"Boss, I've figured out that other matter you had me look into."
"The Prime Minister hasn't made any public appearances recently. The Royal Capital Times says he's gone abroad for vacation."
"But in certain circles, there are rumors that the Prime Minister is critically ill."
Only Taruno and Chen Qi were in the moving car.
Taruno had arranged it this way on purpose. After all, the matter he had to report was a bit sensitive.
"It's been almost half a month, and he's still not better?"
Chen Qi was unconcerned by Taruno's nervous demeanor.
'We're all players, and he's just a weakling. What's the big deal?'
'I wouldn't even take that Card if you gave it to me.'
Taruno looked at his boss with admiration. 'Is this what the Kingdom's elite are like? He even knows in advance about secrets like the Prime Minister having problems.'
"Tell me about our current Prime Minister, and his predecessors too!"
Chen Qi wasn't just focused on the current Prime Minister himself, but all of them, including the previous ones.
If Plum Blossom 10 hadn't lied, then in the Lanyu Kingdom, one could only become Prime Minister by obtaining the Xiaowang Card.
The title "Prime Minister" was a fixed occupation for NPCs in the game.
...
"Boss, the current Prime Minister is Cloze Jic. He took office at the age of 50 and has served for 23 years now."
"I have to say, he's a very capable Prime Minister. Under his governance, the Lanyu Kingdom has steadily climbed in the rankings of small nations and avoided falling into various turmoils."
"That's also why he was able to win consecutive elections!"
"However, over the past year, while the Kingdom's politics and economy have been stable, the approval rating for the Prime Minister's ruling party has been steadily declining, while the opposition party's influence is on the rise."
"Polls suggest the ruling party's declining support is because the Prime Minister has been in power for too long, and the public is starting to crave something new."
"So, there's a prevailing public opinion now that regardless of the next election's outcome, the Prime Minister will step down!"
"If, as you said, the Prime Minister was the target of an assassination, could it be something he staged himself to gain public sympathy?"
Taruno gave free rein to his private detective's imagination. Conspiracy theories were a timeless staple in his line of work.
"Heh, it's not that simple."
"I don't know the specific reason either, but it definitely has nothing to do with the Kingdom's politics!"
Chen Qi didn't believe that a so-called election could shake the position of "Prime Minister."
The Lanyu Kingdom might look like a normal country, but in essence, it was a [King's Game].
Only King Gutaf could decide everything.
The so-called election was a joke in the face of a game that could subtly guide the public's perception.
There was only one explanation for the shift in the ruling party's approval rating: King Gutaf was displeased with Cloze.
This was Gutaf's warning to Cloze!
'So what exactly did Cloze do to anger the [King]?'
Chen Qi instinctively felt that this involved some kind of change within the game.
...
"Before Cloze, the Kingdom had three other Prime Ministers. Unfortunately, they were all assassinated during their time in office and died unexpectedly."
"According to the officially released investigation results, the assassins were Kingdom rebels. They opposed Gutaf becoming King and weren't afraid to use violent methods."
"But as the Kingdom's Monarchy stabilized, they could no longer gain public support and gradually vanished without a trace. It's rumored they were completely wiped out."
Taruno presented the files on the other three Prime Ministers. Chen Qi glanced through them but didn't find anything suspicious.
He wasn't surprised by this. If [Gutaf] wanted to hide something, you would never find any information about it through the Kingdom's public channels.
Nine rounds of the game, forty-three years. The [King's Game] had almost completely merged with the entire Lanyu Kingdom.
What a horrifying thought!
But for such a demented act to be running so brazenly out in the open...
Chen Qi really couldn't figure it out. The "Demon" was already infamous, so how had it not been slain by humans yet?
Where was the Hero?
...
"Taruno, if this is all the intelligence you've gathered, it's not enough to satisfy me!"
"I could find any tabloid reporter off the street, and they could tell me all this in vivid detail."
Chen Qi tossed the files aside. He had invested a total of five million in this, and this was not the result he wanted to see.
If Taruno was incapable of handling intelligence work, Chen Qi wouldn't mind finding someone more suitable.
"Boss, of course there's more."
"I also obtained the private manuscript of a former minister of commerce from the Dark Web World. It records some very strange things!"
"I was going to give it to you earlier, but I must have been so busy I lost my head and forgot."
Under Chen Qi's gaze, Taruno felt as if he'd been struck by lightning, and he instantly sobered up.
Ignoring the cold sweat drenching his body, he hastily pulled a stack of papers from his briefcase.
"Don't let it happen again!"
Chen Qi said coolly, casually taking the stack of papers.
Seeing that his boss hadn't completely lost his temper, Taruno felt as if he'd received a pardon.
He couldn't understand why he would forget something so important.
'Was it because I've been getting too complacent lately?'
...
'Just as I thought, the game is reacting!'
'Looks like Taruno really did find a key piece of intelligence.'
The moment he took the papers, Chen Qi felt his [Red Heart 7] tremble, as if something had startled it.
Ultimately, however, nothing happened, and the [Red Heart 7] did not awaken.
Regarding this 'sudden abnormality,' Chen Qi's [Intuition] made an instinctive judgment.
Some mechanism within the "King's Game" must have been triggered just now. However, because it detected his status as a player, the subsequent mechanisms didn't activate.
Otherwise, Chen Qi feared he would have ended up like Taruno, gradually forgetting the papers even existed.
This was the terror of the [King's Game]!
Fortunately, the game's influence was still just subtle, not compulsory.
If it had directly erased the relevant memories, Taruno would never have been able to recall them.
"Hahaha, King Gutaf is as wise as ever! It was worth it to support his enthronement back then!"
"Today is my first day in the Ministry of Commerce."
The front of the papers contained official documents from the Ministry of Commerce. The musings were written on the back, seemingly jotted down on a whim while slacking off at work.
And from then on, this unnamed individual seemed to have awakened a passion for "journaling," which spoke to how leisurely his job was.
"Prime Minister Morici came for an inspection today. That guy really bet on the right horse. Just because he had merit in supporting the enthronement, he was promoted directly from Minister of Internal Affairs to Prime Minister, and he's even served two consecutive terms."
"When will I ever be able to climb to his position?"
Morici was the first Prime Minister after Gutaf's ascension to the throne and was rumored to have played a major role in his enthronement.
"Holy shit, that scared me to death!"
"Has Morici gone mad? He actually launched another coup!"
"What's incredible is that the participants in this coup were all the meritorious officials who had been Gutaf's strongest supporters!"
"Even more unbelievable, the coup actually failed! That's impossible, Gutaf was completely isolated."
This time, it seemed the writer realized the inappropriateness of his words, and he had repeatedly scribbled over them with his pen in an attempt to cover them up.
But for some unknown reason, he didn't completely destroy the document.
"Sigh, the Kingdom really can get along without anyone. I got promoted."
"After the Bloody Coup, King Gutaf didn't conduct a major purge. How benevolent."
The subsequent journal entries were all complaints about his busy work schedule.
It seems this person had gotten used to slacking off before, but had unfortunately now become a workhorse.
"Strange. I feel like something's wrong, but I can't pinpoint why."
"I feel like I've forgotten something!"
"I told an overseas friend about this. That guy is really bold. He actually got me an R-type virtual game login device, saying it could help me recover lost deep memories!"
"I used it, and I regret it so much!"
"It's not just me. It seems like all of us have forgotten the [Bloody Coup]."
"So many familiar Kingdom officials from the past have been forgotten too!"
"After much thought, I've decided to investigate."
That was the entirety of the manuscript, but on the very last page, there was a hand-drawn emblem.
It was the national emblem of the Lanyu Kingdom from when it was still a presidential republic, before Gutaf's portrait had appeared on it.