This chapter: 5341 words
Current stats: 44260/50000
Feelz? A few I guess~
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With a friendly ping a message arrived.
The sound rang out, audible for no one but the GM. With a look of surprise he glared at the scroll shaped icon. It hadn´t rung out for what seemed like ages, ever since the immortals last stand to be precise. No player had bothered writing any tickets in the past years. No hate mail or otherwise. Simply nothing.
Currently the GM was together with his team, or rather, former team.
They were sitting in a meadow close to Grauling, the most central city of the continent. None of them wore battle garments and nothing even hinted at the fact that these people who were casually relaxing in a well visited picnic spot belonged to the most powerful forces on the continent.
Years of fighting monsters, traveling the world and dungeon diving had brought them to the peak of strength. Without an exception all of their levels had hit 999 at some point. Yet even before they hit the level cap, there were already barely any powerful enemies to struggle against left.
At the end of it all, the group finished the most dangerous dungeon of the entire world, which was supposed to be raided by 100 or so people. However, they were not content with this achievement. What was there left for them in this world? Boredom, that´s what. For what felt like a long time they had been struggling to find something to do. Preferably together.
However fate was never so simple and soon after the group tried to delve into the less thrilling aspects of the game like art or crafting their time together gradually decreased. There was no sudden fight. No arguments or painful words, rather than that a slow process of change took place.
Thus, once in a while the old team would meet and catch up. There was no specific time when these meetings would happen but they tried to keep in touch as much as possible, which was not a hard task considering their general boredom.
The GM was slightly annoyed at the interruption. Why would one of those people call out to him now of all times?
He pushed the icon away and continued to listen to Pie who was flustered and beet red. It was hard to miss the fact that she was embarrassed to the core.
"So when will you introduce him to us?" Zessmi asked happily.
"Ohh umm... you know... ummm" Pie was stammering, growing redder and redder. The others just smiled at her. Happy she had found someone.
It made the GM bitterly think about that person. Was his beloved still waiting for him? There had been no progress for years now and the GM gave up about a year ago. There was no leaving this game. He could only stay and search for a purpose in here.
"Pie, do you really think that´s a good idea?" He asked in his bitterness.
Pie looked at the GM with resolute eyes. There was sadness inside them but also willpower.
"I know you´re just worried GM... but I have thought about this long and hard. Long ago, on that fateful day I decided to stay here and live here. You know as well as me that the people here are no mere programs. Even if I fell in love with one of them, there is no problem. Please understand."
The GM sighed and smiled. He leaned back to watch a flock of birds pass by above them.
"I really hope you can be happy here..."
Another ping ripped the GM out of the thoughts about his own loved person. Annoyed and thankful at the same time the GM decided to finally read the wretched message.
"Hello GM,
we need to talk to you. It´s important.
~WoodPriest"
His eyes widened when he read that name. It couldn´t be. How was she..? How could she..? Was she healed?
In the second message WoodPriest simply asked if he had read her first message. Wary and excited at the same time the GM messaged her.
"WoodPriest, are you ok? Did they find a cure?
~GM"
"Just come over here, let´s talk.
~WoodPriest"
"Guys, I need to go." He said in a hurry. The others looked at him in confusion. Something like this was new.
"What could possibly be more important than this?" Ares asked casually.
"The players, one of them just asked me for a meeting. I thought she was an aurora victim but she wrote like normally."
Looks were exchanged but all of them had one thing in common. Excitement. Could Udo have succeeded? Maybe all of them were healed!
"Let´s talk about this later, ok? I´m off!"
And with those words the GM teleported himself towards WoodPriest. His former team was not fast enough to protest, although some of them might have wanted to tag along.
The GM took in the new scenery. He was inside a big hall, much like that of a church minus the benches. There were stained glass pictures with beautiful scenes, none of them were religious however. there were pictures of the various professions players could take.
The pictures of a warrior with a big shield and an Archer with a tamed wolf by his side were right in front of the GM. He slowly turned around and only now noticed the people inside the room. They stood assembled with bated breath, watching his every movement carefully.
On more than one occasion the GM had had to deal with his believers, religious people and fanatics who accidentally caught a glimpse of him. They always watched him with the same attentiveness. The very same care, yet the GM at once knew that there was no reverence in the gazes that had locked onto him today.
They appeared to be similar to predators watching their prey. A disturbing thought, which the GM immediately dismissed.
He scanned their faces for familiar people. The first familiar person he noticed was an archer who stood at the front of the gathering with an expressionless face. Her left hand clutched a silvery bow with shiny red magic lights circling its string.
The GM recognized her though he knew not her name and didn´t want to for that matter. The red hair, the crazed eyes, how could he not recognize her. In a hurry the GM broke eye contact and continued his search. He could have sworn the red archer smirked at that despite the fact that his eyes should be veiled by the hood.
To her immediate right the delicate silhouette of a priestess drew the GMs gaze. From her looks alone he immediately knew that she was far from ok.
Her eyes were unfocused and she held herself without any grace or self-restraint as she wobbled from side to side.
His expectations crushed, the GM wondered how she managed to write those messages in the first place. Maybe one of the other players had somehow made her do it. She looked so miserable, the GM wanted to scream but it was an old wound and as old wounds tend to be he soon managed to ignore it.
"WoodPriest..." He still called out to her as a sliver of hope had not left him yet.
The girl reacted by turning towards the red archer. She nodded and spoke.
"Hello GM, as you can see my sister has not fully recovered yet. She is doing better though, thanks for nothing." Pure maliciousness poured from her voice while her face remained expressionless. She was the picture of apathy.
"Did you find a way to cure them then?" The GM asked.
"No. There is no cure. Those fanatical believers you sent to help us were useless as well. I doubt that she or the others will ever be the same."
Some of the players clearly showed their hate at that moment. The GM ignored them. None of this was his fault. Enough time had passed since the immortals last stand that the GM could completely distance himself from the self pity and blame.
Seeing that the jab had no effect on him the red archer furrowed her brows and showed for the first time that she was indeed capable of facial expressions.
"Why did you call me? Surely you have something more important to say other than this." The GM cut to the chase. His voice was measured and calm like the ocean which only further agitated the immortals.
"Damn you! Don´t you care at all?" A voice shouted from the back of their group and the GM found the speaker with ease. It was a tall man with a sword at his hip. The man charged towards the GM unhindered by his comrades and proceeded to attack him with the sword.
One flashy move after the other landed on the GM who just stood in place, one hand outstretched to type on his keyboard. The same message that always appeared when the indestructible GM was attacked already clustered the man´s vision but that didn´t stop his anger.
"Cool your head." said the GM and teleported the man to the coordinates he had input while the man was venting. Where exactly did he send him? The GM didn´t know either, not that it mattered. The man could end up hundreds of meters in the sky or stuck inside a stone for all he cared. The worst that could happen would be his death after which he would respawn in the closest friendly town.
The sudden disappearance of their comrade did however enrage some more players who proceeded to make the same mistake. The GM had to send five people away and was seriously thinking about just leaving when a voice cut in.
"Ballas, Krux, stop it. This won´t do anything." As expected of the redhead, she seemed to be the leader of the group and put an end to the idiotic assault.
Ballas and Krux, two rouges who were just about to attack the GM retreated like the loyal dogs they were but didn´t stop glaring at the GM who taunted them by waving casually at them.
They managed to stop themselves from jumping the GM and could only grit their teeth in frustration.
Through this short exchange it had become abundantly clear that these people continued to live in the past. Always being around the aurora victims might have done that to them, or so the GM thought. However, the GM didn´t know the details of what these people had been through in the past years. He didn´t care either to be honest as they could have always committed an offense and left the game like the majority of the players had done years ago.
"If there is nothing else I will be taking my leave." The GM said.
"Stop, we really have a reason why we called you today." The red archer said.
"Tell us the truth GM, did you do it? Did you lock all of us inside the game? Was this your plan?"
"Of course not, if I could leave I wouldn´t be here talking to you. I would be back home in reality laughing about your misfortune like the evil mastermind you make me out to be." The GM said in an extremely sarcastic intonation.
"If that was all you wanted to know I will take my leave-"
"No, we are not finished yet!" The red archer exclaimed.
"If it wasn´t you, then you must know who did this."
"Sorry to disappoint you but I haven´t got a clue." The GM shrugged.
"I think it was some sort of virus but in years of searching I didn´t get farther than that."
"What do you mean, a virus! That´s impossible." And similar shouts could be heard from the assembled players. It was a well known fact that the virtual reality was impenetrable. Viruses of course didn´t stand a chance.
The red archer took a moment to think and then spoke up again.
"So you didn´t do it and you admit that you are incapable of resolving the problem. Then why did you do that to them?"
The GM looked annoyed at her but didn´t give her the pleasure of asking what 'that' is and who 'they' are. It was clearly written on her distorted face that she had practiced this... confrontation? yeah, probably that, for a long time and didn´t like seeing the GM go with his own pace. He smirked at her from beneath his hood, slightly wondering what she was accusing him of this time around.
"I will tell you what you did! You deleted them! All of them! As if you actually had a clue what you were doing. Oh? So you still think that they are back in reality? You know what? They are not!"
This time it was the GM´s turn to be startled and as the red one had predicted he really was confused. If the people he had deleted were not in reality then... The GM dreaded the thought but he had to face it... but not without proof.
He glared at the archer and demanded.
"Prove it." His voice was as cold as ice.
"Gladly." The GM wished he could wipe that self satisfactory grin of her face.
A child, it couldn´t have been more than five years old, made his way to the front of the group of immortals. The child had short blonde hair and wore a small mage robe. All in all he could have been a child hunting for candy on Halloween if it wasn´t for the fact that his startlingly mature eyes seemed to pierce the GM´s soul.
"GM, meet Mar." The red haired archer said and stepped back. her face spoke of anticipation.
"Hey there." Mar said.
"...Hello." A slightly confused GM said. Why would this NPC child matter in this situation?
It looked like Mar too came prepared as he immediately began to speak.
"I know you think I am an NPC child, but that is not the case. I am a player. A player whose character you deleted while promising that I could go home." Mar let the news sink in. He watched the GM attentively, even more so than the other assembled players.
"Wait... what?" The GM exclaimed.
"I said I am a player and not an NPC."
"I heard that alright, but how the hell are you...?"
"Like I would know. After you deleted me I woke up as a baby who was just born. I don´t know about the others but they must be in similar situations."
"Wait wait wait... this can´t be... how could you become an NPC?"
The GM was frantically scrolling through Mar´s code but couldn´t find anything that would make him assume that he was more than just an NPC.
"Ah, you´re just trying to trick me. You told this NPC to say these words for money didn´t you?" The GM looked at the players accusingly. They answered his glare with mockery.
"I assure you, I am the real thing. Ask anything about reality. An NPC wouldn´t be able to answer even if they tried to give him the info before that." Mar aid.
"Alright. Hmmm... the names of the superpowers!"
"America, China, Russia and Europe if they can be counted as such."
"Too easy? Who is the actor from that mega popular pirate movie?"
"Johnny Depp."
"Most famous constitutional monarchy?"
"The British monarchy I guess."
"Fastest means of transportation?"
"Rockets? Planes? I don´t know for sure because I never care enough to find out."
"Hmmm... your favorite food?"
"Lasagna, oh I miss Lasagna..." Mar was almost drooling at the thought.
The GM´s face started twitching as he was thinking about things he could ask.
"The stuff we use to pave roads!"
"Asphalt."
"What does DNA mean?"
"deoxyribonucleic acid"
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"Alright... I guess it´s proven."
"Glad you understand now~" Mar smiled innocently.
"What I don´t understand is that nobody noticed until now."
"Strange, eh? But actually understandable if you consider the size of the game world and the fact that little children can´t just travel to the other end of the world to find a player. Our stats were resetted and in my case I only kept the skills. It was still extremely dangerous to get here."
"How far did you travel? Did you die yet? If you have an NPC body now there will most likely be no respawn."
"Of course I didn´t die, I don´t want to start over as a baby. Man that sucked. Can you imagine being unable to do anything? That was the worst... when I started talking way too early and not like a child at all my parents first thought I was possessed or something and already wanted to kill me! Getting out of that was really tricky. Originally I was born in Mysiere. I had to cross the entire fricking continent to get here."
The GM sighed.
"Seems like I really messed up back then. Well considering the general chaos at the time it´s only natural."
"It´s only natural? Are you insane? Don´t you understand what you did to them?" The red archer shouted, unable to endure it anymore. The GM wasn´t supposed to react so calmly.
"They are just as stuck as you and me. What is there to get angry about? At least they are not bored as they have an actual life here." The GM shrugged.
"Bored? Is that your biggest problem? " She started laughing.
"Well, compared to your problems it might be trivial. Is there anything else you want, because even if I wanted to I couldn´t help the deleted players."
"We want you to pay." The crazy girl finally stopped laughing.
"Pay? So you want retribution for all the things I couldn´t prevent? Isn´t that a bit hypocritical?"
"That may be so, but we cannot rest easy before we avenge our comrades."
"Revenge has never solved any problems."
"Yes, but it helps. It absolutely does."
"That´s idiotic. Are all of you of that opinion? Do you really think you will feel better if you get revenge? You´ll only feel worse."
"Even I would like to beat you up, GM. After what I have heard from these people you really deserve a beating." Mar said with a cold voice.
"Nobody deserves a beating. Don´t you understand that none of the things you are angry about are my fault? It was awful. It should never have happened. Yet in the end it did happen. I didn´t want any of these things to happen either, you know?"
"What you wanted does not matter. Now take our revenge like a man!" A player shouted.
"Don´t run away and just let us avenge our friends."
"But I never harmed them!"
"Are you sure? The ones who were reborn must have suffered a lot. What if they were born to a violent family. they would have to live with it and suffer, unable to defend themselves as babies. Or maybe some died as babies again and again, unable to ever grow up, absolutely helpless. Do we even know whether they were born as humans? Maybe some turned into insects, to be stepped on. Others could be monsters that other adventurers killed. who knows what horrors they had to endure!"
"That´s just a cheap excuse to kill me. At the time I sincerely thought it was a way to leave the game. Don´t forget that they had the choice."
"Some fine choice it turned out to be." The red haired archer spat at the ground.
"One side was turned into something random and the other side was attacked and became crazy! We are all that´s left. The only ones who didn´t meet a fate worse than death!"
She approached the GM. Slowly, like a predator, she shortened the distance despite the fact that as an archer she was supposed to stay away from her enemies the GM felt threatened.
"It´s fine GM. Just let us kill you~ Nothing bad will happen. After all you are just as immortal as us." her voice was sweet, flowing like a melody.
"How would you know that? Death doesn´t really belong to the things that happen to GMs. Maybe death really is the end of me." The GM calmly asked.
The red archer was now directly in front of the GM. She peered into the impenetrable darkness of his hood.
"None of this is my fault. If that is all you want to do then I will be taking my leave now. Your anger is not worth my life."
With these words the GM turned to leave. He was interrupted though.
"Hello Jii-Emm, did you miss me?"
A man had been standing directly behind the GM. He was startled that he only now noticed him and wondered for how long he had been there.
The GM looked carefully at the stranger. Short black hair and a clean shaven scarred face stared down at him. The man was a head taller than the GM and very muscular. For a while he just stared at the hindrance and couldn´t shake the feeling that he had met him somewhere before.
"Who are you?" The GM asked intrigued.
"To think that you forgot me, didn´t we have so much fun together?" The man shook his head in mock hurt. There was anger in his eyes but he downplayed it in front of the GM.
"Fun?... " The GM grew pale his eyes widened in disbelief.
"Ethan?"
"Bingo. Glad you remembered after all, I´m not sure what I would have done if you had forgotten."
Ethan cracked his knuckles and made a step towards the GM who promptly stepped back. The GM had completely forgotten about the red archer behind him and soon had no space left to back up. Ethan pursued in a few quick steps.
"How are can you be here? You should still be packaged." The GM managed to ask.
"Oh so you never even noticed that I escaped? And here I thought you wanted me to get away to up my game." Ethan started laughing. He was now uncomfortably close to the GM.
"How did you escape?"
"You know when you put me into the darkness for the first time I never even noticed that I was there in the first place, but when you did it the second time... Let´s just say that I had changed enough by then to resist those pitiful hypnotizing spells you set up in there.
However, stuck in that nothingness of course I didn´t know how to escape. Have you ever been in there before?" The GM shook his head.
"Then let me enlighten you. It sucks. There is absolutely nothing to do. You don´t get hungry or sleepy, you have nobody to talk to, it´s awful! I spent about two years in there unable to get out but you know what?
I gained something in turn. I was so close to the spells in there that I could leisurely analyze them and search for the weaknesses in this intricate web of magic. It´s all thanks to you, my friend. If you hadn´t given me so much knowledge of magic I would never have been able to do this. In the end I simply waited until you were asleep and then broke free of your spell by changing my name.
After all, you can only keep people whose names you list in there. 'Ethan Longer' was your prisoner so simply changing my name was enough to slip away. To think you never even notice. what was I so careful for?
Either way, after leaving this space of yours it was only a matter of reaching the mainland. I thought it was over when my raft was smashed by some bloodthirsty fish, yet lady luck clearly favors me."
"Now what? You want revenge too? Is this some sort of 'let´s kill the GM' party?"
The gathered players laughed though the GM couldn´t understand what was supposed to be funny about this.
"I guess you could say that." The maniacal smile that accompanied those words gave him the creeps.
"Don´t you have any common sense left?"
"Nope, you destroyed it, remember?" Ethan raised his hand to the GM´s hood and tried to pull it off but he too was greeted by the GM´s natural resistance and a message popped out in front of his eyes.
Completely unfazed, Ethan started patting the GM´s head gently.
"So it´s true that nothing in the world can hurt you or even mess with you a tiny little bit. How enviable. This little trick won´t protect everything though. Like perhaps, your friends? I heard there was a group who associated with you. I´m sure you wouldn´t want them to get hurt, would you?"
"What? Why are you laughing. I´m threatening all you hold dear and you laugh?"
"Hahaha..It´s just...hahahaha...I could wipe you out in a second... hahahaha... and you even try to threaten those people? They´re immortal. They are at the peak of power! How the hell would you even do that? Hahaha" The GM easily pushed Ethan´s hand away. why was he even afraid of the psychopath who had crossed the entire country for this tiny opportunity to threaten him? Ethan was weak. He could only make empty threats, so what was the point.
"Hahaha.. if you continue like this you might actually accomplish your mission and I will laugh myself to death..hahaha"
"Aren´t you forgetting something?" Ethan said, the freakish smile never leaving his face.
"The aurora? Remember that? They can be at the peak all they want."
"Oh right, there was that... I guess I´ll just kill you here then." The GM summoned the keyboard again.
"Go ahead and kill me, but it won´t stop my accomplices." Ethan said and the GM froze mid action.
"Did you think we didn´t prepare for this situation? We had a long time to plan this encounter after all... If I don´t give the others the secret signal in a few minutes they will go ahead and use the spell on your beloved friends."
"Oh and please tell me what prevents me from just fetching them right now and taking them to safety?" The GM asked icily.
"Allow me to explain. We have an entire group of loyal NPC in hiding who would simply use the spell on your friends the moment you let your guard down. Surely you don´t want them to keep hiding forever? Can that kind of life even be considered worth living? I heard your little friend intends to marry an NPC by the way. Wouldn´t it be tragic if the poor chap had an accident?
But if you don´t believe us, sure, go ahead and leave. Save your friends today and lose them when you least expect it. Even if you kill all of us, the NPCs will remain hidden and search for the perfect opportunity, even if they will have to search for your friends again and again and again. You are not the only one with fanatical believers." Mar said.
The GM saw the truth in Mar´s words. He could protect himself just fine, but the GM couldn´t always be with his friends. An opportunity to strike would one day arise and then they would be... With a glance at WoodPriest the GM thought deeply about the possibilities.
The GM closed his eyes, sweat running down his forehead. Was this the end of him? Could he be selfless for once? There was no guarantee that he would even respawn after death. Would he respawn, die, wake up from this nightmare or be reborn like the deleted players? Sadly no other than the last possibility seemed likely.
A decision made, the GM opened his eyes. Determination, no other word could possibly describe the look in his eyes at this moment.
Finally the GM breached the silence.
"I will die for them." There was no more to be said. While the players were cheering and Ethan prepared a red flaming dagger with a gleeful smile, the GM went to his character window.
He then dragged the small icon that symbolized his GM cloak and with it his entire identity as a GM into his inventory.
Thus in a flash of light the cloak disappeared from his body and revealed his real face and his real body for the first time in years.
The gathered players took a deep breath when they saw the GM without his cloak. This person stood naked in front of them because he had never bothered wearing any clothes beneath the cloak as there was no need. The person regretted this now as waves of embarrassment assaulted him.
He did not lower his head though and managed to suppress the inevitable flush. Instead he kept the aura of a defeated general and met every gaze he encountered evenly.
What struck the gathered players as strange was the fact that their loathed enemy was merely a normal person. There was nothing special about the GM. In a crowd and of course fully clothed they would not have taken any note of him. The disturbing thing was the fact that the GM could have been one of them and that none of the pictures they had in their heads of what the fiend could look like fit the truth.
His facial expression was downright miserable. Black rings beneath dreary eyes told tales of hard work and worries. And as he stood silently waiting for his uncertain future many players wanted to reconsider their actions. Was this pitiful person really the monster they had made him out to be?
As they remembered the words he had spoken before they understood that killing him would most likely not offer them any solace either. Maybe the only thing that would achieve would be more misery.
It was easy to hate the image of the anonymous GM. It was easy to project the hate and grief on this last symbol of the ones who had ultimately trapped them in this horrific situation. It was so easy to just kill him.
Unbeknownst to the GM the gathered players began to rethink their actions. Deep-rooted anger and hatred were put aside for a short moment and they considered what they would have done in his situation.
But before anyone could have stopped it.
Splash!
A blade entered the young man´s body. It was a fiery dagger that immediately sealed the wound shut and prevented any blood flow. There was no need to search for the perpetrator as it was none other than Ethan.
Again he pulled the blade out of the GM´s body and stabbed once more, twice more, thrice...again and again and again... No blood flowed, no screams howled and the only sound that could be heard inside the church like hall was the incessant noise of flesh being pierced by metal and a madman´s laughter.
After a moment that seemed to take an eternity some players shook the strange thoughts they had in the beginning of and took out their weapons to join in on the fun. So what if the GM is a person like any other? They had come to exact revenge for their friends. Even if they were not entirely willing, this had to be done.
After an eternity that really could have been an eternity or maybe only a few minutes the GM crumbled to the floor, a bloodied mess. He coughed up globs of black blood and soon stopped breathing entirely. Throughout the slaughter the GM had not made a single sound.
The tiles of the floor were stained in black blood, the body left behind to rot. A reminder of what had transpired in this holy cathedral.