Haihai! Mono here!
I kind of got hooked on a light novel so might be a bit slow this weekend!~ Sorryyy~ but addictions are addictinggggg
I've also been drawing a lot so I can show you guys my world with my own power! Fufufufufu!
With that said, please enjoy this new chapter! No changes have been made to previous chapters!
Thank you very much to Dan for PRing it for me <3
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Robin leaned onto the window ledge of the open window and let the wind run through her hair. She took a deep breath. The air smelled really sweet after the rain.
A small smile spread on her face as she listened to the sound of the first birds leaving the safety of their nests the first time after the rain, the sporadic sounds of water droplets falling to the ground and savoured the feeling of the first sun rays after the rain.
Just then the door to her room was kicked open roughly and someone entered without bothering to knock.
Robin quickly turned around, wondering who it was.
“Hey, murderer. I got you food.”
*CRASH*
With a loud noise the tray he had been carrying landed on the floor.
“Oops… my baaad… seems like I dropped it. You better not waste the work the maids put into making this, hear me, psycho?”
Just after he said that she could hear the shocked voice of a maid outside followed by hasty footsteps.
“Oh my god, young master, young miss, are you alright? What was that crash just now?”
“Che…”, seemingly not wanting to stick around with an audience he turned around and left. Robin was sure he would be back.
The Pacific Ocean
“Why did I agree to this?”, Brian Eden grumbled for the umpteenth time. He silently cursed himself for falling into the pace of the captain. He had gotten a call from his superior asking him to meet the guy and before he knew it here he was.
In a boat miles off the coast of the Pacific ocean staring at a monitor with a headset on his head connected to the twenty divers that were a few hundred meters underwater heading towards the underwater tunnel where their comrades had disappeared not 36 hours ago.
Luckily he hadn’t been asked to go down there with them. He would have flat out refused. He had no experience whatsoever in diving and didn’t think it would do the situation any good to have a newbie down there. But that wasn’t what the captain had in mind anyways. After all he was most effective up here where he could talk to them. He was close enough for his signal to go through and give them life advice depending on the situation. Good thing you couldn’t talk underwater.
Eden sat in a room below deck. In front of him several screens were lined up, two of which showed the divers while two others were for him to work on. Behind him another soldier was sitting in front of a similar set-up. He called up information from the game on both. He muted his line to the divers for a moment and looked over his shoulder to the soldier behind him.
Noticing his gaze the woman who seemed to be in her early 30s nodded at him and muted her line as well before dialling a number.
“Sergeant. Report, how do things look?” It was Captain Morgan. After the scouting incident last time his superior the Colonel had apparently decided the course of action afterwards. Thus various marine biologists as well as he himself had been asked to participate in the investigation. Morgan himself was overseeing another group of soldiers that were still searching the area a few miles east from here.
All fishing spots in the vicinity had been closed temporarily but they had a time limit for how long they could close the area without revealing the truth. And the truth was an unknown carnivore sea monster had appeared in the area. If it became public then the small illusion of order that had finally started returning to the world after the earthquake be blown apart once more, causing a panic. They couldn’t let that happen.
“Sergeant Cruz reporting, according to the GPS I get they nearly arrived. Nothing particular so far. Over.” He kept his eyes on the monitors all the while.
“Very well. Continue your observation. Next report when the target is visible.”
“Understood.” With that the sergeant ended her report and they both turned their lines to the divers back on. At no point had both of them averted their eyes from the screen. They knew well that the life of the divers down there could be in danger if they overlooked something.
In Firchten
Zayvin was rushing towards the plaza where she had heard Suitcase would be organizing the players’ movements. Somehow or another he had proven to be the most charismatic and practical one of the bunch who had quickly adapted to the situation. And the players had naturally decided to follow him and ask for his advice.
She felt bad about what she’d have to ask him but she didn’t see any other realistic options. She needed someone whom she could somehow talk to and that was that.
She flew there as fast as she could. She had crossed the whole length of the city in only a minute and prepared to land on the plaza. A few smaller groups of players were standing around it. She spotted Suitcase in one of them, pointing somewhere and gesticulating as he explained his intention to them.
Zayvin folded her wings closely to her body without slowing, making her seem like a black blur rather than a person that descended towards the plaza like a bullet. She only opened her wings at the very last moment to decelerate enough to not lose any health from the landing.
*Boom*
With a loud sound she landed next to the speechless players, causing the ground to shake lightly and creating a indentation in the floor. The wind she had created by her stunt was whipping up a huge dust cloud, reducing visibility greatly.
Some of the players had seen the black blur descending and were now starting to shout.
“What’s happening again? Is it a bomb?”
“What’s with this cloud… did some more debris fall?”
Confusion was clear in the voices. But Zayvin ignored them all. Making use of the confusion she quickly approached Suitcase’s group and pulled him away.
“Uwaa, what??”, he resisted lightly and turned around to look who or what was pulling him.
“Oh, Zayvin, it’s just you… don’t shock me like that please… I thought my heart would stop.”
“S-sorry… but c-could you come with me for a second… p-please.”
“Huh? I need to find out what’s going on here…”
“Ah, t-that cloud… was me… sorry… so…”, Zayvin was embarrassed at herself. Obviously he wouldn’t just come with her like that if she caused such a ruckus in the plaza. Anyone would be confused by it…
“Huh? Ah… really? Then it’s nothing dangerous?”
The dust slowly cleared as they talked and more and more loud voices could be heard calling for someone or asking for an explanation.
“Hika… I mean Suitcase! Where’d you run off to, huh?”, the shout of his sister could be heard as well.
Zayvin just shyly shrunk back and pulled on his shirt, trying to make him understand she wanted to leave asap.
This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
Suitcase was troubled and didn’t know what to do. Then he looked down at her and saw her desperate expression and came to a decision.
“Guys, everything is fine! It was just some debris! I’ll be back in a few moments, got it?”, he simply shouted. Then he grabbed Zayvins arm and pulled her along with him towards the outside of the city.
“Is the library fine?”, he asked her as they went. Zayvin simply followed him with a surprised expression. He had suggested the library to talk since it was the closest place to sit and talk that could be accessed publicly.
“Ah… yes… b-but… is it alright? T-the others…”
“It’s fine. I told them I’d leave for a second, right?”
With that they went through a small gate and went down a long flight of stairs. Now they were standing in the underground grand library of Firchten.
This place was like a second home to Zayvin. She had loved reading when she was small so naturally as soon as she had discovered there was a library in the game, the game where she could see, she had holed herself up in here at every chance she got.
She stared up at the meter long book cases that were lined row on row on the floor. This was the general section of the library. She could see a barrier above the cases that slightly rippled the space it covered, making it seem like the surface was made of water. Only devils with a special magical permit could enter through it. You could see hundreds of bookcases floating around chaotically in the area beyond it.
Suitcase and Zayvin headed towards the right, where various tables with dividers were located for people working in groups and sat down at a suitable one.
“So what happened? You wanted to make sure of something, right?
“Ah, yes that is…”
Zayvin made sure no one had followed them and then started explaining the situation. Suitcase was a good listener. He stopped her every now and then to ask some questions but otherwise let her talk. In the end she had told him everything that happened in the meeting with the Lord. Towards the end her stuttering also got better. Maybe she was getting used to talking to him a tiny bit?
“so that’s why… I-I need someone to come along… with me.”, she concluded and looked up at him. “Suitcase, y-you’re the only one I’ve talked to here, s-so… c-could I… ask you…”
“Just a second, Zayvin. Before that I need to make sure of a few things.
At those words Zayvin seemed to shrink into her chair, but she nodded, motioning him to go on.
“So that NPC says the link to reality we logged in from is gone, meaning we can’t log out... it doesn’t make any sense to me. This is a game that simply gets projected directly into our consciousness. How would it keep us from logging out? It stops working once you cut the power. Sure, you might be dizzy and feel sick if you get forcefully logged out but it’s not possible to keep us in.”
“I-I don’t know… but…”, Zayvin answered, “it’s true nobody got out for hours, r-right? Shouldn’t there have been… at least 2 or 3 people to get kicked off?”
“That’s true…” In the first meeting the players had divided into groups. If any of their members had been logged out the rest of the group would have reported it to the others. They also hadn’t heard anything from Furan so it wasn’t really hard to convince Suitcase the possibility was worth looking into.
“Its also… always better if we look into it too much than too little… right?” Zayvins voice was quiet like a mouse. She wasn’t used to convincing people of anything so she had just told him her thoughts truthfully.
“I see… yea, that’s true…”, Suitcase trailed off as he thought about what to do.
Zayvin simply waited quietly. She had also needed a lot of time to work everything out in her head so she didn’t plan to rush him.
“You said the messenger leaves today, right?”
“Y-yes.”
“When?”
“I-in a few hours… he told me to come to the castle whenever I was ready.”
“Alright… I’ll need some time to properly think this over… Until then could leave all the preparations to you? I will leave a message at the inn when I decided. You’re staying there, right? Is that fine?”
“Ah… yes… I am and that’s fine. T-thank you.”
With that she got up and bowed towards him to show her gratitude and said her farewell for now.
“I-I will go get things ready now then…”
“Please do… also, Zayvin?”
“Y-yes?”
“Thanks for asking me.”, he smiled at her with that crooked smile that was typical for him.
“N-no, thank you for listening to my selfishness…”
“Haha, see you later, Zai!”
At that Zayvin nearly fell down right there, that’s how surprised she was. Zai?
Apparently he had read her mind as he quickly laughed again and explained.
“A nickname. Don’t like it?”
“N-no, I like it… a lot… th-thanks.”
“Great!”
With that they waved one last time and then Zayvin headed back outside. She would need to get a lot of things now that she couldn’t use the things in her inventory anymore.
4 hours later she wiped away her sweat as she wrapped up the last item she had bought.
She went over the items in her head again to make sure she had everything. She had obviously had to compromise on many items. She couldn’t bring anything that would restrict her movements so the size and quantity of items was limited. She had bought a few backpacks and cast some simply void magic to them. Void magic was simply put a power that affected space itself. So she effectively enlarged the space inside compared to the outside. At first she had failed a lot since the skill was new to her and actually made one of her backpacks explode but eventually she had gotten the hang of the magic she had learned just recently and stacked the magic up multiple times.
Permanently casting magic like this had cost her an enormous amount of mana and concentration though so she had used a lot of recovery items. But in the end the result was worth it.
This alone had cost her two hours.
But with these bags she had been able to pack provisions and necessities for two people for more than a month into two backpacks. Luckily a player’s money was stored in a pouch outside the inventory so she hadn’t had any trouble buying everything.
She had even bought a change of clothes. It was a necessary expense since her old battle clothing was lost. She also bought some protective items for Suitcase while she was at it.
Thus she took one bag into each hand and made her way back towards the inn. Maybe, just maybe Suitcase had already left a message for her there.
While you wait... check for my writing progress as well as interesting bits about my world here
I've also added a few sketches of how i imagined my world and some characters
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