(Byakuya’s POV)

The girl nods, saying:

(Logan): “Yes, it’s me. You’re Alva, right?”

I nodded back.

(Byakuya): “How can I say… you’re way different from what I expected. I kind of pictured an old man.”

She smiled at my remark, saying:

(Logan): “You’re the same as always. I though that behind the handsome character was a little weeb, but in the end was a handsome guy as well!”

She said with a mean smile. I smile smugly, touching my forehead with my fingers and making an anime-like arrogant movement, missing only the sparkles and the background changing.

(Byakuya): “Hah! I praise you for your good eye lass! I must say that indeed, I’m the most handsome and humble man in this world. When it comes to beauty and humbleness nobody can compare to me in the world, nay, this universe!”

I said, making Logan unable to hold back her chuckle. We looked at each other and simply started laughing. After we were done a few minutes later, she wiped a tear from her right eye.

(Logan): “You haven’t changed at all, comrade. It’s good to see something familiar in this strange situation.”

(Byakuya): “Indeed. You received the guild announcement, I presume?”

(Logan): “Yes. It was quite a smart move, comrade. I received it properly. The others should be here shortly.”

(Byakuya): “So you know about the others.”

(Logan): “Yes, I met a maid in the way and asked a few questions. Its impressive how they can recognize us even in a different shape.”

(Byakuya): “Indeed. Oh, there’s someone else.”

I say as I notice someone approaching. A tall woman, with black hair and beautiful, but a bit gloomy face, although it’s quite pretty. She’s quite pale, and her hair is a bit shaggy, as if she just woke up. Her eyes are black, and the face Japanese. Her height is around… 1,80? She’s quite tall for a Japanese woman, but her body is quite modest.

Being the complete opposite of her aura, she’s wearing the cutest and over-decorated pink and white dress, the type that would show up on a mahou shoujo from japan. Wait, if I’m not wrong, there was a player like that on the guild. She was quite strong… if I’m not wrong her name was…

(Byakuya): “You’re Anastasia, right?”

(Anastasia): “And I assume that you’re the Guildmaster, right? It has been some time, Logan-san.”

(Logan): “Yes, it has been some time, Anastasia. You’re… different, from what I expected, considering your avatar.”

Anastasia frowned to those words.

(Anastasia): “You say that, but you played as a big old man. I didn’t know that you were in that kind of thing.”

Logan smiled, unfazed by the acid words. Curious, I asked:

(Byakuya): “What do you mean about her avatar?”

Anastasia flinched, and Logan smiled meanly as she looked back to me with her blue eyes.

(Logan): “You know about the mahou shoujo from our guild, right? She’s a cute little girl, with long pink hair tied in big pigtails with big ribbons, and a cute, childish face as well a petite body. That’s our tall lady here.”

(Anastasia): “Shut up, old man.”

She answers, her face blushing heavily.

(Anastasia): “So what if my character was like that? It’s a game, and I’m free to shape my avatar as much as I want!”

Logan smiled smugly, clearly the winner of this discussion. I just sighed, saying:

(Byakuya): “You guys sure are lively. Anyway, welcome, Anastasia-san. You already knew Logan?”

(Anastasia): “Indeed, we raided together a few times, and we also participated on some events.”

(Logan): “Good times. Anastasia’s buffs and magic are the real deal.”

I nodded.

(Byakuya): “Sorry for asking it right now, but which number is your class combo?”

I asked one of the most basic questions of the game. With its unique level and class system, combinations of certain classes can result in unique and advanced classes, retaining the abilities from the previous classes for even more power, a hundred levels per class.

As an example, the class, Archmage, is a six-combo class. It combines the classes Arcane Mage, Fire Mage, Water Mage, Earth Mage and Wind Mage, and these combined give you access to the Archmage Class, combining the abilities of the previous classes in new and way more powerful classes. Of course, each one of the five primary classes must be level 100.

(Anastasia): “Don’t mind that. I’m a level 72 Archmage, with an extra of level 32 Idol. Idol is a combo of Singer and Dancer. I’m aiming for the max combo Arch Idol.”

I nodded. I heard of the class, they have some insane buffs and attack power, but they are fragile as glass. Even my class, a non-combat class could kill them if the range is close enough.

(Byakuya): “If I’m not wrong Logan, you’re a level 87 Magic Swordmaster, right?”

She nodded. Her class combines the four elemental mage classes with the two sword related classes, Swordmaster and Dual Sword Master. She can tank relatively well, deal decent DPS and cast long range magic, being an all-rounder.

(Byakuya): “Well then, I’m a ten-combo max level Grand Meister.”

Anastasia’s eyes turned wide, and she asked in a loud voice:

(Anastasia): “Isn’t that the max level of the game?! I never heard of that class in my life!”

I smiled and said while scratching my head.

(Byakuya): “As far as I know, I’m the only Grand Meister in the game. After all, I’m tone only one addicted enough to machines to actually grind all the way up.”

(Logan): “You’re right. After all, you have the fame of being insane for being such a machine freak to grind only non-combat classes.”

(Anastasia): “Wait, you don’t have even one combat class?”

(Byakuya): “Nope. My classes are alchemist, enchanter, blacksmith, the three combo Grand Crafter, architect, engineer, mechanic, astrologist, the four combo Meister, and finally, the ten-combo, Grand Meister.”

(Anastasia): “Wow… that’s crazy…”

(???): “Really crazy, dude! How the hell did you farm al the levels?!”

Said a new voice with a German accent. The new voice is a petite girl, around 1,45 meters tall with surprisingly big breasts and cute face, with long red hair and green eyes, with pale white skin. She’s dressed in a high-quality leather armor, probably dragon leather, with a pair of daggers in her waist.

Her height is around the 1,70, and as I said before, her face is cute and has European traits. She’s dressed like a rogue-assassin character. Her equipment is familiar to me…

(Byakuya): “You’re Prunia, right?”

(Prunia): “Yep! Nice to meetcha, Guildmaster! Anyway, how the hell did you grind that many crafting classes?”

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(Logan): “I’m curious as well.”

(Anastasia): “Me too.”

I smiled wryly, and gave the answer:

(Byakuya): “You girls know how leveling for crafting class works, right?”

(Prunia): “If I’m not wrong, you gain experience by crafting, but have experience from monsters cut in half, right?”

(Byakuya): “That’s it. I crafted like crazy. Just that.”

(Anastasia): “It can’t be true! Even if you played twenty years in-game, you can’t craft enough equipment, no matter how much material you gather!”

(Byakuya): “I’ll tell you how I leveled later, the story is quite long after all. Anyway, the only one that we are missing is Iona…”

As I say that, a maid enters in the throne room in a hurry, bowing and saying:

(maid): “Lords, Lady Iona requests the presence of her husband in the gardens. She seems to have fallen, and will only get up if her husband comes to pick her up.”

(Anastasia): “What? Husband? What is she talking about?”

(Prunia): “Who knows?”

(Logan): “Why don’t you go save your wife, mister husband?”

She said, looking at me with a sly smile. I frowned. Yes, in the game, I’m married with the Spirit Queen Iona. The reason for that was a special instance in the valentine’s day special patch. There was a rare material that only appeared there and in a hardcore instance, and if I could get my hands in some of that, I could replicate it and strengthen the guild.

However, I wasn’t up for the twenty-hour raiding experience with a hundred members of the guild, so Logan, at the time, suggested me to marry someone and take the valentine’s day instance, since you can only enter with your partner.

Not only is way easier ad shorter, with my class, the drop rate for the material was extremely high. So, I decided to follow Logan’s advice and find a partner. At the time, there weren’t that many girls that I was close to in-game, so the options were limited.

After some time considering all the points and that I’d need someone that could tank and give health support at the same time, I decided to marry the at the time Spirit Master Iona. Her summoning abilities were great at the time, although they now pale in comparison to the Spirit Queen, and she could fulfill some roles with her summons.

With her summons and my support abilities, as well weapons, we could easily clear the valentine’s instance. So in the end I asked her to marry me. Her reaction was really strange, she said “you’re fine with me?”, and after I said yes, she blushed and bowed saying I’ll be in your care.

Her roleplay was good, she almost seemed to genuinely consider that we married. There were a lot of role players in the game, so she wasn’t that surprising. I met some quite crazy guys that never ever got out of role unless something serious happened.

I sighed as Anastasia and Prunia looked at me with funny looks. I look at the maid, asking:

(Byakuya): “When you say gardens you mean the Metal Garden or the Royal Garden?”

I ask, since I created two gardens, a garden of flowers ad trees made of metal and precious gems and a normal garden, with rare herbs, unique trees and several fragrant and gorgeous flowers, creating a popular spot for dating in the guild.

(maid): “The Royal Garden, Your Highness.”

I nod, saying:

(Byakuya): “I’ll be right back.”

(Logan): “Good travels, hubby.”

(Byakuya): “Fuck you. Teleport: Royal Garden.”

With a blue light, I disappeared from the throne room, appearing in the Royal Garden. I designed the place to be like giant stairs, with five levels, from where you can look down to the rest of the garden from the upper levels. The ground is made of marble, like the rest of the Clockwork Palace… well, made of Celestial Marble that I transmuted myself.

The marble reflects the gentle sunlight, the green grass besides the walkways is trimmed and perfect, the trees grow with colored trunks and colorful leaves, ranging from yellow, purple, red blue and green.

Flower bushes and lonely flowers bloom with several colors, releasing a sweet fragrance. Colorful butterflies and insects fly around, even some bees. The beautiful singing of several birds also fills the air.

The birds themselves are also part of the painting level garden, with colorful feathers and exotic appearance. After all, when I created this garden, I bought a lot of Paradise Bird spawners, and the insects gathered normally around here.

There are also white benches here and there, where most of the players of the guild that dated each other spend their time with their lovers. I’m not jealous, in true, I’m quite happy that I was able to give some happiness to the lovebirds of the guild. I’m after all a support character, my job is to help and support other players.

I walk around the fifth level, the highest level in search of Iona. I see her laying down under the branches of a large cherry blossom tree, of which the pink petals sway gently under the pleasant breeze. I approach and stop right above her head, looking down to the girl laying down in the grass.

Her face is simply gorgeous, a mix between Asian and European, bringing out the best of both traits. Her long, smooth and shiny black hair is gently laying on the grass, her eyes with long eyelashes are closed, her pale skin reflecting the sun.

She is dressed in a gorgeous long sleeved kimono, with the main color being red, with white and golden floral patterns, a red sash on her waist tied with a golden string. The kimono does indeed reveals her voluptuous curves and big breasts. She shouldn’t be that tall, around 1,70.

Is this… Iona? In the game, her character was a gorgeous white-haired kitsune, although the face in the game was inferior to the one that I’m seeing right now. To imagine that there was indeed a girl behind my in-game wife, not a dude… I’m surprised. Not only that, such a pretty girl too.

(Byakuya): “Iona.”

She opened her blue eyes, saying:

(Iona): “Husband! It has been some time! How are you doing?”

(Byakuya): “I’m good. And you, how are you doing?”

I ask back, ignoring the husband thingy.

(Iona): “Better now that you found me!”

She says with an angelic smile, her soft and cute voice reverberating through my ears. I smile back, saying:

(Byakuya): “Come on, the others are waiting us at the Throne Room.”

(Iona): “No, I won’t get up.”

She said cheerfully. Oh yeah, she had a bad personality, didn’t she? When we walked around together, she always made sure to hug my arm and being carried as a princess if the terrain was rough, and when we stopped to rest in our travels, she always either sat on my lap or cuddle. That gave me mixed feelings, as I didn’t know if there was a girl or a guy behind the avatar.

But well, I’m relieved that it’s a girl. Well, not that she has a bad personality, she’s quite gentle and caring, and likes to be spoiled, even though it was just a game. I smiled to her.

(Byakuya): “You want me to carry you?”

(Iona): “Un!”

She nodded, extending her arms to me, looking like a child asking the parent to pick her up. How cute. I moved to her side and picked her in a princess carry. She hugged my neck, smiling brightly.

(Byakuya): “Spoiled girl.”

I said to her, smiling mischievously.

(Iona): “It’s because I have such a good husband.”

(Byakuya): “Alright, if I’m not wrong, there’s a teleport relay around here…”

(Iona): “Ehhhh~~~ but that’s so boring! Let’s walk to the Throne Room!”

She said, rubbing her cheek on my chest happily. I sighed, and started walking through the beautiful garden, the smell of sweet flowers and the songs of the birds around us. I walked with her in my arms in silence, but it was a comfortable silence. She didn’t seem fazed at all for being dragged inside the game world.

After almost half an hour, we arrive at the Throne Room. When I arrive with Iona in my arms, Anastasia looks at me strangely, Logan sneers and Prunia’s eyes glitter with almost childish excitement. I put Iona’s feet on the ground, and she reluctantly parts from my arms. Ignoring their eyes completely, I start:

(Byakuya): “Well then, now that’s everybody is here, we can discuss our current situation. First, although I don’t think I need to say this, this world is 100% real.”

(Anastasia): “So this is the game world…”

(Byakuya): “I don’t think that it’s exactly that, but let’s go with that. The first thing that you guys can notice is that there isn’t a log out button on the menu.”

They nodded. That’s something that every one of must have tried in these last minutes.

(Logan): “What do you think about this situation, Alva?”

She asked to me. I cross my arms.

(Byakuya): “It’s still too early to take conclusions, I don’t have enough information. I also don’t know if there is a way back, but we should be ready in the case there isn’t.”

The mood instantly turned gloomy, at least for Logan and Prunia. Anastasia and Iona don’t seem too affected, and only Anastasia is looking a bit sad for that. I don’t mind, since I had no family or girlfriend on earth, although I have some ex-girlfriends. I also have my friends, but this world seems interesting too, since I wasn’t that close to them.

(Anastasia): “What we do from now on…”

She said, more to herself than to the rest of us.

(Byakuya): “We survive and look for a way back while living here. Surviving won’t be hard at all, we have the whole Mechaville, and since we are in our characters equipment, we must be able to use the abilities from the game as well. When carrying Iona here, I didn’t get tired at all, and didn’t even feel her weight.”

(Prunia): “What do you mean with that?”

(Byakuya): “That means that my body has probably the same parameters that the one inside the game.”

They nodded, taking my point.

(Byakuya): “Anyway, if you guys don’t mind of me taking the decisions, we should now test our abilities and see what we can do.”

I said. Logan shrugged, saying:

(Logan): “I don’t mind following you. Guildmaster is the smartest person I know, and I also trust you since I have known you for years.”

I smiled with the trust of my old friend. The others also didn’t mind it, and soon after, Iona said:

(Iona): “Guy, what is “Incarnate Avatar” in our status window?”

With her question, all of us opened our status window. It showed our parameters, MP and HP and equipment, like in the game. I don’t need to say that I’m max level, but my stats aren’t as high as the others of the same level. After all, I’m a support character, even though my intelligence is ridiculously high, and I have way more hp than a max level mage class.

The reason for that is my support class that has intelligence bonuses and several MP bonuses for enchanting and crafting high-level items. I can produce legendary-level in large amounts in a daily basis, depending on what I want to craft.

However, there is a new option, Incarnate Avatar under the window that is showing my character image, a picture of myself, there is five slots, two of which are filled. One of them is filled with my name, Byakuya, while the other is filled with the name of my character, Alva. A surprised yelp takes me off my status screen.

The one that released the yelp was Prunia, looking at Iona. I also looked at her, and s familiar view entered my eyes. White hair and golden eyes, with white fox ears in the top of the head.

Her face, that now is sharper and still beautiful, even more than I remember in the game, has red makeup around her eyes making them look sharper, on single line in each cheekbone and a symbol painted in the forehead, also red. Her lips now are blood-red, and three fluffy fox tails are coming out from the base of her back.

It’s… mesmerizingly beautiful. After a few seconds, I stop staring and say:

(Byakuya): “So this is the Incarnate Avatar thing, it’s our characters from the game.”

Iona puffed her chest proudly, smiling, happy with herself. I also decided to try, touching the Alva option. Immediately, I started to change. My black hair turned snow white, my skin took the same tone as Gehenna’s, and I could feel the bones of my face changing a bit.

I took a hand mirror from my satchel and take a look at my face. A handsome face with red eyes, without any Asiatic trait, and with the same traits that Gehenna has. It isn’t something that you would see on earth, since the supposed species that my character is, the Sha, is from another dimension, the same race as Gehenna.

I chose this human subrace because of the descent engineering bonus and the lesser firearms bonus. They are a human subrace that was proficient with mechanic marvels, and the small destroyed village that I found Gehenna in was a ruined mechanic village from monster attacks.

As an NPC she doesn’t have the same bonuses as the players, but she still has a firearms damage bonus. Because of that, I installed some surprise weapons on her armor that she can make full use of since I also trained her in firearms use.

The others also tried the option. Prunia’s hair turned black and a pair of bunny ears and a bushy tail appeared in her, and her height grew a little bit. Her face didn’t change that much though. Logan didn’t change into a man, surprisingly.

Her hair turned a bit darker, but still blonde, her skin tanned, her eyes changed to brown and her height grew to 1,80. Her face changed a bit, gaining some masculine charm, but till feminine to the point where she would also be popular with the girls.

Her breasts grew is size, and her body gained some muscle, just enough to create a light six-pack, and her arms to gain some barely defined muscle. That change… was even more extreme than mine. However, the one who changed the most was Anastasia.

Her height reduced drastically to 1,50 while her hair turned pink and tied in a pair of twin tails with big ribbons. Her face changed to a gloomy beauty to a loli beauty, with big pink eyes and cute face, her pink dress now fitting perfectly he figure. Her boobs also grew in size, but not that much.

She looks like an anime character, exactly like a mahou shoujo. No wonder she got… “famous”, in the guild, to the point that the reclusive Guildmaster heard of her. Noticing my gaze, she frowned, saying with a childish voice that matches her picture, completely different from her previous voice:

(Anastasia): “Did you lose an eye here? Quit staring!”

(Byakuya): “Pff!”

I held back a laugh, inciting her anger, who kicked my shin. It hurts, but I didn’t let it show on my face.

(Byakuya): ”Sorry for that! The gap was too wide!”

I said, my voice deeper than before.

She fumed with anger, saying, almost yelling:

(Anastasia): “So what if I made a cute little girl?! I just like the style!”

(Byakuya): “Well, you’re still cute without the avatar though.”

I blurted out without filtering my thoughts. She blushed strongly, and kicked my leg again, and it hurt way more this time. Iona approached and pinched my ribs, pouting cutely and saying, her voice unchanged from the soft and gentle voice, although now she sounds a bit angry:

(Iona): “Cheeky husband.”

What did I do wrong?