Clearing the Temple

I walked into a 21st-century styled bar establishment. I didn’t need an ID this time, huh. While thinking that Adam was obsessed with retro designs, I began to look around. The bar was entirely empty, and a television was placed behind the counter. Suddenly, the television came to life, with a live feed of Adam on the screen.

“Ah, Ellie! I’m so glad you came.”

I glanced around the room. I knew he was here; it was simply a problem of finding his precise location. My eyes caught a staff-only door behind the bar. Walking up to the door and pulling the handle… it was locked. Pushing and pulling the door a little more, I realised that it was a heavy metal door, probably at least 5 centimetres thick. I’ve already wasted miracles on utilising the gift of prophecy….

“I’m not going to make it that easy to catch me.”

I stared at the television screen for a moment. I knew for a fact that he was still here.

“What are you going on about, Adam?”

“Oh, such scary eyes! Lily was right, you are quite easy to read.”

I sighed slightly.

“Answer the question.”

“Simple. I’ve won.”

“There are still 28 minutes left until the end of the allotted time. Are you changing the rules?”

Adam grinned from behind the screen.

“No, I’m saying that it is impossible for you to win now.”

“So, you’re saying that these physical barriers are going to prevent me from reaching you within the granted time?”

Adam looked a little confused.

“Yes…? Obviously.”

It would be difficult for me to unlock the door. As I examined it, I realised that Adam had placed some kind of puzzle on it to allow unlocking. Nonetheless….

“Isn’t this a boring way to win?”

Adam chuckled.

“Of course it’s boring, but it’s logical, isn’t it? It’s your fault for not catching me while I was messing around.”

So, in essence, he was planning on simply holing up in an unreachable location after having his fun running around? Well… I suppose it isn’t entirely unreachable if I try to solve the puzzles locking the door. That said….

“What’s the point of this? You’ve wasted money and time to construct this game, and for what?”

Adam seemed wistful while he paused momentarily.

“It’s hard being the best, y’know?”

So, he’s suggesting he’s played this with others?

“You can hardly call yourself better than others if you construct the game itself to be rigged in your favour.”

Adam tapped his temple in mock frustration.

“Ellie, you said it yourself. Why would I just play tag? This wasn’t supposed to just be a challenge of wits. You knew this from the moment you relied on Lily for information.”

His goal was a game testing one’s total ‘capability’ under pressure, as opposed to measuring simple athleticism as in the original children’s game or intelligence as one would assume from the manner he presented it initially. I understood what he was conveying, but it was nonsensical regardless.

“That’s ridiculous and you know it.”

He tapped his wrist – which, mind you, didn’t have a watch – condescendingly, and didn’t respond otherwise. Indeed, there were only 23 minutes left now. I stood there and looked at the puzzle for a minute. It was a rather simple four dimensional sliding puzzle, with three spatial dimensions and time factor applied, however, no matter how easily I could solve it, it would take too much time to input if there were too many of these after.

“How many more puzzles are there after this, Adam?”

He sighed.

“Do you really think I’d just tell you?”

“Yes.”

Adam let out a booming laugh to my response.

“You’re right. There are five more after that.”

Indeed, this was nearly unbeatable at this point. Should I try, nonetheless? I lightly exhaled. There was no real point to participating in this game anymore. Even if I beat him like that, it wouldn’t be the kind of ‘victory’ that would persuade him to convert, and the alternative was… unpleasant. While I was busy preparing to leave, Adam interjected.

“You really were a disappointing partner.”

“Okay.”

Adam frowned, but I wasn’t particularly bothered by his impression of me either way.

“You know, Ellie… it might hurt my friendship with Lillia a bit, but I could just have something published about you that would prevent you from being identified as her relative.”

He was obviously provoking me, but that particular threat was over the line. Wasting my time here wasn’t a large issue – granted, he had also indirectly caused me to waste miracles. However, him preventing me from attending that party would greatly impede my efforts to raise funds to travel to the coast, especially considering that Lillia would have very few compunctions about cutting me loose.

“Why would you do that?”

“Well, because I can, I guess?”

“…”

Adam was still trying to provoke me. The unfortunate part, however, was that he was dead serious. Based on what I had seen so far and based on what I had discussed with Lillia, if I lost his interest, he would be more than willing to try to tear me down. Adam continued to rant.

“I thought you were different, Ellie! I suppose you’re no more special than those other self-proclaimed Mods. Not only that, but …”

His voice faded off as blood began to my head. My chest was pounding. I don’t need to be special in his eyes… but… why is this…?

“… In the end, I suppose I am alone in this world. I-”

“Shut up. Just shut up.”

There were only 15 minutes remaining. I had other options than the party, so I could simply leave now... but I didn’t really want to.

I need to show him….

“Adam, you seem to know about my religion. Did you know that its holy book is split into two sections?”

“Yes…?”

“Well, let me explain this in Old Testament terms.”

… I need to show him that he’s still just a human.

===

Adam Myers was a genius. Just ask anyone around him, they’d tell you. The Myers family, on the other hand, was one that suffered from a lack of talent. Of course, that is one of the fundamental problems with hereditary control of anything. A reliance on a gaining a competent heir from a limited pool of candidates can lead to a deficit of talent through sheer bad luck – or perhaps bad parentage, as the case may be. Adam Myers was the product of three of his siblings being deemed as failures by Adam’s father. To abridge the exactitudes of how he arranged the procedure in the back-alleys, Adam was born with extensive genetic engineering. From that moment onwards, he was his family’s golden child.

His childhood was about what you might expect from someone with those birth circumstances. A child blessed with limitless talent, standing, and parental favour was bound to become arrogant. Of course, Adam didn’t have much interest in his peers in the first place. From the moment Adam was born, he was lonesome. He had friends, naturally, and he was popular through compulsory schooling. His loneliness wasn’t a matter of people only being interested in him for his wealth or anything else like that. Rather, his problem was that he fundamentally could never relate to his peers.

Somewhere after his primary schooling, he began to skip school and sleep through his days. This wasn’t a major issue, as he still maintained impeccable grades. Nonetheless, he eventually began to close himself off from others. That is, until he met Lillia Bellon, his first true peer. While she was a third-generation Mod herself, her scariest talents lay outside the purview of that bloodline.

“Adam, you have to come to school today!”

“Adam, just because you lost to me doesn’t mean you need to go sulk in your room!”

“Adam-“

From the moment he interacted with her for the first time, his heart was pounding. He was enjoying his time with her. What he felt for her wasn’t love, however. For the first time in his life, he felt the desire to win. From there, he tracked down every Mod that he could. He played every game he could think of. Everything else in life became colourless, and the only colour was the thrill of proving his superiority against those who could genuinely compete against him. Eventually, however, he had no more enemies. His competition against Elysia should have been the same.

As Adam stared at the camera feed, his face contorted into sheer horror.