Klaus decided not to immediately mention Charles' comment about her not liking him at first. He wanted to approach the subject more subtly, so he started with something more neutral.
"Charles called earlier. He's quite satisfied with our work so far in Niflheim and said there's a mission next week"
Hollie smiled slightly. "That's good to hear."
"You already knew, didn't you?" Klaus asked.
"Yes, of course I did, but it's cute that you think I didn't."
Klaus smiled and started to take off his jacket. "I'm enjoying working with you, Hollie. I feel like we're making good progress on these missions."
"I'm enjoying our partnership too," agreed Hollie.
"However, Charles mentioned something curious. He said that you didn't like me before we met. Do you remember that?"
Hollie's expression changed slightly as she looked at the papers, as if she was surprised by the question. She looked back and took a deep breath before answering. "Yes, I remember. It was well before I started working here, even when you were a novice.
Charles was already charmed by your performance at the time, but I was suspicious of your data, I thought you were cheating or abusing bugs, because you were apparently a nobody."
Klaus nodded, understanding the situation better. "It's understandable, I did abuse the attributes and levels bug without meaning to. If I were you, I wouldn't have liked me either."
"But you kept proving to me and Charles that it was lucky that the bug happened to you, because you protected the main human city several times, and seeing someone else protecting the world you worked so hard to take care of was gratifying, both for me and for Charles." Hollie smiled, looking more relaxed. "Now, I'm happy to be working with you. I'm sure we'll do a lot for Rise Online."
Klaus felt a mixture of emotions when he heard Hollie's words. On the one hand, there was a sense of relief at having cleared up the misunderstanding from the past and having won her and Charles' trust. On the other hand, a pang of guilt hit him as he remembered the bug he had taken advantage of in the game.
Then Kaizen looked ahead and saw a screen floating near the lock of the cell.
[You are under indefinite arrest.]
Below the large message, there was a question mark, characteristic for finding out more information, so Kaizen got up from the floor, easily broke the handcuffs and touched this icon.
[If you're under arrest, it means you've committed a crime or legal violation. Remember: violations can be interpreted in their own way depending on where you are.
The time sentence usually varies between a few hours and a day, but if it's more than that or indeterminate, it means you may have been sentenced to death. To get rid of your sentence, you can use tricks such as argument, bribery or even escape, although all these options are impossible in...]
Kaizen threw the message to his right, closing the text window.
Andrew shook his head, trying to process the situation. "That doesn't make sense. Could it be some kind of mission event? It was a secure area, so it was possible to log out, right? Nothing should happen while we're gone."
Kaizen tried to concentrate, his mind still trying to adjust to the unexpected turn of events. "I have no idea. We're certainly still in Niflheim, but something has changed. I don't know if the game processes changes to safe areas even when we're out of the game, but maybe that could be possible, because Alina and Og'tharoz were still in the shed."
"What if we tried talking to the others via chat?" Andrew had the idea and opened his system.
After scrolling through the list of friends, he found Xisrith online at the bottom of the list, but the one to talk to in chat wasn't there and when he tried to click on "Location" his system screen suddenly closed. A message appeared shortly afterwards.
[This player could not be traced. He may be on an active mission, inside a dungeon, with a concealment item or trapped].
So Andrew looked at Kaizen and nodded, indicating that it was no use.
Kaizen sighed with resignation. "Looks like we'll have to find them on our own then."