Murim Recurve

Chapter 164 - Numbers Matter A Lot

"Steelcraft…" Re'Kha muttered, feeling the name was apt for the situation. She then thought about it and said, "Then, why is the headgear named Contemporary Murim? Does the name serve any purpose?"

"Well, truth to be told," The boy let out a wry smile, "It's because of a simple reason. The VR world we access is the Murim or the World of Martial Arts in simple terms. And, since we access that world while we exist, move, and affect Earth, and as the headgear is what makes it possible, it was given such a name."

"And, that is where I came to know about it," The boy said as he opened the camera of his phone, displaying his smiling face in the front-facing camera, "The VR world we access seems to be a replica of your world. That may be another reason you have been able to inhabit me. Or…"

He frowned, deep in thought, "So, if we customise a character, are we actually entering that world and inhabiting one of their characters that look as such? No, if that was possible, something like the Turd Brothers Battleground Guild wouldn't have been established. Stuff like that is only possible for the troll gamers."

"Hmm," Re'Kha thought, pulling up an internet search for the word 'Steelcraft'. She didn't even need to type it whole. The moment she typed in the first three letters, it popped up as the first search. Upon clicking it, Re'Kha entered their home page, frowning as she noticed how everything on the homepage had become garbled characters.

And, floating above them was a bold letter, filing up a quarter of the screen…

Access Denied!

"What the…why?" Re'Kha frowned, refreshing it to see it was the same.

"Why? What happened? Is this not actually part of your world?" The boy spoke by taking control of her mouth.

"I cannot see anything," Re'Kha said.

"Hmm, give me control of my arms for a bit," He said, moving his arms immediately once he obtained control and began to pull up some images from the internet, speaking, "Also, will you be inhabiting my body for the rest of my life?"

"No, I'll be pulled out at 9:20 AM," Re'Kha replied.

"That's good then," The boy sighed in relief as he looked at the image, "See if this is visible to you?"

"Nope, I just see static on the screen," Re'Kha said.

"Then…" He zoomed into the image until focusing on a single strand of grass. "Can you see this now?"

"Yeah," Re'Kha replied after a couple of seconds, "I could see it the moment there was only a patch of grass in the picture."

"I see," The boy then zoomed in on another detail on the page, "Is this visible now?"

"Nope, this looks like static to me," Re'Kha replied, "What was it though?"

"Tikka jewellery of the Kalki race." The boy replied.

"I see," Re'Kha nodded, "So, anything related to the game is invisible to me. I can at most see some unrelated ground textures in it."

"It pretty much seems to be the case," The boy nodded, then wondering as he spoke, "By the way, how were you even able to move my bike? Are there bikes in your world?"

"No, there aren't," Re'Kha shook her head, "Once on Earth, the moment I see an object, I would receive information related to it. Though, this information is related to the character's understanding of the said object. If he/she is clueless, I too wouldn't obtain much when I look at things around me."

"Well, consider it luck that you inhabited me, haha. Not to brag, but I'm probably the smartest of the bunch in this city." The boy smirked with a smug expression.

"By the way…" He quickly accessed the app store, downloading a certain app as he spoke, "For what reason did you inhabit me? Do you do this often? And do others from your world do it too?"

"Do you recall anyone else that had inhabited your body before?" Re'Kha replied with a question of her own.

"No, I don't. This feels a bit like déjà vu, but I don't recall anyone inhabiting my body, nor have I seen my friends act weird." He replied.

"Actually, there should at least be four people being inhabited in this city. And, the people being habited changes every day." Re'Kha didn't talk about the reset or the repeat of the day, feeling that she shouldn't talk about it. She could just feel an instinct of sorts pressing down on her, preventing her from saying certain things.

This was the first time she was experiencing this. First was the lack of any memory influx when she looked at the headgear, the second was the static of images that her character could clearly perceive, and third was this instinct that was warning her to not talk about certain things.

'It seems this is a sensitive topic. I should be careful and not take too many risks. And…this static seems to be the reason no one mentioned about Steelcraft back in my Clan. If it is of such importance, surely, they would have told me. But, it seems they were unable to know about it. Right, it's only because I can actively talk with my character that I noticed this issue. Otherwise, just talking with other people wouldn't have been enough to determine the oddity.' Re'Kha pondered.

As they would usually be focused on completing their Quests, they wouldn't have paid much attention to this or would have simply glossed over it. And since everything wouldn't make sense once they exit Earth anyway, this memory gets buried in their mind and wouldn't be triggered unless they come across it with definite information.

Re'Kha then noticed her hands moving as the boy spoke, "Tell me the moment the image starts to become a blur."

He was simply operating an editing app, having masked an image with an invisible layer. He used a tool to gently make a stroke on it, revealing the part of the image under the stroke. This way, he could get an accurate grasp of the extent the information in an image should be before it gets censored in her eyes.

"Numbers matter a lot to us Engineers."