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After I finally logged in, a group of fairies greeted me, they were from soldiers to knights. Fairies usually wore armor made out of magical stones, not metals, so often, they looked like they were using precious jewels as armor. These armors not only provide magical barriers for their protection of their small bodies, but also enhance their magical power and elemental affinities, apparently.
“C-Can I pass? Ah, excuse me…” I began walking across the group of fairies, as they didn’t wanted to let me go. It seems that in this little time I had become a bit famous here with all of them.
They all regarded me as “Lady Planta” and some called “Savior”, while some even called me “Heroine of the Fairies”. It was very embarrassing to receive so many praises after coming from my often normal daily life back in real life… But I tried to just bear with it as I walked through the castle’s corridors, quickly finding Titan and Achlys. Nieve was also with them, as she had found them rather quickly after they logged in apparently.
“Nice to meet you guys, sorry for being late.” I sighed.
“I am surprised you came so late while you’re the most excited about playing the game all the time.” Rita answered while waving her head.
“Hahaha… Sorry.” I sighed.
“Well, now that we are all together, should we complete the next quest?” Wondered Titan.
“You’re forgetting about Acorn and the Mushroom Brigade though!” I said. “They can be of help.”
“Oh yeah, they’re all busy.” Achlys said.
“Indeed, Nieve told us that Acorn is still trying to find a cure, he said he had made one but then it was a failure, so he began to rehash the recipe and started making a new one without even resting.” Said Titan. “I am worried about the lil’ guy, but it seems like he’s not going to give up no matter what.”
“Acorn is being assisted by the Mushroom Brigade, as you call it, Planta.” Said Nieve. “They go retrieve ingredients and anything he needs, so I believe it wouldn’t be good to annoy them.”
“Yeah, you’re right! I suppose I will leave them on their own for now.” I said. “For the time being, we should complete a quest I have which is very important to advance our mission.”
“These “Quests” thingies, is this a power of the Players only?” Wondered Nieve.
“Yes, it is a special ability we have. Based in what we experience in the world, the System which gives us our powers will grant us quests, giving us clues about our problems and how to solve them. We usually get rewarded with strength and items if we complete a quest, which often involves completing a special objective.” I explained Nieve as technically as I could.
“I-I see! Players are really something else…” The girl said. “For now, what’s the quest you have to complete? I remember it appeared in front of me but I wasn’t able to read it because I was very busy in that time, and I don’t seem to be able to check on it again even when I try to give some commands…”
Nieve seems to have joined our party in the quest after she seemed to be willing to help us, however, she’s not like Acorn, so she hasn’t obtained any Player benefits through a special Title. Because of this, there’s still a lot she doesn’t know about our abilities as Players. I suppose she was able to see a bit of the System, but now that the pop up window disappeared, she can’t call it back and needs our further clarification and help.
“Yes, it said something about finding the culprit behind everything… Apparently, the System is hinting that there’s someone behind what has been happening.” I said. “From the spreading of the Curse to the sabotage of the golems, it was a single person doing everything, a traitor.”
“A traitor?!” Asked Nieve. 𝙚𝙙𝙣𝒐𝙫𝙚𝙡.𝙤𝙧𝒈
“We have to find them by gathering clues, according to the quest. It also said it was someone… quite close to one of us.” Said Titan.
“Close to one of us? There’s not many…” Said Achlys. “In this world after all, we are just the three of us with Acorn and the mushrooms, I doubt any of us is a traitor because we just got here.”
“Yeah, it must be… Wait, maybe it was also referring Nieve?” Titan wondered.
“M-Me?” Nieve asked in surprise, being included in such a fantastical thing as a “quest” for an NPC such as her was shocking.
“W-Well, it wouldn’t be good to just point a finger at someone just yet. Let’s investigate. I am sure there were people when the golem thing happened at some point. Is there a time when people do maintenances to the golems?” I wondered.
“Ah, yeah! Usually around 6 PM they do maintenances, so the sabotage should had happened after that I believe, or the people that do maintenances would had seen the sabotaged golems and realized something was going on, fixing them, most likely.” Nieve replied.
“Can we go see those engineers?” I asked.
“Yeah! Let’s go, they’re probably having lunch right now so they got free time to talk.” Nieve said.
With that said, we quickly walked outside of the Fairy Queen castle after I took a small peek at the Queen’s room, as she was graceful sleeping over her bed.
“Don’t worry Queen Titania, Acorn will find a cure!” I reassured her, as I walked away.
“You’re newcomers here and we usually don’t have tourists at all, but how about we go on a ride over a Giant Golden Beetle?” Asked Nieve, suddenly bringing the tamed giant beetles fairies used to mobilize faster.
Apparently, just flapping their wings to fly is very tiring, so it is not rare to see them walking over the floor sometimes or mobilizing over large insects they have tamed.
An enormous beetle emerged, apparently it was owned by Nieve.
“Hop in!” She said happily, inviting us to sit over the enormous creature.
“Uwah… I’ve never seen such an enormous bug… so up close…” I sighed.
I couldn’t say I liked bugs that much…
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