Once again, that question wasn’t directed to anyone else besides Maria. The black-white girl had her sole attention focused on her for some reason and it made Maria uncomfortable.
“Who the heck are you? Do I know you from somewhere?” Maria asked.
She had tried using [Inspect] earlier but unfortunately, she was too low-leveled to see any of the girl’s information. Usually, she’d at least be able to see her target’s name but this person’s name was completely obscured.
“Oh, silly me. I forgot that although I know you, you don’t know me~”
There was a twisted smile on her face but, suddenly, her expression warped into a gentle one as she began introducing herself timidly all of a sudden.
“M-My name is O-Ophelia…n-nice to m-m-meet you, M-Maria…”
“?”
Maria was shocked at this sudden change in demeanor. Earlier, she seemed pretty brash and impolite, but now, she was suddenly shy and seemingly innocent. This completely caught her by surprise.
“Okay…Ouphelia?” Maria said as she mispronounced the girl’s name. It wasn’t her fault because the girl introduced herself while stuttering.
Ophelia’s face turned a bit red before she corrected her, “I-It’s Ophelia…”
“Oh, I’m sorry–Ophelia.”
“Tch, don’t forget about me. I’m Hecate, you better remember that, Maria.”
Her demeanor once again changed as she reverted to her previous attitude and, this time, introduced herself as another person. Maria was confused once again, so she asked, “W-Wait, what’s your name then? Are you Hecate or Ophelia?”
“I’m both, stupid!”
“S-Stupid?!”
Maria gawked at the insult. She didn’t know whether to feel offended or astonished because it was only a second ago Hecate, or Ophelia, had introduced herself but was now calling her names. The girl had introduced herself as Hecate and Ophelia because she was both. In real life, this girl had a split-personality condition where one personality was named Hecate and the other Ophelia.
The brash and rude personality was Hecate, while the timid, polite, and innocent one was Ophelia. This condition had somehow manifested inside of the game, but unlike in the real world where Ophelia was the dominant personality, Hecate was dominant in the game world.
However, that was only when she was fighting or confronting any of her Red Name underlings or Red NPCs. In normal circumstances where she needed to talk with normal players and NPCs, Ophelia’s personality would manifest and take control of their body, but in this situation where Maria was both seen by them as an enemy and a normal person, the two personalities were constantly clashing and overtaking each other for control of their body.
That was why the girl was seemingly bipolar and unstable. One second she was rude and crass before suddenly being polite and innocent. Just like right now, after Hecate had just insulted Maria, Ophelia immediately apologized for her rudeness.
“I-I’m sorry, I-I-I didn’t m-m-mean to insult y-you!”
Ophelia immediately began to bow furiously in apology as her demeanor once again changed to her innocent side.
“O-Oh…”
Maria honestly couldn’t keep up with all of this. The person in the sky, who apparently had two names, was just impossible to get a grasp of and while the battlefield on Maria’s side had come to a standstill because of this newcomer, the other battlefield between the Celestial Order and Pantheon was still in full swing. This time around, each side was using skills and spells, so it was extremely intense and the shockwaves of their battle could be felt from where Maria and the others were at.
“Sky, we should take this opportunity to do something about Athena and Hermes. We can’t let Athena recover any more of her HP,” Lizzy whispered to Sky in the faction chat.
Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.
She saw Athena’s HP bar slowly increasing to almost half of her second to the last bar, which was around a third of her total HP. They had worked pretty hard to bring her down to her last bar of HP, so they shouldn’t sit around and wait for all that work to be for nothing.
“Then what about that newcomer? I don’t know why, but she seems pretty dangerous,” Sky asked.
“Let Mary deal with her. For now, that girl–Ophelia, Hecate, or whatever her name is–currently has her focus on Mary. The battle will be a 2 versus 2 between us and those two Pantheon bozos, but we still have the advantage!”
“Alright, let’s go then!”
Lizzy and Sky decided to resume their fight without Maria. Seeing as her friends were making a move, Maria was just about to head over and help them out when, suddenly, Hecate suddenly moved in front of her and blocked her way.
“Hey, what gives?” Maria asked with a frown.
“I asked you earlier if I could join…you still haven’t answered my question,” Hecate said. This time, her demeanor had returned to that very rude one.
“I don’t know what you’re going on about, but can’t you see this is an important fight between Gods and Primals?”
“I know.”
“If you know, then shouldn’t you back off then? You don’t have a Summon, so you’ll only die a vain death!”
“Idiot, who said I didn’t have one?”
Bahamut quickly began speaking telepathically to Maria after Hecate or Ophelia said her words, “Contractor, there’s a Primal hiding in the sky above us…”
“What?”
“It’s a familiar one too.”
Seeing that Maria had finally realized something, Hecate or Ophelia cried out towards the sky, “Chaos, show yourself!”
Maria looked up into the sky above her and saw the clouds parting away as a being slowly descended. This Summon’s appearance quickly put a momentary stop to all the battles as everyone was a bit shocked to see that another Primal had appeared. That’s right, this Summon was a Primal, just like Maria, Lizzy, and Sky’s Summons. This Primal was in the form of a giant 4-winged demon. It had 3 faces on its head with each face having a different expression–a sad expression, a happy expression, and an angry expression.
The giant demon also sported 2 pairs of arms and a thick serpentine tail, while surrounding it was a black cloud of smoke that had dark purple-colored lightning jumping around. This lightning would sometimes crash onto the ground and anything it touched would crumble, explode, or vaporize.
“Contractor, this one is Chaos, the Primal of Pandemonium. We must be careful,” Bahamut said to Maria.
“...Bahamut, I don’t know if you’re still holding back any power, but if you are, this might be a good time to go all out…”
“...”
Bahamut didn’t reply and only continued to glare at Chaos. Seeing the two Primals square off, the players on the other battlefield were puzzled. It was obvious from the Summon’s appearance that it was neither an Astral nor a God, so it had to be a Primal.
However, they wondered why this Primal was facing off against another Primal. They all thought that the Primals would stand together just like the Astrals and Gods did. The players saw that this Primal was facing against Maria’s Bahamut, but then, Eos noticed the girl floating next to the newly appeared Primal.
“Wait, a second, that girl…isn’t she Ophelia?” Eos said to no one in particular, but at the same time, Caedes had also just caught sight of the half-angel, half-devil girl.
“Hm?” It took a while for Caedes to realize who she was, but once he did, he immediately exclaimed, “It’s that wench, Hecate!”
“Huh? Who’s that?”
“It’s that half-angel, half-devil girl over there, of course. Are you going blind, Eos?”
“What are you talking about? That’s Ophelia! Do you think I'd forget the face of the girl who's been a massive pain in my neck since the start of the game? I'll never forget her, especially since she nearly broke apart the solid union I established within the devil community!”
His genuine response caused Caedes to doubt his memory, but even he wouldn't forget this very unique person. She had started off as an angel before somehow obtaining her devil half. There were a few times his guild would clash with her due to setting dungeon records, but after some time, she completely disappeared.
“Ophelia? Wait a minute.”
Caedes seemed to recall that name somewhere, so he quickly opened up the faction board and looked at the faction rankings.
“Ophelia, Ophelia, Ophelia… Ah, there she is!” Caedes exclaimed after he found the name. “What the heck? She’s part of the Pantheon…but why does she have a Primal as a Summon?”
Maria could see that this girl wanted to fight her and it didn’t seem like she was going to let her go.
“Ugh, you have a Primal, but from your faction emblem, you’re part of the Pantheon. What gives? Shouldn't you be on our side?”
“Hehehehe, who cares about factions or whatever Summon type I have. All I want to do now is join this battle so that I can fight you!” Hecate said as she cracked her knuckles before Ophelia took over and asked politely, “P-Please let me join…H-Hecate won’t s-s-s-stop her n-nagging if y-you don’t…”
“Shut up, Ophelia!”
“S-S-S-Sorry…”
Maria had a frown on her face when Hecate or Ophelia started talking to herself like she was two completely different people. To be fair, even Maria thought that the girl was two different people, especially since she looked like she was two halves of two different people joined together into one person.
“Well, if it’s a fight you want, then it’s a fight you’ll get! I’ve become a little restless myself, so let’s spare the Primals from our battle and do things the old-fashioned way, yeah?”
“Kukukuku, I knew I would like you the moment I met you. I started watching your streams and I could feel that we’re two peas in a pod~” Hecate said as she took over. “I summoned Chaos already, so it’ll be a waste if he doesn't do anything except for that earlier attack, so why not have our Summons fight their battle while we fight ours?”
“Hmph, sounds good to me!”
“I like you more and more now, Maria~”
There was an ecstatic look on her face as she said this but Maria was feeling a little ticked off at how Hecate was continuously addressing her familiarly by her name when she hadn’t even properly introduced herself.
“Honestly, I don’t like the way you talk to me, but I’ll always accept a challenge.”
Maria took off from Bahamut’s shoulder and flew up into the sky. She wasn’t sure if the others on the ground wouldn’t interfere with their battle, so she sought a different place.
“Alright, this should be far away enough. Let’s fight here!” Maria said towards Hecate, who had followed after her.
She unsheathed her Calamity and kept it in its ax form as she started buffing herself with numerous support spells.
“I’ve been looking forward to this…Our battle will be legendary…”
“...Did you just pick that up from–”
“Enough talk, let’s fight!” Hecate roared as she charged at Maria with her bare hands.
“!”