Yelloy Barrier Fortress (6)
A faint stir of voices drifted in from somewhere beyond the walls.
I opened my eyes slowly and reached a hand up to my head.
My transformation must have slipped while I slept. I could feel my ears twitching of their own accord at the sound — and, at the same time, I realized someone was clutching the tail that had sprouted out behind me.
I turned my head a little. Yeon, who had fallen asleep with her back pressed to mine, was hugging the newly grown tail with a blissed-out look on her face.
"Mmh... hehe. So soft..."
She was sleep-talking, too. The feel of the tail must have suited her perfectly. Being the one held hostage was less than comfortable, but instead of dismissing the transformation, I lay back down and let out a breath.
To be honest, Yeon had my thoughts in a tangle.
Al Fantasia ran at twice the speed of the real world. Twenty-four hours here meant barely half that outside. And except for one brief logout, Yeon had been connected for very nearly a full day of real time.
As for me — I couldn't log out in my current situation, I had already been an adult when this game launched, and I lived alone. Even if I had been plugged into Al Fantasia like a man possessed, there had been no one around to give me grief about it.
Yeon, though, lived with her parents. I hadn't asked about her family situation, but under ordinary circumstances that much was a safe assumption. So how was a girl who had only just started high school allowed to game like a shut-in? What were her parents doing that they hadn't even come to stop her? Did it not worry them in the slightest that their own child was skipping meals, lost in a game?
The bigger problem, frankly, was Yeon herself. Of course her staying logged in for long stretches was good for me. But even that had to be done while keeping the basics. Back then, I had always kept up with meals and exercise while I gamed. There had been people who worried about me, so I had at least made sure not to look like I was rotting away as a shut-in.
"Tsk..."
I forced the rising memories back down and returned my thoughts to Yeon.
Anyway. She was gaming without even keeping those basics. She didn't even like logging out — as if she didn't want to wake up in the real world. When I pushed her, she would log out like last time, but that only left me feeling worse. Which was why I hadn't pressed her hard this time either. And just as I had expected, she had fallen asleep at my side without logging out at all.
I couldn't begin to understand why she was so determined not to.
Because she liked being with me, the way she was always saying? No. It couldn't be a reason that pathetic. If it were, I would have been ready to boot the sleeping Yeon across the room and bark at her to log out, eat a real meal, and then come back.
The simplest approach would have been to just ask her... I dragged a hand down my face.
"Hah..."
But if it was a reason she didn't want to talk about — if it was a problem she told me and I still couldn't solve — we would have to go on carrying that unease and discomfort in our chests. And I could not imagine that would do our future any favors.
Which left me with only a single option.
Pretend I didn't know, and act as I always had.
That's no way for a grown man to act. The thought drew a dry laugh from me — and then I felt her shift against my back.
"Nnh..."
"Have you awakened?"
"Mm... huh? A tail?"
"Indeed, it is a tail. Rise at once. This one cannot stand while you cling to it."
Even after I spoke, Yeon stayed still for a long moment. Then she rubbed her face into the tail entirely and mumbled,
"So soft..."
Still half-asleep, then. I drew up my spirit power and invoked the Five Elements Daoism.
The air dried by a fraction, and in the same instant water droplets formed from empty space and poured down over Yeon's face.
"Pwah—! Wh-what the hell?!"
"Did this one not tell you to get up?"
Yeon bolted upright in a panic, and I spoke while drying my soaked tail. I should only use the Water attribute from a safe distance. The feeling of wet fur is thoroughly unpleasant.
"Where did that water even come from?"
"It is a product of this one's arts. More to the point — did you not watch this one learning the Five Elements Daoism?"
"Did I?"
I stared at her, incredulous, but she only blinked back at me as if she were hearing it for the first time. Or perhaps she was still too stunned by the sudden water torture to think straight.
I shook my head and stirred my spirit power, evaporating the water from Yeon's body the same way I had dried the fur of my tail.
"This one told you to log out. Did you remain again while this one slept?"
"N-no! I logged out and came back. I just logged in again a little while ago."
"...Is that so?"
"Yeah! I ate, just like you told me to..."
If you're going to lie, at least do it properly. Watching the cold sweat bead on her face and her eyes dart every which way, I let out a quiet sigh. I had already decided to play ignorant, though, so I had no intention of pinning it down.
"Well done. See that you continue to do so."
"I'm not lying! ...Wait? You're actually believing me?"
"Believing you? Why, does that mean you were lying?"
"O-of course not!"
"Then there is no issue. This one was asleep, after all. How would I know what you did?"
I met her eyes and went on.
"Besides, this one has no reason to doubt you. I trust you."
"...Yeah. Thanks."
Yeon turned her head as she muttered it. At a glance it looked like embarrassment, but to me it read a little differently. A faint trace of guilt showed through.
I scratched under my eye as I watched her. I trust you — the words of a cowardly adult, coming from someone who already knew the truth and was letting the lie stand.
Still. Someday there would be a day I could apologize for it.
We made ourselves presentable and stepped out of the lodging into night. A bright moon hung high overhead, and Yeon murmured in surprise.
"Wow. There are so many people."
She was right. The fortress grounds were crowded — forty people at the very least, by the look of it. It had been a long time since I had seen this many gathered in one place. For the past few months before I turned into a fox, I had been wandering the Forbidden Zones alone.
What had I even been doing in there?
I was just starting to chase the thought when a voice cut in.
"You've awakened. I trust the lodgings were satisfactory?"
It was the soldier Roiman had assigned to escort us to our rooms. Bardin, I was fairly sure his name was.
"Yes, it was nice. But is something going on? There seem to be a lot of people gathered..."
"Well... it seems something has happened in Gejina Forest."
"In the forest?"
"Come to think of it, among the adventurers who went out, you were the last to return, Miss Yeon. Did you happen to see anything strange?"
"No, nothing like that... Right, Choco?"
I nodded at Yeon's words. I couldn't speak for anyone else, but we hadn't seen anything particularly unusual. The closest thing to odd had been the complete absence of anything on the way back — and that barely qualified as strange. We might simply have overlapped with a respawn window.
Yeon turned a curious look on Bardin.
"Could you tell us what's going on?"
"I don't know the details myself yet, but they say the Kobolds have grown considerably stronger."
"Stronger? We didn't notice anything like that..."
"Truthfully, we don't know much either. Adventurers came to the administrator out of nowhere with the news, so we've selected a few of the stronger-looking ones and dispatched them on a reconnaissance mission."
A reconnaissance mission, huh. The ones who'd picked up a quest in a situation like this had hit the jackpot. They didn't even have to kill anything — just go, come back, and file a report, and the reward would be fat.
"Then why is everyone gathered like that?"
"It is night, so they cannot go out. From the sound of it, they were attacked around the time we returned. If they could not take those things down in daylight, they certainly will not manage it at night, when the monsters' stats rise."
"Yes. Everyone's saying that going out there now would be suicide."
Bardin nodded in agreement.
"Hmm..."
"What is it?"
"This one is of two minds. Wait for information like the rest, or simply go out and hunt."
If not for this body, I wouldn't have hesitated for a second. I would have been out the gate already. But if I tried that now, I could easily end up dead.
What if something far stronger than I'd accounted for showed up? Mages could typically hunt above their level, sure — but if something outside my assumptions appeared, I'd be just as finished as anyone else. A mage's body was paper-thin in exchange for that firepower. A glancing blow could be a critical hit. Even a former top ranker couldn't dodge every attack — and this body wasn't the one I had used as a ranker, either.
On the other hand, if they were something I could handle, I couldn't ask for a better leveling ground — and it was night, besides. Stronger meant higher level, which meant far more experience. I could easily climb three or four levels before dawn.
"Please don't speak of going out there. Those people aren't gathered around for nothing."
"Why not?"
"From what I hear, anyone above a certain level of strength can't even enter the forest. There's a barrier in place."
A barrier? I blinked and spoke.
"A barrier, you say? Then has a mage appeared among the Kobolds?"
"That much we don't know yet. We'll have to wait for the scouts to return..."
"I heard every last scout got their skulls caved in?"
Bardin was still talking, but my ears snapped toward a voice from the crowd.
"Someone just posted on the community boards. They're all dead."
"Wait, weren't those guys all level thirty? How'd they even die?"
"They got wiped by the Royal Guard, apparently. Those things have a ridiculous aggro range. The scouts didn't even get near the boss, and they just showed up out of nowhere and attacked."
"Aren't the Royal Guard level twenty-eight? They still had a level advantage..."
"The Kobold warriors got that enhancement buff and leveled up, remember? Same thing happened to them — they're level thirty-one now."
"You've gotta be kidding me."
From the sound of it, the situation was ugly. But eavesdropping alone wouldn't give me enough.
I tugged Yeon's hand.
"Yeon."
"Hm? What?"
"There is something this one needs you to do."
"What is it?"
"Lower yourself a moment."
Yeon obediently bent down and offered her ear. I covered my mouth with a hand and whispered.
"From the look of things, every last scout has been forcibly logged out. Eavesdropping alone will not suffice. Go and ask them yourself."
"You want me to go ask by myself? What about you, Choco?"
"This one shall wait for you here."
Yeon looked thoroughly betrayed, but it couldn't be helped. I had hidden the ears and the tail, and we had already agreed I would just claim I was a late bloomer if it came to that, so it wasn't as if I couldn't go with her. I simply had no desire to volunteer for that pitiful treatment.
"That's so mean..."
"This one will tell you what to ask, so do not think of yourself as alone."
Even so, her lower lip stayed stuck out.
"I'm going to make you pay when I get back."
"Very well. Do as you please..."
"I'm serious. I'm terrible at this kind of thing..."
Still grumbling, Yeon made her way toward the cluster of players.
"Um, excuse me..."
At her timid greeting, the murmuring among the users died down.
A dozen stares gathered on her in an instant. Yeon fidgeted and managed,
"Could I ask you something?"
Someone in the crowd muttered,
"A little girl?"