The Slump

"Ladies and gentlemen—welcome back to the night show with Jimmy Vox!"

The crowd clapped and cheered.

"As you all may know, in around 100 hours left, Azkane will be opened once more for the 12th tournament! But before you place your bets on any promising players, we're here tonight to finally summarize the concern and questions that has been lingering in the minds of everybody for the past four years."

The crowd goes silent.

"As you remember, during the 11th tournament, the party of 4 from the house of Cynthia won the games. They came from a long bloodline of Shogukan successors and has now lived in great leisure ever since. But the whole focus of the tournament went to man called Gerald Husk, one of the players in the game that—after the tournament ended—didn't exited Azkane. Rather, he REFUSED to return to the real world."

A man in silver armor appeared on a screen besides Jimmy.

"I'm not leaving. I'm staying. You can come hunt me for all you want... I'll die in this world."

The crowd murmured.

"The following are the last message of Gerald Husk. Some people praised him, some people clowned on him. But this raises a question, where. is. Gerald Husk. now? Azkane resets its world for every new tournament, that is the norm we've been following. The maps, enemies and terrains stays the same even after 40 years. Does that mean Gerald Husk would be deleted? OR WILL HE STAY FOR THE NEXT TOURNAMENT ladies and gentlemen I give you, Dr. Rhylas Vent."

Cue the man walks in, crowds cheered.

"Thanks for having me, Jimmy."'

"Pleasure, doctor. please, sit. Now, we all remember correctly that your side of the team that is managing the system behind the games, stated that there is an error from getting out the players, correct?"

"Ah yes, correct. We... couldn't get every player that is still remaining in Azkane to the real world immediately, because the system has been tampered from... third-party company."

"Really??

"Yes, uh... Mr. Husk, the man in question. When... the system are having a delay in doing such performance it has been doing for so long, we just know that something is wrong. Someone altered the system. The suspicion went to Mr. Husk went he first announced to the world his mad decision to stay in Azkane, and it was later confirmed by my team that HUSK is the man behind the disturbance."

"...Wow. That's mind-blowing. he CHANGED the system??"

"Well, more like deleted some codes. i wouldn't call destroying something changing. But yes, Mr. Husk changed the system."

The crowd whispered to each other.

"Well, the next raising question of everybody in the world now is, given that Azkane is resetting for every tournament, does Gerald Husk will be in the next tournament or your team went on and wiped him out of... existence?

Silent. Everyone awaited Rhylas's answer.

"After MUCH consideration, we took the decision of keeping Mr. Husk in the tournament. However so, he will become just another NPC in the games."

"Meaning so...?"

"We deleted his memory of ever living in the real world and inputted fake memories into his mind, so as to not tamper too much the world of Azkane."

"Does that mean we can expect seeing him somewhere in Azkane?"

"Yes, the players can try and find him, where ever my team put him. But he won't be the same person, oh no. He would be like a completely different person."

"Wow, that is... interesting and disturbing at the same time."

"Well, Mr. Husk were really pushing our buttons during the time. His arbitrarily decision would've impact Azkane completely, if he were to linger around for 4 years. It was stated completely in the rules and regulations that every player must exit the world of Azkane after the tournament ended. Well, not that anyone wants to do in contrary before that..."

"The world of Azkane. We can expect the similar and recognisable places?"

"Yes, apart from Mr. Husk, no changes are made to the digital world that we all love and awe."

"Well there you have it folks! This discussion will continue on until the tournament arrived. Catch Dr. Rhylus Vent on The Night Show with jimmy Vox at the same time tomorrow!"

The crowds clapped, Rhylus waved and smiled.