Dungeon of Pride, Laplace

If that was reality then what about now? He closed his eyes and opened them back, the same familiar ceiling greeted him.

While he was in a state of dishevel, the door to the room was pushed open again and a man entered.

"Huh? You are awake huh. I heard you collapsed again. Seriously man how many times does that make it? Stop worrying me so much"

The person with an overly familiar manner of speaking was none other than his friend who stuck along with him even during harsh times. Until Simon even pushed him away.

"Alex?!" he muttered in surprise.

"That's right. What? Don't tell me you have even forgotten the name of your friend".

There was no mistaking it, this guy was his friend.

Alex came to a stop near his bed and looked at him carefully, before showing him a bag.

"Here"...

"What's this?" Simon looked at the bag and asked.

"Don't tell me you forgot? Today is the day the game [Rise of the Demolishers] the company you work for goes for sale. You told me to show some support by buying one" Alex explained.

That's right, he did tell him that. He was so excited from seeing his friend after such a long time that he had completely forgotten about it.

"Haha, it slipped my mind" Simon laughed. Looking at the game drive that was inside the bag many memories flooded his mind.

"You know I had to wait in a long line to buy this game. Seriously is it that good? Its genre is also different than the games we normally play. Did you perhaps work on it?".

The [Rise of the Demolishers] was a military science fiction game far different from the DMMORPG games they used to play. It wasn't surprising that Alex would ask him that question.

"Ahaha, yeah I did. But my contribution wasn't much, I just helped out here and there. The project was mainly developed by her..."

Simon suddenly stopped mid sentence while explaining.

Come to think of it, this game was the third biggest project led by her. He helped out in this game because he wanted the project she worked on to be a success. But fate had something else planned entirely.

The game contrary to their expectations would cause a huge incident and the project would be shut down by the board of directors. The one who will be held liable and bear the whole blame for all of it would be...

The weird feeling that was weighing down on him, suddenly became more clear at this moment.

If the [Rise of the Demolishers] go for sale today, then didn't it mean that incident was going to occur? Simon hurriedly turned towards Alex and asked--

"Hey, what's the date and year today?".

"Huh? Oi Oi... is your head seriously alright? If the work environment there doesn't suit you, you can just quit you know?"

His friend gave him a weird look. Of course, Simon knew that. In fact, that thought had crossed his mind quite a few times. But the only reason he didn't quit was because of her.

"Just tell me" he asserted.

"Alright.. alright--today is the 15th of March, 2115" Alex answered when suddenly he saw Simon jumping out of his bed and running out of the room.

"Hey, where you going? You are supposed to be on bed rest today"

From behind, he could hear his friend calling out to him. However, he had no mind to pay attention to that right now.

She told him that she would visit him after work but as per his memories she never came. It was only after he saw the news that he realised the incident that shook the world. But by the time he gathered his courage and visited her, it was already too late.

Not wanting the past to repeat once again, Simon ran towards the elevator and in no time he was already out of the 200 storeys building.

All around him were tall skyscrapers that rose not only vertically but also horizontally. Hyperspeed highways running from the sky to the ground. There were numerous layers of ground, artificial sky and so and so forth.

Simon quickly got into one of the hyperloops and drove towards his office, the biggest magnificent building in the city.

Stopping on the second layer of the ground, Simon relied on his memories and started running towards sector C of the building. Because he remembered that was where the launch event should be taking place.

At this moment, Simon had forgotten all about his circumstance. There was only one thing on his mind, he needed to stop the launch of this event that the entire world had its eyes on at any cost.

It was something that he had learned later on in his life in the company, but it was all a big scheme. The game and the capsules were tampered with before the event by those guys to besmirch someone.

The professional players selected to officiate and endorse the game, needed to be stopped before they dived inside that game or else it would become a huge incident that would shake the world.

Haa... haa... finally after running for a while, Simon found the hall. He passed through the entrance where a small AI in the shape of a bowling ball, scanned his bio ID before letting him in.

Although he said earlier it was a hall, it was more like a lounge but bigger than even a football stadium. It was a place filled with architectural grandeur and magnificence, beautiful decorations and technologies.

This was a grand event for one of the biggest companies in the world, hence many people were invited to it. As such, it was bound to be crowded; however, it didn't get congested because of the hover plates.

Simon looked around the hall and quickly found the board of directors sitting around a table on one of the biggest hover plates.

He was just about to make his way over there when suddenly the crowd started going wild. Fireworks went off on the main stage as the key figures that the whole world had their eyes on, walked over.

Their holographic avatars walked beside them while letting everybody know who they were. The CEO, the staff who worked on the project, those guys and even she was also there.

The event had already started, he was too late.

Would he have to see the same scene play out once again? Would he end up becoming a bystander once again? Would he only be able to watch helplessly as those eyes of hers sought help?

No; there was no way he would allow the past to repeat itself once again.

At that time he was lying in the hospital unaware of the incident that occurred at the event until he saw the news. But right now, he was here. He knew everything that was going to happen, he can change the future.

Or so he thought but his naive hopes were crushed in front of his eyes. Simon realised once again how powerless he was then and even now.

Why didn't he think of it before? He never considered the possibility that one or several of the board of directors were also involved in this.

"Who are you? Do you even know your position?"...

"Who allowed you to get inside in those clothes?"...

"Do you think we will stop the event just because you said so? Throw this man out, the event must go on as planned"...

"Right, this is our only chance to curb the influence of that family, it needs to be done. Although we feel sorry for that girl, she will have to be sacrificed"...

"It's her own fault for being from that family, if not for them, we would have already monopolised the whole industry"...

What were these people saying? What family? What responsibility? Simon was unable to understand them.

They knew full well what was going to happen if these pros entered those immersion capsules and dived inside the game. Yet they could sit there smiling, enjoying the show while drinking.

This was not a new sight for Simon, he had already experienced and seen the darkness within humans. But even then, how could he sit still and do nothing when the tip of that spear of darkness was pointed towards her?

The woman who took care of him when he newly joined the company and showed him the ropes, the always optimistic senior of his who barged into his heart. And whose shadow he was unable to forget up until now, Emilia Aurelie.

Unbeknownst to even himself, Simon started sinking deeper and deeper into this reality. He tried everything he could to stop the event; however, he was up against a mammoth of an opponent. He couldn't even stir the smallest of waves.

What's more, he was even thrown out and arrested by the cyborg police by them.

Sitting by himself inside his cell, all he could think about was the event day and night. By the time he was released, everything was already over.

The ten professional players that entered the game, had died inside their Immersion Capsules and the project ended up becoming a huge disaster, breaking headlines of every news.

The blame, liability, and accusation was then dropped onto the shoulders of one woman, the leader of this project, Emilia Aurelie.

She would be laid off from her post she worked hard for years to achieve, held guilty for the crimes she didn't commit and become a sinner in the eyes of the whole world.