Arcana Online
Fray Guild headquarters.
After clearing everyone else out, I was left alone with Shasha, and we were having a quiet chat.
“You didn’t know it was Yuna?”
“Nope! Her face and hair color were totally different!”
“What on earth are you talking about?”
“Look at this.”
Shasha showed me a community post.
After checking the community, I could at least breathe a sigh of relief: Yuna’s appearance was showing up differently in every post.
So she really was using a disguise item?
But the articles and the rest of the posts were a joke and a half.
It was the first main scenario quest to ever appear, and yet the game company was treating it like, “Well, that’s that,” and letting it fizzle out.
They’d never once communicated with the users since launch. They’d never even sold a paid item. Most players had long since stopped asking for anything grand; all they wanted was for the service not to shut down.
No one knew what money kept the game running. Hell, no one even knew what company was operating it.
And yet it remained the undisputed number one game.
There was no virtual reality game better made than Arcana Online, and experts said there never would be.
Thanks to that, all the attention had swung toward the Demon Lord’s looks.
Out of the countless beauties I’d seen in my life, she stood out without question.
With a sigh, I closed the community board and logged out, returning to the real world.
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After arriving in the City of Stars, I went to the Information Guild to see Erika Noona for the first time in a while.
But I heard she was out, so I left the shop and started down the street, only to spot a blacksmith’s forge up ahead.
I’d been thinking about changing the staff’s outfit, since it didn’t really match what she was wearing, and was about to step inside just to take a look when I found the same dwarf I’d met before working there.
“Well now, welcome in. Hold on—wait a minute, isn’t that the little miss I met back then?”
“Hello! It’s been a while. You’ve been running a shop here?”
“That’s right. Don’t let this face fool you—I’ve been selling my wares in this city for over thirty years.”
After we traded a few pleasantries, I said I’d come to look for a staff, and he took one look at my outfit and shook his head.
“There isn’t a staff in my forge that’d suit a little miss like you.”
“Really!? Then where should I go?”
“My hometown. How about you pay a visit to Iron Village?”
🏛 Type: Dwarven village
⚔ Difficulty: Unknown
📍 Floor: N/A
💀 Boss: Unknown
He handed me a single letter.
“It’s a letter of recommendation. Take this and go to the Silver Forge in Iron Village.”
I thanked him and left the forge.
After checking the map to see how far Iron Village was, I realized it would take three days on foot.
Wouldn’t it be faster to use the bear taxi?
And if I camped along the way···.
“All right! Let’s buy camping gear and head out right away, Yongyong!”
“Kkyu-ung!”
To buy what I needed for camping, I went into a general store and picked up a camping set with everything in it, from a tent to a sleeping bag.
Beginner Camping Set
Contains all the equipment needed for camping, easy enough for even beginners to use.
After paying, Yongyong and I left the City of Stars and started walking toward Iron Village, when I noticed a bear taxi racing toward us from far away.
“Kraaaang!”
“Mm-hm! This time I’m heading to Iron Village. Is that okay?”
“Kraang!”
“How many do you want!? Fifteen!? Isn’t that way too much!?”
“Kraaaang!”
“A round-trip fare!?”
I negotiated it down to ten and climbed onto the bear’s back. It took off at a speed that left me reeling.
Was it even faster than last time?
The scenery around us blurred and shifted as we traveled far more quickly than I’d expected. I had kind of wanted to camp for at least one night.
“Bear! Let’s camp one night before we go!”
“Kraaaang!”
“An extra charge!? That’s so mean!”
“Kraang!”
The bear claimed, as a free service, that it would even let me sleep in its soft, cozy arms.
That was tempting.
After paying the extra fee, the bear stopped in a place that looked perfect for camping.
I took the camping set I’d bought from the general store out of my inventory and set it up, and before long, a rather convincing campsite had been completed.
I handed one magic stone each to Yongyong and the bear, then lit a fire and grilled some meat. The smell alone made my mouth water.
After seasoning it with salt and pepper and taking a bite, it was delicious!
It couldn’t compare to the food Bell Noona made, but it had just enough atmosphere to be satisfying.
While I was eating, the bear, who’d been rolling around lazily, suddenly sprang to its feet and went alert, and I heard rustling in the bushes.
“Kraaaang!”
“Kyaang!”
At the bear’s cry, something shot out from between the branches: a fox with a cute little face.
Looking closer, I saw it was injured.
“Are you okay!?”
“Kyaang!”
It looked at me warily at first, but then, little by little, its guard dropped and it cautiously approached.
I took a potion from my inventory and poured it over the wound. The injury disappeared cleanly at once.
Once the wound was gone, the fox stared at its body in amazement, checking itself over from every angle before suddenly pressing itself against me.
“Kyaang!”
It was acting adorable in that tiny voice, and there was no way I could refuse it a magic stone.
“You’re way too cute!? Here, eat this!”
“Kyaang!”
I held out a magic stone, and it gobbled it down in one bite. Just as it looked up at me with its big, pretty eyes, it made eye contact with Yongyong.
“Kyaaaang!”
With a shriek, the fox bolted.
I stared after it in dumbfounded silence, then turned to Yongyong, who was looking at me with the same baffled expression.
“Not you too, right?”
“Kkyu-ung!”
He protested his innocence, saying he was unfairly accused, but the truth was obvious.
Our Yongyong was cute-looking, after all.
If our paths crossed again, I was sure we’d meet someday.
I finished grilling the rest of the meat and, with my belly full, leaned against the bear. It felt wonderfully soft.
The bear wrapped its arms around me.
“See you tomorrow, Yongyong, Bear.”
“Kkyu-ung.”
“Kraaaang.”
Still in that comfortable position, I said my goodbyes and logged out.
After taking off the gear, I checked my phone.
But something felt off.
These days, not a single message was coming in.
Usually I’d have at least a few spam texts waiting for me, but there was nothing.
“Is it broken?”
I turned the phone off and on again, and only then did the alerts finally start going off.
Buried among the spam messages was a message from Leia Noona.
Not just one, either—an entire stack of them.
“Is something going on these days?”
“I’m worried because you haven’t been answering. Nothing’s wrong, right?”
“You really are okay, right? Contact me anytime.”
Just as I was about to check the messages and reply, the phone rang.
“Hello?”
“I’m relieved. I was worried because I couldn’t reach you. Nothing’s wrong, right?”
“Sorry. My phone was broken, so I couldn’t check it.”
We exchanged greetings, and I told her what had been going on and that I’d recently been heading toward Iron Village.
“Then you’ve hit level 50 by now, right?”
“Yes! I finished the quest this time and hit 55!”
“That’s a relief. Then I’ll send you the guild invitation. We can go into the details when we meet later.”
“Okay! I’ll see you then!”
It was fine when we talked over the phone, so why did I get so nervous when we met in person?
What an inconvenient body, in so many ways.
As soon as I lay down on the bed, my hungry stomach started protesting for food.
I got up, took care of business in the bathroom, then went to the kitchen, opened the fridge, grabbed a triangle rice ball, and ate while I heated water in the electric kettle.
Lately I’d been eating cup noodles instead of the bag kind, since they were just easier to handle like this.
After finishing my meal and standing up from the chair to head back to my room, my head suddenly spun.
When I came to after blacking out, I was sprawled on the kitchen floor, with no memory of how I got there.
I checked the clock. Less than ten minutes had passed, so why was this happening?
Maybe from the impact of collapsing, but my whole body was aching, and a chill and headache had come over me. I took some cold medicine, then staggered back to my room, each step trembling.
I somehow managed to lie down on the bed and pull the blanket over myself, but why was I so cold···?
With shaking hands, I pulled a few heat packs from the corner where I’d left them and tucked them under the blanket. Warmth slowly spread through me, and only then did my eyes finally close as sleep took me.