Chapter 4 : Freya
On the day Aria and Nedia fought, Unicorn Corp was in an uproar because many players, journalist and television station were asking for the information about the earthquake and a loud explosion, which were happened on that day.
Director Kim was in his office waiting for the report about that event, he only know that there was a player who fight with a dragon somewhere in the western part of the continent, he couldn’t believe when he heard that, this game was only 2 month ago launched for public, and the dragon was the most powerful race on mortal world realm, so how could a player who was just played this game for 8 months game time could fight against a dragon and caused an uproar
Knock Knock
“Come in”
A beautiful blond hair women entered the room, she walked towards director Kim’s desk and gave him the documents.
Director Kim took the documents and started reading them, he found the document that contained the information about the earthquake and loud explosion, he almost fall from his chair when he read the report.
(H-How can this be, she just told me that she didn’t do anything except reading books, if what she said true than her level must be really low, how can she fight against a dragon?.... It must be that guy doing.)
“Is that guy in the monitoring room ?” He asked the women
“Yes.”Replied the women.
Director Kim rushed out of his office and went to the elevator, he pushed the button a few times and the elevator started moving,
Director Kim was heading toward the monitoring room, it was not the regular monitoring room that used by the development department to monitor the players but a personal monitoring room for the creator of Royal Road, yes when director Kim meant by “that guy”, it was the creator of Royal Road Byung Jun Yoo.
Director Kim admit that Byung was a real genius, because he alone created the core system of Royal Road, but the only thing director Kim couldn’t handle about that guy was his personality, which was always loved to make trouble.
The elevator stopped and director Kim stepped out of the elevator, he walked through a long corridor, every few meters there was a camera on the wall, and some kind of machine that looked like a metal detector was placed in the entrance to the corridor, there were also some security robots patrolling in the corridor, this place was heavily guarded.
Well of course it was heavily guarded like this because this place was where the main system of Royal Road and many classified information were stored, even in Unicorn only a few people who could enter this place.
Director Kim arrived in front of a metal door that looked like the door for a spaceship, before he could open it, the door started to move by itself revealing a white room behind it, he walked into the room and looked around searching for that guy.
Director Kim found that guy was sitting on the chair in the center of the room, in front of him there were three big screen that showed the video image of players who were playing Royal Road.
The man turned his chair and faced director Kim, this man was about 50 years old, with brown short hair, black eyes, and wearing casual clothes.
“So what can I do for you?” The man asked director Kim with warm smile.
“Stop playing dumb, you know why I am here for?”
His smile turned into a grin and said “Ah yes of course, its about miss Erica.
Director Kim groaned, whenever he saw that grin it was always mean trouble, whenever that guy was planning something bad, he always had that grin on his face.
“So what did you do this time.”
“Nothing, I didn’t do anything, at least not yet.”
Director Kim pretended he didn’t hear the last part of his sentence and thought for a while, director Kim knew that this person loved to make trouble but he wasn’t a liar, when there was something that he wanted to hide, he choose to keep silent rather than lying. So if he said that he didn’t do anything it meant that he really didn’t do anything.
“So what’s going on then?”Director Kim looked puzzled.
“Well you know that all the board member were given a bonus 30 stats and one wish at the avatar creation.”
Erica also was one of the board member so obviously she also got the bonus, director Kim nodded her head, he also got the bonus of 30 stasts point and asked for a skill as a wish to be granted..
“What about that?”
“She asked for a class that would let her read many books, and she got her wish granted.”
“What is her class?”
“She got a class as a goddess.”
“...”
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After the battle with Nedia, Aria went back to Babel tower followed by Nedia, that battle taught her that she was lacking many things, her race and main class were indeed gave her many advantage in stats, but none of them gave her any a real battle skills or magics, the only skill she could use in battle was divine aura
Aria never thought that she had won against Nedia, she won that battle just because the battle turned into a magic battle and not a close combat battle, because of her class advantage, all Nedia magic attacks couldn't do any damage to her, if Nadia kept fighting using her sword, maybe she would have been defeated by Nedia just in a few slash, if she didn’t do anything about this, she might lose and worse she could die when she fought with another opponent who was stronger than her in close combat.
She learned from this incident that her class would bring her more battle like this, that was why, when she arrived at the tower, she asked Babel to bring her any books that were related to close combat.
The first book Aria read was about the basic of swordsmanship book, it contained many basic information about basic movement of swordplay, because of her True Eyes skill and her natural born photographic memory abillity, she finished reading the entire book in 10 minutes and remembered all of its contents perfectly, she kept reading till dinner time in real world.
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After dinner Erica remember the conversation with director Kim, she was a bit hesitating to call Anna, she didn’t know what to say to her, but she resolved herself to take her cell phone, searched Anna`s name in the contacts list and called her.
Anna was surprised when Erica suddenly called her, she never thought that Erica would call her, it was always her who called or started a conversation with Erica, she asked why Erica called her.
Erica didn’t know what to say, so she just told Anna her conversation with director Kim, of course Erica didn’t tell her who was director Kim, she just told Anna that somebody asked her opinion about Royal Road, when Anna heard the story she also reacted the same way as director Kim, no normal person who played a game just to read books inside the game.
Anna agreed with director Kim and told Aria to meet her in Royal Road, she was now in the middle of quest of guarding a group of merchant to the Citadel of Serabourg in Rosenheim Kingdom, and she would arrive in two weeks if there was no problem on the way,
It seemed that Anna had planned to meet her from the beginning, a few days ago (Real time) Anna had asked her where she was, because Etna forest was in Rosenheim Kingdom territory Erica answered her with just two words “Rosenheim Kingdom”. it seemed that Anna concluded that Erica was in the library in Serabourg, because Serabourg was the only starter city for beginners in the western part of the continent.
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For the next two weeks in game, Aria read various books related to close combat, she couldn’t train properly because there was no training room in the tower, so she just remembered all of them and then trained it later later.
“Open Status Window.”
Status WindowNameAriaTitleThe Master of Etna ForestRaceAncient GodAlignmentNeutralMain ClassGoddess of Knowledge and WisdomSubclassN/AHidden ClassN/ALevel448Fame93.800Health133.600 (+ 1.336.000)Mana157.924 (+ 1.579.240)Health Regeneration/Sec336,0/SecMana Regeneration/Sec560,4/SecStrength460 (+3.800)Agility310 (+ 3.050)Wisdom872 (+ 4.360)Intelligence934 (+ 4.670 )StaminaInfiniteVitality310 (+ 3.050)Luck310 (+ 1.550)Divinity155.300Leadership400 (+ 1.000)Charisma375 (+ 1.000)Fighting Spirit440 (+ 1.200)Unused SP46.965Magic ResistanceFire50%Water50%Wind50%Earth50%Lightning50%Neutral50%Holy50%Dark50%Race : Ancient God
* +1000% Health and Mana.
* +500% Health and Mana Regeneration.
* +500% All Stats.
* +50% All Magic Resistance.
* Satisfaction factor, hunger and thirst will never go below 40%.
* Penalty for dying reduced by 30% (-70% Exp. -10,5% Skill Mastery and less chance random item droped).
* Immune to all negative stats.
* Gain 400% Exp.
* Gain 100 Stats points every level up.
* Can use Divine magic.
* New stats Divinity
* +150.000 Divinity
Main Class : Goddess of Knowledge and Wisdom(Stastus : Sealed)
* Infinite mana and mana Regeneration.
* Infinite wisdom and intelligence.
* Absorb all magic attack.
* Instant spell casting.
* Instant skills and magics cool down.
* All skill mastery to maximum (True Master)
* Enable you to learn unlimited number of skills and magics
* Enable you to learn any skills and magics of any classes.
* +500 All stats
* Enables you to equip certain items specialized for the class( Can’t be sealed).
* Enables you to learn secret skills based on your class (Can’t be sealed).
Title : The Master of Etna Forest+ All monster respect you
+ Can command any monster from your territory
+ Familiarity with all monster increased to friendly
+ 1500 Str, Agi, and Vit.
+ 1000 Leadership and Charisma.
+ 1200 Fighting Spirit.
Aria hadn’t check her status window for more than 8 months now, the last time she openned her status window was when she converted her main class.
(What stats should I put my status points to ?... well my level and stats are already too high for a player who just played this game for 8 months, so lets just leave it like this for now.)
“Are you going now ?”
Aria turned her her head and saw Nedia was walking toward her.
“Yes.”
Today was the day when Anna or Rinea (her avatar name) should be arriving at Serabourg, so Aria had told Babel and Nedia that she would be leaving today and told them to stay at the tower.
“Alright then before you go I will teach you this.”
Ting!
Flying Magic (Active) (Beginner : 0%)You can fly by manipulate wind element around your body, you can fly as long as you want till you cancel the spell or run out of mana.
Mana cost : 500/10 minutes.
Cooldown : 30s/cancel.
Tier : 4
Teleport (Active) (Beginner : 0%)You can move instantly to any place that you have visited once.
Mana cost : 1000
Cool down : 300s
Range : 500m
Tier : 7
"I think this magic will help you on your adventures."
"Thanks."
"Ah and don't forget to summon me when you are in trouble."
Aria hoped that she would never need to summon Nedia, if she needed to summon her, then it meant that the situation was really bad so that she needed a help from Nedia.
After that Nedia made a teleportation magic circle which would teleport Aria to Serabourg.
Aria appeared in the forest near Serabourg, she could see many new players hunting rabbits, and foxes in the distance, also in the forest she saw a party of 5 players were fighting against a wolf, she ignored them all and headed toward the gate . .
When she arrived at the gate, the guards looked at her with respect and salute her, she just gave them a glance and walked pass them, the players who saw this looked puzzled, they never seen the guards gave salute to anyone except to the nobles.
A curious female player asked the guard ”Um, sir who is that person just now ?”
“Ah that person is Lady Aria, the ruler of the most dangerous region in the Rosenheim Kingdom.”Replied the guard.
The players who heard this now guessing, is Aria a player or NPC, if Aria was a player than it would be a big news, there were a few players who already became the city lord but no one had their own region, and Aria would be the first player who had her own region to rule.
“Sir is she a freedman?” A male players asked the guard.
Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
“Of course not, I don’t really know where she is from, but she is a local born.”
Because of her class Aria was treated like a NPC by the other NPCs, so of course the guard NPC said that she was a local born and not a freedman.
“But sir, that girl is only about 12 years old, how can she rule a region.” The male
player asked again.
“I advise you not to say that in front of her, even though her appearance is like a little girl she is already 16 years old, and if you think she is weak than you have made a big mistake, she is the strongest person in this kingdom, also about two weeks ago she defeated an ancient dragon by herself.”
“Eh two weeks ago, wasn’t that when the earthquake and loud explosion happened?”Asked the female girl.
“Yes, all of that are the result of her battle with the ancient dragon.”
When the players heard that they were in an uproar, many of them whispering their friends or using the guild chat room to tell this new information, and in the real world this topic had became the hot news in many forums,
“Hey guys I have a new info.”
“Hey”
“Info?”
“Do you mean about the earthquake and loud explosion.”
“Yes that one.”
“So what did you get?”
“You know, all of that were caused by a battle.”
“Stop joking, there is no way a battle could cause that.”
“Where did you get this information from?”
“From the guard in the Serabourg.”
“Tell me the details.”
(Retelling the story)
“So it was caused by a battle between human NPC and an ancient dragon.”
“Wow that human NPC maybe the strongest human NPC in Royal Road.”
“Yeah, one on one battle with ancient dragon.”
“Is she still in Serabourg?”
“Maybe.”
“Lets find her, maybe we can get a quest from her.”
“Okay see you in game then.”
‘I hope we get a good quest.”.
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Aria walked toward the central square where the map of the city was located, she looked at the map and searched for the location of library and training hall, she found them not to far from each other in the western part of the city, she had told Rinea to search for her in that two places when she arrived.
Aria headed toward the training hall, when she was about to enter the training hall, the instructor came and welcome her..
“Welcome to the training hall lady Aria, it’s an honor to have you visited this place.”
“I want to train.”
“Yes of course, you can use any weapon over there.”
Aria walked toward the barrels filled with many kinds of weapons swords, spears, axes, etc , she took a wooden katana on the one of barrels and headed to the nearby scarecrow.
She took a deep breath while holding the katana on her right hand, she tried a few basic move from the book which she had read before at the tower, thanks to her divine body skill, she now could control her power and speed easily, she only used 1/100 of his strength and agility stats to attack the scarecrow, if she used her full strength the scarecrow would be destroyed in one attack.
There was no useless movement when she swing the sword, her training in jujitsu and aikido in real life had made her body accustomed to using small movement, she also could understand when and where to attack more efficient and accurately, creating her own pace she kept attacking the scarecrow, her sword moved naturally like flowing water.
The instructor who saw this smile brightly, for a long time he saw many swordsman training in this place, none of them had the same swordplay like what he saw right now, the swordplay of the true swordsman, it wasn’t just a sword, strength, speed, or skills that made you a swordsman, the true swordsman also had to become one with the sword, and to reached that level you must understand the sword and made the sword become part of your body, he himself needed more than 20 years to reached that level.
Aria was dancing with her sword, she had stopped thinking and made her mind clear, letting her body moved naturally following the sword movement, unconsciously she slowly increase her speed and strength, the sword slowly moved faster and faster, till finally the scarecrow was cut to pieces,
She was confused when she saw the sword in her hand wasn't destroyed when the scarecrow was cut into pieces, she checked the its durability and found out its durability was still at max.
“It’s hard to believe that this is your first time wielding a sword lady Aria.”
The instructor who was standing behind her from the beginning suddenly talked to her.
“What ?”
“That sword, I am guessing that it’s durability is still at max right.”The instructor pointed at the sword on Aria hand.
“Yes.”
“Only the true swordsman can use a sword without damaging the sword no matter who or what is their opponent, they used sword as if its part of their body, and nobody wants to hurt their own body to attack your opponent, that’s why the sword used by the true swordsman rarely reduce its durability.”
The instructor also told her what was the true swordsman and told her a few stories about some famous swordsman that he had met in the past.
The instructor gave her an iron katana as a reward for completing the basic training, the instructor told her that usually people would need a month or more to finish the basic training, but there was one exception when the instructor judge that person had the qualification to pass the basic training, and she was one of the exception person to pass basic training.
Ting!
You have finished basic training
+ 50 Str
+ 50 Agi
+ You have generated Elegance and Appearance stats
+ 20 Elegance
+ 20 Appearance
Aria learned sword mastery (Beginner 4 : 24%) and generated new stats that she never expected, the elegance stats which would make her every movement more refined and elegant, also the appearance stats which was supposed to be the only dancer class who could get it had generated, it seemed that when she was attacking the scarecrow the system recognize it as a dance and generated appearance stats.
Aria wanted to train with another weapon when Rinea came.
“Ah there you are.”
Rinea walked toward Aria, Rinea appearance was the same as her real body, shoulder length brown hair and green eyes, she was wearing blue robe of a mage.
“Are you still want to training, if so then I will wait for you.”
“I am done.”Aria shook her head.
“If you say so, then lets go to the restaurant near the central square, we can talk there.”
They headed toward the restaurant, it was quite empty inside, there were only about 7 other customers beside them, they sat took the table near the window and called for the waitress, they ordered some drinks and food.
“So what will we do now?”
“... Nothing.”
Aria hoped that Rinea had a plan, the only things that Aria had plan was to training with another type of weapon and read more books, she didn’t think that Rinea will be happy to train with her in the training hall because she was a mage and not a combat class type, and for reading books, well maybe Rinea could increase her Int and Wis, but Rinea was here to make Aria to do something other than reading, so Aria understood her plan was a no.
“Hm... have you do any quest?”
Quest, Aria remembered her first quest 2 weeks ago, a crazy quest that force her to fight against an ancient dragon, she never wanted to have another fight like that again, but she understood that her class would make her do that kind of quest again.
“Just once.”
“Oh good then, you have experience a quest, now what left are join a party and go hunting, first you, ah yes I forgot to ask you, what is your class?”
It was the hardest question Aria had to answer, she couldn’t just say “ My class is a goddess who govern over knowledge and wisdom.”, no way in hell she could say that. This was the first time in Aria life that she already had the answer for the question, but couldn’t answer it.
“... don’t have class.”
At the end she decided not to tell Rinea her class.
“Well then we must choose a class for you first, hm... if you spend 8 months reading a book your Int and Wis must be very high, so the good choice are a mage or a priest, I am already a mage so thinking about the balance of the party, you better change your class into a priest.”
Aria thought about it and had the same conclusion as Rinea, after they finished eating, they searched for a Church to change Aria class into a priestess, the only Church in Serabourg was the Church of Freya, it was a small Church at the eastern part of the city.
They entered the Church and greeted by a young priest.
“Welcome to our Church travelers, what can I do for you?”Said the young priest with a smile.
“My friend here want to become a priestess.”
The young priest looked at Aria and nodded, he then brought them into a big hall where an old man wearing white robe of priest, and at the center back of the hall there was a sculpture of beautiful women with a long hair. The young priest talked to the old man for a while and then leave the hall.
The old man looked at them and then smile.
“Welcome travelers, my name is Vincent, I am the high priest of this Church of Freya. I have heard one of you want to join our order.”
“My name is Rinea and this is my friend Aria, she is the one who wants to join the Church of Freya.”
The old man looked at Aria and said ” Ah so it’s lady Aria who wants to join our order, of course we will welcome you into our order, please follow me.”
Rinea was confused how could the high priest know about Aria, and asked Aria “Have you met with the high priest before or did you do any quest for the Church before?”
Aria didn’t know how to answer this so she just kept silent.
They walked towards the altar in front of the sculpture of a beautiful women. when they got closer, Aria felt the sculpture was watching her and she also could sense some kind of aura emitting from the sculpture, the aura she was familiar with... yes it was divine aura.
“Freya.”
Suddenly the world became white, and inside that world there were only two people, the first was Aria and the second was a beautiful women with long black hair, black eyes and white skin wearing white dress.
The women was squatting on the floor while holding her stomach, it seemed that she was holding herself not to laugh, but at the end she couldn’t hold it anymore.
“Kukuku hahahahahahahahahahahahahhahaha m-my sto-stomach hahahaha.”
Aria waited for the women to stop laughing, about 5 minutes later she could control herself and stop laughing.
“Ahh.. its been a long time since I laugh like that, sorry for that.”
“Somethings funny ?”
“Of course, how can I am not laughing when I heard thet you want to become my priestess, you yourself are a goddess, how can you want to become another goddess priestess while you have the same status as the goddess herself, you are suppose to make your own Church and search for priest/priestess of your own, and not to become another goddess priestess.”
Aria understood about that from the very beginning, but she couldn’t explain her situation to Rinea so she had no other choice, the only way she could heal was to become a priestess.
“I don’t have any choice.”
“Hm. It seems you have your own reason, but its a good thing that you came into my Church, if you go to another Church, maybe they will try to capture you or the god worshiped there will tell your location to Odin ”
“You are not going to tell Odin?”
“No, I also hate conflict and war just like you, so I won’t help Odin, but don’t misunderstand me I also cannot help you, my position will be on the worse side if the others find out that I am helping you.”
“Are the other gods know that I am in this realm ?”
“There is no way that all of us don’t know you are in this realm, when you used that much divine power, its basically saying that you are in this realm.”
(Ah. did she mean by using Amaterasu on that battle, so because of that they know where I am... that means they can detect my divine power just like Nedia, if thats true than I should avoid using any kind of divine power at all cost and try not to enter any Church.)
“If you are here then thats mean the other gods can come to this realm too.”
“No, I am not really in this realm, this is just my shadow, my real body is still in upperworld realm.”
Aria never know that there was a way like that, to separate the shadow from the body and sent it to this realm, this proved that gods could come indirectly and make a contact with the people of this realm.
(Now that you think about it, how can gods make the people of this realm to become their believers if they never come and speak with them.)
“Indirect way to come to this realm.”
“Correct, now then, about you wants to become my priestess, my answer is no, you can think why I say no right.”
Well yeah Aria could think more than 3 reasons why Freya rejected Aria to become her priestess.
Aria now looked troubled she couldn’t become a priestess of any Church in the entire continent.
“If you just need the skills of a priestess you don’t need to become a priestess yourself, I will give you the skill books for priestess as a thanks for making me laugh like that, just read the books and you will learn all of the priestess skill.”
“Thanks.”
“Well then see you again, you can visit my Church whenever you want, and one advice be very careful with Tyr followers, they are searching for you.”
After Freya said that, the entire world went back to normal, Aria now was walking again toward the altar, on the altar there were 3 books with white cover, the high priest took the books and gave it to Aria.
“These are the skill books for priestess and now it’s all yours”Said the high priest to Aria.
“Thanks.”
After that they leave the Church, they went to the library to read the books which Aria just got, because Rinea never saw people converted their class into a priestess before, she didn’t notice that there were something strange about earlier event, usually the people who wanted to become a priest/priestess were asked if they want to be one or not, and if they agreed to it their body would be glowing for a moment as a sign that their class had changed, after that they were usually given a skill book as a basic skill, but Aria was different, the high priest didn’t ask her if she wanted to become a priestess or not, he just gave Aria 3 skill books which was usually only one basic skill book.
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Author's notes :
1. I am still looking for an editor.
2. I have changed some of the status windows of Aria, Babel, Nedia, and also the reward for getting divine body and defeating Nedia, please check the previous chapters.