Leave The Monster Alone

He had to keep himself alive and conscious, at least long enough to find out who had him and to be able to send a message back to his team.

There was one thing to take notice of once Mark started to walk forward, the air in his vicinity was starting to get colder all of a sudden. It should not be this cold in the starting months of fall but his body told him it was unnaturally cold right now.

Maybe it was the defect in his body's inability to feel temperature or a play by his mind even but Mark found himself shivering in the cold air of the cave. His captors seemed not to be suffering from this malady since he could not hear their shivering.

"They are on our tails. Should I distract them?" the second voice asked the first female. Mark had labelled them as 'the female leader' and 'the unknown person' inside his mind already. He had to keep it simple so that he did not waste a lot of mind power.

Also, since they had not yet told him their introduction, this was the fastest thing he could come up with.

The cave around them vibrated with a loud roar Mark recognised all of a sudden and he wanted to break out into a victory dance over it but since his body was not currently his he could not do that.

"Leave them be. It's not like they know where we are anyway and we can take them out even if they catch up to us. It will be a 3 vs 3 anyway" the female sounded confident in her words and the worry was just not there for her.

Mark was still trying to fight against the control over his body but now in a new way. Since he could not work it through his mental powers, he had to think of a way to control his system back. Most of the framework was out of his reach now but the database still could be accessed.

He was currently looking through the system instruction manual to see if there was a way to remote control his system and if he could somehow break this hold over him. If nothing else, there should be a way to get rid of this system entirely from his person.

He could not currently find anything but he felt like he was coming closer to his goal now. He was one of the security and control sections which talked about hacking and such related tasks and it had a contact centre for such occasions.

Well, this was like a hacking incident so this should work for him, right?

_____________________

Welcome, User to the control and security centre. This is the automatic response.

Please choose your worry - technical or personal

_____________________

This question stumped Mark because what kind of problem was this? It seemed personal but he hesitated to press it. He knew that developers were less invested in a personal problem than a technical one and were less likely to look at it.

Well, bad developers would and he was not even sure who he was contacting with here. So he decided to go with technical just to keep himself safe.

_____________________

Confirmed: Technical problem

Please select the type of problem you are facing:

User access, 2. Account blockage, 3. System failure, 4. Functioning failure, 5. others

_____________________

Mark chose the others because he did not know which category he actually fell into. And there were not many options left after others so there had to be a personal contact number coming up soon.

Mark just wished he could keep the attention off of him for that long at least.

_____________________

Please try to restart your system.

If you have any problem still then please enter your message after _______ and we will get back to you

_____________________

Mark knew the first option would not work for him so he opted to go for the second one from the start. There was only one thing he wanted to write here and he did it without any second thoughts on his part.

_____________________

Your system got hacked and fucked me over. Now fix it or I will have to give it a negative review the next time someone asked for one.

_____________________

That was the rudest Mark had ever been to a technical person because he was aware that most of them were just doing their jobs. In most incidences, it did not come down to a life or death situation but this was one of those life and death situations.

He needed support and a lot of answers if possible. It also begged the question - who would pick up the call, the one from the other world Liam talked about or the actual developers inside here responsible for the manufacturing of the system.

However, when the reply did come back, it was an entirely different case for Mark and he got the biggest shock he had ever gotten since the situation had gotten.

_____________________

Oh, someone actually did manage to find the old base and download the code to contact me? A nice surprise to wake up from my long sleep for sure.

Now human, what kind of help do you want? You can ask for anything and you shall get it, within reason of course.

_____________________

It seemed like it was neither of the people he could have hoped for but someone unknown. The person talked like he could control this world and hand it over to Mark if he wanted to have it but he was still concerned about the offer.

After all, you do not get such a gift for free ever. There had to be a catch behind the whole deal, one big enough to shake the foundations of their world. There were only so many people who could affect their world after all.

And there was also the thing he had to see about, the one behind the words, their true identity. If they were not the actual developer team inside or outside the game or the ones who had the tech then they left only one option.

Mark could only think of one other person who could affect the whole situation and still remain undetected throughout his interaction.

The one who had originally created the situation and the virus, the culprit behind all these problems they had to face.

_____________________

I will like the control on my system back. Someone took it over and now I cannot fight back without having severe pain. Think you can do anything about it?

_____________________

Even if the other was who Mark thought he was, it was not the right time to ask the other this. The other could take offence without helping Mark and then he would be screwed pretty badly and be left in this situation.

Also, Mark did need to gain the other's trust first before he started grilling him on this topic. Everyone knew you needed to butter up the conversation before going for the killing blow to soften it.

_____________________

Not going to ask me the obvious question? I know you want to.

_____________________

Ah, but the person on the other side was not a fool either and had started to ask questions as well. But he did not delay his help in any way, his control solid as he freed Mark's limps from the system's control one at a time.

He felt it when his hand was freed and then his legs followed by all the other parts of his body and it lost its tension one after the another.

_____________________

Would you confirm even if I asked? Or tell me why you created that virus?

_____________________

The other side did its work faster and Mark had a feeling that the other had decided to ignore his words. He would not blame the other if he decided to ignore this bomb. 

Mark would not want to talk about it if he was given a choice by other people, he was already hiding a lot from them because he did not want to talk about it out loud. 

_____________________

If you ask, I will only say to follow your gut on this. As for your system's control, I handed it back to you. 

Well then, I'm done with it all now and it was nice to finally have a talk with someone who is not my creation. Hopefully, we will be able to talk again someday, agent. Till then it's time to say bye. 

_____________________

Mark was sure the other had taken him as one of Liam's people and he would not mind the comparison much. In a way, he was one of those people who came from outside their universe and was not a part of this. 

Mark wanted to send another message to him, to keep him talking more but the time was clearly up. The wall at their side exploded and the boss female gave a small sound of disappointment as she faced the familiar bodies of Alan, Kuro and Luna, all standing in front of them in a ready to fight pose.