13th Project: Substitute Coder

Chapter 2: A God should have his right hand, right?

Seijuro's POV

"This? This is your room? I expected better coming from a godlike being," Botan complained as she inspected my apartment.

"I want my existence to be low profile, that's why I chose to live a life like this. Besides, I don't want to abuse my powers for that kind of luxury. That's prohibited from the rules of CyNet."

If all people only knew our existence as a Coder, it's obvious that they'd praise us and even make a religion out of us. They'd think we live a comfortable life everyday. But little did they know, our lives aren't that convenient. Using our powers for luxurious things violates our responsibilities as a Coder, especially the Law of our team. We serve and protect the Servers in the CyNet, not serve for ourselves.

"Uh, what's... a CyNet?"

Oh. I still haven't told her everything. With two chairs and a table beside us, I gave a gesture for her to sit, which she immediately obliged. After I took my seat, I prepared myself to explain the entire essay about Coders.

"Botan. What if I told you that Reality is like a computer program?"

"Like a video game?" She raised her eyebrow and seeing how curious she was over the topic, I tried to come up with simpler words.

"Yes.. yes.. Everything existing in this world could be broken down into lines of codes. Oxygen, water, animals, even humans. They're made up from buckets of codes. And each code makes everything work into place. Respiration? That's a work of codes. Memories of a person? Made from codes. Hell, even sex manipulate codes to produce a new offspring."

"That's interesting..." She's getting a hang of it. That's a relief. "So, us people were like the players of the game?"

"Precisely. And we, Coders, are in charge that nothing terrible happens that could ruin your gaming experience," Damn I sounded like a game developer there. Well, to be fair, it's actually how my job works.

"I see," She became silent before seemingly trying to come up with another topic.

Hmm. I suppose I should break down the news about her colleague. She needs to know what exactly was going on.

"Eru's a friend of yours, right?" She nodded in response to my question.

"Yeah. He's my partner on every mission we had. He's a hardworking guy. He always guided me with intel that made my missions easier. He sometimes never sleeps just to finish decoding, translating, and compiling the information as soon as possible. He's a very skillful agent. I even treated her as my younger brother," her smile was visible from my spot until she gazed back at me. "Why did you ask?"

Now I felt guilty before I even told her the story.

"Well. Uhm... Eru's... How would you say this..." My mouth can't find the right words, goddamn. "He got transported to another server."

Botan's face became puzzled after hearing those lines. Right, I haven't said anything about servers yet. Oh well, it's my time to talk about servers now.

"Yes. Just like video games, servers exist, which technically mean worlds. Parallel worlds were real and not just fictional stuff from sci-fi movies. And you heard me loud and clear. Eru was transported to another world-"

"Who's the Eru I was talking to for the entire time?!" Her concerned scream interrupted my explanation.

"He's an NPC used to replace someone who got transported to another server. Too sentient that you wouldn't recognize the difference between the real Eru and the NPC ones."

"Where's the real Eru?! Is he fine? Is he alive?"

"Calm down, Botan. He's alive and fine. There's already a Coder managing the missing individuals' statuses. Besides, I know that Coder would prioritize Eru's safety. He's his friend after all," I tried to reassure her which made her relax for a bit.