When her alarm clock went off, Dassah cursed it but went about performing her usual Sunday morning routine. She flipped on the coffee maker and helped make breakfast. Allowing herself a good hour of catching up with Stell and Bahena made her feel a little less guilty about diving into the tutorial for the rest of the day.
Once she logged in, she looked over her quests and stats and planned out her goals for the day.
Assuming that it would take some time for Dawl to find the pelt, she decided to use some time to finish up her [Receiving an Education] quests, then work on information mining from the Hunters’ Guild and Pastor Jormund. It would not be hard for her to forget about the conversation she had witnessed the night before, but every event had a purpose.
Sitting on the floor in her house, Guin pulled up her in-game browser and looked up Pastor Jormund by name. Her jaw nearly dropped when she saw the information the posts brought up. He wasn’t just some nice innocent Pastor of a backwater village. He was Jormund the Pale, one of the four generals of the undead armies of the Void Lord—and a major raid boss when attacking the Dark Citadel.
How did that happen?
She wasn’t the only one surprised that the warm, gentle pastor turned into the infamous monster that he was known as in the main game, but a post from someone who started in another city brought something to her attention: a different meaning behind Crossroads Quests.
Guin looked at the Crossroads quest that had been given to her by Jormund. It seemed harmless enough, but the poster suggested that that was part of the trick the developers played.
They wrote:
“I don’t think it’s quite so simple as ‘he turns evil’. I had a crossroads quest when I was in the Jade starting town of Roane when a girl asked me to do a series of stupid tasks, but they ended up leading me to a pretty serious Fate Quest and Class Quest later on. While doing the crossroads quest, it actually changed a few times and involved another couple of characters that I got pretty close to; they also offered me Class Quests. The girl ended the Crossroads Quest and attained a class called ‘Emerald Huntress,’ while the other two were just an Alchemist and a Ranger.
“When I got into the main game, though, I found out that that girl grew up to be Idiad, Heart Eater, Mistress of the Vampire Lord Hetharas. Meanwhile, the Alchemist and Ranger were just a trader and a farmer.
I asked a beta friend about it, and he said that he had seen raid bosses change before, and she was one of them. Originally Hetharas’ mistress was a woman named Reitha, the Pestilence, who is now High Priestess Reitha, the Ever Burning, of the Imperial City—the ‘Ever Burning’ class being an outcome of her tutorial city’s Crossroad Quest. She had a third outcome, too: ‘Grey Lady.’
My guess is that the world bosses and monsters are based on the popular choice that players make during these crossroads quests, and that goes for main game ones too. I’ve heard of some people meeting ‘Jormund the Celestial Paladin’ in the Imperial Citadel if they hit the timing just right after The Pale dies in a raid. Sure makes it hard to get those special classes, though; I think they are the only trainers for those classes.”
Guin bit her lip and flicked the screen away.
So that’s how it is... She couldn’t imagine that there would be many people who would find and follow those quests considering how much time needed to be put into them. Most people were like Stella and Bahena—rushing through the tutorial as fast as possible so they could get into the main game. Could it be an average-pass-fail system? Wouldn’t that affect the game’s canon?
She made her way to the school house, where the first to greet her was the Gatekeeper, who gave her a holey grin. Remembering the bottle of wine from the gobo cave, she took it out and handed it to him, much to his delight. In exchange, he gave her a fistful of Tutorial Tokens.
As they clinked into her bag, she realized she had dozens upon dozens of such tokens, all of which needed to be used before she left the tutorial.
All of the delicious character customization... She was nearly salivating at the thought.
Her eyes fell upon Qii and his students, who were fighting in the training ring again. A pang of guilt shot through her heart.
Now she understood. Hopefully, it wasn’t too late.
With images of dead animals and the pile of corpses running through her head, she carefully walked over to the shirtless valkyrian she had offended earlier.
“E-Excuse me? Mr. Qii?” she asked rather timidly, hoping that her honesty was getting across and that it was worth something. Though he appeared to ignore her presence, Guin went on: “I wanted to apologize to you. You were right to send me away. I was... ignorant. I-I don’t really want to be a killer. What I want is the power to protect. Protect my friends. Protect the forest. Can you teach me how to do that?”
Qii glared at her. “And just why the change of heart?”
“I... went into the forest. I killed as I needed. But, I also saw the work of someone who killed not as they needed, but as they wished,” she half-lied, hoping he wouldn’t catch her with Liorax’s presence buff supporting her charisma. “The forest... something is happening to the forest, and as I am, I am too weak to help my friends. Please,” she begged. “If there is anything you can do to help me help them...”
“You should not have gone into the forest at all. You were lucky you weren’t killed,” he told her. Guin fought the urge to argue with him as he said those words. “Nevertheless,” he went on. “It is good that you seem to have learned valuable lessons—not only about combat, but about the value of life and the consequences of death. You ask for a lesson—very well; I will give you a lesson.”
Guin nearly jumped for joy but contained herself and bowed instead. “Thank you, Master Qii!”
Stolen novel; please report.
He gave an amused snort. “It seems as if you have already gained the ability that I would have taught you, but if you still want to learn, let’s see what you can do. Will you do anything I say?”
Though the glimmer in his eye suddenly made her nervous, she nodded. She deserved any flak he might give her, anyway. So she said, “I will do what is asked of me. I want to be stronger.”
“Connor!” he shouted and waved over one of the boys that had been in the ring. Qii nodded his attention over to Guin and said with a sly grin, “Teach this girl how to dance.”
Guin blanked as the boy walked over to her and offered her his hand. “Haa?”
”You said that you would do anything,” Qii told her, a rare grin playing about his lips. “Now, Dance.”
“Dance,” she repeated. “I can’t dance.”
“For shame,” he said. “It’s a good time to learn then. Simply follow the steps that will appear before you after you take Conner’s hand, and he will help with the rest. One cannot teach grace, however, so I hope you are better with your feet than your manner.”
Twitching, she nodded. The boy Conner gave her a knowing smile as she walked over to him. Jerks.
“Hey,” she said when she was closer. “So I just told your boss I can’t dance, and he didn’t seem to care, so... sorry in advance.”
Conner laughed and told her, “Don’t worry—just follow the steps! Here!” He poked her in the head, and a screen popped up:
<
<<[Dance]>>
<
<
<< You gain grace and poise. >>
<< Ritual Requirement: Follow the step guides. >>
<< Your [Reflexes] increase by 1% while this ritual is active. >>
<< Cast Time: 5 seconds - Duration: 10 Seconds - Cooldown: 1 Second >>
“Eh?” she went, eyes going wide and then narrowing as she read the tooltip. Honestly, she had taken the whole thing as a joke, but the ability may actually have been worth something, depending on how she used it. “How does this even work?”
“I’ll teach you! First, take my hand. I will teach you some basics,” he said, holding his hand out. She took it. “Look down. You’ll see some footprints on the ground. The brightest are the ones you need to execute first, while the dimmest are the ones you need to be at last. Line your feet up with the first ones.” Indeed, there were a set of bright yellow footprints, which she slid her feet over to. “You can look at them for now, but over time, you won’t need them anymore. Each dance you learn will have these guides. You can turn them off in the skill menu once you learn the dances well,” he said as he started to lead her around.
When they had finished the dance, he left her go and backed away. Step by step, Guin followed the guide, letting him lead her as she worked on her balance. When the first set was complete, they tried again at a faster tempo. It was hard, but she could do it.
“Well done!” Connor said when they finished the second round. “Now, why don’t you try on your own, as if I were an opponent in a combat situation? First, target me and activate the skill. When you do, steps will appear to guide you through the ritual. The goal now is to be continuously casting it in a loop,” he told her, then laughed at the look on her face. “Don’t worry; the base dance is very simple.”
Skeptically, she activated the skill via the shortcut menu. The glowing steps appeared, flashing in the ritual’s specific order that went around his body. It was a very different pattern than the one she had practiced with him, and she wondered if the game calculated the dance to fit the situation.
Scrunching her nose, she began. After about ten tries and running into him more than once, Conner seemed satisfied and applauded her.
“Very good!” he said. “Next, we will dance together again, but this time, we will just dance around one another.”
Another ten tries later; she succeeded in not running into him through the dance.
“What’s next?” she asked, hoping there wasn’t anything else.
“Watch me!” he told her and began his dance. Guin was impressed by how into it he was. His eyes were sharp, and his movement graceful. As he grew closer to her, she felt increasingly uncomfortable. His eyes met hers as he began to spin around, and then, at the last step, she was suddenly on the ground with him, laughing as he stood over her.
He had tripped her.
Rubbing her butt, she cursed under her breath, but he kept dancing.
“Don’t glare,” Conner chuckled. “Come at me! Dance!”
Is this for real? Guin glared at him, but she had to admit, it looked fun. Pulling herself up, she observed him a bit more before beginning her dance. After completing the steps of the ritual the first series of times, she began to mix in some combat abilities against him, which prompted him to do the same. In this way, they ended up sparring with one another quite a bit.
<< Skill Leveled Up! >>
<<[Dance]>>
<
<
<< You gain grace and poise. >>
<< Ritual Requirement: Follow the step guides. >>
<< Your [Reflexes] increase by 2% while this ritual is active. >>
<< Cast Time: 5 seconds - Duration: 10 Seconds - Cooldown: 1 Second >>
Conner backed off as her skill leveled and smiled at her. Qii walked over and nodded to her.
“The [Dance] ability is a ritual,” Qii began explaining. “Rituals are different from regular abilities in that they do not have ranks. Instead, you can sacrifice a Base Ritual’s level to learn or create a new Ritual Ability. In this case, you can sacrifice one level of [Dance] to learn a new Dance ability from me. I can teach you the Blade Dance, or you can choose to save your levels for another time. There are many kinds of dances out there, and there are even dances that link together to form a greater dance combination. Keep in mind that the more powerful the ritual, the higher the level cost to acquire it will be.”
“Thank you, Master Qii!” Guin bowed. The shirtless man still looked unimpressed and walked away. Having no expectations of the man, Guin shrugged and thanked Connor as well.
“Come back and practice anytime!” the boy told her. “Master Qii is a lot nicer than he lets off, you know!”
Guin snorted and laughed and waved him goodbye. While she was bubbling with curiosity about Qii and the connection to the [Dance] ability, she had no confidence in dealing with his personality and gave up the thought. Instead, she headed back into the schoolhouse, where Grimhai was surely waiting for the results of her quest to learn her combat abilities.