KeroKeron

  Debated as one of the best pyers of all time in the petitive VRMMO 'Champions of Andartha,' Yuusha 'the Untouchable' suddenly disappeared from the pro se without a trace. Years ter, at the height of the game's popurity, a ce meeting with an up-and-ing streamer draws her in once more to their world. Will this fateful enter rekindle her petitive spirit to rise once again and recim her flory?

  It's a fun story! I've been reading it for a little while now and I've been enjoying it. If you think it sounds iing give it a look!

  A few hours ter, Emily and Juliana walk into the cafeteria for dinner. A calm air nation hangs over them as they take a seat at the table with Ivor aer.

  “What’s up with you two?” Hester asks, quickly notig their mood.

  “Nothing,” Emily lies, unwilling to tell her the truth and quickly ging the subject. “Where’s Tom?”

  “He was meant to be joining us. I left him in the library like an h over a study about the fall of the Rostan Empire.”

  “The what?” Juliana asks in fusion.

  Hester visibly deftes at the question.

  “Some empire that trolled half of the Keban ti before Modo and Morzea formed. Please don’t ask him, I don’t want to hear about it again.”

  As if sensing her fear, Tom steps into the table’s barrier the moment she finishes speaking.

  “What are you guys talking about?” he asks as he sits down, causier to jump and look at her friends pleadingly.

  Emily chuckles silently, choosing to help her out: having been on the receiving end of Tom’s rants enough times to feel pity.

  “Nothing much. I was just saying that I’m pnning my own expedition soon.”

  “Oh cool! I e?” Tom asks excitedly, while Hester and Ivor look at Emily questioningly.

  “Yeah. I want to go into the depths of The Crystal Waters now that I’m third circle,” she answers with a sly grin.

  All three of her friends start in surprise, looking at her in disbelief.

  “Already?” Hester asks

  “Yep!” she answers proudly. “I would show you, but I’d rather not flex my pressure in here. For certain reasons, I don’t want to announce my assion, and I’d prefer you don’t tell anyone.”

  Tom aer look fused, but both agree to silence before shutting their eyes and feeling out the auras hem. Ivor narrows his eyes at her, but nods with a look of uanding.

  “Well done,” he signs, without even cheg her aura.

  What does he know? I’ll ask ter.

  “Thanks.”

  Tom aer sooheir eyes again and gratute her.

  “When are you pnning your expedition for?” Hester asks, moving back to the inal topic after her surprise has passed.

  “And who are you inviting!” Tom adds eagerly.

  Emily chuckles at his enthusiasm.

  “You join if you want, Tom. I’m looking to set off in a month, and I nning on inviting you guys, Enzo, and Dante.”

  “Wait, is that all?” Hester asks dubiously.

  “Yeah,” Emily answers fidently, receiving doubtful looks from three of her friends.

  Ivor oher hand, simply nods along with her. Juliana turns a questioning gre on him.

  “Why are you supp her?”

  “She’s a monster. She’d be fine alone,” he signs calmly, drawing a snort from Juliana and a giggle from Emily.

  “What did he say?” asks Tom, causing Ivor to shift unfortably.

  “Learn to sign already,” Hester says, clipping her brother around the back of the head before looking back to Ivor. “What do you mean she’s a monster?”

  Ivor seems to freeze up, gng between the siblings awkwardly. Emily sighs and takes over.

  “He means I’m a good fighter and I have enough endurao survive an expedition alone. I’m mostly inviting you guys so I have someoo carry my bags and for pany.”

  Ivor nods along, but her friends don’t seem vinced.

  “How about this? I’m sparring with Agnes again in two days. Why don’t you guys e watch, and you judge for yourself if an expedition with just the seven of us is safe?”

  They agree tgestion and proceed to ask her questions about her assion over dinner. Afterwards, Tom aer separate from them to return to their rooms, but Emily drags Ivor into the B grade dorms with her and Juliana. They quickly return to their rooms where Juliana, who’s helping in the herb gardens early in the m, says goodnight and leaves so she sleep.

  Emily and Ivor step into her room alone, settling down on the chairs fag each other.

  “So, why do you think I’m hiding my assion?” Emily signs curiously.

  “You’re not on good terms with your sponsor, are you?”

  Emily silently shakes her head, appreciating him choosing not to call them her family, and waits for him to eborate.

  “Thought so. Your rea to leaving their allies to die made it pretty obvious. So, if you’re not on good terms with them, then you probably don’t want them knowing you’ve reached the point where you legally separate from them. Right?”

  “Almost. They won’t be worried about me separating. However, they sent me here with the goal of achieving third circle. So, I suspect when they find out that I’ve reached that goal, they’ll either call me back or try to give me orders. I still have some things I want to do here before I leave.”

  “I see,” Ivns baodding thoughtfully. “Why are you on bad terms with them? If you don’t mind me asking.”

  A small smile creeps onto Emily’s face at his sideration.

  “Sure. So, basically...”

  ***

  The m, Emily makes her way to the library after breakfast.

  My spar with Agomorrow should give me a good idea on where I stand against third circle mages. I’m y per t sure I’ll win with ease if my strength at sed circle is anything to go off of. But, the Mandrago Patriarch is fourth circle. If I want to kill him, I o get some ideas about the differeween third and fourth circle.

  She sits down at a random table, activating it and making a request.

  “This probably won’t work. All B grade books on the fourth circle.”

  Emily waits for a few moments, but nothing approaches the table.

  “Tsk,” she clicks her tongue as she stands up. “Thought so. Any knowledge on the fourth circle will be locked to A grade students. I could ask Oscar to let me piggy ba his access, but where’s the fun in that.”

  She walks into the stacks, passing into the empty corridors t high with books, aed grin pstered on her face.

  Time to put my babies to work!

  She reaches into the spatial pouch at her hip, pulling out a bd silver metal egg, two times the size of her fist. Iing a small spark of maa, she watches as the egg cracks.

  A small hiss sounds from the egg as a repetitive tig starts and the cracks spread. Quickly, the metal butterflies open, revealing a delicate mass of gears and meisms within. Ptes of metal slide over each other, clig into pd eg together to form a meical bird sitting on Emily’s finger.

  The tre of the bird glows, the magic crystals within shining through the cracks, and a plicated three dimensional magic circle, woven into the meisms to give the bird pulsing silver veins, spins to life. Emily ects a small string of mana to the creature, linking it with one of her cores.

  The bird spreads its wings, fpping twid taking off to per her head. Emily checks the link, seeing two threads being used up: one for watg the surveilnce array showihe bird’s perspective; and the other for trolling the bird’s movement by verting the end of the mana string into maa and adjusting the trols within.

  ˉˉˉˉˉ

  [Bird Scout]

  [Rank:] E

  [Description:] A small remote-trolled meical bird with an ied surveilnce array.

  [Effect:] Reys information to the ected mage.

  _____

  It’s a shame I don’t have the setup to make fironics yet. I could have made these fully indepe if I did. Ah well, I look into that after dealing with the Mandragos.

  She reaches into her pouch again, pulling out another small meical orb. This one sprouts eight long legs, each with a small spiked cw at the end for climbing. The meical spider scout drops from her hand, nding with barely a sound and scuttling up a bookcase to her eye level.

  Good, the spiders don’t have issues climbing these shelves.

  She pulls out three more birds and another spider, activating all of them individually and ensuring their es are stable. She drops to the floor in a meditative pose for the st two, as she gives up trol of her body to her trol core, just in case, while fog on her small minions.

  The four birds take flight, rising to the topmost yers of the stacks and shooting off to a different row each. The spiders cmber up the shelves, reag the top yer oher side of the narrow corridor of books. Emily slowly moves her creations along, reading the spines of the books they pass and ign anything that seems ued.

  After a few hours of searg through thousands of books, one of her birds es across a book titled: ‘Rising to the top’.

  Iing. It’s in the A grade se, so maybe it’s about assions?

  Emily opens her eyes, sending the bird’s e to the trol core to mas motion as she stands up. She follows the string of mana ected to the bird, stepping bato the mage-filled aisle betweeacks and walking down a few rows. She quickly finds the bird fpping its wings in pce, h in the tre of the row staring at a book. She positions herself below it, as the bird shifts forward, pces its cws oop of the spine, and frantically beats its wide, metal wings.

  It takes a few seds, the bird not having enough power to easily move more mass, but the bird pulls it free, sending the book tumbling into Emily’s waiting hand below.

  The bird lowers down to per her head as Emily sits down and flips open the book. After skimming through the first few pages, a frown creases her brow.

  It’s just some mage’s autobiography.

  She flips through to the end of the book, finding it ends with an afternote from the noble’s son about how great his third circle father was.

  “Tsk. Useless.”

  Emily tosses the book aside and shuts her eyes to focus on her scouts again. Her search tinues for most of the day, her mind processing thousands upon thousands of book titles, building an accurate map of the stacks’ upper levels as she goes, since several titles i her for further research. After twenty long hours of searg, reading every title and cheg every book that looks like it could be reted to assions or the fourth circle, a strange book catches Emily’s eye.

  The spine of the book is traced with lines of wear, the leather binding crag and fking away. The title is dull and faded, pletely unreadable.

  None of the other books here show any wear. I assumed there ell keeping them safe given how poorly everyone seems to treat them. Why wasn’t this one protected?

  Emily opens her eyes, rising to her feet again and slipping through the stacks towards the hum of meical wings. Both spider scouts cmber across the ceiling to join her as she arrives in the row with the old book. She moves them to either side of the book and uses them to pull it out carefully, holding it between them as they scramble down to present their prize.

  She slips down onto the floor cross-legged and walks the spiders into her p. Gently, Emily lifts the book off the small spiders’ meical arms, absentmindedly petting one as she looks over the tattered leather cover.

  The leather is a dull brown, with hints of the rich crimson it once was left in a few patches. The title on the front is barely readable, and it takes Emily a few seds of close observation to make out two words: ‘Gaius Longaeva’.

  Emily slowly opens the cover, findi cursive scrawled across the weathered pages within.

  Arthur won’t stop talking about the wit the woods. He cims she uses magid casts spells. Apparently he saw her lighting a fire with her bare hands!

  I don’t believe him. But I want to. He said he’d take me to see her tomorrow to prove it.

  A diary? Why is there a simple diary in the A grade se. Who is Gaius Longaeva?

  Gripped by curiosity, Emily flips through the pages: taking iory of two young boys learning magi the friendly wit the woods. By the time she flips the cover closed, all three of her birds are perched motionless on her head and shoulders, her full attention having been drawn into the straale.

  From the young boy’s writing, Emily is able to gather some iiails. Gaius Longaeva and Arthur both lived before the start of the current dar in the age of the empire. The diary covers from their awakening with the help of the kind dy in the woods, to their battles as members of the empire’s army, sughteris and people to further the empire’s glory.

  However, throughout the course of their journey, Arthur repeatedly tells Gaius about his desires to tear down the emperor and start a new regime. His wistful dreaming doesn’t lead anywhere in the course of the book’s events, but a few of the things he says throughout catch Emily’s attention.

  “Weird. Everything quoted as Arthur’s words just don’t make seogether,” Emily mutters, pg the book down on the inactive spiders in her p and bitihumb. “There’s something off about Arthur. He seems to flip-flop between hating the empire and singing its praises, yet somehow mao vince Gaius to hate the empire by the end of the diary. His words don’t fit the result.”

  Emily falls into deep ption, her mind full of questions.

  Whaius and Arthur. Why are they important enough for a simple diary about them to end up on the A grade shelves? What about Arthur keeps b me? He reads like two different people.

  Emily’s brows furrow at that thought.

  What if he was?

  She flips back through the diary, looking at every refereo Arthur with a critical eye. At least half of the ses quoting him, every point where he praises the empire, seem disjointed and separated from the surroundi. The disjointed ses all seem to be written with slightly er handwriting, as if someone else is trying to mimic the surrounding writing.

  “Some of these were ged. But why?”

  Why would someone ge the tents of this diary? Was it Gaius, or someone else? Does it serve a purpose?

  Emily opens a bnk page in her notes and starts writing down every se she thinks may have been ged. After filling the page with quotes, she reads them ether.

  “Start running Gaius, we’re nearly to the great capital!”

  “Where would you rather be from? You ’t beat the Empire.”

  “You surely know the Goddess blesses reat emperor.”

  “Found you. How dare you insult the emperor before me!”

  “Me? Of course I’d die for the Empire!”

  “Follow me! For the Empire!”

  “The sun never sets on the golden Empire!”

  “Numbers mean nothing against lorious Empire! Charge!”

  Her eyes open wide as she spots the message hidden within the quotes.

  ‘Start where you found me. Follow the numbers.’