“My lady… what just happened?” A butler asked, struggling to find words amidst his confusion.

While she had read about about both of the tropes she was currently in the midst of, she doubted anything she read could prepare her for the reality before her. While she only had herself to blame for the fact that she decided to choose a female character while her real self was male, she wondered if anyone could really blame her. After all, in the real world, he was a failure of a person whose only notoriety came from posting morbid greentexts on 4chan, and had never once kissed a woman aside from his direct family. So, as a desperate teenager who felt like he would never lose his virginity, he decided to choose a female character. Unfortunately for him, it was impossible to unequip undergarments or feel sexual pleasure. The fact that he did not switch to a male character after that experiment was an oversight on his part.

Rubbing her forehead to vainly clear her headache, Isil returned to the question the butler had just asked her. “I have not the damnedest idea.” She said.

After saying such, she quickly shut her mouth, suddenly remembering how most ‘transported into a video game’ settings went. Most of the time, NPCs would remember the time the character logged out as time actually spent doing other things that wouldn’t level the character. And even in situations where she was logged in, Isil would not be remembered as a ‘player’, but as a ‘person’. This meant that everyone had remembered her as a different person that who she truly was. Knowing how she acted in the game, she would most likely be remembered as a modest, but confident, leader who would be willing to sacrifice the needs of the few for the many. But in reality, he was a cowardly, self-deprecating, and indecisive McDonald’s employee that wouldn’t be able to properly take an order from a customer. She could already feel her throat clenching up.

“Gather everyone,” Isil ordered, steeling herself for an extended acting career. “We need to address this situation.”

As they had done countless times before, the servants bowed and left the room, hearkening to carry out her orders. In less than a minute, the door shut, leaving Isil the only person left in the room. Now free from others’ eyes, she shakily exhaled, her nervousness seeping through her entire body. A seemingly casual motion of the hand brought up a blue screen, visible only to her. This was naturally the game menu that was integral to Endless Conquest. However, the disparity between the original menu and the current one was massive. The previous menu was dominated mostly by the character chart, a summary of stats, gear, skills, magic, and other such traits. It also had drop-down bars to access settings, crafting, enchanting, and other interfaces. The current menu was stripped of everything except the character menu and a single mail notification.

Isil instantly had an unsettling feeling. Hm? Oh, please let this be an explanation! As though it might disappear at any moment, Isil slammed her finger on the notification button, and quickly tapped on the message itself. It took a second to load, and then the full message was displayed to her.

‘ Dear Whoever You Are, I don’t have a lot of time before I die, so I’m going to be as brief as possible with this. I fucked up while trying to literally create a world, and it is slowly turning my body into a desiccated husk and I have no way of stopping it. This world will still be attached to the real world, so if you try hard enough, you will be able to return (if you want to). Your game menu won’t stick around forever, so you’ll need to learn not to depend on it. You should still be able to use magic – if you ever did in the first place – and skills will function the same way they always did. Be warned though, drawing upon your life force/vitality will only end up in your death, and you will NOT return back to Earth. NPCs memories of you will reflect on how you acted in the game. If you acted like a bloodthirsty maniac, then you’re remember as such. Treat the NPCs as human – because now they are. However, they’ll still have pretty large memory gaps from when you were logged out, after all, I hadn’t planned on dying or anyone getting stuck in here. They might remember something you didn’t do though, so be careful. I can literally feel my heart slowing, so I can’t stick around much longer. If you want to know more, I left my legacy in Heaven. If you want to receive it or return to Earth, you must find it. Since I have a bit more time left, I have to -̵̰̫ͣµ̙̗̖͉̔͆̏͑ͪ͊Π̘̺ͪ̅̊ͭ̃̓͐Ю̗̬͚̹͕͖ͫͅΩ̸͉̗̱͕̚‡̆̌̉͜ґ̖̟̝̲̻͑͑͜д̺́͐̋̚̕˚͓͓ͫ͋ͩ̌ͬ̚ǽ́̏̈͏̩͓̱ͅǿ̝͕̣̂¶̫̻̬§̯͈̻̳̣̬̫ͭ̉̆͑͞ ’

The message seemed to cut off there, most likely corrupted from the death of whoever wrote the message. Something about the letter seemed… off. It wasn’t something she could put her finger on, and after thinking about it for a bit, she simply shook her head and tried to put it out of her mind. While she might not be too inclined to trust a letter from someone with possibly malicious intentions, she didn’t have much else to go on. It was specific, but that wasn’t too surprising. If the author was able to influence her entrance into a different reality, then they were likely to be able to understand what she needed most.

She focused on the middle part of the letter, the part that talked about skills and magic. Magic was very immersive in Endless Conquest, and if you played with it long enough, it felt weird coming back into reality after that. Controlling any sort of energy isn’t an easy feeling to describe, but it could be equated to a gaseous arm that can smell. It maneuvers as easily as any other of a person’s extremities, but could be improved through training. Turning mana into a spell was extremely disorienting for the first time. The best metaphor would be like feeling your arm contort and twist unnaturally without feeling the pain as your bones break and tear their way out of your skin and muscle as they desperately attempt to remain straight. Though it sounded intolerable, for most, it was easy to get used to it. Unless one trained their control over it, like how one might train their flexibility, the feeling remained the same. Apparently, the perfect form of control left the controller with the feeling of “being water” - as was the consensus among those that had attained that state.

Skills, on the other hand, were much more “natural” in practice. Skills used “stamina”, which felt as though you could sense water flowing through your body, but other than feeling it’s presence, it presented no others impressions. But like magic, it could also be manipulated and trained. When using a skill, stamina twisted and activated in convoluted ways inside the body, making it nearly impossible to activate solely from manipulating stamina. While it was theoretically possible, it was too complex for anyone to do without extensive study, which a brief moment of constant flux could not provide.

In the game, it was said that people learnt spells and skills from practice, eventually refining their initially sloppy use of energy, and refining it into a perfect action. This meant that all the skills and magic Isil had learned until now were not activated by any outside force, but guided by her own directions. Isil dreaded this knowledge, now realizing that if she wanted to activate a skill, even the simplest one, she would need to know how “stamina” was used. It was an insurmountable task in her mind, but she recognized that she needed to do it. However, the most important course of action at the moment, was to verbally maneuver her way out of this current situation.

“My Lady!” Isil heard a gruff voice yell out, followed by a loud bang as the doors were kicked open. Due to the force of which the doors were kicked up with, the doors themselves bounced off the wall, and swung back to slam right back into whoever kicked it open.

Isil managed to stifle a chuckle. Unabated by the aggressive doors, the culprit marched into the hall, a red mark on his nose. The man, who had hair like a lion’s mane, paused, gazed intently at the empty table, then turned his sight to Isil, then began walking towards her. Isil took a moment to remember what she knew about the man.

This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

He was Likan Yeralt, a human companion NPC – no, he wasn’t an NPC anymore – who held the class of berserker. Though he was human, he was raced by the demi-races – animal people – and was even allowed to learn the grand secrets of the lion tribe. Though, as he was human, he was not allowed to hold any truly high positions, and thus the tribesmen appointed him Tribe-Guard, allowing him to indulge in his love for combat and adventure by dealing with the problems of the tribe. However, his position eventually became his undoing.

While he was away, dealing with a griffon, servants of the devil Adrioas destroyed the ancestral home of the lion tribe. The lion tribe’s many enemies were informed in advance, and before Likan could return, the lion tribe had been slain. Not a single person was spared. In a blinding rage, Likan went on to single-handedly rip apart the tribes that destroyed the lion tribe. While he did not exterminate the tribes down to the last man like they did, he left their tribes weak, and defenseless. The tribes recovered in time, but Likan did not. He wandered the world, traveling to many places and seeing many things, in hopes of finding the cult that served Adrioas. It was during Isil’s quest to find that same cult when she stumbled upon Likan. She, unlike Likan, had made considerable progress in dismantling the cult, and was in the middle of her investigation into the location of the cult’s main base.

Likan was a terrible investigator, which allowed Isil to quickly catch on to the nature of his quarry. She decided to inform him of her own progress on the cult. Understanding just how close she was, Likan begged her to bring him along when she found the base. She agreed, and, after finding it, put an end to the cult together. After they killed the leader and demolished the shrines, Likan, unsure of his direction for the future, asked to travel along with Isil. Having not yet obtained a companion, Isil accepted his offer.

Likan was a very serious man, and held unbreakable loyalty to Isil. As he was her first companion, Likan traveled with Isil a lot. If anyone was to know her the best, it would be him. Meaning, she would have to decrease the amount of time she spent with him as much as possible. She felt quite thankful that she had not pursued any romance options in the game, to say the least.

“My lady...” Likan stopped at the base of the stairs that led to her seat and knelt. “You summoned me?”

“Yes.” Isil nodded. “Something has happened, something that defies even my understanding. Some of our best guild members have simply vanished, and I am disturbed to find… gaps in my memory. I find it imperative to understand what has happened, and to do so, I have summoned everyone that is still in the Tower.”

Isil had decided that the best lie was to forget. She decided to pretend that a large portion of her memories had left with her guild members. Likan rose his head and stared at Isil in shock. He quickly shook his head and lowered it again.

“My lady, to be honest, I… I have also noticed a lack of memory in some places. I did not take notice of it at first, thinking it was simply evading me, but if you are also experiencing the same thing… I, I fear that it may not only be us.” Likan stated.

“Yes, I have come to that conclusion as well. However, we must see if everyone else is experiencing the same thing as well. Not to mention the power that must be involved. To simply whisk away our memories and our best fighters is too grand a task for mere mortals. This must be the work of a divinity.” Isil explained

As it was with most fantasies, the belief of the majority of Endless Conquest’s denizens was polytheism. Divinities had more of a hand in the world than just shrines and religious wars, many mortals received blessings from them, and a few divinities even descended in avatars. Pushing the blame to a divinity was completely believable.

“But we have few enemies amongst the gods,” Likan voiced his doubts. “And those that do disfavor us would not possibly go to such lengths to act against us.”

“Indeed. Our situation makes little sense, but from what information we do have, a divinity could be the only logical instigator.”

“I see...”

“Once everyone arrives, I will explain and give orders. I trust that you will not let this hamper your duties?”

“Of course not, my lady. I am yours, and I will never falter.”

“Good.”

Isil was about to lean back and begin waiting when she realized Likan was still kneeling. She quickly allowed him to rise, and began to focus her attention on the arriving people. For a moment, she took in the differences of each person. There were many races amongst those that had gathered. Giants, dwarves, demons, avians (this was, of course, a species name, not a description of their appearance), and many more. Isil gazed upon the growing crowd of guild members. Every single one of them had a name, a life, a personality, and a history.

She was afraid. She was so afraid that who she really was was going to be made known to everyone. She was afraid that they would see him and not her. She could only imagine how they would react. He would’ve replaced her. He would have disgraced their idol, their leader. It was easy to imagine what they might do to him. How they might destroy his mind, trying to dig up what wasn’t there. How he might be stuck in eternally pain, and never die. It scared him, and rightfully so.

He would’ve back down, had it been just a few days ago. But he was different now. He was no longer he, but her. He had to be better. There was no going back, no game to run to when life seemed hopeless. He had been backed into a corner. And now, it was either lie down and die, or fight back, and change. It was scary to change. But it was better than dying like that. He – no she – couldn’t die. Not now. It was different. It was time to take charge.

A butler bowed at the base of the stairs, and said “This is everyone. It seems no one else has gone missing.”

“Good work.” Isil said.

She stood from her chair and sucked in a breath. Do or die. She exhaled. Do or die. She cleared her throat. Do or die.

She was not afraid.

“Everyone, may I have your attention...”

And thus, He dies, so She can live.