We sat on the couch with Lilith across from us. I quickly gave her a once over. She still seemed as pure as ever, with her innocent eyes covered by her tiny fingers. Her silvery hair cascaded down her shoulders like melted moonlight.
"I-I'm so sorry," she stuttered, a shy bloom of pink spreading across her face. "I promise I didn't mean to—"
"No, no, it's fine," Midori laughed. "I forgot to lock the door…"
Lilith slowly lowered her hands.
"I uhm…" She looked down at her lap. A small, sad smile was on her face as she folded into herself like a dropped petal.
"Are you okay?"
"Y-Yeah…"
…You're not convincing, girl. I shuffled forward and grasped Lilith's hands. "I'm here," I reassured her. Her cool hands clutched mine. Lilith whispered something underneath her breath.
"…? Sorry?" I asked.
"It's nothing," she replied, looking back up at me and letting go. A more sincere smile reached her lake-like eyes. Her silvery hair seemed to glow gently, warm with the pistachio light gleaming through the window like ribbons of thawing ice in the spring.
"Though, uhm…" Lilith looked away, pressing the tips of her two pointer fingers together. "What were you two doing…?"
Her ears reddened, and heat flared across my face right after.
"I-I! Well, uhm… cough." Midori shook with laughter beside me, her skin hot and pressing against mine.
"Hey, you could help me out here, you know," I hissed under my breath, elbowing Midori gently.
Midori let out a laugh, a soft ring in the small schoolhouse. "Don't tease Ms. Hiyomi like that," Midori smiled.
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean it like that—" Lilith waved frantically.
Midori slid an arm around my waist, pulling me closer and pressing me into her side. "No, no, don't worry, Ms. Lilith. I know you meant well."
She smiled.
Lilith stared at the two of us for a moment with an unreadable expression.
"Oh, that's right. Ms. Midori, didn't you want to say something to us?" Lilith asked quietly.
"Yes," Midori replied, her eyes dimming slightly and her arm shaking slightly around my waist.
"I… uhm…Well, I guess I'd better start with thanking the both of you. For the raid, and all that…"
Midori glanced down to her lap. "Sorry, I would have gotten other things prepared, but after… you know… Either way, thank you both so much."
*Ping!*
A translucent window popped up in front of me with a chime, an abstract splash of blue against the browns, greens, and muted earth tones of the alchemist school.
———
A quest has been updated.
Quest: [Vial Shortage Crisis - Alchemism School Exclusive] → [A Source Of Problems]
This event quest has been completed!
You have leveled up! (x3)
You have attribute points available.
Rewards have been distributed to your inventory.
Midori would like to talk to you more in private.
———
Lilith hesitated before standing. "Well, uhm… since the quest is over, I'll be heading out now. Will you be staying here in Agemon?
"...Are you going?"
Her eyes drooped back down to the ground, hidden behind the veil of her snowy hair. "Yes. An irl friend of mine is meeting me at the next city. I've stayed for a bit too long in Agëmon."
"Oh."
"I'll still be around, though. You can send me a text through in-game friend chat."
Lilith suddenly stepped forward and pulled me into a hug, her small body pressing into mine. She felt so poor and cold to the touch as she nuzzled me, holding me tight for a few seconds before pulling away.
When she looked back up, she looked somewhat better. Her eyes twinkled slightly like before as she smiled sheepishly.
"S-Sorry…" She played with her hair, with a slight flush on her face. "I-I uhm…. I really needed that."
…Cute. But I understood what she meant. I reached over, petting her head.
Lilith jolted at first from my touch, but eventually let me pet her hair. "A-Ah? E-Eh… okay…. Hehe."
After a while, she pulled away.
"I'll be going now," she said. "Thank you."
Lilith paused at the door. "Oh, and uhm… let me know when you get to the next city, okay? I'll be waiting."
"Are you sure you'll be okay?"
She nodded. "Mhmn." Lilith hesitated slightly before stepping out to the rush of players outside. "And uhm… Hiyomi, you seem like a really mature and kind person. I'm glad to have met you."
Then with a flash of her silvery hair, she was gone.
…Mature and kind…right.
Midori paused as the door clicked shut. "…Do you think she'll be fine?" She asked.
"…She should be fine."
Midori turned to look back at me. "…Are you going as well?"
I shook my head. "No. I'm staying. I haven't learned anything yet, you know. About alchemy." A quick glance at my HUD told me I still had time before I needed to log out to meet Daffodil.
Midori stared at me.
"…What?" I asked. "Do I have something on my face?"
Her lips twitched. "No. You're just… something else."
She laughed quietly, stretching her arms over her head. "Well, I have an appointment soon, so I'm afraid we can't get into alchemy today. But first… one of our professors lives just outside the city. It's time for her monthly ingredient resupply. It'll be really quick. Want to help out?"
…Is this going to trigger another questline? Because if it's like the last one, I swear to fucking god—
Midori laughed, seeing my expression. "It won't be like last time, I promise."
- - -
[5 minutes later, Agemon outskirt forest.]
Trees towered above us, their branches weaving a verdant green canopy like a basket.
"…So this is where your professor lives?" I asked doubtfully.
"One of our professors," Midori corrected.
We stood in front of a small forest cabin swallowed by vines, wooden crates in our arms.
Midori had a messenger bag slung over her shoulder. The cabin was so covered in the leafy green lattice that barely a speck of wood was visible beneath the writhing green mass—save for a lonely, cobble-flecked chimney and an ancient-looking doorknocker.
Midori knocked once.
"Professor?" she called.
No response.
"Professor?"
Midori tried again. A tiny bird fluttered off the chimney with a startled chirp and a puff of feathers.
"Could she be out?" I offered.
"Maybe," Midori sighed. "But she doesn't go out often… Ah well. We'll come back later. She's one of our best—so you'll probably end up here a lot."
Hopefully that'd be a while… I needed to check with Daffodil about our lunch later—hmmm?
A small screen popped up with a chime.
———
POI discovered: Professor A.'s Hut.
Description: A small, overgrown cabin belonging to one of the alchemist school's professors. It looks like she isn't here currently… Maybe she's out?
Attribute points can be assigned here. However, with the professor out, you might have to wait for a bit…
———
…Professor A?
Hmmm—
It hadn't been a second after the window had faded that I suddenly heard a voice behind us.
"HA_MD. That's you, right?"
I turned around to see a man dressed head to toe in leather armour with a bow in his hands walking towards us.
His armour looked… weird, like eastern-style. That was definitely strange, since last I remembered Lucidia was based in Europe.
His rugged boots scuffed softly against the forest floor of leaf litter and damp soil while a quiver full of arrows was slung around his back. He was accompanied by a cloaked woman in black as well as another man dressed in furs bearing a pole ax.
Midori stepped in front of me, gently placing her bag and things onto the bent grass. "May I ask who you are?"
The man with the bow—a ranger?—glanced at Midori before looking back at his party, ignoring her question.
"...The chief didn't mention anything about an NPC…"
The woman shifted underneath her cloak. "It's probably just a quest NPC, gege[1]. Don't worry about it."
The man with the animal furs hefted his ax over his shoulders and raised an eyebrow, looking over my field uniform. "Hey, hey—isn't she an alchemist? She actually picked that class?"
Hearing this, Midori bristled, clenching her hands into fists.
The woman shrugged. "No idea… but I don't want to be yelled at by the chief, so…"
The man with the bow cleared his throat. "Anyways, it looks like we found her. I'll send the location over IGC to the chief." The ranger turned his attention to fiddling with seemingly nothing in the air—I presumed he was texting someone in game. You couldn't see other player's HUD screens for privacy.
The woman's eyes were hidden underneath the brim of her hood, but I could easily feel her stare. "So, what do we do now?"
"Can we kill them?" The man with the furs asked.
"No, dumbass," the woman shot back. "We were told to find them, not to kill them."
"Same difference—"
The ranger seemingly dismissed a screen as a message came in. He nocked an arrow. "I got a response back from the chief. He said to bring them to our branch hall. Says that questlines generally break if the NPC dies. We can remove the extra one."
"Alriiiiight," the man with the ax smirked. He cracked his neck. "So I can kill her."
The woman spoke in a soft, too-casual voice. "Sigh. I guess we're doing this again..." A gleaming dagger slid into her hand with a flick.
Wait, wait, wait.
What the heck?
I stepped forward, panic spiking. "What is going on—"
"Relaxxxx, meimei. NPCs respawn. You won't lose your progress. We, the Dawnbreak Guild, just need to borrow you for a bit." The ranger pulled back his bow as three more green shimmering arrows appeared.
Meimei? The heck does that mean?
Midori stepped back in front of me, her hand sliding to grab a vial at her belt. "You touch Ms. Hiyomi, and I'm not responsible for what happens to you."
"Oooh. Nice sass on this one," the woman laughed.
"You—" Midori growled.
She didn't get to finish. There was a blur of movement as the man in furs lunged straight at Hiyomi.
Oh my god.
Immediately, all thoughts of logging off for Daffodil and lunch were pushed to the back of my mind. I couldn't help it when someone was literally trying to kill Midori.
Jeez… how would I explain this to Daffodil?
I couldn't get here on time because I was attacked in a game while trying to save a fictional woman that would… probably respawn?
Total turn-off…
But…
This felt wrong.
People trying to kill Midori, I mean.
The man with the ax drew in close.
I didn't want to fight. I didn't want to hurt anyone. I was a doctor. My whole life was built around stopping damage, not causing it.
But something inside me lurched. A strange feeling that I'd felt before during my fights with the miniboss as well as Qirune. A cold, sinking weight as pressure built behind my ribs.
This time, I felt even sicker, and a small, broken laugh tore itself from my lips. My breath came out thin and trembling.
"Don't…" My fingers curled slowly, nails digging into my palms. "Please dom't..."
The woman charged, a dagger flashing and twirling in her hand while the axe-man swung again—
*CRACK.*
A glass vial shattered in Midori's fist, black liquid oozing out and mixing with her blood.
I recognized that vial.
It was the same one she'd broken back at the square in the confrontation with Qirune.
The sight of Midori's hand twitching as the nerves and muscles misfired from the shards of broken glass in her palm bit me to the heart.
The brittle crack of the glass snapping echoed through the trees as the blood-dark mixture oozed onto the now-wilting grass. A black aura pulsed around Midori, and her eyes darkened to shimmering umbres.
Tendrils of ink uncoiled from Midori's shoulders, blooming outward like ink dropped in water.
She caught the axe mid-strike, pinching it between two tentacles before flicking a finger to stop the blade entirely.
"What the—cao[2]! You—" The axe-man clawed backwards in a cloud of dirt, yanking his axe from Midori and brandishing it for another attack.
"...Looks like we'll be preoccupied for a while." The ranger let out a short exhale before loosing his arrows. The points hissed through the air and were swallowed whole by Midori's writhing tendrils—
—except one.
The arrow buried itself deep in her shoulder. Midori flinched. Just barely. But it was enough to make something cold unspool inside my chest.
Imbarely noticed the air warping behind Midori—
—Wait, the cloaked woman was gone.
Shit.
The assassin class had a variety of vanishing, cloaking, and stealth skills. I remember the air shimmer queue from my PC days. I don't quite remember the name of the skill, but I sure as hell remembered how to track it.
My voice slipped out in a whisper. "Inventory."
My hand moved on its own, reaching out, grasping forward. I meant to draw my gathering knife—just something to stop her, something to make her hesitate.
But instead of my knife, a long, shimmering weapon appeared in my fingers, and I felt the cold hilt of a strange, needle-sharp rapier.
"Oh," I murmured.
And then it was already moving. There was a soft, sick thud as the sword drove through flesh and cloth, pinning the assassin woman to the dirt.
For a moment, she just stared at me.
"How did you—"
I tilted my head, smiling…probably a biiiit too wide. "Next time… maybe read all of your skill text? I—I don't want you to get hurt because you misunderstood something."
My voice shook, but my chest felt strangely warm. It wasn't nice to see someone hurt—no, of course not. I was a doctor. I hated that.
But seeing someone who tried to hurt Midori lying there helplessly, unable to get back up…
Mm.
A little laugh slipped out before I could stop it. "Hehe...Oh. Oh no."
Oh, no.
What am I laughing about? Hurting someone as a doctor? Even if they hurt Midori… My smile wavered. "This… this is bad."
For a moment, I quivered there. I could faintly hear the bleeps coming from the ER and the blood pooling, spilling all over my hands. The rush of lights, my stained scrubs and coat, the voices…
The faces…
My eyes drifted to the strange and ornate rapier still in my hands, cold as ice. The blade was pristine, and an elegant metal basket coiled around my fingers like a cage. The blade gleamed with a clinical, surgical shine, one that was too clean and too hungry.
The sight made the back of my throat tighten.
What was this thing, anyway?
An item window chimed open.
———
Apocryphal Item: Alexander's Syringe (Sword - Boss first clear reward)
Special Effect +Hypodermic
Movement speed +25%
Melee Weapon Accuracy +25%
Bleed +25%
Description: A thin rapier, the weapon of Alexander, [The Good Doctor]. It was once a pure weapon, used by its owner to protect his patients. After its owner lost his way, it was turned into a weapon of depravity, turning on those it used to save. Now purified once more, you hold it in your hands, with the memory of a fallen lover, knight, and truth. What do you choose?
———
…What.
The.
FUCK.
[1] 哥哥 (CN) - Direct translation is "older brother", though it can also be used as a casual term of endearment to a close friend / partner.
[2] 草 (CN) - Direct translation is 'grass' as well as similar plants, but in slang it's the equivalent of 'fuck'