After sharing with the nosy girl about the interactions and what was said, the Guild receptionist promised she'd not let a word slip from her mouth, as she had a hunch. Still, she couldn't PINPOINT who UNFALLEN truly was, but now she knew.
I frowned; nothing could help me picture the sight of the 3 of them fighting an Abysmal dragon.
The guild receptionist would then offer her end of the deal, the history of Omega and its other 35 members.
Omega was a clan founded by their leader, Atsushi. Once he founded the clan, it began to circulate, recruiting banished knights, hunted assassins, soldiers, and warriors who had lost their way in life. Omega started the family tradition, each of its members coming from a fallen clan or a fallen kingdom," the guild receptionist explained.
Like Noobie. Each was a fallen knight or soldier.
"Their morality is what separated them from the other clans," the Guild receptionist continued, "Unlike others, the clan treated the game with due respect, and as you saw, is highly respected by the guild and those who are tied to Team Omega. All 38 members have their own seal to approve and sign their request forms. You can wager that any signed requests by them are highly valuable."
It's no wonder that the people from different villages know about them. Even mine, coming up with a song for them after saving our village, I thought to myself.
"But good things don't and never last long…" the guild receptionist continued, "Soon opposing clans begin targeting and killing Team Omega members regardless of PVP (Player versus Players) events or not."
"Wh-Why would they do that!?" I spouted back.
"Well, because other clans didn't want others to join Team Omega. If you were a rival clan, you'd want more people in your clan, thus eliminating Team Omega. That's how you'll have a steady flow of people joining your clan," the Guild receptionist explained. "This was how the PVP events and servers shaped our world. It also ties back to how the Fallen Kingdom event was AN EVENT triggered by massive players to fight each other for control of kingdoms."
And Noobie became the consequence of it, when he didn't do anything…
She looked at me sideways as if reading my thoughts, "Yes, even Noobie is the consequence of the Fallen Kingdom's massive player-scaled event."
I looked at the floor in guilt; ever since the players involved, they've done nothing but get worse. "Can't we just get rid of the players?"
Guild receptionist sighs, "Noobie is also a player, so is Exile, and Kit. If you get rid of all of them, the world collapses, nobody rules any kingdom, no requests are completed, monsters will roam free, and Platinum enforcers no longer enforce towns, as those are also players."
I didn't agree but complied with her reasoning. After all, there were SOME goods in this world, like Tim and his sister Tina.
She continues, "To make matters worse, the players from different clans then formed a coalition and marched against Team Omega."
"THEY BANDED UP TO RID OF THEM!?" I asked, stunned.
The guild receptionist nodded, "The 35 members would give up their lives so that the remaining 3 would carry on their legacies…why those 3, you might ask? Because they may actually only have the last classes known to this terrible, horrible world.
Noobie; the paladin…
I started thinking about their classes.
The guild receptionist then explains, "Kit by standards is a Master Huntsman, while Exile is a Grand Shinobi, and well with your explanation, Noobie is the Left hand of the Fallen kingdom's last Paladin."
She then explains the battle, "Team Omega, knowing their doom, chose their doom at the sight of their castle, their beloved Atsushi Castle. Surrounded by thousands of players from every direction and outnumbered 30 to 1. They held their castle for 5 months until their fall. Once the enemy clans knew only the 3 were left, they left them alone. The same clans that had united against Team Omega began fighting each other now for supremacy and gear—anything to keep their lust for chaos going. Even to fight over territory for the elf slave trade and such.
I flared up, "LIKE US!?"
The guild receptionist swallowed her tears and nodded, "Though those 3 survive, they'd return to bury their fallen comrades at Atsushi castle. Some rumors spread that if you pay your respects to Atsushi Castle… You'd find the Former Omega Lord with his followers, and they'd bless you with any wish. But those are just rumors." She shrugged, like telling a little child a folklore.
Rumors are like fairy tales that never came into existence, right? Pretty sure that's what the saying goes.
"Well, I suppose it's getting late, you probably want your sleep after you know…" the Guild receptionist taunted.
"Hey, WE DIDN'T DO ANYTHING!" I shouted back. "We didn't…"
The guild receptionist smirked as she slowly made her way to the doorway.
"Oh, hey, I just remembered. Something has been bothering me." I struggled to find the correct explanation as the guild receptionist paused as she turned around and sat on the chair close by. "Noobie carries or has a sheathed sword that's always misty or haze-like, you know what I mean?"
She shook her head.
She thought for a moment before something must've triggered a memory, "Oh my god! It's NOT, THERE'S JUST NO WAY…but it could be possible, oh but if it is then OH GEEZ!!"
"What?" I asked in confusion, "Why the sudden change in her tone? And what was the excitement?"
She then grabbed me by the collar and explained, "Noobie holds the late King's weapon, MIST EDGE!!"
"Well, what's so great about Mist Edge?" I asked.
The guild reception then sits down on the side of the bed with me. She proceeds to explain, "Mist edge was a royal relic that the old king welded." She leans closer, " The weapon chooses its master. The sword will only be mist and haze. Should the weapon accept its master, it will become one of the most deadly weapons we know of because the sword HAS NO EDGE. Yet when it cuts and stabs, there's no blade to defend against. Hence the name of the weapon Mist Edge…"
Ah, so that's what he hurt me with during my killing cavern days…
"Make no mistake." The guild receptionist continued, "The Mist Edge only obeys ITS master; otherwise, it becomes a completely harmless weapon, unable to injure others."
"Wait, just how many did Unfallen fall at the battles after the kingdom fell?" I asked.
"Many, but I'll explain according to the witnesses' accounts." She continued, "They said that once he secured the safety of the queen and the princess. He rode with his war horse and Mist Edge sheathed to the town of Enderton. Where he saw peasants fleeing the tyrant's army, he had his lance in hand as he charged the elite obsidian knights on top of his horse. He was outnumbered 20 to 1. However, he charged forward into battle. He'd knock the first few off their mounts, but he himself would be thrown off his horse by the other knights as well. Unfallen had taken out and unsheathed a misty, haze-like sword and cut them down one by one in the bloodied, muddy area of the town. Though it was harsh, it was a victory for him and the banner he stood for, and he remounted his trusty steed once more. Tyrant had a patrol of infantry and heavy cavalry to occupy the routes to new lands. Mind you, these were players that PARTICIPATED in the event and slaughtered innocents."
The guild receptionist looks outside, admiring the moon before continuing, "No lance to joust and nothing left but himself on the opposing side to the tyrant. Unfallen's horse reared up as he declared that HE was the left hand of the UNFALLEN KING, who remained unchallenged. His blade will meet those who sought a swift death! This didn't rattle the enemy; instead, it encouraged them to fight him, and even if it meant outnumbering him. He'd charge them head-on as they angled their pikes towards his horse, but UNFALLEN did something unexpected as he rode his horse to meet them."
"He cast it, didn't he?" I asked in amazement like a child waiting for the climax of the story.
Guild reception nodded, "While galloping towards the enemy army, he cast 'COMMAND OF THE FALLEN KING!!!' And he leaped off his horse into the pikes by himself as he followed up with skirmishes and decapitations. He was not harmed as multiple pikes jabbed into him. As he fought the army there, slowly, one by one. Eventually, the players began fleeing for their lives; nothing was killing UNFALLEN. Then, after the massacre, as the villagers and common folk called it, he mounted his horse as it reared up again in victory with him. UNFALLEN would shout by himself, declaring, VICTORY! WE! HAVE! VICTORY!!!"
No… he didn't have victory… there's nobody left but Noobie… I lowered my head in guilt when I heard those victory cries as tears ran down my cheeks once more…
"What's wrong?" The guild receptionist asked.
The receptionist blinked, startled by the sudden shift in my voice.
She'd been swept up in the legend, the awe, the spectacle, the impossible miracle of it all.
But I wasn't hearing a legend.
I was hearing a man.
A man who shouted victory into a battlefield of corpses.
A man who had no one left to shout with him.
A man who still carries that silence.
The receptionist softened, her teasing gone, her excitement fading into something gentler.
"…Hey," she said quietly, scooting a little closer, "what's wrong?"
I wiped my cheeks with the back of my hand, but the tears kept coming anyway.
"He didn't win," I choked back the wail that threatened to appear without resisting. I gritted my teeth and sucked in a breath. "He didn't have victory. He just… kept going because he had no one left. He was alone. Completely alone."
The receptionist's breath caught because she'd never thought of it that way.
Not once.
Not in all the years had she heard and told the story.
She'd heard the triumph.
BUT, I heard the loneliness.
"…I'm sorry," she murmured, voice barely above a whisper. "I didn't mean to make it sound like he was celebrating. I think… I think he was just trying to convince himself."
I lowered my head again, shoulders trembling.
"Why does he always have to be alone…?"
The receptionist didn't answer.
Because she didn't know.
Because no one did.
Because that was the tragedy of the Unfallen.
What lay barren in that field that day, only that remains was that beyond death itself, an answer I wouldn't even know about.