(Author-kun's POV):
Hello everyone Author-kun here, right now is actually chapter 100! This chapter will be an extended one and it includes a scene of me and Designer-chan discussing the entire journey of the characters in here so far. However! If you guys are in with us through the full ride, I'd like to notify everyone that this will be a very long one. So fasten your seatbelts, there's a lot more to see in this fabricated world we prepared for you. Author-kun out.
(POV Shift: Robin's POV):
After talking to Jay, Terrence, and Gayle about the invitation to the next adventure. We had our lunch break in the dining room and there are seeming more tables here than I actually expected. I sat down next to May so we could discuss more on things that happened in both sides. What I wanted to learn was about the occurrence of Denzel's mind breaking and its aftermath. So while eating, I noticed Lilith leaving midway carrying a full meal. That is most likely delivery for Denzel.
I started eating and I suddenly get a feeling of familiarity with the food. Then I remembered that one time, me and May were the only ones in the school since the others are busy with their things. As such, she somewhat shared her food with me that time. Mistakes were made but that's how I ended up tasting May's cooking for the first time.
"So, he got betrayed by that white haired girl huh? Do you have any idea what exactly happened?"
"None, the only things I know is that Lilith found out that Rika had some miasma oozing off from her when she was returning to Denzel's room. She acted normal when Denzel left to pick up the rest of their group on the desert but she got kidnapped by Miguel and Leo." - May
"I see... What happened then?"
"Seymour interrogated both of them to no end once he found them. They stayed silent and tried to even anger him, they knew that Seymour can't kill them because there would be no way to let Rika out from where they kidnapped her. But I didn't know that time that it was a setup by them." - May
"I see... And then that happened when Denzel returned huh?"
"Yep, he saved Rika only to get stabbed by a knife infused with black miasma. He's completely corrupted now, but I think we managed to prevent him from breaking completely." - May
"I see, this virtual world can even mess with your brain and emotions huh... This is not good... What kind of grand-scale human experimentation is this?"
"I actually don't know anything, but I hope nobody will get extremely damaged just from being stuck in this world. We can get through this physically but I hope no emotions will be involved here." - May
"Yeah, there are some people who have trouble maintaining their emotions after all."
When I looked around, Terrence isn't here right now. He most likely is bringing food to Grace so I guess there isn't really that much of a problem right now.
There are a few members who look somewhat bizarre with their gear, some might control time and seems like one of them here is a rare type which is an Astrorift. I should ask if he's interested on collecting ore.
"What do you think are the members here? It used to be only you four right? Lilith left for some time just to get some things done in the Asylum and in the spawn area alone."
"Yep, I was pretty much enjoying my current time as usual with Bella and the others. We sometimes talk to various other members trying to check up on them. There isn't really that much trouble right now." - May
"I see... What about the time where Denzel broke then?"
"Most of these members here, Malech, the one with the hourglass, along with a chain and sickle weapon is a Chronorift." - May
"Chronorift you say?"
"Yes, he tried to stop Denzel along with William over there who is an Astrorift... They're both assassins but they coordinated really well. As for the others who fought valiantly, there was Gayle and Thrish, both of which are Mystics." - May
"Oh, I remember seeing them when Denzel went to the desert. It's nice that they're able to fight in the front lines along with someone as dangerous as Denzel."
"Pfft... That's a nice joke but it's not exactly a great one considering what happened." - May
"True, are there more members that fought?"
"Yeah, Gayle's boyfriend Lester tried to hold him down as the front line. But he wasn't doing that much because Denzel is too powerful." - May
"True, I guess those two assassins really did well on the battle..."
"Well... They weren't able to end it because they were running out... Seymour pitched in just before William died. It's a good thing that he managed to survive." - May
"Really? Then that's great then."
We had already finished our lunch at that point where we had to continue doing our daily things. May told me to talk again later at dusk or at midnight. I left the dining room while urging Jay to come talk to me a bit.
We moved to the lower junction and I told him to bring all of his friends here excluding Grace.
After some time, Jay had finally arrived along with his twin sister Gayle, Terrence, Lester, Ridley, and Rylle.
"So everyone, I invited you here today in the dojo because I want to give a test to Lester, Terrence, and Gayle. I will be inviting them to the next adventure."
"Wait, where are we going this time?" - Jay
When I looked at Jay, he is noticeably clinging to his sister Gayle. It looks like an erratic behavior so I was thinking if this is normal.
"Before telling the next location... Is that normal guys?"
I pointed to Jay clinging to his twin sister because I know for the fact that this is not normal. Not for me at the very least. I know that our lives aren't normal but this clingy behavior is a little too much. Lester looks pretty irritated by it too.
"Yep." - Ridley
"It's normal." - Rylle
"Mhm!!" - Jay
"No..." - Lester
"Well, I guess it's fine." - Terrence
Most of them pretty much said that it's normal so I just shrugged the thought off for the time being.
"Anyways, the next place we're gonna head towards is the far east volcano. The three of you will be joining us so I mainly advice everyone to not do friendly fire. I'm looking at you Jay and Lester."
I have a bad feeling about the anger in between Jay and Lester, I'd understand that Jay was separated from Gayle at the very start until we visited the palace so there wasn't that much problem
"Alright..." - Jay
"....." - Lester
Utter silence huh... Let's see it then...
"Lingering Light."
"Ghaa!!!" - Lester
"Do you understand now Lester?"
"I get it! I get it!" - Lester
Lester resigned himself and just shrunk down without any more complaints. His behavior seems to be pretty much unacceptable so I may have to notify Denzel to keep watch on his behavior a little later.
"What are we going to do in the volcano?" - Terrence
Terrence prevents any more stalling and decided to ask just to let him avoid the thick atmosphere that was made between Jay and Lester.
"Well, we're heading to the volcano to grab some ore. However! We have a problem with members from Praetorian so we have to be careful with our movements. We will be collecting a huge amount of ore for confidential reasons."
"Eh? How are we supposed to know then?" - Terrence
"We'll tell you when it's finished. After that, we'll be heading towards the Mystic biome-"
"Ah! We had already collected enough ore there. I don't think we have to worry about that one." - Terrence
"Really?"
"Yeah, I even joined him and Denzel to collect a huge amount of ore for Gayle and Thrish. However, it seems like he also used it for weapon upgrades for everyone and himself. Denzel is quite a materialistic person." - Lester
"I see... Then at that point, Gayle, Lester and Terrence will be staying back here. I don't want any complaints from Denzel where I made his residents march to their death. The last one involves a huge amount of danger so I would rather avoid risking them in a place where combat is barely possible."
"Ehh?!!! Kaede can't join us after the volcano?!" - Jay
"Shush now Jay, like he said... He doesn't want Denzel to be mad at him." - Gayle
Gayle finally spoke which gave me a somewhat familiar feeling. I wasn't really able to depict her excluding the fact that she has that dangerous looking scythe despite being a type that's mainly support.
"Besides, you want your sister to be safe for the time being. I hope it's alright for you."
"Then I guess I'll stay too." - Jay
"No, we'll be screwed if we didn't bring you."
"Aww... Damnit..." - Jay
Jay looked a little dejected so Gayle started comforting him. Lester is giving out a dangerous look so I may have to be serious on his behavior.
"Well, that's all. Now we have to test your capabilities for the time being."
"Eh?" - Gayle
"D-do your best Kaede!" - Jay
"Hmm?" - Lester
"Wait... What do you mean?" - Terrence
The three members I will test are somewhat confused until Ridley said something.
"Ah, you guys will be... Huh? What was it again?" - Ridley
But then, he completely forgot. Rylle comes in to save the explanation part.
"Well, you guys will have to fight against Robin in a series of duels. No need to worry, it's only one round of battle and it will be a test to determine your current capabilities and spots where you can improve." - Rylle
"I-I see..." - Gayle
"Oh boy..." - Terrence
"What do I do..." - Lester
"Well, enough talk, I guess I'll start with Terrence."
I should give them a fair judgement despite being on Denzel's side.
(Somewhere in the Para-Elemental Plane)
A: Fuah... Today should be the 100th chapter... It's been a long time..."
D: Yeah, omedetou~ Author-kun!
A: Ahahaha~ Thanks, since we're here... Why don't we check out how everyone is doing right now.
D: Alright~
Both of us are staying here in the Para-Elemental Plane just to rest for the time being. We sometimes go around various places but we can't practically interact much.
A: Did you bring everything?
D: Ahh! I'm a little troubled since I can't talk that easily...
A: It's gonna be fine, don't worry about it that much~
D: A-alright~
A: Anyways, don't forget to bring everything. This includes the two devices for our travel, food for our trip, and other things.
D: I get it, I get it Author-kun. Jeez...
A: Alright, let's turn our time by a lot.
D: Up until when?
A: Where we started the story. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.
Both of us turned the devices to rewind our time all the way to where the story started.
A: And here we are in the meeting room. I guess we don't really have that much to say except that this is where everything began. Where the four main characters are introduced.
D: Yeah... It feels like a place where it's a super intense meeting.
A: True, it does look like a company meeting where various products are on the line.
D: I-I don't really understand...
A: Well, it's a somewhat specialized topic so... Anyways, at this point. You had no idea what is about to happen right? It's just the entire team discussing on entering the virtual space and play together.
D: Mhm! It started with only fifteen members for the time being. You were even having trouble with naming all of them. But somehow you finally confirmed it all.
A: Yeah, I was actually making this story for already a few years. Though most of it was simply training for the real thing. Finally, I simply scrapped the older version of this in a different website because it's completely terrible.
D: Ahahahaha~! There are so many mistakes! The best one was "Factionless faction"
A: NO! NO NONONO! I was drunk that time, so hush.
D: Pfft- Ahahaha~ Anyways, should we enter the virtual space now?
A: Sure, let's give everyone a recap of what has happened so far.
We turned the knob to open a dimensional gate towards virtual space. We can't interact with the tools in this world so we had to use dimensional travel.
We moved towards the central spawn area and found the main group.
A: We can find the others right now but that's spoilers. Stay here Designer-chan.
D: H-hai...
A: Jeez, don't worry, we'll be seeing them a little later.
D: Alright~
A: Anyways, this is where they started. They immediately started preparing for their survivability and managed pretty well to be honest. They finished building the castle within the month by highly circulated management by Seymour and Allen.
D: Oh yeah, I remember you saying that you referenced some games here Author-kun. Do you mind telling me which games did you reference?
A: Ah! Well, there are actually three games. One, the plot, many monsters, drops, armor, weapons, will be taken from the storyline of Terraria. It is a 2D game where you try to survive and progress through. I also made this similar to Minecraft with the world generation and other things. At that point, I was thinking up of various things. I then got most of the classes from Adventure Quest Worlds which is an MMORPG game and it's pretty fun. Do play those games guys, it'll be fun. However, I actually made up some of the classes here which are like: Mystic, Arcane, Chronorift, Astrorift, and some others.
D: I see, you brainstormed real hard huh?
A: Yep! Anyways, after the castle was built, they fought around in the Tarot Card tournament. Let's fast forward a bit.
We moved forward on time and ended up at the time where they started discussing about spreading out all over the island of Survivor's Path.
A: So this is where they all separated and started doing as they please. After that, Michael's group which he met a little later ended up having to go on a long expedition but that's future content. So one year has passed...
We moved forward again towards the end of the grand-scale invasion.
A: The Asylum higher ups along with Denzel's sub-group of Malech, William, Jerald, and Vince fought hard in the front lines.
D: I see... Then fast forward towards the time where Denzel broke.
A: Fuah... I somewhat brainstormed his past to be pretty damn dark and yeah. He's gonna be suffering a lot...
D: I see...
A: Now, we arrive to this point where Robin had various kinds of troubles. Before that though, Grace is the one who broke this time.
D: Yeah, we brainstormed this quite a bit and it's somewhat pretty sad...
A: True, she needs her Terrence pill alright. At least everything is alright at this point but, some things will get a little bit more intense.
D: Yeah, however... We should have our lunch for the time being.
A: Alright, alright.
Both of us had lunch for some time and talked about the future possibilities.