Draco gazed at Eva with a totally baffled expression. "Your account almost got WHAT?!"
He was not prepared to hear such a thing in this life, and not so casually from her too. Coming from her, it had to be some sort of joke, but he knew her well enough to be convinced she was dead serious.
Eva patted Draco on the back. "Let's head to the Sunbar Cafe and I'll fill you in."
Draco agreed readily. "Sure, it's been a while since we went there and I would also love to tell you about how things have been going on my end."
Eva smiled coyly. "It hasn't been 'a while' Draco, we've yet to go there in this life."
Draco smacked his forehead. "Ah, yeah."
The duo dressed up nicely. Draco wore a turtleneck black sweater that had long-sleeves, with light blue shorts and his favorite black slides. Eva wore a simple sundress that was a kaleidoscope of colors and was loose enough that it wouldn't be tight around her stomach.
She looked less like a young girl at age 21 and more like a mother. Draco, as usual, looked like a f.u.c.kboy in his prime, courtesy of Jada's fashion sense.
After carefully brushing her hair to perfection, Draco exited their castle to see that things had changed greatly in the past month. Unlike Draco and Eva who were super immersed with the pods, Akainu and co still used Virtua Helmets, so they had to log out every so often.
Most importantly, the castle had been greatly expanded. The land outside was being developed upon to create subsidiary buildings like apartments that were super high end.
After all, Draco's goal was to assemble all the members of Umbra in one place like a headquarters. Only after he did that could he take the guild to phase two and show his members the true nature of the world.
The clinic had been of the highest priority and had therefore been the first building to get completed. Draco passed by it to have Eva checked up. The doctor there was an average looking female that was a member of Supernatural who awoke the druid gene.
As such, she was able to effectively work on Eva despite Eva being a superior form of life compared to her. Her analysis was the same as the AI, everything was stable, but Eva needed to increase her intake of 1st Grade NuSmoothies.
However, what the doc actually said was: "It'd be best if someone could engineer a formula superior to the 1st Grade NuSmoothie, because its effect on her is getting weaker."
This greatly troubled Draco, as it was something he'd expected. For him, he could probably continue using it for a long time since he had only started consuming it this year.
As for Eva, she had been taking it her whole life, so her body was beginning to resist it. In truth, he had also considered creating elixirs from the game world in real life, but this was impossible.
He - just as many others - had tried to in the previous timeline and in this one too. The retention effect for the Western Fantasy section only yielded martial or vocational benefits. You could fight better and work in various fields better.
However, to improve on things like the NuSmoothie or to increase the efficiency of their current technology would require them to enter the Sci-fi world, which was why among all the available worlds, it was the one Draco was planning to go to next.
Just imagine, if he learned Tradeskills there, almost everything could be applied to real life. Creating bio-implants, making super AI's, androids, space/battlesh.i.p.s, battle suits, mechs, and more.
But he was so far away from that world that he could only twiddle his thumbs. Draco sighed and decided to consider this problem later.
Thankfully, according to the doc and the AI, Eva would only lose her ability to benefit from 1st Grade NuSmoothies in around 3 years. That should be enough in-game time for them to skedaddle to the Sci-fi world after conquering the Western Fantasy section.
Draco didn't bother to inquire about the state of his 3 companies from Akainu, since the fellow was currently in Boundless anyway. As such, he got a random Sanguigno Brother to drive them to the Sunbar Cafe.
The roads were quite empty nowadays, as more and more people jumped into Boundless and quickly got addicted. Why work 9-5 when one could earn much more in the game?
Of course, not everyone was successful, but the state of players wasn't like at the beginning where one gold coin was a thing of legend. By now, there were silver coins aplenty, and most Elite players and above used gold coins.
This had nothing to do with the quality of players, but was mainly due to the butterfly effect. Draco and Eva had indirectly caused so many lucrative events that all of them opened the minds of players as well as showed them the way forward.
Compared to the previous timeline where players had been like blind bats feeling around, these ones got by pretty well by following the example of Umbra at all times.
When the members of Umbra cleared a dungeon, the others would quietly wait by the side and then rush to clear it too. If Umbra cleared a Field Zone, many players would watch and observe their methods and skills, mimicking them as best possible.
It was annoying for Umbra, but there was not much they could do. Admittedly they could just massacre all the observing players, but such a barbaric action would just tarnish the reputation of Umbra.
Eva's teachings had made sure to instill a sense of pride inside all of Umbra's members. It was their unshakable belief that they were the best players in the game and should behave as such.
The flies did not disturb them directly nor did they stand in their way. They always stood by the side and just copied without interfering at all, so they could be left alone.
As for Draco and Eva, they felt the quietness in the real world was normal. This was the mid-point between the game's rising popularity and the release of the pods. Once the latter happened, outside activity would fall to a record low, with only those who were banned from the game living their lives out alone.
It didn't take long for them to reach the Sunbar Café. It was an open-air establishment with polished wood tables and chairs laid over grass, with a stone tile walkway leading into the cafe itself.
Because it was beside the main street, there was quite a bit of vehicular activity to add spice to the time spent here. Draco and Eva took a seat near the edge of the lot and called a server over.
Draco placed an order for croissants, some cakes, and milkshakes for the two of them. When the server left with a smile, his eyes glued to Eva the whole time, Draco realized that quite the crowd had appeared in the cafe.
A lot of people were walking over to take a picture of Eva and upload it to the internet. Despite not being bothered by it, Draco frowned. He didn't mind if they looked, but to take photos without permission was out of bounds.
He waved his hand lazily and all the phones were crushed into oblivion. The ones holding them were startled by what just occurred and stared at each other blankly.
Draco simply ignored them and waited for their stuff to arrive before setting up a domain around them with Control that prevented all sound from leaking out or entering. It also distorted the light, so people could see him and Eva fine, but trying to take a picture would yield a ruined camera lens.
"Let me start with what happened to me. So, upon entering the Godmar Divine Empire, I was charged by the Emperor to…" Draco began sharing his adventures in the Refinement God's Treasury with Eva.
"My true Devil form allowed me to… my true Demon form as the opposite… summoned a manticore named Sheera…"
Eva listened with rapt attention, a small smile blooming on her face. She paused him many times, asking him to elaborate on some details, like his speculations on certain matters, as well as to share some info pertaining to the situation around him that he might have overlooked.
The more Eva learned about the Refinement God and how they died, the more her eyes sharpened and her suspicions came together. When Draco described how the Origin Gods looked and behaved, she put her milkshake down and nodded without saying anything, but Draco knew his Celestial Beauty had come to an important conclusion.
However, he did not pause. He shared every little detail of their journey together. At certain parts, he would use his Dark Angel Inheritance's psychic ability to transmit information to Eva's mind directly.
Unfortunately, his Inheritance was extremely weak in Telepathy, so he couldn't do it for long, and sometimes what he transmitted came out blurry, which was why he mostly resorted to talking.
Still, Eva felt like she had been with him in spirit as he became a Grandmaster in two Tradeskills while secluding himself to raise an Epic and a Legendary Tradeskill to the Expert Rank.
She had always been wondering why Draco was up to as she got down to her duties, but now she knew. Eva smacked her lips when Draco finished, quite pleased with his progress.
"…and I became tired of working and waiting, so I decided to see you, which was probably the best choice I could ever make." Draco finished with a sigh.
"So how about you, Eva? I was there when you encountered a problem during your Class Up. You must've worked extremely hard - or extremely smart knowing you - to get there. I want to hear it all." Draco said as he leaned forward.
Eva smiled brightly and nodded. "Well, for me, the moment you left for the quest, I realized that there was much to be done."
"I took Hikari, Zaine, and Roma to a Divine Dungeon… leveled them up… Fitter introduced a Lineage member... training Supernatural… Rank up… amazing abilities."
"Core members bombed continent… all Legendary classes… Rina Divine class… met old friends Three Pinnacles…"
Eva continued to regale Draco with stories that left his eyes wide and his mouth agape. What the f.u.c.k happened while he was away?! Everyone literally went from 0-100 the moment he left!
Shit, was his presence that much of a hindrance to them? The current Umbra and Vita City-State were so far ahead of what he had left behind that they weren't even the same thing.
When Eva moved onto the matter of her heist, Draco shivered in his seat. He recognized for the first time that maybe, just maybe, Eva had bigger balls than he did, because he would never try this.
However, not only had she succeeded perfectly, but it had secured her the funds for her Divine Class and enough capital to allow most of Umbra to Class Up as well. When she spoke about Amaterasu and the deal they made, Draco nodded with compassion.
He held her hand and spoke. "No matter your personality or train of thought, whether Riveting Night or Amaterasu, you will always be Eva to me, my soulmate for eternity."
Hearing this, Eva's worries buried at the bottom of her heart were washed away and her already obsessive fixation on Draco somehow became even more intense. Draco smiled, but urged her to continue, as she only got to a point that was about around the time when he started his seclusion.
What had happened over the 3.5 in-game months that led to her crazy claim that her account almost got deleted. Who had enough power to do that and why? As a Celestial Prime, her power should be unmatched by anyone within 3 Ranks.
Did those Rank 7 bastards try to make a move? No, it was impossible. The unspoken rules still existed, so they would work through proxies at best, but they wouldn't focus on Eva due to her standing.
Hm…
Eva wiped her lips and put her hands together. "From here on, it'll be better to show you the events leading up to what happened just a few minutes ago in the game before I managed to escape thanks to you."
Draco nodded. Eva's Inheritance was stronger in Telepathy, so she would have a much easier time showing him what happened as opposed to talking.
Eva focused and cast her memories onto Draco with her bloodline, and a steady stream of images filtered into his head. Draco also closed his eyes to parse through them and watch the events as they unfolded.
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Author's Note: For those who might not be aware, this obviously means that the next few chapters are going to be solely from Eva's perspective and will cover events as they occurred until she almost got her ass beat.
What happened?
Well, stay tuned to find out!