Chapter 10.

Class: Valkyrie.

Class type: Guardian.

Valkyrie

A chosen messenger from Valhalla. Come here to choose which heroes survive and which die a glorious death in battle. But perhaps also join the battle herself. Expert in using a spear and shield combination.

More details in the class description will become visible as you observe or experience more of the class.

Skills:

Spear of Light.

Slash at the target while imbuing your spear with mana.

Causes Light elemental damage.

Phalanx.

Raise your shield like an iron wall, bracing against all manner of attacks.

Reduces damage received by x%, blocks linear attacks to protect allies behind. Makes you immune to being stunned.

Class abilities:

Valhalla’s Call.

If HP drops below 30%, raises attack by 30% and reduces damage received by 30%, for 40 seconds.

Increased mastery with spear and shield weapons. When using a spear, damage dealt increases and when using a shield defense increases.

A Valkyrie… I see…

I wonder why I’m not quite as surprised as I should be.

It seems like a rare, or not-so-linear class like mine.

As expected of my party member…?

“How is it?” she speaks up again, her eyes twinkling as if expecting praise or surprise.

I once again lift my hand and pat her head with it.

“Not bad. Not bad at all.”

“What does that mean?!” she replies, a little annoyed that I didn’t compliment her.

What do you think? If I go around praising people left and right, they’ll get complacent. Just be happy with this.

“Now show me yours-” she starts speaking.

“Great job out there, you two.” But gets interrupted by the mercenary leader walking towards us.

“Too bad that they managed to get away. But we can’t go after them since my group is too tired and wounded to chase.” The smile on his face turns into a frown and he shakes his head.

It’s not that I didn’t hear her though. But maybe I should think a bit more before sharing my class with her. Because that would tie our fates together. Since she would have information about my unique class. Do I really want that?

“That aside. I see you guys are tired. You can go into your carriage and rest. We’ll continue the scouting and sound the alarm if something happens.” He says, leading us to our carriage.

Vera climbs inside it and I follow, we sit down on opposite sides like before.

“So, what should we do from here? We know these ‘merchants’” She gestures with air-quotes, cute. “are up to no good.”

“I was thinking that we try to contact their boss.”

“But didn’t we already meet their boss? That leader of the trade union?”

“Not that one. I have a feeling this whole organization is deeper than just this trade union.”

“What then? Suppose we’re able to get to know who the mastermind behind this is, what would we do about it?”

“Why, join them of course.”

“What?” She says in shock.

“I mean, the villains get all the resources, right?”

“But-…” She wants to object to that, but stops.

“I mean, isn’t it true? The villains do get all the good things.”

“…” She doesn’t respond, but I could see from her expression that she’s thinking about it.

“Heroes always die early.”

That’s what I’ve read in the novels, seen in the movies and tv serials.

And experienced.

I clench my fist, making my nails dig into the palm of my hand.

If this was the real world, blood would have started seeping through but it doesn’t, because here, it takes a bit more than this to make blood flow.

“Heroes always get remembered. But legends never die.” I whisper to myself.

“…Okay, I get it. I agree.” Vera speaks after thinking for a while.

“So, we’ll have to see which method we need to use to find their boss.”

I continue after taking a pause, “Either we can just ask the trade union leader, or the mercenary leader, because I think that mercenary group is a part of them too. But I don’t think getting to know that from the would be so easy”

“Or…?”

“Or if that doesn’t work, after reaching the capital, we follow them around stealthily to find out where they go. There must be some means of contact between them. We find that and try to follow it, or possibly intercept it too.”

“Ah…” She nods slowly.

“But for that too, we’ll have to make sure they don’t get wiped out by the police as soon as we reach the capital. Someone needs to survive so they can contact their boss. And if we ask them directly first, they’ll get suspicious of us and we might be unable to follow them when they contact their boss.”

“Great plan.”

We sit in silence for a little bit, thinking about which path to take, ask them directly or tail them silently?

Evelyn has messaged you.

“Come on, it’s getting late. Time to sleep.”

“Sleep is for the weak.”

“What?”

Seems like I said that out loud though I didn’t intend to.

“Anyways, it’s getting late now. I’ll have to log out. Mortal needs like sleep, I wonder when I’ll not need it anymore.”

“Yeah, it’s getting like quite late here too. What’s the time there for you? If you don’t mind me asking.”

“It’s just before 11."

“Here too. Maybe we live somewhere close in real life.”

“Doesn’t have to be. It just means we’re around the same longitude.”

But even then, it’s fairly likely that we’re quite close in the real world.

I’ll have to look into it more tomorrow, because I don’t believe there are many places that follow this time zone.

Wait…

“Are we supposed to sleep in this carriage?” I ask.

“Yeah, what’s wrong with that?”

I can believe that the merchants or the trade union didn’t find anything odd about it since they could have thought that we’re together. But she’s okay with it too?

“Can’t two girls sleep together just fine?”

…What?!

She thinks I’m a girl?!

That… Somehow doesn’t at all affect my pride. I’ll take it as a compliment that I look so beautiful it’s hard to distinguish.

As if to prove her point, she gets up from her seat and sits beside me, then lays down, using my lap as a pillow.

“Fine, fine. Anyways, I’m logging out.”

“Yeah, me too. Come again tomorrow, okay? Don’t keep me waiting.” She responds before we both log out from the game.

Evelyn takes off the headset and I get up from the bed, stretching a little bit before going to sleep.

“I was able to get the permissions from them.”

“What permissions?”

“The trip of course. Or rather than permissions you can also say I made an appointment.”

“An appointment? Just where are we going?”

“That’s a secret.” She says, bringing her index finger to her lips.

“Yeah, whatever. As if you can surprise me.” I reply sarcastically.

“I’m sure you’ll like it.”

She says as she continues to prepare the bed for me to sleep on.

I look around the room. It really doesn’t seem like a room in a hospital. But rather more like a room in a hotel or something. A really high-class hotel at that.

After preparing the bed, she goes around closing the window, or rather the giant glass, sliding door/window thingy that leads to the balcony and some other such places.

“By the way, the milk is waiting, right on the table beside you.”

Ah, I look towards the table and there it is, a glass of warm milk, it sure helps before going to sleep.

But I’d feel off if I thanked her for it.

“You should’ve told me earlier. Now it’s gone cold.”

“Do you want to drink it or not?” She replies, while continuing her work.

Yeah, I’ll just drink it without complaining much.

After that I lay down on the bed and she walks towards the door, turning off the lights.

“We’ll be leaving around tomorrow noon. So, wake up on time.”

“Fine…” I reply just as the lights turn dim and then off completely.

The only way of illumination left in the room is the moonlight seeping through the window.

It takes me a while to fall asleep. Probably because of the lingering excitement from playing the game and thinking of playing it again tomorrow.

The last I see the clock, it’s past midnight, before I fall asleep.

…

When I wake up, by habit I look towards the clock.

11:30 am.

Welp, doesn’t seem like I’ll be able to log into the game this morning. Vera might get a little mad but what can I do? It just happens to be that I’m a late sleeper.

It would have been much more of a problem if I had to go to school or college or something, but I don’t. So, it’s not really a problem.

I turn my head towards the right, there’s the bookshelf, I’ve almost finished that one compartment. I should complete it this week. A bunch of books on biology, and computer science and business.

Yeah, not like how I’d have to choose a subject as main in college, I don’t have to do that here, I study what I find interesting.

“You sure woke up late today.”

A voice sounds out from behind me, startling me.

“You almost gave me a heart attack.”

“…”

“Take responsibility for your actions.”

“Okay. Master, would you prefer tea or coffee?”

“Coffee.”

Even though it’s quite bitter in my opinion. I’ve been trying to acquire a taste for it.

“Please get ready faster. We have to leave by 12:30.”

“Fine.”

…

As Evelyn helps me put on clothes. Because while I can bend down and tie my shoes, I’d rather not do that if I have the option to. The same with shirts… And pants…

“Where are we going?”

“It’s a secret.”

“Where?”

“Secret.”

“You’re not going to take me into a dark alleyway and do unspeakable things to me, right?”

“…”

Not that I think there are alleyways in this city, if you can call it a city in the first place.

It’s technically more of a city-state. If the knowledge in those books is correct.

As I follow her down the elevator from the top floor into the parking, and into her car. After sitting down in the passenger’s side as the doors open automatically, I comment.

“A high-end electric sportscar, is it really something that a nurse should have?”

“What’s it to do with you? And it was relatively cheap here too.”

Cheap not because the cars get assembled here or anything, there’s too little space for that. Cheap because most of the technology used in the car comes from this place. Since this is the new ‘Silicon Valley’.

I think they were referring to that when they named this Stardust Valley, but it seems too childish, somehow.

“Does this car really belong to you? Or did someone help you buy it?”

“I…Most of it was bought through my own money that I saved up. Yes.”

Most of it, so not entirely, like I thought. Probably her ‘most’ means about 10 or 20% of the cost. Which, admittedly still is a significant amount, but not that much. And I think she used her family’s connections to get the ‘appointment’ to the place we’re going to.

She drives the car outside the underground parking and onto the highway, from where we head towards… A place I don’t know where.

Sportscars have low ground clearance, I think it has to do with a lower ground clearance giving a lower center of gravity which gives more stability.

But that wouldn’t have been possible if the roads here weren’t so impossibly smooth.

Well, it makes sense that they are so smooth, since most of it is reclaimed land from the ocean.

We quickly reach the place where she was taking me to, and we get out at the front gate of what seems to be another one of the large skyscrapers that fill this city.

“Ta-dah! We’re here!” She says, gesturing with both her hands opened wide.

“Where…Exactly-” I was about to say but then notice the logo of the company, and its name right beside it.