Chapter two
[Liliana De Garreau]
“Oi, wake up already!” a frustrated voice called out to me, and then suddenly the left side of my face began to burn and sting. It was then I noticed I was just slapped… exactly who had the galls to slap a face as pretty as mine? They must be a demon; Satan himself… no wait, I bet it was that condescending maid!
“Ugh… huh?” opening my eyes I was greeted by the unpleasant face of my arch nemesis. Her eyes were a marvellous deep blue and glimmered like a diamond left out in the sun. However, no matter how spectacular they were, when it was attached to that unfortunate nut case even diamonds can lose their value. For some reason she let out a disappointed sigh.
I sat up and scanned my surroundings. It took a moment for my brain to register what was going on but I was definitely outside, more specifically I was in the middle of a vast and mostly empty plain. Above me was the infinite expanse of a great blue sky and all around was a green sea of grass accompanied by some trees here and there. “Where am I?” I asked. Or rather, why was I here when, according to my latest memory, I should’ve been at the ‘Dread-ghast Cliffs’. Right, I was fighting this maid for the ring she stole from my guild’s loot...
“I can’t be a 100%, but this place is probably ‘Evergreen Pasture’,” she told me while crossing her arms thinking deeply to herself.
“Evergreen Pasture…” I repeated. The name sounded familiar, but it was seemed like a place I haven’t heard of in a long time. The answer teased me as it danced at the cusp of my tongue. Actually, there was quite a nostalgic feel coming from this place. It was kind of like if you returned to your childhood home and your grandparents were welcoming you. Something to that effect.
“Don’t you remember?” she asked me while shaking her head in disappointment.
“Wh- what is it? Are you saying you know where this is?”
“Of course I do. It’s the tutorial field the game brings all new characters to after creation. Rather, the real question is how you don’t remember this.”
“Ah!” then it clicked in my head. She was right; this was indeed the place we started off at. “But... why are we here? Weren’t we at the Dread-ghast Cliffs just a moment ago?” The place I was referring to was an endgame location just outside of the final boss’ instanced dungeon. It was a map crawling with high-level monsters where even veteran players could often find themselves caught off guard if they weren’t suitably prepared.
The only reply she gave me was an unconcerned shrug. Of course it was; this snarky woman and I never saw eye to eye since we first met a few months ago. I tried to play fair and be cordial, but nope, she refused to listen to a word I tell her and she just goes off rampaging through our territory without permission. For a while I decided to just leave her be, ‘maybe she’ll get tired of it soon’, I naively thought at the time, but when her frequent raids never ceased my guild mates came complaining to me. This incident with the stolen ring was the final straw.
“More importantly, have you checked your status screen?”
“My stat screen?” When I opened up my status screen at her suggestion, what I saw was nothing short of a tragedy. “What in the...?!” I shouted almost as though I were in agony. Absolutely nothing; all my stats had been reset; my skills, my level and my stats had all been dropped down to a fresh character state. It was as though I had just created my character, and considering we were at the Evergreen Pastures, that may not have been a bad comparison to make.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
Liliana De Garreau
(No active title)
Level: 1 (Flame Mage)
HP: 150/150
MP: 200/200
Strength: 10
Constitution: 10
Dexterity: 10
Magic: 30
Spirit: 20
Proficiency: 20
Physical Attack: 10 ~ 10
Magic Attack: 20 ~ 40
Ailment Resistance: 11%
Physical Defence: 10%
Magical Defence: 11%
Critical Hit Chance: 11%
Critical Damage: 1.5x
“What the hell is this?!” my voice echoed all throughout the wide open pasture. “What happened to my stats? My skills?! Wait...” a cold sweat rushed down my spine as I cautiously opened my inventory. “No, no, no... Don’t tell me... don’t tell me all my stuff is... huh?” however, contrary to my worst nightmares, all my equipment, money and miscellaneous items and such were intact. While it still didn’t take the sting away from losing my carefully assigned stats and skills, I could at least let out a massive sigh of relief. It was a much greater pain to raid through all those difficult dungeons than it was to level up from 1 to 200. “Okay, okay... fair enough, all is not lost,” I calmed myself down.
I scrolled through the holographic window that was my skill menu and despaired as I saw a nearly blank screen. However, at the end there was one thing that popped up.
[Skill Inheritance: Please select one skill to be carried over]
“What’s this... skill inheritance?”
“Possibly a glitch. Possibly a new update. Who can really say?” she shrugged once more. “However, I suggest you quickly pick a skill to be carried over before the message disappears or something.”
“Did you pick one as well?”
“Obviously,” she answered so matter-of-factly.
“What’d you pick?”
“Do you think this is a high-school girls’ gathering or something? Why do I have to tell you?”
I could feel my face sour up at her stuck up attitude. Who did she think she was talking to me like that? I was only trying to make friendly conversation but clearly she doesn’t get it. I bet she’s the kind of person that doesn’t have many friends in real life. “Hmph! Fine, be like that, you frigid woman!”
She let out a lengthy sigh before finally telling me. “I chose ‘Naraka’. You’d be an idiot to choose anything other than your class’ ultimate skill.”
“Ah,” I scrolled down the list of potential skills and at the very end there it was: ‘Gehenna’, the Flame Mage’s ultimate spell. It had several effects: first was summoning a hail of flames from the sky and burning both the environment and enemy players, all my flame-attribute spells also did 200% of their total damage while Gehenna was active, and finally my character became flame itself and all damage was redirected from my HP to MP. Oh, and at the end there was a giant meteor that crashed down onto my location and destroyed everything still standing- barring me obviously. Of course, the drawback of using this spell was that it consumed a ton of MP, but most mages could handle it with the appropriate enchantments.
“Just so you know, you won’t inherit the complete skill,” she told me as she activated her Assassin class ultimate skill, ‘Naraka’. Only a single shadowy arm appeared from her back, and even then it didn’t look as menacing as I previously saw it. I’ve never played as an Assassin so I could only go off what others have told me, but apparently it was a skill that multiplied the user’s attack by the number of arms. At max-rank, Naraka could summon four additional arms, making every single attack of hers do 500% ~ 600% damage- depending on if the player used dual weaponry or utilized a shield. It was a purely offensive ability and had nothing else. “It’s not even the most basic form of the ultimate,” she shook her head. “It’s sub-basic. Still, it’s better than not having it.”
“I see,” I nodded and tried to activate Gehenna. Usually it’d be accompanied by a tempest and a sea of flames falling from the skies, but there was nothing. There were small sparks of flame emanating out of my body, and the area around me became hotter, but nothing else. The only effect that had been carried over was my ability to turn into flames and redirect damage to my MP. The original Gehenna would also reduce the damage massively before deducting my MP, but I feel like this incomplete version won’t do that. “It really is gutted... but as you said, better than nothing.”
“Now then, there is one more problem,” said the frigid maid. “We can’t log out.”