A Close Call in the Forest
“Ung… this kind of thing shouldn’t have happened, Your Grace.”
* * *
“Whew… barely survived that one. I really was about to die.”
I pulled back from the standoff with Riana and Helia, then sprinted through the dense forest for what felt like forever until I leaned against a massive tree, letting out a sigh of relief.
The correction on this body prevented me from suddenly collapsing or falling unconscious, but my heartbeat still pounded like it might burst from all the tension. So I pressed my back against the trunk and tried to calm my racing heart.
I couldn’t help but wonder why Goddess Iriel had stuffed this correction into my body, but it was something I couldn’t change. The good part? It only activated when someone was nearby.
Now that I was alone with just the two of them, my thoughts were finally filtering through properly instead of being censored. And for the first time today, my original speech style came out naturally.
“Still, I’m glad I managed to escape.”
I waited until my pulse settled, then looked down at my changed body.
The duel with them had been the absolute worst possible situation because of that wretched correction. Yet somehow it had traded me the exact information I needed right now, including the time period I’d just fallen into.
Setting aside what I’d just learned about the current time, here were the two big pieces of information I’d gained.
The first was that I now unconsciously understood how to use this body.
The instant I saw the arrow flying at me, the urge to block it hit, and the careful filter that had always separated me from my game character Aria vanished.
It was like a lock had been turned by something that had been the key. The barrier was gone forever.
In my original body, the arrow would have been impossible to even see, but this body let me observe it slowly and calmly as soon as I entered the fight.
The world slowed down like it always did in battle. And the moment I thought to deflect the arrow, I drew my sword and sliced it cleanly through the center.
It was almost like a miracle of physical ability and swordsmanship, and the sensation was still here. Or at least, the way I said it, it wasn’t inaccurate.
More precisely, I knew every detail of swordsmanship that Aria once had, and now it was mine to command. It felt as natural as if I were simply speaking my own words.
Probably the blessing Goddess Iriel had given me, or something like it. If what I saw before losing consciousness was accurate.
“Thank you for your warm heart, Goddess Iriel. Please bless me.”
“Please grant me the characters you have raised as my avatars.”
“Please dwell within me to prevent my heart from breaking.”
I didn’t know exactly what the blessing was, but I could only assume that learning to use this body in an instant was part of it. In my original body I would have died for sure in that situation.
Anyway, that was the first thing. The second important piece of information was that the representative NPC character of the Ranger class, Riana Sel Moonsgard, was standing right in front of me.
Hey! Why is that important? I’ll explain, so listen carefully!
In most MMORPGs, each job class has one core character that serves as its foundation. Basic illustrations or NPCs that appear when other classes interact in the story.
But Riana Sel Moonsgard, the representative character of the Ranger class that I raised, was standing right in front of me.
I could assume that all the job-class representatives were gathered at Lua Academy.
To confirm it properly, I whispered the words from the manual Iriel had sent earlier.
“Avatar.”
Ting—
A semi-transparent hologram window appeared in front of me, now familiar.
And I touched the short white-haired character among the four that always stood there in the game.
[Would you like to select Archer — Kama?][/p>]
“Yes.”
The character I had raised was the Ranger class, and in the story she occupied Riana Sel Moonsgard’s place as the third princess of the Elf Kingdom.
If this changed my appearance, it would be proof that my guess was correct.
I answered the prompt without hesitation, and my body that had been Aria’s began to glow and slowly change.
The first character change felt weird and prickly, but within less than a second I checked my new body and let out a small laugh.
“Ah, ahahaha…”
I couldn’t see my face clearly, but when I tugged my hair a little, I saw shoulder-length white hair and a green one-piece dress made of huge leaves instead of Aria’s gray cloth armor.
I had used a cash item to hide my elven ears, but when I opened the status window and removed it, the long pointed ears were definitely there.
I put the item back on to hide them again, then grinned at my new appearance as Kama.
“Whoa! Hell yeah! This has to be the answer, right?! Almost definitely!”
A beautiful elf body making a man’s laugh was extremely unbalanced, but I couldn’t stop it now.
I wasn’t quite certain yet, but honestly I was already close to certain.
That all the colorful representative characters of every class at Lua Academy were gathered here.
From the beginning it looked like the original story had a scene where all representatives gathered during the Human-Demon War, but as a player I never truly felt it.
I only controlled one character myself. Only one.
But now that I could see it with my own eyes, and the solution to the Human-Demon War that had been resolved one by one began to make sense, a laugh was bound to come out.
I was also a princess of Moonsgard. If she was also a princess named Riana, that meant the characters I raised and the representatives here were separate.
That meant the original representatives of my other characters — Aria, Meiel, Yujia, and Yeonha — would also come to Lua Academy.
So the only thing I had to do now was one thing.
“Let’s go to the Fhara Kingdom!”
There I would raise the seeds gathered at the academy and cultivate the slaves for the future!
“I’m sorry, but if you don’t have a passage permit, you can’t enter the Fhara Kingdom. Please obtain one from a proper village.”
Damn it.
It looked like I’d been blocked from the very start.