While Joshua was paying attention to the Mage Forum’s posts, Ciri was using the ‘stone age’ controller Joshua made with an originium crystal and magic runes to fight against a bunch of mushrooms.
“Why am I unable to exit the fourth level...”
Ciri was staring at the ‘Super Mario’ game in the magic network. She was on the fourth underground level. She only took a couple steps and died to a fireball that appeared out of nowhere.
When GAMEOVER covered her screen, Ciri appeared discouraged.
“This is so difficult. The three resurrections are simply not enough to defeat this game.”
“This game is already simple by comparison. There are a lot of hidden green mushrooms that could increase the amount of resurrections. Also, if you earned more than a hundred coins, you’d gain another resurrection.”
As an experienced player, Joshua offered Ciri some of his techniques. Currently, Pong and Super Mario were the only games in the Games Special District.
The posts in this sub-forum were all people asking how to pass a certain level of the game.
“Green mushroom? Aren’t the gigantification red mushroom and fireball magic white flowers the only things in this game? Oh, there’s also the star...”
Ciri counted the artifacts she had encountered in the game so far.
Ever since the Mage Forum was officially open to Norland’s public, Ciri’s scores in the Games Special District far surpasses the second ranker ‘Faye’ by over two thousand points.
Wait... Faye?
Suddenly, the user Faye surpassed Ciri and became the top ranker in the Games Special District. Moreover, the gap between their scores was over three hundred thousand points!
“A rival appears...”
Ciri was planning to ponder about strategies and take on Super Mario again tomorrow. But, her top spot being taken by someone else once again evoked her fighting spirit.
“That name... seemed to be my younger sister.”
After some time, Joshua finally recalled where he heard that name before.
“Your younger sister?”
“Faye Annerlaude. The fourth person in the line of succession to the demon realm’s throne. But, I am not familiar with her. I have no idea if the user of that name is actually her.”
Joshua remembered the dark elf had mentioned Faye before leaving...
Unfortunately, the third prince did not have much memories about her younger sister. The only thing present in his memories were ‘she’s very dangerous,”do not approach’ and other similar warnings.
As Joshua spoke, a new post suddenly appeared in the Mage Forum’s Games Special District.
‘How to let the dwarf with the red hat survive till the end.’ Poster: Faye
.........
Four hours earlier.
With the help of the Sin Demon Zenarth, the dark elf managed to cross over multiple nations at once and completed the journey that would take half a year on a horse carriage to return to the Demon Realm’s Royal City from Norland in a short two hours.
When she arrived at the Demon Realm’s Royal City Annerlaude, she could sense that there were over a hundred pairs of eyes watching her.
Those eyes were all from the Royal City’s sentinels. They were people in charge of managing the order in the Royal City.
While the dark elf was not a sentinel, her position in the demon realm surpassed that of ordinary sentinels. Thus, even when there were sentinels that discovered a strange bird flying into the city, they would not do anything to her.
The dark elf successfully landed in the garden located in the center of the Royal City. This was a place accessible to only the royal family that ruled the Demon Realm. The only reason why the dark elf was able to enter this place was because of the privilege given to her from the person she serves.
The dark elf followed the garden and entered an imposing yet somewhat eerie castle. Only some water elemental servants without consciousness could be seen from time to time in this empty hallway.
As long as she followed the hallway, she would arrive at the Watcher’s Hall, the place where the ruler of the Demon Realm was located.
The dark elf should be proceeding to that area to report to her master the information she obtained recently. But, the dark elf didn’t do that. Instead of reporting to her master, she decided to meet her ‘Mathilda,’ the person who saved her in the past. She needed to give her some important things.
The dark elf took a turn and walked into a narrow hallway. The further she walked into the hallway, the lesser the number of water elemental servants. In the end, she was the only person remaining in the entire hallway.
Her footsteps echoed in the hallway. It seemed to be warning her to ‘get away’ from this dangerous place.
When she arrived at the end of the hallway, stairs appeared. On the side of the stairs was a rock carving covered in dust. The carvings were a series of words in demontongue. Upon translation, they meant ‘Bottom of the Abyss.’
The dark elf walked toward the stairs without hesitation. No lights were present at this point. She was only able to see her surroundings with her racial trait of night vision.
Whenever she took another step, she could see the skeletal remains of some unknown creature. Those were very old bones, they’d died many years ago...
The dark elf stepped on a couple ribs and hands, crushing the bones. She passed through a ‘cemetery’ of bones and, after spending over twenty minutes, reached the top of the stairs.
The top of the stairs was completely different from the path leading up to it. On earth, this place would be called a Peach Blossom Spring, an utopia.
Evidently, a young girl was living in this place. The small room was covered in all sorts of plush toys and dolls in the style of all different countries.
The dark elf slowly walked over to the bed in the center of the room and half-kneel before it. Quietly, she said. “Your Highness Faye, I’ve returned.”
“...”
Someone heard her voice and abruptly sat up from the bed. It was a young girl who appeared to only be thirteen or fourteen. She was pale, somewhat abnormally pale. It seemed like the creator had only added a hint of purple to her eyes when creating her.
The young girl’s hair was somewhat disheveled. She yawned like she had just woken up from her sleep. She rubbed her drowsy-looking eyes before finally looking at the dark elf half-kneeling before her bed.
After seeing that the person that came to her was the dark elf, she yawned again, fell back onto the bed and started sleeping again.
“Your Highness Faye! What I brought back this time is much more interesting than the nesting dolls from the Nation of Frost!”
Seeing Faye deciding to go back to sleep, the dark elf immediately stood up.
“Wuuu... I don’t care what it is, let me sleep for another month first.”
The little girl ignored the dark elf. She covered her head with her pillow and laid stomach-first on her bed.
To show one’s back to an ice-cold killer was an irrational behavior. But, the dark elf doesn’t dare to have any malicious thought toward this princess. How could she? Those bones on the stairway up here served as the best warning.
Being woken up by the dark elf again, Faye opened her eyes and sat back up on her bed. She finally looked to the dark elf before her.
“You should know... the consequence of lying.”
“Of course.”
The dark elf felt like her heart came to a sudden stop. It was not a misperception.
“But, Your Highness, you will definitely be satisfied this time.”