This chapter: 5023 words

Current stats: 34288/50000

I present to you a chapter that I already published but then again deleted because I ,too , thought that it sucked.

I changed the ending so those who already read the chapter don´t have to read it all and should start at the later half or so~ not that it is even plot relevant, you can go ahead and skip it if you want.

Fear not silent supporters! I shall not fail the legendary nanowrimo even though it seems like I have only two days left and need another 15k to do the trick!

Seriously though, I have two more chapter lying around which leaves me with roughly 5k left to write until the finishing line.

I can do it!

You expected an apology for taking my sweet time? Nope! Happy reading =)

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A snowflake silently descended from the sky, sparkling in the light like an ephemeral jewel of nature. It was pushed up and down by the ever howling winds, yet clearly approached the ground bit by bit, gravity was at work as it always is.

The snowflake, after an arduous journey, reached its kin and so the white crystals piled up more and more. The city of mist had long forgotten what the word warmth truly meant.

Covered in eternal ice, Mist was located in the south western part of the continent, in a country which had long lost its true name due to the sheer ancientness and unchanging confines of the glacier. This country which had no agriculture to speak of was simply referred to as 'Kalt' by its neighbors, yet the country itself, if you could call the few villages a country, was not united.

Kalt was an icy wasteland in whom few people could survive. Yet a certain group of adventurers had traced the second quest item they were tasked to gather to this desolate place. In their pursuit of the item they had braved many dangers of which the worst turned out the be the winter itself.

Thus, finally after a harsh journey the group had acquired the relic and could now enjoy their day off in the northernmost city of Kalt, Mist.

Two people leisurely strolled the busy streets of a bustling town, checking out food stalls weapon shops and boutiques alike. Their confident gait and beautiful faces drew many gazes towards them as they toured the already familiar streets of the city of Mist.

People didn´t leave the house without extremely thick clothes, yet these two were almost insanely lightly dressed, considering the temperatures.

The women were painfully aware of the attention they attracted with their looks and behavior but they managed to keep any misgivings they might have had about the situation to themselves. A trained poker face veiled their true thoughts and feelings about being watched like a freak show.

Finally the younger beauty couldn´t take it anymore and dragged the blue haired woman towards an inn, to be more precise, it was the inn they were currently staying at and went by the name of 'the cozy freezer'.

It wasn´t a particularly upscale place to rest, just good enough to guarantee a warm bed without any fleas or other unwanted guests and an eatable meal.

When they entered the common room of the inn, accompanied by a gust of cold air, they were immediately greeted by the sight of their two male comrades, sitting by the fireplace, trying to cure the cold they had gotten during their last adventure.

There were no other patrons present at the moment.

"Achooo!" Lars sneezed and sighed in defeat. He didn´t feel the cold in the normal sense, as this was a game but he didn´t like the limitations the cold put on his body and wanted to get rid of it as fast as he could.

Ares was sleeping on the floor, layers of blankets seemed to turn him into a gigantic worm. He had a happy smile on his face and sometimes said a word or two although they made no sense in any context, just confused babbling.

"You´re back already?" Lars greeted Zessmi and Pie with a bored smile and sneezed once more.

"Yeah, the city is dreadful. I have no idea what happened here since we last visited... there´s tension in the air, like a revolution is gonna happen or something." Zessmi gave her honest opinion.

"I don´t like this... they looked at us as if we were on display or something." Pie said with furrowed brows.

"On display?... You know I heard some rumors the last time we were here, maybe they are true." Lars slowly started explaining. Periodical coughs and sneezes hampered his progress though.

"The king of Kalt, apparently he is a real tyrant, the kind that kidnaps women and children to force their husbands and fathers to fight for him. Apparently he had the twenty most beautiful women of his country brought to him and married all of them. I really hope they are more beautiful than you guys... on second thought, they easily are!"

A truly worrying explanation was ended with a jab at the girls who couldn´t even get angry at the boy. They held no attachments to those forms after all. Their bodies were merely game characters, a design of their own, and like all the other players they had an incomparable beauty. When they made the characters, they didn´t hold back at all.

It wouldn´t be a lie to call these girls the pinnacle of beauty, which was all the more worrisome in the current situation. But normally NPCs couldn´t even judge beauty, right? A thought that was easily dismissed snuck into Pie´s head. They clearly could, after today she was sure of that.

"I hope this won´t trigger some annoying event..." Zessmi said. She wasn´t really averse to an event as they yielded great profits at times, but an event would keep them in Kalt and that would be really annoying... where was the warmth? Everywhere but here...

"We should disguise ourselves!" Pie said in a sudden burst of excitement. "Let's dress up! Hehe~"

She hadn´t disguised herself ever since she entered the game as there were no dress-up festivals like Halloween or carnival in this game. Granted, her armor looked like she was cosplaying but she had been wearing game clothes for two years straight, a change was needed.

"What are we gonna dress up as?" Zessmi joined in on the fun.

"As GM´s!" Lars said and laughed. It was a joke but he really wanted clothes like the GM´s, they were so flashy and shiny, absolutely unique. Lars wanted a change of pace too.

"Now that would be awesome!" Pie high fived Lars and they immediately started plotting together. Zessmi watched and smiled to herself. She had tried to set Lars and Pie up in the past but her attempts had always failed due to their sincere friendship and a sort of kinship between fellow airheads. Thoughts of attraction didn´t even seem to exist between them, but that might also be due to the fact that they were painfully aware of the fact that their current appearance wasn´t even remotely similar to the real thing.

"It´s easy enough to have a good cloak crafted, the design is pretty simple so the harder parts are the effects... Do you think a normal enchanter can do that?" Pie asked all professional.

"Maybe.. the glowing effect is easy to get but the fuel costs would be enormous. If the material could produce its own energy, that would be perfect..."

"Like a solar panel? Or a battery of sorts, we could just fill it up again."

"Good idea, there are many metals that can store magical energy!"

"Do you mean...?"

"Jup"

"Alright, we have been searching for a use of 'that' for a long time now~"

They high fived again and continued to discuss.

"What about the symbols? I kinda want mine to be star shaped~"

"Oh, if we´re gonna do this we should make one for everyone!"

"Let´s give Ares a heart shaped one~" Zessmi interjected and the others grinned in agreement.

"And not a word to GM! I wanna see his face when he sees us all dressed up!" Lars said with a smirk on his face.

"You´re so evil Lars~" Pie said with an equally evil grin.

"Let´s make those plans." Zessmi said and the three of them got to work. A simple disguise with some make-up never even crossed their mind.

____________________

The GM was confused. He had sent the NPC through so many trials, so many different situations and personalities. Scenarios, the virus should never have been able to foresee or react to.

Despite his unwillingness to accept his findings the GM was now sure of one devastating truth. A simple thing if you read the corresponding light novels but for a normal person and somebody who actually had an idea how computers worked an impossibility.

This NPC, no this piece of code, actually had the ability to think for itself. It was the very definition of an artificial intelligence. How could this be? NPC were made with a certain amount of freedom, it all depended on random variables and preprogrammed action. They couldn´t just react to a situation their developer hadn´t foreseen and prepared.

Thus faced with more and more 'should be impossible yet is plain to see' situations the GM just took it in stride with some puzzlement.

Ethan was a random infected NPC. If all of them were like this...

Ethan was a former mob, that much the GM was now sure of. If all the mobs in the game became like him...

The GM grew paler as he thought of the chaos that was taking place in this former game. Those thoughts were also accompanied by moral concerns as the NPC and the mobs he and his group killed for fun turned out to be sentient beings instead of what he and the whole world took them for. A few lines of code.

To his own surprise it was easy for the GM to shake of those moral concerns. He didn´t know the reason for his sudden cold-heartedness but it made him uneasy. There were so many things he wanted to test.

It was only the day after 'the immortals last stand' as today´s newspaper referred to the battle between players and NPCs. Normally the GM would already be adventuring with his friends at this time of the day but Lars and Ares had caught a cold during their last adventure and the only known cure to the cold status was rest.

Thus the group had postponed their next adventure by a day, leaving the GM with another day of vacation, almost like a weekend, he mused.

He hadn´t taken such a long break ever since he met the group, they always seemed to be up to something and frankly, that suited the GM just fine. He didn´t want to be bored, with the boredom thoughts of home and his situation came too, so he would rather busy himself as much as possible.

There was something the GM had been pondering the entire day. His thoughts always seemed to stray in this direction it seemed and he couldn´t answer the questions they repeatedly pressed.

What was he going to tell his friends?

Could he really just tell them about the immortals last stand and how he had failed to protect the other players? Would they look at him with the same loathing eyes, the same hatred filled and accusing glares?

But if he didn´t tell them and they found out about it they would most likely feel as if he had deceived them and rightfully so... News of the battle had not spread to the city of Mist yet but that was only a matter of time. They definitely would find out. The GM knew he had to tell them...

As his thoughts returned back on topic the GM inspected Ethan´s current progress in the new parcour he had made.

The GM had found out that he could indeed rewrite Ethan´s setting and change his personality as much as he wanted to, thus creating great inconsistencies in his behavior with each new personality. Ethan´s memories however were not accessible. With each personality change the poor man grew more confused.

Sadly the GM hadn´t found a way to exploit the virus and use it to hack into the game, but that much was expected from this short amount of time. The GM remained as optimistic as a prisoner who had for the first time in years found a clue to a plan of escape could possibly be.

So far the GM had watched Ethan in four different states, the first was the original Ethan. The GM wanted to watch him as a reference for the future changes to him so he would be able to make a better comparison.

After this little event the GM made his first changes to Ethan´s personality. He wanted to see whether Ethan could use warrior skills despite not being a warrior. The GM also took the opportunity to lower Ethan´s self restraint, thus angry Ethan was born.

What happened then was as expected unexpected. Ethan was able to use the skills and he became extremely aggressive! Self restraint really is an important part of people.... or so the GM might have thought at the time.

In this way the GM merrily tried out a few possibilities. Could he use magic? Healing? What would happen if he heightened Ethan´s sensitivity? Or if he lowered it?

In the end the happy Ethan was what made the GM realize that he really shouldn´t mess with the NPC too much. But by then it was too late.

The GM removed all the augmented personalities, yet the NPC Ethan Longer wasn´t the same anymore. He was sadistic. A brutal monster that enjoyed torture and murder and for some reason this person had realized who was behind his kidnapping.

A cold shiver ran down the GM´s spine when in the end the NPC called out to him.

"...wanna play?"

That smile...

The GM didn´t know why the exact same personality which Ethan had in the beginning of his tests turned out to be completely different. Was this the virus taking over?

It was almost laughable but in his newfound terror the GM simply packaged Ethan and wanted to delete the monster he had created then and there... he didn´t do it though.

Yet, the GM regretted nothing. The newfound information was crucial. The most important aspect for now was the awareness of these improved NPC and mobs. If the mobs in dungeons were affected they could just one day decide to leave and wreak havoc on the continent, not that the GM really cared but he wanted to be prepared for when it happened.

The bosses would probably hamper the progress of the church´s people who promised him a magic that would lift the effects of the aurora, is what the GM thought at that time.

It was just one headache after the other...

___________________

"Woooow..." Disbelief could be read in the speaker´s face.

"This is...!" Sparkling eyes looked at the object in question.

"Unexpected!" The melodious voice of a female singer finished.

"Why me? I swear it´s always like that..." A black haired young man said and hid his face with his hands. He was currently wearing a high quality black cloak, which was comfortably warm in the current situation.

The chagrin on his face was most likely caused by the 'adorable' and 'fashionable' neon orange hearts that floated around the cloak. They were as bright as a flashlight, way brighter than the ones and zeros of the original GM cloak, and almost blinded the one looking at them.

Ares couldn´t help but grin despite himself. He had left the others alone for a few hours and they had already done something bafflingly weird again.

"The cloak is awesome... why did you have to ruin it with those hearts?" Ares asked.

"Ruin? Ares you idiot, you look more handsome and manly than ever so stop whining." Pie said, the grin never leaving her face. She wasn´t even looking at Ares in favor of equipping her own cloak.

In a flash she was dressed in an identical cloak, but hers had pink stars that weren´t as blinding as Ares hearts. She giggled happily and ran around the room to watch her stars follow along.

"You should be honored that we didn´t exclude you, lazy bum!" Zessmi put her cloak on too. She had opted for a shorter cloak that had the length of a slightly longer jacket. Her neon blue violin clefs matched her hair very well, they were even brighter than Ares hearts though.

"Very funny Zess~ I bet you were the one who planned this, just admit it and take you punishment!" Ares slowly snuck up on her, the bright orange light was a giveaway but he didn´t care. Ares jumped at Zessmi and started tickling her while she shrieked and started kicking him to get him to let go.

"Tsk, so he didn´t forget." or so Zessmi mumbled while she gasped for breath. Her weakness was discovered not too long ago, yet Ares had never tried exploiting it until now.

He was just waiting for the right moment, or so Zessmi thought and she was right about that.

"Still, thanks I guess!" Ares said suddenly cheerful and smiled at Lars and Pie, the actual driving force behind this project.

Lars had by now also equipped his cloak. Unexpectedly Lars had chosen red daggers as his make shift lamps. They had the dimmest most menacing color of them all and didn´t fit the image of a healer at all.

"Damn Lars, I´m the tank, why couldn't you give me something tanky?" Ares complained again.

"Oh you have something tanky! Hearts, just like in those really old games. As a tank you need lots of hearts. "

Ares thought about that for a moment and shrugged. He wasn´t into retro games and didn´t know whether Lars was just bullshitting him. All the games he knew had a simple lifegauge.

"More importantly, is your cold gone yet?" Pie asked, she had enough of Mist and wanted to sneak out of the city as soon as possible.

"Yes, I´m better now." Ares said and Lars nodded.

"Great, then let´s get out of here tomorrow! The next relic is to the north so we will finally get some warmth! This is so weird. Back in the days I never even noticed the cold, but now..." Zessmi complained.

"Must be because you are no longer used to real temperature changes and your mind is making them up, not that I´m any better." Lars explained.

"We´re making them up? Why? " Pie asked.

"Hmmm... it´s like this, I think, the impulses from the game are really small, heat, cold, pain and the like so you would normally realize that you were hit but you wouldn´t feel the pain. I don´t know what happened on the other side but it´s clear that we don´t get many impulses from the outside so our bodies might have adjusted. Small impulses seem stronger like this. In a way it might be like eating food without any spices for a long time and then adding pepper, even if it´s only a little. You would taste it much stronger. "

"Who are you and what did you do to Lars?" An icy voice suddenly asked, then started giggling a second later.

"So mean, if it´s about games of course I would know, sheesh!" Lars pretended to pout at Zessmi´s comment.

There was a moment of silence as the group was reminded of reality for while.

"When should we surprise GM with this?" Pie asked tentatively. Breaching the silence seemed difficult with everyone in their own world like this.

"Oh, maybe right now? He must be bored out of his mind after two days on his own!" Lars said.

"Let´s call him over." Ares said and immediately wrote a message.

"Hey there GM,

are you bored yet? Let´s hang out.

~Ares"

Not even a minute later the GM appeared unceremoniously inside the room. His back seemed hunched, shoulders slumped. To the group that had learnt to read his body language for two years it was clear that something was the matter.

With a cursory look around him the GM quickly froze as he looked at the four cloaked people in front of his eyes. They had put on the hoods and veiled their faces in their shadows.

"What the.." the GM unconsciously started and backed a few steps up in surprise. He hadn´t seen this many GM´s for years and was slightly crept out.

It took him a full minute to reboot his brain and process what he saw in front of his eyes.

"You guys are Ares, Pie, Zessmi and Lars? Where in the heavens did you get that gear?" At the end of his sentence the GM´s bewilderment turned into amusement.

"Surprise!" Pie took the hood of and smiled brightly.

"We´re having a halloween party!" Lars claimed despite clearly knowing that it was august.

"Trick or treat!" Ares said with a smile.

"Heeeh~ so you guys want some sweets? Well, you have some beautiful costumes, don´t you? I wonder which fearsomely handsome creature inspired them." The GM said in a serious voice.

"More self absorbed than handsome if anything, that one never even showed its true colors. What a mysterious fellow." Ares said and grinned beneath his hood.

"Uses every minute to run off on his own, a really bad influence on the children." Zessmi said and pulled Pie into a tight hug and petted her head while Pie faked sadness and turned away from the GM.

"If that wasn´t enough he always returns gloomier than before, it´s the blue monster alright~" Lars added.

Thus the GM was scolded for being depressed again and quickly snapped out of it.

"But seriously, how did you do that? They´re fake right? The originals always have ones and zeros after all."

"It´s all thanks to those two~" Zessmi said and gestured towards Pie and Lars who raised their heads in pride.

"We made a new enchantment and had the local enchanter put it on the magic ore we got during the last quest!" Pie said.

"That was totally worth every penny." Lars joined in.

"Wait a second, how much did these cost?" Ares asked flustered.

"Forget it, those are gifts." Pie generously said and Lars nodded. In truth they merely wanted to avoid a scolding because the enchantment really was extremely expensive. They were quite rich after such a long time of constantly playing but Ares was a miser, especially if he had to pay for the things himself.

The GM took out some candy and the attention drifted from the cloaks to the sweet goodness. There were sugar coated fruits, little tarts and cookies. The only thing missing was chocolate but that was due to the fact that there was no chocolate in the game.

The GM wanted to tell the others about the entire mess he had caused this time around but remained silent as to not ruin the mood.

He could still tell them at a later time ...right?

"Come to think of it, why did you guys dress up in the first place? Is there any occasion?"

"I don´t think so~ why did we do this again?" Pie asked.

"We wanted to sneak out of town in disguise because of the rumors about the king remember?" Lars answered.

"So you wanted to be more inconspicuous... I think you made a mistake somewhere. Hahaha. That´s the worst getup for sneaking around that I have ever seen. Hahaha" The GM said.

"So that´s what these were for!" Ares said and laughed too.

"Now that I think about it, these clothes are way too flashy to sneak around with." Even Pie realized the severity of the situation.

"Why are we even fleeing from the king? Did you guys do something?" Ares asked after some time.

"Because we are pretty?" Zessmi and Pie said at the same time and giggled.

"Ok? We could just overthrow the king if he´s so bothersome you know..." The GM proposed as there were already revolutionary currents in the city anyway. Might as well exploit the chaos.

"If the rumors are true, he really is a tyrant and an enemy to all women! Yes! Let´s overthrown him." She grinned and began hatching plans with Ares.

"GM there are no more cookies!" Pie said and the GM simply summoned some more snacks.

"I think we should first find the rebel forces." Ares said and Zessmi nodded.

"I don´t think that´s necessary. We are so strong that we can just waltz into the throne room and drag the tyrant out." Lars interjected.

"It´s so boring to fight these easy battles all the time." The GM sighed. After two years of nonstop playing his group was too strong for the current game content. Normally updates would have kept the balance but as there was no contact with the outside world there were no updates either.

"Alright, no use making it easier than it already is." Zessmi conceded.

"When do we start?" Pie asked, she never stopped eating her beloved sweets.

"Tomorrow?"

"No, let´s do it today!" Lars smirked and looked at the others in search of support.

"When I finished these~" Pie said and increased her eating speed as if she couldn´t just pocket the sweets.

Only a twenty minutes later the group stood in front of the castle gates. They had chosen to wear their normal gear for now and the GM had turned himself invisible after explaining that there were now NPCs who could see him.

"I know this might be slightly late but... do we have any proof that this king actually did what the rumors said?" Ares asked.

"No proof whatsoever!" Lars said and banged at the gates.

BangBangBang.

The iron gate was completely covered in ice and made extremely loud noises. After a short wait a part of the gate was slid to the side and revealed a seasoned guard with red nose and snowflakes in his graying hair.

"Who are you?"

"Travelers! We were wondering if your king was interested in the beauties we brought along." Lars said smilingly and pointed at Zessmi and Pie who exchanged disturbed looks.

The guard took a look at the beauties and immediately called out.

"Open the gate!"

It took a while for the frozen gate to move. The rattling noise was overpowering and ice rained down like a waterfall. When the gate was finally open there was a small mountain of ice and snow blocking the path, not that the group let it stop them. They jumped above the two meter tall obstacle in the blink of an eye and followed the guard into the castle.

The castle of Mist was honestly quite the miserable place. There was ice everywhere they looked. Even the insides weren´t any better as the pitiful stone walls could have just as well not been there. Air found its way through the cracks and holes in the walls. Clearly, nobody took care of the building and it seemed to be more ruin than castle by this point.

The group walked through the icy corridors and soon reached the heart of the building, the throne room.

By this point the GM almost pitied whoever had to live in this desolate place. Dragging them out would almost count as a favor.

Thus when the GM saw the situation in the throne room he didn´t know whether to laugh or cry. There were twenty beautiful women huddled together in the center of the room. They were happily chatting about the most mundane of topics, oblivious to the pained face of the crown wearing man sitting on the throne to the back of the room.

The king took note of the new arrivals and dreaded what they were about to say next when he looked at the beautiful women in their group.

"Your Majesty, these travelers have brought two beautiful women for you." The guard announced.

The king nodded to him as a sign of dismissal and began speaking.

"Greetings travelers. I will sadly have to disappoint you and refuse those women as I already have twenty wives and don´t need more of them." There was no such thing as a royal aura or the like around the man. He simply seemed defeated.

For an instance the group didn´t know how to react as they had expected a perverted old man that would jump at this opportunity and deliver the reason they needed to dethrone him. Zessmi grinned evilly and pushed Lars forward to speak as this was his plan and she wanted to see him struggle a bit.

"Your majesty, you may have many beautiful women but these two have exceptional quality! Won´t you reconsider?"

"No, I really don´t need more than these!" The king pointed at the incessantly chatting ladies.

Zessmi had a thought. Perhaps the rumor left out the most crucial part of the truth.

"But you majesty asked for the most beautiful women to be brought to him. How could you send us away now? Is it possibly that your majesty never wanted to marry twenty women?"

A complicated expression flashed across the kings face.

"It was for the sake of the country as I need an heir as soon as possible, or so my ministers said. Yet I find myself struggling with the situation. Even if you want to marry me I cannot possibly do that young lady." The king admitted.

"Bahhh so he´s not a bad guy at all~" Pie exclaimed for all to hear.

"I guess we jumped to conclusions, too bad." Ares said.

"Poor guy, struggling with twenty women." The GM said with a sly grin that nobody saw.

The king looked confused at the group.

"What do you mean by that?"

"Oh, we thought you were a lecherous pervert due to the rumors and came to dethrone you! Turns out you didn´t want this to happen either~ Good luck with these women!" Lars said and turned to leave. This mission was a letdown.

"Wait! Dethrone me?" But nobody listened to the poor chap.

A disembodied voice then spoke to him.

"You should really give the people more say in your country, otherwise there will soon be a revolution in this place. The people are really upset about this wife business of yours."

With that the door to the throne room was mysteriously closed and the king was left with his own thoughts.

Outside, the group made their way to the inn and chatted some more. They decided to continue the hunt for the relics the next day.