Hai guys o/

Have another chapter *throws*

Also~ I got a creative flash today and drew out the Lord! Check out the Progress post to see what he looks like!

On that note, I plan to re-draw both Zayvin and the villain seeing as I feel better now and my hand stops shaking lmao.

Thanks to Dan for PRing the Chap for me once again!

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Daniel Stevens looked up from his paperwork tiredly. The hospital had been very busy the last few days. He had hardly caught any sleep and worked up to 20 hours a day. Honestly, he was reaching his limit. But even though he shouldn’t have any time to think about anything besides work he was still worrying about that small patient of his, Robin.

She was a very bright and kind girl, she and insecure but she had still managed to brighten their days in the hospital. How was she doing at home?

As her doctor he had talked to her a lot and she had told him about many things. Thus he knew of the situation with her family as well. The decision to ask her to stay home for a small while had been a very hard one for him to make for that reason. Yet he had made it.

How pathetic of him to worry about it now.

At that moment the phone in his office rang, nearly causing him to jump out of his chair.

“Stevens?”, he answered the phone simply.

“Dr. Stevens.”, the hospital director got straight to the point. “We had an offer from the ivy league to have some of their students lend a hand. 5th semester and up. There’ll be 5 students assigned to you, got it? Make sure they get jobs they can do. Might decrease the load a bit.”

“I got it, director. Did you send me their info?”

“Of course I did, Stevens, now get back to work, we can’t afford chit-chat right now.”

“Yes, sir.”

Daniel sighed heavily as he hung up. So now they would even allow medicine students without practical experience in here… He was too tired to argue against the decision of his superior, but… well, he’d just have to make sure they wouldn’t mess up then. And he could really use the extra hands.

He quickly manipulated his computer unit and called up the students information. One of them especially caught his eyes.

Darren Cross

It was Robin’s brother.

The Cross residence

Robin was lying down in her bed curled up into a ball. She pressed her plush bunny tightly against her chest and clenched her teeth, biting back her tears with all her might.

She had been ready, she had prepared herself to come back here… or so she thought… but that wasn’t it. It wasn’t right. She had simply been conceited and stupid.

She had expected something had changed, if even just slightly. But that was wrong. Time doesn’t close all the wounds, it just covers them slightly and then with just a word they would rip back open, bleeding just as strongly as before.

She knew. She knew her grandmother felt nothing but contempt for her. She also knew that her brothers hated her. They hated her for taking away their parents and they would never forgive her for it. Right now her mom and dad should be here. They should tell them how they had grown up nicely, scold them for being picky with their food, hug them and console them when they were sad… but they weren’t here anymore. They wouldn’t laugh together anymore, go out on a picnic and have fun, they wouldn’t laugh together anymore…. Just because of her.

There was no place for her here anymore.

Why had she agreed to return? Why?

As soon as she wondered that she hated herself for it. She only had a broken arm right now, the other condition had been stable, so now that thousands of people were still waiting for treatment it wasn’t her place to selfishly stay in the hospital. If she did someone might even die because they didn’t get a bed.

“You’re still pathetic and selfish as ever, Robin…”, she scolded herself quietly.

”You are like a demon! You can only destroy the happiness of others! And now you’re a murderer as well!!”

“Useless child, do not expect any compassion from me. Someone who cannot hope to be independent has no place in my family.”

“Don’t talk to me, I’m busy.”

The words of her family echoed in her head, cutting out small pieces of her heart every time she remembered them.

Volunteer relief force in Japan

“Hey, Hinami! Over here!, Help me with him for a moment, will you?”

“Coming, brother!”

The girl stopped talking to the field medic and quickly went over to him and together they picked up the old man, carefully placing him on a stretcher and pushed him to the ambulance that had just arrived.

Once they woke up after the earthquake the both of them had volunteered to help the relief forces and had been asked to help the field medics to get the patients to a place they could be treated. They had learned fast and were now the only two people accompanying the medic.

Surprisingly they hadn’t fought at all since then. It was probably true what they say. Emergencies truly do bind people together.

While they were working hard to save even one more life Hikaru still thought back to the game.

‘That girl, Zayvin… I wonder if she’s alright…’

Thus since he had been staring out the car window, lost in his thoughts he got his first smack from his sister in days.

“Ouch! What was that for??”

“No time for dirty dreams, bro! Take this seriously, will you?”

Involuntarily he had blushed while thinking about her, causing his sister to misunderstand. But once she was like that she wouldn’t listen if he explained anyhow…

A deep sigh escaped him.

“Yes, yes…”

Some time ago, in the deep-sea

“Why did her highness send us out into the middle of nowhere again?”, one of the guards muttered.

“Don’t be impudent! Her highness had a reason for sending us out here! Her orders have never been without sense!”, his superior scolded angrily.

“Yes, ma’am… still… we haven’t found anything for two days, the water tastes like usual…wait… this taste is?”

“Humans? But the taste is weird… Blood and something else?”, ignoring her complaining subordinate the female guard quickly swam ahead towards the source of the taste in the water and hid herself behind some corals as she got close to check out the situation first.

Soon her comrade caught up and was about to complain about how she left him behind but she cut him off with a gesture before he could even open his mouth and motioned to the front. Comprehending what she meant the guard stayed quiet and they carefully swam closer to see what was happening.

Humans never came out here, the water was too deep for them, they couldn’t breathe here. Plus, the taste of these humans was strange. The whole thing just screamed suspicious.

There was a small group of what seemed to be humans ahead, but they didn’t look like any humans they had seen before. They wore strange tight clothing that spread a bitter taste in the water and attached weird fins to their feet.

They were fighting an Aquiell right now. It was the guardian of the sea horse colony. Apparently they had unconsciously invaded its protection territory, causing it to attack. From the looks of it one of them had already died and another was wounded. Those stupid humans! The blood would attract even more predators if they didn’t move!

Anyhow, deciding she couldn’t just leave things be she gave her subordinate a sign. They would intervene in the conflict. They had to find out what those humans were doing here and what those weird things were they had with them. It could potentially pose a danger to their kingdom.

So she and her companion quickly swam out of their hiding place, moving their tails as fast as possible before they were too late.

They arrived just before the Aquiell could end the injured humans life, successfully causing it to hesitate. Just enough time for her subordinate to pull him out of harm’s way. While he motioned for the humans to come over to him it was her job to calm the angry guardian.

“Oh great guardian of the sea horse colony, please listen to me!”, she quickly shouted.

“These humans surely meant no harm towards you and your people! I ask you to let us escort them to the queen, she will thoroughly question them and their motives!”

“Guoooo..!!!”

“W-what? They appeared from nothing and suddenly attacked you??”

“Guo, uoooouuu…”

“I see, I will include that in the report… Thank you for understanding, dear Aquiell!”

“Guoo…”, with a last glare at the humans he quickly swam away.

Anger clearly shown on her face the mermaid guard turned around to survey the humans. The four of them were huddled together around the other merman. One of them was looking at the injury of his companion, but underwater it was hard for him to apply first aid.

She sighed deeply and motioned for them to follow her. If they didn’t comply she would make them. She needed to report this to her majesty right away.

The humans were apparently very confused and shocked at the situation, she didn’t know why they hadn’t expected to meet creatures of the sea underwater, but her patience was running low.

Not caring what the humans thought she quickly used some magic to bind them and then motioned for the other merman to pull two of them.

At first they were struggling pretty hard, but underwater they weren’t a challenge for merpeople at all, so all they managed to do was exhaust themselves.

Presently in Captain Morgan’s office

“I see… so it was a monster like that. Can you tell us about the area it usually lives in?”

“Yes, in the game the Aquiell is something of a guardian existence for the sea horse tribe. They don’t leave the area they are supposed to guard and only attack when provoked or when they feel the tribe faces danger. That’s how WE created it either anyhow.”

Morgan nodded, motioning for Mr. Eden to go on. “It lives in the deep sea, approximately 900-1200m underwater but it can survive up to 2500m deep. Higher than 500m and it’ll be in trouble as well…”

Morgan was listening to everything the community manager had to tell them, making notes and thinking constantly.

“Other than that… the sea horse tribe is allied with the merfolk who are demihumans of the sea.”

“Merfolk?”

“Yea, mermaids and other humanoid seadwellers.”

“I’ve not heard anything about them from other sources before…?”

“That’s because in NPO there is no way to breathe underwater and diving deep enough to find them is impossible as of now. They’re basically an undiscovered race. We planned to introduce them soon.”

“I see…”, the captain said, thinking carefully.

“So since they are allied they can obviously converse with each other as well. We need to take this into consideration when creating a plan.”

“Pardon? Why?”

“I hardly believe what I’m about to say myself, but… don’t you thing that tunnel looked like a sort of portal? If you look at the video feed closely before it cut off…”, he rewind the scene back where he meant, “right here… one of them is gone. He should have been about halfway in the tunnel, but he’s not there.”

Morgan tipped at the screen with his finger, pointing to where he meant. And surely enough the first diver was missing. After that scene the video cut off.

“So if that tunnel leads somewhere else, where could it be? Judging from what you just told us we have to leave the possibility open that… it’s the game. Or a place very similar to it. That would also explain how that Gloomster got here.”

Before Eden could protest against it he raised his hand and continued.

“It’s very unlikely, but I need to be open minded about this. Of course other possibilities are that a normal animal mutated due to radioactivity or another reason and coincidentally resembles one. And my men just weren’t careful and got sucked away by a strong current that coincidentally caused such a sound before their recording broke. That doesn’t explain why we can’t locate their GPS though. There are probably other explanations as well, but I’m not willing to take the risk. What do you think, Eden?”

“I still think this is a crazy idea you have, captain and I am not willing to believe it.”, he sighed deeply, “but I also know that you aren’t the type of person to give in just because I disagree. So what’s the plan now? Judging by your character there is no way you’d leave this in peace if there was even a small chance your men are alive… what’s your plan?”

Morgan grinned knowingly, slightly impressed by how well the CM knew him already. “Well deduced, Mr. Eden. Well deduced… Indeed, I don’t plan to abandon my men. Therefore as you’re probably expecting… we’re going there. This time I’m coming along personally. And so are you.”

While you wait... check for my writing progress as well as interesting bits about my world here

I've also added a few sketches of how i imagined my world and some characters

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