(Xylith POV)

Every time I wanted to meet with Ashen he was either out of the castle or he was busy inside of it. I needed to talk to him on the topic of the demon lands, but I couldn’t get the chance to. I might have formed a small crush, or rather, a large crush on him as he was rather powerful. His magical aura was strong enough to make mine look like a puddle next to the ocean. As the fourteenth reincarnation of the demon lord, I Xylith Gro’voth, will make him part of my bloodline. With his blood, my next reincarnation will be ever so much stronger, and I can ensure the fate of my people.

Over a month has passed but not much happened, besides a single time where I passed him in the hallway but didn’t have much time to say much besides a simple ‘hello’. It was this week when he had locked himself in the underground chambers of the castle, as Aeyrs told me, that I would finally get a chance to talk to him. His stone-like demeanor and attitude that went unchanged made it hard to talk to him, but I could manage with my experiences. The days and nights seemed to blend into one, and life became a bland lifeless thing I was carrying out with my few followers.

We were given a small set of rooms and even jobs. The maids were given the jobs of cleaning all of our rooms, while the rest of us were asked to spar with Premium, I think his name was. It was exhausting, even for me, and every time it left me and the rest of us with a mix of emotions. We were glad for being spared, but at what cost? Our freedom? Or perhaps our individuality? Maybe even our loyalty was changed, but to say for the worse would be a lie. Not only did they give us excellent fighting tips and even some battle magic advice. Premium was the best swordsman that I’ve ever seen.

His fighting style seemed to just overwhelm you with both speed and power, and once he started attacking, his focus was set, and you were within his control. Only once, and I mean once, with very special and impossible odds, I found out about his true power. He had another two sets of arms that hid under his first cape, and a second cape over that to hide them. His golden mask would morph into that of a spider and would grow two large golden fangs. Spikes and blades would come out of his armor in such a way as not to restrict his movement but to act as thorns on a rose.

He had four eyes but only used two in his other form, as his spider mask showed his other two. His outer, upper set of arms that emerged held spears, and his lower, inner set carried large three-bladed swords, like a trident but instead of prongs, they were blades as tall as a man. He was ridiculously strong, much stronger than before, his movements were so unpredictable, it would seem like he was always everywhere at once. When this happened, I nearly instantly lost, I didn’t even try to fight back, as he disarmed me in an instant. He morphed back to his human-looking state in the same amount of time he spent going into his spider one, a few seconds at most.

We called him our great teacher, and he seemed to take a liking to his title, as he would chuckle every time we said it seriously. I passed Ashen in the halls one day, finally getting a chance to talk to him in private, so I asked him the burning question that I have been bottling up inside me for all this time. I walked up to him, as he was coming towards the direction I came from so I had a good chance to. He seemed both better and worse than the last time I saw him, like a part of him died but was reborn back stronger and better. He stopped in front of me and began a simple greeting.

“Hello there, Xylith.” He said, his voice giving me both unease and delight.

“H-hello lord Ashen,” I said back slightly sheepishly.

“It’s been too long, I wish to catch up with you if you have the time that is.” He seemed as though he also wanted to talk about something.

“Yes my lord, I have time,” I said with bright eyes.

We walked for a minute and entered a small silent room with a desk and two chairs, each opposing the other. The room had a few paintings that took up the small walls. There were four in total, and on them were four strange symbols. They felt oddly familiar, yet vaguely distinct. They were all circles with words written in them in runic. Something clicked in my mind and I realized what they were off and it surprised me beyond belief. The very notion of spell casting was a well-practiced occurrence in the demon lands, yes, but it had never been documented so thoroughly before.

“Ashen, if you don’t mind me asking, how did you get these paintings?” I said in awe, as this intrigued me greatly.

“Ah, these paintings? Simply put, after examining the structure of spell circles for countless months, I recorded the very basic formula to a spell circle in these four basic forms.” He said, causing my heart to skip a beat in shock.

“MONTHS YOU SAY!?” I couldn’t believe what he did in months, the entire demon species failed to do in centuries, although he was a demon, so did it count?

“Yes, please calm yourself, if you want copies, feel free to ask for some.” He said so casually like this was a feat that anyone could have done.

I shook my head up and down, “I would like some copies, please.” I said, a little shy.

“It’s alright, I’ll draw up some as we talk.” He said and pulled out a small stack of papers and a magical quill from his desk.

“I’ve been meaning to ask, Ashen,” I said, my lip quivering with anxiety.

“Yes, Xylith?” He said calmly, as he started to make light strokes on the paper with the quill, leaving lines of black that formed into a nearly exact copy of the paintings around the room.

“W-will. Will you marry me!?” I said finally with a burst of confidence, causing him to stutter slightly, and remove his quill from the page before continuing with his drawing of it.

“U-um, I do apologize, but what did you say?” His voice sounded no different but I could tell he knew what I said, so I only repeated myself in more detail.

“The demons need a new leader, and it’s evident that you’re so much stronger than I am. As such, they will only recognize you as a legitimate leader if you are related through marriage with one of the royal family, such as myself. So I ask you again, will you marry me!?” I said, a red blush washing over my face in embarrassment.

“Let’s get to know each other first, then I will decide. Let’s give us about a month. After that, I will decide if I will or not.” He said, causing my heart to flutter, and beat faster.

“R-really!?” I blurted out of excitement.

“Yes. We can start when I finish writing these spell circles down.” His voice sounded pleasing for a change, yet monotone.

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(Ashen POV)

To say I was confused as to what was going on would be a severe understatement. I had no idea of her goals and that she wanted to marry me. How long has it been like this? After she got here a month ago, I just forgot about her until I passed her in the hallway a minute ago and now she is proclaiming her love and marriage? Her reasoning is both great and heavily flawed, but I can’t condemn the effort. I can think of several pros and cons to the subject as well, but it would seem that the pros alone would be enough of a reason. If you included the biggest con, the idea of marrying someone you don’t truly love, then the line between do and don’t becomes blurry. With not much to go off of for my decision, spending a month with her is the best way to see if it’s a good idea or not.

“Let’s get to know each other in a basic and friendly manner before we start thinking of marriage.” I could tell that she wanted the marriage to happen sooner rather than later, which I could see the reason why.

“Okay, where should we start?” She said cutely and turned her head to one side as if in deep thought.

“Let’s just get the simple stuff done first. Like, what is your greatest weakness?” If I had to resort to an interview, so be it, there was only so much I could do to learn about her, and this seemed like the fastest and most efficient process.

“My greatest weakness?” She said putting her right pointer finger on her chin as she made a cute little “hmm” for a few quick moments before answering. “Well, if I had to say, my lack of experience with people and my general weakness to life magic would be my greatest weaknesses.” She had the cutest smile at the end of her words, it made me want to chuckle, but I obviously didn’t.

“So you don’t have much experience with people, even though you were the demon lord?” Her words made me question the meaning behind the title.

“Well, yes and no. I did deal with people, they were mostly just a handful that I have dealt with countless times before. So I never really got any experience with other people…” She had two droplets of tears fill the corners of her eyes by the end of her sentence.

We continued, and I asked her another two dozen questions, and she returned some, but in the end, I think we bonded over the four hours spent together. I learned of her past, and how she was the twelfth reincarnation of the demon lord, and how that entire process works. Every reincarnation, she nearly doubles her power, and most of her memories get erased, only core memories that define her as a person, and memories of fighting and magic will be kept. I learned that demons have a life-span of 140 years and that her first life, before reincarnation, was over 800 years ago.

To my surprise, she seemed keen on helping her people, and if marriage with me, a powerful demon, would help, then she would do it at any cost. I also heard that her followers were enjoying the benefits of being in the guild base, as I had the maids give them access to a bath-like chamber that would engulf their bodies in a purple and black flame that seemed to rejuvenate them. The fire was [Dark Flame] and I was the one that created it, so It wouldn’t last forever but its power and potency were the best, at least in all of the players and even non-player characters in Sugarea that is.

The day was nearing its end, and I still had too many responsibilities to take care of that I wasn’t able to get much adventuring done, as the demon hero or as Eldrick. I ‘feel’ bad that I couldn’t take Jolven adventuring like I said I would, I knew I had to make it up to him somehow, but I couldn’t find the means to. The only true way would be taking him on a proper adventure, but that would only happen if a greater evil was behind the wrongdoings of the world. I didn’t feel obligated to act as that evil, nor did I want to be its hero counterpart. Perhaps playing the role of a villain could still work if done properly though, I’d have to test it out eventually.

I didn’t have to play the part of a villain, but forcing the role onto someone else wouldn’t be optimal either. The only person I could think of that was even remotely close to playing the part of the villain was me and Xylith. Perhaps that marriage wasn’t such a bad idea, if we were to marry I could give her some of my power and she can play the part of a villain while me and Aeyrs, disguised as Eldrick and Kurtz of course, could play the role of heroes and ‘slay her’ or force her into ‘submission’. Then I could emerge as Ashen and act as a proper villain, I need to think it over.

The next two weeks passed by quickly, I had so much to deal with, I didn’t get much of a chance to talk things over with Aeyrs. I saw him several times, and we talked at length about our responsibilities but the subject would never come up. Over the two weeks, with the help of Aeyrs, I created a scouting force to hunt down the crystals that fell from the sky, and they were leaving on their expedition tomorrow. Titan leading the group, finally utilizing his raw power and strengths to locate them and track them down. As a, well, titan, he was especially proficient at tracking down an object, he just needs time.

The one thing I feared was if others found and kept the crystals, as there has been quite the amount of talk in Wheatberg. Speaking of, some nobles have been complaining that the taxes, the ones that I have raised by roughly 5% due to the quality of life increasing more than tenfold, yet they were accusing me of robbing them blind. There were half a dozen of these nobles that complained, and a quick threat of making them criminals in the Dragon Eye Alliance’s eyes, thus they would be treated as such, and they suddenly stopped complaining. It wasn’t the best way to deal with them, but having bark and bite against uptight assholes like them who think they own everything is always beneficial.

In addition to the nobles, Wheatberg as a whole was just bustling with life, which was surprising, at least, when I thought about how they fled from me the first time I came here. The population was still low compared to the size of the town, but it grew by thousands every day. Those seeds I gave that old woman must have been quite special, even for magical crops. Apparently, Planthra and Aeyrs examined the seeds and said that they should never have grown so much in such a short time, but alas, my barrier had allowed them to grow so rapidly the entire plant could be harvested and it will regrow by the next hour.

The crystal marrow potatoes were the best selling crop in Wheatberg, and the amount that was being sold to the surrounding towns and villages surpassed the amount of wheat being bought and sold by nearly threefold. It sold for nearly four times the price of wheat, but its quality surpassed half of the king’s meals alone. In fact, I got in touch with King Erik not too long ago, and he asked for some of the seeds himself to grow and use in his meals. I obliged, not out of the goodness of my heart, but for some political motives. While at it, we set up some trade agreements and we now have goods coming from the Bandarainian Empire while we send them very high-quality food, a near-flawless trade, as our supplies are endless and we needed the consumer goods, while they needed good quality foods since they were going through a rough harvest season.

Also, I finally got an answer as to what month and season it was, I’ve been here for nearly 3 months and it’s almost the end of fall. I heard that both summer and winter were quite harsh, and the kingdom needed to stock up on food to last until spring. I also talked with King Arthur, and his kingdom was located on the other hemisphere so his country was in good condition, if you ignore the constant war with the elves that they fought. They always had an excess of food, so they normally shipped trading boats loaded with crops and livestock over to the countries across the ocean.

Arthur seemed to be relieved that he could talk to me again, I guess being a demon that has immense strength, and one who doesn’t speak to you for weeks, as your friend, could be troubling and worrisome if you consider the possibility of their betrayal. It was a fair judgment, if I knew someone that had great strength and they stopped talking to me during a war, I might think the same. But our relationship stayed strong, and I gave him a wonderful gift to show the fruits of a relationship with me. A single scroll, of which, the tier 16 spell: [Grand Empower] was inscribed upon. It could massively increase the power of a single person or greatly increase the power of many for a relatively short time, say an hour or so.

I explained it all to him, and left him another gift before leaving, a small golden ring with two pink gems in the shape of emeralds embedded in it. A magical ring no less, and it gave the wearer a great bonus to their physical and mental health. It would be especially useful for a king like him as he had to deal with the aftermath of countless battles from the long and great war with the elves. I told him that I would help him in combat should the need arise, but that it would be best for his actual soldiers to do it unless they grow out of touch when it matters most. He agreed and we set up a few trade agreements that would take place a few days from now.

The latest thing on my agenda was preparing the demon lands for winter, as Wheatberg was going to survive just fine. While I could transport the food from Wheatberg, or have one of the NPCs do it, or even just created the food, it was all an inefficient process. After a little managing in Wheatberg and a few meetings with the adventurer’s guild and some more business owners, I finally got the opportunity to head to the demon lands. Once there, after a short teleportation spell as per usual, I saw before me a town that seemed to take up space until the horizon, and indeed it did.

This single city, which has yet to be named, or at least not to my knowledge is named, can be compared to some of the largest cities back on earth. It kept expanding and growing with hundreds of new buildings getting added to the ever-growing borders of the city’s borders. I found the center of town after a few minutes and was somewhat relieved that it was the great and grand buildings my brother had made for the elders. It acted as the center and head of the town, and now that I knew a governmental building was at the center of the city, I was also able to create a barrier for this town like the one in Wheatberg, the only downside being the need for it to grow to fit the ever-expanding city’s borders.

It wasn’t a hard task per se, but it will take time, about a day of solid work, and about half that for full concentration on it. I was left undisturbed in the upper chambers of the building until noon of the next day when my creation was finally done. The crystal was much larger than the one in Wheatberg, being at nearly a meter in all directions and shaped like a double-sided pyramid with an elongated middle section that was stretched flat. It took a rather beautiful and vibrant violet hue, which seemed to only enhance its pristine and elegant look. I talked to the elders at length about the crystal and after a very long and detailed conversation, they finally gave in and allowed me to plant this behemoth of a crystal inside the building, albeit, it was planted in the basement, which had yet to be used.

I created some clever stonework surrounding the crystal to make it more appealing and set the thing to work. I had to pump the thing full of mana, nearly a billion. This was a feat comparable to when I had to overcome Oronix’s natural magic resistance, but much more reasonable, as it didn’t have to be all at once. I ‘drank’ a mana regeneration potion, drank because it resembled more of me pouring the vial into my throat through my skull, but whatever. The potion tripled my mana regeneration rate, giving me a few million every few seconds, but the real specialty resided in the spell I was about to cast onto myself.

[Manaholic], a simple but effective tier 18 spell. It boosted mana regeneration by 20% per level, compounded, which boosted my natural mana regeneration rate by nearly 40 times. At this rate, I was nearing my combat buff standard for world boss fights, but not quite there yet, only halfway in terms of spells alone. If I tried my best, I could get a mana regeneration rate that just barely passed the billion mark every second. That was pushing my power, but this meager task only took a minute at best, mostly because I was also creating other objects as I charged it. The objects I made were smaller, but still quite large, crystals of similar make that would keep the general shape of the barrier in place, preventing any abnormalities from happening and weakening the barrier’s structural integrity.

I made 120 of them and placed them in equally distant rings from each other that surrounded the main generator. Each layer out doubled the number of booster crystals, only getting four rings until the entire city, and then a large chunk around that, to be covered by the generator. The barrier that only showed for a moment and rippled out in waves of brightness that decreased with each one, showed a hexagonally interlocked grid of purple surrounding the town from the ground to the sky, and even the underground to some extent. The masses of demons looked at it, bothered in awe and confusion with some even acting as if this sort of thing is to be expected when I’m present.

The spectacle only lasted for a few quick seconds then it faded into the same barely visible and thin sheet of dim light that surrounded Wheatberg, albeit much bigger and purple colored. A fair amount of commotion came out of it, and the generator started to work after the dome surrounded the town. First, it started to replace and recycle the mana in the city, and once that would be done, in say an hour or so, it would start generating mana and adding it to the ambient atmosphere in the dome. I was still contemplating my next decision, but for the time being, I was going to head back to the guild base and sort out some problems there, as I still needed to meet with the other NPCs that I haven’t given much attention to, as Premium, Misfortune, Planthra, or even Titan for that matter.

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Inside the guild base, however, the NPCs had already had a gathering and a meeting to review the recent events and to prepare the workload for everyone. The highest leveled individuals ran the event, as 8 level 900s took the lead. The next task that they faced was not only collecting the crystals from Ashen’s skull, but they also had general management tasks to do around the castle. Although Ashen wasn’t aware they were doing this, Aeyrs gave the order to do such a thing. A few dozen of the weaker Nocs started to mine out the various ores in the area, and collect the gemstones that grew in clusters.

Aeyrs also permitted them to engage in communication with the dwarves that lived in the mountains. The communication was rough, as Aeyrs had gone for a natural translation option as compared to the [Learn Language] spell he and Ashen had used before learning the human standard. The dwarves seemed to enjoy their company, as they didn't have much contact with the kingdoms that surrounded it. The demon lands were as big of a deterrent as a big pile of skulls and bones that could be seen for kilometers, that is to put simply, a very obvious deterrent.

Aeyrs allowed for the trade of precious metals that they had near-endless quantities of to the dwarves in exchange for the dwarves giving both knowledge and some manpower, all while creating a good and long-lasting relationship between them. The dwarves benefited greatly from this exchange, more so than Aeyrs did, but that was to be expected. The metals and gemstones that were given to the dwarves were of quality nearly unmatched by any other raw metal. The only other material with the same strength as the Cobaltic Iron that Aeyrs gave them, would be Danmuloon.

Danmuloon was a metal that was both exceedingly rare and resilient. It’s melting point alone was nearly triple that of Iron’s, close to 4,600 degrees celsius. Although, this world’s temperature system wasn’t metric, nor did it even know what metric was. The metal was very good at dispersing heat and electricity, while also being strong enough to withstand several thousands of kilograms of weight on top of it without bending or snapping. It’s hardness, on the Mohs scale, was estimated to be ten or even an eleven by Aeyrs. The material was heavy though, very heavy. Nearly twice as heavy as lead, and it had to be cleaned a certain way every couple of days to prevent some toxic effect from occurring.

Danmuloon was a grand material if you could avoid the side effects and drawbacks of that material that is. Kings didn’t want it even if it was rare, as they didn’t feel like maintaining the metal to prevent the toxicity from the metal to leak out. Speaking of, the metal, when not cleaned in a special way, would just leak a toxic gas and liquid that would act as a super-potent poison. The poison was curable, yes, but it was very fast-acting, to the point where you would die in a week if you touched it once, even for a second. The more you touch it, the worse the poison got, and the faster it acted. Touch it for a minute, and you’ll be dead in an hour. Holy water, and only the upper tiers of it at that, would be able to cure the poison effect, but only to a certain point, where healing magic could take over the rest.

At some point, the dwarves found Danmuloon, and when they figured out its pros and cons, they decided to forsake it, even if they had a natural resistance to its poison, as it was too hard to forge and it was too rare. The introduction of the Cobaltic Iron seemed almost too coincidental, but they couldn’t give up the offer of new materials to forge with. The dwarves were stereotypical, at least for earth’s standards, they were forge happy, mountain loving, thick bearded, short-statured, fat-bellied, alcohol loving, slightly Scottish sounding folk who lived under the surface. But there was one glaring factor that stood out like a red hot iron in a field of grass, they were far more intelligent than they let on, and on top of that, their society was so much more complex than even the humans or elves.

Their intellect was only surpassed by the grand races, and goblins, but not much, as the dwarves, goblins, and gnomes were all related and came from a singular race long ago. The laws they had, the history they developed, the very techniques they created to live out their lives as a mostly independent nation, they were all very complicated. The laws in place were more limiting and freeing than you could imagine. You couldn’t stab someone, but the laws allowed for some rather, suggestive things to occur. On top of that, the sheer amount of dwarves that lived in the mountain range was shocking to Aeyrs, nearly 40 million. That kind of number was unthinkable, even for Aeyrs, as he never thought that a mountain range could house so many dwarves underground.

The dwarves controlled nearly half of the mountain range, just north from the black castle. They planned to span the entire mountain range, only being stopped by, well, the castle. The castle stopped any underground expansion by its sheer size and its protections. The castle cut the mountain range in two, not perfectly of course, but separated the direct line of dwarven towns into two separate chunks. The dwarves were getting to the point where they would expand across the mountain range, and past the castle, but were intercepted by Premium. The result, an alliance between two nations, one official and one about to be, and an everlasting impact upon the world.

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(Ashen POV)

The days counted down rather quickly, and before long, the month I was supposed to spend with Xylith quickly came to an end. The last day was tomorrow, and I felt as though we grew closer. Apparently, Aeyrs was handling the guild base, so I was able to focus my attention on the demon lands, Wheatberg, and Xylith. I also talked to Aeyrs about creating a proper nation, but we were both stumped on how to do it properly. Both the Bandarainian Empire and the Britgar Holy Kingdom would recognize me as official, and maybe even the Onnonbrook Kingdom as well, even if we were enemies. The only matter left to deal with was the type of nation.

I could create an empire, a kingdom, a democracy, a dictatorship, or so on. If it were a kingdom, like I and Aeyrs have discussed the most, I’d need a queen too. This is where Xylith would also play a large role, our marriage was more beneficial to both of us and our people, be them demons or humans. I could also tell she had a ‘thing’, for me. With all the magical detection abilities and spells, I had at my disposal, finding out such a thing was rather trivial. But the repercussions of knowing such a fact would be the ultimate drawback. I couldn’t say I loved her, but I couldn’t say I felt nothing either.

To say the least, I wouldn’t want harm to come to her, but I don’t know if I could marry such a person than I don’t have any strong feelings for, be them good or bad ones. I would have to give it extensively though, but in the meantime, I had some tasks to take care of. Firstly, I needed to meet with some of the NPCs that I haven’t been giving as much attention as the rest. Of the NPCs I was going to meet with, there were the Star-Mates, seven NPCs of level 700 each. The Elder Twins, two angelic sisters that are both level 800. And last, but most definitely not least, the Weeping Willow Sisters, three treants that were all level 750.

Was it my idea to have so many female NPCs? No. But do I complain? Also no. The ratio of male to female NPCs was rather unbalanced, being nearly 90% female. But to be fair, nearly a third of that was the maids, but to be fair once more, half of the males were butlers too. The males were mostly delegated to lesser jobs, like non-combatant classes, with a few exceptions with Premium and Titan being the most obvious. There were other strong male NPCs but the reason I didn’t talk to them was more because Aeyrs already tasked them, so there would be no point in assigning them another job.

Well, getting back to the NPCs I was about to meet with, the first set, the Star-Mates, were a ‘lively’ bunch. Seven of them, and they were all female. Seven sisters of seven stars, or at least, that’s what the background information for them said, it didn’t actually happen though. If I had to describe them, I would compare them to a family. Two older ones acted as the parents, and the rest were like the children. They all wore something special. Outfits that I and Blue Turtle designed and crafted to suit them. Although we didn’t make the NPCs, that credit belongs to Artificial Penguin and Masterful Duck, they were the ones who stayed online for countless hours gathering the materials to create the NPCs then spent more time designing them.

I say countless to give them credit, but they spent less than a full week, which includes all day and night. It was rather impressive, to gather the materials needed and to design them in such a short amount of time was incredible, but still, they got it done together. It took a few moments, but I eventually reached their quarters, in the main tower of the guild base. Their room was the second story and it was massive, as the tower got slimmer the taller up, only growing at the top floor. I walked up to the door and was about to knock before it abruptly opened, revealing a rather young looking woman who wasn’t paying attention but rather yelling into the room with her head staring daggers at another young girl.

The woman in front of me kept yelling at one of the others while not noticing my arrival. “And like hell, I’m going to listen to the likes of you! You never even kissed a boy, let alone-” She said with a voice of annoyance, and stopped when she turned around and stared at my chest plate.

“Oh? Is this a bad time?” I said as she blushed and started to back up before landing on her bottom.

“No no no no no! It isn’t a bad time at all!” She quickly blurted out in a rather embarrassed tone.

“Oh, then would you like to finish your sentence?” Her blush doubled and her face looked like a ripe tomato.

“Nonononononono! It’s totally fine! Yup, it’s nothing! Hahaha… Hey! What are you doing here for Lord Ashen?” She tried to hide her intentions with a question, although, rightfully so.

“Ah, me? I just wished to check up on you all, and see how you have been since the last time I’ve talked to you all.” That was part of the truth, and I also had a few things to ask them.

“With all due respect lord, why did you stop visiting for such a long period of time?” A girl dressed in a rather tight set of purple clothing said to me with such passion and heart, that even as an emotionless being, I felt bad about it.

“I am truly sorry, I know the last time I properly spoke to you all was months past.” That didn’t include the time I gave everyone a magic bead, as I didn’t talk to them or anyone for that matter. “I do have some explaining and making up to do.” Back in Sugarea, I spent a good deal of my time in the guild base with these NPCs, but ever since coming to this world, I had too much to deal with that I couldn’t even spend a day’s evening with them.

It tore me apart that I couldn’t spend more time with those I cared for, even if they were NPCs, they are now living, breathing beings, ones that were bound to coding in a game. Ones that could feel all the pain that a normal person could, ones that could feel emotions as fully as any other. I knew this now, but I still let them slip from my grasp due to this world. A part of me felt torn, but rather than breaking myself apart over it, I thought it would be best to reconnect to these NPCs, no, I should call them by their proper names. Artificial Penguin and Masterful Duck designed them after the seven major colors: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. As a result of their design, they were all named accordingly, but I still thought they were great names.

The red one was called Ember, and her hair was a fiery red and she was the eldest, and she acted as one of the two parents. Next was orange, and Amber was her name, and she had luscious locks of orange with white tips. Yellow was named Sunny, and her hair almost glowed with how yellow it was. Green was named olive and well, her hair was green and had a large bun that was shaped like an olive. Blue was named Aqua, and her hair was long and light blue, nearly waist long. Indigo was Cobalt and had short dark blue hair with a small spiked top. And last was violet, who was named Lavender, she had medium length purple hair that was in braids. Each of their outfits was elaborate and honestly, as a man, they were rather cute and quite appealing.

Ember’s outfit was very soft on the eyes and had a lot of different shades of red and white, and they all had white in their outfits for that matter. It had very long tendrils that draped off of the main slicked back jacket that she wore. The jacket went down to her knees and was open up to her chest, where it closed and only parted for her face. The rear end of the jacket was split in two, with two long strips of the material in the shape of triangles. The back of her jacket was darker than the front and the farther up the coat you looked, with white streaks running up and down her body. She had the back of a hood flipped down, similar to how a stereotypical vampire jacket looks. She also normally had a bright red-covered book that she carried at all times.

Amber had a more rounded design. It was fluffy and frilly with a singularly large and long ribbon that was wrapped around her neck, giving her a rather soft and huggable appearance. She also was the cutest out of them all, being the shortest and all. WIth large lines of white running vertically down her clothing, which in itself was more of a mix between a wedding dress and a cotton ball. Her legs were mostly covered by her dress, with small white ankle boots. Her arms were covered in very long white gloves that went up to her shoulders and had small orange splashes on them. She also wore a very small white and orange bow on the left side of her head. She managed to carry a massive hammer despite her fluffy nature, and it was nearly the same size as her, yet if fit her outfit quite nicely.

Sunny seemed to stand out more than anyone should, as her entire outfit just screamed with energy. It was a bright yellow with very small lines of white sprinkled around it, all extending outwards from her chest, which was rather, ‘flat’. I don’t want to get into tastes, but she was flatter than even a washboard. She had very long yellow hair and wore a giant sun hat that was also yellow. She normally carried a large yellow boomerang on her back, not now since they were indoors and they didn't need to carry them, but she still had it against the wall with the others. She had very long skinny white boots that ran up her leg, up to her knees and they were laced with yellow strings. She was a very happy person, and just being near her would lighten your mood. She spoke in a light-hearted voice that was certain to brighten anyone’s mood.

Olive was of the shorter end of the group, being a bit taller than Amber. She had a small and thin presence than seemed to just ease the mind. She had a dark green hoodie with very long sleeves that extended past her hands by a good margin. She also wore light green sweat pants that seemed to just indicate a lazy person but she was not. Her hoodie had dashes of white horizontally and the same with her pants and resembled a zebra to some extent. She wore some small sneakers with white stripes like her hoodie. She also carried a small buckler shield but it was against the wall for the time being. In her hair was a small hairpin on the right side of her face that resembled an olive but it wasn’t all that noticeable unless you looked for it.

Aqua was the youngest and by far the tallest, with very long light blue hair that curved slightly outward at the ends like a waterfall. She also had two small tendrils of hair running down either side of her face. She had two darker blue hairpins in them, each resembling a water droplet. Her outfit was a mix of light blues with a white outline for everything. She wore a light blue shawl over her small coat with buttons. She also had a small skirt that covered up to half her thigh. A slight bit revealing but, oh well. She wore a very small top hat that was always on her right half leaning back but never fell off. She had small thin strips of ribbon that were translucent blue that was randomly surrounding her, like a whirlpool of ribbons, which also doubled as her preferred weapon.

Cobalt was the one that was at the door, and she wore a dress with many bows and ribbons all over, coming from her sleeves, shoulders, skirt, and down the front. It was very elegant, with many lines and a soft texture. It had a puffy skirt and looked like a cross between gothic and a wedding dress. The patterns looked simple yet complex, and it gave it that air of elegance that it let off. She wore golden heels with a stripe of white down the middle of both, and small circles of white that dotted the dress. She kept a large golden rod with stripes on it with her but left it up against the wall with the others.

Lavender had a more simplistic and gothic look. She wore a simple hat with a veil and a gothic dress with stripes of white that ran up and down the whole front and back. She wore very long dark purple gloves with white dots on them. She also had on violet stockings with high heels. She wore a fluffy purple fur scarf and carried a small black umbrella in her left hand, which acted as a shield from the sun and as her weapon of choice. She was the other mature one, and acted as the other parent of the group, being the second one created and all. Her voice was both strong and soft and changed quite a fair amount whenever she spoke like she was trying to find the right tone.

“Well ladies, shall we go out for a night?” I said getting a rather excited response from them.