Nyx placed the bucket containing the soup inside the refrigerator, After closing the door, she turned to the pale-faced young man. “There… I should get going now.”
“Mm, thanks.” Jesse nodded in appreciation and glanced at the clock on his phone. He frowned, as there wasn’t a lot of time left.
However, then a pale hand appeared in front of him. He lifted his gaze and saw the smiling girl offering her hand.
“My name is Nyx. I believe we will see each other again.”
“Uhuh.” Jesse shook the hand carefully and then watched as Nyx walked to the door and left his apartment, leaving behind her perfume to linger in the air.
He sat down on a couch in silence, thinking about what had just happened.
“My mother had an affair? If that happened, my father would have thrown me into the streets when I was a toddler.” Jesse rubbed his temples as he felt a headache coming. “Except if he doesn’t know. Then, who is my real father? Is he even alive?
“Well, this is still speculation, but it is true that Humanoid Imperfecta can only be inherited…”
At that moment, he remembered something urgent. He raised his head, shock flashing past his eyes. He checked the time on his phone and panicked.
“Shit, shit, shit!” He stood up in a hurry, clumsily took off his shoes, and threw them towards the front door. The shoes crashed on the door and fell to the ground, leaving behind a small dent on the white door.
Jesse then rushed inside his bedroom and hopped on the soft bed while taking the VR headset from the desk. He immediately put it around his head and pressed the button.
“It doesn’t matter whether she cheated or not; they have already shown their willingness to cut their ties with me. For now, I have to focus on the quest!”
…
“Miss Serenity, we have all gathered.” A young lady in a colorful outfit finished taking attendance. All of their signed quest members had been accounted for.
The wagons were waiting outside the gates of Silver Heart; a crowd had gathered around them. The players were dressed in cloaks and some in armor, but all of them had one thing in common—they all had the symbol of a silver heart on their clothes, all in different places.
Some had silver hearts on their shoulder pads, others had them on the back of their cloaks, and some wore black headbands with silver hearts in the middle of them.
They were all excited to start their journey to Yatagarasu. It was their first time in a new city, and it was a huge, important quest since it was their dojo’s first-ever quest.
“Alright.” Serenity nodded to the young lady and glanced at the clock on her interface. It was five minutes before the time, and she hadn’t caught a glimpse of the person she wanted to see. She even debated whether she should send a message.
As the players boarded their wagons, the tall, muscular man, Teddy, walked over to Serenity and said.
“Serenity, are you going to sit with us?” Teddy asked while side-glancing at one of the wagons. The third wagon was reserved for the highest-ranked members, including Teddy, Caveman, and Leprechaun.
“Uh, I am—”
“Haaah, I am sorry for being late!”
An exhausted voice came behind her.
In surprise, she turned around and saw a sweaty-looking young man. He was panting heavily, as if he had run a long distance to get here.
Teddy looked at the young man with a deep frown, not recognizing him in the slightest.
“Excuse me, but who are you?” He asked. “We are about to depart and don’t have time for fanboys.”
“It’s alright, Teddy.” Serenity looked at him, shook her head, and turned back to Ambrose. “I am glad you came. We are about to leave; shall we enter our wagon?”
“Yeah… sure.” Ambrose wiped the sweat off his forehead, still nervous in her presence but not showing it in his face. He followed her to the only wagon that was still empty and entered it behind her, but before that, he caught the irritated face of Teddy and many surprised ones of other Silver Heart members.
“Teddy, do you know who that was?” The young lady with the colorful outfit asked the muscular man. She felt her gossip instincts fire up in excitement.
“I don’t know.” Teddy replied and looked down at his muscular arms. He clenched his fists, clenching his muscles. ‘My muscles are bigger than his.’
Near the third wagon, Leprechaun climbed inside and saw other high-ranking members already seated while chatting about the person that had just arrived. They were wondering about his relationship with their leader, Serenity. 𝑜𝗏xt.𝗇t
‘He is the person that wagon was rented for.’ Leprechaun frowned and sat down. ‘He better be capable of pulling his weight.’
He intertwined his fingers and clenched them tightly.
…
The wagons left Amaterasu and began wheeling down a rocky road, heading towards the mountains that were past Crow Forest. They would drive around the Crow Forest using a dirt road and use a valley to go past the sky-splitting mountains.
That alone would take nearly twelve hours, and after going past the mountains, they would have a several-hour journey longer to finally reach the city of Yatagarasu, which was called the city with the highest population.
The journey was not easy for them as they had to cross many rivers and streams. The most lethal part was going through the valley, where many high-leveled monsters had their nests.
Luckily, there were some adventurer extremists who wanted to map the whole game before anyone else. Few had already mapped the route from Amaterasu to Yatagarasu, which they sold to Silver Heart dojo.
Serenity and Ambrose were sitting in complete silence inside the horse-drawn wagon as it bounced up and down. They were sitting at different corners of the wagon, separated by four meters.
Serenity watched the dust blowing behind the wagon. She then glanced in Ambrose’s direction and opened her mouth, wanting to disturb the silence.
“We received the quest information from trusty source.”
“Huh?” Ambrose didn’t expect her to speak suddenly and turned to look at her with stunned expression.
“I used to play Ember Online, a few years ago and I was part of a quite popular guild there.” Serenity said. “That guild also exists in this game now. The former leader of that guild, made it as dojo in Yatagarasu.
“He had heard about me. I had somehow became famous in other cities as well as the “winner” of the World Quest. So, he contacted me and wanted us to join a certain quest, which they are unable to do it themselves.
“They only have ten members currently. Our guild was never big in Ember Online either, only twenty members. Instead of inviting other rival dojo’s to the quest, they sent the invitation to me.”
“Ah, I see.” Ambrose nodded and looked away from her, returning to the silence.
“How have you been doing? Is your new apartment nice?” She immediately asked after seeing Ambrose turn silent again.
“It’s fine.” Ambrose said with a sigh. “Peaceful neighborhood, and stuff.”
“That’s good.” Serenity nodded with a smile and looked out of the wagon into the passing forest. The scene was peaceful, but she felt like there was massive bridge between her and Ambrose.