[23:59:59]
[00:00:00]
[00:00:01]
…
[13:38:42]
Ai felt like she slept well past noon, which was a usual occurrence on her single day off. Today was a day of rest, which she would have normally spent playing Yggdrasil, but instead, she had no idea what she was to do.
Last night was the best sleep she had ever had in her entire life. She did not know if it was because she was extra tired from work that week, or because she was sad her life's work had ended, but her bed made her feel like she was sleeping among the heavens themselves.
She felt well-rested for the first time, as the remnants of sleep still clouded her vision. Ai reached over to what should have been her nightstand where she put her glasses last night. Feeling nothing was there, she felt annoyed as they must have fallen during the night.
'Wait… When did I get into bed?' She mused inside her drowsy mind, 'Did mom come home last night?'
The idea of her mother carrying her back to bed made Ai worried she had disappointed her by the sorry state her life was in. Rubbing her eyes and forcing her vision to clear enough to get a bearing of where she was, she saw the familiar sight of the room she had visited last night in-game – it was, in fact, the exact same room. She was still in the game, as if she had never been forced to log off after the servers had been shut down.
'Was the shut off delayed?' Ai wondered, but the fact she felt like she had a full night's sleep was beginning to worry her. It was as if she was no longer in-game… but the game had become reality itself. Even if Yggdrasil had a sequel which immediately started after the end, she would have been notified.
'The patch notes!' Ai went straight to the most logical conclusion to get her answer. She pressed gently in the air expecting her a menu to pop up, yet nothing appeared. In fact, her entire HUD had disappeared altogether. 'What is happening?!' She was now starting to freak out, her most logical solutions did not seem to be working in the slightest and her options were running out.
She cast a passive spell every player had, [GM Call]. What should have normally come was a message window showing up and indicated her wait time before the next GM was available to see her.
Nothing appeared, and the spell soon dissipated. But she felt a strange new sensation when she cast the spell. She would have needed to cast the spell by clicking on a key which was bound to her hotkeys, but nothing was present… yet she could still cast her spells.
She cast the spell out of sensation and knowing the intended effects. Now that panic had woken her up to an alert state of mind, Ai realized she was not in her body. Her hands were tiny and delicate like a young teen, her outfit now a uniform which a shrine maiden would normally adorn, her hair a bright crimson red. Ai felt the world was smaller as if she had shrunk in height, but there was a deep ebb feeling of magical power flowing inside her.
Ai cast a 3rd tier spell, [Silver Shield].
A reflective saucer appeared out of thin air, which she used as a makeshift mirror. She stared at herself, but her normal reflection did not stare back. Ai looked at 'Toreii', the character she had created. The small child… no, she was the small child. She was her character, not in her real-world body.
The delicate fingers moved about, reaching for her face to feel the realness of everything. Toreii's face was soft and smooth, which was expected of a child. However, her complexion was that of a bright-eyed kid with a warm innocence which would compel any man to rush to her aid.
"Toreii…?" Ai muttered softly. Her voice was quiet, and not her own – coming out with a higher pitch suited a girl a third of her actual age. Mixed feelings swelled inside her, causing her to rack her brain to figure out what was going on.
All the possibilities Ai originally thought of were crossed out in her mind one by one, until only a single outcome remained. The game of Yggdrasil had become real. Toreii had become real. Magic has become real. Which meant the place she currently slept in…
"Asgard is real…" she whispered out loud.
Alarm bells rang inside her head. Although she had her magic, it did not mean the passive skills she previously had were guaranteed to become real as well. She quickly slapped a hand against her mouth to keep herself from screaming in fear.
If she no longer had her [Allfather] skills, then she would have to fight her way through some of the toughest bosses in the game. She might have been able to stall Thor in a 1v1, maybe even defeat Loki as well if they fought alone, but if all of the Asgardians came at her at once, Ai… no, 'Toreii' would have no chance against them.
After becoming the Allfather and making Asgard her defensive base, Ai had quickly learned the golden city was basically a PBE (Public Beta Environment) area for the devs. They had 'tested' out the balancing of certain monsters or raid boss against the Asgardians, which meant Thor would have an idea of how to fight and beat any and all beings in Yggdrasil.
The treasury guarded within Odin's castle was basically the Dev Room, where a copy of every item in the game was stored. This meant every World Item was stored inside, but also every version of the items as well. From the original concept of the item to the final product, including the pre- and post-patch versions, if there was ever a bug or balancing issue.
After her first experience with World-Class items, Ai knew to keep her mouth shut about what she had initial discovered. She had concluded the dungeon was impossible to clear due to the devs not wanting their precious secret treasure room to be discovered, and disguised it as a challenge to the players.
Everything created in Asgard was considered way beyond the field of broken, OP, buggy, or even unbalanced. The devs created the world of Yggdrasil to be on a difficulty scale of 1-10, where ten was the hardest. Asgard was crafted on the scale of a single dev cranking the dial to 11, breaking the knob, installing a new knob which went to 20, and then breaking the new knob trying to twist it beyond what was capable, where he only stopped the cycle once his superior got complaints about his behavior.
'If I die… will I respawn…?' It was a question which bore a hole through her heart and made her stomach churn in a painful way. Her strong grip on her mouth had pressed pieces of metal painfully into her lips, which drew her mind back to what she could still do. 'I still have the ring!' She quickly remembered. The [Ring of Æsir] would allow her to teleport to the edge of Asgard should anything happen. In fact, she could use it now to get out of the castle, the most guarded and dangerous part of Asgard.
"EEEEEEKKK!"
A sudden voice came to her, which caused her to shriek and jump up in surprise. She quickly slapped both hands over her mouth, which elicited pain on her bleeding lips.
"My King, my deepest apologies. Your humble servant wishes to inform you of his grave failure."
It was the spell, [Message], which she often saw players within guilds use. However, there were no other players within Asgard she knew of, yet the voice was a familiar one. She did not know how to respond.
'Is it another player?' Ai mused, 'No, whoever contacted me wouldn't address me as 'King' if it was another player… Maybe the GMs? No, can't be them either. Wait… I was called a 'king'…?'
Sensing the spell was still connected, Ai steeled her nerves as well as her voice. "Why does it need my attention?" She sternly managed to get out. 'Please let me go…' Ai prayed silently in her head. If this was all a dream, she could accept it and wake up at any moment to a world she was missing more and more, as this situation played out.
"It seems my vision has missed something impossible, my King. I can no longer see the 8 other realms. May I ask if you are still within your scared chambers?"
The voice was soft and calm, which reminded her of a single NPC with such a demeanor about him. It was more than likely Heimdall was the one who contacted her, considering the conversation piece that he was talking about.
'It could be a trap… What if he wants me to teleport there and capture me?' The countless experiences she had with PKers had thought her cruel and vicious methods to deal with other players. Anything involving the unknown drew out the pessimist in her, doubting everything and everyone, until she could prepare herself.
Ai racked her brain faster and faster, until she became red in the face from her heavy breathing and dizzy from concentrating too much. 'If I run, he might alert the guards and I would be hunted down…' Ai thought as she formulated a plan, 'I should keep up the act and meet with him, but it has to be somewhere I can escape easily…'
Her plan was coming together. She was the type to run away from confrontation if there was no need for it. In all of her travels within Yggdrasil, she had ensured there was always an escape route, a way to get to said escape route, a backup escape route, a backup-backup escape route, using a cash item-based escape route, preparig legendary items for an escape route, and finally, a World-Class item as an escape route.
'No one has ever died being too careful,' she reminded herself. It was a mantra and oath she took very personally. She was a solo player, so she needed to play like it was her vs. the world at all times. Now was also such a situation. The conditions might have changed and she was thrown into a strange new sensation she did not know how or why, but she was still Toreii, the Allfather.
Ai's mind shifted gears from panic to battle mode. Her caution went through the channels of PVP, then against PKers, and then a permanent death if she was careless. She sensed the spell was still active and acted. "Meet me at the north gate at dusk. Make sure no one else is there. I wish to be spoken with alone."
"At once, my King!"
She felt a new sensation the spell had ended. Ai had to go through with the meeting or be exposed, but not without setting up safety nets for herself first. An hour was ample time for a disaster-planner like her. "Should I raid the treasury…"
There were pros and cons to that prospect. She raised her hand to her chin in a thinking pose, closing her eyes is musing. 'On one hand, I would be harder to take down if I take some of the special armors… but I could die… Some of the items were never released, which means the brothers (Thor and Loki) would not know about the effects… but I could die...'
Ai carefully thought of the items she would take if she was to raid the treasury. 'I could take [Downfall of Castle and Country]... Then I could control at least Thor or Loki and have them protect me… but I could die during the casting…'
The pros of raiding the treasury became less and less, as the pessimistic voice inside her becoming louder and louder.
"That only l-leaves... Odin's armor…" Ai's throat was parched, hurting to get any words out at the moment. She could feel a cold sweat building on her back as she paced back and forth within the room.
Ai would form a rut in the floor that way, had it not been magically enchanted. The two other beings inside the chamber who had watched her from the beginning had their heads go from left to right back to the left again. The black ravens were Odin's personal pets – his eyes, and ears, as well as his personal symbol.
The ravens, Muninn and Huginn, wondered if they should stop their master and ask what was going on, but the moment never presented itself to them. Ai was in deep thought, and they did not want her to snap at them for interrupting.
What Ai had failed to notice was Yggdrasil itself. The last 9 leaves which previously hung from its branches had fallen off. The Tree of Life was dead. The old world was gone as well.
She stopped her fruitless circling with a sigh, eventually going back to the sleeping pod she had awoken from. Ai looked in the reflective glass, watching as tears slowly glided down from the puffy eyes Toreii used to stare back at her. It was only now she noticed the ravens in the background reflection. The pair of ravens were behaving like they were in a panic at seeing her shed tears. Now, her hand felt the old dry leaves which had fallen on her bed.
Ai looked at a single leaf tenderly, like she had a personal connection to it. It was now that the realization had started to hit her. She counted the other leaves which had fallen, totaling 9. All of the browning leaves were delicately held in both her palms. The tears she felt earlier were flowing more frequently now, droplets hitting the decaying shriveled bodies one by one.
"W-wass th-is my fa-fault?"
Yes, she remembered the last thought she had before falling asleep last night. She wished to see a new world, but it seemed the cost was the destruction of the old one she knew of. Ai had wished for the destruction of the world her mom had lived in. Guilt quickly set in, wrapping around her heart, constantly telling her she was the reason her mother was no longer here. If the leaves were still on the tree, Ai might have had some hope she could somehow get back to her old world. But no, she had wished away… no, possibly destroyed the old world with her selfish wish.
Half her heart was stabbed with feelings of mortal longing, but she was no longer just Ai, but Toreii, the first ascended Allfather in all of Yggdrasil. A part of her told to calm down and to assess the situation. Something on the scale of wishing for a world change would either need to have the power of an item, or be linked to a secret class skill.
Toreii had levels in [Allfather], and despite a year of trying to learn everything she could about the secret class, more and more powerful skills and spells would pop up whenever she was near some particular weapons, objects, people, or…
"The World Tree…" she said out loud. If the [Allfather] class had one weakness, it was the incredible long cooldowns involved with its special skills. The minimum wait time for Odin's shortest skills was 100 hours. Since she had used a spell earlier, she knew what it felt like when a spell went on cooldown.
If she had a special skill linked to Yggdrasil itself, she would have felt the ability to be on cooldown after the game became real. So she did something stupid to test out that theory. If she was able to still use her special skill which should not be on cooldown, and then feel how long it would take before she could use it again, it would confirm her suspicions.
"I wish for a chocolate bar!" Ai shouted to the tree.
Nothing happened for a solid minute, which made her want to start the waterworks again, but soon, she heard something fall from the sky, landing softly in her lap. It was a silver rectangle, with a sweet smell filling the air.
Ai was holding back her tears. It had worked… and she was right. After the candy bar appeared, she felt a deep tiredness within her being, like a powerful skill was used. She could feel a passive timer tick down from the cost of using such a divine skill. She would have to wait a year before the skill was off of cooldown. Since she knew for a fact she did not sleep for an entire year plus, she had not been the one to wish away the real world. But that left her with even more questions than before.
If she did not use the all-powerful authority of the [Allfather] with Yggdrasil, how was she in a new world all of a sudden? All the leaves falling off the World Tree meant the 9 worlds were no longer there. But she sensed a new feeling from the tree itself. She walked behind where her sleeping chamber was, and saw a tiny sapling at the base of Yggdrasil's roots.
The tiny sprout of life had a single young leaf growing from it. The 9 worlds had died… and a single new one was born. However, if the old worlds were gone, why was Asgard still here? She went from a game to a real world. Did Asgard also go through the same experience? Questions were piling on the more she thought about the new world.
'Had the other worlds also traveled to this one? Or were all the worlds condensed into a single one?' Those were the questions which bothered her the most. However, there was a single question which bore a deep hole inside her mind. "Did the real world become Midgard? Are we in Midgard now…?"
The black ravens squawked, which jolted her in surprise and broke her train of questions. They had descended from their perch on Yggdrasil and landed on her tiny shoulders. These were giant ravens as tall as half her height, with bright intelligent eyes staring back at her.
The single crow on her left shoulder got her attention and looked toward the digital clock, which was still open on the game window she had from last night. The time was now reading [17:25:57]. If that aspect of the game was still here, then she could still do things from Yggdrasil in the new world.
Reaching her hand forward, she felt out what should have been her inventory. Her hand vanished into a black void, and she could feel the personal items she had previously stored inside before the game ended. Everything was there, organized how she left it, and now she had a perfect mental image of where to feel for what she wanted.
Yes, she needed to face the new world and discover the answers she wanted. In a way, she did indeed get her wish. It was like she was playing a new expansion of Yggdrasil the devs had released. If she thought of it that way, Ai could calm her nerves enough to go through with her plan.
During her time exploring the city of Asgard back in the game, she had left preparations in case a PKer with [Assassin]-type skills had sneaked through the guard's watch and attempted to kill her while she was exploring. There were sigils hidden all over the city located within safe houses she had prepared beforehand. Along with her [Ring of Æsir], she could also use the sigils to safely escape. The [Deity] race she had leveled could make use of sigils drawn into anything, and which symbol she used had different effects. This was also a leftover from the beta she had participated in, which the devs would later rework the sigils into runes which could add additional effects to weapons and armor.
Ai was thankful for Toreii's racial skills. It had calmed her enough to steel her resolve. It was due to the racial skill [Divine Grace] which has kept her within a constant state of calm and rationality. It was a gentle calm, but it did not outright override her emotional state.
She carefully put Yggdrasil's leaves into her inventory space. They were still leaves of the Tree of Life, which meant they could still have some uses for later. The ravens atop her shoulders cooed quietly, awaiting her orders.
Dusk was nearly here, where she would have to confront this new person who had spoken to her. There were no minimap, HUD, [GM Call], or the kind of services a game would provide. Everything was now sensory-based.
She prepared herself for what could be a fight for her life.
[Holy Mantra], [Divine Protection], [Greater Divine Protection], [Body of Effulgent Beryl], [Body of Effulgent Aquamarine], [Body of Effulgent Heliodor], [Negative Energy Protection], [Greater Negative Energy Protection], [False Data], [Greater Elemental Resistance], [Blessing of Flügel], [Blessing of Gaea], [Time Dilation], [Greater Time Resistance], [Eye of Trinity], [Mana Detection], [Lunar Grace], [Solar Shield], [Spell Shield], [Lion's Majesty], [Black Shroud], [Veil of the Ancients].
Ai had buffed herself with the spells and skills she had learned during her 95 levels. She would test out the full extent of her [Allfather] class now.
[Odin's Might].
Immediately, she felt her spell output to be greater than what was normally possible. During her buffing phase, the mana she expended had gradually made her more and more tired, but the sudden burst of energy made her feel like a predator more than prey.
Yes, she was going hunt whoever had dared invade her domain. Asgard was hers, and no one else's. She would kill whoever she had to.
[Life of Yggdrasil].
The Tree of Life glowed before her. The same glow extended past the space between them and wrapped a thin outline around her. It felt as if she were gaining a second health bar. Her body felt more study, less frightened and shaking. Her mind at peace, like the calm before the storm.
These buffs were not without their drawbacks. The first spell had a cooldown timer of 200 hours, while the second had a cooldown of nearly 400 hours. It granted her a great advantage, but she had to win no matter what. These precautions were necessary.
[Odinforce].
This was her final buff, or really the only one she needed from the start. It would double her highest stat, her magical attack, until she exited combat, as well as giving her access to Super-Tier spells she had not learned. Not only that, but their cast times were reduced to 0. However, the spell did not go onto cooldown as the other ones did. It would only start the cooldown timer when she was in Odin Sleep inside the chamber, and even then, it took her out of commission for 1,000 hours.
With buffs out of the way, she began exchanging her equipment for PVP. Of the ten fingers on her hand, two were originally usable to every player, but more slots could be bought with cash items. She saved a month's salary to buy the slot expansion to all her fingers.
Her left hand consisted of:
[Winds of Hermes] – A silver ring with twin serpents which allowed for a fully health recovery once a day.
[Wrath of Helheim] – A black ring which generated a constant freezing aura, impairing the movements of anyone who got too close to her. This also included any attempts to teleport beside her, which was basically a free [Delay Teleportation] with a bonus effect without the mana cost.
[Wisdom of Solomon] – It was an artificial intelligence-type equipment which communicates telepathically. She had stored a library's worth of knowledge into the ring, which included the 6,000 castable spells in Yggdrasil.
[Ring of Æsir] – It allowed for unlimited teleportation within Asgard, with a single additional effect of 11 bonus mana, enough for a 10-Tier spell.
[Ring of the World Champion] – It was originally a decorative ring give to the World Champions to verify their victory, but had data crystal slots she added to make it a Legendary-Tier ring. She used a data crystal which allowed her to add percent max health damage as a bonus effect to 3 of her damaging spells daily.
Her right hand was now equipped with:
[Ashes of Ra] – Single-use self revive which gave damage invulnerability for 10 seconds after resurrection.
[The 10 Commandments] – A utility-type ring which allowed the storage of 10 spells, with the strongest spell stored limited to Tier 10. Inside, she had put defensive and time delaying spells like: [My Body as A Shield] – 8th Tier, [Wall of Permafrost] – 9th Tier, [Greater Teleportation] – 7th Tier, [Perfect Unknowable] – 9th Tier, [Time Acceleration] – 9th Tier, [Time Stop] – 10th Tier, [Perfect Warrier] – 8th Tier, [Blood of Gaea] – 10th Tier, [One Day of Peace] – 9th Tier, [Light of The North Star] – 8th Tier.
[Eye For An Eye] – It was a novelty ring which switched a player's physical stats with their magical stats. Since most players optimized for either a spell caster build or a melee build, the ring was a niche at most.
[Piety and Penitence] – A silver ring which sacrificed half of her current mana to create a holy wall of light capable of blocking a single attack, spell, skill, or non-World-Class item.
[Fountain of Youth] – A World-Class item which fully restored her health and mana, as well as removing all negative debuffs.
After her fingers, she equipped the Asgardian World Champion armor underneath her shrine maiden robes. Although she originally rejected wearing it, she had found the devs had stashed it within the treasury. Since no one else was capable of using the armor, Ai figured she might as well take it for her own, although she did feel guilty about it afterwards.
Since the devs introduced a glamour system into the game, she one could remove the data from a set of armor and wear it on top of her actual equipment without consuming the slot. Although in-game a player could see the equipment their opponent had through a side menu, there was no such menu now that she was in the world. The lack of appropriate battle attire might lower her opponent's guard just enough for her to land a decisive blow.
Lastly, she held up her right hand and issued a single command in her mind. A soft metallic ringing echoed in the emptiness of the ceiling. In the total blackness above her. a sliver of light could be seen twirling towards the ground. The object quickly accelerated downward, its pointed tip gleaming despite the blackness around it.
Ai's hand soon took hold of the weapon which appeared out of nowhere. It was a spear which could only be wielded by her, or more specifically, the Allfather. The obsidian chamber reverberated despite being made of the hardest material in the castle. Panicked cawing came from the ravens as they flew down onto the ground in reverence of the Allfather.
[Gungnir] answered its master's call. Its shaft was carved from one of Yggdrasil's roots and had arcane Nordic sigils engraved within the wood, which then had Uru metal poured into the grooves. On one end, it had a small golden tip in the shape of an arrowhead, while the helm of the spear shone with a prismatic radiance. The larger end was made from the core of white dwarf star, casted in the form a sharp 'V'.
The data for the spear was enormous, containing more lines than the entirety of Asgard minus the NPCs. If she were to gauge its power, it would be a World-Class item among other World-Class items. Yes, this was a weapon which stood above all others, because of one single special ability.
[Gungnir] could break and destroy other World-Class items and nullify their effects. That alone should have pushed it into a new tier of an item, but the game had ended before anyone could see the power of the spear unleashed.
Ai would not put the name of the [Allfather] to shame. nor will she let herself be defeated after wielding the might of Asgard itself. The ravens jumped back onto her shoulders after sensing her unyielding spirit for battle. The [Ring of Æsir] activated, and she soon found the scenery changing to the murky red and orange hues of the setting sun.
She stood in the middle of a lone road cobbled with hexagonal brick and mortar. The city was being lit up with radiant light behind her, as she observed her bearings. The path she was on lead to the heart of the city, as well as to the northern gate of the magical barrier. Ai turned her head towards the stone walls and allowed herself a silent sigh.
Stabbing [Gungnir] into the ground with her right hand, Ai was still holding onto a silver wrapper in her left. She unwrapped the chocolate bar given to her by Yggdrasil. It pained her to have used a magical wish-granting tree capable of changing the world itself as a food delivery service. Breaking a tiny corner off, she rewrapped the rest and stored it away into her hidden inventory.
Ai was human, but Toreii was a [Deity]. 'Do gods have taste buds?' It was not like she became undead, but merely ascended. Toreii was not unlike how she was. They were both female – Ai thanked her lucky stars for this aspect – they both felt warmth, could shed tears, and feel human emotions.
Now was the ultimate final test to see if she still retained all of her humanity.
'Do I still like chocolate?'
Gently bringing the small square piece of cocoa goodness to her lips, Ai let it sit above her tongue. She loved letting the heat of her mouth melt the chocolate into a creamy consistency, and having it flow slowly all her taste buds.
It was heavenly… divine, even. It was the perfect richness which was gentle and not overwhelming. Tears had formed again on the corners of her eyes. Despite how excellent the piece of chocolate was, there was one thing which stood above all the other quality. It was familiar, nostalgic… and familial, too.
Ai wiped her tears away before they could fall again. What she tasted were her memories of her childhood – of the same chocolate her mom had bought when she was a child. Chocolate was a luxury in Ai's youth. The fact that her mom was still able to get her some, despite the scarcity of it, had made Ai very happy.
Toreii grabbed the spear and began her march toward the magical barrier. She had made a promise to herself. No matter who she faced or what happens in the future, Ai will definitely reach her new goal in this new life.
"I'll find you, Mom!"
'I hope...'
A/N: I hoped I cleared up some confusion from last time. If I haven't please feel free to tell me. Planning the story is still a chore and I hope you will bear with me until I can make it more coherent. Any suggestions or paths you wish to see would also be great to give me an idea for future chapters. Thank you for reading.