I was lectured again… I was in deep contemplation after receiving Lady Madeline’s lecture. She was both angry and disappointed in me, for doing such a thing to her new friend. For just a moment, as she finished lecturing me and turned her head, I saw the glimpse of a tear on the corner of her eye. So she cares for Q that much… For a moment I felt incredible guilt and remorse for upsetting her. Even still, that won’t stop me! Regardless of whether or not milady approves of my methods, I will continue to make sure that it is safe to let Q stay with her. I will NOT let her go through THAT again… With that thought, my resolve was bolstered as I got up. “Now, I need to work on my report to Lady Marie.”

As I walked through the long hallways of the mansion, I caught sight of a few of the maids who were cleaning the windows. I bowed slightly to them, and they giggled and waved. A few of them even winked at me, to which I smiled pleasantly back. They squealed in pleasure and began whispering amongst themselves, and I sighed as I walked away. I wonder if they ever get tired of that exchange? I wondered as I made my way back to my room.

Once I was inside, I took a quick glance at my room. It was fairly large, but at the same time it was very simple as it had one bed and a side washroom. The things that took up most of the space though, were three or four bookshelves that were absolutely filled to the brim with books. I should probably organize these at some point… Perhaps donating a few to the local library would be fine? Though my ‘special books’ are definitely staying there. I stared at a certain spot in the shelves briefly before sitting at my desk.

The desk had a few neat piles of papers here and there (some more things I had to work through before the day was done), but I moved them aside to pull out my laptop. The familiar hum of the machine felt pleasant, and I waited a few moments for it to load. The laptop screen displayed a browser with multiple tabs open, all of them pertaining to basic and advanced knowledge on video games of any kind - particularly MMO games.

“Hmm… I have yet to finish reading that page. Ah, these two seem useful for future reference...” I began to carefully organize the pages as I bookmarked and closed them appropriately. After doing this I opened up the program I was using to record my reports, and then updated them with the most recent information I had obtained.

After completing this task, I stretched out my body. I think this is a good time to take a break. I walked outside and found someone standing in front of my door! “Lady Madeline!” I exclaimed, “What are you doing here?”

The familiar face of my master became flustered once she saw me. Her normally cold face had an adorable blush on it, and her deep blue eyes were swimming. “I… Never mind!” She ran off and her long, braided golden hair bobbed behind her.

After scratching my head for a moment I walked to the kitchen to make a quick snack and encountered the same group of maids from earlier. “Excuse me ladies, but did you happen to know why Lady Madeline was standing outside my door?” The maids exchanged looks, then began explaining one by one.

“After you passed by us in the hallway, Lady Madeline followed a few moments later.” One maid spoke.

“Yes yes, and she looked very worried as well.” A second one added.

“Isn’t that because Steph is looking down?” A third suggested.

““That’s it!”” The others agreed, and they all began chattering amongst themselves until I interrupted them.

“You say that I’m… looking down?” I felt my face with my free hand but didn’t feel anything out of place.

“Rather than look, I would describe it as… a feeling?”

“You had a very gloomy ‘aura’ around you, but you didn’t look any different from usual.”

“Didn’t it seem like a sad puppy that had been scolded for breaking something?”

““That’s it!””

“Thank you ladies, for your insight. You should probably get back to work though, or else the head maid may catch you.” I reminded them about their work before I left. The maids panicked and began to scrub the windows with increased vigor once the threat of the head maid was brought up.

Left alone again with my thoughts, I tried to recall what I felt after receiving Lady Madeline’s lecture. Sad puppy? Me? Did I really seem that miserable after receiving milady’s lecture? With a slightly troubled mind I eventually reached the kitchen and made a quick snack before heading back to my room. I looked again at the piles of papers on my desk and sighed as I got to work.

*****

“*Phew*” I climbed out of the game pod feeling slightly tired. Playing TWO makes my body incredibly sluggish… they must fix that sometime in the future, or else some problems might arise. I did a few light stretches before finally feeling that my body was able to work as it usually did. At least we’re out of the library though. Seeing all those books and being unable to read them… such agony!

I sat down and opened my laptop, and thought about what had just happened in TWO. To think that Q would actually help me in my investigation. Not that I believed everything she told me, but it does make my job a little easier. I suppose I should thank her for that at least. I began to type the new information I got from those girls, and added it into my report. After looking over it multiple times, I felt that it was finally good enough to send to Lady Marie.

I left my room with a stack of papers in hand, and made my way to Lady Marie’s office. I greeted some other servants on the way, as well as the maid group that I remembered from a few days ago. We exchanged some pleasantries (it was almost a routine by now) and I found myself in front of Lady Marie’s office. I knocked on the large, mahogany door and heard a faint “Come in!” from within. I stepped into the office and bowed respectfully as I greeted her.

“So this is the report you have compiled?” Lady Marie asked as she sipped on a cup of tea.

“Yes Lady Marie, the report consists of the people that Lady Madeline interacts with on a daily basis, though there are a few that she has talked to that I have yet to meet. I plan on investigating them once I get the opportunity to do so.”

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

“Good work Steph. I’ll be counting on you to continue keeping a close eye on those approaching Madeline.”

“Of course Lady. I will do anything, for Lady Madeline.” I bowed and left her office.

Report on People Close to Lady Madeline

(For ease of understanding, I will refer to everyone with their in-game names)

Lady Madeline (who is known as Brie in game) travels in a group of 5, she and myself included. The other three members are girls known as Q, Kukis and Cinnamon. While these three members are perfectly fine with milady and she is comfortable with them, I don’t intend on letting my guard down. After all, I don’t want that incident to repeat itself.

Actually I thought that milady being fine with those members was strange at first. You know how she is around strangers after all. I asked her about this, and it turns out that she was so caught up in Q’s pace that she wasn’t able to put on her ‘cold face’. This resulted in each of these girls liking who she is without having to tear away her mask. I asked them to give a single sentence on their impressions of milady, and here’s what they had to say.

Q: She’s a nice girl.

Kukis: She seems really haughty, but is actually a normal girl on the inside.

Cinnamon: A well-behaved and respectable girl.

Details on Q:

By far, Q is the most enigmatic of the group. She’s a strange girl who has a very contradictory personality. It seems she first met milady in a small town named Foria, and helped her while she had trouble adjusting to the new world. Milady holds much trust towards this individual, most likely due to Q being her first ‘friend’ in the game. This trust even goes so far that milady would allow Q to touch her!

To describe her physical appearance in one word, it would be ‘cute’. Her avatar is that of a small girl with fox ears and a tail. Her actions are often wild and childish, which matches her looks perfectly (she also has a slightly sadistic personality, in that she enjoys teasing people). Perhaps she’s created a persona to match her avatar though… Either way, it seems that milady enjoys watching Q’s antics, but until I can ascertain as to whether Q is acting or not, I will continue to keep my guard up against her. She also happens to have an extreme fondness for soft things (often putting herself in harm's way just to touch something soft), but still enjoys cute things even if they’re not soft.

Q has a few habits that I noticed, one of which being that she constantly taps her fingers against something. This action seems to be subconscious, as she herself doesn’t notice it. This suggests that she may have played instruments in the past, or perhaps she constantly used a computer and typed on a keyboard often. Another strange habit is that she would flick her tail and her ears every so often. Maybe this one is merely a result of obtaining a new body and limbs you wouldn’t normally have, but if she does this consciously then it may suggest that she has a very good sense of control over her body. Something to note is that her body posture oftentimes resembles that of a male’s, which is concerning to say the least. This leads me to believe that she could actually be a male in real life that happens to be playing with a female character (which is very common in video games). I do not have absolute evidence on this yet and cannot come to any conclusions, but it is something that I will thoroughly investigate.

Q most definitely has some background in martial arts. Though I say that, it seems she’s never learned a particular style and has only gone through the basics, as her movements are very simple and amateurish (but strangely familiar for some reason). Something important to note though is her incredible kinetic vision. For some reason Q seems to be able to see things that normal humans wouldn’t be able to trace. For example, I used one of my techniques to get behind her and attack her, but afterwards she was able to follow my movements! This was very surprising, as one would have to undergo a lot of training to ever match my movements, let alone follow them.

Something I personally find interesting about Q is her straightforwardness. When she heard from milady that I was bothering her, she took it upon herself to confront me and talk about what I had done. Her actions eventually led to me interviewing all the girls who surrounded milady, which I found incredibly helpful. While most people would feel offended by being investigated, Q fully welcomed it and even helped me.

In fact, her lack of hostility towards me is very suspicious. At some point in the game I attacked her with the intent to kill her, to which she responded with killing intent of her own. This is very interesting since it meant she acknowledged the fact that I actually wanted to kill her. In the end the fight was stopped by milady, and I left without being able to follow up. Once I signed in again though, Q had no ill will towards me, and even forgave me! She either felt nothing from seeing the face of someone who tried to kill her, or she’s very good at hiding her emotions. In conclusion, Q is a very mysterious person, and is the one who has the most priority in my investigations. I’ll make sure to update this information as often as possible.

Everyone’s thoughts about Q:

* Milady: She’s a good friend.

* Kukis: She’s like an easily excited little sister.

* Cinnamon: She’s the best.

Details on Kukis:

Kukis is easily the most ‘normal’ one in the group (besides milady and myself of course), and is fairly average in all aspects. Her one talent seems to lie in chemistry, as she is constantly on the lookout for new materials and ingredients to use in creating potions to consume. She even recreated Hot-Chocolate in the game, and when I asked her why she replied with: “It’s my favorite drink.”

While her interests lie in chemistry, she also happens to be an avid gamer. It seems that before TWO came out she was constantly online in one game or another, of almost any genre. Though she wouldn’t go into detail about her family life, it seems that she’s almost always home alone due to her parent’s busy work schedule.

Kukis first encountered milady in a forest, where she rudely grabbed her hand and made her fight against a boar! Together with Q they killed the boar, and it was then that she registered milady as a friend. It seems that milady puts much emphasis on this ‘friend list’, as she already became relatively comfortable with her at that point. According to milady, it seems that Kukis had initially showed much ‘physical displays of affection’, but after noticing that she didn’t enjoy it, she eventually stopped. At least she knows her manners. After a few more events she lectured milady on the basics of video games, which I personally would have wanted to do, but at the very least none of her knowledge was false and was actually useful.

Kukis often acts as the voice of reason, as Q’s antics can get a little out of hand. Her advice is often unheeded though, as Q charges in headfirst, bringing everyone else along with her. Sometimes she’s even swept into the flow of things and ends up joining Q in whatever crazy thing she’s thought up of at the time. Poor Kukis. She tries her best though, and I can appreciate that.

She doesn’t have any outstanding physical skills, but she moves quite well for someone who plays games for more than six hours a day. I believe that the game automatically makes adjustments to player’s movements, but that’s still just a theory. What she is good at though, is management of resources and knowledge of where to be and what to do in a fight. This is most likely a skill honed over years of online gaming, and it makes her a very effective teammate.

In short, Kukis is more or less a ‘gamer’, and is relatively harmless to milady. She knows how to keep her distance, and offers solid advice. I’ll keep an eye on her but for the most part I have judged her to be an ‘okay’ person.

Everyone’s thoughts about Kukis:

* Milady: She’s scary when you call her Violet Snack

* Q: She’s fun to talk to, but even more fun to tease.

* Cinnamon: Nice and useful.

Details on Cinnamon:

Cinnamon plays as an angel in game, which is ironic because she’s anything but that. Beneath that angelic exterior lies a devilish, calculating side that puts Q at the top of her priority list. Honestly speaking I feel that she is someone with a similar mindset to mine, but is more… mechanical. Cinnamon seems to consider all possibilities and outcomes of her decisions before doing anything, making it so that she gets the most favorable response out of Q (who she covets like the most precious thing in the world). I have noticed multiple times that her actions to get closer to Q are thoroughly calculated, from the positioning of her body, to Q’s mood at the time, and even the reactions of the surroundings.

To top it all off, she seems to have a deep connection to the Dimen Company, as she has a lot of insider information that isn’t available for public knowledge. She constantly mentions a ‘big-sister’, who is someone I believe to be at a high position in the company. I would like to investigate her true identity further, but that would involve much effort, resources, and possibly even some of Lord Richard’s influence (but of course I would investigate it if given the order).

When I asked what her purpose in playing the game was, she said it was simply to be with Q. This statement and her attitude towards Q shows that she’s very much devoted to her, but when I began asking her what their relationship was she began to avoid the question (something she hadn’t done up until that point). The strange thing is, no matter which way I worded the question, and no matter how indirect I was, she still didn’t reveal a single bit of information. Either Cinnamon is incredibly good at keeping secrets, or she’s been told not to.

I can say this at least; Cinnamon holds a high amount of hostility to me. I will admit this comes from the fact that I am antagonistic to Q, but something about Cinnamon’s attitude unnerves me. The way she looks at me makes me feel like i’m being analyzed by some sort of machine, and I find myself apprehensive when I think about her retaliation when Q isn’t around to stop her. In short, if Q holds the most threat to milady, Cinnamon holds the most threat to me.

Everyone’s thoughts on Cinnamon:

* Milady: She seems nice, but she keeps me away from Q.

* Q: A smart, trustworthy friend.

* Kukis: A complete Q devotee.

….

….

….

This concludes my report. I will continue to observe these three, and any others who may appear in the future. Please rest assured, as I will do everything in my power to help Lady Madeline, no matter what.