It took a real effort for him to keep his legs under him. His brain felt like it was on fire, and his nerves were running on hyper mode. He held a hand out, saying in a calming voice, though they could hear his voice shaking a bit, from shock or strain neither knew.<br/><br/><strong>"I don't know what happened. The log out button's been removed too. I have to assume they removed it to prevent players from being hurt by trying to log out." His legs gave out, and he fell over, managing a pained "owww...." He stayed down, though moved on hands and knees closer to the girls. "The sensory barrier is gone. When we implemented the game for the first time, players and testers started getting...violently sick. What we're feeling now. Side effects. Some people don't have them at all. Others have a lot....like me." He grimaced, motioning to the fact he had to CRAWL. "Basically though, we had to cut the incoming sensations to the brain by 2/3rds, or more then half. The brain WANTS this to be reality, to the point it handles it like reality. That's your subconscious. Your waking brain though, KNOWS its a game, so it causes a...disconnect. You....we'll adjust in time, but for the safety of players, we made the Filter. With that gone.....our brains are fighting themselves. It should go away soon enough, but..." He hesitated, not sure how to explain exactly WHY this was so bad. If it didn't fix itself soon, logging out was going to make a vast majority of players violently sick, and some would struggle to log out at all.</strong><br/><br/>He started to continue talking, when suddenly, he got a "ding" sound, indicating he had mail. He frowned, activating and reading the message. At first, he just looked confused. "That...." However, suddenly it looked like an idea dawned on him, and he quickly turned away from them. Before he could hide though, they saw he was terrified, and his face was white. He was Scared, badly. He took a deep breath, focusing himself. The players needed him. So did the girls for that matter.<br/><br/>He started to turn back to them, when suddenly, EVERYONE got a message notification, and a small video screen opened in front of them. In addition, the Massive screen in the center of Every village flared to life with a recording from the real world. Almost everyone recognized the CEO, as he sat calmly before his desk. He motioned to the screen, and in a cool, cold tone spoke. "Welcome, to the true face of the game. As you all can see, the logout button has been removed. Players can no longer exit the game. If a player dies, they will die in the real world. As of right now, 419 players have died, either from being disconnected by families who did not listen, or other factors. The only way out of the game, is for you to Beat the final Boss. Survive, if you can, and Win." It seemed like the CEO changed, and for a brief second he looked like a tired old man, "Good luck." With that, the video in each of the Villages was replaced by a floating "Death Toll" to show how many players were left alive.<br/><br/>Hakuro, rather then set their mind at each, simply tapped some commands, and both girls got a message from him, a forward from "Sage of Six Paths." The message was clearly from the CEO, and just as clearly written in extreme haste. " Game not safe. Massive power Surge. die in game, die IRL. Can't force players log out. Subconscious prevent. Be safe, Please..<br/><br/>Hakuro shook his head, standing on wobbly legs, and made a "wait" motion, sitting down again with his back against a nearby tree, his hands forming the same hand sign Shikimaru did when he was thinking deeply.<br/><br/>It took around ten minutes before he sighed, letting his hands drop, saying in a quiet voice.<strong> I think I know what's going on. I don't know for sure, but....The "Sage" was the CEO...my dad. The game's not safe, because there was a massive power surge. However, in the event of a power surge, the game's AI is supposed to withdraw every player from the game safely, isolating them from the system so we can log out without being harmed. However....he said a "Massive" power surge. If the surge was large enough to cause a massive blackout in Japan, then its entirely possible that we couldn't be logged out....</strong>" He frowned at that, and then continued. "<strong>What's confusing, is that in that circumstance, we should be dead, and we're clearly not. He said we can't be forced to log out. Meaning they've tried to log player's out, and its not working.Its possible the "other factors" Dad was talking about was by them trying to log players out, its killing them. Disconnecting from the game is killing them too. Its possible that....Dad said we can't log out because of our subconscious. Like I was saying, our brains think this is reality, especially the longer the buffer is gone. But why can't....</strong><br/><br/>It hit him then. He looked like he'd just been shot. His eyes wide with horror, not realizing he Prooooobably shouldn't be talking about this in front of the girls. Or anyone.<strong> Unless the surge wiped our brains.....The power surge Killed us all. We're still alive because the AI must have kept a record, or mirror of our brain patterns, and implemented them into the game code. So while we're alive here, our bodies in reality are brain dead. We died....No, that can't be. Dad's not a liar. Ever. He said if we beat the game, we could log out. Subconscious..of course. If our subconscious is keeping us trapped, then we can get extracted at the one time our subconcious's hold is weakest. When we're staring at a "You win" victory screen. That's why he didn't tell everyone to just stay put. If he told them the truth, people'd panic, they'd lock down and refuse to move. We HAVE to move forward, because if we don't, we're trapped here Forever."</strong><br/><br/>He Finally made eye contact with the girls, saying in a quiet voice.<strong>" I'm sorry you had to find out this way...if you want to stay in the village, I don't blame you. I'll try to level up the best I can, and come back for you if you want....</strong>