My Emperor's Sword

Chapter 3: Start Of The Adventure

"You have said before that Ashes of God was your pet project long before it was taken by Omega9, how is that?"

The interviewer stretched his hand for his guest to speak. All the while, a grin was canceled as soon as it formed on his face. The scene in front of him gave him a strong sense of deja vu. But for some reason, this sensation was mixed in with incredible happiness and excitement, something that was apparent from his shaking hand. He didn't know why, but this seemingly normal interview sent him through a roller coaster of emotions.

"Ashes of God was a project that I and some of my friends were creating from our university days. It grew close to completion before Omega9 decided to help us... But we were very disappointed by what it was going to be as every really cool feature we wanted was beyond our programming scope. That's when Omega9 approached us."

The journalist took back the microphone. He promptly asked his interviewee.

"What did Omega9 do to help the project grow exactly?"

"They gave us everything we need. Fund, Programmer, Artists... They just asked us to think and the teams we were given contact with would execute."

Awkward silence momentarily took place. The journalist started speaking after a while.

"If you had to choose between any of those features, what would be the one Omega9 helped with the most?"

The interviewee felt hesitant. He pointed his eyes towards the roof then scratched his head while grunting.

"I would say... Time Dilation. I mean, it was not really a feature we expected to be in at all at the beginning. But thanks to Omega9, it did make the cut."

"What is this Time Dilation you are speaking about?"

"To speak normal person language, Time Dilation enables a player to get 10 times as much play time than normal by basically making the brain work slightly faster. It's better than sudoku to work the brain too!"

The interviewee burst out laughing to his own joke. The interviewer tried to continue his questionnaire.

"You mentioned some friends before-"

Without even waiting for the microphone to be under his mouth, the guest stood up, the smile filling his face was no more.

"I think I spoke enough. I'll be going."

"W-wait!"

The stream paused at this moment and stopped minutes after. When the stream changed to its offline screen, Mark closed off the page before turning his digital lenses and earplugs off. Thinking in his head Off, the faint blue light that was emitting from inside his ears faded away, and so did the blue glint on his lenses. The digital lenses/earplug kit was a marvelous invention, one that wasn't made commercial until December of last year. However, what made it special to Mark right now was the questions that it brought with its existence.

He couldn't remember when he bought the kit exactly, and if it was just that Mark would have probably assumed it to be a consequence of the shock from traveling through time. However, that wasn't just the end of it. For the past ten years, Mark was using the digital lenses extensively to the point where he discarded all of his other personal electronic devices, other than the capsule. This made it so that he developed a certain set of reflexes pertaining to when he wanted to browse the net, or checking what time it was. He would instinctively use his thoughts to communicate with the digital kit. All of these facts made it even more intriguing why, in the shock of being in an unfamiliar place, did he check his e-watch first, laptop second, and forget that the information he needed was but a thought away.