Guild Wars

Julia was tongue-tied.
”Even if there were no such technologies, it is still a game controlled by you.
You can easily implement a function like this, but simply chose not to! ” 

Amber agreed.
”That is correct, but we did not in order to stay true to our promises.
Otherwise, we could be facing a litigation for a far different purpose at this moment. ” 

Diao banged the gavel.
”Witness, please refrain from speaking without being called by the panel.
This is your first warning. ” 

Diao then faced Amber.
”Defendant, please make a conclusion on the second issue. ” 

Amber nodded and spoke.
”As for whether or not the studio provides a means of protection for users, it is present.
We have followed the rules and logic of reality to set up a protection scheme for our users whether it concerns their physical protection outside the game or inside. ” 

”As one cannot do anything but either fight back or call for the police in reality, one can only fight back or call for help in the game.
The reason Miss Julia did not enjoy this benefit was due to her location being away from any point of civilization. ” 

”This is the same in reality.
If you are hiking on Mount Everest and a group of modern bandits captures you, how exactly are you to call the police with no reception or no point of civilization nearby? What do you do in such a situation? ” 

Amber's final point made many heads in the crowd nod, while many also shook their heads.
While many more neutral or antagonistic parties now generally agreed with her, some too were pulled into a camp against her for moral reasons. 

The judges once more discussed silently for a few minutes before smashing the gavel. 

”The court will now go on a short lunch break for an hour. ” Diao Ping stated. 

The clerks rose to their feet and so too did everyone else, waiting for the judges to leave the courtroom first before they themselves filed out.
Only Amber stayed in her seat and closed her eyes to rest. 

At this time, one of the activists, a female with a youthful body and average looks, slowly walked over.
It wasn't until she pushed open the swinging door and walked towards Amber's back that the police stationed around the room noticed her. 

One frowned and stood forward.
”Madam, please step back or I will have to- ” 

Before the officer could finish, the woman pulled out a small swiss army knife from within her u.n.d.e.r.g.a.r.m.e.n.t and manifested the blade before rushing towards Amber. 

The officers in the room jumped to action as they roared and charged at the woman. 

”STOP RIGHT THERE! ” 

”GET DOWN! ” 

”WE HAVE A SITUATION! ” 

”QUICKLY APPREHEND THE TARGET! ” 

Some rushed forward to tackle the woman, but they had acted too late and would not make it in time.
Some also removed their guns and planned to shoot first then ask later, but by the time they could have it lined up, Amber would have already been stabbed. 

The crowd who had yet to exit were shocked by this development as Amber herself remained seated.
This made the assassin smile viciously, her eyes clouded by hatred. 

'If it wasn't for you and your vile game, my sister would have never committed suicide after being defiled!' She thought. 

Eventually, the woman cried out and stabbed into Amber, praying to see her blood splash all over.
She didn't care whether she would be arrested or shot after, all she wanted was vengeance. 

Just as the knife was about to plunge into the exposed nape of Amber's neck, the tip was pushed aside by a carapace-like barrier that manifested for a short second upon the hit. 

Misha only had a single split second to be shocked before Amber's defense returned her kinetic energy back at her, blasting the woman into the benches with enough force to snap them. 

If this had been the wonderful world of Boundless, this type of injury could have been shrugged off by a slightly depleted HP bar and some tough words as the victim wiped the blood from their lips. 

Yet this was reality, the outcome was Misha suffering heavy injuries, her life, and death unknown.
She had immediately passed out and her blood pooled on the floor beneath her body. 

Even if she did miraculously survive, she would likely be severely crippled, perhaps only able to move her head about. 

All this while, Amber hadn't even moved or acknowledged the attack.
She was still in a resting position and the police who had been rushing in to stop the attack remained frozen where they stood. 

There was a period of 10 or so seconds where the air just froze as if everyone had been hard reset, their brains trying to parse through what had just occurred. 

Eventually, the still present clerk screamed, waking the police up as they rushed to secure Amber and call an ambulance for the assailant.
When Amber felt many presences around her, she opened her half-lidded eyes and gazed around with confusion. 

”Huh, what's going on? ” 

”Ma'am, there was an attempted murder on your person, but you seem to possess some form of technology that blocked the attack and rebounded the force.
The assailant is now critically injured and we will have to send her to the hospital. ” One policeman reported solemnly. 

Amber jumped in her seat, looking back with surprise.
She wasn't acting, she really hadn't been aware of what was going on. 

Amber had literally just closed her eyes to rest and had been completely focused on calculating her next steps, yet the next conscious moment she had been told that someone had tried to murder her. 

Of course, she could only be so casual because she was confident that the kind of technology at her disposal far surpassed what was mainstream in 2065, and even more than a few steps above the military's black tech. 

It was obvious enough by now that Amber was not exactly normal.
Not in the sense of her humanity, but in her thinking.
She was a researcher through and through who worked with the AI and was privy to many core secrets. 

Her perspective was far different from a normal person.
Not only that, but she loved acting cryptic to keep her intentions hidden, but in truth, she was just extremely rational. 

She viewed and calculated things as a mathematician or scientist would, through logic.
To her, thinking or planning things through emotion was the path of failure, and this was often the truth in society too. 

Anger could lead one to attack or kill another, something which had legal and social consequences.
This was incomprehensible to Amber.
Why would you do that if you knew you would end up punished and castigated? 

If you were provoked into anger, wouldn't it be better to stop and reason what options you had and act on them? Killing or attacking someone should only be done if those were the most logical options at that point in time, not because your emotions compelled you to. 

There were so many examples where emotions did more harm than good.
If everyone would act based on logic, the world would be smoother and more efficient. 

Of course, Amber realized that this was impossible given how the human body worked, and she was also aware that a purely logical world would be bland and monotonous. 

Still, she had the habit of automatically assuming that everyone was sensible and logical at any given time due to the kind of company she herself kept.
She often forgot to factor in emotive responses to things unless it directly affected her logical progression of actions. 

For example, Amber had calculated the kind of emotive responses the judges might give during the trial because it was relevant to her logical arguments defending the game, as well as the process of the hearing. 

However, she had not calculated the kind of emotive responses the people in the crowd would make during the hearing because they had no logical process in a hearing.
They were just there to spectate and watch, nothing they would do would affect the hearing fundamentally, so why waste brainpower thinking about them? 

This was what had led to the current scenario.
Amber quickly processed all this as she asked the policeman beside her: ”Thank you, I understand now.
What will happen next? ” 

The policeman took a deep breath and asked.
”Will you press charges? ” 

……… 

At this moment, time slowed down to a halt, the world outside the courtroom turning into a black void that seemed like an eternal abyss.
Amber and the policeman were frozen in their positions, and everything else was halted like a snapshot of reality. 

From this void, a giant hand reached towards the courtroom.
This hand was familiar, as it was the same one that had grabbed Draco's soul.
It had a reddish outline and looked humanoid in general but was translucent. 

Just as it was about to reach into the courtroom and touch Amber, another hand appeared and smacked it aside.
This hand was blue in color with the same design, and it looked just like the one that had forced Eva to forgo committing suicide in favor of letting Local Lord having his way, sparking the hatred between them. 

The two hands clashed and fought in the void, their forms pulling back until they disappeared and time resumed… though, from a certain point of view, one could say that time had never stopped. 

……… 

Amber frowned and thought about the circ.u.mstances.
She thought it would be best to use the law to penalize the offender to the highest degree so others would be discouraged from taking similar action and was about to agree. 

However, she briefly paused as her mind flew to Draco and how someone like him would handle things.
It wasn't something Amber had ever done as she never needed to put herself in someone else's shoes to make her own decisions and she could not understand why this happened now, for the first time in her life. 

Eventually, Amber shook her head.
”I doubt she was trying to kill me, but rather just assault me.
I want to press charges for assault and battery but not attempted murder, is that okay? ” 

The policeman had a difficult look on his face.
It wasn't as simple as wanting to interpret a crime how you saw fit that such a thing could be changed, but he gazed at his other compatriots in the room. 

They also had difficult expressions but firmed up and nodded.
The one speaking to Amber nodded back and smiled at the woman, seeing her in a better light despite the circ.u.mstances surrounding her and her game. 

”That's fine, we'll list her charges as such and have her arraigned before a court as soon as she recovers. ” The policeman replied as he moved to secure the area and sort out the necessary procedures. 

As such, Amber patiently waited for the break to end. 

Neither she nor anyone had noticed what had just occurred, what had changed, and what had been avoided.
The first tangent in the history of this hearing had occurred right at this moment. 

In the previous timeline, the Amber there had never met or cared about a mere Draco who was still trying to climb in the dredges of Darkrow.
She was much more levelheaded and colder than she was now. 

She didn't even bother acting cryptic.
That was something this timeline's Amber had picked up in order to pursue Draco.
She wore this mask of being an enigma just to look cool and unique so Draco might take an interest in her after having spared her life back then. 

The previous timeline's Amber had been a typical 'cold beauty' who had her nose up in the clouds for obvious reasons and had almost always been externally emotionless.
When she had been assaulted by Miss Rethers, she had not asked but coldly demanded that the woman be charged with attempted murder. 

Misha had ended up surviving the rebound and despite ending up as a cripple she had been persecuted.
However, that timeline's Amber had overlooked that the situation surrounding her attack had been a delicate set of circ.u.mstances that could be twisted either left or right. 

To the public, it had been presented in the sense that Misha was a poor, aggrieved family member of a victim of the cruel Boundless World – and that GloryGore group – who had tried to get justice for her younger sister who had been r.a.p.ed, then forced to suicide as Misha had felt that the law would protect such an evil company. 

After her attempt had failed, Amber had supposedly lashed back and caused her to suffer severe injuries that almost took her life.
Unsatisfied, Amber had still wanted to press charges! 

Of course, it had been cleverly strung in such a way that ignored the results of the hearing and the mitigating circ.u.mstances, as well as the fact that Amber had not even been aware of the attack and the damage was done by Misha herself. 

The parties who had wanted to suppress GloryGore realized that the hearing would not work out well, so they had decided to use the ultimate tool of the modern age, the propaganda machine called the media to herd the sheep called the public. 

Oftentimes, with an issue, it isn't the issue itself that causes a great reaction, but a small detail that occurs before or after it that could cause it to blow up.
While many around the world had their eyes on Boundless' matter, it didn't even amount to a billion in total if we were being generous. 

However, once the matter of Misha's attack had spread, it had caused an explosive reaction that introduced most of the world to this issue. 

Just imagine, the point of entry for more than 70% of people, later on, was this matter strung in this way.
It was hard to describe what kind of response it would elicit and how people would react. 

Amber and the AI had cared little about public opinion because people were destined to play Boundless regardless as time went on.
It was the only one that could do what it did currently and it would remain that way in the foreseeable future. 

Nevertheless, this kind of pressure was not easy to bear at all even if most of the processes surrounding the game had been devoid of human participation except selling. 

Having people feel that way also made the whole hearing seem like a sham.
Amber's careful logical explanations had appeared like a prepared excuse for their injustices and anyone who would disagree was someone who would condone r.a.p.e and human rights abuse, period. 

As such, those who had felt something was wrong and that there was more at play were, as usual, had gotten silenced by a group of very emotional and very forceful people who had imposed their judgment on the rest of the world. 

Obviously, the devil was in the details and one could see the truth if they were objective enough and of course, there were many in the world like that.
But when it comes to controversy like this, it was not the soundest mind that won, but the loudest mouth. 

This had greatly weakened that timeline's Amber's position and allowed the judges to be more decisive.
After all, despite the fact that it was not a trial, they had the public behind them, so anything they did in the pursuit of justice would see them applauded as heroes. 

To do the opposite would brand them as devils and ruin their reputation.
The choice had been quite obvious in such a case. 

This was what had led to a scenario where Boundless World got sanctioned, forced to give up some control to various parties in order to remain operating legally. 

However, even then, the GloryGore Studios had made it abundantly clear they would rather break than bend.
As such, those parties looking to eat some benefits ended up content with taking a small bit of the soup and leaving the rest. 

After all, with time, they could affect further sanctions on the studio and the game in exchange for more power until the studio realized it had become a puppet figure that could only do their bidding if they want to remain free, much less operating. 

Unsurprisingly, it ultimately backfired greatly as it had been the various powerhouses who ended up losing what little control they had then suffering for it, rather than gaining more as they had planned and predicted. 

The allure of Boundless would grow too strong and using the springboard that was the public perception of it, many people tried it and got hooked.
With the majority of the population locked in pods 24/7 for months on end around a year later in real-time, it was impossible to take the game away. 

Even the studio didn't dare think about pulling the plug least they get a revolution on their hands.
With no way to threaten the studio, how could those powerhouses have their way? 

Of course, that was all in the future of a destroyed timeline.
In this one, a divergence had occurred and the butterfly effect had made its first strike.
From here on out, things would continue to break away from what should have happened previously until a new result occurred. 

The simple question was, would the result be better for Boundless and GloryGore compared to the previous timeline…
or could it be worse? 

Even the two hands that had fought in the void of spacetime – one that wanted to change the outcome to mimic that of the previous timeline and one that stopped the other from interfering in the fabric of this reality – could not tell what the consequences would be. 

Then again, wasn't the allure of setting up a show to watch events unfold without knowing the outcome beforehand?