NOVEL NEXT Chapter 224: Stitch
While Veanya bandages my hand I get an idea. While we can’t talk to Ami normally, maybe sending a message would work. So with one hand occupied I open up my game UI and start searching for the messaging feature. When I then open it and send a message to my girlfriend through the system it is quick to notify me this is not possible. “Message could not be delivered. User can not be found on the server…” I read out loud to Veanya.
Veanya squints. “Did you just try to send Amicia a message?” She asks as she finishes wrapping up my hand.
I nod. “I thought I could try something…”
“What happens if you send a message to one of your offline friends?”
I follow Veanya’s instruction and send a message to Max. “User currently not online…” I once more say the notification out loud.
“Huh, and can you see the status of people through that interface?”
“What exactly do you mean? I’m not that big of a gamer. Not as much as Amicia anyway.”
“I’m not a big expert myself. But don’t most of these MMOs generally tell you what servers your friends are playing on?“
“Oh, like that.” I quickly go back to Amicia and try to click on her name. To my surprise another window pops up once I press her name. “Currently in Primo Cerchio Limbo….” I say out loud. “The first circle of hell…”
Veanya nods. “Anything else that the system mentions?”
“Uh…” I quickly go over the screen again, but apart from that I don’t really see anything else. “No, not that I can see at the minute at least.”
“Well at least we’ve learned some valuable information.” Veanya replies. “It’s still not great but at least we know that they didn’t just vanish and that they are in fact in the Diaboli’s plane of existence. That means we can now focus on getting them out of there.”
I nod at her again. It’s true that that news does at least put me at ease that she is still there somewhere. “Do you have any ideas as to how we are supposed to do that?”
“That’s something else entirely…” Veanya shakes her head and looks around the area again. “I know we’ve spent some time looking around already when we were trying to close the portal, but let’s check one more time to see if we missed something. I can also try infusing the surrounding land with mana. Maybe an increased density will do something.”
“Alright, you do your mana thing, and I’ll triple check the environment.” We both give each other a nod as I run off, turning over literally every single stone I can find. I’m not going to leave anything unturned.
Veanya and I work around the portal for at least an entire hour with not much to show for it. Veanya’s mana has only made the air feel heavy around us and as for my search, apart from some strangely shaped normal rocks I haven’t found anything either. I was just about to head back to Veanya with that message when the air in between the pillars starts to look… distorted. I quickly sprint over to Veanya. “Did it work?! Did you do it?”
“Uh… I don’t know.” Veanya immediately stops casting but the distortion in the air keeps getting worse until it finally starts swirling with the already well-known purple miasma.
“You did it!” I cry out enthusiastically and run towards the portal ignoring her reply, it’s obvious that it worked.
Veanya hastily steps after me. “Sam… I don’t think that was me.”
“What are you talking about?” I point towards the ever expanding purple portal in front of us. “That’s clearly it, isn’t it?”
Veanya stops in front of me for a moment, staring at the big portal, doubt clearly visible on her face until suddenly her eyes go wide. “Sam, watch it!” She tackles me down to the floor, making me land on my bad hand.
“Fuck!” I cry out in pain. My hand hurts incredibly badly. “What was that good for?”
Veanya doesn’t way for me, she just jumps to her feet and then she drags me up by my collar. “We need to go, now!” She turns my head away from the portal to a big purple bolt that has slammed into the inside of the stone walls surrounding the portal. “That could have been you, now come!” Her horse is already at our side as she jumps on it. Taking hold of my arm in the process. Without waiting for my answer she pulls me on top of the horse as well and spurs it into the sky.
“But, Amicia!” As I look back at the portal thats getting smaller and smaller in the distance, a purple devil steps out. Another one of the purple bolts at the ready. He only barely registers us before he launches it in our direction. But luckily Veanya is paying attention and steers the horse clear of it. The devil shows no emotion as hordes of smaller devils march out from the portal behind him. “W-what do we do now?”
“We must make contact with the army and see where they are at.” Veanya replies. “We need to tell them what’s happening. Maybe they can advance enough to corral the devils in while their forces are still gathering.”
“But that devil…”
Veanya nods. “I know… I don’t think we have many people who can take that down, not like Amicia at least… But maybe we can try to coordinate something…” Right now, thanks to Veanya’s fast reaction, we are already quite safe when it comes to avoiding those bolts. In this relative safety, she takes a moment to look back at me, staring me straight in the eyes. “Look, I’m convinced that Amicia is still somewhere on the other side of that portal and I’m sure that together with Sid and Gamma she will find a way out. Let’s try to hold the enemy back here while they are gone, okay?”
I stay silent for a couple of seconds, thinking to myself, before I say my thoughts out loud as there is something that I don’t really get. “Then what did they do? Did they lure us in so they could, what, capture Amicia?”
Veanya shakes her head. “I don’t know Sam… Really… But it does take away this world’s biggest weapon against them, at least for a while. Lure us in, get her trapped on the other side of the portal, and then open up a separate one to flood in with devils again… But in a way that could be a very good sign.”
“What do you mean? What’s good about this entire thing?”
“It means they, whoever is in charge of this all, are afraid of what Amicia can do. And that trapping her somewhere else is easier than just defeating her.”
I stay silent for a while, thinking over what Veanya just said to me. “That would be the best possible option I suppose…” I admit. My girlfriend does keep trumping herself day after day. Only increasing in power. If I was trying to invade a world, an opponent like that would make me rethink my strategy as well… Then again… This opponent we are facing in the defense of a world is also making us do that.
While I’m thinking, Veanya suddenly makes a sharp dive towards the earth, making me grab hold of her waist. “What’s wrong?” I ask.
“I saw some people through the forest cover, looked like adventurers.” She explains quickly while we fly through the tree cover. As we burst through we end up in front of a party of approximately ten people. Startling the shit out of them and rewardings us with almost all of them drawing weapons on us. From the looks of their weapons and gear they are definitely high ranking adventurers and even better yet, I recognize the symbol of their guild embroidered on some of their jackets.
“Are you part of Crystal’s guild?” I ask.
The group quickly puts away their weapons as they quite clearly recognize me. “We are.” One of the magicky types, an Ulusu witch with fiery red hair replies. “And you are that ranger girl who hangs around the pink haired cat girl healer with the cheat skills, right?”
“Well… I wouldn’t call it cheating per se…” I awkwardly scratch the back of my head before realizing I’m doing so with my wounded hand, making me twitch in pain. I suppose it’s only logical that other players think she’s cheating… I guess I would too
“No hard feelings.” The witch smiles and then beckons one of her friends to come forward. “Patrick, could you heal her hand real fast?”
“On it, Kim.” The Langor man with his fancy white-red cloak pulls out a marble staff and channels a heal, quickly making my hand feel a heck of a lot better.
“So, are you going to tell us what’s the stitch or are you two running from nothing with a broken hand?” The woman asks, crossing her arms. “And don’t make it sound better than it is, we are all adults here.”