Necromancer

A Royal Road Fan Fiction

By: Halosty

Chapter 91

Quietus was waiting, patiently. Most of the time when he was waiting, it was for an assassination target to show up. Quietus hadn’t done many assassination missions lately, though that was mostly because they were becoming scarce. There were, after all, increasingly fewer players as levels got higher. Though he hadn’t thought about it much, Quietus did realize he was becoming more and more “high leveled”. Though, he certainly wasn’t the highest. There were still quite a few people ahead of him, but he didn’t really care about that. He didn’t care much to compare himself with others. That was not his goal in this game.

His goal was quite simply to enjoy himself, and he could even do that while waiting for someone. Right now, his minions were testing their fighting capabilities. It wasn’t always good enough to look at the numbers of their statistics, seeing them in action was what really let him know their capabilities. In addition, it let him expand his minion horde. He didn’t really put much effort into that, but his numbers were growing to decent levels. Several hundreds of worthwhile minions, at least. He’d also created about thirty destroyers in a little more than a month. Most of them were fairly “standard” though of course they were more powerful than normal undead. Only Sir Draco and #1. #1 was of course the first destroyer skeleton he made, from special parts. Well, he’d also made Lucky into a destroyer, mostly because it was silly. With the upgraded stats, Lucky was probably in the top 200 minions in terms of combat prowess. Certainly no lower than 300… probably.

Quietus wasn’t particularly participating in the combat, just watching his minions distractedly. He’d been distracted a lot lately. He’d been spending too much time thinking about Ruby. Incidentally, she was who he was waiting for. They were going to get together to test how much her new magical instrument would help his undead. Really, though, Quietus couldn’t care less about the reason. He also wasn’t really patiently waiting. He couldn’t wait to see her again. He was becoming more sure… that he was going to ask her out. “Hello~,” came her voice from behind him.

Yes, he was going to ask her… and he was going to do it right now. That was the resolve he had. Though it would be somewhat awkward to do in the game… Quietus didn’t really dwell on that for long. He didn’t really have clear words, but he prepared to speak. He turned around. “Hello. Umm…” Quietus thought about his words for a few moments. Just as he finally managed to arrange a coherent sentence, something interrupted him.

Ruby swayed on her feet, as if she were fainting. Then, Ruby’s avatar was logged out of the game. A message popped up where she had been standing.

For a few minutes, Quietus just sat there and stared. Somehow, he was having trouble reading the message. It’s not that there were any complicated words, but his brain just wasn’t processing them. What did the message mean? Certainly, he felt that he should be able to make sense of it. However, he just stared blankly for a time. Oh, that was what it said.

Due to a medical emergency, this player has been ejected from the game.

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Angela found herself pulled out of virtual reality as someone pressed a button on her capsule. Oh, it was Mortimer. “What’s so important-” she stopped mid sentence when she saw him. Mortimer had a crazed look in his eyes. Then, he blurted out several sentences, but they were barely coherent.

“Ruby- No wait, Solara- Uh. Message- She…” He babbled random words for a few more moments, before forming a real coherent but rambling sentence. “Solara collapsed in game then disappeared and there was a message about a medical emergency and I have no idea how to contact her family but you should know, right?”

“Wait, what? Medical emergency?” After a few moments she comprehended what was being said.

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Mortimer had wanted to meet Solara’s parents… eventually. He definitely didn’t expect it to be like this, in a hospital. Mortimer looked over to the room Solara was in. He didn’t actually have the courage to go look inside.

The doctor was talking in a hushed voice to Solara’s parents. “...it’s a rare condition, with no known cure. For now, all we can do is keep her stable.”

Solara’s father hugged her mother, and she cried. Mortimer thought he might cry too, if he felt anything at all. However, he really just felt blank. It was sort of a strange thing, really. Solara would remain comatose unless a cure was found, but in the hospital her condition could be kept stable almost indefinitely. It was shocking and sad, but Mortimer felt that objectively it was not the worst thing that could happen.

Still, Solara’s mother, and even her father were crying what Mortimer thought was an undue amount. This made Mortimer think about himself. Was he a heartless person? He couldn’t even remember the last time he really cried. However, part of him knew he wasn’t as sad as he could be, because he had hope. At least, he thought he did.

“...how can we afford that?” Mortimer overheard Solara’s parents talking. This brought Mortimer out of his state of shock. This was something he could do. At least, it would take his mind off of what else was happening.

He walked up to them. “I’ll pay for it. No matter how long it takes.”

They looked somewhat shocked. Well, they would be. However, Mortimer convinced them he was serious- and that he could. At least his parents could. They would, too. They might balk at first, but Mortimer could convince them. He was certain of that, and there hadn’t been anything else he was as determined to see through. After that… well, medicine was always progressing. A cure could be found, and as long as Solara was alive, she could get it.

//End Chapter 91

Author's note: I know this is kind of sudden/abrupt, but that is the point. It has been planned out for some time. Still plenty of stuff to go though.