Aren't You Going to Mention Me?
"...This is serious on more levels than one."
"That it is."
The Kraken and its avatars, nameless demons, even Scorpio stepping onto the stage — and now, on top of it all, the Water Spirits were declaring themselves our enemies.
Granted, the water spirits weren't all that powerful in themselves. The problem was that they had joined hands with the Kraken.
This battlefield was, naturally, the sea. To even take the field, the users — and the residents of this world — would have to board ships and sail out to hunt the Kraken down. Even with nature itself lending a hand, victory would be a coin flip. Now the sea itself would be straining every last effort to kill us.
Even in regions untouched by Territorialization, it would whip up raging storms and keep every ship from ever reaching its destination.
But the sudden onset of this Spiritual Synchronization meant one thing: after thousands upon thousands of years, the Spirit King had finally shown herself.
Just like the other Spirit Kings did.
"The Water Spirit King. She must have awakened somewhere by now."
"Correct. The Water Spirit King, Arouna — she is somewhere out in the sea."
Arne answered.
"Lady Naphras and Lord Nord were the first to notice that something was wrong with the water spirits, and they searched for her high and low — but she could not be found anywhere."
"I couldn't find her either~"
"That was only to be expected."
The Spirit King is the king of all spirits, yet her influence extends only to the lesser spirits of her own attribute. Just as Naphras had spent three hundred years unable to find Nord while he languished in the Demon-Quelling Duke's laboratory.
The sea belongs neither to wind nor to earth.
I was starting to understand why I'd been called here.
"You want me to find Arouna, don't you?"
"...It will be extremely difficult. The Water Spirit King is already half-assimilated, and every water spirit who might tell us of her whereabouts has ended up like... this."
The water spirit slumbering inside Arne's droplet. The thing writhing in agony looked ready to die — or worse, to turn — at any moment.
Drip.
Arne rose from her seat and bowed her head.
"I beg of you. Please find the Water Spirit King and put a stop to the Spiritual Synchronization. As payment, I will give you whatever your heart desires."
"It won't be as easy as all that. I might not find her even within a week."
That was the very reason I'd abandoned the Sea Dungeon and come back. The week that remained had to go toward overall defensive preparations — and toward using my streams to meet with guilds and rankers, teaching them how to keep the damage to a minimum.
I couldn't spend this time chasing a Water Spirit King so elusive that not even a trace of her could be found.
Arne nodded as though she understood completely.
"Then the losses must simply be endured. If that day arrives and you happen upon even a single trace of her, please inform my disciple here. I would be deeply grateful."
"Huh?"
Leo, who had been demolishing her pudding like a woman possessed, whipped her head up.
"Of course."
"Thank you. Should a particular monster invade the continent, I will move actively to defend against it. I shall take part myself."
"Are you certain you're free to move?"
The Spirit Deity Duke — one of the Great Dukes who split the Empire's power in two, a figure who never stirred from her seat short of an all-out war. Her mere movement would be enough to draw the eyes of every neighboring faction, not to mention Hwangyeolgong.
Arne smiled faintly.
"A bird kept caged gains you nothing. I intend to bear the losses on my end as well."
"...I see. Understood."
After that, we lingered a while over tea, and then Leo and I left Arne's castle together. I'd wondered why she was tagging along, but she was in and out of the academy constantly anyway — and she was the channel through which I'd be feeding information — so I let her come.
"So where are we going now?"
"Back to Elbritte for a bit. Some maintenance, some rest — then we start moving properly tomorrow."
December 24th. In a few hours the calendar would turn, leaving exactly six days until the Great Cataclysm update went live.
In that time, I planned to make the rounds of the top guilds — part warning, part content. A series of little 'visits,' if you will.
"Come to think of it, tomorrow's Christmas, isn't it?"
"Huh? Oh, you're right! I've been so busy I forgot! If it's Christmas, there's gonna be an event, right?!"
Christmas was, in its way, an important day, but it had been buried under all the talk of Cataclysms and Krakens and whatnot, filed away somewhere in the back of my mind. In my old life, I'd never had reason to keep track of Earth's holidays in the first place.
Still — it was a special day. Maybe I owed myself a single day of rest?
"What kind of event?"
"Same as last year. Come the 25th, trees start popping up all over the continent. There's a minor buff, and boxes with items in them at the base. Nothing all that special, honestly."
"Hmm..."
"For rankers it's no big deal, but for regular users the drops are actually pretty useful. Though the rankers like getting the buff too, so? Hehe."
A buff, huh... Fair enough.
"I should plant one in Elbritte as well."
"Oh! I wanna come see it! Are there presents too?"
"Come along. I'll give you the buff as well."
"Yaaay!"
I headed straight for the largest plaza in Elbritte, quietly planted a tree, and coaxed it into towering growth. Then I hung a few ornaments here and there, and beneath the very center of the tree I carved a pure-white sigil.
This would serve us well in the battles to come.
And the next day —
DeoEn's third Christmas had arrived.
December 25th.
In DeoEn, and in the real world alike, trees and Christmas decorations lined every street, and carols drifted from every corner. Users and residents alike lost themselves in the festival, and fireworks burst without rest across the star-filled night sky.
On days like this, most people normally retreated to reality rather than the virtual world — but DeoEn was a second reality. When the beautiful vistas of fantasy merged with the scenery of Christmas, even more people than usual came to celebrate the holiday inside virtual reality.
And so, while everyone was busy enjoying their Christmas...
"I'm so jealoussssss..."
Haaaaah...
Yena scratched violently at her head, heaved a sigh, and switched off DeoEn's official broadcast.
Nearly two months now, stuck in this damned hidden quest. And still — still! — she hadn't cleared it!!
"Hahahahahaha..."
She was genuinely about to lose her mind.
Everyone else was out there laughing and partying for Christmas, while she had to spend her days doing nothing but sword duels against some lunatic cat beastman.
"Heh... heh heh..."
Not that she strictly had to be here, of course.
On days like this — and Christmas above all — a streamer's livelihood hung in the balance. You had to stream. Especially for a female streamer like Yena, skipping Christmas was the kind of mistake that had her chat pre-emptively wallpapered with 'she fell off' spam. The correct play was simple: log out, run a cam stream like the old days, or spin up a sub-account channel on the side.
But she couldn't bring herself to do it.
If I can't clear this before the Cataclysm, I'm absolutely screwed...!
Waste Christmas messing around, lose time, and end up still trapped in here when the update goes live? She didn't even want to imagine the hate that would come raining down.
And besides — Yena was a ranker. A former vanguard member, no less. Missing the Cataclysm, an event of apocalyptic scale, because she was locked in a tutorial tower? She'd never forgive herself.
Christmas came around every single year. The Cataclysm update was a first — and a last.
She was supposed to be out there broadcasting the update live, charging ahead with the vanguard. She could not stay cooped up in this place.
"...Agh, whatever."
But stream she must. And if she must, then there was only one way to play it.
Do both. Christmas and the quest, all at once.
"You guys. You do realize I'm trapped in here, right?"
Yena glared into the camera — and Myosin, seated on a rock vacantly watching a butterfly flutter past, glared into it too.
The chat promptly flooded with a wall of "LOLOLOL".
"Uuugh... this is genuinely insane. There are six days left and I'm barely HALFWAY done! Half! How am I supposed to clear the whole—"
"Lily? Isn't she streaming right now?"
Earlier, Lily had been running some duel stream or other, and then a Christmas-tree-viewing broadcast. Yena had watched the enormous tree that had sprouted in Elbritte and been unable to contain her envy.
And she was hanging out with Leo, on top of that...
It didn't even look like it was for an academy lesson — she seemed to just be running content with Leo for fun.
Yena grabbed her head with both hands and answered curtly.
"I watched until she turned her screen off saying she was going to grab something to eat."
"...Well. I'm sure she'll be back soon."
Lily returning or not returning aside, the real problem was that Yena was still stuck at barely halfway. And that she would have to keep accepting duel challenges on Christmas Day, no less.
Hwap!
She sprang up from her seat and began whirling the Green Hermit through the air. Fighting a world-boss-tier opponent day after day had sharpened her combat instincts many times over.
"Alright, alright! Guys, let's ease up on the mentions, I'm trying to stream here. You keep spamming it and it gets awkward for everyone."
"Aren't you going to mention me, though?"
"No, it's not that I can't mention you, it's just that we've each got our own stream... to. ...Huh?"
Yena turned her head.
Somewhere along the way, Lily had appeared behind her — dressed in a red robe, a red bundle slung over her shoulder. And beside her stood someone wearing a very strange red nose...
"Santa has arrived."
"Rudolph has also arrived!"