Chương 34: Getting in bed with your sister

Instead of being dropped off at the clearing from which he and Elder Flower had initially departed, Jin found himself deposited, like an unwanted step-child, in the front of the apartment building where he lived. Perhaps it was a nice gesture from Elder Flower so that he wouldn't have to walk all the way home after that exhausting conversation in the army's prison. However, considering exactly how exhausting the conversation had been, perhaps he would have appreciated some privacy to calm down again.

"I'm impressed that you were able to deduce what you did. Although, there certainly was a lot of luck involved as well," Elder Flower commented as Jin tried to still his spinning head by attaching his hands to his ears. His stomach was doing flips in his stomach, a feeling that he decidedly didn't appreciate.

"Thank you, Elder Flower," he managed to grunt out.

"Luck is always a part of success no matter how much we try to convince ourselves that it was all due to our talents and efforts." The older woman nodded.

"Indeed, regardless of your choice of scenario, you will be fighting an uphill battle for recognition and success regardless of your deductive skills. However, if nothing else, you will be doing something wildly different than everyone else. In that sense, I can only wish you the best. I'll contact you again in a few weeks to check your progress," she said.

"Thank you for your guidance, Elder Flower," Jin managed to mutter as the woman disappeared in front of his eyes. The fact that all the Elders were simply fucking off like that instead of getting up to their usual theatrics of flying swords, swirling storms and golden clouds indicated how urgent the current situation truly was. It was mind-boggling to think that there were probably dozens, if not hundreds, of other sects currently undergoing preparations for the most recent incursion.

Anyway, standing alone in the street in front of his large yellow apartment building with Asian characteristics wasn't the time to think about these things. It was simply a time to be grateful that he was in a non-combatant sect and his stress was thus not related to having to be on the front lines, and that as a newer disciple, he lived enough on the outskirts that Elder Flower escorting him to his front door wasn't witnessed by too many people.

He looked around, locked eyes with one inner disciple, pretending not to look in his direction, before shaking his head and deciding that he needed to lay down. He opened the door to his domicile and ascended the steps, where he entered his apartment, only to find it not as empty as he had hoped. Hashimi looked at him awkwardly while lying on his bed and sketching something on a large parchment propped up on her knees.

"I thought you would be gone for longer," she eventually said awkwardly. Jin opened his mouth to say that he had been gone for ages before closing it again when he realised he'd barely left an hour ago. Walking to the clearing didn't take long; he'd found Flower already there, and she'd promptly taken him to the prison cells, where he'd had at most a half-hour conversation before quickly being returned home.

"The fact that you didn't expect me to be home earlier doesn't explain why you're lying on my bed," he instead said calmly. Hashimi awkwardly scratched at the back of her head and squinted at him. A weird laugh escaped her wide mouth.

"Well, actually, considering we're working here, I wanted to be doing that by the time you came back; I just laid down for a short break." Jin opened his mouth to say something before thinking better of it and closing it again. Then he turned around and exited the apartment, going to the other side of the floor and opening the front door to Hashimi's place.

"Wait, what are you doing?" a concerned voice said loudly behind him. Jin, meanwhile, had entered the girl's apartment and started fighting his way through the mess on the floor and the walls to get to her bed, which was the same make as his. Once there, he laid down and covered himself with the blanket, fluffed the pillow under his head, and turned towards the blank wall.

"What are you doing?" The girl suddenly asked from behind him. She'd come to follow him and was now looking at his back with a tilted head, her short dark hair brushing her shoulders. She'd left his bed in Jin's apartment to come here and spectate what he was doing in hers.

"I need a nap," Jin said, "and my bed was occupied."

"Are you trying to teach me a lesson by being more annoying than me?" Hashimi asked curiously. The young man let a long string of silence fill the room before he started fake snoring.

"Oh, it's on," Hashimi said behind him.

"No one is more annoying than me," she said as if rising to a monumental challenge. She promptly shoved Jin further into the wall before laying down next to him and starting to use her mouth to make a noise that anyone from modern Earth would recognise as a police siren. It was all the more impressive that she could do so, considering that police sirens didn't exist in this world. At a loss for what to do in response, Jin started recreating the noise of an ambulance as loudly as he could.

Unfortunately, before it could be decided which one of them was the winner in the Illusion Room Sect's most annoying disciple competition, loud banging started coming from the door to the apartment alongside a loudly shouted, "Shut up you two freaks, I don't care what you're doing in there, just do it quietly!" The two awkwardly quieted down as they lay in the bed, essentially one touch away. Then Jin turned around so that they could face each other.

"You're undoubtedly a sister to me," he told her. Hashimi beamed at him with a wide, toothy smile.

"And your parents completely failed in raising you," the boy added. This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

"We have the same parents, dumbass." Jin grimaced, "Fuck." -/- Once the two of ' The Last of Us' collaborators had sorted out their differences and returned to Jin's apartment to discuss matters of work rather than adoption, Hashimi brought up a rather interesting topic.

"I've been talking to some people at the cafeteria today, you know, since I have friends, unlike a certain someone," she started, looking at him for a reaction before continuing when she started. There wouldn't be any.

"And I've been gathering data on what the other groups competing in the challenge are doing."

"With gathering data, you mean gathering gossip, right?" Jin asked. Hashimi nodded seriously.

"Of course, gossiping is what socially competent people partake in to find out information before it is available publicly," she informed him before continuing, "Regardless, I've been telling people around the sect that you're a repressed homosexual, and in return, I have been making some connections that have led to a categorisation of what type of projects are being worked on." Jin stared at the girl with a blank face, hoping sincerely that she was simply making a joke.

Just in case she wasn't, he decided not to ask.

"And what would those categorisations be?" he asked instead.

"I mean, obviously everyone is going for clear combat scenarios. The biggest difference lies in two factors. One category of groups is doing scenarios in which the Experiencer is a single individual battling against a horde of zombies. The only difference between this and normal scenarios we have a bunch of in the library is that zombies are a new type of creature, but also that the loose condition for the reset is simply getting scratched or bitten, not getting killed."

"That makes sense," Jin nodded.

"After all, at this point, without a cure, it's essentially the same thing."

"All right," Hashimi said and continued.

"Of course, there are different variations. Some groups have a single zombie, which, when you defeat it, is replaced by two simultaneously, and then by three, you get the point. What's interesting, in my opinion, is what some of them have decided to do to replicate the environment that will be occurring on the battlefield. Namely, they have decided that in addition to the Experiencer and the zombies, they will also simulate a variety of mortal soldiers you will be fighting with.

This is the version, by the way, that your pursuers of noble birth are creating."

"It's somewhat smart," Jin muttered thoughtfully.

"We don't have a way to hook various Experiencers into the same scenario, so a simulation of allies is the next best thing. My question would be how they're dealing with the infection of an ally. Is the loss condition one of them being infected, or do you get extra points for them turning around and killing the comrade who was just scratched? But it wouldn't make any sense considering that for at least another day, they can still fight before succumbing to the disease."

"That's a bit dark," Hashimi commented.

"But no, from what I understood, it simply works like this. You complete one iteration of the scenario in which every time you extinguish a horde, another one joins and then when your whole group is wiped out, and you start again. To prevent falling into a pattern, the movements of the group of soldiers are randomly generated from a larger database so that they don't act the same way every time, and it's the same for the zombies." Jin hummed thoughtfully.

It was a good idea in principle, but he wondered about the execution. Hearing about it reminded him of the frustrating quests in Skyrim when you had to take an NPC with you to fulfil objectives. Also, what database of randomly generated NPCs? Probably just more templates, but for characters now. To Jin, it sounded mostly like tech bros talking in jargon to drive investment interest.

AI, algorithmic parsing, userbase individualised marketing, AI, big data, personalised interface SSI injections, AI, compartmentalisation, kill the baby, AI.

"Would be nice if we finally had that multiplayer option," he muttered to himself, remembering the Elder who had said that he was working on it at the meeting he'd inadvertently been a part of when Elder Flower had brought them back from the Mad Monks Sect. One could see Hashimi's ears getting bigger at the words.

"Multiplayer?" she asked curiously.

"An Elder from the Illusion Room production side has been working on a way for Rooms to allow access to several Experiencers at the same time. From what I heard, it's not nearly complete yet," he said dismissively.

"You do gossip!" Hashimi said excitedly, getting a queer look from Jin.

"It's called gathering data, thank you very much," Jin said with a roll of his eyes.

"Ok, whatever," the girl replied.

"Anyway, that last scenario sounds pretty good. Do you think ours can keep up?" She seemed worried for once, genuinely.

"There are a lot of groups. Technically, everyone has a low chance of actually winning," Jin said in an attempt to calm her down.

"I think our chances should be relatively high, considering we're doing something unique. But, of course, we're also going the non-traditional route."

"I understand more now why we're doing that," Hashimi admitted.

"Some of the other groups are big. Five to six people are from cultivator families, so I'm sure they have better resources than us." Jin nodded.

"I'm glad you understand that to succeed from a worse starting position, we have to take a bit of a gamble, and gambles sometimes fail. I don't want to discuss it negatively, but our scenario is good because it has value outside the upcoming conflict. It teaches valuable skills other than fighting, so in that way, we have a fallback option of gaining value even if we don't win."

"I thought about that parable you told me, the one about picking a teammate for the hunting mission. I think if an Illusion Room simulating the entire process could help people mature and become more experienced in dealing with adversity in general, I like what we're doing," she admitted.

"I just wish the challenge wasn't unfairly skewed to those with bigger teams and better resources. Of course, we can't challenge them on pure combat modelling; they have three times as many people to work on it as we do, and they're older and more experienced." A smile hushed across Jin's face.

"It's nice to hear you like our vision more now. Passion is often what drives greatness forward. We just have to hope it can beat raw computing power and experience. Hopefully, some of the judges on the panel will agree with our philosophy and see value in what we do."

"Yeah, I hope so too," Hashimi said with a hopeful sigh.

"I heard that the judges will probably be the general, the sect leader, that Elder you're working for, and some guy Elder named Lung. He makes the best templates for surroundings available in the library, but you have to pay a ridiculous percentage to use them. I wonder what he'll think about my architecture," she said excitedly. Jin couldn't help but wince.

"Yeah, let's see about that," he said weakly.

"Anyway, we have an advantage that the other groups probably don't yet for another few hours," he said, making the girls' eyes light up.

"Really, what is it?"

"The zombies have mutated, so whatever the other groups have been working on… They'll have to expand it." Hashimi grimaced.

"But that also means more work for you," she pointed out logically. Jin smirked at his luck.

"Well, actually, the zombies mutated into a variant I was already modelling the combat for." The girl stared at him with an open mouth, slowly raising a hand to cover it. Her eyes were ripped wide open, and her pupils were tiny pinpricks.

"Wait, Jin," she started in a shaky voice.

"Are you, are you," she tried to say but kept breaking off.

"Are you actually smart?" she finally managed to ramble out reverently. Jin stared at her, wondering if he should take credit for what was essentially a coincidence. It would be a bit mean of him to use it to inflate his ego. Maybe he shouldn't. His nose was suddenly lifted into his air as if pushed there by a mysterious force.

"Yes, everything is going as predicted," he said haughtily.

"The other teams won't know what hit them when they're faced with my endless brilliance." The sparkles in Hashimi's eyes made the lie more than worth it. Her disappointment when she found out he was just a hack would just be something she'd have to deal with.