Chapter 212: ...Claw's Nest (13)

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“Make me one of your comrades.  I’d like to join your party.”

And I looked at Freier.  Really looked at her, without the lens of a [Player], or as Han from Earth, but as Lock Slaveborn, adventurer of MSS.

Mechanically, she checked off all the boxes.

A priestess of the Nine, she wasn’t beholden to the Church.  Even if I found a human healer, I would’ve looked for a priest who had left the church.  You see, once a Church character leaves the Church, they can still progress their skill-tree by completing quests and achievements that exist outside of the Church.  I felt that my party had more to offer to someone on that route, rather than someone gaining [reputation] points within the church to progress their skill tree.

Her being an elf, it meant I didn’t have to deal with all the petty headaches that came with being part of the bureaucracy of the Church of Flame, Light, and Shield.  Elves don’t have a unified country to call their own: the closest being some of the States of Jayu, or the elven barbarian tribes of the Barbarian jungle.  So on a overworld political level, Freier made sense.

As a character, she had the [Mount] skill.  A backline with the [Mount] skill, especially a healer, meant we could allocate that much less resources to helping her survive.  Not only that, but the [Mount] skill was indicative of how far she’d progress the skill tree.  It was a testament that not only was she high-leveled, but skilled enough to get there.  The Clergy of MSS are one of the hardest characters to level, the other being Mages.

A Healer, who didn’t have political relations I needed to worry about, who came pretty much close to beginning stages of the late-game of MSS.

If I was playing the videogame, I would have said ‘yes’ on the spot.

But this isn’t just a videogame.

It’s real life.

A Healer and Tank form the lifeline of the party.  They are the ones who keep everyone alive, forming the impenetrable shield against which they block monster claws and fire.  To do that, there is an insurmountable amount of trust.

Don’t believe me?  In the game, married couples who were Healer and tanks received special buffs; plus items that were designed specifically for married tanks and healers.  That’s how iconic the duo was.

My shielder was Aurora Vetilian.

And if the counterpart, the healer, was Freier?

A [Player]?

No matter how good the numbers were on paper, it didn’t change the fact that Freier was a [Player].  Someone from the [Player’s Guild] nonetheless, the people that I was directly working against.  Add to the fact that the [Player’s Guild] had multiple branches that were aware of each other, worked against each other, and was aware of my personal progress in the game…

I couldn’t bring myself to trust her.

It showed on my face.

“I do not blame you, Slaveborn.”  She said hurriedly, “But goddess willing, I’m not asking for an answer right away.”

“I…”  I couldn’t bring myself to say the next words, because this conversation wasn’t something that I saw coming.  It hit me out of nowhere.

Why the hell would a [Player] want to be in this party?

I ended up asking her.  “Why?”

“Why?”  She repeated, her veiled head tilting to one side.

I nodded.

The elf leaned back against the wall, her hands pressed to them at hip height.  It made her look young just then.  Younger than before.  I realized that the veil was there to hide that very fact, that she wasn’t as old as she seemed.  The whole thing was an act.  The posture, the calmness, it was all a facade.

“Before I answer your question, may I ask one in return?”

I bit back the automatic answer, which was to forget this whole conversation and prepare my mind for the monster subjugation.  Yet, I didn’t.

Maybe it had to do with the fact that I felt like I was dealing with someone of Stole's age.  Or the frailty behind that veil, which could only be heard when she spoke.  It could also be blamed on the fact that we found Stole and confirmed that the rest of my party was alive; it had taken a lot of the pressure off.  It put me in a good mood.

Or because Skaris is right: when it comes to girls, I’m not as tough as I think I am.

I nodded for her to go ahead.

“When did you arrive in this world?”

I counted in my head.  “Over a year ago.”

“Do you recall how you felt?”  The priestess dropped her eyes, looking at the floor.  “Not when you arrived.  But when you first encountered what it meant to really survive in this world.”

The confusion, which turned to horror upon encountering my first monster.  The feeling of blade sinking into my flesh, tangling with the monsters in the [Dokkaebi] tunnels.  Their sweat, breath, and stinking hide rubbing against my own skin, leaving gashes and abrasions all over the soft parts of my belly.

“You first kill.  First near-death experience.  First… party members that you met.  Do you remember those feelings?”

I leaned against the wall too, reaching for the locked-away memories.  Memories that blended who I was before I was Lock Slaveborn, memories of a regular software engineer gamer in his 30s, that had been transmigrated to a videogame.  Memories of a human, trying to survive in a videogame he’d dedicated 14 years of his life to.

The shock.  The acceptance.  The continuously growing terror that never ceased to gnaw at an endless set of nerves which stuttered in utter silence of paranoia.

I closed my eyes, suppressing the shudder.

Han wasn’t gone.  He was still there.

He was screaming.

In pain.

In fear.

In memory.

Memory of the life he had left behind.

His father.  His ex-girlfriend.  His–

I shut the door on that part of my mind.

“I do.”  The words came out rough.

“How old were you, when you arrived in this world?”

“I don’t… I don’t understand.”

“Back on your world,”  She traced the obsidian tiles with a finger.  The black dress hung loosely on her frame, cinched at the waist by a metallic buckle.  The veil hung dead still.  “How old were you?”

Freier was digging around in my mind.  Not with magic, but just by the line of questioning.  I stumbled about the corridors of my own mind like a guest, not knowing where things were –because it had just been that long since I bothered to remember any of these things.

“Thir…ty I think.  A little older.”  An age that had no meaning now.  I knew what she wanted me to ask next.  “And you?”

“I was six, Slaveborn.  My parents were still reading bedtime stories for me, when I left.”

…Fuck.

I asked the first thing that came to mind.  “How?  There’s no way you beat MSS as a six-year-old.”  A thought struck me, “Were you next to someone?”

“You forget.  I’m not from earth.”

The one thing I still had trouble wrapping my head around: the idea of people from different worlds gathering in MSS.

It was a rabbithole.  If I started thinking about it, about the possibilities, the how and the why of how this all started to come together…

This wasn’t something to think about now.  Or maybe even ever.

‘Accept it, Lock.  There are [Players].  It doesn’t change the fact that they’re from outside of MSS, regardless of if they are from Earth or not.  They’re still your competition and 99% of them still can’t be trusted.  Accept it, and move on.’

“Then how?”

“I was playing a boardgame with my older brother.  Near the end… a flash of light engulfed us.  Afterwards, I found myself in this world, alone in the woods, by myself.”

A board game?

“How long ago was this?”

“Years ago.”  She smiled underneath the veil.  It wasn’t because she found something funny.  It was a bitter, as smiles go.  “Fifteen.  A long time, by this world’s standards.”

Fifteen years.  She survived in MSS for fifteen years as a six-year-old.

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault.”  Freier brushed a lock of hair from underneath the veil.  “Like I said, it was a long time ago.”

“How did you survive?”

“I was picked up by a traveling priestess, who eventually became my teacher in the Temple of Nine.  Thanks to her, and my memories of the boardgame, I managed to make it this far.”

Her story just now, it had opened up a door.

This world of MSS… it was much bigger; infinitely more complex than I could’ve thought.

The gods.

The gods knew something about this.  Why MSS was the way it was.  How I came to be.

The question was… did I want to know?

“This doesn’t tell me why you want to join my party.”

In the few days I had gotten to know Freier, she was reserved.  A little cold, and calculating.  She still retained that air about her, but it was touched by a vulnerability; a crack in the armor.

“I’m not trying to join your party, Slaveborn.  I’m trying to become your comrade.  Though I reckon, the it’s the one and same for you.”

I didn’t reply.

She nodded.  “I do not expect an answer now.  But do keep it in mind.”

Freier left, having given me zero clues about why she wanted to join me.

First L’teya, and now Freier.  Perhaps it was unfair to compare Freier to L’teya.  I extended the invitation to L’teya, whereas Freier asked me to join.

I’d be lying, if I said I wasn’t leaning towards saying ‘yes’.

It made sense.  It really did.  And my gut feeling was telling me that she was being sincere.

I liked the fact that Freier had asked first.  I hadn’t needed to beg, or have a long talk about why she’d be a good fit.  She made that decision on her own, after seeing Kyrian and Stole.  Even back then, I remembered she said something about being jealous.

Maybe this was a indication of what the [Player’s Guild] was.

A bunch of people who had been transmigrated to MSS, with no place to call home.  They were just all strangers, flocked together, not under a singular goal, but under the common background of not fitting in.  And MSS is a party game.  For me, it wasn’t just the Core System and the huge overworld that drew me in.  It was the different characters, their stories and their unique voices.

It couldn’t be just me.

A part of me wanted to keep pretending that [Players] were monsters.

The other part of me started humanizing them.  There was no stopping it.  The damage was done.

I think that’s the hardest part about being alive in MSS.  Decisions are much easier to make when they can be done at the flick of a keyboard, with the consequences being played out before you on a computer screen.

It’s much harder to make choices, when you have personal stakes.  When the people you kill are made of flesh and blood, not pixels.  That they all have their own reasons, stories, and motivations.  That they’re not just bits of data, but real people who matter, with people who care about them.

‘It’s nothing new.  You knew all this.  You came to terms with it.  Don’t start this now.’

I closed my eyes, and emptied all thoughts.

Hours passed by.

I woke the others.

“It’s time.”

Feelings or not…

Emotions or not…

Characters and their backstories… regardless of all that… there’s one thing that remains a constant in MSS.

Monster Subjugation.

Each of us pricked a finger and dropped the blood into a small vial.  Taking it, I walked up to the chalice in the center of the room.

Then I poured it into the centerpiece.

The room began to shake, as the mid-boss of this dungeon began to make its appearance.

It was time to hunt.