Chapter 125
“Sis! Your body... Your body...?”
It was the moment we defeated Beelzebub.
My head spun, and the world went dark as though anemia had struck me. My legs trembled.
I think I've experienced this before... When was it? Right.
When I pushed myself too hard in the capsule without caring about my condition, this was exactly how it felt when I was ejected from the world.
Only Adela's voice reached me faintly.
What is she saying?
“Sob, what's happening... Why can't I catch you... Sob, waaahhhh!”
Adela kept waving her arms, but to no avail; there was nothing for her hands to grasp.
We had defeated that annoying fly, and now all we had to do was defeat the final boss...
I think I had been taking the story too lightly. I had conveniently assumed that even if Adela survived, a boss would somehow appear.
Of course, I should have prepared for the possibility that there might be no boss.
But how?
The boss wasn't going to spawn on its own, so how was I supposed to clear the game? This was far beyond anything I could prepare for.
Adela's figure gradually faded, like a stone sinking into a pond.
A familiar scene unfolded before my eyes. It was a tiny room of about ten square meters, with a bed, a table, and a blackboard.
Before I knew it, I was sitting back in an armchair, but I immediately stood and brought up the login screen.
I couldn't log back into WoA.
[Access denied for User NoName#3947292]
[Error Code: 75015]
[For details, refer to the system event log.]
“Why? Not enough time has passed.”
It was still 10:24.
-There are people in the game!!!
-Holy shit holy shit holy shit holy shit
-Why is the Part 4 story blocked?
-Open the way right now! Before I sweep through and destroy everything!
-??????????
-Maintenance hasn't even started yet
The viewers were left bewildered before they even had a chance to enjoy clearing the game.
[Access denied for User NoName#3947292]
[Access denied for User NoName#3947292]
[Access denied for User NoName#3947292]
No matter how many times I clicked the World Tree icon, the result was the same.
[‘HotIce’ donated 1,000 won!]
-Doesn't it work even if you run it with administrator privileges?
“Nothing works no matter what I do...”
[‘richardsilver’ donated 1,000 won!]
-Let's log back into the capsule account first and try clicking it again.
As they suggested, even after creating a new account and logging in, or turning off the stream and restarting it, the WoA icon remained unresponsive.
“Nothing works... Ahhh, seriously...”
-ㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠ
-Is the streamer crying...?
-Their voice is shaking so much
-I'm going to kill WareSoft for making NoName cry. That was all I could think about from the start.
-What kind of bullshit is this
-There are only 20 minutes left until emergency maintenance...
-Adela, pleaseㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠ
-Forest Keeper, don't you feel like we've met somewhere before? Huh, why are tears...?
└ No, stop getting us worked upㅠㅠㅠ
└ ㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠ
└ That was really mean
-They should at least give us a chance to clear it! What is this all of a sudden!
“I'm not crying over this. Ah, but... Haaaaah...”
[‘ㅇㅁㅇ’ donated 1,000 won!]
-Pull yourself together first, then go to customer support and submit an inquiry.
-Yeah, that's better.
-Since this is unusual maintenance, WareSoft can't be completely without a plan.
-We'll submit inquiries too. Streamer, do you have the open-world seed written down?
“I think it was Q39Z487YO166ML4338JA. Thanks for helping.”
-For real?
-How the fuck can they remember that?
-ㄷㄷㄷㄷㄷㄷㄷㄷ
-They're insane
-At this point, even the streamer is starting to scare me.
Tick-tock, time kept passing.
I kept circling the same spot, my arms and legs tingling as though muscle aches had struck all at once.
More than anything, I was exhausted, as though my entire body had been wrung out like a dishcloth. If I lost consciousness here, I'd be expelled from the capsule too.
What am I supposed to do now?
I felt most pathetic whenever I was helpless.
Just as when I had been completely trapped inside the capsule and unable to get out, I felt as though I were nothing at all.
It was 10:55.
As expected, no reply came from customer support.
At the earliest, I could expect one at 9 a.m. tomorrow.
I forcibly suppressed the urge to tear my hair out and took a deep breath.
Nothing was getting any better.
After doing that once, twice, and dozens of times.
Dong-
The sound announcing 11 p.m. rang out.
I brought back the window I had moved aside.
[ipfs://worldofarceria.waresoft.com/ko-kr/]
The notice window contained nothing but the emergency maintenance schedule the viewers had mentioned earlier.
Countless people had set the comments ablaze with protest, but there was still no response from the administrators.
When I returned to the homepage, the WoA trailer began playing automatically.
A dense forest rushed past, followed by the dazzling Imperial capital and Remnant Academy.
Students in school uniforms were sparring with swords and magic when they noticed the screen and smiled brightly.
At the entrance to the cave in Lethiskaya, which I had rushed through to defeat Nocturne, bats poured out in a swarm, startling Luna Pavillis so badly that she fell on her backside.
The scene changed again, and the hero's party, visiting the Holy Kingdom, met Repi and Daniel once more. A kind-looking Pope came over and helped with their baptism ceremony using holy water.
These were scenes I might have seen if I had played on the normal difficulty.
I'd had plenty of chances to choose the difficulty again.
But I hadn't because of my stubborn pride.
It was also true that I hadn't been particularly impressed by the fact that it was Nightmare difficulty.
After all, the monsters and enemies were nothing more than small fry.
Because of that petty pride and stubbornness, this was what had happened in the end.
I had felt uneasy ever since error messages began appearing one after another midway through, but there was no turning back now.
Not only did I have to protect the memories I'd shared with her, but I now had another definite reason to speak with her.
Because I definitely remembered seeing Adela somewhere.
In my previous life, at that.
* * *
“Adela...”
A soft, gentle voice called her name.
She drew back from the slight chill, then slowly opened her long eyelashes.
“Mmm, where am I, nya...”
“Wainier Inn, District 3 of the Capital.”
“Uwooo... I see... Huh? Wait, what did you say? District 3?”
Adela hurriedly tried to sit up, only to roll off the bed.
After bumping her head on the floor and letting out a cute little cry of pain, she crouched low and looked around.
“NoName, did we... really do it, nya?”
“Yeah. We recovered both laurels, our companions in Abyss are safe, and most importantly, we survived. You don't have to die anymore, Adela.”
“Sob... Waaaaah! So we did it... Hic... Do you even know how scared I was, sis...! Sob...”
She immediately rushed at the blonde-haired woman.
Warm. Her heart was beating. Adela shed tears of emotion and did not leave her embrace for a long while.
“It was hard, wasn't it, Adela? Dying so many times.”
“That's what I should be saying to you, sis! What were you thinking? And what was that regression...! Was that the laurel's power too?”
“No. It wasn't the laurel. There's something even higher-dimensional than that, Adela.”
“Anyway, I'm so glad you're back... Really glad... Why did you go this far for me, nya...”
“Because I know you better than anyone.”
“You know me? You know me?”
“Yeah. I might even know you better than you know yourself.”
“There you go with the nonsense again... I can't trust anything you say anymore, sis.”
Adela abruptly turned her head away.
At that, the blonde-haired woman wrapped Adela in her arms and pulled her close.
Startled by the sudden contact, Adela sharply inhaled.
“Wh-what are you doing...?”
“Pat, pat.”
The hand stroking the crown of her head gradually moved down her back, stopping above her tail and lightly tapping it.
Her eyes flew wide every time a slight vibration ran through her.
Adela's nerves went taut at the dizzying sensation, and she swallowed a moan.
“Stop now...”
But the hand did not stop. It lightly tugged at her silver tail, then caressed it in one smooth motion from the root to the tip.
“Hiiiiiiiiik!”
The sound escaped before she could stop it. Adela grabbed the woman's shoulders and shook her back and forth in protest.
“Y-you... y-you're crazy, nya? Do you know how sensitive catfolk tails are!”
“That's strange. I was sure you liked it.”
“Whether I like it or not, it's rude to touch it without permission, nya!”
That was the first meeting between Adela and NoName of the Night.
Although the phrase “NoName of the Night” did not literally mean that she appeared only at night—their first meeting had technically taken place in the morning—the name they'd adopted for convenience unexpectedly suited her personality perfectly.
“You can't just strip off your clothes anywhere!”
“Adela? Could you apply some ointment to my body?”
“I'm not a little kid, and I can do something like that myself... Huh...?”
Adela had been covering her face with her palm, but the moment she saw the Forest Keeper's white back through the gaps between her fingers, her expression turned aghast.
“These wounds... What happened...? Who did this to you!”
There were deep knife slashes, as well as wounds that looked as though she had been stabbed by something sharp.
Dozens of large and small scars were scattered across her body.
Each time Adela spread a thin layer of white ointment over her back, she bit hard on her lower lip.
“Were you a slave in the past, sis?”
“Excellent deduction. Close, but not quite.”
“Didn't it hurt...?”
“I have no awareness of my past. I only remember it.”
She told Adela everything about the Arseria Forest and the true identity of the laurels.
Adela grew furious at the Empire's cruel and shameless deeds.
All the young slaves without families were sacrificed as offerings to nurture Yggdrasil's growth, and with just a little less luck, she would have been among them.
After learning the secret of the world, Adela wiped away her tears once again.
She explained that her current goal was to return the soul of Yggdrasil, now called the ‘Laurel,’ to its original place and seal the demonic fragments away forever.
“But why did you have to take on something that no one else even appreciates, sis?”
Her answer was simple yet mysterious.
“For you. To clear the game. And this is as far as I go. If you want to see me, keep defeating Mephisto.”
Unable to understand those words, Adela welcomed another new morning, but after that, she could no longer find NoName in her nighttime form.
“Goodbye, kitty.”
She no longer even remembered her own name. Still, she more or less understood.
For the time being, her mission was to defeat Mephisto alongside NoName of the Day.
There was a minor dispute over what to do with NoName of the Day, who was called an angel, and Daniel, but Adela ultimately succeeded in persuading NoName of the Day as well.
The angel's abilities truly had no limits.
She dispelled the polymorph spell placed on Repi and cured her incurable disease in an instant. Even when an archdemon was summoned, she sealed it underground forever without batting an eye.
Everything should have been a perfect day.
It surely should have been.
She sat on the edge of a dangerously high cliff, with the abyss far below, and gazed at the sky.
[This World is currently under Maintenance.]
[Error 3003]
Words similar to, yet different from, those that had appeared when NoName died filled the sky.
The world turned black and white, and slowly began collapsing from the edges inward.
“Hehe... Am I having a nightmare? If so, I really wish I could wake up soon...”
Because even if it was a dream, this was far too frightening.