Struggle#16

Objective: Craft Alice’s Quest Book

Sub-objective: Bring Alice - Meet Ogre Omtapo - Defeat the Guardian

Well, I guess that settles the struggle. I don't know what to do about Ogre though… after making the book, he seemed really tired. I gave him the cup, and as soon as he touched it, he fainted.

I wouldn’t be surprised if he himself wouldn’t know what happened to him.

Although I do have a theory.

On his window, the word Kindness was kind of glitched, or damaged. Thus, I remember what Adam said, about going the wrong way, it could refer to our Virtues.

In fact, that makes perfect sense to me. Ogre was clearly driven by a tremendous desire to get the relic, that would correspond to the sin of Envy, which is the opposite of Kindness. I’m not really sure though…

That’s why I told my theory to Alice, and she approved faster than I had expected.

“This is quite logical indeed. It’s like you’re on a spectrum, at one end there is the Heavenly Virtue and at the other there is the Deadly Sin. The more you go toward the first the more you’re growing your class’s power, but it’s slow, compared to the Sin, who allow you to instantly become stronger, but with the drawback of exaggerating the Sin to its extreme! Damn, that was so obvious!”

“…yeah… “obvious”.”

Shit, and here I was proud of finding out that Ogre was cursed by the other side of his Virtue, I didn't think that far about the whole game system.

It’s a bit frustrating when she does that, and same goes for Nami.

“Wait, what would be my Deadly Sin then?”

“The opposite of Humility would be Pride.”

“That doesn’t seem that bad. Especially compared to Envy, looking at what it did to Ogre…”

"I wouldn't be so sure about that. What if you become so prideful that you disregard everyone as not worthy of you, or something similar, and not care about a friend being attacked. At the very least, you would become an egocentric asshole."

“Yeah… and that would be hard to sustain. Even with a boost of strength, I wouldn’t hold long against… well, pretty much anyone.”

“I wonder what’s my Virtue though… it’s blank.”

"Maybe you can ask one of the guides."

“I looked on the back, but there’s nothing like yours. I think they need to contact me beforehand.”

Oh, that reminds me, I didn’t check my own conversation for some hours now. Maybe Val answered - I am an optimist.

And… she didn’t.

Hum? There’s something else on the screen… some sort of red rectangle in the top right, vibrating. I wonder what it is…

Hum…

Hum…

Nothing is happening.

Maybe staring at it isn’t enough.

I touched it, and another window opened on top of the first one.

M: Test, test. 0ne, tw0, 0ne, tw0.

M: Seems t0 w0rk just fine.

M: S0, t0 sum up, I think I figured a way to 1ink all 0ur Quest B00ks t0 chat t0gether, but I need t0 m0dify the b00k themse1ves first.

M: 1ucki1y, I g0t h01d 0f Samsy’s b00k bef0rehand, s0 I have him, and Pr0m.

P: Hep! How’s poinp?!

M: Sigh... y0ur typing quirk is rea11y ann0ying.

P: It's like mp blood.

P: TYPE O!

M: Just... Ki11 y0urse1f.

P: 8P

M: Sigh… at 1east it seems to work.

M: F0r n0w I can 0n1y make 0ne huge r00m-chat f0r every0ne, and I’m sti11 trying t0 find a way f0r every0ne t0 d0 private chat.

M: ‘cause I d0n’t think I'11 be ab1e to hand1e every0ne’s typ0 at the same time.

M: In case y0u haven't understand a1ready, I’m with Pr0m, 0n my 13th strugg1e, and he’s 0n his 14th.

M: We sh0u1d m0ve up s00n.

M: Message me when you can.

Wow, she did it!

“Did something happened?”

I showed Alice the chat, and with a slight elevation of her mouth corner - I suspect she wasn’t even aware of -, she nodded.

“Humpf, she took her sweat time for sure.”

“That’s great news. I can keep them up to date. There’s so much to say, I feel like it’s been month since we left Lucropolis.”

“Yeah… wait, you want to tell them everything? Like… even the thing about Adam and that you lost your foresight?”

“Yes, why? It’s not like I have a reason to keep it to ourselves.”

“I don’t know… what if they get scared by the Sin thing…”

“Come one, it’s Marie we’re talking about.”

“That’s a good point…”

It took me a few minutes to sort everything out, I started with the cave and the weird creature that threatened Alice, the school where we met with Haru and another Quester, then I mentioned that Alice trained with, well, basically the master of our Master’s, if I can call them like that, and finally I mentioned Adam, and told her about our theory on Virtue related to power level.

On that last point, I started to wonder what would be everyone's behaviour if something similar to Ogre happens.

It's a bit hard to project myself, especially for Xavier, Alice's confirmed me that Wrath was his corresponding Sin, but I never saw him angry, under any circumstances. Same goes for Haru, Prom and… Marie.

I should probably not look too much further into it…

“Uuuuurgh…”

Seems like someone’s waking up.

“What… what happened? Oh, you two are back?”

“Good morning, sleepy head.”

“Wait, what happened to the place?”

Needless to say, the previous altercation let its mark on the room. There were cracks in the floor and walls, and most of the workshop’s material and tools were dispersed everywhere.

“You don’t remember, do you?”

“Remember?”

“You grow another pair of arms and wrecked havoc.”

“Oh… what?!”

“It’s as she said. You were acting a bit weird when we arrived, and as soon as you saw the relic, you went completely crazy to get it. So I bargain with you, and you duplicated my book, sort of.”

“Oh… I see.”

Hum? He’s quite fast to accept our story.

“I… I think I remember a bit now…”

“Really?”

“I… I don’t know. It’s like… I was someone else. Like everything didn’t matter anymore, except the cup.”

“We suspect your Deadly Sin surfaced and took control.”

“No. It doesn’t really work that way.”

Wait, he knows about the Sin?

“It was exactly how he described it. I was still… in control, sort of, but I wasn’t really myself either…

“Who described it to you?”

“A mysterious man calling himself Adam.”

“Of course…”

In the end, he tried to explain to us what he went through, but didn’t do it very well. I guess I won’t really understand unless I do it myself. Even though I hope I won’t need to.

Moreover, it's not like I can increase my pride that easily. I worked really hard to be as humble as possible in my daily life, and I like it that way. Plus, I never had any real reason to be proud, most of my achievements were pure luck… The only thing I can call a feat would be… Nami.

I wonder if she’s okay…

Well, she did cheat on me -according to Val-, so… that's that...

Sigh…

After another hour of ‘interrogation’, we left Ogre in his mess. I kind of wanted to ask him about his own adventure, but Alice pressed me.

And it was just the two of us now.

It was nighttime, but for some reason, she pressed further, as if she wanted to get as far as the workshop as possible.

We were in the middle of the plain, with a few trees here and there, and a timid breeze bashing on their leaves. The grass was still wet from the afternoon, and the air was still heavy, but I suspect there as another reason for that.

“Alice? Is something bothering you?”

Surprised, she stopped.

And turned around.

Is…is she crying?

"I… it's nothing. I just thought I would have more time for this."

“For what?”

What is she talking about? Did something happen?

She got closer to me, her eyes wet, her breath short, and before I could react…

…her lips were on mine.

The world stopped.

A minute passed. Or a day, or a month, or years.

I don’t know.

My mind went blank.

It’s…It’s…

It stopped.

I feel in front of me, she had disappeared.

I looked around.

But I was alone.

Wha…what the fuck just happened?

A few kilometres away, in front of a huge and out of place door, standing on its own in the middle of a huge circle of trees, was standing a young woman, out of breath. She fell on her butt, trying to catch her breath.

Was she tired because of the kiss, or the run? She didn’t know, and she didn’t really want to know.

‘That was so embarrassing!!!”

She dived her red face into her hand, trying to forget what just happened. Even though it only made things worst.

‘Aaaaah! What will happen when will have to meet again?! Aaaaah!’

It's been years since she hasn't felt so embarrassed about something, and she wasn't dealing with that well.

She took her Quest Book, and opened it on the last filled page.

Struggle#16

Objective: Kiss Sam

Sub-Objective: none

Sigh…

She had to do it now. Sooner or later, he would have asked to see what was inside her book, and it would have been even more embarrassing. Even more so that her struggle #14, when they were with Haru, featured a completed sub-objective where she had to sleep with Ivan… and there’s no way Sam will ever see that.

As she finally managed to sort out her feeling, she realized her heart felt lighter than before… yeah, it was embarrassing, and weird, but in the end, it was worth it.

As she slowly got back up on her feet, and approached the door, her hair, that she changed a long time alone, reverted to their original colour. It was naturally the same as Sam’s, and maybe that’s why she didn’t want to taint them back, but it was different now.

She felt something during that kiss.

A taste.

Something… she couldn’t describe.

Something she had probably never felt before.

She never had to felt before.

Something like… Hope.