I turned left and right in my bed. It had been almost three hours since dinner and since everyone had gone to bed. Some metres away to my right was Lana, while some metres away to my left was Danor. Both of them looked deep in sleep in their respective beds.

I sat up. I had had enough.

I couldn’t see how Lana and Danor could sleep so peacefully. I envied them in fact. Heck, they were the ones with way more youth than me. I should be the one able to get lost in the land of dreams quickly. Ever since the day I had tamed the succubi queen, I had barely done anything that required energy. The first few days I had gone about the villages that were at the periphery of the territory of the succubi and assured the villagers that they needn’t fear the succubi from now on. Many of the villagers from the villages who had left early on, during the time when the succubi queen had first declared the area around Mount Succubus as her territory, returned as well. That was pretty much all I had done.

It was easier to control the succubi than I had imagined. I had instructed them to spend their days ordinarily till they became normal girls again. And I didn’t think that any of the succubi would ever protest against me. They seemed to follow my words earnestly as though my word was their command.

I wondered if it would have been better if I had asked Lana and Danor to return to their homes. But I was sceptic Danor would ever return to the village that had treated him like an idiot. As for Lana, I didn’t really want her to go. I had never put any advances towards her, and I doubted if I would do so in the near future, although I believed that she loved me. I was an old man at the end of the day. Perhaps, there would come a time when I would be able to regain my youth, but until then, I didn’t want mine and Lana’s relation to progress any further.

I presently stood up from the bed, which creaked. I went out of the tent. Ours was the largest tent. It was previously the tent of the succubi queen. Outside, for miles in every direction were the succubi. They preferred to sleep in the open. They seemed to have no fear of the dark and so I had let them have their way. When it rained the succubi would simply cover their heads with their wings and make no complaints at all.

The night air smelled fresh to my nose. The moon was shining bright tonight, even though it was only a half moon. It illuminated Mount Succubus well, the volcano standing a few miles to the north. I recalled the day the volcano had exploded. The explosion had really been a let down. It had been over quickly as well. I had thought the entire volcano would burst but it hadn’t. Still, I had asked the succubi to stay away from the volcano. Maybe it would have a bigger explosion in the near future? The volcano still smoked after all.

For a while I looked up at the moon and the stars. It was a relatively cloudless night and the moon and the stars glowed in their full glory. The milkyway was visible and for once I got lost in the beauty of the heavenly bodies. And then a small voice in the back of my head suddenly reminded me that the beautiful sky that I was seeing was merely a two dimensional image created by the makers of the Second World.

I grimaced, wishing if the small voice inside my head had not spoken up. I still remembered my days as a child in the real world. Countless years had passed since my childhood, yet I still recalled certain instances from it with striking clarity. I recalled that I would often stare up at the sky on summer nights and wonder about the heavenly bodies.

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Whenever I saw a shooting star my heart would leap and I would make a wish, usually for candies or some other such stuff that kids desired for. Sometimes my wishes would actually come true.

I felt an abrupt urge to return to the real world. I wished if it was possible, though I was well aware of the fact that it wasn’t. The consciousness of a person could only be uploaded to the game world, but it couldn’t be downloaded from the Second World to the body of a living person. Of course, there was no way any living person could download me into their body. How could I survive inside a different person, when their consciousness still resided in it? Transferring my consciousness into the body of a dead person was out of question as well.

Just then, I noticed a shooting star in the sky and it pulled me out of my thoughts. Usually shooting stars barely lasted a second, but this one went on falling towards the earth. Heck, it must be one big meteorite, I thought, my mouth wide open in wonder.

However, the rational side of my mind reminded me that the shooting star was merely a two dimensional object much like the moon and the other stars.

The shooting star however kept getting bigger and bigger.

Wait a minute, was it falling towards where I was standing?

I gulped. It’s a two dimensional image!

Was it?

I became uncertain.

That chunk of rock was falling straight towards where I was standing! Panic took over me even as the night suddenly seemed to be converted into day due to the intensity of the light from the shooting star.

At once, I alerted all the succubi by mass messaging them, an ability that I had acquired after defeating the succubi queen. I asked them all to move away. Then I dashed towards the tent. Lana and Danor were still sleeping there.

“Wake up!” I yelled at the ears of both of them, first Lana and then Danor, giving them each a very violent shake.

Both of them of course looked pissed off. But there was not time for any explanation. I grabbed their arms and pulled them out of the tent, even though they resisted. But once we were out and they witnessed the glare of the meteorite, they realised the reason behind my actions. All three of us ran away from the tent.

Barely a quarter of a minute had passed when the meteorite hit the tent. Such a loud explosion followed that we had to cover our ears. The next moment the tent had just about vanished, leaving behind a hole in the ground that was ablaze with fire.

However, after a few moments, the fire died down. The meteorite had thankfully burnt up considerably in the atmosphere, and by the time it had hit the tent, it had shrunk largely in size as a result of which the area around the tent wasn’t much affected.

Both Lana and Danor were stuck with awe. Danor turned at me and said,

“I was never expecting a meteorite to fall from the sky aimed at the tent I was sleeping in, sir.”

The three of us approached the big hole in the ground. The succubi and the demons too huddled around it. I had a feeling that there was no way that a shooting star could fall out from the sky and destroy the tent that I was supposed to be sleeping in could be a mere coincidence. There were unknown powers at play here for sure. I shivered at the thought what would have happened had I actually fallen asleep and not come out of the tent seeking fresh air.

One of the succubi leapt into the crater.

“It can be dangerous!” I said to her. The succubus was careful not to touch the bottom of the crater with her feet, for vapours were still coming out of the ground, and she beat her wings hard to stay hovering. She picked up what seemed like a shard of glass.

She flew over to me and showed me the shard of glass.

Now that it was closer, I was suddenly struck by the realisation that the shard of glass was actually a crystal!

Of course, not the most dazzling of crystals, but a crystal nevertheless.

“Does it look like a rocket?” Lana said, raising a brow at the crystal, “Or am I dreaming it?”

I took the crystal from the succubus’s hand. Heck the crystal was shaped like a rocket of sorts.