A/N: I have been enjoying writing original stories these days.
"Dommie."
"Don't say it."
"I don't think we're in Kansas anymore."
"Dammit, Jackie!"
In the middle of an open space in what appears to be a forest, two figures carry out a conversation in a relaxed manner… well, they appeared to be relaxed.
"Okay, how about we take stock of the situation?" One of them said, he was a tall handsome middle aged man with blue eyes and silver hair swept to the back, he was wearing a long black coat over clean-cut black suit, he had a rugged appearance with silver trimmed beards connected from his hair to chin.
"Take stock?! Take stock, you say?! Look around you, Dommie! Do you not feel the wind on your skin? Do you not perceive the smell of dirt and grass? The heat of the sun? All these sensations. I don't know what to tell you, but this, this is definitely not [Seven Crowns]." The second of the two said, she was a short girl with red eyes and long silver hair, she was adorning a red frilly dress that contained black color hues along with black gloves and a black hairband, while she appeared to be a young child, her appearance gave off an air of maturity.
These two had woken up in this clearing just a few minutes ago.
"That is exactly why we must take stock of our situation, Jackie." The man rolled his eyes.
"Squee."
"Squee?"
"Dommie, call me by my name again." The short girl had a smile on her lips along with twinkling and expectant eyes.
"Your name? Jackie?"
"Squee!" She held her chest as if she had just been shot with an arrow.
"Hey, Jackie. Why are you acting like that, Jackie? if you keep acting like that, I don't know what I would do, Jackie." Dommie continued the assault, obviously enjoying the way Jackie squirmed.
"But seriously Jackie, what the hell?" He asked as he crouched before her.
"Do you really not know?" Jackie asked as she composed herself. Seeing as Dommie tilted his head, she continued. "Your voice sounds different, Dommie."
"Oh…" Dommie blinked. "You're right…" He said, tasting each word and hearing the sound.
"Yeah, it's deep and sexy, I love it."
A blush appeared on Dommie's face. "You realize your voice sounds different as well, right?"
And that was true, while Dommie's voice was deep and rich, Jackie's voice sounded refined and held a bit of allure.
"Oh, is that a request for your darling wife to call your name?" She said as she brought her face closer to his. "D-o-m-m-i-e~" She accentuated each syllable.
"Jackie, instead of being sexy, you look incredibly cute right now."
Now it was Jackie's turn to blush fiercely. She coughed into her gloved hand as she looked away. "You can't just say something like that out of nowhere." She said but there was no heat to her voice, after all, she loved receiving compliments from him, weird as the circumstances may be.
"Heh." Dommie smirked.
Jackie took a deep breath. "Alright, now that we are not panicking anymore. L-let's contact the game master, yeah?" She asked, looking nervously at Dommie.
Their whole previous dialogue had been to calm each other's nerves.
Dommie released a long breath as he stood up. "Yeah, let's."
"[Voice command: Contact game master!]"
Nothing happened, Dommie and Jackie looked at each other.
"[Voice command: Contact administrator.]"
"[Voice command: Report problem.]"
"[Voice command: Initiate overhaul.]"
Nothing happened either. They looked at each other again, knowing there was one last command they could try.
"[Voice command:…]" They gulped. "[…Log-out.]"
Nothing happened.
"D-dommie…" Jackie's voice stuttered.
"Wa-wait, I'm s-sure there is something we are d-doing wrong." Even he didn't believe what he said but he tried to assuage her worries nonetheless.
Those series of voice commands should have gotten them in contact with an administrator of [Seven Crowns] but there was no response, not even a menu screen.
Menu screen, Dommie realized.
"That's it."
"What? Did you figure something out?" Jackie asked.
"Yeah. [Menu]" Dommie said and then a blue holographic panel appeared in front of him. "Oh, I can access the menu."
"You can? I can't see anything though." Jackie said and Dommie looked at her and then back at the screen then her again.
"Even though it's right here?"
"Hmmm." Jackie hummed. "[Menu]" She said and the same holographic panel appeared in front of her. "Oh, I can see it. I guess I can't see yours, honestly that should have been obvious." She said, rubbing her forehead, it couldn't be helped, Jackie was the type of person whose thought processes stuttered if she was not in the right state of mind.
"Okay, let's see here." Dommie checked the menu interface.
***
[Status]
[Skills/Spells]
[Titles]
[Inventory]
[Settings]
***
Dommie sighed as he sat on the blades of grass on the ground. "There is no log out button."
"Mine doesn't have either." Jackie said as she sat on his lap.
"Okay, what do we remember? It was Saturday afternoon, right?" Dommie started.
"Yeah and we just had lunch, sure it was junk food but it was lunch." Jackie continued.
"Yeah and then we both logged into [Seven Crowns], the same game we have been playing even before we got married." Dommie said as he supported his weight with both hands.
"We did, we had made plans to conquer the [Last Labyrinth] after all since it was the game's seventh year anniversary." Jackie said as she leaned into him, resting her head on his chest.
"And then we succeeded." Dommie said, stroking her hair.
"Mmhmm. Yes, we succeeded and then we logged out." Jackie said, enjoying the attention.
"Yes, yes we did. So why?…" Why what, you ask? Well, that was easy. "WHY ARE WE NOW OUR GAME CHARACTERS?!!" Dommie screamed to the heavens.
[Seven Crowns] was a MMORPG set in a medieval world, it was a game where players had the freedom of adopting a persona and they could build whatever character they wanted. The reason it was called [Seven Crowns] was that aside of the already existing kingdoms in the world, players could create their own kingdoms as well, but only seven players were given that honor.
Aside from that, there was nothing really special about the game, after all there were others like it and many of them was even better than [Seven Crowns], but the reason why Dommie and Jackie liked the game was because that was where they first met many years ago, so to them, it was and would always hold a special place.
"Dommie, if we are our game characters, does that mean this is the world of [Seven Crowns]?"
"I… don't know. There is no way to confirm it unless we go to the town or something but from the fact that we are in this appearance and the menu is the same, it likely is."
"I see…" She said, sounding a bit dejected.
"Something wrong?"
"Dommie, this was a character I created because games meant freedom of choice, you can do whatever you like… this character, Dommie, is a loli."
"Oh."
"'Oh' is right! I'm a loli, in fact you could even say I look like a child, a cute child sure but a child nonetheless. If I knew I would be inhabiting this body, I would have given it big boobs."
"Oh, don't be like that, look at me, I look like an old man pushing fifty. If anything, I'll be getting weird looks just from walking with you."
Their appearances prior to this event was very much not like this. They were both twenty-five after all so contrary to current appearances, Jackie was not as young as she looked and Dommie was not as old as he looked.
"It's also weird how even with a different appearance, my mind registers you as Dommie, as if you had always looked like that." Jackie said, pensively.
"I see, so it's not just me then…" Dommie had been feeling a little weirded out before due to it, because he definitely wasn't a lolicon but yet he still felt attracted to his wife.
Jackie sighed. "So we have three goals then. 1. Leaving this forest. 2. Confirming if this is the same world as the game. 3. Finding shelter and then we can decide what to do after."
"Hmmm, sounds like a plan." Dommie replied, they were both feeling calmer due to their current skinship. "But Jackie, if this is the world of [Seven Crowns], there should be monsters roaming about, right?"
Jackie gulped as a bestiary of [Seven Crowns]' monsters passed through her mind. Many of them were very scary.
"So that's why I was thinking… since this is our game characters, we should have our skills and stats right?" Dommie suggested and Jackie immediately snapped her head to look at him.
"That… makes sense." She said, the fact that they were both max levels would help greatly as well if they did have them.
Already they were both feeling excited, after all, no matter the circumstances they had found themselves in, it was true that they were both hardcore gamers, so the excitement of their spells and skills coming to life was greater than the trepidation of being in another world.
""[Status]"" They said together.
***
Name: Avril De'Lange Silverine
Race: Human+, Player
Class: [Sage+++]
Rank: [Queen?]
Level: 2501
CON: 628,752
MP: 1,354,349
STR: 127,601
DEX: 116,289
WIS: 377,777
***
Name: Cypher Aldreda Silverine
Race: Human+, Player
Class: [Sword-Mage+++]
Rank: [King?]
Level: 2501
CON: 1,298,878
MP: 704,455
STR: 427,582
DEX: 307,750
WIS: 267,777
***
There was only one word to describe what they both saw on their status screen.
""Wow.""
"This is bullshit!" Jackie started. "I have all my stats and levels…" She said, swiping at the air. "Even my spells and skills too."
"Me too! Honestly, I am getting kinda excited by this." Dommie grinned as he swiped at the air as well. "Hmmm, what is this plus sign beside human, and is 'player' even a race?"
"Oh, I have that too…" Jackie said. "Normally those plus signs are for when a class has evolved right? Does that mean our race evolved? Are we no longer human?"
"I don't feel any less or more human though, and besides, the sign is specifically beside 'human' so that means we are still human… maybe more, I don't really know."
"Yeah, there is a lot we don't know… but do you know what I know right now?" She asked as she hopped to her feet, the movement fluid and natural.
"What?" Dommie asked.
She grinned. "Magic go boom."
Dommie's eyes widened. "Waitwaitwait—" But it was too late.
Dommie has been married for five years, he knew his wife like he knew the back of his hand, she was someone who got excited very easily and was prone to impulsive behaviors, that is why he immediately knew what she was about to do.
She spoke a single word and the world around them turned white.
"[Cocytus]"
Finding herself in a different world as her game character, her max-level game character who has access to ridiculous spells even by game standards, Jackie got too excited, all her previous anxiety forgotten.
Jackie was a simple person, she was in another world, normally she would be feeling down because she had just been pulled out of her life but just as her husband's life revolved around her, her life revolved around him as well and luckily he was there with her… in this unknown world.
So there was no need to worry, she had everything she needed, her husband was all she needed and that's why she decided to look at the positives of being transported to another world as her game character, which meant magic.
But perhaps, she thought as she looked at the frozen landscape, she should have thought twice before casting that type of spell willy nilly.
Every single tree as far as the eye could see was encased in thick layers of ice, the once green blades of grass were now white, puff of white air left the breath of the two of them, and then snow started to fall from the sky.
In [Seven Crowns], [Cocytus] was described as a spell that freezes everything in sight within an instant. It was a spell noted as 'manifesting a fragment of Cocytus'.
That description was not wrong.
Dommie looked at Jackie who looked sheepish, despite the freezing and biting cold, both of them were fine, not looking worse for wears.
"At least we now know that cold can't affect us." She tried to offer but that just made Dommie bonk her head.
"Ow!… hey, that was actually painful!"
"Jackie, that could have killed us, dammit. You could have used a lower level spell for that!" Dommie scolded her.
"B-but I wanted it to go boom." She held her head with teary eyes.
Dommie sighed, he would scold her some more if it didn't feel like he was disciplining a child, her new appearance made it difficult for him to see her as anything but cute.
"Anyway, I noticed a few things from what you just did." Dommie started.
"Do tell." Jackie said, easily regaining her composure.
"First of all, as you casted the spell, one of my active skills automatically activated, [Player's Respite]… but yet I could still move."
Jackie blinked as she put on a pensive look.
[Player's Respite] was a skill that increased the perception of the user, making it seem as if time was passing slowly, normally the player couldn't move when the skill was active, most players used the skill to solve fast paced labyrinth puzzles or cast delayed spells.
"I think my dexterity stat was part of why I could move since it basically made my body keep up with the perception change."
"Hmm, but that does mean that skills do not work the same way as they did in the game." Jackie inferred.
"Exactly. It also means that a skill can automatically activate based on your needs because right now, I'm trying to see how far your spell range reached and the [Farsight] skill activated automatically as well."
Jackie turned her head and seemingly stared into the distance. "Oh, it doesn't even feel weird seeing things that are far away without a telescope. Oh wow, that spell covered up to a quarter mile." Jackie couldn't believe it. That spell was strong true but it wasn't that strong, and it was a spell most players could easily shrug.
"Yeah, that was the last thing I noticed. Just a theory but I think it's either because this isn't a game anymore or maybe because of your current equipped title."
"My title?" It made sense.
"Anyway, we should probably leave this place. There is no way people wouldn't notice a spell of that scale." Dommie said, looking at the small form of his wife, he was still having a hard time believing that his voluptuous wife was now a loli, what a terrible loss for mankind.
It didn't make sense but then again, nothing had made any sense so far.
"Dommie, there is a question mark beside my queen rank… do you think our kingdom is still around?" Jackie asked as she walked over.
"I have that on my king rank as well… well, only one way to find out."
"First of all. [Invisiblity]." He casted the magic on himself and Jackie.
"Why invisibility?" Jackie asked, even invisible, they could still see each other due to being in the same party.
"Well, we don't know anything about this world, right? Right now, anonymity is very important." Dommie replied.
"I see your point." Jackie said.
"Well then. [Warp gate: Silverine Kingdom]." Dommie said but nothing happened.
"Huh, you can't teleport?" Jackie asked.
"Hmmm, that's not it." Dommie furrowed his silver brows. "I feel like I got the equivalent of 'does not exist' when I tried to teleport there."
"Oh…" Jackie said. "Well, that's concerning. And we have most of our items inside the castle's vault."
"Yeah…" Dommie said, distracted. If the castle was not around, did that mean that their items and possessions were gone? They had a lot of items, some earned and some bought so that would be a really great loss.
"How about trying to teleport to the nearest town then?" Jackie suggested.
"Nearest town?"
"Yeah. [Silverine Kingdom] is a specific place, it might be possible that the name has changed and it might also be possible that this world is not [Seven Crowns], those are some of the reasons why the skill didn't work. But using an abstract place like 'nearest town' would work."
"Huh, baby did you somehow become smart?"
"Hey!" She kicked his leg.
"Ouch, hahaha. Sorry, sorry." He laughed.
"Hmph!…" She pouted. "But you're right. Somehow I believe what I just said to be correct even though I have never done a thing like that before."
"Hmmm, well, let's put that aside for later." Dommie said and Jackie agreed, there were too many things they still did not understand but now was not the time to ruminate on them. "For now, [Warp gate: Nearest town]"
Immediately, an ornate looking silver gate spawned from thin air, magic vibrating from it.
It opened outward, revealing a swirling mass of purple mana.
Jackie and Dommie looked at each other.
"Well then, together?" Dommie asked as he offered his hand.
Jackie smiled as she accepted it. "Together."
And together they went through the gate.