“...*whew*” Simon got out of his game pod and stretched his body. “That was one hell of a fight. I hope Brie and Phanos made it out ok…”
Since Simon died in the game, his schedule was opened up and he now had a few hours of free time. He decided to spend this free time by doing some chores around the house. He normally didn’t need to do this since his dad cleaned it weekly but he wanted to focus on something other than what he had just gone through in the game. In the end he couldn’t take his mind off of the most recent events so he lay in a pile of soft plushies in his room and watched some cat-videos to relax.
After an hour of cute-therapy he felt better and began to randomly surf around the web. When he went to check his email he noticed he got a message from Kukis. They exchanged emails a while back and sent some messages back and forth every so often (usually consisting of videos or screenshots of TWO or random memes), though this time it seemed that the contents were more serious.
Hey Q, hope you’re alright. Also screw you for pushing me into the fountain. That was my time to show off!!! ...Just kidding, thanks (but seriously read the mood next time).
The witches here are still fine thanks to you, but we’ve lost a lot of people. Not to mention that three of the grand witches are dead. Caryll, Fremetica and Haeldrix were KIA, and Pamerun’s really depressed. I’m going to try my best to help them find a new place to live (btw I have no idea where we are so our reunion may take a while). Well, I’ll keep you updated on our situation through in-game messages.
Now to the most important part: Have you seen this video? (Pretend this is a URL) It’s disgusting. The players who attacked the village are glorifying their deeds. I’m not going to let this stand, so I’m working on a video of my own. If you could send me anything you’ve saved from the time you’ve been in the village it’d help out a lot.
Anyway, I’ll probably be back in game when you read this. Don’t worry about me! I’ll show you how strong I’ll get when we meet up again!
-Kukis (It’s Coo-kiss damnit!)
Simon laughed as he read the message. Seeing that Kukis was still joking around made him feel a bit better. “...But really, they made a video like that?” Simon clicked on the link Kukis provided and watched the video titled: (TWO) Raiding the Secret Village - SUPER RARE EVENT!!!
“Ew, the title is clickbait.” Simon grimaced at how they were trying to publicize this event. As the video loaded it was edited in a way to make it seem that the Forest of Fog was a dangerous, terrifying place. I guess that’s true, but I got used to it. Simon thought. Then there were quick cuts displaying the Sunlight Warriors and other soldiers, and the head priest ‘inspiring’ the players before they began breaking down the treeline protecting the village. The next shot was just when the trees fell down and all hell broke loose as the players were attacked by the Witches.
The video constantly switched between different players points of view, and one of them was even a player that happened to be up against Q. What Simon found funny was that any moment that they were about to be shown to be disadvantaged or defeated, the video cut to someone else using some sort of flashy skill or spell. What he also noticed was that they never actually showed the players or soldiers executing the witches - a sight Q had seen more than enough times in the game - and the most they would do is show them falling down from the sky.
In the end when the witches were cornered to the barrier in the village square, the video focused mainly on the players and Sunlight Warriors, showing how ‘cool’ they were. If anyone cared to pay attention to any face in the barrier they would notice the witches’ faces twisted in despair and hopelessness, but it never focused on them. The video ended with the head priest blasting the barrier with his light magic, and then faded to black leaving three large words behind: LIKE AND SUBSCRIBE!
“...That was disgusting.” Simon felt great contempt for the people who would ever try to glorify a one-sided attack on a village with peaceful inhabitants. He quickly accessed his gamepod and began to check for all his gameplay footage and screenshots when he was in the village. He waited impatiently for it to transfer onto a USB, then he uploaded it to his computer and sent it all in an email to Kukis.
“Now then, what to do…” Simon decided to busy himself as he waited to log into the game again.
*****
“...ooh, it spawned me in some random place in the forest? Well that makes sense considering the whole village was overrun.” Q began to check her inventory and stats to see what she had lost, but before she could open her menu she was suddenly captured by something from behind. “Wha-! Oh, it’s you Cinn. You scared me for a second.”
“Ehehehehehe~” Cinnamon didn’t say anything as she held Q in a tight bear hug and began rubbing her cheeks on her ears.
“Cinn?”
“I’ve been holding back for so long… It was hard you know? I was refraining from this because those other girls were around… Now I can finally…” As Cinnamon trailed off her face became flushed and she began to breathe heavily.
“...Cinn?”
“AHHHH!! Q~! The feeling of your body! The smell of your hair! The mixing of our data! AHHHNN~!”
“Cut it out!” Q delivered a splendid reverse chop with her hand that she managed to wiggle out of Cinnamon’s iron grip. Cinnamon reeled back from the attack, and Q made a hasty retreat. When the distance between the two expanded to around twenty meters, Cinnamon called out in a sweet voice.
“Oh Q~. I hope you haven’t forgotten the promise you made me! You’ll do anything I want, remember~?” Cinnamon slowly approached Q while laughing creepily.
“Shit. I did say that.” Q slowly turned around and faced Cinnamon who seemed one hundred times more intimidating than usual.
“My request is… hugging you like this for a whole day!” Cinnamon picked up Q and held her tightly in her arms.
“I-!...Fine.” Q gave up and slumped a little in Cinnamon’s arms. At least it's not anything drastic... She was secretly relieved that her request was fairly tame. “But if we encounter enemies you have to let me down to fight them alright?”
“No. I’m fighting like this.”
“But-”
“No.” Cinnamon looked like she absolutely wouldn’t change her decision.
“Okay… how about we take a quick look in the village? If the Church’s forces are still there we’re getting out of this forest.” Q was curious as to the state of the village, but she definitely wouldn’t risk another run-in with the Church.
“Yes!” Cinnamon enthusiastically flapped her wings and flew through the forest.
Q found it a little strange to be flying without using her staff, but she ended up enjoying the sensation of letting her arms and legs hang out as she was carried through the air by Cinnamon… Or at least she would have enjoyed it if it wasn’t for Cinnamon’s heavy breathing and strange mutterings. For a moment Q thought she would even start drooling. On the way Q checked her status screen to see what she lost, and luckily or unluckily, the only item she dropped was the super-soft mittens she made a while back. She even managed to level up twice, probably from the sheer amount of enemies caught inside her final attack.
While flying she summoned Schorl who instantly curled around her right ear. After listening to it for a while she found out that Brie and Phanos had made it safely out of the village and into the woods before it and Wolfy were unsummoned. She thanked Schorl who made a small hiss in return. I’ll have to thank Wolfy later as well.
Eventually after half an hour of flying they saw the broken trees and the outline of the village in the distance. There were no signs of life around but the two kept their wits about them (despite how intoxicated Cinnamon looked). As they approached the village the two saw a few corpses littering the ground and as Cinnamon flew down lower they noticed that they were all from the Church’s forces. Cinnamon flew slower as they got closer to the village, and the amount of bodies continued to increase. At first it was only one every twenty or thirty meters, but soon it became one every ten meters, and then kept going to the point where even small piles of bodies were starting to show up.
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“What the heck happened here?” The piles of corpses and absolute silence filled Q with a sense of uneasiness. What made this situation even stranger was that she couldn’t find any corpses of the witches who had fallen in battle. Maybe they were gathered up somewhere by the church? Only one way to find out…
Eventually they reached the outskirts of the town and only found more corpses. As they got closer to the heart of the village the corpses began to look more peculiar in the way they died as a lot of soldiers were in positions which made it seem like they were stabbing their comrades. The two flew in silence as they got closer to the village square. When Q caught sight of what was there she gasped in surprise. A hooded figure in a dark robe stood still in a crater filled with corpses (made from Q’s attack before she died), but what caught Q’s attention was the red words above its head.
[Clover (Genocider)] - Level 95
“Holy crap… isn’t that the player with the highest level in game right now?” Q muttered to herself.
“Yes, it is.” Cinnamon tensed her body in preparation for battle.
“...” The figure didn’t say anything, nor did it move. It simply stared at Q and Cinnamon. This standoff lasted for only a moment as Q noticed slight movement from the corner of her eye. She focused on that area but only saw a corpse. Then she noticed some more movement elsewhere, but she still only found corpses. It was then that the hooded figure finally moved as it seemed to whisper something, then every corpse in the area twitched.
A strange purple fog poured out from within the figure’s robes, and covered the ground. Cinnamon backed up and took flight, and the two remained vigilant to the figure who still stared at them. As the fog continued to spread they began to see twisted silhouettes moving around inside, and after a few more seconds they rose up out of the fog. These silhouettes were the corpses which previously littered the ground. As the dead bodies misshapen forms began to peek out from the fog, a spark of what can only be described as negative light shone from their sunken eyes like a black glow which consumed all light and color it touched.
“Necromancer…” Q whispered.
“You.” The figure finally spoke. “Are you with the church?”
At this point Q finally noticed that the figure’s attention was focused far more on Cinnamon than herself. “No, we’re not with the church. We were part of the village. See? I have a hat.” Q pointed to her witch hat.
“...” Apparently the figure wasn’t sure what to make of that as it remained silent.
“I’m telling the truth you know! I can name all the Grand Witches, or maybe you want me to talk about the village itself?” Q felt a little desperate to convince the figure as she really didn’t want to fight it. Something about those undead made her feel incredibly… off.
“...I believe you.” The figure appeared to be convinced as they pulled down their hood to reveal a youthful female face with delicate features. Her eyes were a clear, sky blue and her hair was a light ashen grey. This was all complimented by her light-brown skin color, and slender body. “You probably know from the glowing words above my head, but I’m Clover, a level 95 necromancer.” As her soft voice rang out, the undead which had risen began to shamble off to some random directions leaving only the three players in the crater.
“Cinn, you can let us down now.” Q no longer felt any hostility from Clover so she decided to show a bit of courtesy. “My name is Q. Level 46 Runemaster. My friend here is Cinnamon-”
“Level 45 Guardian.” Cinnamon finished. “What are you doing in this village, Clover?”
“Me? I came back to visit the village after level grinding for a while. I didn’t expect that it would be completely destroyed though. Especially this crater…”
“Ah, sorry. That was me.” Q scratched her cheek in embarrassment. “My last attack may have gone a little overboard.”
“You?” Clover raised an eyebrow in doubt. “Well, not that it matters. Why are you two in the village?”
“We died while defending the village and just respawned. By the way, I’m assuming you’re the one who dealt with all of these soldiers?”
“Yes. I rushed here when I felt a large wave of mana while travelling through the forest. That was probably you now that I think about it. The only things I saw in the village were the Church of Luxus and players picking through the houses and stealing valuables. Of course, I killed every single one of them. When the first ones began turning into zombies the rest fell into panic and became easy pickings.” Clover sported an evil smile. “Oh yes, don’t worry about the witches remains. I gathered them all and gave them a proper burial.”
“Thanks. Pamerun and the rest will be glad to hear that. By the way did you happen to see a sparkly priest while you were there?”
“No, there were only common soldiers and a few commander-looking people left behind. By the way… is that normal for her?” Clover pointed at Cinnamon who was simultaneously burying her face in Q’s ears while hugging her tail.
“Yeah. No need to pay too much attention to her. I wonder if the underground library is still alright.” Q said as she surveyed the destroyed village.
“It should be. I went down there to check but the doors remained shut no matter what I did.”
“Really? Hey Cinn, let’s go check it out… Cinn?”
“*Heavy Breathing*”
“Cinn!”
“Oh! Yes.” Cinnamon took flight and began heading towards the Town Hall. On their way there Q got a friend invite and saw that it was from Clover. After accepting it Clover sent a message.
Ditto.
Also one of my friends managed to escape with the witches so if you ever want an update on what's going on with them just message me.
When she closed the message box Cinnamon was already flying down the giant staircase. They reached the bottom in no time and were greeted by the enormous door that lead into the library. This time though, the door was closed and had a small indent in the center which looked suspiciously similar to Q’s staff. After she asked Cinnamon to fly closer, Q took out her staff and inserted it into the door. There was a *click* sound, and the staff flew back into Q’s hand as the door began to open.
““We’ve been waiting for you.”” The Guardian of Knowledge and Wisdom said in unison.
“Woah you two! You’re alright! But why are you waiting here in the first floor? And why was the door locked? And why didn’t you help out the village when it was under attack?” Q rapid fired all the questions which were swirling around in her head.
“Come in first.” Morrigan flew further into the library followed by Glaukes.
Q and Cinnamon exchanged glances, then headed into the library. The place seemed to be unaffected by the battle above ground, but the two couldn’t find any sign of the usual enemies spawning. Soon they reached the center of the first floor where there was a small table with two chairs and some confectionaries. Morrigan and Glaukes indicated for them to sit down. Cinnamon plopped down in one of the chairs and began to fuss over Q’s hair while Q reached out and began munching on some of the snacks.
“Q, listen closely.” Morrigan began.
“*munch*... *munch*... Yeah?”
“We’re going to die soon.”
“*munch*........... What?”
“Perhaps you hadn’t noticed since we haven’t been hostile to you for a while now but…” Morrigan trailed off and Q suddenly felt a wave of hostility thrown at her.
[Guardian of Wisdom] - Level 78
“Your level… how’d it get lower?” Q was shocked to see the number drop so drastically.
“Level?” Morrigan seemed confused for a moment, but then nodded in understanding. “If that is what you use to refer to our level of power then yes, it is fading away. Ever since our master had died long ago, our power had slowly been fading away. Now with your removal of his seal, it’s fading faster. Regardless, we thought we should see you one last time before we fully disappear.”
“...I see…” Q felt incredibly depressed. There were too many things being lost in such a short time that her mood couldn’t help but drop. “So is that why you didn’t come out of the library to help in the invasion either?”
“Yes. To be more accurate it’s because we’re bound to this place by our master’s order. Now I have a question for you Q, which do you think is better? Wisdom, or knowledge?”
Wisdom or knowledge? Am I making a choice between the two guardians? Or is she asking about the concepts… Q mulled for a while, but eventually answered with, “Wisdom. I feel that having experience and good judgement is better than just having knowledge.”
“Heh.” Morrigan smiled while Glaukes frowned. “Our master thought that knowledge was much better, but as he continued living he realized that wisdom and knowledge are much better together.”
“Well they are kind of intertwined.” Q shrugged.
“True.” Morrigan nodded deeply then focused on Q. “Q, I shall now grant you the rest of my powers. Use them as you will.” A rush of dark mana came out from within Morrigan’s body and began to gather in the air. The mana solidified and then turned into a black book with an intricate cover which slowly floated down and landed into Q’s outstretched hands.
[Book of Wisdom (Legendary)] - A book representing the Guardian of Wisdom’s trust. Simply possessing the book grants you power. +25 WIS
“Thanks Morrigan.” Q smiled.
“*Ahem*. Although you chose Morrigan’s gift, I also have something to give… to your friend that is.” Glaukes flapped his wings a few times and a multitude of feathers fell out. Then bright mana began to gather into the feathers which sank into Cinnamon’s wings.
“This is unexpected. Thank you.” Cinnamon bowed politely.
“Hmph! Those are my prided feathers, so you better put them to good use!” For a moment Glaukes looked haughty, but then his body flickered and his expression dropped. “It seems it is time.”
“Yes, giving these gifts really brought us to our limits.” Morrigan said with a melancholic air. “Do not look sad Q. We are simply returning to how we were before being summoned as our master’s familiars.” The guardians slowly lost their material forms and began turning into specks of light which scattered into the air.
Q only nodded in silence as she watched their bodies slowly fade out of existence. So things are just going to end like this? Damn this game… She felt a strange mixture of loathing and admiration to the game which made her feel this way. It was then that Schorl began to pull on Q’s ears. “Ow! Hey, what is it Schorl? Don’t ruin the moment.”
“Ksha~”
“You want me to what!?”
“Ksha~!!!”
“... if you say so.” Q drew a rune for ‘gather’ and ‘condense’, then activated them in the middle of the fading guardians. At this point they had turned into nothing but light which was then gathered into the place the runes were used. The light continued to gather and condense until it turned into a small orb, then Q used a ‘materialize’ rune and activated it on the orb of light. The orb began to pulse and fluctuate for a while, then stopped as it turned into an egg which Q caught as it fell down. “Schorl, what the heck did I just do? Also how the heck do you know how to use my runes better than I do?”
“Ksha~...”
“Oh yeah, you have been there every time I trained. I thought you were asleep though… But seriously, did I just make life or something?”
“Well it happened so it must have been allowed.” Cinnamon spoke up. “After all, my sister wouldn’t add in things like that without a reason. I’ll ask her about it later if it really bothers you.”
“Thanks Cinn. By the way can you let me down for a bit? My arms are getting a bit stiff…”
“No. I have you for a whole day, and I intend on making the most out of it. Even with accelerated time, every hour counts you know!”
“Hold on…” Q felt something was off with that last sentence. “When you said a whole day… you meant 24 hours?”
“Yes.”
“...Real life hours?”
“Ufufufufufu~” Cinnamon didn’t answer and continued to rub her face in Q’s fur.