“Activate!” Q yelled as she activated a rune that blew away some monsters. “Whoo! This staff is amazing!” She joyfully waved it around in the air. Right now the girls were heading back to the surface, and were clearing out as many enemies as they could while they did so. Fortunately for them the large elemental didn’t spawn again. As they passed the fifth floor though, they saw the Guardian of Knowledge who was still reading a book. When the guardian looked at Q’s new staff it’s eyes widened (which looked terrifying considering it was a giant 25 meter tall owl) but it only stared for a moment before reading its book again.
The rest of the excursion didn’t seem to have any problems, but when they returned to the first floor Q screamed out, “I forgot to talk to Phanos!” The maid looked at her with furrowed brows as she tried to think about why Q would want to talk to her.
“Is… is this a good time for that?” Kukis seemed hesitant to start talking to Phanos. “I mean, I know that I sort of missed the timing for it in the library, but still…”
“Anytime is a good time if you ask me.” Cinnamon said indifferently.
“Um, if you don’t mind me asking, what do you mean by wanting to talk to me?” Phanos asked.
“Well… we heard from Brie that you sort of drive away the people around her, and we all thought that was a bit of a problem for the already troubled social girl with no friends. Oh wait, we’re here so she’s not friendless anymore right?” Q tilted her head for a moment, and then continued. “Anyway, we thought that we should talk to you and help you get to know us a bit better so you don’t, you know… go to extreme lengths.”
Phanos was incredibly surprised at Q’s declaration. “Get to know you better…” She mumbled a few things before looking at Brie and asking, “Milady, am I… troubling you in any way?”
“I… well… a little bit?” Brie answered after a moment of hesitation.
“...I see. I would be glad to take you up on your offer.” Phanos bowed slightly. “Though perhaps we should climb these stairs first and get a bit of a rest before doing so.” She indicated the large staircase that they still had to climb.
“Ugh… I really wish I finished scanning the flight rune before getting into the library… Oh well, nothing to be done about it now. Onwards!” Q led the charge as the girls challenged the stairs.
*****
“If… this was… real life… I’d… have lost… a few pounds.” Kukis panted as she flopped onto the ground in exhaustion.
“Yeah… I doubt our bodies would change at all in this world though.” Q was a bit better off than Kukis, but she was still exhausted.
“Actually, sometime in the future big-sis might implement a system that changes player’s body mass depending on the amount of exercise they do or food they eat.” Cinnamon noted.
“Huh, although that sounds interesting you should tell her not to.” Q shook her head. “I think a lot of players would be very upset at their avatar constantly changing and affecting their lifestyles in this world. It’s probably better if she releases an item to change your appearance instead. That’d be something like a premium item though… Oh yeah, when is the cash shop opening?”
“If there are no problems, most likely within a week in real-life time. Some of the items are still being worked on, and there’s a lot of effort being put in to control RMT as much as they can.”
“RMT?” Brie wore a curious expression.
“It stands for Real Money Trading, milady.” Phanos explained. “It’s the process of exchanging real-life currency for virtual goods, or the other way around.” The other three girls nodded, as this was common sense to them. That being said, this Cinnamon seems to know a lot of background information on the proceedings of TWO… I’ll need to question her about this at some point.
The girls left the town hall, and made their way to the Nine-Lives Inn and relaxed for a while. After Q finished petting Clair, she grabbed a seat and plopped herself down in front of Phanos. “So, let’s get started on this interview!”
“Yes.” Phanos instantly got a serious look on her face as she began to question Q. “To start off… what is your relationship with Lady Brie?”
“Relationship?” Q was silent for a moment before saying, “We’re friends. I thought that was clear enough.”
Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.
“I mean something deeper than that... What do you think of Lady Brie?”
“She’s a nice girl?”
“Hmm…” Phanos seemed to be mentally contemplating this information before she continued. “Next question…”
*****
After more than an hour passed, Phanos was finally satisfied with her questioning. She endlessly grilled Q, Kukis and Cinnamon for answers to all sorts of questions ranging from ‘what are your hobbies’ to ‘would you lay your life down for Lady Brie’. At the end they were mentally exhausted, but Phanos seemed fine - peachy even. “Excuse me, I need to compile this new information in real-life. Please be careful while I am away Lady Brie.” Phanos disappeared in a flash of light, and the rest of the girls were left to talk amongst themselves.
“Man, that Phanos… I didn’t think that her interrogation would take this long!” Q was slumped over a table, using one hand to play around with Schorl.
“I am sorry about that,” Brie bowed. “But I thank you for satisfying Phanos’ curiosity. I am sure that Phanos is very happy about it.”
“Haha… no problem.” Kukis sipped the hot chocolate she made. “Anything for a friend, or so the saying goes.”
“At least that’s out of the way though.” Cinnamon was leaning on Q, using one hand to play with her hair. “What do we do now?”
“I’m going to walk around the village to level up my skills and learn new runes. Then… log off and eat some lunch?” Q turned her head. “How about you Brie? Joining me again?”
“Yes, if for no other reason than I do not have anything to do.” Brie giggled.
“I need to take care of some stuff real-life. I’ll see you all in a bit!” Kukis logged off as well, leaving the three girls.
“Okay, first stop, the marketplace!” Q lead the way, and the other two followed. They weren’t even halfway there when Q finally obtained her flight rune. She immediately used it on herself, and then floated up into the sky! Q panicked and flailed her arms about, while Brie tried to position herself below Q so she could catch her. In the end Cinnamon solved the problem by jumping off a wall as she flapped her wings and grabbed Q. Rather than flight, it seemed that the flight rune by itself defied gravity so Q needed to be dragged through the air by Brie and Cinnamon (which got them more than a few odd looks).
Q didn’t seem to mind this all that much though as she happily enjoyed the sensation of floating in the air. With a bit of concentration she could slowly drift in a direction, albeit at a slow speed. The rune wore off after five minutes and Brie and Cinnamon were relieved, but were shocked as Q used the rune on herself again! This time Q tried using the directional runes like ‘forward’ and ‘backward’ and found that she was able to move at a much faster speed. Combined with the speed rune she was able to fly at a decent speed, and when she used it multiple times on herself she went flying at a ridiculous speed and was heading straight for a wall!
Ah, I don’t know how to stop it… Q berated herself for forgetting to come up with a way to stop. Ugh, this is so cliché... But I’m not crashing like this! She began to draw multiple wind runes and fired them at the wall waiting for her (and she was incredibly thankful that the runes were faster than her travel speed). Then she flicked her tail and reoriented herself so that her legs were heading to the wall first. The moment she was about to touch the wall she activated the runes, creating a large gust of wind that pushed her back a bit before she hit the wall.
“OWWW!!” Q was standing sideways on the wall and stopped flying freely. A quick glance at her health bar showed that she lost around a quarter of her health, and she vowed to never test the flying rune again… without a way to safely stop, that is.
““Q!”” Brie and Cinnamon rushed up to Q and began making a fuss. Brie anchored her to the ground (by firmly holding onto her) while Cinnamon cast more healing spells than Q could possibly need.
“Haha, sorry you two. I got a little carried away, but flying is super fun!”
“Is it… truly that amusing?” Brie asked.
“Sure it is! Once I get the technique down, I’ll let you enjoy the sensation of flight!”
“Let’s get out of this place first. There’s too many people staring at us.” Cinnamon gestured at their surroundings, which were filled with many pairs of curious eyes looking for the source of what caused the large gust of wind. The three girls hurriedly left the area and waited in some alley until Q’s flight rune wore off.
“Thanks for keeping me grounded Brie.” Q pointed at the hand that Brie was tightly grabbing.
“Ah- um, yes. It is only natural that I help a friend in need.” Brie blushed a little before pulling her hand away. Q laughed at this and they walked into the marketplace.
The girls spent about half an hour trading items back and forth. Brie in particular seemed to find this exchange of goods very interesting as she even tried to converse with some of the shopkeepers. Cinnamon was trading a bunch of items Q didn’t recognize - all of which had a slight glow around them - and was getting a lot of equipment in exchange due to the novelty of her items. Q replaced a few of her equipment (namely her accessories) to give her a little boost, and also asked each of the shopkeepers to display a spell so she could analyze them. She learned a few new runes by the end of their shopping trip.
Something Q found interesting is that if she analyzed a spell that she has the rune for (an Ember for example), her understanding of that rune deepened slightly. When she checked her rune list it turned out that the rune had it’s damage and effects upgraded a bit, so she continued to use [Spell Analysis] as much as she could. Even though Q was using quite a few runes and abilities in the middle of the village, the other residents didn’t seem to mind (though a few of them said that it’d be better if she went to the experimental district to do this).
Q walked over to the experimental district and began to practice with her new runes (as well as her other abilities), and the other two followed suit. While Q was carelessly spamming her abilities, she heard a *ding* sound and looked up to find a new window.
[Spell Evolution] - Your ‘Tri-Spark’ spell has gained enough experience to evolve into a stronger version of itself. Your Choices are listed below:
* Spark Spray (Tier III) Lv.1 (Consumes 25 MP, 10 second cool-down) Fire multiple sparks at once in a cone-spread. Has reduced range and each spark has a small chance to stun target.
* Charge Spark (Tier III) Lv.1 (Consumes 20-50 MP, 30 second cool-down) Store up magic power to let loose a strong blast of electricity. Damage and range increase depending on how much mana is stored. Has a moderate chance to stun target.
“Oooh! Another evolution!” Q got a little excited as she read and contemplated her choices. She asked the other two for their opinions on what she should choose, but quickly came to regret it.
“Shouldn’t you choose Spark Spray?” Cinnamon said. “You get some pretty good damage and stun chance every ten seconds. Not only that, you’ll be up in front with me!”
“I believe you should choose Charge Spark.” Brie suggested. “Taking into consideration your new class, you may not wish to create runes right in front of an enemy.”
The two girls exchanged glances, and Q could swear that she saw sparks fly between them. They then turned to Q and said at the same time, ““Of course you’ll listen to my advice, right?””
“Ha-ha… haa…” Q found herself stuck between a rock and a hard place.