Nico was on the deck, ready to step onto the ladder to descend from the Pacific, which would soon dock in the port of Archivum. The salty wind dried the sweat from his forehead, left there by the hot pipes in the corridors outside the bridge. Finally, fresh air.

  He let himself be carried back by memories, still incredulous at what he had done. He had spoken to Malaspina. He had used the logic of margins, of the gray areas of the game, to convince him. He had seen confusion in his eyes at first, then calculation, and finally, that uncertain acceptance.

  But when freedom was within reach, the story of Kaily had surfaced in Nico's mind. She was just a girl. She wanted to be free. She had sold them to buy her possible freedom from that prison by playing slot machines, but it wasn't her fault: she wanted to escape, and so did many others. So Nico had asked:

  “What about the other prisoners?”

  Malaspina sighed.

  “Before you arrived,” he said in a grave voice, the squeak of his prosthesis accompanying him with every step, "I kept them tied to my ship. Without them, I would have lost control, that is, the possibility of offering a bargaining chip before you arrived. If I had taken too many NPCs from the system, the system would have wondered where they had gone. I would have offered the return to normality of their NPCs in exchange for my canonization."

  Kiah spoke, her voice firm:

  “Holding NPCs captive is not only cruel, it's risky. If you accept Nico's reasoning, your ship and your name can grow without enslaving them. Holding them captive makes you a threat before you can even expand your smuggling operation.”

  Malaspina hesitated, stroking his mustache, then nodded slowly. Finally, he said firmly:

  “Free these kids, who will make us famous, and tell everyone they are free to go if they wish.”

  And so it was.

  On deck, Nico saw incredulous men and women, their steps uncertain: faces smeared with grease and soot or dressed in gold sequins, in tank tops and skimpy shorts, walking in the open air. Amazement and gratitude in their eyes, finally free.

  He remembered the moment when he, Kiah, and Leo had come out onto the upper deck with many others, crowded together like ants.

  He had hugged Peter, Gareth, and Nadia. They were breathing fresh air at last, with the sun on their skin.

  Malaspina understood that true strength lay not in possession, but in moving without constraints. And the NPCs, once prisoners, could now talk about him to the players who would arrive later.

  On the bridge, he had also met Kaily, the beautiful red-haired waitress. Nico remembered that she had apologized for selling them out and confided that she had thought long and hard before finally deciding to stay on the Passific.

  “What awaits me if I get off here?” she had asked him. “I don't know if my aunt is alive or dead, and even if she is, I would never want to go back to being her servant. And I don't want to go back to my parents, who, when I was just a child, decided so easily to leave me with my aunt.”

  Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

  Kaily had smiled at him with a new calm.

  “I'll stay here. I've made friends,” she had said. “It will be fun to keep traveling and see new ports, visit them, and then leave and travel again.”

  Nico remembered listening to her; that ship was no longer a prison for her. Then Kaily kissed him on the cheek. “A kiss for good luck on your journey. Thank you, my handsome sailor,” she said, winking at Nico and walking away into the crowd on the deck.

  Nico touched his cheek, still feeling that warm kiss.

  Nico frowned. He thought about Erebos, about the programmers who, for some reason, had created such a realistic game, and about what would happen if they really released it as the final version, selling it to the whole world and allowing the virus to spread.

  Above him, the sky was darkening, and the smell of tar and soot filled the air.

  He shook his head. He hadn't lied to Malaspina: as a player, he had only said what he assumed, that new players would arrive, not that the game might never be released due to the problems it had. It had been an omission, he told himself, not a lie, necessary to save his life and that of his companions.

  He moved forward, descending the first step of the staircase leading to the street. The sun that had caressed them until a few moments earlier, as they entered the harbor, had disappeared, and now the air around them had become heavy.

  Nico turned and waved goodbye to Kaily, who returned the greeting from the top of the bridge.

  From the staircase, Nico looked down at the road leading to the port of Archivum. It was covered in soot and broken slabs. The air was thick with smoke filtering from the chimneys, which dotted the landscape like an endless row of mouths spewing thin but continuous smoke. Beyond the port, a horrible scene of degradation stretched out before him: men, women, and children dotted the streets, sitting in the dust and mud begging for alms; in the warehouses, men sweaty and dirty with soot toiled carrying crates back and forth, and on their sweaty skin, the black left clear streaks where the sweat dripped.

  Nico scanned the area from the top of the stairs. Beyond that part of the port was another, with low houses and narrow streets littered with rubbish and scrap metal. The smell was a mixture of tar, burnt oil, and sweat. He inhaled and almost coughed.

  The factories hummed; he could hear them even from a distance, in the background of the landscape.

  Someone called him from below. It was Leo, standing with Kiah on the second-to-last step before descending from the ship. Nadia and Gareth were waiting for them on the broken stone pavement, looking around with disgust.

  “Hey, man, are you okay? Come on, get down, we have to go.”

  Nico shook himself and took another step forward, but before he could put his foot on the second step, a hand rested on his shoulder.

  Nico turned around. It was Peter. Just seeing him made him burst out laughing, a laugh that came out suddenly.

  He was still the same. Thin, with a slightly upturned nose and that sly smile that cut across his thin, almost pointed face. His feverish eyes, always moving, shone with that unmistakable restless light.

  Peter began to tell his story in one breath. He said he had argued, that he had fought with some sailors, that he had stayed outside the bridge to protest like a madman. He said that he too had spoken to Malaspina, who had made him understand how things really stood, that without him perhaps nothing would have gone as it had.

  Nico listened to him, and the more Peter spoke, the wider Nico's smile grew. It seemed impossible to distinguish truth from falsehood, as always with him.

  He recalled their past misadventures together in Narbras: the improvised plans, the races through the alleys. Then the argument with Gareth, and finally the ship.

  Nico burst out laughing again. Peter winked at him.

  “My job is done,” he said dryly. “There's no need for me to come with you. You managed on your own. I know you talked to Malaspina. You did well.”

  Nico stared at him, not knowing what to say.

  Peter sniffed and shrugged. He looked first at the group down the stairs, then back at Nico.

  “But if you don't want me to go...” he said seriously, without any more bravado. “I'll stay.”

  [AUTHOR'S NOTE]

  Log update: Readers are invited to provide feedback on the integration of the character Peter into the narrative. Is it preferable to keep the character or proceed with his removal? Readers are invited to express their preference in the comments. Their interaction will guide the future direction of the plot.

  [LOG_A.036] will be released on Saturday ET.

  The continuity of the story depends on your continued support.

  To keep the narrative flow going, please follow.

  Log closed: The system observes.