YGGDRASIL. Múspellsheim.
In the world of fire and magma within the virtual universe of YGGDRASIL, the most popular DMMO-RPG on Earth, two beings fought crazily with all their might. Moving through the air like twin meteors of destruction.
One of the players, a Seraphim with six pairs of wings, swung his sword while calling out one of his signature Tier 7 spells.
"[Holy Blade Slash]!"
His opponent, a Dragon Lord, the highest rank of the Draganoid race class, similarly used one of his own signature skills to counter his long-time rival and friend's attack.
"[Resist Element] [Flame Strike]!"
The sword of the Angel that looked like it was made with crystalized rainbow thanks to its evershifting, kaleidoscopic light, clashed with the Tier 7 immunity spell, Resist Element.
The Angel reacted nearly instantly and pulled back, barely avoiding the counterattack from the Dragon Lord's follow-up attack, the Flame Strike, which created a blade of fire to cut through the defensive spells of his opponents, dealing Fire Damage status effect and increasing his own Critical Hit Damage should the blow land.
If the Player Avatars were capable of expression, there would be no doubt that these two would be grinning like madmen at this moment.
"How about we take this up a notch? Drakovahn?"
Drakovahn, the World Champion of Muspellsheim, the Tyrant of Ash, grinned in the real world at the challenge from his eternal rival and best friend.
"Took the words right out of my mouth! Aetherion!"
Aetherion, The Dawn Bringer, the greatest Solo player in the world of Muspellsheim, also grinned in the real world, preparing to end this fight quickly.
With a wave of his hand, the kaleidoscopic sword in his hand twisted, turning into a lance that could be thrown while the Dragon Lord activated his own special item, making the beautiful crown on his head turn grey like the ash in the air, while it burst into hellish black flames.
Aetherion pulled back his arm, preparing to throw the lance while spreading his wings completely.
"[Holy Strike] [Bless] [Aura of Purity]"
With the three Tier-10 buff spells, the Angel's stats shot through the roof temporarily as the World Item in his hand, Aurora's Oath, gained a substantial boost.
But he was not done yet, as he used a final spell to boost its damage further.
"[Heaven's Judgement]!"
A Super-Tier spell so powerful that it was comparable to another Super-Tier Spell famously used by the Guild Master of Ains Ool Gown, Fallen Down.
The additional effects of Heaven's Judgement immediately boosted Aurora's Oath to the point where its power was nearly unstoppable. The same power that earned its wielder the nickname "One-Man Raid" due to how powerful he becomes with this combo.
Of course, being the rival of such a being, Drakovahn was not someone to be trifled with so easily either.
"[Prismatic Resistance] [Scale of the Eternal Dragon] [Worldbreaker's Fury]!"
With his own buffs boosting his stats and resistance across the board, directly matching his rival's own power and even countering it on some level, Drakovahn used his own Super-Tier magic to boost his own World Item, Crown of Ashes.
"[Ethernal Pyre of Tyranny]!"
At once, the Crown of Ashes experienced a drastic buff to its abilities, which were already a ridiculous buff to Drakovahn's breath attacks.
Opening his maw, which engaged his brath attack animation on his avatar, he used his stronger Dragon Breath skill.
A ball of pure power manifested within the maw of Drakovahn while the Kaleidoscopic Lance of Aetherion struggled within said angel's grasp, desiring to leap out on its own and kill its target.
As one, the Angel and the Draganoid let loose their final attacks.
The Lance tore through the air, leaving behind a line of kaleidoscopic colors as if space itself had been torn asunder in its wake, while the breath attack manifested in a thin but potent stream of energy, as if an angry laser that sought to reduce everything to ash.
It was when these two attacks that brought great renown to their wielders clashed that the world of fire and magma turned silent, as if in respect and fear of these formidable beings.
However, it was at this moment that the Draganoid showed why he managed to become the World Champion of Muspellsheim while his friend and rival fell to him in that fateful tournament.
While his breath attack was still clashing with Aetherion's World Item, Drakovahn unleashed another Super-Tier magic, albeit at a great cost.
"[Dragon Hoard]!"
Instantly, 20 Dragons manifested in the air, each one at level 80 and wielding powerful breath attacks as an addition to their already impressive stats.
But Drakovahn was not done yet.
"[Dragon's Dominion] [Draconic Supremacy]!"
The buff, Draconic Supremacy, boosted the summoned hoard of Dragons to nearly level 90 while Dragon's Dominion negated the flight buffs that Aetherion had used some time before to boost his agility in the air, making him slower to react.
Familiar with his friend and rival's move, Aetherion used his own summoning spell, knowing that it would be a futile effort but unwilling to give up that easily.
"[Pantheon]!"
6 Cherubium Gatekeepers, powerful NPC Angel summons of Level 80, were summoned immediately by Aetherion's side. Their lion heads and manes and armored humanoid bodies painted a majestic and holy radiance as their four wings unfurled completely, giving them a divine visage.
And leading this group of powerful angels was the greatest Angel summon in the game.
Its pure and radiant form looked similar to an armored knight, wearing pristine silver armor with embedded jewels across its form, similar to a human knight, yet its ten radiant wings made of pure light gave it a divine visage similar to the stories of old.
Seraph Empyrean. The level 90 Angel summon was unrivaled in terms of summonable creatures of the Hetromorphic kind.
Yet, Aetherion did not stop there.
"[Freedom] [Heaven's Ward] [Mass Sanctuary] [Holy Aura]!"
One after another, he stacked buffs on his summons and himself, trying to gain an edge against his rivals' attacks.
Freedom fought against Dragon's Dominion to release his and his angels' flight restrictions, Heaven's Ward struggled against Draconic Supremacy that boosted the Dragon hoard's stats while weakening Aetherion and his angels' stats, Mass Sanctuary worked to boost his own stats along with his Angels, while Holy Aura tried to shield his summons from being targeted by Drakovahn's debuff spells.
Yet, while doing all of this, he was distracted from his main attack by diverting his mana to other spells, just like Drakovahn wanted.
By forcing Aetherion to divert some of his mana, which fuelled his Aurora's Oath, Drakovahn could use his natural advantage in mana capacity to overwhelm his rival's attack.
Which is exactly what he did, causing his breath attack to quickly tear through the Aurora's Oath, reducing it to moats of light that returned to Aetherion's inventory.
The breath attack quickly tore through Aetherion's wings, causing True Elemental Damage, which instantly inflicted several debuffs on him and reduced his HP to a mere few points.
"HAHAHA! I won! Just like always!"
"Screw you!"
At the angry angel's shout, Drakovahn simply laughed again as the duel notice appeared between the two, announcing Drakovahn's win and Aetherion's loss.
With a shake of his head, Aetherion dismissed his summons and pulled out a few healing items while Drakovahn did the same.
With a few clicks on the console, the two top-level solo players disappeared from the central volcanoes of Múspellsheim and appeared at the edge of the realm where the main city of this realm existed. A place where most of the solo players gathered.
And yet, as the two players walked through the streets, they did not find the bustling area as they had expected. Instead, all they found were a sparse few players and a handful of NPCs manning the various stores.
"..I guess, not even such a big event would make people come back here, huh?"
Drakovahn's glum words made Aetherion stay silent, yet he too felt just as sad as his best friend.
They were veteran players of the game, playing since the day it was launched to escape the cruel reality of Earth and find some solace in this world.
Yet, who would have thought that even this final sanctuary for their sanity would be taken from them like this?
"It cannot be helped. Those bastards at the government have been placing increased taxes on everything, especially the entertainment sector, which has forced YGGDRASIL's developers to pay more money than they earn. It only makes sense that they would choose to let go of this project and focus on something else."
"What are they supposed to do now? Even if they make another game, they will still have to pay those unfair taxes."
At his friend's bitter words, Aetherion had no response as he too felt the same.
Because in their shitty world, where the planet had long since died and people lived in a dead world, with food, water, and even oxygen, being sold at exorbitant prices to the civilians while the big companies and governments relish in luxuries far beyond the wildest dreams of the common man, safely living out their lives of decadence within domes full of the last vistages of Earth's nature while ordinary people like Aetherion, real name David Goodman, and Drakovahn, true name Michael Conner, had no rights and no way to truly lead a happy life under the smog covered skies, the acid rains, the unbreathable air that required people to have artificial lungs to breath and the polluted earth beneath their feet.
Soon, the two arrived at the local tavern, where solo players normally gathered once upon a time to have some fun, yet now, it was nearly barren with only a handful of scattered players here and there.
The two friends silently sat down at an isolated table and watched as the shutdown counter started to tick down.
1:00
"I guess, I never did manage to defeat you, eh?"
Aetherion's words came steadily, yet in real life, there were already tears gathering in his eyes as he knew this would probably be the last time he would ever see his friend in person.
The travel charges for traveling between states were so exorbitant that most people could not afford such a luxury. In such a situation, it was a given that an ordinary factory worker like Drakovahn could never afford a ticket to travel from San Francisco all the way to New York to meet him, just like he could not afford the travel since he, too, was a regular worker in a private firm.
All they could afford was phone calls, which was not the same as meeting each other face to face like this. Not to mention their twelve-hour shifts, which were recently implemented across the country, making it really hard for people to have the time to do anything else aside from work and sleep.
Such is the cost of unchecked capitalism after all.
00:30
"Yeah. My record still remains. That means I am a better PvP player than you."
"Hey! That is uncalled for! I am still a powerful PvP player that is very well regarded, you know?"
"Sure. Except that I am still better than you."
"YOU!!"
00:10
With a sigh, the two friends watched the ticking timer.
"...I'll miss this a lot. Michael"
"So will I. David. But it's not like we will never talk again, right?"
In real life, the two friends had a wry smile on their faces as tears slowly fell down their faces, already mourning the loss of this friendship that had lasted for so many years, ever since they first met in the game during the launch.
00:03
"Goodbye, World Champion. Tyrant of Ash. Drakohvan."
00:02
"Goodbye, Dawn Bringer, One-Man Raid, Aetherion."
00:01
""May we meet again, in another branch of the world tree.""
00:00
With a flash of light, everything vanished from Aetherion's vision.
Yet, before he completely lost consciousness, he saw a peculiar sight that chilled his heart for some reason.
The counter that had gone down to 00:00 suddenly started counting up again.
And he knew no more.
I do not know how long I was unconscious, but the moment my consciousness returned, I knew that things were not right.
Instead of waking up in a shitty apartment with my Neural Nano-Interface showing me the timing for my next shift at work, what I found was a strange ruin that looked like it would crumble if I looked at it the wrong way.
Made of stone that had long since withered due to the elements, it was the ruins of some sort of castle that would not look out of place in YGGDRASIL's Midgard. But I knew that this could not be the game.
Mainly because I could feel my face and the expression forming on my face, I could feel everything that my hands were touching as if I were in real life, which should not be possible in the game since the sense of touch over there was greatly muted, mostly similar to the haptic-feedback systems from nearly a century ago. I could even smell the scent of sulfur and other such things in the air.
While most of these restrictions in the virtual world were something artifically created thanks to the Social Order Maintanence Act that most contries of the world had signed long ago to keep people from confusing the virtual world with the real one (and to heavily limit the escapism spike that appeared in the populance after the last few forests of Earth died out due to pollution) it did not mean that some people did not try to hack into the systems and enable these settings. Something that I had once tried out of curiosity.
And yet, even that near-realistic sensation that I experienced for that limited time was nothing compared to what I am feeling right now.
Slowly, I got up from the ground, and only then realized that I was still wearing my armor from my Avatar.
...Ok, something is seriously wrong here. Am I still in the game somehow? Was there some kind of glitch that happened at the game shutdown?
I shuddered as I thought about that scenario. That disaster of 2080, when a few hundred players from an early prototype of a DMMO-RPG game were killed during the beta test due to a bug in the game flashed through my mind.
I despise the Earth of my time, and wish for nothing more than spending my life in the world of YGGDRASIL, but that does not mean that I want to die either.
'Alright. Don't panic. First things first, scout out the area.'
I thought to myself as I felt my emotions slowly stabilize, allowing me to analyze my situation more clearly.
First things first, I need to search for hostile mobs or creatures in the area.
"[Detect Life]"
A simple spell that looks for any hostile mobs in the area is a QoL spell and not categorized into the tier system.
The moment I cast the spell, I knew that something was wrong.
Because instead of a simple drop in my mana being shown on the screen, I actually felt something within me being reduced by a little bit. The amount was so small that I could barely detect it, but I still felt the difference.
Ok, now I am really starting to worry about what is going on here.
Thankfully, the Detect Life spell came back negative on any mobs nearby, so that means I could at least take the time to survey my surroundings.
Looking at the ruins around me, I started to slowly walk around, trying to see if I could find anything that would tell me what was going on.
It was only when I walked a little bit that I found that there was some kind of strange magic circle drawn into the floor of the crumbling ruin, in the same place where I had just woken up.
Wierd. Did I accidentally end up in some unknown area of YGGDRASIL due to some bug after server shutdown?
Whatever the case might be, I think I need to get out of here as quickly as possible.
I waved my hand in the air, right in front of me. An action that would always manifest the screen full of menu options, which included the log-out button. The Console from which we players control everything about our Avatars and interactions in the game.
Yet, no such console manifested at my actions.
I felt panic slowly grow within my heart as I waved my hand again, a bit more aggressively, yet the system did not recognize my actions.
'Fuck! What the hell is going on here!? Is this really a bug, or is something else going on?'
'If I am somehow trespassing or something into some internal beta testing of a different game or something of that nature, I really will be screwed! The police will throw me away for a long time!'
With no other choice, I decided to first try and reach the Administrators and the shitty devs somehow.
Maybe Message will work? I don't really have any hope for it since the Message spell was designed for use between players and not the GMs, but I don't have any other choice. Besides, if Drakovahn or any other player is out there who is also caught in this bug or whatever this is, it could be a boon to try and find out what is going on.
So, without wasting any time, I cast the spell.
Immediately, I once again felt that familiar dip in something within me, as the spell activated. Yet, it did not even ring like it should and instantly terminated, making a pit form within my stomach.
This can only mean one thing. I am alone out here, no other player aside from me.
Fuck.
Ok. Calm down.
I need to survey the area and see if I can recognize anything from it. Maybe I am still in YGGDRASIL or something. Given that I can smell sulfur and the scent of something burning in the air, maybe I am still in Muspellsheim?
I wanted to unfurl my wings and take to the skies. Something that I could do with a mental command that the system would interpret as a system command.
However, before I could even make the system command, the very moment I thought of taking flight, I felt my twelve wings unfurl and fill up with the energy within me, my mana, my brain supplied to me automatically.
In an instant, I shot into the air like a meteor and tore through the skies at lightning speed.
I wanted to scream at the sudden speed and actions of my body, but somehow, I suddenly felt a bit calmer and felt like all of this was very familiar. Like I had done all of this many times before.
The undercurrent of emotions was still there, but I felt like there was no need to let them take control. And right now, I do not even have the time to feel any of that.
Because right now, I could tell that all of this was not some bug. Not some kind of error in the code or anything like that.
This was real. As real as the wings that I could feel behind my back that I could control flawlessly, like the sheer power bubbling beneath the surface within me, like the strange sense of disgust I felt for everything around me, like a halo of divinity hanging above my head.
All of this was real.
Somehow, my Avatar from YGGDRASIL had become real, and I had become one with it.
David Goodman, an ordinary office worker from the devastated world of Earth from the year 2138, had somehow become Aetherion the Seraphim.
I continued rocketing into the sky, tearing through the clear purple skies of wherever I am, as my instincts screamed at me to do something.
So, I decided to let my instincts take over and let my control over my body go.
However, what I did not expect was for my World Item, Aurora's Oath, to manifest in my hand as a particular spell came to my mind.
'Hm. Might as well try it and see what happens.'
I felt a significant chunk of my mana disappear as I primed the spell and raised my spear.
With a swing, I called upon the spell that, in the game, was able to deal significant damage while ignoring all protection and armor points.
However, in this reality I found myself in, it did something far more interesting.
"[Reality Slash]"
The Tier-10 spell tore through the fabric of space, creating a momentary breach into which my body shot into as I was far too surprised to stop.
Then, only darkness remained as I once again went unconscious.
Aetherion:
Lucifaad, Underworld.
In the ancient forgotten city of Lucifaad, the original capital of the Devil race, multiple devils flew in the air, surveying the area with their magics, while one particularly powerful devil oversaw everything from above.
"Lord Zekram. We have found the source of the anomaly."
Zekram Bael, the former lord of the Bael family, the progenitor of the Bael bloodline, the unofficial leader of the Great King Faction, simply nodded as he waited for his subordinate to speak.
The devil took the cue and immediately started speaking while showing the photos that he and his team had taken.
What his ancient purple eyes saw in the photos was enough to send a jolt of shock through his body as he instantly recognized what he was seeing.
The devil subordinate, who had no idea that his master had already realized what was going on, started speaking.
"From what we found, there appears to be various prisons thousands of years old underneath the city. The purpose of these prisons and who they were used for is still unknown. But what we did find by tracing the source of the enormous holy energy was some sort of imprisoning circle that recently ran out of power."
The devil subordinate hesitated for a bit before speaking again.
"We believe that these magic circles might have been used to imprison-"
"Angels."
The sudden interruption from his master startled the devil, but soon his eyes were filled with admiration.
"Indeed. As expected of my lord. That is the same conclusion that my team has come to as well."
"...Anything else?"
"We have also found traces of Old Satan Faction activity, but those details have already been sent back to the capital for the four Satans to take care of."
"In that case, have your team retreat back to our territory. I will return once I am sure that there is nothing else left here."
"Of course."
It was only when all of his subordinates had left the area that Zekram allowed his nervousness to show as he shot towards the ground, straight towards the ruins that were once the concentration grounds for the enemy during the Great War.
Even after all these years, the Great King of the Bael still remembered the layout of this city like the back of his hand and easily navigated its underground structures, easily arriving at the familiar place that had not seen use since the end of the Great War nearly a thousand years ago.
Rows upon rows of prison cells lined with the black stones of the Underworld, allowing the devil race to use their magic circles to supress the weaker Angels of Heaven during the Great War.
Many were the atrocities committed in this place, ones that would make the current four Satans even more disgusted with their predecessors.
Countless lesser angels had been tortured, interrogated, and destroyed in these very cells. Some became fallen angels after their purity was defiled by their captors physically, mentally, and in every other way imaginable, while others who refused to break were driven to death by demonic hands.
Yet, there was one cell that no Devil dared to touch. A prison that housed the prized prisoner of the original four Satans. Specifically, the Morningstar himself.
Nobody knows who or what required such personal attention from the original four satans and why they were imprisoned in a forgotten cell that nobody was allowed to approach.
Some believed that the cell held the last remaining Demon of the Underworld. The original denizens of the Underworld that were massacred by God and his armies before Lucifer's exile.
Others believe that it was an Angel. A powerful Seraph that Lucifer somehow managed to capture and imprisoned in the Underworld for some reason.
Many were the legends and theories that spawned from this place, only to be slowly forgotten by time.
Zekram and the rest of the progenitors of the 72 pillars never really put stock into those legends. If it really was a Demon, then it was a good thing that such a savage and powerful being was held prisoner in the forgotten old capital of their race. If it were an Angel, then it was a good thing that nobody remembered this place anymore, since they did not wish to fight the heavens right now by exposing such an existence within their world.
And yet, now, after all these years, Zekram could not help the trepidation that filled his heart as he remembered the ridiculously potent holy energy he felt in the air.
Holy Energy so intense that it reminded him of the time when the Heavenly Host marched through the battlefield with the ten Seraphim leading them from the front and God himself as their general.
Soon, he arrived at the forbidden area where no one was allowed during the reign of the original four, the place that was forgotten after the two-century-long Devil Civil War and left to rot for the past eight hundred years.
And what he found there was exactly what he had seen in the pictures that his subordinates had taken.
An empty, crumbling cell with a colossal stasis magic circle etched into the floor. The remnant demonic energy was finally spent after centuries of continuous use.
And the potent remnant holy energy that no doubt belonged to an Angel.
Zekram did not know who or what exactly was being imprisoned in this place, but one thing was for certain.
Someone powerful had just woken up from a thousand-year-long imprisonment. Someone who possibly did not know about the end of the Great War, the death of God, the Devil's Civil War, and various other events that might stay his hand.
And it did not bode well for anyone to have someone like that in the wild.
'Perhaps, it is time I contact that brat Sirzechs and his friends to take care of this mess? They are the current rulers of the Devil race, so it is only right that they take care of this issue.'
With a decision made, the devil progenitor left the area, heading straight for the city of Lilith, the capital of the Underworld.
As for the being in question? He was having a rather hard time understanding just what kind of world he ended up in.
Author Notes: Read 5 chapters ahead on Patreon: patreon.com/Ruijard1 Like Quote ReplyReport Reactions:zn13, jaesonscott12, Nevek and 247 othersRuijardThursday at 1:09 PMReader modeNewAdd bookmark Threadmarks Threadmarks Chapter 4 New Threadmarks RuijardMaking the rounds.Thursday at 1:10 PMNewAdd bookmark#4Every child on Earth knows the story ever since they are of an age to learn.
A propaganda that children only realize when they grow up and learn the cruelty of reality.
It is said that by the beginning of the twenty-second century, the advanced environmental destruction caused by the neglect of the governments across the world led to massive food shortages that shortly led to riots and coups across the world.
What the people in charge fail to teach with propaganda is that they, the various companies, industries, and firms, were the primary cause behind the environmental destruction, with the governments only being guilty of turning a blind eye to the suffering of the common people until everything came to a head.
A propaganda that everyone is forced to believe. Because the promise of universal knowledge and equal rights had long since faded from my world. The moment the private industries got a hold of political power and started to rule the world, it was a guarantee that the common people would no longer have any rights.
In my generation, children were born into a desolate world where the skies are perpetually clouded with smog, acid rains down from the skies, the land is barren, and the water is polluted.
Even our very lungs are injected with nanomachines from the very moment of our birth to modify them artificially, creating a set of artificial lungs that would allow us to breathe in the polluted atmosphere.
Such is the fate of the common people of my world.
As for the rich? They are the ones who truly live in luxury. With real fruit and vegetables growing within their personal domes called Arcologies, where the atmosphere is carefully controlled by AI systems to maintain a perfect atmosphere free of pollution. With clean and pure drinking water, authentic food, the last few specimens of flora and fauna, and other such luxuries and decadence.
It was because of this darkness that we faced every day that people always sought an escape, even if it was in a virtual world. Of course, the companies would not allow that, so they passed the Social Order Maintenance Act and other such things to keep the ordinary people under their thumb, but that is a different matter altogether.
Now, why am I bringing up all of this?
Because what I am seeing in front of me is something that I had only ever seen in old recordings from the early twenty-first century.
Beautiful, clear blue skies with the warmth of the sun shining on my skin. Clean and refreshing air that felt invigorating. The small creek showed crystal clear running water. The large real forest stretched as far as I could see.
And the distinct feeling of life that I could sense with my new senses made hope bloom in my heart.
Life. That is what I was seeing all around me. Something that was lost to my Earth for a long time. Something that we never even dared to hope to see in our lives.
With an unnatural ease, I flexed my wings, making them disappear into my back along with my halo, which also disappeared at my command. With another thought, my armor disappeared into motes of light, and a simple level 20 clothing set, which was made up of a simple white button-up shirt, black pants, and black boots, materialized on my body.
Bending down to the stream, I carefully dipped my fingers into it, afraid that my move would somehow contaminate this beautiful stream.
Logically, I knew it was not possible. Unlike the people of Japan, who were suppressed so heavily that they were not even allowed basic education by the Conglomerate controlling the Japanese Arcology, we in the USA at least were allowed to complete High School, even if the quality of education was nowhere near what it was in the early twenty-first century. Hence, I knew that merely touching the water would not pollute it.
And yet, I could not help but treat it as a fragile existence that would fade if I looked at it the wrong way. A fear born out of yearning for this beauty that I always saw in my dreams and in videos of old.
By this point, I am fairly sure that I have somehow travelled to a different world altogether. And it should still be some version of my Earth, given that the first thing I did after arriving here from wherever I was before was to shoot into low orbit and survey the planet below me, which clearly showed the familiar continents and the space junk that we call satellites.
Now, one might question why I concluded that I am on an alternate Earth instead of simple time travel. The answer is quite simple.
I can feel unnatural energies from across a few hundred miles of land all around me. Energies that simply cannot belong to humans because my newly gained instincts are telling me so.
Tracking one of these energies to this forest exposed a strange creature that looked like a chimeric existence. A merger between a man and a goat, similar to the Demon race in YGGDRASIL, only uglier.
After it showed blatant hostility, I used a simple Tier-5 spell, Holy Smite, which was enough to vaporize the creature, leaving nothing behind.
Yeah. This kind of creature most definitely could not have existed on my Earth. Because the conglomerates would never stop bragging about having these kinds of strange creatures under their control to the rest of the world.
Looking into the stream, I saw my appearance for the first time since waking up, and I could not help but feel stunned at what I saw.
Long blond hair and beautiful blue eyes. A masculine face and purely human features when I am actively hiding my race. It was exactly like what I had designed my player Avatar as during character creation.
Yet, now, there was an unearthly beauty to my appearance that I simply could not place. A charm that would probably be irresistible for most people should someone like me appear in any place.
Although I guess this could work to my advantage at the moment.
First things first, I need information. To do that, I need some sort of place where I can access said information. My best guess is an institute called a 'Library'. A place where anyone could simply walk in and gain information freely. A foreign concept in my time, but one that was supposedly quite common in this era.
Next, I need money. I need the currency of this era to fit in with the regular people for a while, until I can make sense of what is going on and where to go from here. To that end, I can only rely on my current powers to steal little bits of cash from a lot of people until I have enough for temporary arrangements.
...How the mighty have fallen. To think that the famed Dawn Bringer has been reduced to a petty thief.
Anyways. After the money issue is sorted, I need to start investigating what the hell that strange creature was and what kind of danger level I am playing with in this world.
In YGGDRASIL, it was common practice to carefully scout out any uncharted area since there was a high chance that any mob could kill even a top player if they were not careful. So the same rules should apply here as well. I will have to slowly and carefully scout out this Earth and see what kind of foes I will have to deal with.
For now, this is the only plan I have. I can make up more as I go, but these are the essentials.
With that in mind, I used the [Fly] spell to take off and keep close to the earth, keeping my race a secret for now since I do not want to give away everything about me just yet.
When I first arrived here, I felt a large concentration of energy that felt strangely similar to my own power towards the East, so I think that should be a good spot to start my plan.