A BRAVE NEW WORLD (ARTHUR, VIKTORIYA) [PRIVATE]

Some length of time had passed since the most recent of Arthur's adventures and this latest one was the one wherein he had encountered "Viktoriya Romanova", the young heiress from the Romanov/Romanova business family when she was exploring some VR technology which was running a simulation of the Soviet and pre-Soviet era in a hypothetical framework that posed the query of what would happened if the Romanov tzarist family's regime had NOT been deposed through the violent revolution that had been led by the Bolsheviks as per the history books. Since she had been playing this simulation in the guise of the Romanov tzarist family's only scion, aka "Anastasia", Arthur had joined her in her playthrough of this simulation and he had quite a bit of fun throughout this experience since he had taken on the guise of said princess's guardian and most trusted aide, aka "Rasputin". Since then, he had once again gotten back to the grind of his daily life of high society training, his scholarly duties as a student of Tokyo U., assisting his parents with the running of the business conglomerate owned and ran by their family, and so on.

In this manner, time had marched on for Arthur until present day wherein, he was present at his family's main estate once again since it was one of the rare breaks that he had a free schedule with no classes or major projects due for submission. He had also finished all of his lessons for the day and was enjoying spending time being entertained by and entertaining his triplet personal maids (i.e., "Rose", "Lily", and "Jasmine) in turn at the estate's grandly furnished recreation room while listening to some nice classical music from the likes of Beethoven and Mozart when, all of a sudden, his smartwatch started beeping loudly. As per usual, Arthur knew that this beeping meant that his smartphone had received a call or a message of some sort. So, he stopped his hangout briefly and tried to excuse himself, much to the maids' great chagrin which all three vocalized most vociferously and in perfectly chorus too

"Aww, boo...come on Master Edogawa...you rarely ever get to come home, even on your free days...can't that call or whatever wait for some other time?...We missed you a lot while you were gone, you know!!"

Arthur chuckled bemusedly as he saw this display of remonstrance from his triplet personal maids, but he tried to explain and lightly scold them in the same breath

"Now now, Rose...Lily...Jasmine...this call or message might be important. You would not want me to miss any major news or developments I ought to attend to, would you? How about this? Once I am done with attending to whatever this needs me to attend to, I will take you three out for a night on the town...and of course, all of it will be solely my treat..."

He was about to say more, but the three were about to cut him off with more of their remonstrance, but Arthur held up a hand, bidding them to listen onwards and so they did just that

"Of course, I know full well that you three will not be satiated with just that, so I hereby solemnly swear upon my honor as the Edogawa heir to spend the rest of this long break once I am done solely with you three and I will even go ahead and cancel all my appointments and so on during this time. So, what say you, ladies?"

Though they did not say anything in response just yet, the reinvigorated sparkle in their eyes told Arthur that his plan was a success and so, he bade them goodbye for the time being and then walked off, but not before the three loudly urged him to remember his promise to them, once again in perfect chorus. As he heard that, Arthur smirked in secret while musing silently

As easy as taking candy from a baby...sometimes I scare even myself...

After that, he headed off to his office where he always attended to all the important and/or official appointments, calls, and so on that may be laid at his proverbial doorstep. Once inside, he took out his smartphone and upon checking it, he saw a voice message and so, he opened it to play the contents. There appeared a bright, ancient-looking sigil of some sort on his phone screen but this was unlike anything he had ever seen in his life



This sigil had some sort of indecipherable script underneath it that, like the sigil, was also equally mysterious



Then, as Arthur let the message play, the august and rather mysterious sounding female voice was heard and this one that radiated an aura of power that, for some reason as yet unknown to him, Arthur could not ignore and thus he listened on

"Arthur Edogawa...It's time to decide your future...if you are interested in entering a world of endless wonder, then follow the signs on the map herein...and by doing so, you shall arrive at your destiny..."

Naturally, Arthur was completely taken aback and utterly confused by what he had just heard, but being the incorrigible detective nerd and mystery otaku he was, his insatiable curiosity was indeed piqued, and very strongly at that. Fortunately, his schedule was completely open, so he could indulge his curiosity about this mysterious message. So, he pocketed his phone and then decided to pursue this avenue of action to see just where it would lead him. To that end, he called for the family butler, "Alfred" to bring one of his many favorite antique limos around and once that was done, he explained exactly what he was going to do to said butler (but not the part about the mysterious message, of course) just in case he needed a quick extraction later on and also told him to inform his parents about this as well (once again, just that he was going out for a drive to attend to a meeting of sorts).

It did not take him long to find his destination as there seemed to be some mysterious force directing his limo forward towards Shibuya station. Once there, he parked his limo and then walked into the station, wondering just where this mysterious force that he could not ignore seemed to be leading him. To his surprise, his phone seemed to be tugging him toward a rather dilapidated part of the station, one that he knew had fallen into disuse since long ago, and this only served to pique his curiosity further. Little did he know that he would soon be meeting the same young woman he met at his birthday party in this situation as well.