Author's Notes
Happy holidays! I seem to be rushing with the last part. This thing is complete enough without the meeting with a certain guild.
June 24, 2025
I wasn't with Sachi when she woke up. Schera dragged us out to shop in Saint-Arkh in an honest attempt to take our minds off of the incident. We all needed a new set of casual clothes, repairs on our weapons and armor, and we needed to replenish our consumable supplies. Asuna had used a lot of healing potions trying to save someone, Sinon and Fie needed ammunition, and I needed a gun.
Buying a gun wasn't hard in Zemuria; anybody could do it. It was just another piece of equipment that players could get, another weapon like a sword, a mace or a bow. Given the prevalence of Orbal tech and the system helpers such as bullet prediction lines, guns were no more effective at killing and maiming than, say, Orbal Arts or even bows.
Unlike in real life, guns carried no taboo in Zemuria Online, but like in real life, using a gun to hit your intended target and nobody else took training. A bit less training, I suppose, when each gun generated a prediction line like a laser sight, but nonetheless.
Both Shinkawa and Casals used pistols as the weapon of choice when engaging other people at range. As someone who only used Sardine Darts to pull mobs from their friends and engage them in close combat, I lacked that option in PvP. If I only had that, I would have been able to stop Shinkawa and Kanamoto from murdering the Cats. I wouldn't have been close to as helpless as I was.
Sinon and Schera repeatedly asked me if I was sure I needed a gun. Sinon seemed quite shaken when she asked about the decision. She relented after I explained my reasoning, though she was adamant that I do not carry a weapon around until I was trained, to which I agreed. A gun is a gun is a gun no matter where it's used; it is indiscriminately lethal in the hands of someone who doesn't know what they're doing.
Schera, on the other hand, was worried about my mental state, which I could understand given how, uh, unbalanced I was. Looking back at it, I still don't know how I feel about the decision, and I'm not sure if I regret it to this day. But it seemed the right thing to do at the time, and…
And so I bought a revolver from the gun shop in Saint-Arkh. It was a Reinford model, a basic six-shot Orbal revolver that used a cylinder to store its projectiles. It was heavy, unwieldy, and not concealable at all. It also had the heaviest single-shot damage and range among the handguns the store had, and it had a good knock-back effect with the heavy 44-caliber slugs it used.
Sinon protested that choice, too. She wanted me to grab something light with excellent armor-penetration capabilities, something that wouldn't smack me in the face when I fired it and something that was easy to fire with one hand. I shot down that idea as soon as it left her mouth. It was more important to stop a murderer, not penetrate armor or whatever else she thought was necessary. I needed a "big iron" that would stop a person cold in their tracks when they try something funny, not a pea-shooter that has high DPS but didn't do much else.
The shop had a test range and I did smack myself in the face the first time I fired it, but that was hardly relevant.
When we returned, Joshua was waiting for us in the lobby, and he had a worried look on his face.
"Hey Joshua, what's going on?" Schera greeted him with a smile, but it disappeared quickly when he didn't return it.
"Thank goodness you're here," he said instead as we came to a stop around him. "Sachi woke up."
The implication of that silenced whatever bubbling conversations that were around us. "Oh, Aidios" was the exact thought going through everyone's mind: "Can we see her?"
"Yeah. She's been asking about the Cats, and she just wouldn't believe us," he turned around and broke into a brisk walk. We kept pace with him: "Estelle and Serenity are staying with her right now because Kloe can't extract herself from the War Room. I told them to keep her there until you guys come back."
If I could just rewind the time, if I could just be a bit better prepared, asked the villagers to post watch and maybe set up a couple of warning outposts with a flare gun, if I could just plan a couple of evacuation routes through the forest, there wouldn't have been 29 dead. Sachi and the Cats would still have been alive, and I wouldn't have to deal with this conversation.
I kept thinking all of that as we walked, having tuned out the conversation between Schera and Joshua entirely. For what it's worth, I was glad Schera was there. The wounds were still too fresh for any one of us four to think rationally, especially when it comes to anything related to the incident. We had to, because we needed to work with the SRG and the governments to figure out a response to this Laughing Coffin threat, but doing so took a lot of restraint none of us had in abundance.
"Kirito," Schera called to me, and I realized that Sachi was just on the other side of the door in front of us.
"Yeah," I answered her, not daring to take my eyes off the door as if it were a gateway to R'lyeh.
"How do you want to play this?" She pressed. Noticing that my shoulders were shaking slightly, she wrapped an arm around them.
"I… I don't actually know," I took a deep breath. Too many things were going in my mind. How would she react upon seeing us? What would she do when she sees the truth? Would she attack us like Asuna did? Or break down like I did in front of Argo? Or some other unpredictable behavior? What would she do?
"Winging it, then," she said with a dry smile.
As much as I didn't want to, that seemed like the only option. And then, the time for thinking ended when Joshua knocked on the door.
"Coming," Estelle's voice called out, and the door opened a couple seconds later. The relief on her face was obvious, but it only lasted a moment: "Oh thank Aidios."
Sachi was sitting in the couch with a small girl. Exhaustion hit her a lot harder than it did me. She was wearing a comfortable set of lavender blue pajamas with a flowery pattern and a pair of greyish furry slippers. Her hair wasn't as messy as Asuna's were; I assumed that it was because her hair was a lot shorter and thus easier to organize. There were shadows under her blue eyes, and they were darting about like those on a frightened squirrel.
I assumed the other girl was Serenity, Arios' daughter. She was about as tall as one can reasonably expect for a 12-year-old; that is, she was at about my chest level. She had shoulder-length blueish black hair like her dad that shone under the light. The hair flowed to her back, but two side-tails were tied with red elastic bands. Her eyes were a deep blueish-brown as well; they were twinkling as she focused on Sachi. Her blouse was a lighter shade of blue, her skirt a dark, natural green with some fluffy edges. Her staff leaned against the wall to the side; it had a mechanical imitation of a blue lily with green leaves as the head and a shaft of matte silver.
Estelle closed the door behind her and joined Joshua outside, presumably to keep watch and give us a bit of privacy. Both Sachi and Serenity turned their attention to us and stood up. Sachi looked visibly relaxed, but Serenity had a thoughtful expression on her face.
"Hello everyone," she said with a friendly smile and an actual curtsy. "I'm Serenity. You must be the players I heard about from my dad. It's nice to meet you."
We introduced ourselves. There was still this tension in Sachi that was reflected in her restlessness. Subconsciously she had to have realized the truth; her rational mind just refused to accept it.
"Hey, Asuna, Kirito, sorry about sleeping in and not looking for you guys," she smiled at us apologetically. Nobody took a seat. "Were you handing off the cargo with Ducker?"
There was a lump in my throat: "No, I wasn't."
"Oh," her face froze for a moment, but she quickly recovered: "Then, do you know when they'll be back? I think we have a couple of jobs still, so we can't stick around here for long."
"They… won't be back," I said quietly. Asuna grasped my hand, and I squeezed hers as if it were a lifeline, some straw of salvation before I fell down the bottomless pit of an irrecoverable mistake.
Was it the right thing to do just to shatter that illusion of hers? She was simply defending herself from the truth, protecting her sanity from finally snapping under the amount of grief she had. Neither Asuna nor I had come to terms with the event yet. We failed to protect them. We shouldered responsibility for their murder. What rights did we have to inflict this kind of cruelty on her, to strip her of the shield made out of denial?
But then, a shield of denial is paper thin. Eventually she will have to acknowledge it. A wound could only heal if it were properly addressed; the earlier that could be done, the earlier the healing process could begin.
I could see Sachi hit a mental speed bump. She actually blinked in surprise, but then somehow her rational mind deemed it fit to discard the fact that I didn't set a time limit in that sentence: "Well, I'm sure they're a bit busy right now, what with the handoff and all. They're probably out getting supplies to repair the trucks."
"Sachi," Asuna bit her lips and said quietly.
"Why don't we all sit down and have some tea and pastries while we chat?" Schera tried to placate the group. There was something simmering in the air.
"No, I gotta go find Ducker; if they're this busy, they'll need my help," Sachi shook her head.
"Sachi," Asuna called again, a bit louder this time. My eyes met Serenity's; even though she didn't say anything, they told me enough about the situation. She tried to distract Sachi from thinking about the Cats, but even she was at her wit's end.
"I mean, we've got to pick up some merchandise from the Artists' Alley in Saint-Arkh, then go to Parm and get a couple of orders of dyed fabric, and then pick up some more stuff from… from…" She counted with fingers the jobs they supposedly had, and then started stammering a bit. I wonder if she was thinking about Hamel; given the context, she probably was, but she glossed over it: "from the place! Yeah, from the place. Keita has the address so he'll be able to find the guy. I wonder if Ducker's encountered any trouble? He's not that good with people, so I wouldn't be surprised if he's found himself arguing with someone already…"
"Sachi!" Asuna snapped. The room was quiet enough that I could hear a needle falling onto the carpet.
"Miss Asuna? What's going on?" Sachi said, a bit startled.
"Sachi, you… they are… they're gone…" Asuna stammered.
"Gone? Keita and Ducker wouldn't just abandon me; we've known each other since a long time ago! In real life, even! They've stuck by me for so long, why would they do that? They're just busy, that must be it—"
"They're dead!" Asuan interrupted Sachi. Two pairs of eyes met each other, Asuna's hazelnut brown against Sachi's deep blue.
"Dead? No, that was just a bad dream last night! They can't be dead. It's not like we've done anything that would get people to try to kill us, and we've been plenty careful when we levelled, so that can't be right." Sachi took a deep breath and shook her head. Then, her eyes met mine. There was desperation and pleading there. It shook me, how deep that denial ran.
"Sachi," I said, taking a deep breath and keeping my voice as low as possible.
"Right? Kirito, she's making a joke, right? But, but I mean, you're much more of the type that would joke about these things. Asuna's responsible and helpful, she wouldn't…"
"Sachi, she is not joking." It wasn't the answer she hoped to hear, and especially not from me. "They… Keita, Ducker, Tetsuo, Sasamaru… they died defending us at Hamel."
The name of the village seemed to click with something in her head, and she snapped like a taut steel cable suddenly being cut with a sharp instrument. She started hyperventilating, her face flashing shades of red, white, blue and green as her breathing became shorter, faster, and shallower. Her legs wobbled as she struggled to stand; Schera stepped in and wrapped an arm around her waist to hold her steady.
Sachi put a hand on her heaving chest, but her other hand began to shake, and she was doubling over. There was quite a bit of dry heaving, as if she was trying to throw out her stomach from her windpipe. Terrible gurgling and dry retching resulted in loud coughs. Sweat beaded around her face and rolled down her cheeks. Tears, too, though that I completely understood.
"She's having a panic attack," Serenity noted quickly, and Fie concurred. She moved quickly to hug Sachi from the other side and whispered: "Breathe, Sachi. Breathe. In. Hold. Out. Hold."
Sachi tried to comply. She clutched at her chest with her free hand; the other hand was wrapped around Serenity's shoulder and was also squeezing hard.
"Let's sit down, okay?" Serenity said quietly as she started to move. Schera caught on quickly and moved Sachi with her to a leather lazy boy.
"You're going to be okay, Sachi; you're going to be okay," the smaller girl whispered into Sachi's ear as the older girl kept trying to breathe. "You're not going to suffocate. It'll go away. You're going to be okay."
"She's very experienced at this," noted Fie. Sinon nodded at that. Asuna and I, we almost had the same panic attack just watching her.
Sachi coughed some more, but gradually her breathing slowed down to normal. Serenity had fished out a bottle of water from her inventory; Sachi took it and drank it greedily, still heaving her breaths a bit.
"Feeling better now?" Schera asked gently. She stroked Sachi's hair in an attempt to comfort her.
"I… they… oh Aidios… oh… ah…" She started sobbing. The sobs quickly turned into wails of anguish. None of us spoke. I tried to hold back my own tears, but I didn't succeed. None of us did.
"It… It wasn't a nightmare…" she managed to squeeze out between bouts of crying, "It wasn't… Ducker, he… kick… ah…"
We stood silently and watched. She needed to let it out as much as we did, and it wasn't like she was hurting anyone. Not that Kev didn't deserve a good bout of ass-kicking, but I wasn't particularly happy about Asuna being the one who was dishing it out.
The sobbing, the wailing, the uncontrollable sputtering of words, they died down and ramped up several times over a quarter of an hour, but the heaving and the shaking never completely went away. I didn't know when Asuna's hand found mine; her grip was like steel as her hand clung to mine.
"Feeling a bit better now?" Schera asked gently, laying a hand on Sachi's shoulder.
She shook her head. Serenity offered a simple white handkerchief, which she used to wipe her tears and blow her nose.
"Take as much time as you need," my voice was a bit hoarse. Asuna let go of my hand; whether she realized what it was doing was not for me to guess. "We'll be here."
"… Thanks," she said with a small nod.
June 28, 2025
Nights had been difficult for all of us in the past four days. I kept seeing Sack-Face Kanamoto's foot smashing against my head, feeling his iron-tipped boot strike my temple with incredible force. I kept seeing my HP bar drain to nothing, and my hand disintegrating into shimmering polygons as I fade in and out of consciousness. I kept hearing the screams Sachi made as I died, over, and over, and over again.
Mornings were exhausting. My days started at around 4AM, even though I shut my eyes not four hours ago. Waking up was a sudden affair most of the time, usually accompanied with sweat-drenched night clothes and waterlogged sheets. Showers after the start was cold and utterly useless for either calming down or waking up.
Serenity suggested meditation as part of coping with the stress. I didn't expect to pick up practicing Kendo kata as part of that, but I did. There were training dummies in the dojo in the dungeon of the expansive mansion, but I didn't feel like using them.
No, the dungeon was not used to torture people. It did have a decent shooting range, however; ventilated, air-conditioned, and built for both pistols and rifles. Sinon couldn't shoot her giant sniper cannon in there, but few places in Zemuria could let her do that safely.
Asuna coped with the problem of meditation differently. To the great benefit of our taste buds and no detriment to our waistlines, she cooked for us. Granted, that required Sinon, Fie and myself to go out and hunt for fresh ingredients, but that was as it should be. People who don't work do not get fed, and all.
Speaking of Sinon and Fie, Rutger gave them extended leave from Zephyr, and they had spent most of their meditative time inside said shooting range in the dungeons. Zeno and Leo, two large burly men in shades, hovered around them like overprotective papa geese during whatever "vacation time" they had accrued with the mercenary company. Leo—Leonidas was his full name in-game—was especially intimidating, seeing as how he was a mountainous dark-skinned man with long dreadlocks of curly black hair and how he liked wearing T-shirts a size too small for him. His weapon, an oversized power gauntlet, did much to scare any would-be harassers witless.
I swear, they were more like helicopter parents than Rutger was, and he was Fie's actual father.
But enough about that. I stuck to the back garden to practice my katas. I preferred the smell of flowers and leaves than the smell of damp stone and burnt gunpowder. I occasionally visited the place and shot with Sinon and Fie; that was par for the course, if only to learn how to handle a large caliber pistol without making a fool of myself.
It was the second morning that I woke up earlier than usual. The morning air was crisp and refreshing. The flowers smelled of sweet nectar, and the grass radiated scents of dew mixed with it being freshly cut. I was near the set of wood-and-glass tea table and chairs in the courtyard, under a marble-and-vine canopy. Dim orange Orbal lights on the pillars of the canopy gently illuminated the surroundings.
I took my stance and pulled out my sword. It felt heavier than before, but maybe it was because I was exhausted. It cut through the air with a sharp swish, the blade ringing slightly after I brought it to a halt.
It was a good sword; nicely balanced with a good heft, it felt both comfortable and comforting having it in my hand. It served me well during the raid on Carnelia Tower. It persevered during long, grueling fights. It held its edge during the fight with the Power Armor. It carved a trail of blood during my belated arrival at Hamel.
It didn't fail me. Not even once. I failed it, like I failed the Cats. I didn't think about how the village could be attacked, even though it was situated in the middle of a forest populated by mobs. I didn't think about how we could end up fighting people, even though I knew different players have different agenda in Zemuria. I didn't notice something was wrong quickly enough; embroiled in idle chatter, I didn't pay attention to my surroundings. I was too careful when I was making my way through the burning ruins of the village, and I wasted too much time. I was…
A hand grasped my wrist as I attempted to raise it again for another violent swing, its iron grip stopping me mid-motion. I was wallowing in my own misery so completely that I didn't notice that I was panting and shaking.
"You need a time out," Arios said as I did my best to relax myself.
"… I guess it wasn't so much a meditation, was it…" I mumbled and put away the sword. My hands were cold and sweaty as I wringed them. They were trembling too, and it wasn't from the cold.
"You were wallowing," he said much to my surprise. At my arched eyebrows, he continued with a small, bitter smile: "I know that look. You're a decent man, and I've seen that look in my line of work and in the mirror."
In the mirror? He couldn't possibly mean…
"Here," he tossed me something. It was a wooden samurai sword, a bokken. Argus configured it such that it could mimic any one-handed sword in the game that I possessed at some point. Being a practice weapon, it never dealt any damage to anyone, including monsters.
He pulled out the same thing, and held it in a pose that I instantly recognized as the initiation position of a battojutsu move, though I couldn't recognize which style it was. It was an invitation for a spar, one that I couldn't refuse.
I readied myself in my Kendo pose, and the attack came. Fast and heavy, it was all I could do to parry the attack. Wood clanked with wood, and the most I could do was to redirect the attack away from smacking me in the cheek. An opening was there for a brief second, which I looked to take advantage, but he slid past my attack with a graceful twist of his body. The next thing I knew was a heavy and dull strike on my right arm.
"One," he said quietly as we separated to ready position again. The next half a dozen bouts ended the same way, with him striking first and then counterattacking. My arms, my legs, my back, my chest; every area but my head was a target.
He was fast, smooth and deadly. He wasn't as fast as Yuuki was, nor as graceful as Asuna was, but there was a deadly precision of purpose in his movements. Every move he made was intentional, having predicted and calculated my responses and his follow-up moves at lightning speeds long before I saw him move. There were neither flourishes nor embellishments, the intent of which was deemed impure and trimmed away by the wielder.
In real life, with real swords, I would've been decapitated or dismembered many times over. Even in Zemuria Online, I would have suffered enough damage to be in the red, and he did all of it without relying on any assisting system from the game like Crafts.
The sky was turning brighter as we completed another bout. This time, he struck me on the back with enough force to make me stumble and to knock the wind out of me. I coughed and scrambled back up, my sword still in my hand.
"Focus," he said, resuming his pose. "Kirito wouldn't let me smack him around like this."
I took a deep breath. I was too busy defending myself against his attacks. The "funk", for the lack of a better word, I was in prevented me from thinking clearly. But I couldn't help it.
He came at me again: heavy smack to the left, light smack to the left, and then a full swing at my abdomen. Using the window I made him by dodging back with a hop, he coiled his arm in front of his chest and unleashed another round of vicious attacks. He was aiming at my sword with the singular goal of knocking it out of my hands. His honest, efficient and ruthless movements could have no other purpose.
I counterattacked for the first time during our little exercise. Swings were parried, dodged, or simply missed. He stepped backwards a couple times as I advanced, grasping his sword with both hands also for the first time.
"We met each other only a couple days ago," I said in the middle of two swings. Adrenaline was pumping in my veins, even though my physical body remained motionless. "How do you know me?"
"By reputation, and by observing you during the short time we met," he said as he slid past me again. I was able to parry the attack with an unconventional twist of my body, but his next attack struck me on the arm. "That was a little bit better."
"Look, I appreciate you trying to help me through this and all," I relaxed temporarily and flexed my arms, irritated at the numbness of where the practice weapon struck. "But you got more important things to do than salvaging myself from my own stupidity."
"It's not stupidity that you were doing what you were doing," he said, having also relaxed his own stance. I had to raise my head a bit to look him in the eye. "What was stupid about it was that you were dealing with it alone."
"What, I should call everyone else together to have a pity party? 'Let's all sit down and bawl our eyes out and hug each other and maybe we'll feel better about the situation?'" I snapped at him. It was quite rude in hindsight; he was only trying to help me.
"No, but you're definitely not going to climb out of that hole yourself," he was patient and gestured at a seat near the tea table. I shook my head, and he shrugged as if acquiescing to my stubbornness. "It wasn't your fault, and you know it. You're just afraid to acknowledge the fact that there was nothing you could do now to change the situation."
"I…"
"That line of thought helps no one, least of all yourself," he didn't give me a chance to interrupt, "you are asking way too much of yourself, expecting more than anyone ever did of you."
"We're the players on the front lines. It's natural to expect much from us."
"But that isn't the case with you, is it? It's less about what other people expect of Kirito the player, and more about what you expect of Kirito as a human being." He took a deep breath. We stared at each other, against the backdrop of a hatefully beautiful dawn.
Was it?
It was only natural that we from the SRG placed ourselves in more danger than the middies or the merchants had to. Someone had to go out and find the treasures, and we "hardcore players" gladly took up that mantle. We had all witnessed death during the raid on Esmelas. Some of us saw more than others during their own adventures. But this was the first time I had people so close to me taken away by the game. And I couldn't help but feel like I could have prevented it somehow. That I didn't do enough. That it was my fault.
"You know, that line of thinking is quite the display of arrogance," he said with a wry smile. "To think that you somehow have the power to control everything, and that you allowed a tragedy like this to occur…"
"I know!" I snapped at him. "It's… it's just that…"
"I know. I felt the same once. Did you know that Serenity is blind?"
What? "I… she seems... I'm pretty sure she could see without problems in the game."
"Yes, in the game, she could," he heaved a breath to let some tension back into his body, as if he was preparing for some trial. "This is a long story. Mind sitting down with me? You too, Yuuki."
Yuuki?
The black-haired girl emerged from behind me, clad in a lavender short-sleeved dress shirt and a pair of denim hot pants. She had her hand on the hilt of her sword, and she was listening to our conversation.
"How long have you been there?" I swallowed.
"A while; I've got the NPC maids to bring out tea and cookies, even though it's like six o'clock in the morning," she said with a small smile as she made her way toward the tea table. "Might as well sit down, because sparring with either of you right now is no fun."
The chair was made out of luxuriously painted and lacquered wooden planks. It felt remarkably warm to the touch. The maids arrived not long after, bearing a tray of tea implements in fine bone china and a large silver tower of assorted butter cookie trays.
"Mm, delish," Yuuki devoured a checked cookie with one chomp, "at least they got the cookies right."
"I suppose," I nibbled on one. It was a flower-shaped butter cookie with a sticky raspberry center. The texture and the taste was as I remembered. The steaming tea in the gold-rimmed cup smelled of chamomile.
"I should really learn how to cook. Serenity loved the sweets I bought her," Arios' eyes were full of his smile.
"You… you were saying that she couldn't see."
"Car crash, and a particularly nasty one at that," he said after a short moment of silence. That warm twinkle in his eyes had disappeared: "My wife was driving. A drunk driver in a Ford truck T-boned her at about three times the speed limit at an intersection. She was in a child restraint seat, but the impact was…"
"… I apologize," I bowed my head. "I shouldn't have…"
"No, it's okay," he took a deep breath and sipped the tea to calm himself. "She was four at the time. Her mother was… was declared dead on scene."
We were silent for a while. What was I supposed to say to that? "My condolences"? "Sorry that you have to go through all of that"? It all sounded so hollow. Our pain was nothing compared to his.
"I was out on patrol that night. I came to the scene as soon as Dispatch told me about the crash, and…" He choked a little. "I still have nightmares of watching the firemen trying to pull what was left of my wife out of the wreckage. My partner and a couple of others on the Force stopped me short from murdering the bastard at the wheel. Somehow, against all odds, he survived with just a concussion from the airbag blowing up in his face and some burns from the seatbelt. He walked out of the cabin, for Christ's sake! Serenity, my precious little girl, almost couldn't walk again."
My throat was dry. I hid my own awkwardness behind the cup of tea. It burned my throat like molten metal. The sensation of it reaching my stomach wasn't much better. The butter in the cookies tasted unpleasantly greasy.
"It was… difficult after her burial. Serenity was still in the hospital recovering from her injuries. Broken bones, concussion, optical nervous damage, torn tendons, et cetera, et cetera," he continued, his voice quieter than before. "Doctors operated on her three times just trying to put her back together, and they did their best, but the force of the impact plus the subsequent crash into the pedestrian light pole and… there was just too much damage."
Yuuki was shaking. She hid behind her teacup, but the cup was quivering along with her lips.
"She didn't understand what was going on at first. She was four years old! She barely understood the world. She cried when she finally understood, but it wasn't because she couldn't see any more, or that she would forever walk with a limp; it was because her mom was no longer with us."
"Have you… have you thought about ending it?"
A different voice this time. Sachi was there; she was standing near a pillar, tears streaming down her face. She was dressed lightly in a plain white T-shirt and comfortable navy blue pants; a pair of pink bunny slippers adorned her feet.
"Ending it?" Arios arched an eyebrow.
"You know, if it's… it's so painful, that is…" She stammered, all of a sudden flustered from being the focus of attention, "Have you thought about…"
And all of a sudden I knew what she meant. It was a chilling thought, one that I had entertained, however briefly. Realization dawned for both Yuuki and Arios not long after.
"I certainly have," he furrowed his eyebrows and spoke after a moment of hesitation, "But never for long. It wasn't the right thing to do."
"Why?"
"Because however much pain we are in, it is still a privilege to live. It is a blessing to have family, to have friends, and… and however hard we wish our pain to end, we will only cause more to those we care about and those who cares about us if we forfeit that privilege, if we squander that blessing before our time," he let out a heavy breath, and took in a longer one, "but more importantly, if I ended it early, what would happen to Serenity? Who would share her pain and shoulder her suffering? How much more would she grieve, all because of my selfish desire to be let off 'easy'?"
Sachi wiped her tears. The last couple of drops dripped from her face and disintegrated into brilliant wisps of polygons.
"She never complained about her condition, you know? Never once did she curse God or her life or blame anyone. Even to the bastard of a drunk driver, she had only forgiveness. She is a better person than I am," he continued, "I regret that she lost her innocence so early in her life. I am not going to fail her again, least of all shirk from my responsibilities as a father."
"Yeah, think about the people who would be left behind," Yuuki nodded emphatically. "The grief we shed never really goes away; it just changes into a different flavor and gets duplicated onto others."
"Sachi, you…"
"No, I'm okay," she shook her head and interrupted me. "I'm okay."
"Yeah, you'll be okay," Arios nodded at her with a faint smile. "You know, I am never more certain that entering this game is the right choice, for both Serenity and myself."
All three of us looked at him, but only Sachi and I had any surprise on our face.
"Because it was nervous damage, her brain's optical center was fortunately intact. The doctors theorized that the Medicuboid would be able to directly stimulate that optical center with signals coming from VR, and she would retain her vision in the game." He leaned back, his smile growing warmer, "and they were right. The smile she had on her face when she realized it alone was worth the entire venture. And, if we don't end up getting out of the game, at least I know I would be walking her to Heaven's Pearly Gates in front of St. Peter."
"… So, does Serenity want to get out of the game?" I asked.
"Yes," Arios didn't hesitate. His smile turned a little sour, though: "She didn't like the idea of being forced to stay in VR for a long time. She was concerned about the cost of our extended hospital stay. We were never a very wealthy family to begin with, and even with help from my colleagues we were barely making ends meet. As much as she liked the idea of being a, uh, 'magical girl', she still wanted to return to reality."
"She's so strong," Sachi had a tear-stained smile on her face.
Something else caught my attention, though: "Wait, you said 'Medicuboid', right? So she's connected to the game with a different device?"
"It's experimental," Yuuki spoke up with a small smile, "and it's designed for long-term medical treatment in a sterile environment. It's a stationary device unlike the portable NerveGear, and it integrates with the central nervous system much more deeply."
All three of us turned to her. Even Arios was surprised at her statements. She simply nodded with a small smile: "I suspect the reason the doctors hadn't yanked us is because of that deeper integration; even without the hidden microwave coils, a crash-out is likely to scramble our brains and cause unintended physical and mental damage."
"So, you're a tester, too," Arios breathed out a breath he was holding unintentionally.
"Yeah, and… and I'd like to keep that a secret between us," Yuuki smiled slightly and blushed, "It's nice being treated as just another player, you know, and not some crippled, frail girl that people should take pity on. I've had enough of that in my life, and I'm sick of it."
"Okay, I promise," I nodded. Sachi did the same, and she too was deep in thought.
Each of us had circumstances Outside. Sachi was probably the most normal out of the four of us. Compared to what Serenity and Yuuki had to go through, my situation was comparatively a non-issue. At least I am able-bodied and as normal as I can be, physically.
Strength comes in many forms. I was strong in Zemuria Online as a SRG member on the frontlines. I could solo a lot of mobs that middies couldn't. I could throw down with the best players in the game in a duel or in a fight to the death. But I, as a person, was neither strong nor resilient; not like Serenity or Yuuki was, and theirs were true strength in their character forged through adversity and misfortune. I was running from my insecurities, running from things I couldn't change. I was bargaining with the past about things I could not change. I was moping about the death of friends I cared about. Their deaths weren't because I wasn't strong enough; I fought Casals to a standstill. Circumstances—cursed and unfortunate as they were—meant that I couldn't make a difference.
Wasn't I doing the same thing with the situation with my family? Leafa was with me. She cared about me; I could tell. My aunt and uncle were with me. They cared about me, I could tell; as much as they would care about their own son.
So, what right did I have to reject them, to push them away, however unintentional it was? Wasn't that just like a child throwing a tantrum?
We must grow stronger. I must grow stronger in more ways than one. If we were to survive this, we had to be much more than we were when we got locked into the game, and not just from the perspective of player levels and equipment. We had to be better people. We had to be more resilient to trauma, because with Laughing Coffin loose and Ouroboros unrestrained, we were going to lose more people whether we liked it or not. The faster we could grow up and the faster we could keep them in check meant the fewer people were going to lose their lives.
Asuna had to have realized this; that was why she was so eager to head out. That was why she reacted so aggressively to Kev and Schera trying to hold her back. They were right to do that, of course; Asuna's mental state wasn't the most stable at the time.
"I… I'm going to take up gunsmithing," Sachi said quietly after what felt like forever. There was steel in her voice. "I'm not sure how good I'd be, and… and I'm not even sure if I would like it, but it…"
"Feels like the right thing to do?" Arios smiled at her and finished her sentence. "Yeah. Sometimes, you know better than you think you do. There's a workshop here in the mansion, too, so you might want to try that out. There should be an instructor in town to get you started."
She nodded. There was a little bit of her old self in the way her lips curled ever slightly upwards. There was... well, it was reassuring; I think that was when the healing really began for her.
"As for you, young man," Arios stood up and drew his practice weapon, "want to go a couple more rounds? Nothing serious; just to get you swinging again."
"Yeah," I replied with a small smile. The sword in my hand felt less wrong this time as I swung it. Still quite awkward, mind you; it wouldn't be a while before I could think about the incident without blaming myself, but I could consciously put a stop to it now without anyone helping.
And that was progress, I suppose.
June 30, 2025
Rean came to visit a couple of days later with some of his guild-mates. News of the massacre had propagated throughout the populace in all of Liberl, Erebonia and Crossbell eight days after the incident. There were multiple special issues of the Liberl News, the Imperial Chronicles and the Crossbell Times newspapers detailing the event, the circumstances and what we knew of the attacker. Security remained tight around all the land-based checkpoints, and airship patrols kept a tight watch in the skies.
So far all scouting and search missions to root out the Laughing Coffin group had ended in failure. All of them seemed to have melted into the shadows in a way typical of terrorists Outside. Asuna and I helped with the composite drawings; Sachi couldn't do it without breaking down yet. The drawings painted a picture of what we know they looked like, but they could easily alter their equipment to hide their identity given that Zemuria Online showed no nametags until players are in the same party.
There was no marking on players who had committed murder in this game, either. NPC guards would only react differently to a player if the hostile action occurred within their vision; then they would remember what the player was and react appropriately later. Given that Hamel was so out of the way, posting NPC guards around the cities only served as deterrence against further PvP in the city; it will not punish murders that had already happened.
Saint-Arkh remained firmly secured against Laughing Coffin and Ouroboros like other major cities. Security in smaller settlements such as Ravennue, Manoria and Parm also increased with the posting of high-level NPC guards to deter both invasion by Ouroboros machines and hostile players. It was certainly a measure of reassurance for the player base, which—according to Argo, who was quite ready to tear her hair out over the amount of "propaganda" she had to put out—was ever edging on the verge of lynching unlikeable people over unfounded suspicions.
There was no convenient label attached to a murderer, therefore anyone could be a murderer. I wonder why that was the case; it wasn't like a murderer Outside would have the word "killer" plastered across their forehead.
Rean and his guild "Loewenherz" arrived on an armored train, so Schera and Argo brought us to Saint-Arkh station to pick them up. They named it the "Derfflinger", after a certain rusted talking sword in a certain light novel—I mean, after a certain class of battlecruisers of the old Imperial German Navy, which was in turn named after an old Prussian Field Marshal born in Austria.
Go figure, right?
The train seemed to be clad in unpainted brushed aluminum that gleamed under the light. It had a single blocky Orbal locomotive at the front that looked like a re-designed diesel locomotive. I suppose that made sense; not everything could be sleek like the Shinkansen, and this train didn't just transport people. There were six cars in total attached to the locomotive, three of which were used as living accommodation. One of the remaining three was an Orbal workshop and armory. The other two were hardware cargo wagons with gull-wing loading gates.
Rean wore his signature white-and-grey long coat with black boots and dark grey pants, his odachi hanging to his left side properly like a samurai of old. He nodded and strode toward me with a small but warm smile. His companions followed.
"It's been a while since we first met, and I feel a face-to-face introduction is in order," he said in his typical German-accented English. His voice was more of a mid-ranged tenor than a deep baritone, but it didn't speak of immaturity. He bowed toward us in a surprisingly formal Japanese greeting: "I am Rean, guildmaster and leader of the Loewenherz."
We had to bow back, and so ice was broken as we introduced each other. He only brought three ladies and two gentlemen with him, saying that the others were working with the Imperial Army to track Ouroboros movements.
Emma was the curvaceous lady who threw out that impressive fireworks display on the night of the 22nd. She was dressed in her witch's robe, complete with a pointy hat and an Orbal staff with a winged hook as a head. The robe was predominantly purple in color and opened at the front, which complemented with her reddish lavender hair nicely. She wore large round glasses with thin metal rim. A black cat sat proudly on her shoulder, and I could see that part had been padded to given the cat some security with their claws without hurting the human underneath.
Musse stood closely behind Rean and had a head of short, wavy hair colored bright green. She had on her a tight white blouse that showed her off remarkably well and a short dark-blue skirt that left about a centimeter of snow white skin between its hem and the long, semi-transparent black stockings she wore. On her back was an ornate Orbal rifle styled after 18-century flintlock muskets, but I knew it was actually a deadly laser rifle capable of melting Shinkawa's stupid pistol to a pile of slag.
The third lady in the group, Alisa, was a blonde woman. She was dressed in white business attire, jacket and all. The inside blouse for her was a flaming red, with a platinum necklace glinting in the light. There was no weapon on her, but later I'd seen her use a bow—an actual compound bow with physical projectiles—with deadly precision.
The two gentlemen were Machias and Elliot. Machias was the other person in the group dressed in sharp business attire, preferring a dark olive green suit and deep emerald-colored necktie. He wore thin, gold-rimmed glasses to match the necktie clip he had. His deep green hair was impeccably styled into… well, into a messy mop of spikes. Unlike Alisa, he did have a weapon on his back; it was a replica of a Winchester 1897 Trench Gun with a 20-inch barrel.
So, really going for that sharp-dressed mob hitman style there, except a mob hitman would probably use a pistol instead of a shotgun.
Elliot, though, was dressed like an artist off of the street of Paris in the 1950s or something like that. Short-sleeved flannel shirt, loose-fitting pants, beret hat on his straight ginger hair to match with his emerald green eyes, he'd got it all. He even tied his hair to the back in a ponytail with rubber bands. Unlike everyone there, he carried what appeared to be a violin case. That violin was actually a collapsible Orbal staff that doubled as an instrument.
"So, what brought you to Saint-Arkh?" Schera asked with a small smile as we strode out of the station. The Hyarms estate was not far from there, and everyone wanted to stretch their legs.
"Information and courtesy meetings, mostly, but all of us enjoy the environment in the city," Rean answered smoothly with a slight smile.
"I have a small recital at the Cathedral in the afternoon," Elliot added.
This attracted Argo's attention: "With Yuna the Songstress from Liberl, right?"
"I'm surprised you know that," Elliot replied with a polite smile, "but yes. It was actually a rehearsal recital for the big stage later this month."
"The premiere of their new play with Arc-en-Ciel in Crossbell, is it? I paid big money to have that filmed," she smiled mischievously, "I heard it was going to be a heck of a show. I wish I could go to the premiere, but the tickets are just way too damned expensive and my time is way too short."
"Oh, we're going to be travelling across the continent to perform after we stay about a month in Crossbell, so you can catch us in Bose when we get there."
The two eyed each other for a moment, and I only then realized what they were doing. The whole musician thing was as much a hobby of his as a cover for his other activities. He and Argo were testing each other, seeing how much they knew about each other without blowing the pretense of a normal conversation.
They were being competent info brokers and spy masters, I know, but it was still quite disconcerting.
"That aside, we're here mainly to exchange what we know about Ouroboros and Laughing Coffin." I stiffened at Machias' prompting. So did Asuna and Schera. "We were wondering if the leadership in Saint-Arkh knows anything about them."
"Machias, you could use some finesse," Alisa chided in what could only be described as a mix between Scottish and Irish accented English. Machias rubbed the place she jabbed him in the ribs in mock discomfort. She wore an apologetic smile as she turned toward us: "Sorry about bringing up such a sore subject. He's not used to the concept of 'tact'. We've been trying to teach him."
"Hey!" Said tact-less person protested.
Musse chuckled at that reaction: "Machias, that is not going to help you charm the ladies."
"It's okay," Asuna said quickly, "We're dealing with it."
"I don't think Arios or Kloe had said anything about finding trails of them yet," Schera added as we approached the front gate of the Hyarms Estate. That was really only the halfway point of our little walk given how massive the estate was.
"Either Cassius is being a slow poke, or they're hiding too well," Argo grumbled, "Speaking of, hasn't that womanizing little brother found anything in Crossbell yet?"
"I don't think the people in Crossbell appreciate just how bad the situation could become if they were left unchecked. After all, Crossbellans were not really involved in the Massacre." Rean sighed. "Lloyd and Guy were really looking, too, though as I understand there was a recent… situation that they needed to handle."
"Oh? I haven't heard anything about that," Argo raised an eyebrow as we walked along the well-paved lane toward the main building. It was surrounded by artistically-sculpted shrubbery and multi-colored flower beds, and thanks to the magic of Virtual Reality, there were no insects around.
"It isn't my place to speak about that situation, so I am afraid you will have to wait for 'that womanizing little brother' as you say to divulge." The way Rean towered over Argo and the way he smiled at him just appeared a little smug.
"Poo, you're no fun," Argo grumbled again and Schera chuckled.
Rean turned to me this time: "I heard you were getting a gun."
"Yeah," I nodded. There was no point in denying it; after all, I did buy and equip a shoulder holster for the massive hand cannon. "I figured that having options at range is useful."
"I can't disagree," he frowned just ever so slightly. He didn't exactly approve of my choice, I could tell. "I was hoping that we could have a couple of bouts while I am here. I'd like to test my sword against the strongest in Liberl."
"That title isn't mine, I'm afraid," we entered the front gate of the mansion, the NPC butler having greeted us and offered us the menu option of offloading inventory. He also informed us that the players we were looking for was in the back gardens.
As we approached the gardens, the din of combat—rather, of sparring—rang through the air. The sudden tension in Asuna bled away when Schera laid a hand on her. I tensed up too, ever so slightly, before I remembered that Yuuki and Arios were both at the mansion right now: "I think you're about to see the lady who has that title sparring with Arios."
Coming into view were two players standing across from each other on the freshly-mown lawn. Kloe, Serenity, Fie and Sinon occupied the chairs around the tea table, with Zeno and Leonidas standing guard on either side. A tray of half-consumed tea biscuits and a pot of warm tea adorned the table along with a tasteful flower arrangement. It all screamed royalty, except Kloe was in her casual clothes of a lavender blouse and a knee-long pleated skirt.
Yuuki was panting, but her stance was relaxed. She had a one-hand practice sword in each hand, their tips pointing toward the lawn in front of her. She didn't wear any of her armor or her boots, either, instead opting for a sports bra with exercise shorts and socks, leaving much of her pale skin and numerous scars exposed. Sweat glistened under the sun as beads of it rolled down her cheeks. Wiry muscles pulsed with energy along her arms and her legs, and the faint lines of her core muscles were visible on her stomach area.
Zemuria Online had an option to tailor your avatar's appearance according to your Strength, Dexterity and Agility stats, and Yuuki's stats were top notch.
Arios was similarly dressed in a sleeveless exercise vest. His muscles were not bulky either, but it was much better pronounced than Yuuki's. He was also dressed for the occasion, as in he was wearing a sleeveless dry-fit exercise shirt and a pair of loose-fitting shorts with a pair of work-out shoes. In contrast with Yuuki's fondness for black, he was dressed in all white, making it easy to tell the difference when they mingled together in their bouts. His practice sword was pointing backwards and to his left, his left hand cupped around it as if he were grasping its nonexistent sheath. It was the position for initiating a battoujutsu attack.
The two of them knew but paid no attention to our arrival. Their focus was utterly on the other, leaving no room for distractions, but I could see the slight smirk on Yuuki's face and the slight shift in Arios' pose as they acknowledged our presence.
Then, like a flash, Yuuki whirled forward. Arios' swing batted one of her swords aside. He twisted his body to barely avoid the other swing, and leveraged his swirling momentum to swing at her. She stopped as abruptly as her charge, altering her vector of movement surprisingly quickly. The tip of his practice sword missed her chest by half a centimeter.
These movements would've been impossible Outside. Physics held little meaning here, relaxed as Argus had configured it for players to feel like they were sword masters.
Yuuki surged forward again, swinging seemingly wildly at Arios. There was a plan in her mad attacks, I could tell, but I couldn't tell what it was. Arios parried, blocked, and dodged her swings, but each time he tried to counterattack on an opening, Yuuki was able to predict that counter, seal the opening and almost hit him in return. It was a blur of motion, one that lasted seemingly forever, until there was a dull thud of a sword impact against a body. They disengaged from each other, and it was Arios who had a red mark on the side of his chest.
I glanced around my cohort. Machias had his mouth hung open in shock. Alisa shielded her surprise with a hand. Musse's eyes were open for the first time, the mischief on her face gone. Elliot was grinning and barely holding his applause. Emma was smiling, too, though she was tickling her cat companion, who was—surprisingly—watching the match intently.
Schera didn't seem surprised at all, but she'd been with Yuuki and saw her moves more than anyone here. Argo wasn't surprised either, and I didn't know why. Asuna though, was frowning in thought.
Rean, on the other hand, had an enthusiastic grin on him. If he were a swordsman like his equipment had shown, he had to have after seeing the show.
"I thought I would have adjusted to your agility by now," Arios said, tension having bled away from his stance, "but it seems like I still have much more to learn."
"You are being too modest, Divine Blade of the Wind," Yuuki had a wide grin on her face, but it wasn't a bloodthirsty one; instead, it was one of elation, of finding a worthy opponent. "You were as good as Kirito was. You're the second person to be down only by one after eleven bouts, and you lasted longer than he did. Your reach is longer and you hit harder, too; I could still feel that dull throbbing after five minutes."
The more unsavory connotations aside, I found myself marveling at the sparring duo. Arios was tall and his build was much more STR-based than DEX-based, yet he was able to keep up with Yuuki's relentless attacks. She landed hits on me because I couldn't keep up with her swings and avoid them all. Arios got hit because Yuuki had to intensify attacks and break her pattern to come at angles he wasn't expecting, or that she caught him when he was counterattacking on one of the openings she deliberately left open. On the other hand, Yuuki got hit because her openings were far more exploitable than she thought, even the ones she left open deliberately.
Actually, scratch that; Arios hit Yuuki because he could turn some of her deliberate openings into real opportunities. The reason I landed hits on her was because I could identify some openings she didn't knew she had. For me, going after those deliberate openings would always end up with her hitting me.
"Why, he'd barely let me rest," Yuuki continued. That sly smile on her face told me she was up to no good: "Coming after me relentlessly, pounding me as hard as he could with that long, hard stick of his, and never give me a moment's break in between!"
"Yuuki! Those were spars you had with him!" Asuna screamed indignantly, her face completely red. "You shouldn't deliberately imply something like that!"
Argo was looking at me with a smug, lecherous smile. I chose not to go in that direction, even though my face was also burning: "Argo, you know damn well what she was talking about, so stop looking at me like that."
"So, we have not one but two womanizing little brothers in the player base, now, do we?" Musse joined the ribbing choir: "why, Rean, I'm worried about our chastity! What if he and Lloyd come after us in Loewenherz?"
"Right, because that's really what you're worried about," Rean muttered under his breath, but his eyes were glittering with amusement. Kloe was almost doubled over with laughter. Fie narrowed her eyes at me with a small mischievous smile. Sinon was shining bright red and hid her face away from me as she pretend to sip tea.
"That aside, ladies and gentlemen of the Loewenherz, welcome," Arios put away his sword and walked toward us. He took out a towel from his inventory and wiped sweat off of his body before draping it around his neck, "Kloe and I have been expecting you."
"Information sure flows quickly, Arios," Rean shook his hand with a smile, "we thought we'd drop by to exchange some information regarding… recent events."
"Ah." NPC maids and butlers delivered more furniture to allow all of us to sit. Zeno and Leonidas were still standing guard, but they also became part of the conversation given that they were facing toward us.
"I'm afraid Cassius hadn't turned up anything substantial," Kloe said apologetically. She was specifically addressing Asuna, Fie, Sinon and myself. "Radar and air combat patrols hadn't discovered any suspicious ships, never mind ships of the particular description you provided. Boots on the ground found potential hideouts, all abandoned with their content scoured clean."
"Where are the hideouts?" Asuna asked, her brain spinning in thought.
"Scattered in the wilderness. A couple in the Krone Mountains, a couple in Miswald Forest, and a couple in the Kaldia Hills. The largest one was in Nebel Valley near Malga mine and Esmelas."
"That many?" That counted to at least seven.
"They were mostly stashes for consumables; ammunition, medicine, fuel, rations, the like," Kloe added. "Maybe a bed or two, but certainly not designed for prolonged residence. They had to have a base somewhere in Liberl."
"Same with Crossbell." To my surprise it was Serenity who spoke up. "The Special Support Section found two hideouts and one that could be used as a temporary base. That temporary base was uncomfortably close to St. Ursula Medical, a major player concentration. They were hidden quite well, too, but they were more hastily abandoned."
"Reinford and ZCF's already received samples of the tech left behind there, and it points to them having capabilities for wireless transmission of signals over long distances, like the tech in cell towers." Alisa added, taking out a small notebook and flipping to a page she earmarked, "it wasn't anything revolutionary, but it did contain signatures of Ouroboros make, given that we weren't able to use some private APIs necessary for them to be integrated into other machines."
"So they would have mobile phones that could connect between players in different areas, like a much more advanced version of the vox beads Erika gave us," Asuna muttered. Alisa nodded in agreement.
"We suspect that's why they were able to evacuate everywhere so quickly. The murderers probably signaled the rest of Ouroboros working with them to go to ground." Arios concluded.
"It wasn't going to be a single location for them, in any case," Argo nodded as the entire table was deep in thought. "Terrorists being what they were, they would love scattering their resources around so that they would always have something when pursued. Given the suspected content of their stashes and the concentration per unit area in Liberl, I'm concerned that they'd be planning something big in the country soon."
"Yeah, Guy and the Crossbell Police are on high alert, too, given that small base we found."
"Olivier and Lianne are coordinating the Erebonian response. So far, the presence of Ouroboros in the country is small, but Laura and Gaius found something in Legram. They went to investigate and we've yet to hear from them," Machias said. At the concerned look we gave him, he simply smiled: "They're still alive, if that's what you're concerned with. They tend to drop off the radar when they go on hunts like this."
"We have had our own encounters with Ouroboros and Laughing Coffin," Emma added quietly. Her cat, Celine, stretched out luxuriously on her lap. "We made it our mission to eliminate them."
"Yeah, it's about to become our mission, too," Asuna bit out the words. "It seems like our next stop would be back in Liberl."
"Right, it's been a week and a half. Progression had stopped on the front lines, but we can't have it halt forever," Schera nodded, "the first priority is still to get everyone out of the game. A very close second priority is to counter and attempt to capture or eliminate Laughing Coffin wherever we could. Given that we have very little information on their next steps, the best we can do right now is to improve our reaction speed to their actions."
"The Arseille will be on constant patrol after we return to Grancel," Kloe said, "Cassius will station Richard and Kanona there along with a squad of his most experienced Special Forces. They will be our Quick Reaction response to any reported Ouroboros or Laughing Coffin sightings."
"Reinford is very close to coming up with a cell-phone analogue to pair with ZCF's wireless signal transmission tech," Alisa joined in, "and with that hopefully our response time will shorten. It still can't travel across country or zone boundaries, but it is better than nothing."
"Okay. That sounds consistent with what we expected," Elliot nodded along with Musse. The expression on the green-haired girl was serious. "We'll take the Derfflinger and patrol the rail lines on the ground, while the Imperial Air Force got air patrols covered. We'll send word if we see anything."
"Sure, as long as I read about it first before I see it on the Imperial Chronicles," Argo grumbled again, earning a chuckle out of Elliot.
"No promises."
In-Game Name: Serenity
Level: 150
Orbment Configuration: 6-2 (Enigma), 8-2 (Arcus Prototype)
Orbment Affinity: Water x2 (Enigma), Water x3 (Arcus Prototype)
S-Craft: Bells of Requiem
Area of Effect: All party or raid members within 100m of self.
Heal all party or raid members to full. Add a Heart of Sacrifice buff per 100CP spent on each party member.
Heart of Sacrifice: Removed upon leaving combat. Triggers when HP drops to below 20% or upon a blow that would otherwise instantly kill the player. Instead of taking damage, consume 1 stack of Heart of Sacrifice to heal the player to full and provide damage immunity for 5 seconds.
At 200CP: Add a +50% DEF and ADF buff for 1 minute for each party member.
Favorite Master Quartz: Scripture
Weapons:
Maiden's Heart: Orbal Staff. +800 ATS, +20% ATS. Effective Range: 50m. Made by Tio. Attack Type: Slash D, Stab D, Shoot D, Smash D.
Orbal Weapon: Damage calculations involving this weapon's attack uses ATS instead of STR or ATK.
Selfless Sacrifice: Reduce channeling time for healing Arts targeting others by 50%. Increase channeling time for healing Arts targeting self by 100%.
Aqua Vitae: Water-type Healing and Attack Arts have their effects increased by 25%. Water-type buffs have their durations increased by 100%.
Joyous Heart: Healing Arts generate CP at the same rate as damage Arts.
"I have trusted in thy steadfast love, and so shall my heart rejoice in thy glorious salvation."
Skills: Orbal Staff MAX, Awareness MAX, Cloth Armor MAX, First Aid MAX, Orbal Engineering 300, Fishing 476, Medicine MAX
Extra Skills: Arts Boost MAX, Quick Cast MAX, Healing Specialization MAX
In-Game Affiliation: Crossbell Police (Civilian Asset, Special Support Section)
In-Game Nationality: Crossbell