Harem Sync: Divine Edition-Chapter 56: Custodians of Reality

"Anomalous, what does this mean?!" Haru thought, growing desperate.

But some hooded figures appeared. The leader stood in front and began the interrogation in a ritualistic voice:

"Full name."

"Haru Mizuki," he answered almost instantly.

"Place of birth."

Haru hesitated. "Tok...Tokyo."

"Parents’ names."

A longer pause. "Kenji Mizuki. Yui Mizuki."

"Smell of the house where you grew up."

Haru closed his eyes, not wanting to go back to that. "...Coffee. My mother made coffee every morning. And... incense. My father lit incense at my grandparents’ altar."

"Describe a banal memory. Something unimportant."

"I..." the voice came out lower, "...used to sit on the windowsill of my room reading books while my mother yelled at me to come down because it was dangerous. Every time. Same argument."

"Traditions of your village. Festivals. Rituals."

Haru fell silent and closed his eyes, a tear fell, not of blood this time... Haru opened his eyes, looking directly at the leader. "Is that enough?"

Haru didn’t want to remember...

The leader looked at him for a moment.

"Anomalies, they usually fail in organic details, have no real memories, invent things, hesitate too much or get it right too quickly."

Haru was responding with emotional hesitation, not factual. Like someone who didn’t want to relive the past, not like someone who didn’t have it.

The leader nodded slowly.

"Test One: Completed. Proceed."

One of the hooded figures brought an object covered in white cloth and revealed it in front of Haru.

Sacred symbol, a golden circle with interwoven lines forming a complex pattern that glowed faintly.

Haru looked without recognizing anything. "...What is this?"

They switched objects.

A corpse, not real, but an illusion so perfect it resembled the dead body of a man with grotesque wounds.

Haru wrinkled his nose at the illusory smell, turned his face away. "What the hell..."

A reaction of disgust, not recognition.

They switched again.

Legendary weapon, a sword with a blade that changed color, a hilt ornamented with pulsating gems.

Haru looked at it, trying to identify if it was useful. "Beautiful. I don’t recognize it."

Last object.

Imprisoned creature, a small cage with something inside that moved, scaly tentacles protruding from between the bars.

Haru looked, assessed if it was dangerous, then asked: "Magic Octopus?"

The hooded figures measured everything: reflexes, fear, recognition.

"Anomalies tend to recognize items, creatures, sacred symbols immediately..."

Haru didn’t recognize anything.

"Test Two: Completed. Proceed."

The leader approached, extended his hand, and the symbol on his hand glowed, connecting directly to Haru’s chest. He felt something, energy coursing through his veins, checking patterns.

"Anomalies usually have irregular flow, Adaptation, impossible multiple affinity..."

The scan spun for thirty seconds, analyzing everything.

"This anomalous being has a high amount of mana, extremely irregular flow, medium elemental affinity with the fire element... Irregular Adaptation."

Haru didn’t have any of the typical Anomalous markers. The [Touch of the Goddess] was what was delaying his skill acquisition, making him slower to learn than other players; it was exactly what made him seem normal now.

The only abnormal thing was the amount of mana due to the [Mana Core] skill and the irregular flow due to the [Devouring Covenant], but that could be explained by natural talent.

He only used the fire element because the [Touch of the Goddess] had only granted him that.

He looked exactly like someone born into this world, with raw talent but delayed development.

The leader stepped back, disconnecting the rune.

"Test Three: Completed."

The leader raised his hand.

One of the hooded figures brought a stack of old papers, each with text written in different languages, some with alphabets Haru had never seen, others with symbols that looked like distorted pictograms.

They placed the papers in front of him, one at a time.

"Needless to say, since I arrived here I never stopped to notice that I know how to speak their language, and it’s not Japanese..." Haru thought.

"Read."

First paper: angular symbols intertwining to form fractal patterns.

Haru looked. "...I have no idea."

Second paper: fluid text that looked like Arabic script mixed with Nordic runes.

"Me neither."

Third, fourth, fifth, all incomprehensible.

"Natives intuitively recognize or resemble archaic languages to their own, even without having studied them. Anomalous people don’t have that."

But then they reached the sixth paper.

Haru looked and something clicked.

He didn’t fully recognize it, but he could... almost... read it. The letters rearranged themselves in his vision, forming words that made some sense.

"This one... I... I think it says something about..." she frowned, concentrating, "...The moon fell... and the sky smiled... I saw a happy God...?"

Haru could read it, but very poorly, stumbling over the words, but he could.

"How I read it..." he asked himself.

The hooded figures exchanged glances.

"This specific paper is in the Ugeon language, a language that only natives with ancient lineage or deep spiritual connection could minimally decipher," said the leader.

Then he moved a little closer to Haru. "An Anomalous shouldn’t be aware of anything, or at least shouldn’t be able to read."

But Haru read it. Poorly, but he read it.

"Test four: ... Completed."

The hooded figures retreated, leaving only the leader in front of Haru.

The leader knelt on the ground, hands clasped in prayer, head bowed, and began to pray in a low but audible voice:

"By the Light that guides us, by the Veil that protects, by the Order that sustains... forgive me for profaning the sacred in the name of the Custody of Reality. Forgive me for invoking the forbidden name. Forgive me for uttering the word that corrupts simply by being spoken..."

There was genuine fear in his voice. Fear of the word he was about to say. As if pronouncing it would summon a curse, as if the simple act of speaking it would contaminate the sacred space around him.

He continued praying for a full minute, purifying the room before proceeding.

Finally, he stood up, picked up the crystal that had been brought to him.

He placed it in Haru’s palm, the golden cords temporarily loosening from his arms to allow him to hold it.

Haru recognized that crystal... "Damn it, that crystal again!"

The leader looked directly into Haru’s eyes through the mask, his deep voice laden with absolute weight.

"Haru Mizuki."

Pause.

"You are... a gamer?" The word ’gamer’ came out almost as a whisper, as if it hurt to say it.

Haru felt the crystal burn in his hand... It was the crystal of lies... he couldn’t lie. The crystal would detect it.

However, he took a deep breath and answered, trying to remain calm. "I’m a personal guard."

The crystal pulsed but didn’t glow red, didn’t crack, didn’t emit any sound.

The leader wanted to say something, but suddenly another hooded figure appeared in the room, ignoring the ritual and running directly to the leader. Pale, breathing heavily.

The leader turned, irritated by the interruption. "Speak."

"He is Valtherion! Personal guard of the heiress Isabela Valtherion! Confirmed by witnesses and sealed documentation!"

Absolute silence in the room.

The hooded figures exchanged quick glances, processing what had happened.

Valtherion.

For them, this already began to explain the absurd mana (elite training). Mild anomalies (access to rare resources). Archaic language (noble upbringing)...

And most importantly: a political error. To arrest, torture, or execute a personal guard of one of the most powerful Houses in the empire would be a veiled declaration of war.

The hooded figures wanted to avoid such a huge mistake.

The leader took a deep breath, then gestured for the messenger to leave. He turned back to Haru.

"Stand up."

The golden ropes completely dissolved. Haru stood up unsteadily, his body aching from all the tests.

One of the hooded men gave the leader a small, golden metal disc, like a coin, with runes engraved on it, and the leader gave it to Haru.

Haru stared at the disc for two seconds, unable to read anything written on it.

"Only we, the Custodians of Reality, can read the inscriptions on this coin..." he paused briefly. "As long as you carry this, you will be treated as a legitimate citizen... do not lend it to anyone, it is your second ID."

"And if I lose it?" Haru asked genuinely.

"Losing it... could bring inconveniences." The leader responded immediately... "But as long as you have it, you confirm that you’re not an anomaly."

"By anomalous you mean Gamer, right!?" Haru asked directly.

The leader nodded slowly, a silent confirmation.

The room dissolved.

Not gradually, but all at once, the white walls, the ceiling, the perfect floor, everything dissolved like an illusion being undone, revealing where they really were.

They were in the middle of a crater. The air was black with ash and smoke that still rose from scattered points around.

Destroyed houses surrounded the crater, not damaged, but completely razed, only foundations and partially burned walls remaining.

The villagers, those who wore white clothes, were now stained with ash and dried blood, scattered there in varying states of shock and grief.

Some sat on the ground crying silently, others wandered aimlessly, rummaging through the rubble looking for... something. Remains. Belongings. Bodies.

There were remnants of bones scattered across the crater, not complete skeletons, just burnt fragments, pieces too small to identify.

It was all pain. Other citizens were angry, hitting piles of rubble with pieces of wood, shouting incomprehensible words, letting go of everything they had stored away.

"What happened here!?" Haru asked, his voice coming out lower than he intended, looking around, processing the destruction.

"Was an anomalous." The leader said simply, also contemplating the devastation as if it were a scene he had seen dozens of times before.

They began walking along the edge of the crater, leaving the central area. Haru watched the citizens passing by; some stared at him with pure hatred, thinking he might be someone else, others didn’t even notice, too lost in their own suffering.

"What exactly... is an anomalous?" Haru asked, knowing the answer but wanting to hear their perspective.

The leader walked silently for a few seconds before answering.

"Intruders. Beings from another plane who assume bodies in this world. They call themselves... Gamers." The word came out with visible disgust even through the mask. "They treat our reality as entertainment. As a test. As an experimental field without consequences."

He stopped, pointing to a destroyed house where a woman held a small, crying child.

"For them, this isn’t real. So they do what they want. They kill without a second thought. They destroy without remorse. They experiment with abilities without thinking about the lives they consume in the process."

Haru felt a pang in his chest. "And you... do you hunt them?"

"We protect." The leader corrected firmly. "We are the Custodians of Reality. When we detect anomalies, impossible behavior, power outside the norm, knowledge they shouldn’t have, we investigate. We test. And if confirmed..."

He stopped walking, turned to Haru.

"We purify. Before they destroy more."

"But not all of them are... bad, right?" Haru tried, knowing he himself was proof of that. "Some may want to help, they may..."

"It doesn’t matter the intention." The leader interrupted. "The simple fact that they exist here corrupts the fabric of reality, not to mention that they were born with evil already within them... Accumulating, this..."

He gestured to the crater. "...causes this."

Haru looked again. "So it was... a Gamer who did this?"

"Yes. One who lost control. Or maybe never had it. Hard to know." The leader started walking again. "We arrived too late. When we detected the anomaly and came to investigate, the village was already... like this."

A heavy silence fell as they walked.

"What exactly happened? How was it destroyed?" Haru insisted.

The leader stopped, turned to him.

"I can’t say exactly what happened. Information about specific methods of anomalies is restricted." He paused. "If you want to know more, ask the villagers. The survivors. They lived it. They saw it."

...

They finally reached the edge of the destroyed area; from there on, the village was intact...

Haru’s group was ahead, wearing white clothes and being prevented from approaching Haru by a Custodian.

"So a player annihilated half a village, but why!?" Haru thought, still contemplating...

Before leaving, the leader turned to Haru one last time.

"The reverse side of this coin is special... If you want to be part of the Custodians of Reality... if you want to help protect this world from threats from outside... go to any Sacred Temple and show them the reverse side of this coin."

"Coin?" Haru said, looking at what he thought was a medallion.

"If you want to know more about us, about what we do, about what we face, find a Temple. They will guide you."

He turned his back and began walking with the other Custodians.

He stopped halfway, without looking back.

"And Haru Mizuki... even if the seal says you’re not anomalous... stay vigilant. Because they are everywhere. And the closer you get to power... the more likely you are to cross paths with one."

"Pray that when that happens... you’re on the right side."

And then he left, the six Custodians moving in perfect formation, disappearing into the crowd, without looking back. Haru stood there, staring at the coin, feeling the overwhelming weight of what he had just heard.

"They hunt... people like me."