Chapter 108: Atop the Skyport

Aegis could see that Yuki was starting to get nervous the longer he took to answer her question. Aegis looked to his party members confused and they all shrugged at him.

“Ah,” she spoke as she saw his apprehension, “It’s about the design of outfits for Rene! I need to ask Yumily to bring materials back here from her trip to Savringard, and so I was wondering if you could come with me to see the designs and help me pick them.” She asked hopefully.

“Oh.” Aegis replied as if a lightbulb flicked on in his head. “Yeah, uhm, sure… I guess. I think you’d be better at choosing the best one though, I don’t know much about fashion and style.”

“It wouldn’t feel right if the owner of the land didn’t help decide, though. And, well…” She fidgeted with her fingers, avoiding eye contact with Lina. “I’m stuck between a couple, so I could use your help.”

“Yeah, come on, let’s help her out.” Darkshot shrugged. “I’m pretty good at designing stuff myself, as you can see.” Darkshot motioned to his character’s face.

“Well, I was hoping it would just be Aegis coming. I don’t want to reveal anything to anyone else too soon.” Yuki said urgently, much to Darkshot’s disappointment.

“Uhm… I don’t mind. You guys okay for a bit?” Aegis shrugged, and they all shrugged back at him save for Lina who looked on at Aegis worriedly. “Ok, I’ll meet you guys at the town square when we’re done.” Aegis said.

“It’s this way, on Yumily’s Airship.” Yuki smiled and motioned him to follow. Aegis did exactly that while the others made their way into the city together.

“Was that weird?” Rakkan asked the others once Aegis and Yuki had gone.

“Lil bit.” Pyri shrugged. “Artistic types are usually a bit strange though. I think.” Pyri reasoned.

Yuki led the way through the streets of Kordas in silence, staying ahead of Aegis a little bit as they passed by many carts of goods, players, and NPCs that crowded the streets around them that afternoon. It didn’t take long for them to arrive at the Skyport of Kordas and start ascending up the winding ramp inside the tower towards the top.

“I made sure to use a little bit of purple, because it's your favorite color, but I stuck mainly with the dark blue that was on the buildings already. I also tried to incorporate as much symbolism for Eirene as possible without it being to obnoxious. I made different versions for casual clothes, and armor of all types.” Yuki explained as they arrived at the top of the tower. There, Aegis could see that only two ships were docked at the Skyport now. Yumily’s and Leonards were there, but the third passenger Airship that had come for Yumily's concert had already left Kalmoore. There were mainly just the typical Kordas guards standoung about, but Aegis noticed a single other player leaning idly up against the square, stone walled ticket-booth room that stood near the top of the ramp. At quick glance, it looked like the player was sleeping, just as the NPC inside the booth was as he sat in his chair behind the counter.

“It’s this way. And don’t worry, Yumily and the rest of her party are offline, so it’ll be just us on the ship.” Yuki said, and Aegis nodded as he followed her down the pier to the large, decorative and fancy looking Airship. It made Leonard’s look small by comparison, but designwise they were similar. The guards, level 50, moved aside and let them pass and they boarded the ship together.

“Oh, one last thing…” Yuki stopped in front of the doors leading below deck once they’d gotten on the Airship. “Would it be okay if you turned off the stream for a minute? I don’t want to accidentally reveal any secret designs or lyrics or anything while we’re on Yumily’s ship." Yuki asked with a polite smile. Aegis glanced up at his live streaming icon above his head.

“Uh, sure.” He shrugged.

“Thank you, it’s only for a little bit I promise!” Yuki apologized with a bow, but Aegis didn’t really mind either way, and he went into his interface and turned off the livestream. Once Yuki saw the icon had disappeared, she motioned him forward.

“It’s this way.” She said as she went below deck. Aegis followed her down a short staircase and down a few hallways, passing several closed doors until they arrived at a large room. In the room were many wooden mannequins, dressers, and clothing racks with hundreds of beautiful, colorful outfits for mainly females, but some male designs as well.

“Here are the designs.” She motioned to a row of 12 mannequins, all dressed in various versions of attire. They all looked fashionable to Aegis, fancy and expensive designer looking clothing. It was the sort of thing Aegis would never spend money on, he’d rather give the money to his mom to take time off work if he had any than spend it on overpriced clothing - that was the thought that ran through his mind when he saw it.

“It looks good.” Aegis forced a smile, and Yuki watched his expression intently.

“Which one do you like the best, out of these?” She motioned to three casual male outfits designed with whites and blues, and small symbols of Eirene woven into the fabric through creative threading.

“Uhm…” Aegis paused and looked at them slowly. “To be honest, I really don’t know. I think all three look good.” Aegis replied apologetically. Yuki let out an awkward chuckle.

“I should be honest too… I didn’t really ask you to come here to look at these designs.” She said as she suddenly looked very tense, and took a deep breath. “Hae-won said that you are not really good at noticing when girls like you, so I thought I would try to be direct. I like you, Aegis.” Yuki said as she looked at him, her face flushing red. Aegis froze in confusion, completely caught off guard by this confession, and it took awhile for him to process it. As his brain worked its magic and he realized all the signs leading up to this through how Yuki was talking, and his face began to turn red in the cheeks.

“You like me? Why?” Aegis asked, confused.

“Because… Well, you are so kind to everyone. You saved all of my friends, you let me come to your land and promised to help me. So many other players just talk to me because of my clothing, or talk to me because of Yumily, and you don’t care about any of that. It’s so nice to be around you, because you treat me like a normal person, and treat me and everyone so kindly.” Yuki explained.

“Oh…” Aegis said as he looked down at his feet and started scratching the back of his head. He had absolutely no clue what to do or say in this situation. For all the studying he did in preparation for various tests on various subjects, girls were something he’d completely neglected.

“But, well, we don’t really know much about each other.” Aegis replied with an awkward shrug.

“I know… but, well, I was hoping we could get to know each other better. I’m sorry I know I am being too forward, but, I was worried if I didn’t say something now, then, you and Lina would…” Her voice trailed off, but as she said Lina’s name, a whole bunch of other thoughts rushed into Aegis’ head.

He thought of how Lina had saved him from the network guys at the top of the tower. How she’d saved him from Keldan and Swiftstar. The time they fought the Boar King together, and how she encouraged him and helped him get the class quest. Lina knew everything about what Aegis was doing, and wanted to do, both in this game and the real world. Sure, she was a bit shy, but it was in a cute way.

Aegis remembered the feeling of Lina’s hand as she held his hand in the Aphrodite Temple just hours ago, how she’d agreed to stand with him there naked with little to no hesitation, despite her shyness. Then, he remembered the feeling of her lips when they kissed at the Shrine of Eirene. He looked forward and saw Yuki. She was beautiful, forward, and kind, but all he could think about was Lina.

“Sorry, Yuki. I think you are a really great person too, but I care about Lina. She’s just my in-game wife right now, but...” Aegis’ voice trailed off as he spoke from his heart.

“I thought so.” Yuki let out a long sigh. “Thank you for being honest with me.” She smiled as he saw tears welling up in her eyes.

“Does that mean you won’t stay in Rene?” Aegis asked her worriedly.

“No, no! I still want to stay, if it’s okay with you. I meant everything I said.” Yuki nodded with a forced smile, wiping her tears away. “I like it here, and everyone is so nice. I wanted to share my feelings with you before any misunderstandings grew. Yumily’s advice.” She giggled awkwardly. “So.” She took a deep breath. “Now that it's cleared up, I hope we can still be friends.”

“Y-yeah! Of course. I won’t mention this to anyone. If it wasn’t for you, we would have never saved Clara and the kids from the tower, and I wouldn’t have gotten my class, so, I owe you a lot too.” Aegis replied as friendly as he could, trying to diffuse the situation. It was hard to watch her tear up in front of him, knowing he caused it - he had to resist the urge to be too comforting, as he knew at least that doing that would only make things worse for her.

“Here. I made this outfit just for you.” She motioned to one of the mannequins with a beautifully made suit and tie, with the symbolism of Eirene on the cuffs of the suit jacket and the tie itself. “It’s not too much of the fantasy setting style, but it suits the best for formal events with other players. Since you are the leader of Rene, you will need it.” She smiled.

“Thanks, actually that’s perfect. I didn’t have anything like this, and I’d never be able to make something that looks this good myself.” Aegis said excitedly as he walked over to check it out.

“Could you try it on?” Yuki asked him hopefully.

“Yeah, sure.” Aegis nodded and took it off the mannequin to add it to his inventory, then equipped it. “Wow, I wish I had this in the real world for all those scholarship interviews.” Aegis commented as he looked down at himself.

“It looks really good. You are very handsome. Lina is very lucky.” Yuki smiled.

“Th-thanks…” Aegis replied awkwardly as he did a little spin, and Yuki checked out his outfit carefully. After a moment, they looked each other in the eyes again and stared at each other silently for a moment. Both of them had more to say, but neither knew how to say it. “I guess I should get back to the others, they’re probably waiting for me.” Aegis said with a nod.

“Yes, of course, your stream. They will probably get mad if it stays off too long.” Yuki nodded back.

“Yeah… well. I hope to see you back in Rene, I don’t think I can handle running that place without you and Savika.” Aegis said.

“I’ll be there.” Yuki smiled as Aegis walked out of the room, leaving Yuki alone as he made his way up the stairs to the deck and left the Airship. A few moments after he had left the room, Yumily came out of one of the nearby rooms and walked to Yuki, her livestream turned off.

“How did it go?” Yumily asked Yuki, but looked with concern when she saw the tears swelling up in Yuki’s eyes.

“I got rejected.” She lightly knocked her fist against the side of her head playfully.

“I’m sorry.” Yumily walked to her friend and gave her a big hug. “Do you want to come with us on the Airship?” Yumily asked as she gently rubbed her back.

“No, I still want to stay here. I can still get to know him more as friends, right? And everyone else. I like the Arallian people a lot, and the Kalmoore people.” Yuki replied as she began to sniffle. “It’s really nice here.”

“It is really nice here.” Yumily comforted her.

"Whoa!" A loud voice shouted out to Aegis, startling him as he walked across the pier back towards the center of the Skyport tower. Aegis turned to see that the voice had come from the player he'd thought to be sleeping. He was now standing upright and no longer leaning on the ticket booth room, and suddenly started prancing towards Aegis. "Whoa whoa whoa! A custom made outfit from Yuki? Are you really good friends with her?" He said with a dreamy voice, very high pitched. [Simon - ??] sat above his head. His character looked younger than Aegis, a short human with very long straight blonde hair, bangs hanging over the front of his face. He had a staff strapped to his back that looked very high level, made of materials Aegis was unfamiliar with, and his robes were light blue primarily with wide black and grey stripes mixed about it. The bottom of the robes, as well as the sleeves, looked way too long for him and dragged on the ground as he pranced and cut off Aegis from moving to the ramp down the Skyport tower.

"Are you friends with Yuki? Are you? Wow." He asked again, opening his eyes excitedly wide as he stared at Aegis intently.

"Uh, yeah, I guess." Aegis shrugged.

"Wow, that's so lucky. Are you friends with Yumily too? She's so amaaaaazing." He said as he twirled around in place in front of Aegis.

"No, I haven't met her..." Aegis watched him curiously, trying to think of a way out of the conversation with this strange person. "Do you need help with anything?" Aegis asked him as politely as he could.

"Oh me? No, no no no. But that's so nice of you to ask. I came to see Yumily's concert, but it turns out I'll be staying here awhiiiiiiiiile." He said as he twirled around again. "Wait a second, I know you!" He said with a sudden jolt of excitement. "Oh my goodness, you are famous too! Wow!" He squeaked in a high pitch. "What a lucky, lucky day!" He cheered while tapping his feet on the boards of the Skyport excitedly.

"I'm not really..." Aegis shrugged. "I guess if you are staying in Kalmoore we'll see each other around." Aegis said as he attempted to walk around Simon to get to the ramp.

"Wait!" Simon stepped sideways to remain blocking Aegis' path. "Do you think I could get your autograph? It would be soooo nice if you could sign something for me." Simon begged with a friendly desperation, but Aegis remained apprehensive. "Pretty please." He continued.

"Uh, sure, I guess?" Aegis shrugged awkwardly.

"Oooh, goodie goodie!" He tapped his feet again repeatedly as he started fiddling with his inventory. "Oh no, all I have is an apple." He pouted overdramatically as he pulled a shiny red apple out of his inventory. "Could you sign this apple?" He asked with hopeful eyes.

"An apple?" Aegis raised an eyebrow at him. "Here..." Aegis sighed as he reluctantly pulled a gold coin out of his inventory, then parts of his jewelcrafting kit. "This is better than an apple, and if you get tired of my signature you can just spend it." Aegis said as he engraved his signature onto the gold coin, then handed it to Simon.

"Oh wow, thank you, that's so practical! And I thought all the famous streamers were rude." He smiled and wagged his finger at Aegis with one hand, taking the gold coin with the other as his apple vanished back into his inventory. Then, suddenly, he put the coin in his mouth and swallowed it. "Mmm, I think the apple would've tasted better though. Haha." He smiled and twirled around, and Aegis knew something was way off with this guy. "Well, thank you Aegis, see you around." He waved and walked back towards the ticket booth. Aegis watched him as he leaned back up against the wall and slouched, closing his eyes as if trying to fall back to sleep. He watched him for a few moments before shaking his head to himself in disbelief at the entire interaction, and made his way back down the Skyport tower.

Aegis arrived at the central town square of Kordas a short while later and looked around to find his party members. They wouldn’t know he was coming because his stream had been turned off, so he wasn’t sure if they’d gather around for him yet. Sure enough though, he spotted Lina sitting on the edge of the fountain. None of the others were to be seen, but that was perfect for Aegis. He approached Lina quickly without her seeing him coming, she was preoccupied staring down at her feet as she bumped her knees together repeatedly. He pushed past the crowds of chattering players that were trying to make deals or recruit party members for adventures, and moved to stand in front of Lina. She saw his feet and looked up with a jolt of energy, quickly standing up.

“Aegis! You’re back.” She said with a worried expression on her face, and for the first time, Aegis wasn’t so dumb as to not know why she looked worried. He wasn’t an expert, but he understood her feelings because he felt them too. “You turned your stream off, was everything okay? I, I… everyone else is shopping, so, I was waitin…” She replied anxiously, but Aegis interrupted her last sentence.

“Lina, will you be my girlfriend?” Aegis asked her, and her worried face quickly turned bright red with embarrassment, her eyes going wide as she couldn’t look directly back at Aegis.

“Wh…” she let out a puff of strange airy sounds as she suddenly was out of breath. It took her a moment to compose herself, and she managed to squeak the word out. “Okay.” She nodded, and Aegis felt relieved. Part of him already knew she’d say yes, Amlie and Darkshot had both told him, but a part of him was still worried of being rejected.

“Can I… should I kiss you?” Aegis asked awkwardly, which made Lina get even redder. “You know… because, last time, I did it suddenly, and then, you disappeared.” Aegis said as he suddenly couldn’t look at her anymore either.

“W-well, the Simbox, from mental stress…” Lina explained weakly.

“It’s too stressful? We don’t have to then.” Aegis replied apologetically.

“N-no, we can try again.” Lina replied anxiously. It went quiet for a moment, the sounds of other players and NPCs chatting and walking around them drowned out their conversation from being heard by anyone else. After a few moments of silence, the two of them finally worked up the courage to look each other in the eyes. They both leaned in and closed their eyes until their lips found each other, and a second later, Lina disappeared from the gameworld.

She logged back in shortly after, re-appearing in front of Aegis as he’d taken a step back and was waiting.

“Sorry… I have to work on that.” Lina replied, embarrassed. Aegis looked at her shy apologetic face, and he thought of how he’d been kicked out of the Simbox for mental stress when he was being tortured by the Avatar of Suffering. To think that something like kissing made Lina so shy or bashful that the Simbox treated her in equivalence to torture, Aegis couldn’t help but chuckle a bit, which only got louder the more he thought about it.

“Don’t make fun of me.” She pouted at him, but afterwards she giggled as well.

“Oh, you’re back?” Darkshot asked as he approached them from behind. “Why’d you turn your stream off?” He asked as he looked at the icon missing.

“Oh, right. Yuki didn’t want me showing the inside of the ship, or her secret designs.” Aegis said as he went into his interface to turn it back on.

“Why are you guys so red? You look like you just came out of a sauna.” Darkshot asked curiously as he eyed the two of them.

“No reason, it’s just really hot.” Aegis shrugged awkwardly.

“Mhm.” Lina nodded in agreement. This didn’t stop Darkshot from being suspicious and glancing between the two of them. “Nice suit, by the way.” He said as he motioned to it.

“Oh, yeah, pretty sweet right? Yuki made it so I have something for noble royal fancy meetings and stuff.” Aegis said as he motioned to it.

“I gotta get me some sweet digs like that as well.”

“Me too. A dress, I mean, probably.” Lina shrugged.

“Well, no worries, she’ll be selling stuff in Rene, when we get back there.” Aegis said.

“We goin back to Rene?” Rakkan asked as he and Pyri approached from behind, both of them holding an odd looking pastry in their hands and eating it.

“These things are tasty, you gotta learn to make these Mr. crafter.” Pyri said with a mouthful of food.

“Not yet, and send me the recipe.” Aegis replied to them both. “One last Temple to go, the final and most important skill is next.” Aegis declared. “Onward, to the Temple of Shiva!” Aegis pointed forward towards the street of Kordas that led to the Temple district