to believe that the game's fake.
He didn't have the strength to look Ghostdoctor in the eyes anymore, he lets his head hung and eyes stared directly below.
"I've prepared proof."
Ghostdoctor walked out the glass door to the balcony, and dragged into our sight a dead corpse of a man.
All of us were speechless from the gruesome scene, jaw dropped and eyes widen, but Ghostdoctor's movements suggests it's nothing strange for him.
He then grabbed something outside the balcony and brought it inside, stepping over the dead body by the door.
It's a cluster of metal scrap, but the more carefully one observes, one will notice broken fan blade like structures at the sides of the cluster. It's a drone.
He dropped the cluster of metal scrap on the floor right in front of us, the impact sound to the ground caused us to involuntarily flinch.
"The player that lived here was a Mage, here's your proof: the drone that followed him around."