Chapter 92: Home

Aegis woke to the sound of loud snoring and distant hammering. The sun was shining in from the single window in his tiny bedroom as he rubbed his eyes to look and see the clouds drifting by, giving him a sense for how fast the Airship was moving. He turned to the bed beside him, knowing that the sounds of snoring couldn’t possibly be Clara’s based on its tone, and saw four of the seven children he’d saved all laying around the bed in odd positions, legs on top of each other’s faces. As Aegis slowly sat up, he saw Clara appear in the doorway.

“There weren't enough beds?” Aegis whispered to her, confused at the scene.

“Oh no, there were enough, but they all wanted to sleep close to you to feel safer.” Priestess Clara replied with a friendly smile.

“Did you sleep yet?” Aegis asked as he saw her darkened eyes.

“N-no, not since Arallia.” She replied.

“C’mon then, your turn.” Aegis stood up and motioned her into the bed he’d been sleeping in.

“I’m alright.” She politely refused.

“No you’re not, you look like a zombie.” Aegis insisted as he gave her a little nudge to the bed.

“O-okay.” She hesitantly agreed and sat down, slowly getting comfortable.

“Should be safe with the Night Hunters around, so don’t worry.” He reassured her as he left the room and headed on the deck of the ship. When he got there he saw Tullan, Ren, and Yuki working on repairing the Airship. They’d already made a lot of progress, making use of the high quality wood from Arallia.

“Do you guys need a hand?” Aegis asked them.

“Aye, sure. Good mornin’ sleepin’ beauty.” Tullan said as he glanced up, and a moment later Aegis was invited to a work project.

Construction Project Invitation

The Lead Craftsman of The Night Hunters, Tullan, has invited you to work on the following Construction Project: [Sky Darling]

Duration of Project: 3 Days

Compensation: 0,00,00 gold

Relevant Skills of Project Lead(Tullan): [Click to View]

Hired Workers [4/10]:

[Yuki - Level 105], [Trexon - Level 128] [Ren - Level 60] [Gregory - Level 30]

Aegis accepted the invite and joined in, following Tullan’s instructions. He saw that Tullan had already improved the quick repairs that he’d done to get the Airship in motion again, making the mechanism properly and higher quality. Thanks to Tullan being the project leader, he had incredible increases to his knowledge on how to repair the Airship filling his mind as he worked on it.

“Here, let me help with that.” Aegis said as he saw Yuki carrying planks up the stairs from the lower deck.

“It’s okay.” She smiled shyly, but Aegis insisted and took them anyway.

“Your skills are probably a lot higher than mine, so It’s better if I do the menial tasks.” Aegis said as he carried them to where the work was being done.

“Mm. okay.” She nodded as she followed behind him, but while he was turned away she took the time to quickly adjust her armor and fix her hair to look prettier. Aegis didn’t see her do it, but Shinji’s livestream controls did. “Everyone here said that it was your idea to save all the people of Arallia. Even though most of the players of Arallia had already given up. What made you decide to try?” She asked him while he set the planks down and the two began working on setting them in together.

“I could lie and say I did it because it was heroic, or the right thing to do.” Aegis said as he looked at her and smirked. “But I was just pissed off that the bandits killed my quest NPC. So, with the Princess and her people still alive…” Aegis explained and Yuki realized what he meant before he finished his sentence, giving him a nod.

“You saved the Kingdom of Arallia out of spite?” She asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Pretty much.” Aegis shrugged, and this caused Yuki, as well as Tullan and Ren who were listening from below the hole in the deck they were working on, to laugh.

“Remind me never teh get on yer’ bad side.” Tullan said.

“So where will you go now?” Aegis asked her. “Since, you know, Kriene’s gone.”

“Hm… well…” Yuki pondered it for a bit. “There’s a lot of business in Savringard, and it’s pretty central. Lots of Arallian players are going there because they say it's safer.”

“Because of Makaroth, right?” Ren said excitedly through the hole in the deck, and Yuki nodded down at him.

“But… well…” Her face began to blush bright red as she avoided eye contact with Aegis. “I thought maybe it would be nice to stay with you guys, in Kalmoore. I think it would be safe there as well, and all of my NPC friends will be there.” She replied. Tullan, who was working below deck beside Ren, looked up and saw her blushing and looking out of the corner of her eyes at Aegis shyly while he was focused on setting a plank in, not noticing what she was doing. She was trying to see how Aegis would react to her idea, but he had no reaction, so Tullan decided to join in.

“Well we’ve got plenty of room for a crafter such as yerself in Kordas. Or, I think Aegis’ got some land with lots o’ empty space. Maybe he could set somethin’ up for yeh.” Tullan grinned. Yuki looked as though she was about to say something to this suggestion as her eyes lit up, but she was interrupted.

“Speaking of that.” Quinn said loudly as she stepped out on the deck with a bottle of wine in her hand, drinking straight from it without a glass. “Kordas is in chaos thanks to all those refugees you saved.” She pointed accusingly at Aegis. “Everywhere’s full and we’ve set up some temporary camps outside the walls. Lots of players are helping out and donating, but that’s temporary. We’re gonna need a permanent solution.” Quinn said.

“Oh.. yeah, right.” Aegis replied as though he hadn’t thought about this yet. “But, I mean, my land is in the middle of nowhere, and I don’t know much about Arallians.” Aegis replied hesitantly. An image flashed in mind of himself spending the rest of his summer holidays rebuilding Arallia, and it wasn’t all that appealing to him.

“I can help!” Yuki replied, overly excited, but quickly tried to tone it back down. “I mean, if you would like, I can help you with your land.” Yuki said.

“Are you sure? Sapphire told me you are the best tailor in the game. You probably make a lot of gold selling your crafts, but coming to Rene would be pretty far out of the way and bad for your business.” Aegis replied.

“Yep, that guy doesn’t even know what Shadowsilk is.” Quinn joined in. “If you’re coming to Kalmoore, you’d be better off in Kordas. Night Hunters can supply you with all the Shadowsilk and other materials you need, with just a 5% tax.” She continued. Tullan was torn between siding with Quinn for the benefits of having a tailor like Yuki in their capital, and helping Yuki out as he was sure she just wanted to go to Rene. He opted to back out of the conversation entirely and kept his mouth shut.

“I don’t really mind about the gold, I just like making clothing for Yumily… I would rather be close to the Princess.” Yuki smiled enthusiastically.

“The Princess? She should probably stay in Kordas too, right?” Aegis looked at Quinn who glared back at him.

“You kidding me? We’ve already got Royalty in Kordas. And I don’t want the headache of having to protect her from Arallian assassins who want their bounties removed. Nope. You saved her, she’s your problem.” Quinn said with authority.

“Man.” Aegis sighed. “Saving people is such a pain in the ass.” He mumbled under his breath. “Okay, but that means I’ll be using my iron farm for a while to build up some stuff.” Aegis replied back threateningly, expecting some pushback, but Quinn seemed happier he was accepting the Princess.

“Fine with me.” She smiled.

“Ah, seriously? Not even barterin’?” Tullan groaned disappointedly at Quinn, but this made Aegis smirk at him and feel better about the situation, eventually turning back to Yuki.

“If you are going to help out then I’d want to at least return the favor a bit though… What is Shadowsilk?” Aegis asked her.

“Oh, it’s the next material above cotton and wool.” Yuki replied.

“It’s kinda like iron and birch, but for weaving and sewing.” Tullan explained and Aegis nodded.

“There was a high level tamer in Arallia who was raising Shadow Spiders for me. The White Flames captured some during a trip into Arallia’s underrealm.” Yuki continued explaining.

“Do you guys have some of those already?” Aegis turned to Tullan and Quinn.

“Well, no, we don’t have any Shadow Spiders as pets…” Quinn replied while looking at Ren and taking a swig of her bottle.

“I didn’t even know you could tame those things.” Ren said excitedly. "If you tamed them, you could stop asking me to beast shift into them and make silk.” He nudged Tullan.

“They make you make silk?” Aegis asked Ren curiously.

“Yeah, it's really weird. Want to see me do it?” Ren said enthusiastically.

“N-no, no I’m good.” Aegis forced an awkward smile back while Yuki giggled at him. “I’ll try to find them, I’ve got a quest to go to the Underrealm. It’ll be one of the next things I do, once I finish this quest.” Aegis said to Yuki reassuringly.

“Okay.” She smiled.

“How’re you going to finish that quest?” Quinn asked curiously.

“Eh… I’ll figure it out.” Aegis replied hesitantly while eyeing his live streaming Icon. Quinn saw him do this and picked up on him not wanting to reveal his plans to his audience, so gave him an understanding nod.

“Speaking of…” Quinn motioned to the icon. “You knew what that big black creature was that oneshot us all, right?”

“Not really, I saw it during the quest, but that’s it. Like I said, it popped up and killed a Silver Dragon, then poofed.” Aegis replied.

“Well.” She crossed her arms and looked out over the side of the ship at the abyss below. “Herilon’s not logging back in for a while. The maximum lock out time from Undying Will is two days, and he got the maximum for taking that hit. He said the damage he took in that single attack was in the hundreds of millions.” Quinn said.

“The Avatar of Death in my quest was hitting me for 999 999 999.” Aegis added.

“Yep. I know. So does everyone else.” Quinn said as she took another swig. “After you went to sleep, all the major networks combed through your footage, and all the top players were analyzing it all. Trexon included. Everyone’s worried about those Avatars and the Abyss coming for their island next.” Quinn said. “The game is changing, it looks like people are taking the threat of the Abyss more seriously now. Things are going to get hectic from here on in.” As she finished speaking, everyone went quietly in thought.

“Oh, uhm…” Yuki interrupted the silence. “My friend Yumily said that she would like to do a concert in Kordas, to thank you guys for saving the people of Arallia. Will that be okay?”

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“What?! Yumily’s coming to Kalmoore?!” Ren cheered excitedly, making Yuki smile.

“That’ll be okay, we can set up something for that, right?” Quinn replied with dollar signs in her eyes, practically drooling.

“Y-yep, we can get a nice ol’ place for her to perform.” Tullan added with enthusiasm.

“Yumily’s coming to Kordas?” Sapphire poked her ears out from below deck.

“Yes.” Yuki smiled.

“Hell yeah!” Sapphire cheered excitedly.

“Then we’ll have two streamers in the top 50 on our island at once! Kalmoore’s becoming a big deal!” Ren added to Sapphire’s excitement.

“Who is the other one?” Aegis asked, causing Quinn and Sapphire to give him a deadpan stare. Curiosity got the best of him, he knew that a lot of people had watched to see the fall of Kriene, but he’d expected the number would’ve dropped back down like it did when he got the world notification. He quickly shuffled through his interface to see his viewership holding steady at 30 000 viewers, as everyone else looked as well.

“Still a long way to go though.” Sapphire smiled at him knowingly.

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“Keep the advertisements off the main stream for now.” Shinji said as he continued watching over Aegis’ stream. Hae-won was not present, taking a rest from casting the high action of the previous day.

“Yeah, got it. I’m putting them in the gaps you set up during the quest and the Arallian escape.” Tommy replied, the two were both working in their Simulation offices, within the Fanta-See Network Studio’s Simboxes, and talking through a voice call. “The views on each section are skyrocketing, they’re being replayed on all the networks.”

“Good, don’t copyright it, let them give us free advertising, it’s the best way to grow.” Shinji replied.

“I’m the one who taught you that, moron.” Tommy grumbled back. “If his videos keep getting viewership numbers like this we might not need to put advertisements on the stream at all. People would kill to get an interview with him right now.” Tommy hinted at Shinji.

“Nah, that’s not part of the arrangement.” Shinji waved off the suggestion.

“There’s already reporters from 5 networks waiting in Kordas for him to land. If they interview our streamer before we do, I'm gonna be pissed.” Tommy growled back.

“If he wants to do an interview, he can, it’s up to him, but we’re not going to force him. Here at Fanta-see Network, we respect our streamers and their wishes.” Shinji replied in monotone while focusing on editing.

“Yeah, but we also respect money.” Tommy sighed.

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The last few days on the Airship back to Kalmoore were uneventful. Tullan’s project to repair the Airship had been completed and he even made some improvements to the quality in the process. Quinn agreed to cover the cost of the repairs, despite the materials being used being quite expensive, after Aegis pointed out that if it wasn’t for him, Yumily wouldn’t be coming to perform in Kordas which would undoubtedly help the kingdom, and in turn the Night Hunters, make their money back.

Aegis spent a lot of the journey talking with Yuki in detail about what sort of buildings and customs that the Arallian NPCs would expect, but aside from some unique cuisine, it wasn’t all that different from what he’d seen in Kalmoore already. She’d also agreed to help him learn to use Shadowsilk should he ever find some, and he got a bit more information on how to find, capture, and tame spiders that could weave it.

“LAND HO!” Leonard shouted, and it was a welcome sound to hear on that 7th afternoon of flying over the Abyss. Everyone came to the deck of the ship, including Clara and the children, to see the green hills of Kalmoore popping up on the horizon. Wind blowing through their hair and cloaks, they all stood silently with smiles on their faces as they approached, ascending upward above the island and leaving the black sea of mist behind them. As they flew over the mountains and forests, Aegis saw the fortified Island stone once more, this time looking at it much differently, with a greater sense of its importance. Glancing to his sides, he saw it wasn’t just him, everyone was staring silently at the Island Stone, including Herilon who’d been finally allowed back into the gameworld.

“There it is.” Leonard pointed forward at the city of Kordas ahead of them. It looked almost the same as how they’d left it, with one major change. Around the outskirts of the city, outside of the walls, was a large sea of tents built up, many people traveling around between them with campfires and wagons spread about. Aegis could see quite a few players standing amongst the tents, but mainly it was Arallian NPCs.

“They’ve been giving out a lot of quests for hunting and supplies, it’s been making our crafters and low level players happy. But they can’t stay like that forever, or it's bound to get out of hand.” Quinn commented as she saw everyone eying the camps.

“Who’s been managing them?” Sapphire asked curiously.

“Travis.” Quinn replied.

“Uh oh, Aegis, you better adopt them quick, or Travis’ll start making the NPCs do weird stuff.” Sapphire warned him.

“Who’s Travis?” Aegis asked them.

“Another member of the Night Hunters. He’s a weirdo.” Sapphire smirked.

“If you’re calling someone weird, then that’s gotta be on a whole other level.” Aegis teased her. The Airship slowly pulled into the Skyport tower as it arrived in the center of the city, and at the top of the tower Aegis could already make out a large number of people. It was mainly players, but at the very front of all of them on the pier was Leonard’s two wives and husband. It was noisy, and the Kordas guards present were visibly annoyed with the crowd.

Once the ship had pulled in, Gregory had ropes thrown to him by the Orc and he secured the ship before lowering the step ladder, and the three NPCs ran up.

“Oh Leonard, we missed you so!”

“Don’t ever leave us again!” The two female NPCs called out as they ran to him and threw their arms around him.

“My Darlings, oh, am I happy to see you, you’ll never believe the adventure we went on. Come, let me tell you all about it.” Leonard said as he headed below deck with them. Aegis moved to the side of the ship and looked over the crowds alongside the others, all apprehensive about stepping off of the Airship. He spotted interviewers waiting for him with live streaming icons above their heads, two of whom he recognized from his first days in the game world, though he doubted they’d recognize him.

“Elric!” Erikson shouted as he stepped forward from the crowd, Josephine and a few other players with ?? levels walking behind him.

“Dad! Mom!” Elric shouted out excitedly. He bolted down the stepladder to the pier and ran to them as they grabbed him up in their arms and swung him around.

“Mommy!”

“Papa!” The children all started shouting excitedly, spotting their Arallian parents, all players, waiting for them on the landing. The Night Hunters, Aegis, Gregory, Yuki, and Clara all stood and watched with big dumb smiles on their faces as the children were all reunited with their families.

“Aw, it just warms yer heart right up, don’ it?” Tullan said with big rosy cheeks.

“Yes.” Gregory nodded, causing everyone to look at him in surprise. “Ahem, I mean, if you wouldn’t mind, I have a lot of cleaning to do.” He hurriedly motioned them off his ship while correcting his expression back to blank. Not wanting to call out Gregory for showing emotion, everyone headed off the ship in single file without argument and the crowd backed away from them while several voices called out towards Aegis.

“Aegis, If you have a moment, would you mind answering a few questions?”

“Could you tell us about that quest you did back in Arallia?”

“Where did you get the quest?”

“What was the reward? Would you be willing to change your stream settings to let your viewers see your interface?”

“Many people are curious about your stats, skills, and quest log. Is there a reason you are keeping it hidden?” The questions fired off at him in quick succession leaving him unable to keep track of who was asking them.

“Guys, calm down, we just got back.” Quinn stepped in front of Aegis to ward them off. “He’s not interested in doing interviews, right?” Quinn turned to him to confirm and Aegis gave an uncomfortable nod.

“In that case,” The interviewers all turned to Yuki and started swarming her, asking her questions about her future while pushing the Night Hunters and Aegis off to the side. Aegis felt bad for a moment, but watched as Yuki handled herself with grace and dealt with their questions politely, with a smile. He’d imagined she was used to things like this, if her best friend was a top 10 streamer, but it still looked uncomfortable.

“Hey, if you guys can let us rest a bit, I’ll do an interview, or whatever.” Aegis finally jumped in after hearing a few too many intrusive questions being asked to Yuki, who clearly couldn’t answer most of what they were asking.

“Really?!” The interviewers turned back to him excitedly.

“Well…” He hesitated as he saw their eager expressions, but as he did he spotted embroidered logos from various streaming networks on their tabards and clothes, none of which were from his Network. “With my own caster, of course. If Hae-won wants to do it.” Aegis said while looking up at his livestreaming icon, but this caused them to let out disappointed sighs.

“Can you give us a bit of a preview interview then? C’mon.”

“Just one question, let us ask one.” They insisted. Aegis double checked Yuki’s expression and saw her look of relief that the attention was off her, and he wanted to keep it that way, so he relented with a nod.

“Alright, one question, then you leave us alone.” Aegis shrugged as he looked to the five of them. They all stopped talking, as did the crowds around them on the platform, and looked on in silent anticipation while the interviewers suddenly froze. They began glancing between one another while deciding what they should ask.

“Let’s ask about the quest…”

“No, ask about Arallia…”

“What about his world notification? How’d he get that while starting so late?”

“Where are his first few levels? There’s no record of him before level 13…” They got louder and more aggressive with one another as they couldn’t contain their bickering.

“Buncha morons.” Tullan chuckled as he lost interest and started heading down the tower.

“I need some PvP.” Herilon yawned as he followed Tullan.

“I’m running out of carrots.” Sapphire, Ren, and Trexon all followed.

“You okay here?” Quinn asked Aegis as he, Yuki and Clara stood watching the 5 interviewers argue.

“Y-yeah, I think so.” Aegis shrugged.

“Good, the Princess’ll be in her command tent on the western outskirts. Take her with you when you head back to Rene.” Quinn said with a wave as she headed after her guildmates, but stopped. “Oh, and Aegis…” She turned to face him. “Hurry up and get some levels. We’ll need you to do more than kite abysslings if they ever come to Kalmoore.” She smiled, and Aegis gave her a nod.

“We’ve got it.” An interviewer stepped forward excitedly. “We know what question we want to ask.” He said with confidence as silence fell over them again. Quinn stopped at the top of the Skyport tower’s staircase to turn and listen, while the other members had already begun their descent. “Since scouring your early recordings, players have noticed a lot of similarities between you and the player Winter, Makaroth’s son. Given his disappearance, many people theorize that you are actually, in fact, Winter, the son of Makaroth. Is this true?” The interviewer asked, and Aegis suddenly froze in fear, while Quinn looked anxiously at the scene, and Yuki looked at Aegis curiously.

He kept his expression as blank as possible as he felt anger trickling up inside of him. He’d have to lie, he didn’t want to be associated with him in any way. He wanted to get to the top all by himself, on his own merits. But Aegis was horrible at lying, it felt like it was pulling at his very nature. But if he’d go too long without answering, they’d know something was up. All eyes were on him - he had 30 000 viewers, and the interviewers each had similar or higher viewer numbers.

A second went by, and Aegis knew he had to open his mouth and answer - and just as he did, there was a blast of shadowy black mist that exploded in a cloud on the Skyport tower. A few players screamed in panic, while the Kordas guards drew out their weapons anxiously.

“Watch out!” Quinn shouted nervously as Aegis could hear her drawing her bowstring back, but he couldn’t see more than a few centimeters in front of him.

“OI!” Herilon shouted as he rushed back up to the top of the tower. By the time he got back to the top, the black cloud of smoke was settling. “Don’t tell me you started PvPing without me.” Herilon complained with his greatsword drawn, glancing around.

The first thing Aegis did was look to see Clara and Yuki were both okay, exactly where they’d been standing, unharmed. Next, Aegis looked and saw that the Arallian players and all the children were fine. Lastly, Aegis looked at Quinn and Herilon, and around at the platform.

“What was that?” Aegis asked Quinn, confused.

“A Shadow Dancer skill, smoke cloud.” Quinn replied, her eyes scanning the area trying to find the player that’d done it. But the moment Aegis heard this, he looked and saw all 5 of the interviewers had been killed, and were being forced to log out. When Aegis looked at them, Quinn and Herilon saw it as well.

“Hah, someone took out the network guys.” Herilon pointed and chuckled. Hearing this, Quinn eyed Aegis up and down very carefully to gauge his reaction.

“Killing players in the middle of Kordas is a serious crime. The player responsible will be caught and jailed.” Quinn said to Aegis with an angry glare. “Go find them, they can't be far.” Quinn ordered Herilon.

“What? A Shadow Dancer? Are you kidding me? They could be out of the city by now, they got that Shadowstep skill.” Herilon complained back.

“Just find them you lazy berserker.” Quinn sighed as she nudged Herilon forward down the stairs. Once they’d left, it quieted down again on the Skyport platform.

“What a weird question to ask.” Yuki shook her head in disbelief. “You are nothing like that Makaroth streamer. He is too showy.” She finished.

“Showy?” Aegis asked her, not sure what she meant.

“You know, like he’s trying to put on a performance all the time.” Yuki shrugged, but as she said this, she seemed to suddenly remember Aegis was streaming to 30 000 viewers. “I mean, that’s a good thing, I think, sort of.” She tried to correct herself, causing Aegis to smirk as he opened up his friends list interface. In the list he could see the location, level, and class of all of his friends.

[Pyri - Level 30]

Class: Wizard

Location: Kordas, Kalmoore

[Darkshot - Level 30]

Class: Archer

Location: Balvin’s Rock, Kalmoore

[Rakkan - Level 30]

Class: Fighter

Location: Ruins of Sigmak’lor, Kalmoore

[Lina - Level 35]

Class: Shadow Dancer

Location: Kordas, Kalmoore

He was lucky, Lina had saved him again. In addition to that, part of him was surprised to see that none of the others had gotten their intermediate classes yet and another part of him happy to learn that he still had time, he hadn’t fallen behind yet.

“Aegis, we can’t thank you enough for saving Elric.” Erikson said to him from behind, making Aegis quickly wave away his interface to see them more clearly. He turned to see Erikson, Elric and Josephine approaching with Josephine carrying Elric.

“No problem. You guys would’ve done the same… What happened to your tabard?” He noticed them not wearing any colors or emblems anymore.

“We’ve decided to give up on guild leadership. Obviously not very good at it, as apparent by our destroyed island.” Josephine answered.

“We’re going to just take it easy and have fun playing out here, on Kalmoore where it’s peaceful.” Erikson said. “But if there’s anything you ever need, don’t hesitate to ask us. We owe you for saving Elric.” He added.

“Actually, there’s something you could help with, Josephine.” Aegis said as an idea popped into his head. “You spent a lot of time in the Monastery of the Stars, right? You know how it was built and what rooms it needs?” Aegis asked her.

“Y-yes, why?” She asked curiously.

“Because I’m going to rebuild it.” Aegis replied.