I watched as Trix left the room. His footfalls were heavier than usual, though his back still remained upright and tall.

I thought about his story. What had happened to that Michael fellow… It was tragic. If my parents had been swindled into throwing their lives away, I’d be angry too.

I didn’t think Pam and Adam were actually trying to get information out of Rue. If he knew anything, the Chosen Ones would have wheedled it out of him a long time ago. Instead, they were taking out their anger on him. Exacting “justice”, as Pam called it, for what happened to Michael.

Even after what I’d heard, though, I couldn’t agree with that.

Correcting a wrong with a wrong does not make something right again.

Rue still lay on the ground. He hadn’t budged from his position, instead staring at the wall. His eyes blank and unfocused, as if staring beyond the wall, at something I couldn’t see. I patted his shoulder.

“Rue? You okay?”

He said nothing.

“They’re gone now.”

Still nothing.

I waited a few more moments, before he finally spoke.

“Trixnoct told you, didn’t he?”

“He did,” I nodded.

“You know about Michael?”

“Yes…”

“Oh,” Rue fell silent.

Then, a moment later, a wry laugh.

“It changes everything, doesn’t it? Now that you have the full picture.”

“Do I?” I asked. “I don’t think I have your side of the story.”

“There’s not much to tell,” he replied with a sigh. “Trixnoct told you the objective truth. There was no good reason behind my actions. There was no one compelling me to do anything. It was all me. My envy caused the death of someone who didn’t deserve it.”

“Envy?”

“I saw someone in a better position than I was. I thought it was unfair, and wanted to drag him down with me,” his gaze turned glassy. “I didn’t stop to think…”

He trailed off. Then laughed again.

“What did I expect? In the end, I am exactly what Father intended me to be. Malicious,” his voice took on a bite to it. “Spiteful.”

If he’d said that before I knew anything, I’d have told him that he was none of those things. But now that Trix had told me what happened… I couldn’t say that with utmost certainty anymore.

“You sound like you regret what you did,” I remarked instead.

“…I do,” he said. “But regret doesn’t change anything, does it?”

“Sadly, no it doesn’t.”

“So it hardly matters.”

He said conclusively, and stopped.

There were so many questions that I wanted to ask. If he was the Decay, why was he collaborating with Rosa, someone who was supposedly in the opposite faction? What were his real intentions when approaching me? Did he really know something about the truth of this world? But I didn’t ask any of them.

I just stared down at him, waiting for him to say something. To defend his actions, or put the blame on those who beat him up.

Maybe if he’d defended himself, I’d have an easier time taking a side in this feud. What he had done was undoubtedly wrong, but were the Chosen Ones free from blame? They’d chosen to beat him up even before what had happened to Michael, solely because of an unproven theory.

If I could take a side, I’d know what to do. But now, all I could do was sit and listen to what he had to say.

“It does matter,” I said after a long pause. “If you regret, it means you learned something from the experience. It means that you know not to make the same mistake again. The same thing won’t happen to someone else. I’d say that matters.”

“If I didn’t exist,” he said sullenly, still facing the wall. “The same thing wouldn’t happen either. And everyone would rejoice.”

“Now, now, let’s not say that,” I patted his shoulder again. “Rosa knows you, doesn’t she? She wouldn’t be very happy that you said that, would she?”

“She wouldn’t,” he admitted. “She’d kick in my window and demand to know where I got that thought. Then she’d do something stupid and get in trouble with Father again.”

“That's because she cares.”

“I suppose…”

We lapsed into silence again.

Father… The way he spoke that word was different. It carried weight to it heavier than anything else Rue had uttered. Like reverence, fear, and power all bundled up into one simple word.

Was Father referring to Rue’s father in the lore? Oberon, the Slumbering King of Briarwood? Or was it referring to… someone else.

“This Father… Do you know where I can find him?”

“You don’t want to know.”

“But do you know?”

“Yes,” said Rue sullenly. “But you aren’t like us NPCs. He needs us. We don’t die forever even when he kills us. But you… You’ll probably end up like Michael if you saw him.”

“I’ll take your warning to heart,” I said, patting him on the shoulder, then heading towards the door.

“Luck?”

I paused.

“Promise you won’t go looking for him, will you?” He said quietly.

“…”

I pushed open the door and left.

***

I was still worried about Rue, but there wasn't much more I could do for him at this point. Besides, I had other things on my mind.

Upon returning to the Capital, I had already begun making plans. At the moment, I was severely underleveled, both literally and in terms of magic practice. With the timer ticking down, I had no time to waste.

I was starting to get an idea on how to get everyone off this offshoot world. During server maintenance, I had been able to see the boundaries of this world with the kid’s help. If I got good enough at magic or whatever it was that the kid had shown me, I could break through.

But there was the question of the others. If they didn’t know how to use magic, could they leave? Even if I left a hole in the scaffolding, there was no way they could get out if they couldn’t even see the scaffolding.

That was where inspiration struck. From everyone’s accounts, I knew that there was someone keeping us here. The god of this world. Theoretically, if I struck at the root of the problem, then it wouldn’t matter if others could use magic or not.

Of course, I didn’t intend to just walk up to a god and challenge him to a duel. That would be overestimating myself even more than I already am. I’d only successfully used magic twice, and this was a god who’d created an entire world on his own.

I did, however, intend to test the waters first. To see what this god was actually capable of. To do that, I had to meet him myself.

Rue said I would die if I ever saw him, but he was also our only lead to getting out of here. It was a reckless idea, but you can’t get what you want if you’re not willing to take a few leaps of faith. Marge and Trix had probably already exhausted all their options by being careful over the past 5 years anyway.

In the end, there was no gateway. There was just a wall standing between us and home, and that wall was the god of this world.

There came a nagging thought that maybe I shouldn’t have left Rue lying half dead in his room. After all, even if it was deserved, no one should have to take beatings like that. I stomped that thought down.

I pitied Rue, but what could I do? I didn’t have the right to comfort him and tell him he hadn’t done anything wrong, because he had. I couldn’t tell him that I’d forgive him either, because I wasn’t one of the affected parties. I couldn’t hang around and stop anyone from coming in and beating him up, because at the end of the day, I still had to figure out a way home, and that was my first priority.

The thing that I needed from him, the information on where I could find the god of this world, was withheld from me. But I had an idea on where else I could get it.

I climbed the Great Oak, making my way to the top. All around me, the chatter of the various NPCs and players were muted, as if I were encased in a bubble. It felt so far away, now that I knew what was going on. The feud between the NPCs and the Chosen Ones, the weight of a god keeping us here… they all weighed heavily on my mind.

When I reached the top, I prepared to call out for Rosa. But it turned out that I didn’t have to.

”YOU!”

Something came barrelling into me from the sky. I couldn’t help but let out a squawk of surprise as a fist connected with my stomach, sending me tumbling to the floor.

“WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?” I raised my head to see Rosa hovering a few inches above the ground, her hands balled into fists.

“What do you mean?” I called back.

She dropped to the floor. With a movement faster than I could track, she grabbed the scruff of my coat and pulled me upright.

“My brother,” she hissed. Her eyes blazed with a fervour I’d never seen from her before. In fact, her entire demeanour and speech patterns had diverted from what I knew of her. “I thought he was supposed to be following you around. How did you let this happen?”

“Your brother? You mean Rue?” I tried to pry her fingers off my coat, but their grip only intensified. “He should still be at the Fortress of Ruin.”

“After being tormented by you Chosen Ones,” she scowled. “That you led there. I thought you were his friend. Why didn’t you stop them?”

“I did,” I told her. “I told them to cut it out. And Trix was the one who offered to clear the Fortress of Ruin with me in the first place. I didn’t know about everyone’s history, and that’s my bad. But I did everything I could.”

“All you did was let him get beat up, and then you left him there,” she gestured angrily.

“I told off the offenders and tried my best to comfort him. There was nothing more I could do.”

“You could have stayed longer and talked him out of it. You know, like a friend,” she snapped.

“Well why are you here berating me about this instead of by his side?” I snapped back. “You’re his sister.”

“Everything I tell him goes in one ear and out the other. It won’t matter if I’m there or not.”

“And it’ll be any different with me?”

“Well I…” Rosa fell silent.

I sighed.

“I’d love to help you both out more, but my own thoughts on the matter are pretty jumbled up as well. I need time to think about it.”

“My brother’s integrity is not for the likes of bystanders to judge,” Rosa crossed her arms, a gesture I’d never seen from her before. “Father made him twisted and corrupt. By his will alone was his nature forcibly bent into the kindness he showed you on your journey. The Chosen Ones who took advantage of his passiveness have only themselves to blame for what happened.”

I shook my head.

“Even if I don’t judge, there’s nothing more I could do for him. I’m grateful for Rue’s company, but I can’t afford to stay in the Fortress defending him from any Chosen Ones who come along. I have someone I need to find.”

“Oh?” Rosa raised her eyebrows. “And who would that be?”

“The god of this world,” I said. “Your ‘Father’.”

Rosa’s eyes widened in surprise.

Then she began to laugh.

“You seek our father? Do you have a death wish?” she chuckled.

“The Chosen Ones have exhausted all our other options,” I told her. “Your father may be our only way out of here.”

“And you have a plan?”

“Not quite a plan, but I’m hoping to have one ready by the time I meet him.”

Her laughing slowed. Her brilliant blue eyes stared at me unblinking, a small smile still covered her face.”

“Fine. Do me a favour, and I’ll give you this information.”

“What favour?” I asked suspiciously.

“When you meet Father, ask him to remove Overpower from all Chosen Ones’ skills.”

I remembered Marge’s words.

“It’s only when we do something to challenge the god’s rule that things go down.”

“Isn’t that a direct challenge of your Father’s authority?” I asked.

“If you don’t do it, I won’t tell you how to find Father,” she said.

I stared at her.

She stared back.

“Fine,” I lied. Swindling her like this caused a sick feeling in my gut, but I wasn’t going to risk a repeat of the Michael incident. “I’ll do it.”

“Good,” a triumphant smile adorned her face. “You can’t meet him directly as a Chosen One, but there is an opportunity I know will work for you.”

“And what would that be?”

“Duel with Oberon. Then, when he asks for your wish, do not pick any of the options he gives you. Insist upon what it is that you want from Father. Then, you may see our Father.”

“I see…” I said thoughtfully. Well, it made sense. According to Trix, that was how Michael had offended the god of this world. In order to offend, he’d have to see him first. “Thank you for the information.”

“I look forward to your results,” and with that, Rosa was gone.