Ashley

“The Successor Forums,” Chaos repeats. “Y’know, the thing at the top of the Successor Menu.”

I stare blankly forwards for several seconds before opening the Successor Menu.

Primordial’s Successor Menu

Successor Forums

Claim Gift

Pause Broadcast

Successor Skills

Primordial’s Orders

Then I stare just as blankly at the option I never paid any attention to before.

Huh.

That’s… a thing.

After a brief period of more staring, I go ahead and select the option. Making a screen just like the System Forums appear. Except with far fewer threads and tabs on it. Not to mention what looks like a chatroom off to one side of the screen, with people already talking in it, and a popup asking me if I want to go by a nickname or not.

“Surprised it took you this long to notice,” Chaos says, sounding amused. “As you can probably guess, this Forums is for Successors only. So no one else is capable of seeing the screen, even if someone else were to look over your shoulder or look through a livestream.”

Hmm.

After taking a brief glance at the names and listing of the other Successors, I quickly find out just how pointless it would be to hide my identity. Since even if it does let us use a nickname or regular username, it still lists our Primordial’s domain next to our names.

And I’m the only one who is a Successor of Chaos. So I’d be given away no matter what name I choose.

So I make it simple and stick with my first name.

Ashley.

Then I focus on reading through their current messages.

* [Keeper]{Order} – {What do you think the girl’s doing?}

* [Darkness]{Magic} – {Likely recovering mana}

* [Keeper]{Order} – {No, I mean with the System screens she’s no doubt messing with.}

* [Aria]{Life} – {Maybe something to take her mind off of her frightening surroundings?}

* [Velt]{Magic} – {Unlikely}

* [Rel]{Magic} – {Yeah, Ashley doesn’t strike me as the sort to get overwhelmed by fear.}

Yep. As expected.

They’re talking about me.

Not sure if they’re using their real names or some titles they’ve made up though.

Although it doesn’t matter if they are or not, considering that I don’t even know them. Not a single one of them.

“Oh, and just so you’re aware, there is a participants list,” Chaos points out, making my eyes narrow ever so slightly right before someone points something on that very topic out in the chat.

* [DramaLord]{Sin} – {Ashley has joined the chat, if anyone wanted to know.}

* [Aria]{Life} – {Wait, really?}

* [Keeper]{Order} – {Says so in the participants list.}

* [DramaLord]{Sin} – {Any bets on if she’ll talk or not?}

* [Doom]{Sin} – {Don’t care about that. More importantly, any bets on if some of the lurkers in the chat will finally speak?}

* [Donovan]{Order} – {If you’re reading this, Ashley, go ahead and ignore the Successors of Sin. Most of them just want to start drama or fights.}

* [Lily]{Life} – {Ashley! I just wanted to say this! Stay safe in there!}

* [Darkness]{Magic} – {Does your skill take just a skill or two from those you kill, or does it take their entire Skill Tree?}

* [Archmage]{Magic} – {Obviously just a skill. The universe wouldn’t be so unfair as to give someone a skill like that.}

* [Jake]{Life} – {Ashley, watch out for the Kobold Lord in the fortress! It is too much for even your brother to handle, so don’t try fighting it for a long time!}

* [DramaLord]{Sin} – {Now why would I ever start drama?! I’m wounded by this insult!}

* [Keeper]{Order} – {I’m not even going to dignify that with a response.}

* [DramaLord]{Sin} – {You just did!}

Yeah, I’m not talking in this chat. Nope. Not happening.

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That thought aside, the chat quickly starts growing with more people joining in after no doubt hearing about my appearance on it. With every person in it being relatively well represented simply by the domain they’re a Successor of.

The Successors of Sin seem to be troublemakers or just plain assholes.

Successors of Order seem a lot more practical, analytical, and logical in their words. With some being helpful and nice to me, and others just arguing with the Successors of Sin.

The Successors of Life are all nice and kind, Successors of Magic are all just asking questions about my powers, and that’s pretty much it for the bunch of Successors in the chat. There don’t appear to be any of the Successors for the other Primordials.

Then again, the other Primordials don’t have all that many Successors in general from what I’ve heard.

I turn my attention towards the forums on the other side of the screen. But there aren’t anywhere near as many threads in this one as the other one. And a lot of them are older.

At most there’s maybe a thread or two every week or so.

And most of them are either by a Successor of Magic detailing a new discovery in magic that they’re taking credit for – new runes and the like – or a Successor of Life or Order spreading news about recent major events surrounding Class S organizations. Or the occasional thread about the current whereabouts of one of the currently living Unique Monsters roaming the universe.

There’s even a couple discussion threads centered around recruiting for and planning to take on a Unique Domain Event in the Official System Events. Which is news to me. About those even existing.

“Well, people requested it,” Chaos comments in my head. “So Order had me make the event by drawing in a large amount of chaos energy to forcefully recreate the Unique Domain of a previously defeated Unique Monster to give others the chance at defeating it and getting its loot.”

Oh.

What happens if the team loses?

“The universe will have another Unique Monster on the loose that was previously defeated,” Chaos casually mentions as if talking about the morning news. “There isn’t enough chaos energy in the universe to host one of these Official System Events more than once every few decades, though.”

Uh huh.

“It’s also common for the Successors who lost in one of the Unique Domains before someone else defeated the UM after it left its domain to want a rematch,” Chaos continues.

Guess that makes sense.

I pity whoever happens to be where the UM ends up if they lose.

Chaos doesn’t say anything about that.

Which isn’t surprising.

I continue reading through the threads and occasionally glancing at the chat over the course of the next few hours. As I gradually recover my Chaos Energy and mana. And during this time, more Successors enter the chat. With one even being a Successor of Death.

Which surprises the others a lot, even if she – according to the chat – doesn’t speak.

She also doesn’t stay long. Seemingly leaving the chat again after realizing I’m not speaking.

Eventually, when I’m about to close out of the Successor Forums, I finally notice something. The inbox icon in the corner of my interface now has some additional colored numbers beneath it.

Not many, but a few.

I narrow my eyes a little before closing out of the Successor Forums and opening my inbox.

Only to find some new messages in a new tab labeled ‘Successors’.

Makes sense that some of them would contact me directly. Didn’t realize they could do that just through the forums interaction though.

I look through the messages, and in total, I find eighteen of them.

Seven from Successors of Magic who are asking about Assimilate. People I proceed to ignore.

Five from Successors of Sin who are just being jerks in various different ways. Whether by making fun of my current situation, all the way to one of them who even tries to sexually harass me in a message. All of whom I proceed to ignore just like the ones from Successors of Magic.

Then the rest are from the domains with far fewer Successors, Magic and Sin having by far the most Successors with over sixty total across the universe from what I remember, and the rest having a dozen or fewer.

There are two from Successors of Life asking if I’m okay. And those I actually reply to, because the two seem like really sweet girls from their messages – their real names appearing in the inboxes rather than some username. Although I just answer with a simple ‘I’m okay’ rather than anything substantial.

Then three more from Successors of Order trying to give me tips and advice for what to do in the Unique Domain. Which surprises me a little since Order is Chaos’s opposite, but I respond nonetheless with a ‘thank you’ to each.

Not so sure about their advice though, since they’re not fully aware of my skills. For obvious reasons.

But the last one surprises me.

A lot.

“That’s… unusual,” Chaos mutters, sounding surprised as well about the identity of the last messenger.

Because it’s a message from the Successor of Death who entered the chat.