Making Game: CH 156 – Believe (Patreon)

The conversation inside the soundproof room grew considerably lighter as the minutes slipped by. With the initial shock behind them, Arthur leaned back against the cushioned booth, genuinely curious about how the mechanics of his completed game had manifested across the stars.

"Tell me about the five masteries," Arthur said, swirling the dark brewka in his cup. "How did that system actually function for your people?"

Horus set his mug down and rubbed the back of his neck. "For a long time, we genuinely believed the cave possessed divine judgment, choosing only those who were worthy of the sacred altars. In hindsight, we now realize it was simply scanning for individuals with prior life experience and natural affinity. Take Nehsy and me as an example. I spent my youth as a frontline soldier before the orbital strikes destroyed our cities, so my body naturally synchronized with the Combat Mastery. Nehsy had spent her life cultivating crops and soil beds, which allowed her to attune with the Farming Mastery."

"Did your masteries unlock exclusive recipes?" Arthur asked.

Nehsy nodded eagerly. "They did. The Farming Mastery granted me the schematic for the Statue of Blessings. The required materials were relatively simple mineral compounds that we could easily prospect from the surrounding cavern walls. We managed to construct one for every outpost and subterranean shelter we established. Every morning, our gatherers touch the statue and receive renewed vigor, which makes our daily survival far more manageable."

Her expression then turned somewhat rueful. "Other blueprints proved impossible. The recipe like Mystic Tree Seeds demands botanical samples from four distinct non-native trees: acorns, maple seeds, pine cones, and mahogany pods. None of those flora exist anywhere on our planet. We searched the local flora for months, only to realize the biochemical structure simply did not match."

Arthur rested his chin in his hand, piecing together their situation. It was like handing someone an advanced structural engineering manual without providing basic timber and iron nails. They had unlocked peak tier recipes while lacking the foundational materials of an entirely different ecosystem. In a very literal sense, they were leveling up backward.

"Did you unlock the Mini-Forge from your Combat Mastery?" Arthur asked.

Horus sat up straight, his dark eyes lighting up with sudden enthusiasm. "We did! High Priest Atum and I were overjoyed when that blueprint registered in my mind. Atum spent an entire week excavating the deep magma veins beneath our sanctuary, enduring searing heat to smelt iron, gold, and authentic iridium ingots. Yet the entire project ground to a halt because the final component required Dragon Teeth. There is no creature across our known quadrant that possesses such skeletal biology."

"So you are sitting on high-level masteries, yet you are completely starved of non-native ingredients," Arthur said with an understanding nod.

He did not hesitate. Arthur reached his hand forward into empty air. A soft ripple of golden light bent the dim cafe lighting, and he began retrieving items directly from his personal inventory.

He placed a compact, brass-plated contraption with polished rotating rollers onto the edge of the table. "This is an Auto-Petter. My family uses these across our personal estate on Friton. Our Muurbeasts stay calm around the clock and produce immaculate fleece because of it."

What followed was a rapid, one-sided exchange of equipment. Arthur systematically emptied the surplus machinery he had accumulated from his Stardew Valley system gacha over the past year.

He pulled out seed makers, heavy oil presses, preserves jars, crystalariums, automated cheese presses, and compact smelting furnaces.

For every device Arthur set on the table, he offered a brief operational summary, after which either Horus or Nehsy reached out to stow the heavy hardware into their own spatial storage.

Finally, Arthur reached deeper into his cache and withdrew complete sets of glowing purple farming and mining implements. The deep violet sheen of forged iridium shimmered against the polished tabletop.

Nehsy stared at the heavy tools, her jaw dropping in utter bewilderment. "You cast pure, precious iridium into garden hoes and watering cans?"

Arthur offered an easy shrug. His father has been using those tools out in the fields for years. He swears by their balance. They require zero maintenance, never dull, and glide through dense topsoil as if it were soft sand. "Trust me on this, they will make your farming efforts infinitely easier."

He slid the hoes, axes, and pickaxes across the table, providing them with the exact tools needed to bridge their missing crafting gaps.

Horus finally held up both of his synthetic hands, letting out a breathless laugh. "Arthur, please, I think that is more than enough. If you pull out another crate of heavy machinery, our spatial storage limits are going to completely overflow."

Arthur laughed softly and pulled his hands back. "Fair enough."

Sitting back in his seat, Arthur felt a quiet, unexpected warmth settle in his chest. Ever since his reincarnation, the Creator System had felt like a heavy secret, an anomalous reality-warping power that he constantly had to conceal, monitor, and fear. 

Seeing these items from that system pass into the hands of real people who genuinely needed them offered a completely fresh perspective. Perhaps materializing complete profile structures across the stars could serve as a shield for those who need them.

Nehsy carefully organized the spatial slots in her mind, then exchanged a brief, meaningful look with Horus. She turned back toward Arthur, her voice carrying a distinct hesitation.

"Arthur, I know it sounds terribly crass of us to ask for anything else after all the miraculous gifts you have just handed us," Nehsy began softly.

Arthur tilted his head, listening intently.

Horus cleared his throat, leaning forward with deep humility. "I hope you can provide... no, please let us purchase your Caliburn VR seat, at a discounted price."

"It sounds like you need this machine rather than simply want one," Arthur said, resting his forearms against the table. "You do realize it was built as a gaming system, right?"

Both of them nodded in silent unison.

Arthur let out a soft sigh and leaned back against the booth cushion. "Even if I handed you a unit right now, it only has Monster Hunter compatible. We entered the Expo with the hope that other studios would license our Clarent Engine and craft their own virtual worlds."

Horus shook his head. "We have zero use for the entertainment software. You have been completely transparent with us, Arthur, so we will be equally honest with you. We need the seat for a close friend of ours. I assume you have heard about the recent Nexus file leaks?"

Arthur's eyes widened. The Jakor files. That was the explosive investigative leak his alternate persona, the composer Percival, had crossed paths with, and what made him release 'Wind of Change.'

Arthur gave a measured nod. "I know about the files."

"Those neural torture devices described in the leaked documents are entirely real," Horus said, dropping his voice to a solemn whisper. "The media dismisses the reports as wild conspiracy theories, yet the machinery is out there."

Inside, Arthur felt the heavy turbulence of galactic politics closing in around him once again. His private conversation with Logan that quiet night on Friton had already confirmed the horrific reality of those weapons. 

Logan practically bore half the credit for their original theoretical design during his early years at the Ministry. Keeping his internal panic hidden, Arthur furrowed his brow and mirrored the shock of an ordinary citizen hearing of a military atrocity.

Nehsy placed her synthetic hands flat against the tabletop. "We cannot share every operational detail, yet that specific torture method is directly tied to the natural biological features of our kind. We believe your Caliburn seat can help uncover the damage, rehabilitate the surviving victims, and perhaps shield future targets from total psychological collapse."

Now Arthur was genuinely startled. During their debriefs, Logan had admitted that he understood the exact acoustic resonance used to tear apart neural pathways, though he could never safely replicate the frequency. 

His proposed cure remained an untested concept, a lingering theory brewing in the back of his mind without the proper non-invasive hardware to test it. Arthur could see the puzzle pieces snapping into place with terrifying precision.

Arthur sat in silence, intensely debating the matter with himself. Giving away proprietary hardware to an unsanctioned faction was an immense security risk, yet turning away two people trying to heal victims of state torture felt impossible to justify.

Arthur let out a long breath, reached into his coat pocket, and slid an encrypted metallic contact card across the polished surface of the table.

"This is the direct private channel for Raja Farzir, our managing director," Arthur said quietly. "After the expo wraps up and the exhibition halls close down, send him a transmission. You can pick up a crated Caliburn unit and safely take it off-world. I will speak to him before morning and let him know you are personal friends."

Horus stared at the card, his eyes wide with disbelief. "We cannot simply take such a miraculous machine for free. We must buy it properly. We will gather every single scrap of credit from our regional reserves. We can offer around one million credits for the unit."

Arthur choked on the mouthful of brewka he had just taken, coughing into his fist as he set the mug down with a sharp clack. "A million credits? Why in the stars would you offer that much? I had zero intention of pricing the machine anywhere near that number for standard retail!"

Horus and Nehsy sat completely frozen, staring back at him in sheer bewilderment.

The midnight meeting had truly become an unpredictable emotional whirlwind for both sides of the table.

…

As the late hours of the night began to thin out, the quiet corner of the cafe finally signaled that it was time to leave.

Arthur stood up from the booth and extended an open hand across the table. "I wish you and your people the best out there."

Horus hesitated for a brief second. He reached down to his wrist, tapped a concealed release latch on his synthetic forearm, and slid the artificial covering backward. His true Dagmani hand slid into view, slender, jet black, and tipped with long, razor-sharp fingers that gleamed faintly in the low lighting.

Without the slightest trace of hesitation, Horus clasped Arthur's hand in a firm, respectful grip. "Believe in Bepoo. No... believe in freedom."

Arthur's eyes widened.

Horus offered a final, steady nod. Beside him, Nehsy pulled her hood low over her brow once more. They turned toward the exit and stepped out into the chilly night breeze of Luprime, melting into the distant shadows of the academic district.

To the two Asgardians, Arthur's sudden widening of his eyes looked like simple disbelief at how easily they had discarded their old dogma. They assumed he was merely stunned by Horus's resilient demeanor after discovering their beloved deity was a fictional creation.

Arthur had seen something entirely different.

The very second their palms touched, a translucent azure system box had flashed into existence directly in Arthur's line of sight.

[Resonance detected: Max Level Combat Mastery. Would you like to extract this ability?]

Arthur tapped [No] without a second thought, dismissing the glowing prompt into digital dust.

Another deep, nagging worry that had plagued his mind for years had finally been laid to rest. Now he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt where his Stardew Valley Mastery Cave had actually materialized across the cosmos.

He lifted his right hand, staring at his palm under the amber glow of the streetlamp outside the cafe. Was this fate? Every single stray thread, from a casual save file to an orbital purge on an alien world, seemed to have twisted through the stars to pull them into this exact room tonight. It felt as though an unseen hand had been nudging him toward this precise point in time.

"What is a god, anyway?" Arthur asked the quiet street.

Beside him, the air shimmered with faint gold dust. Athena materialized at his shoulder, her regal grey eyes gazing forward into the empty avenue. She had remained silent during the entire conversation inside the cafe, watching every heartbeat and every word.

"It is you," Athena answered simply.

Arthur turned his head to look at her, an eyebrow raised.

"Or it is him," she continued in her calm, measured cadence. "Or her. Or even those distant, burning stars above us. Mortals see a god in someone they love, or in someone they admire. In the end, it is entirely a matter of belief."

Arthur gave a slow nod, letting out a soft breath. "I honestly thought you were going to say, 'It is me, for I am the Goddess of Wisdom.'"

Athena tilted her chin, the faint trace of a haughty smirk tugging at the corners of her lips. "Oh, I am. And I possess the raw divinity to back it up."

Arthur paused mid-step, blinking in surprise. "Wait. Are you actually cracking jokes now?"

Athena kept her expression completely dignified. "Hermes has spent the last week insisting that I should stop being such a stuck-up all the time."

Arthur let out a sudden burst of laughter. "Well, then it wasn't really a joke since it happens to be entirely true! Hahaha!"

Athena immediately flattened her expression into a cold, deadpan stare. She looked at him as if he were an unruly child shouting in an ancient temple.

Arthur froze, his laughter cutting off awkwardly. He cleared his throat and gestured with his hands. "That... that was the joke! It was a joke, see?"

Athena broke her stoic facade, letting out a quiet, elegant chuckle. "You looked remarkably foolish just now."

Arthur rubbed the back of his neck, realizing he had walked straight into her trap. "Alright, you got me."

…

Several miles away, deep inside the darkened exhibition hall of the convention center, another guardian was passing the time in his own way.

Hermes leaned lazily against a massive structural column near the Round Table Studio booth, stifling a heavy yawn. He reached out and affectionately patted the round, purple head of the creature standing beside him.

"Incredible work on the confusion haze, buddy," Hermes murmured. "How long do you think that fellow has been pacing in that exact circle?"

A few yards beyond their holographic curtain, a cloaked figure was trudging around in tight, frantic loops across the polished floor. Beside him, two other operatives wearing fake security credentials were systematically walking face-first into an empty support pillar, turning around, and repeating the motion with dull, glazed eyes.

They were corporate spies and paid saboteurs dispatched by rival firms. Some had come to discreetly slice into the Caliburn data ports to pull source code, while others had arrived with magnetic pry bars intending to smash the delicate hardware into scrap. None of them had made it within ten paces of the booth entrance.

Gengar tilted its head back, its crimson eyes glittering with pure mischief as a wide, jagged grin split its face. "Gengar, gengar!"

Hermes shook his head with an amused grin. "Yeah, I still have no idea what you are saying, but I love the spirit."

His eyes drifted past the purple shadow to the solitary, floating crimson eye of Dusclops hovering silently in the dark corner.

Hermes gave a small wink toward the shadows. "Pun entirely intended."

…

The next two days of the expo turned the Round Table Studio booth into one of the most crowded hubs in the entire convention center. Visitors packed the perimeter from the moment the hall lights flickered on each morning, moving in steady waves between the demonstration units and the retail counters.

Kasavin, operating under his exhibition codename Tristan, ran the merchandise corner with absolute precision. His department bore the brunt of the fan enthusiasm, directing lines that wrapped around the partition walls. 

The centerpiece of the counter was the collector edition Professor's Briefcase. Each polished aluminum case contained three miniature starter figurines sealed inside their own weighted Poké Balls, randomized between generations one and three. 

Clusters of attendees gathered near the display pillars, cracking open the latches, comparing pulls, and haggling over trades. 

Complete strangers struck up immediate conversations over missing fire and water types, swapping duplicate pieces and exchanging contact handles on the spot.

A few steps away, Ross Dalle managed the audio display under the name Gareth. The counter showcased specialized physical media players alongside vinyl pressings and optical discs, spanning every score from Stardew Valley to the orchestral sweeps of Monster Hunter. 

Several records included exclusive extended tracks and alternate studio cuts that had never reached public broadcast channels.

A quiet hesitation lingered among certain patrons when they approached the counter and saw Dalle's Zynar features. The unsettling broadcasts from Accord sanction news broadcast still cast an unspoken chill across the public concourse. 

Dalle refused to let tension take root at the booth. Instead of escalating the awkward silences, he calmly stepped back to manage inventory and let his non-Zynar clerks handle front-line sales. The music spoke for itself, and buyers left with arms full of boxed sets regardless.

Lin Liseli held court near the main walkway as Bedivere. Her animated, welcoming presence pulled drifting attendees out of the thoroughfare with effortless charm. 

She answered questions, laughed off clumsy jokes from starry-eyed fans, and routed curious newcomers toward the demo queue before they could talk themselves out of waiting.

At the seating bays, Bem Lendu found an easy rhythm under the moniker Galahad. He kept his opening pitch clean and accessible, sticking to comfortable explanations of the physical form factor and the sensory visor. 

Whenever an engineer or software specialist from another firm asked about signal latency or neural handshakes, his eyes brightened. He dove into the operational logic with genuine excitement, discussing the mechanics in technical depth while keeping every proprietary algorithm completely shielded.

Raja remained deep in executive meetings. The studio director spent hours inside private soundproof meeting pods, reviewing distribution agreements and corporate licensing with industry figures like Grokk Stonebeard. 

Arthur had zero interest in wading through corporate negotiations. He left the commercial contracts entirely to Raja, asking only for a comprehensive digest at the end of the expo before making final calls.

Logan Kim spent his shift near the rear maintenance rigs as Agravaine. He monitored diagnostic monitors, wiped down sensor arrays, and kept all twenty units running without a single dropped cycle.

Even so, an uneasy prickle had crept up the back of his neck over the past forty-eight hours.

Logan kept catching glimpses of the same unfamiliar faces lingering near the edge of the RTS perimeter. He had felt the same sensation of being watched during breakfast in the hotel dining room, and again in the lobby that very morning. He tried to brush off the feeling as simple paranoia brought on by seeing his old Ministry colleagues across the hall.

The weight behind his shoulder blades felt far too deliberate to ignore.

He set his cleaning cloth onto the utility cart, wiped his hands on his slacks, and made a decision. It was better to flag the situation for Arthur, even if it turned out to be nothing.

Logan walked through the staff corridor to Arthur's primary demo station, finding the podium empty.

He caught the attention of Echo, a senior designer stationed near the primary monitor bank. "Echo, have you seen Arthur around?"

Echo looked up from her diagnostic screen and offered a warm smile. "He stepped out for a break a few minutes ago. He should be back in about half an hour."

"Understood. Thanks," Logan replied.

Echo gave a friendly nod and turned back to her calibration logs.

Logan stood in the center of the staff aisle, glancing toward the sea of attendees filtering through the open hall. He tapped his fingers against his belt, debating whether he should wait at the booth or head out into the crowded concourse to find him right now.