I awoke to the sound of voices spilling in through the window that’d been left slightly ajar. A beam of sunlight streaked across the floor, illuminating the entire room. On the table in the middle sat a tray of food, the scent of which had filled my room and dragged me from my sleep nose-first. I sat up and scratched my face with a yawn.
Two knocks on the frame of the sliding door immediately followed.
“One moment,” I called, and quickly put on my kimono through my inventory menu. “Okay, you can come in.”
Fury slid open the door partially and elbowed it the rest of the way, carrying with him his own tray of food.
“Man, this place is great,” he stated excitedly. “I can see why you like staying here.”
He placed his tray on the table, opposite from mine, then sat down in a seiza on the tatami floor.
“How are you even able to sit like that?”
“Practice,” he replied. “It hurts at first, but after doing it every day for a few weeks you get used to it.”
“I bet you’re really into playing the role of a Samurai.”
“Maybe,” he replied, bashfully. “It just seems kind of natural, somehow.”
“Hmm,” I hummed sceptically.[1]
“Anyway, we should discuss what we do next.”
“I haven’t agreed to rock it as a two-man team yet.”
“Well, I just think that it’d benefit us both.”
I hadn’t hated the idea when he brought it up to me after we’d returned here, but I got the feeling that our individual speeds would conflict, especially since I didn’t want to waste more time than I had to.
“Don’t you have to speak to this Old Crone of yours?”
“I do, but she lives on the outskirts of a tiny village really far away, so I was hoping we could hash this out over breakfast, since I’ll have to leave soon if I want to get there before sundown.”
“Tell me what you’re thinking then. I’ll be eating while you talk though…”
“Fair enough.”
For the next twenty-or-so minutes, FrozenFury talked basically non-stop, while I methodically finished one dish after the other, starting with a large piece of charred fish, then a modest bowl of rice with a varied assortment of mushrooms, followed by a small bowl of soup, afterwards a fluffy omelette, and finally some root vegetables with unique flavours and aftertastes. At the end, I finished eating before he was done talking, but I let him wrap up his pitch nonetheless.[2]
He looked at me and said, “So?” with an expectant smile.
I looked into his frost-blue eyes. “No.”
His whole body sagged with disappointment. “Can’t you just give me a chance? Just until we beat the first Stage of the next World? At the very least, won’t you accompany me to see the Old Crone? Knowing how to trigger the Alt-Mode would be worth a lot.”
I didn’t really care about the worth of such information, though I did want to sate my own curiosity.
“Fine, I’ll accompany you to see her, and then I’ll give you a proper answer when I’ve thought it over.” Though it’ll probably still be a ‘no’…
Fury cheered up a bit, and then seemed to suddenly realise that he hadn’t touched his food yet, which he proceeded to devour with gluttonous swiftness, stuffing his mouth so full that he looked like a human-sized hamster that’d gone nuts.[3]
From late morning to early evening, we rode across the length of the Nijigahara forest, which I realised stretched much further than just the few kilometres that I’d seen. At some point, we took a turn down a narrow path that split from the well-travelled main road and carved its way through the forest, while still remaining entirely shaded by the canopies above, making it feel like a strange tunnel with walls made of densely-populated trees. Thankfully, the path was deserted, as it would’ve been impossible for someone coming our way to pass without having to venture off the track and into the forest, where getting lost was as easy as taking ten steps off the beaten path.
After twenty-or-so minutes of following the path, which curved back-and-forth like a snake on crack,[4] a village situated in a clearing suddenly broke into view. Considering how secluded it was, I was surprised to see more than forty wooden houses, and the streets, if you could call them that, positively thriving with activity.
Before I could even think about going into the village, Fury led us around the outer perimeter formed by the houses and we left our horse tethered at the edge of the clearing next to a tree that was slightly bigger than the rest. We proceeded to follow a tiny trail leading out of the clearing and into the forest, which was marked only by the downtrodden moss and leaves underfoot, and required a lot of focus to follow without losing my way.
A few minutes later, a tiny hut built in a European style, oddly enough, suddenly appeared out of nowhere at the end of the trail. It might have once been a quaint, slightly under-sized place to live secluded by oneself, but now it was nothing more than a ruined home, what with its caved-in front door, smashed-up interior, and blood-stained furniture. It seemed like the hut’s former resident had been chased out, and the blood that was scattered everywhere indicated that quite a struggle had occurred, though there wasn’t enough blood to suggest it’d been fatal to anyone.
Fury looked shocked. “What…” was all he managed to get out.
Before I could ask where the Old Crone was, he seemed to notice something within, and pushed aside the tattered bits of what had once been a door. I followed behind him and then noticed it as well. At the very back of the hut was a glowing wisp hovering next to a necklace draped over the back of a gnarled, wooden chair.
Find this and other great novels on the author's preferred platform. Support original creators!
“What is it?” I asked, after he’d inspected the item.
“It’s a necklace called ‘Heart of a Crone’, but it doesn’t do anything…”
“What does the text say?” I asked, wondering if it hinted at something.
“It says: It pays to have an Old Crone owe you a favour. Who knows, it might even save your life one day.” He scratched his head. “What the hell does that mean?”
It might even save your life… That seemed like a pretty obvious explanation of its effect.
“It might protect you from dying or something,” I said.
“Don’t be ridiculous. I’ve never heard of an item like that. Everyone knows this place doesn’t give you second lives. It’s Hardcore Mode all the way.” He seemed pretty adamant about that, but I wasn’t so sure.
“Are you gonna keep it?” I asked.
“Why? Do you want to buy it?”
“If you’re not planning to use it, sure.”
Fury looked me in the eyes, perhaps trying to spot if I knew something about the item that he didn’t. “I’ll sell it to you for six Ryō.”
“That’s quite a lot,” I replied.
“Well, the Old Crone said she had a reward for me if I completed her task and returned to her. Since she isn’t here and it would seem this is all I’m getting, then I’d like to at least be well-compensated for my effort.”
“Alright, I’ll buy it then.”
“Hey, I was just kid—”
I pulled the six Ryō from my inventory and handed him the sack. “Here.”
Fury grabbed the coin purse by its strings without arguing, and in return handed me the necklace.
----------------------------------------
‘Heart of a Crone’
-Accessory-
Jewellery > Pendant
“It pays to have an Old Crone owe you a favour. Who knows, it might even save your life one day.”
Equip
Discard
Weight: 0.6
----------------------------------------
Sure enough, it had no traits, unlike my ring, and was listed as a ‘Pendant’, weighing 0.6 kgs. I took in its appearance as it lay in the palm of my hand. It was a small, rugged, and heavy, jet-black stone shaped like a flower petal and with a crude string of twine tied around a groove carved into one end. The black stone was strangely cold to the touch, and the design of the petal immediately made me think of the Azure Dragon clan. I wondered if the Old Crone had perhaps been a former member.
I wasn’t entirely sure whether I’d just made a great deal or wasted a lot of money, but something about the specific wording of the pendant’s flavour text just screamed: “I need it!”
With some manner of reverent ceremony, I carefully pulled the necklace down over my head and lifted my hair so that the coarse string could rest against the skin of my neck. The pendant itself settled just above my bosom and the edge of my cuirass. The black stone radiated its coldness through the layer of my Katabira jacket, so that I could feel it on my skin beneath.
“It looks nice on you,” Fury said.
“Thanks, I guess,” I replied, though I had to agree, it did look nice, despite the low quality of the string.
“So, explain to me how you first came to meet the Crone and discover the alternate mode,” I said.
“I told you how I had a lot of time to waste, right? And how I must’ve talked to every NPC at least twice.”
“Sure, I vaguely remember something like that.”
“Well, one of them told me about an old witch who’d been chased out of Kakon-shi, and now lived on the fringe of a secluded village called Morinaka[5] Village. It was meant to be a warning not to venture too far outside the city on my own, but instead I went looking for the village, and, through talking to a few other NPCs, I learned of its location.
“Once I knew where the village was, tracking down the Old Crone was as easy as asking the villagers about her. Though, before I got to this hut, a group of Azure guards stopped me, and I had to fight them off. I can’t really say whether they were trying stop anyone from meeting her, or if they’d just figured out that I was in cahoots with the Vermilion clan. Either way, after defeating the guards, I followed the trail leading out of the village and met the Old Crone, who said she’d been expecting me, and that she had an important task for me. She told me about the weaknesses of both the Lady and the Lord, and said that if I could defeat them both, I would receive the greatest reward she could give me. I guess she might’ve been chased out of the village not long after that…”
“Hm,” I hummed, contemplating all of this. “It sounds very different from the Alt-Mode in the Forlorn Kingdom.”
“Really? How so?” Fury seemed extremely interested in this bit of information, even though he tried to hide it.
“Well, unless I’m misremembering something, it’s only possible to initiate the Forlorn King’s alternate Stage though a long series of tasks associated with each specific Stage, and missing any of them would probably make it impossible to accomplish.”
“That does sound very different,” he agreed. “One thing bugged me too.”
“Oh?”
“Yea, there was something strange about interacting with her. Like, you know how talking to NPCs has a certain strangeness to it, screaming ‘not quite real’?”
I nodded. I’d gotten more used to it after the first World, but it still stood out to me occasionally.
“Well, there was none of that with her. She answered every question I had, or well, she avoided quite a few, but not with the blank-faced stare you get from most NPCs. I think she might’ve gotten self-aware.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. If these fabricated people had the ability to become self-aware, don’t you think it would happen a lot more? Besides,” I started, stealing the words of Iberius, “the Worlds have rules that both the Creators and the Created must abide by, and I’m quite certain that self-aware NPCs is not on that list.”
“Well, how do you explain it then? It was like talking to a player, and she even asked me if I’d met someone called Andrei.”
“You’re sure of that?” I asked. “Andrei is not a name that’d make sense in the context of this World, whatsoever.”
“I know. It was super weird.”
Then realisation hit me. “I think I know what she is.”
“What?” he asked eagerly.
“I’m not completely sure, but she might be this World’s Architect.”
Fury looked at me as though I’d just pulled a rabbit ears-first out of my throat and then sprouted flowers from my nostrils. “A what??”
I proceeded to explain my encounter with Iberius to him, and though he didn’t seem to fully believe me, he eventually accepted my guess as slightly more possible than one of the fabricated people of this World going rogue.
Half a minute passed in silence, until I then said, “So, do you know how to get to the next World?”
“I assume we need to go back to the city to find out.”
Crap. “I was afraid you’d say that…”
“We’ll have to wait until tomorrow though. It’s already getting dark, and the chance of Emergent Encounters goes up a lot during night time, so we shouldn’t leave the village.”
“Alright, let’s go see if they have a tavern or something.”
We made our way back into the clearing, and spent a little over an hour scouring the Morinaka Village for a place to stay, but ultimately came up short. However, we did manage to find an abandoned and decaying building, so, in lieu of any better options, we decided to spend the night there. I planted myself with my back against the wall directly opposite the front door, and coiled my cloak around me like a blanket. I wanted to be back in my room at the luxurious inn, have a bath, and finish off the night with a hearty meal. Instead, I spent the night in discomfort, and, just before I fell asleep, I realised that I’d never seen a Safe Zone banner pop up.
----------------------------------------
[1] I wasn’t buying it. Fury was a full-blown roleplayer, no doubt about it.
[2] It’d be too much work to recount it all, but, rest assured, it was a well-thought-out speech that considered all the positives I’d gain by staying in a group with him, though he neglected to address the issue of our conflicting preferences in regards to how fast we’d progress.
[3] Get it? Hamster… nuts… no?
[4] Even if it’s logistically impossible for a snake to be on crack, it felt like the most fitting description.
[5] Written as 森中 in Japanese, literally meaning “inside forest” or “forest centre”. A bit too on-the-nose, as far as names go.