21 Unexpected Interrogation

[ Narrator POV ]

"CONGRATULATIONS TO THE WINNER OF THE MUSPELHIEM WORLD TOURNAMENT!" Declared the announcer.

He looked toward Doyle intently. The satisfied yells of excitement could still be heard from the seating area however, players have already started to leave the arena going back to their respective worlds.

The announcer finally reached the ground surface and approached Doyle.

"I gotta say that was a nice fight Mr. Doyle". he said with a Constant smile. Although players were not able to move facial features in the game this announcer had changed his smile several times during the fight. Doyle felt that this "announcer" must be some kind of Dev. The way he acted made Doyle feel like he knew everything about him, which was probably true.

"I also gotta say, I thought that you could only scream. It's nice to know that you can talk normally". Said Doyle.

"Hahaha! You are funny Mr. Doyle. I'm sure you know that I am a developer of the YGGDRASIL game. You can call me Hiroshi for the time being.". He said with the same smile as he reached out his hand for a professional handshake.

Doyle looked towards the hand and then back at Hiroshi. 'Hiroshi' huh? Must be Japanese.' he thought.

Seconds later he reached out his hand to shake his hand.

As soon as Doyle's hand completely grabbed Hiroshi's they were immediately teleported from the arena. The sounds of loud chatter that cloaked the arena disappeared with the snap of a finger.

They were teleported to a plain white room. Within the room, there were no windows nor doors that led out of this room. Hiroshi turned around and walked towards the center of the room and spawned an office desk with two chairs that were all the same white color as the room, Then he looked up and signaled for Doyle to come over a sit down.( Think of the room like the room Morgan Freeman sat in when he said "I am god". I'll also insert an image here)

Doyle walked towards the chair but didn't sit down. He didn't understand why was he there.

'Was this what happened before they give the rewards? Or maybe this is exactly how they give the rewards for the tournament?' he thought. He didn't understand what the Dev wanted from him, but he had a weird feeling that it wasn't for the reward.

"Aw come on Mr. Doyle have a seat, no need to be so stiff.". Said Hiroshi signaling again for Doyle to sit in the seat on the other side of the work desk.

Doyle finally sat down and Hiroshi started to look in the drawer of his desk for something. A moment later he pulled out a couple of white folder with a couple papers inside.

"So Mr. Doyle, how are you enjoying YGGDRASIL?". He asked while opening the folder.

"It's a good game.". Doyle replied dryly.

"That's good. Is there anything you have come across recently that hasn't been up to part within the game like bugs or any inconsistencies?". Asked Hiroshi as he continued go through the papers.

"No."

"Ok good. If you could rate the game what would you-"

"Let's cut to the chase. Why am I here? Is there something that you dev's need help with or something?" Doyle interrupted.

Hiroshi stopped shuffling through the papers and looked up. His constant smile was now gone, instead, the mouth that was there before was gone and the face was now completely featureless.

"Your right. There is something that we have been noticing. It's not like your in trouble or anything like that, at least not yet." He stated with his usual nice professional voice gone.

"You see, there have been some odd things that we have noticed about you Mr. Doyle that are much different from the other players. We were ignoring it at first, but now that I have had the chance to meet you I decided it wouldn't hurt to talk to you about it. You wouldn't mind, would you?"

'As if I have a choice...' Doyle complained internally.

"Sure. Go ahead." Doyle replied.

"Thank you for your cooperation. Now firstly, how exactly did you find out about the "Ghosthood" hidden quest? The game was still in its early access phase so it makes no sense how a player could find out about it."

"Let's just say I have my own personal issues that the game allowed me to explore. It didn't prohibit me from doing what I would have liked to do in real life so I chose to do it here. It was nothing but a coincidence that I found out about the quest." Doyle stated. He did not hesitate nor stutter when speaking because he knew that they would still be suspicious of him if they believed he was lying. He wanted to sound as believable as possible.

Hearing what Doyle said Hiroshi was mostly stunned. He hadn't expected such a straightforward and dark answer. It made him speechless. He then decided not to get into details about Doyle's answer since it was none of his business and he did not want to come off as rude.

"Ahem- okay, next question. It has been brought to our attention that you have not logged out of the game since it first launched. Although we have many players who have countless hours within YGGDRASIL everyone has to log off at one point. Could you please explain to me why is this?"

"It's nothing serious. It's just because of my predicament. I have been paralyzed for a few years now so I tend to play games much more then the average player. My family is very wealthy as you can tell from my in-game purchases. I am connected to a machine that automatically feeds me at certain times of the day, it's a machine my family invested money for in order for me to be able to experience the game all the time. Additionally, I live alone so I have no reason to log off to talk to family. YGGDRASIL is my way of experiencing walking again, that's my reason for always being online. I honestly didn't know YGGDRASIL Devs we're so indifferent about people's circumstances..." Doyle said in a slightly sad tone.

"Oh uh....no it's not that- we just have to make sure that there is no cheat-"

"Are all of your questions about my personal life?" Doyle interrupted. His sad voice echoed within the room as silence enveloped Hiroshi.

Hiroshi honestly did not know what to say. He hadn't expected such dark and depressing answers. It was making him seem like a horrible person. Even he had to admit there was technology out there that would auto-feed a person and he already knew of Doyle's wealth due to him always buying Cash Shop Items. At this point, most of his questions were going down a bad road and it could possibly cost a major blow to YGGDRASIL, especially with the kind of power that Doyle had due to his wealth. He could only imagine what would happen if Doyle decided to do something against them with his family's backing.

'I should just end this here before I say something I shouldn't...' Hiroshi thought.

"Ah... sorry about that, it was my fault for not doing a better job with the questions. I do hope you forgive my rudeness. That will be all for the questions, we already have our answers." Hiroshi said in a polite tone trying not to offend Doyle anymore.

Hiroshi them got up and the work desk vanished immediately. Doyle also stood up waiting for Hiroshi to get him out of this room with no exit.

"Ahem- you can go through this door here." Hiroshi said directing Doyle.

In the direction he was pointing Doyle, a opening in the wall grew to the size of door. Doyle saw this and walked towards it, the outside of the door glowed a bright white light.

After watching Doyle leave the room Hiroshi sighed heavily. He felt like a huge weight was lifted off of his shoulders.

"Damn... That was close. Why didn't the guys get more information before sending me here to interrogate him? This almost costed us our entire game. Years of work would have gone straight down the drain. Thank God it's over, I'm never doing this again..."

***

[ Doyle's POV ]

Well, that went well. I had already expected the devs to come and ask me about my oddities sooner or later so I already had plans for that. I had already came up with reasons as to why I was so different. I made sure not to stutter nor hesitate when I spoke so it could all seem real. Additionally, I reminded him of how rich my non-existent family was so that he could really choose his words wisely or he could stop asking me questions altogether. It's crazy how money has so much power.

Anyway if I'm not mistaken then that should be the end of their suspicion on me. I'm sure they wouldn't want to offend such a powerful backer such as my "family".

Walking through the white door I was teleported to another all white room however there was a different Dev here. He wore the same tuxedo as Hiroshi but his face was instead a silverish-gray color. He stood in front of a long table with 10 chairs exactly. This must be the room where all nine of the world champions will meet. That means Ill see Touch Me.

I wasn't the first champion inside the room, there was another guy who wore pitch-black armor that was already sitting down talking to another player who wore silver armor with brown boots. From the body build of this player, it was obvious that it was a woman.

I walked up to the long table. This caught the attention of the Dev and the two players.

"Hello Mr. Doyle it's nice of you to join us. Please, have a seat while we wait on the other Champions to arrive."