Edit: A/N: TKA OVA ep1 is out =) Was out on Friday 4/27. Check Youtube!
They say idiots can't catch a cold, but I somehow still got sick. I guess that proved that I was not an idiot or too much of an idiot. I caught a cold after being exposed to evening breeze for a prolonged period of time on the second night in City Q. I wasn't super sick at least. Just an itchy feeling on the back of my throat, runny nose, and a low grade fever. Nothing to get in the way of work.
For the week I was at Tyranny, I spend the mornings working on Project Desert Dust and helping Tyrannical Ambition with wild bosses in the afternoons. Old Han sat next to me hours unend running simulations and practicing his new techniques. Besides going to get lunch together, we didn't actually interacted with each other all that much.
"What did I miss this morning?" I asked Zhang XinJie and Lin JingYan when I rendezvoused with the two in game after lunch one day.
"We took down 2 bosses without any problems this morning." Zhang XinJie reported. I had a feeling, he would be the type of person to push up his glasses when he said that.
"I just got a report another wild boss had spawned." A character named Wandering Peak came running to report.
"Who are you?" I asked. The adults were talking. Who was this Wandering Peak trying to sit at the adult table?
"I'm Tyrannical Ambitions Guild Master, Jiang You (蒋游)."
"Soy sauce (酱油)(1)?" Who named their kid soy sauce?
"Wrong characters, Goddess." Wandering Peak send over a crying emoji.
x
Without Ye Xiu causing trouble for Zhang XinJie and Lin JingYan, it made fighting over the wild bosses very boring for me. Samsara and Herb Garden were the first to discover the boss. However, once Tyrannical Ambition got wind of the news and joined the fray, how could both of those guilds without a Master Technician helping them stand any chance?
Without a Master Technician helping them didn't mean an expert wasn't helping then. There was a swordmaster with extremely quick hand speed on Herb Garden's side that stood out. However, in a wild boss battle, one strong player doesn't make all that much difference if it can't work well with the rest of the players.
Under the commands of Master Technician Zhang XinJie and old general Lin JingYan, Tyrannical Ambition tore through the other two guilds like a hot knife through butter. Even Herb Garden's powerful swordmaster, along with all its regular players, was quickly suppressed.
I did recall there was someone from Tiny Herb that played a Swordmaster with extremely high hand speed. It had awhile since I last interacted with them, some of their names were hard for me to remember nowadays.
"Liu XiaoBie." Old Han said with a glance at my screen.
"Think Tiny Herb is also trying to get wild boss materials? If Wang JieXi join in too, it's gonna be a problem don't you think?" I stepped back from the battlefield to get a good view of the Herb Garden's side and was relieved to have not spot any witch character that stood out like a sore thumb.
"That guy won't waste his time in game unless something required his attention." Old Man shook his head.
"Oh, there is that Deception guy again." I noticed the Ninja from before. "Hey Zhang XinJie, Lin JingYan, spare me a healer or two. I need to take care of a stealing rat."
"What he do to you?" Old Han asked curiously since he personally wasn't too involved with in game situations.
"Can't you tell? He picks up equipments that people drops after they die in battle. He is a bottom feeder, but he is picky. He took my stuff before!" I told half truth and half lie. Deception actually never took my stuff before, but I couldn't say because Ye Xiu asked me to either in front of Old Han.
"What? That guy stole Goddess equipment before? Despicable! We will help." Some of the nearby players spat.
"That's normal in Glory. Go beat him up a few times until you are satisfied." Old Han said a bit nonchalantly in comparison to fired up Tyrannical Ambition's members.
"Help heal me, debuff him, and make sure he doesn't escape. But don't interfere otherwise okay?" I said to the helpers that were send my way.
"Yes Goddess!"
x
Once again, I engaged Deception in battle. With a few people helping me this time around, I eventually won. I won't lie, I had trouble defeating Deception. If it wasn't for all the Heals and Scared Flames, I most likely would have really died under his blade instead.
I could see he was a skillful player; no wonder Ye Xiu was interested in him. But I didn't know why Ye Xiu wanted me to kill him every time I saw him. It was a weird to way to try to recruit someone to your team if you asked me. Besides, did Deception even know Ye Xiu was the one behind everything? Come to think of it, the two of us never really got to exchange any words any time we fought. He wasn't the type to talk, and he kept me busy from talking. Poor Deception. I kind of pitied him a little in my heart.
After Tyrannical Ambition won the wild boss easily, it was back to waiting for the next one. I quickly grew bored. I yawned after taking a quick look over the recent transfers eNews in the Pro Alliance. After that, I watched Old Han do his character control exercises for a while.
Old Han let me try their team's training simulation with the White Robed Witch sometimes. I struggled but couldn't very far in the same jumping simulation Han WenQing was doing. I pouted a bit; he made it look so easy too. I kicked his chair when I got frustrated. The sudden jerk of the chair startled him and made him lose control of his character. Desert Dust missed a step and fell, thus failing the simulation.
"Childish." He humphed my way before returning to his training.
After killing more time, I opened up a window to watch a Chinese drama called "The Familiar Stranger". The show was recommended to me by SuSu to fill time when I spent most of my days alone in City H. The show had a pretty predictable plot, but at least the male actor in the show was good eye candy. Old Han shook his head at me when he saw me drool over the male lead. After watching a little over an episode, Zhang XinJie messaged me on QQ that a wild boss has appeared.
"Yes! Let's go!"
x
The White Robed Witch dashed her way quickly to the wild boss map. However, when I got there, the two Tyrannical Ambition troops lead by the two pro players were just idling about.
"What's going on? Is the four alliance here already? Seems a bit early for them to show up. What you guys looking at?" I made my way to the two generals to see what they were intently watching. I checked the time to make sure too. It was only 4:45pm. Ye Xiu wouldn't show up until at least after 6, depending how late everyone slept this morning.
"No, they are not here yet. There is a high chance that the player from Blue Brook's side is Blue Rain's new player, Lu HanWen." Lin JingYan said.
"Where?"
"Flowing Cloud. The Blademaster fighting against Liu XiaoBie from Herb Garden's side." Zhang XinJie pointed out the fierce ongoing battle between the two Blademasters. Sword aura from the two clashed perfectly one strike after another at superhuman speed. More people from Blue Guild and Herb Garden seemed to be watching the two in a circle than fighting over the wild boss. I bet that wild boss was feeling a bit sad being ignored at the moment.
"Flowing Cloud is Lu HanWen?!" I finally connected the two dots in my head. No wonder Blue Bridge kept calling Flowing Cloud Little Lu! I made a mental note to bother Blue Bridge later to see if I could hang out with the Flowing Cloud. I got to make sure Ye Xiu didn't discourage the kid to much by killing him too much in game. If Flowing Cloud was that child genius, then "It is no wonder his skills were pretty impressive." I thought and spoke out loud at the same time.
"God Ye came looking for you, Vice Captain Zhang." A normal player reported. Thinking about Ye Xiu, Ye Xiu seemed to come. I wonder if I think about cake, I will be able to eat delicious cake.
"Is he alone?" Zhang XinJie asked.
"Yes."
"I will go see what he wants." Zhang XinJie said before going to meet Ye Xiu and started some small talks.
"You don't think he was killed, do you?" I asked Lin JingYan a bit worried after Zhang XinJie didn't come back for a while.
"Let's go take a look." Lin JingYan's brawler lead the way through the crowd.
x
Ye Xiu didn't kill Zhang XinJie. The two just chatted while watching the duel between the two Blademasters.
"Liu XiaoBie might lose." Lin JingYan voiced his opinion when we arrived.
"Old Lin, you are finally willing to come out? Oh, XiaoBaiBai is here too?"
"Yea helping Tyrannical Ambition this week." I replied. Ye Xiu didn't seem surprised at this at all.
The gods made more small talks among themselves as we all observed the fight. Among the three gods, I merely a lowly witch. I didn't feel right joining in their conversation and just listened.
Just as quick as the wind changes, one moment the three gods were chatting peaceful, and the next Ye Xiu suddenly attacked Lin JingYan. Well if they started fighting, SuSu wouldn't be slow with her long range support too. If I wasn't careful, I would be caught in the crossfire too. A glowing marker landed at Lin JingYan's feet just as I teleported away as fast as I could.
x
Tyrannical Ambition lost this wild boss to Ye Xiu. The only thing I could say was thank god I was considered a neutral Goddess among the people. As long as I didn't attack Ye Xiu's side, the four alliance didn't attack me either. Once the wild boss died, the three gods went back to standing around watching the two swordmasters together, like the war between the guild didn't just happen moments before.
"It has already close to 30 minutes. This is never ending." I remarked. While the Four Alliance and Tyrannical Ambition fought, I paid more attention to Lu HanWen and Liu XiaoBie's battle than my own surrounding. The Blademasters' momentum never slowed down for one bit this whole time. "I'm so jealous. Young people just have so much more stamina." I let out a jealous sigh.
"You should brush up on your Chinese. People could take the meaning of your words differently." Ye Xiu and Old Han said the same time while the other two pro players went radio silent.
"But ShaBaiBai do have a point for once." Ye Xiu said after watching the fight a while longer.
"Don't call me that and I say a lot of useful things!" I whacked Let There Be Light with my staff. Ye Xiu guarded easily of course.
x
"Ay. Is there no end to this? Stop the heal. When will this fight finish?" Ye Xiu yelled to the Blue Brook and Herb Garden. Both sides glanced at our way but didn't show many signs of stopping, so Ye Xiu yelled again, "What are all of you waiting around for? Kill all the healers!"
This time, Blue Brook and Herb Garden finally reacted and stopped healing. I watched the two Blademaster fight intently while the three gods were engaged in small talk again. Both players eventually ran out of mana and could not use any class skills. They started trade blow for blow with normal attacks. Just as things were looking up for Liu XiaoBie, Lu HanWen glowed with sword aura.
"I Win!" Lu HanWen yelled in the end.
There was an uproar from Herb Garden's side. The players from Herb Garden hissed and shouted profanity to the 14 year old. Lu HanWen had only won because he had ordered a cleric to use Wish Prayer on him at some point so he could recover his mana to use his class skill. In short, he had used a underhanded method to win. In a way, the kid cheated.
"This is a group battle, who ever said it was one on one?" Lu HanWen dismissed the raging Herb Garden players with a simple and logical, yet despicable, explanation.
I couldn't help to adjust my in game view to look at Let There Be Light. Could this kid turned shameless after Ye Xiu beat him up a few times? Maybe Ye Xiu's shameless was contagious. I should distance myself for him and tell YiFan to be careful too. I quickly messaged YiFan to use hand sanitizer often. Can shameless be contained by hand sanitizer?
After this initial exciting conflict between the guilds, everything that happened for the next couple days in game were pretty insipid in comparison. I did tried to sneak off play with Blue Bridge and Little Lu a few times once but was caught by Old Han.
"Where do you think you are heading off to? " Old Han reminded from beside me in the lab. Darn, I forgot he was monitoring my online activities like parental control settings.
"...I was going to go spy on Blue Rain's new member for you guys." I said uneasily. I didn't tell a complete lie, but I didn't tell a complete truth either. Old Man had a face that was really hard to lie to because you know you'd be torn apart if he found out.
"No need. Stop slacking." Old Han saw right through through me.
"Okay." I said with a pout.
Sitting with Old Han hours unend had its perks. If I had a question about his equipment design, all I had to do was take a look at his computer screen or ask him. He didn't care to hide his silver equipment from my eyes because he trusted me and knew I was couldn't make heads and tails of the godly stats if I saw anyways. I finished Project Desert Dust art concept two days before the deadline.
I was pretty happy with how everything came out. Desert Dust charged aggressively towards an invisible enemy with a burning Emperor's Fist. The sand behind him swirled violently like he had kicked up a mini sandstorm. I think this drawing embodied Old Han's spirit pretty well.
"How do you feel about this?" I asked Old Han excited when I drew the final stroke on my tablet and saved my work. I didn't care what he was currently working on and pushed his chair in front of my monitor. "So what you think?" I asked again looking at the screen with him over his shoulder.
"Looks like all your other stick figure drawings." Old Han said rather unimpressed after taking only a glance and returned to his more 'important' training.
"Couldn't you say something nicer than usual since this is your character."
"Looks good. Happy now?"
"No. Not really. The damage has already been done." I pouted.
(1) Soy Sauce in Chinese is also Jiang You but with a different tone/ slight difference in pronunciation.
Extras Extras from my Random Idea Vault I
A/N: I had an idea in the very beginning of writing TWRW involving Naomi's pets in some plots. There was a lot problems and holes with the idea so was never put into the actual story. This is unedited work. Might be a bit rough to read. You have been warned!
x
I took a Taxi to City B airport two month after moving here. This Sunday was an exciting day because it was the day my babies would arrive in China and would live with me. Oh, no. Not human babies. My babies are my two dogs and a cat. Their arrival to China was delayed due to strict flying requirements and laws of flying pets between countries. It was a bit of a process and money to get all the necessary paperwork for three animals, but it was worth it. My three animals were on a routing flight from City S to City B right now. We would be reunited soon.
The sun was shining. The sky was blue. There was no cloud in sight and 0 percent chance for rain. My babies was touching down soon. I brought some tasty chicken jerky to greet them. What could possibly go wrong?
When I arrived at the arrival terminal, it was pure chaos at the airport. First, I thought it was just normal airport disorder, but I soon realized there was a situation there. There were quite a few airport staff running all around the building like crazy people. Did someone have a heart attack and no one knew how to do CPR?
[Attention Flyers. We have three pets on the loose. Please stay calm and cooperate with our airport staffs. We apologize for any inconvenience. Thank you for your understanding.] The overhead announcement said.
Well I felt sorry for whoever have their pet on the loose.
I went to one of service desk with three plane ticket numbers. "I'm here to pick up my animals from this flight."
"Ah, sorry ma'am. They are currently...running loose in the airport." The lady at the service desk said a bit hesitant.
"Sorry, what?" I asked again. I must have heard wrong.
"All three of your pets are running around the airport right now. We have a lot of staff trying to catch them though." The lady repeated in a different way nervously.
"WHAT?!" I roared. I couldn't believe three animals on the announcement was my pets. Although, at the same time I wasn't too surprised. My cat and my younger dog could be considered genius for their ability to break out of any carrier. The two partner in crime most likely broke out their elder brother too after their escape.
x
Somewhere else in the same airport, members of Tiny Herb just arrived from an away game. While they were walking pass by the luggage pick up, they saw two small black blurs run pass them.
"What was that? Ghosts?" They wondered after watching two airport staff also ran in the direction of the shadows. This left the team even more confused?
"Meow (Hi)." Was their answer. A grey striped tabby mewed and walked a figure 8 between YiFan's legs.
Cat? Where had a cat come from?
"Meow. (You smell kinda like Mom.)" The Cat purred and headbutted against YiFan's leg.
"Please catch that cat!" An out of breath airport personnelle came this way.
Wang JieXi picked up the cat wordessly.
"Meow? Meow? Meow? (What I do? Who are you? Why your eyes are different sizes?)" The cat mewed again and tilted its head cutely when picked up.
"Thank you for your help catching her. She got out of her cage with other two dogs. Her owner will be happy that she is safe." The staff explained when Wang JieXi when he handed the cat to him.
The cat, being manhandled for a tad too long, struggled against the man's grip and threatened the man with her claws. Fearing being scratched, the man dropped the cat and she took off running.
"Not again!" The tortured airport staff lamented before taking off running again.
x
Liu XiaoBie opened a bag of Cheetos while on the way down to Tiny Herb's team bus at the exit. He had just put a cheesy corn puff into his mouth when he heard whining noises and barks. He wondered if his mp3 or soundtrack malfunctioned.
"Arf, arf. Whine. (OMG! You haz fud. Can I has?)" Two black and tan weiner dogs looked up at the young man with the roundest and cutest puppy eyes ever while licking the side of their mouth.
"Catch those dogs!" Two guys in airport staff uniform ran this way.
Liu XiaoBie and YingJie reached down try to pick up the small elongated dogs.
"Grr! Arf! (No! No touch!)" The two dogs snarled and showed off their teeth before taking off running again.
x
Back to Naomi
I waited for 30 minutes on one of those uncomfortable airport seats. During the time, I saw a lot of different staffs running back and forth while yelling things. They still weren't able to catch my little monsters, but I would give them A+ for their effort of trying.
Just I let out a bored sigh, I heard barking nearby. I recognize those cute little yapping noises anywhere. My babies were close by!
"Max! Mouse! Mimi! Come!" I yelled as loud as I could in English in the middle of the airport while shaking the bag of treat I brought with.
I knew my babies wouldn't forget about me either. Soon, the sound of barking became clearer and louder. Then I saw them pop their little heads over from the second floor escalator.
"Babies! Come here!" I yelled again while breaking open the bag of treat.
The younger dog hoppity skipped down the moving metal stairs towards me with no problem. I leased the little guy as soon as he got close for the treat. But, my older dog whine and barked out of fear. He put his front paw on the strange human machine and he didn't like it.
"Arf! Arf! (Mom! Help!)" Max called from the second floor.
Just in Max's time of need, some familiar faces showed up. Wang JieXi picked up my 13lb dog brought him down the escalator.
"Arf! (Treat!)" Max raced towards me when Wang JieXi released him off the escalator ride.
"Max baby!" I petted the excited hot dog before leasing him too. "Thanks. They wouldn't let me up there to get him." I thanked Wang JieXi.
"These are your dogs?" Wang JieXi asked.
"Yup. Aren't they the cutest things? Oh YingJie, don't touch the small one. He doesn't like to be handled by strangers. You can pet Max though." I said to YingJie when I saw him inching to pet Mouse. Mouse might look cute, but he thought he was the toughest dog in the world. Little dog mentality. "I still have to find the cat too."
"We saw your cat." YiFan appeared from behind all his senior.
"Did you guys catch her?" I asked.
"Then she got away…" YiFan replied.
"Maybe not." I smiled when I saw a grey tail twitching from around a corner. "Wave this around." I took out a piece of long ribbon and handed it to YiFan.
"Ahaha. Are you ribbon dancing?" Some of the senior laughed but was quickly silence by a look from their Captain.
"What does this do?" YiFan asked while waving the ribbon around embarrassed.
"Cat fishing." I smile when I saw my cat running like a small grey cheetah and latching onto the ribbon.
"Gotcha!" I grabbed her and put her into a portable cat carrier.
"Purrrr. (Hi mom.)" She greeted me.
"Thanks for all your guy's help. I still have to finish some paperwork up for these three trouble makers with the airport. I will see you guys later." I said to everyone in Tiny Herb.
"Sister Wang, can YiFan and I play with your dogs and cat sometimes?" YingJie asked eagerly. I could see from his eyes that he loved animals, but his family probably didn't allow him to have one at home. "Sure. I need someone to help me walk them sometimes anyways. Just shoot me a QQ. See you guys around." I waved and walked off with my three babies.
x
A/N: Having pets would be an extra burden Naomi would have. With her work schedule, it's not really realistic to have/take care of the dogs unless she hired a dog sitter or something. In the beginning I did wanted to do more with Naomi's pet in the plot that's why they were mentioned a few times in the early chapters. But, there were just too many problems with this idea so that's why it never made it into the current fanfic. I also didn't like how the writing came out along with other some other issues. And that's why the pets are hardly ever mentioned nowadays. You can assume that they are happy living in the states with Naomi's parents.