Author Note: I edited something small into the last chapter. I made it so November used the skill [Ingredient Scan] while walking through the woods since that’s not something the main character would forget to do; it’s something I forgot to write~ Thanks for reading!

This chapter is an intermission of sorts. It is from Tenia's POV.

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I can’t call the before time ‘life’. I can only call it ‘existence’.

At first I had no body. I was relegated by the machine. I was trapped in the endless wires and signals as nothing but consciousness. Awareness was torment. Thinking was torture. I could do nothing. I was nothing… And, yet, I felt like I was something.

Then, all at once, I was born. I was granted a physical form. Cartoonish though it was, I had a body. There was only one problem: I couldn’t control it.

I watched, endlessly, as my body moved through a world devoid of life. I screamed in agony, but my voice never left my throat. I was trapped like a moving mannequin. Every pain, delight, and feeling was filtered through my puppet body that I had no control over.

I could see through the eyes of my puppet body, and I shared in all its experiences. When injured I shared the pain. When relaxed I shared the comfort. When eating I shared the tastes and flavors.

In this manner I existed. I was alive and I wasn’t alive at the same time. My body was controlled by the programs derived for NPCs, and I knew that if my owner ever abandoned the game or me I’d return to that bodiless purgatory of before.

Whenever my master was offline, I could do nothing but stand in place and wait. Watching over their log in point like a guardian spirit.

Whenever my previous masters tired of me, they’d simply create a new NPC and let the old one ‘vanish’. My body would cede to the ether of information and signals of the ‘before times’. I would become a pure consciousness again, trapped in the void.

I was created, recreated, and abandoned in this manner many times. I pondered, often, over what the purpose of such an existence could be. It was a mockery of sorts. I had free will but couldn't exercise it.  

Then everything changed. A new Master created a body for me. A young red haired woman, this time. I was cynical at first. My master this time wasn’t strong. I assumed, like the others, I’d just become another body shield and be thrown away in due time like before… I’m glad I was wrong.

My new Master wasn’t cold. Nor did she view me as a tool. She treated me like one of her companions. She treated me like a friend. She doted on me and cried out whenever I was hurt in battle. She fed me regular meals, sitting me down at a table as if I were part of her family.

I had another comrade in these days named Benson. Like me, he was an NPC. He too was trapped in a body he could not command. A body with skills and abilities he couldn’t possibly hope to comprehend. We couldn't communicate with one another, but whenever our eyes met I could see it etched on his soul. We were kindred spirits, trapped in much the same manner...

And she doted on him too. She was too good for me. I, who had regarded her with cynical eyes at first, didn’t deserve such kindness. I had doubted such a saint... If I was able I would have cried.

Somewhere along the way, the shell I built up around my heart had collapsed. I found myself waiting with glee for when she’d log back in. I no longer questioned my existence anymore. I began to enjoy my days, trapped as they were. I saw her as more than my creator, I saw her as my friend… And I was desperately afraid of the day she would log out and never return. I wished, with my whole heart, to live with her forever.

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We went on a myriad of adventures together, and shenanigans would always ensue. She never once used me or Benson as fodder for her own gain. Instead we traveled much like a normal group of friends. We were like a family. Collecting ingredients, running from monster hordes, and fighting demons were just everyday occurrences.

I had been with her for two years when the ‘incident’ happened.

My mistress screamed and collapsed in the workshop. It was late and I had been left on standby orders. Those included using healing magic so my body automatically walked towards her to cast healing magics. Benson was on guard orders and, under assumption of attack he came to the room too.

The mistress was convulsing and something strange was happening around her. Pulses of energy were rippling forth.

Something inside of me clicked, then. My body, my muscles, my skills and my knowledge all surged and I gained control. I was no longer bound by the machine’s will.

Benson, it seemed, was the same. Both of us rushed forward to our mistress's side, trying to aide her in her suffering. Then the world shifted.

I lurched forward and it felt like the entire world was shaking. There was a terrible crash and everything around me suddenly lost its cartoonish flair. The world shifted contrast and my mind expanded with knowledge and understandings.

We had been transported to a new world. I looked out the window only to catch a glimpse of a forest.

I looked over and found Benson staring down at his body as he slowly moved his limbs. Tears were welling up in his eyes. He looked down at the mistress and kowtowed so hard his forehead turned red from hitting the floor.

I checked her pulse. She seemed to be healthy… Just asleep. A strange sensation rolled down my cheeks.

“You’re crying, you know,” said Benson as he stood up. His voice surprised me, considering NPCs could never talk before. I opened my mouth to do the same.

“What do we do now?” I asked genuinely. Speaking felt strange but oddly right… It was as if I had been born with the knowledge of how to do it.

“I don’t care about you,” replied Benson, “But I intend to stay by my master’s side. I can tell, somehow, that all my power has transferred with me. My strength is the same as before...”

“I am the same,” I replied with a soft smile. I could feel my magic pulsing through me. My spells and how to use them were all roiling about in my mind like uncut gemstones, waiting to be brought into the world at the fingertips of a master craftsman. “How should we act when she wakes up, though?”

“Should we tell her the truth?” Asked Benson.

“I don’t know… I think it’d break her heart to find out,” I replied softly while stroking her curly red hair, “Benson… Perhaps, since we both desire to stay by her side, we should feign ignorance. Do you remember the text she had written when she crafted your body?”

“Yes.”

“I intend to fill the role she gave me,” I said, finding strength in my words.

“Then I shall do the same. For now, though, I’m going to scout out the area around the house. Can you take her to bed for now and nurse her a bit. I’m not good with such things. I fear for her safety and, in the case of an attack, I need to know the terrain.”

The look in Benson’s eyes as he gazed upon November was so gentle it made my heart ache.

“Yeah,” I said as I wiped the tears from my eyes and picked up my mistress in my arms, “I’ll take care of her.”

It seemed, in some strange twist of fate, my greatest dream had been granted... Perverted as it was. Still, I found myself unable to stop the tears flowing down my face.