Oh No, This Game Is Real

Elliot sat at the long table, gazing at the difference engine before him. The bright gas lamp behind him cast shifting shadows across his face.

A little earlier, he had been happily playing this card game.

This steam-powered difference engine did exceed some of his expectations, but not by much. It was not as though computers lacked similar card games, and this one was even somewhat crude.

He had not given it much thought. It was just a game, after all, a tool to while away his confinement.

But as he played, he began to feel that something was wrong.

He could type directly on the difference engine's built-in keyboard to converse with the characters, and they could even give coherent responses in real time. That was already absurd, but at least there were AIs on Earth that could achieve similar results.

Yet when Vanessa and Dorothea began chatting, Elliot heard something that shocked him:

"A new Poor Law is about to be enacted, banning unlicensed medical practice."

The instant he saw that line, Elliot felt as though lightning had struck him. He sprang from his chair, his fingertips icy cold. By the time he came to his senses, his back was drenched in cold sweat!

He had only heard the old butler mention this at noon, yet that afternoon, a game character had repeated it word for word?!

Elliot was no fool. This uncanny coincidence, coupled with the fact that he was an Otherworlder, brought only one possibility to mind-

"Is this game real? Could this be my cheat?!"

The thought shot through his entire body like an electric current. Unable to stay seated any longer, he got up and circled the enormous difference engine, examining it closely, trying to glimpse some profound mystery within the intricate structure densely packed with gears, levers, and steam pipes.

Naturally, he failed. The mechanical structure was so impossibly complex that looking at it made him dizzy.

"No, I have to find a way to verify this!"

After a moment's hesitation, he picked up the [Simple Folding Knife] card from the table, slipped it into his pocket, and walked straight out of the room.

A short while later, he was sitting upright on the luxurious sofa in the mansion's drawing room.

Several intricate metal instruments lay on the low table before the sofa. The old butler, Conrad, picked up one of them and deftly fitted it over his right eye.

It was an entire compound optical magnification apparatus that covered almost half his face. Elliot had seen similar equipment before; watchmakers also wore magnifying lenses like these to see the tiny components inside watches clearly.

After adjusting the eyepiece, Conrad picked up the card between his snow-white-gloved fingers. He flipped down two high-powered lenses, brought it close to the light, and began examining its surface and edges inch by inch, with extreme slowness.

Elliot waited somewhat anxiously. He had examined it himself: the card was made of cardboard, its printed design was exquisite, and he could see cutting marks along its edges.

Conrad fetched a gleaming scalpel and first scraped gently at the edge of the card, leaving only faint, barely visible scratches. Then he tightened his grip on the handle and applied force with his full concentration. Only then did the sharp blade manage, with difficulty, to cut the card in two.

With the cross section exposed, Elliot could clearly see that the cardboard was not uniform inside. Instead, countless fine, faintly glowing golden threads were evenly distributed throughout it, like some peculiar metallic wool steeped in paper pulp.

"Young master," Conrad said steadily, removing the magnifier, "this material should be cardstock specially made by the Troy Society. They incorporate particular materials during the papermaking process to give the paper unique properties."

"The Troy Society?"

"Yes, an independent and rather mysterious scholarly organization. They sell only small quantities of custom-made items, all of exceptional quality. The difference engine in your secret chamber is precisely one of their masterpieces." Conrad paused and gave Elliot a meaningful look. "It is also extremely expensive."

Elliot understood. If even the worldly Conrad described it as "extremely expensive," its value was probably far beyond what he imagined.

"Young master, are you interested in this difference engine?" Conrad keenly picked up on what had caught Elliot's attention.

"That's right." Elliot immediately went along with it, keeping the card game's secret to himself and putting on the air of someone simply engrossed in gaming. "This game is very interesting, but playing the same one all the time gets boring. I was thinking... perhaps I could buy a few more difference engines of different models to try?"

The old butler suspected nothing. He had seen Elliot's absorption in gaming over the past few days, so the idea of buying difference engines was perfectly reasonable.

There was even a barely perceptible flicker of gratification in his eyes. The young master had finally returned to the traditional aristocrat's "proper path"-extravagance!

This was not sarcasm. Extravagance was a noble's sacred duty in the first place.

To the old nobility, extravagance was by no means a derogatory term, but a display of a family's wealth and power. "Uselessness" was itself one of the core values of the luxury goods fashionable in the empire's high society. Something like a difference engine-expensive and intricate, yet useful only for entertainment-was precisely the pastime most befitting a traditional aristocrat's station.

This was also a point of contention between the old and new nobility. The old nobility considered holding land and collecting taxes the true expression of nobility. As for those new nobles who established factories themselves to create monopolies, in their eyes, they were as vulgar and absurd as someone going to a restaurant only to run into the kitchen and cook their own meal.

A traditional great noble absolutely could not have directly operated businesses under their name. That was a barbaric act that demeaned their status. Even if they wished to enter such ventures, they needed to support lesser nobles as fronts for it to be sufficiently respectable.

Socializing, political maneuvering, elegantly displaying wealth and power-this was how Conrad believed Young Master Sterling ought to conduct himself. Naturally, he had no objections at all and immediately launched into an enthusiastic introduction:

"The concept of the difference engine did not originally stem from machinery, but was deeply rooted in the soil of the occult. In his secret tome, the Emerald Tablet, Emperor Trist collectively referred to the difference engine, the Philosopher's Stone, and the Thing of Immortality as the [Thrice-Great]. After the fall of his Cosmog Dynasty, the court alchemists formed the Golden Dawn Society and attempted to refine the Philosopher's Stone and build a difference engine."

"Did they succeed?" Elliot asked in surprise. He had thought the difference engine was a purely industrial product.

"No." Conrad shook his head. "The ones who truly brought it from blueprint to reality were an organization called the Hammer Brotherhood, a loose alliance spontaneously formed by workers from the lowest social strata. After Emperor Trist's death, the Emerald Tablet found its way into the hands of the public, and anyone with intelligence and talent could attempt it. They actually succeeded. More astonishing still, they made the manufacturing method public."

"The Hammer Brotherhood?" Elliot hesitated. "Why have I never heard of this organization?"

"Because it has been completely erased. When the Golden Dawn discovered that these workers had built a difference engine, they flew into a rage, believing the workers had defiled the great art of alchemy, and mustered men to wipe them out completely. That anger then spread, and the alchemists unleashed a wave of destruction against factories, prolonging the turmoil for nearly another twenty years after the terrifying shadow of the Hundred-Year Witch Hunt."