The entrance of the temple greeted everyone from 'The Rebels' Guild with a snowy and icy hall, appearing all ruined by the acts of the previous players who had already arrived in this place.
[Stage #13 has ended.]
[Stage #13's rewards have been given.]
[Stage #14 will begin once the Players approach the right area.]
FLASH!
Upon taking one step into the icy temple, HwanGi witnessed a ball of light launching swiftly into his face which prompted him to get startled by the suddenness.
"What is this?"
Needless to say, HwanGi caught the bug before it could knock into his handsome face, noticing it was a firefly as per the reward for stage #13.
HwanGi wondered as he observed the firefly. "600 coins and.. A firefly for a reward?"
Sooner or later, he started to take notice of fireflies being around everyone except JoonChul, fluttering beside them as if these bugs wouldn't want to leave them behind.
"Do I really need to have it??" Alaine grunted as she was feeling gross out just by looking at the firefly.
"If it is a reward, it must be important." Louis commented while gently poking the firefly.
Mya, who was comfortable with a firefly next to her, spoke. "It will be necessary! Just like how a tiny seed that turned into a big big tree. Hehe."
"That could be great. Anyways, looks like everybody got their own fireflies." HwanGi uttered, ignoring the firefly that was casually sitting on his shoulder.
'Hold on a minute..? Everyone?'
Out of the blue, HwanGi became aware of his words which made him confused if he had misspoken or something, but to think his eyes weren't fooling him…
Where was HwanGi looking at? Or possibly who?
HwanGi asked the boy. "Noel.. You got a firefly?"
While trying to seperate Crystal from the firefly as much as he could, Noel answered straightforwardly.
"Oh, this? Yeah, I did."
Dumbfounded, Alaine asked. "I thought only players can receive rewards? Did I miss something?"
"You're right, Alaine." Louis a little puzzled as well, scratched his head.
"It's not like I understand all of the system functions, but I do know that I haven't seen an NPC getting a reward from the system."
"Same for me as well."
"No way! Could it be that Noel became a player?! Since when?!" Alaine gasped while she was getting closer toward Noel.
"Don't stay near me.." Noel scowled.
As curiosity was taking over Alaine, so too was HwanGi who wanted to know what happened. Including the fact that to become a player, an NPC needed a 'Numbers', so where did Noel get his?
"Noel, when did you decide to become a player?" HwanGi questioned.
Eventually, Noel raised his eyebrow from those questions, but he still responded. "A moment ago. I just changed."
At that moment, HwanGi looked like he was having a hard time trying to remember the time where Noel became a player. As baffled as he was, HwanGi stared at Noel when he couldn't recall anything.
"Then the 'Numbers', where did you get that? Did you.." Alaine asked Noel before she looked at him with a concerned expression.
To be honest, HwanGi wished to ask that question first, but he couldn't say it in front of Noel, because he felt like it was somewhat unright to ask the boy that.
And mostly because HwanGi didn't want to accept that Noel may have killed a player just to acquire their 'Numbers'.
'Well, he did kill JoonChul-ssi, does that mean Noel got JoonChul-ssi's 'Numbers'? That's not possible since JoonChul-ssi got revived, so his 'Numbers' would possibly stay instead of going to Noel.'
Wondering to the point of overthinking, HwanGi unknowingly focused his stare on Noel which made Noel uncomfortable a bit.
'There's no doubt that Noel could have killed someone to get that 'Numbers', even if he did, he could have turned into a player at that point..' HwanGi pondered.
Overthinking this a bit too much, HwanGi continued on thinking as he awaited for Noel's reply to Alaine's question.
At that point, Frostina came in to interrupt them, telling them to get moving instead of waiting for JoonChul to come back.
"Do not stand there idly. We need to move quickly."
As soon as Frostina finished, Louis mentioned. "What about JoonChul?"
"He'll be back. He isn't the type of person who would die again after he got resurrected."
Wriggling her arms a lot, Alaine spoke in an exhausted and disbelief tone. "That doesn't sound reassuring at all.."
As HwanGi sighed, he added. "It's fine, Alaine. Let's just trust them."
Since HwanGi already knew that JoonChul's comrades can sometimes be stubborn, even if he tried to ask them to wait for JoonChul to come back, they wouldn't waste their time since they had immense trust in JoonChul.
Which is why he asked something else..
"However, I don't think we should go without sending someone out to help JoonChul-ssi." HwanGi spoke.
"..." Frostina agreed before she called out to Mirai. "Very well. Mimi."
After a short moment, Mirai arrived by Frostina's side while wondering why she was called here. "What is it, big sis?"
"I need you to go find my Liege."
"Captain? But he'll be fine without me? Souka.. I guess I'll go!" Confusion to excitement, Mirai was eager to go see her captain again.
And as a result, Mirai had already left the area before waving goodbye and tossing a very important ball of string toward Frostina.
When Frostina was catching the ball of string, she suddenly heard HwanGi.
"Frostina, can we wait for them to arrive back here?" HwanGi suggested, looking at her.
Frostina raised her brow before sighing in the process. 'I thought he already figured out that we wouldn't wait, why is he being persistent?'
"But we must go. It's better than standing here and doing nothing." Frostina replied, being as cold as usual.
Didn't like her way of speaking, Louis advised Frostina. "How about we rest instead of getting ourselves into tiring situations? Don't we need food to fill our stomach?"
"Louis, are you that hungry? We just had sandwiches earlier." Alaine mentioned.
"Shh!"
After that, Frostina turned back as she continued to walk further into the temple, telling everyone here. "If you don't hurry, the other players will take all the items away."
"Are those items so good to make us rush our ways through this place?" Louis argued.
"Then why am I telling you all to hurry if those items aren't beneficial?"
Afterwards, Louis was starting to get irritated by reasoning with Frostina, disliking her for not allowing everyone to take a simple break.
Without a doubt, Louis was only trying to be considerate of his teammates, he then had a thought while staring at Mya and Alaine.
'Mya and Alaine are already exhausted by the event.. I don't know about Mirai, but she seems to be fine even after that garden's event.'
By then, Louis took a glimpse at Frostina who was walking away from him. He then mumbled.
"Is it because they are NPCs that they don't care much about us, Earthlings?"
All of a sudden, Louis felt a hand being placed on his shoulder, including someone muttering back to his question.
"Let's just follow them." A voice belonging to HwanGi was trying to convince Louis.
A bit wide-eyed, Louis talked back. "Are you saying I should turn a blind eye while Alaine and Mya are tired and went through so much in that one event?!"
HwanGi smiled, laying his eyes on Alaine before asking her. "Alaine, are you okay with this?"
Alaine, who was swaying her hand toward her own firefly, flinched when she heard HwanGi. "With what actually?"
Louis spoke. "He meant if you're alright with going with the others."
"I'm fine as long as I have this arm with me~" Alaine grinned while caressing her silk arm.
"Why are you so attached to that arm already?" Louis exhaled a sigh.
"Oof—!" Alaine's firefly suddenly hit her face, causing Alaine's face to turn pale when she saw the bug on her nose. "Eek!"
Shocked by Alaine's response and not the firefly, Louis averted his eyes toward Mya instead, asking her the same question.
"Mya, do you think you can endure another tiresome ride?"
Mya who was teasing her firefly, dazed at Louis before replying with a nod. "I'm not tired at all."
"No way.." Louis rubbed his temple when he realized his consideration for Mya and Alaine was all for naught.
In due course, HwanGi spoke. "Come on, let's go before the others scold us."
As HwanGi walked toward wherever JoonChul's comrades were going, he pat Louis on the back to lessen Louis' embarrassment or something like that.
———
SLAM!
At the 'Helpers'' headquarters, Ruby had barged into the lounge to show how frustrated she was to everyone inside.
Stomping the floor as she walked in, she had seated herself on the couch. In addition to that, Ruby put her legs on the coffee table, not caring about her manner whatsoever.
"So what happened?" Citrine asked after getting her appetite ruined by Ruby's feet.
When Ruby heard the question, she became even more irated just by remembering about her failures.
"Shut up." Ruby grumbled and gritted her teeth as she ruffled up her hair to make them messier.
Listening to Ruby, Citrine shrugged and kept her mouth closed, except she didn't since she was going back to eating her cheesecake to recharge herself.
"Hn~" Citrine smiled while savouring her cheesecake.
After silence filled the room, there were mutters leaving from Ruby's lips, asking questions and sprouting complaints about 'The Rebels' guild.
"Just how daring do they think they are?! Killing the tree of life?! Seriously!? And they were able to do it while fighting me and Sapphire?! Just how?!"
"Not only did they succeed, they somehow got Adam and Eve to listen to them and banished us from the garden! Ughh!!"
"And that 'Last' player..!! How the heck was he able to do that!? He got revived and the first thing he did was to kill a holy tree?!"
After that, Ruby smacked her cheeks as a way for her to relieve some of her stress, stomping her foot a lot to cause the coffee table to tremble.
Clattering…
Needless to say, Citrine didn't like how her snack time was being destroyed by Ruby's rant, so she attempted to calm Ruby down by herself.
Eventually, Citrine cheered for Ruby while sipping her lemonade. "Ruby, you'll get them next time."
"I literally just did that with Sapphire, and we failed again!" Ruby grunted.
"What do you mean?"
"Sapphire and I combined our power and shot a meteorite at 'The Rebels' guild."
The moment Citrine heard that, she had spitted her lemonade out by how bewildered she was. "I understand if you did it, but Sapphire too?!"
"Wait a minute.. Now that I think about it, why did Sapphire do that?" Becoming aware of that, Ruby halted on being mad.
"Was she that angry? ..It's my first time seeing her irked."
"I thought I was the only one who was short-tempered."
"And you still are. Sapphire only got angry once unlike you."
"Do you want your cake gone or what?" Ruby threatened Citrine with her fireball.
Gasped, Citrine took her plate of cheesecake as she tried to protect it from Ruby's flame. "Get away from my babies."
Seeing how Citrine was like this, Ruby put down her flame and moaned her frustration out. "I'll get them back! I swear I'll freaking destroy them!"
"Don't do anything reckless. You already got yourself in trouble for trying to harm the players with a meteorite."
"..Ack.."
"Emerald will be mad."
"..Urk.."
"And you won't even get a chance to take your revenge in a week or so." Citrine giggled, teasing Ruby for trying to burn her cake.
"Oh no.. this is bad." Ruby quivered as she was now scared as heck. "..Not Emerald. Anyone but Emerald!"
Citrine smirked. "Then, Diamond?"
"Eek!"
While Ruby was being fearful of Emerald, Citrine casually ate her snack. 'This is nice.'