I was stunned when she told me that she is in a coma, I can't find or match any possible way to support what she said, although her theory is somehow convincing yet there are no pieces of evidence that can support it, to put it simply, I still can't believe her.
"You expect me to believe that?" I told her.
But she didn't say anything out of the norm, nor she tries to insist that what she told me is true. She just smirks and then calmly replies to me.
"I didn't expect you to believe me anyway." She said and resumes struggling to free herself from her restraints.
But it somehow bothers me, the thing she says that she is in a coma, the way she says it, somehow it feels like she told me the truth.
But before I could make any decisions on whether to set her free or just let her struggle to her freedom, she opens up a conversation again to me, along with it is a proposal.
"Hey, how about we make a truce? You free me and let me stop them from opening that god-forsaken door in exchange for it I'll let you waltz out from this place." She said and it somehow pisses me considering her and her crew's current situation.
"How desperate can you be? Look around you, especially look at your current state, I can easily eliminate you without breaking a sweat." I said as I let her understand her current situation.
"You're in no position to make any demands." I added.
After what I said, she took her silence and then speaks to me again and this time, she is somehow sentimental especially in the way she utters every word.
"It's just that… I'm… Argh! Never mind!"
But she didn't finish her words.
She then continues on struggling while I watch her the whole time until I reached the moment that I had enough of what I am watching, I picked up her sword and then point its tip at her.
"What are you doing?" She asked and somehow she sounded like she is troubled by what I am recently doing right now.
I thrust the sword down and stabbed the earth shackle on her right wrist to break it. After breaking the shackle, I then break the rest of the shackles that bind her to the ground.
She gently massaged her wrists after I freed her, maybe because of the pain due to the bruises or maybe because it is a normal response when someone or something holding you tightly in such a place suddenly releases its hold.
"There, you're free."
I then drop the sword after, creating a loud clang as the heavy iron crashes to the ground.
She stares at me for a while and without any further ado, she picks her sword forcing me to step back and shift into the defensive, but what happened next drops my adrenaline.
After picking up her sword, she then fastens it to its sheath located on her back putting down my guard when I saw her did it.
"Will I consider this as you believing to what I said?"
I didn't respond immediately since I didn't know the reason why I did it either.
"I don't know. I just feel like it." I answered her and then I call forth for Emily and Alex that is still busy with the mage that gave them a hard time earlier, especially to Alex.
"Hey! I think that's enough already." I shouted, catching the attention of the two.
The two stop immediately after that, but I don't think that they physically abused the poor woman since her screams are that of laughter rather than of agony.
"Hoo! I think that's enough tickling for today." Emily said as she wipes off the sweat on her forehead.
"Yeah, I somehow feel exhausted." Alex stated as she agrees to Emily that what they have achieved in tickling the female for today is already sufficient.
But the moment the two turn around, they suddenly raise their guard up, somehow they are wary of something that is standing behind me, and I already know the reason why.
"Yeah I know what you are thinking, but I think we also did something overboard too." I said and then I point to the friends of this woman behind me that the two of them beat to death… almost to death.
I scan the other folks around and found the Mage of the opposite side on the ground twitching as she catches her breath because of the tickling Emily and Alex did to her, she seems to be burned out and I can see her drooling due to what my friends did.
Friends? Oh, right… They're my friends now that are on my friend list, in this game that is, personally, I only met Emily in person and she doesn't even know my real name up until now.
Not far from the mage's location, I saw a dude that is full of bruises and his face is on the brink of deforming while half of his body is sunken in the ground.
Talk about brutal. The females of my party are real brutes when the time calls for it, I think they even use healing potions so that this dude won't disappear while they torture him. I can only sigh for what they have done to this dude.
While next to him is the other dude… I think it's the bald one, but when I turn my gaze to the last person, it made me screech like I am a little girl who just saw Jigsaw's puppet riding its trike towards me as I point to the last guy that is sunken in the ground upside-down
"Oh my god! Is that guy even breathing?!" I exclaimed
I stare at Alex and Emily but they just avoid my gazes intentionally, I know they are responsible for this mischief but the fact that their body language denies it makes me pop a vein on my forehead.
"Okay you two, help them up and stop acting like little kids, especially you Emily!" I yelled, lecturing the two as I try to act mature in this situation.
"Okay…" The two replied with dropped shoulders like kids being scolded and are asked to clean the mess they made.
I then turn my attention back to the woman behind me to clear things up, I still have a few questions for her and I can't let my guard down knowing that she is still our opponent, my opponent a while ago.
"Hey, I'm not done with you yet." I said calling her attention.
"I still don't understand why you suddenly had a change of heart after that dude snatched that jewel from you, and there's this in a coma thing."
She places her hands on her waist, and then she took a deep breath and sighs. She then scratches the back of her head while looking like she is trying to think of an excuse.
"Well, you see…" She said while looking on her side as she tries to avoid eye contact with me.
"I first thought that you belong to that guild since that person always sends someone to convince me to return the jewel or let's just say they "force" me to return it." She said.
Based on what she said, I, therefore, concluded that she definitely did what I think she did.
"So you stole it from them?"
"Hell nah! It's not like what you think. It's a guild property so the members have the right to use it! Well… unless if the guild admin disapproves it."
Okay, she definitely stole it. But I'll listen to the rest of her excuses and start judging after.
"I took the jewel away from that man since I think that he might eventually make the same mistake as last time, and I was right. It took him almost a year though." She said and then continues on her story.
"And what I said earlier that I'm in a coma, it's also true, and it is because of that stupid raid I told you about before that I joined in last time."
"Mind explaining to me briefly the details about that raid?" I asked her to tell me the important points since it feels like she doesn't want me to know it.
So she continues and briefly tells me what happened a year ago.
"You see as I told you earlier, the jewel is the key to enter the secret dungeon. It's an elusive kind of dungeon since there are no dungeon details on it, just a pair of solid stone doors and a socket for the jewel to be used as its key."
"Our party back then was only composed of nine people, the Guild Master, his elder brother, me, and six other mid-level players. Everyone was excited including me since that raid might be a record-breaker since it is an unexplored and unregistered dungeon in the game."
"Our eagerness is reaching the roof, as the one holding the jewel inserts it to the socket and the door slowly opens. Like literally, it slowly opens. It took the door more than a minute to give an opening for a person to pass through."
"Okay cut the minor crap." I said while facing my right palm to her as I listen to the extra details she is giving.
"You know, you're a story pooper." She said.
"Alright fine, I'll skip that scene."
She clears her throat with an "Ahem" and then continues to when they are already inside.
"As we went inside the door, we realized that the room looks like a vault filled with treasures, gold coins sitting on the floor in multiple mounds, weapons and armors, jewels, and whatnots that eventually cost fortunes. The room is exaggeratedly full of those."
"Everyone is excited since everything that is inside can be added to our inventories, and that is one fatal mistake that we made."
"The moment one of our party members looted an item and added it to his inventory, the gigantic statue of a nine-headed beast began rumbling and huge cracks appear on the statue's surface as it slowly breaks into pieces and then… it appears before our eyes."
"Our excitement immediately went down the sink when we saw this hideous and only creature that is sealed inside the statue, ravaging everything on its path, leaving nothing but wreckage in its wake."
She somehow trembles while telling me that part, I think it is something that she doesn't want to recall ever again. But she is a good storyteller I give her that.
"But since that it is registered in our minds that it is "just" a game, we try to fight back, but something happened that time that serves as an alarm to us that there is definitely something wrong about it."
"One player was crushed to death by the beast and was eliminated so a party member made the very basic when in team fights, and that would be to resurrect a member. That was also the time that the "alarm" I was telling you rang."
I listen carefully to the story she is telling me, it is somehow engaging and it piques my interest. What is missing now is a bag of chips and some soda.
"When the player's avatar was resurrected, it just slams down to the dungeon floor like a lifeless body worsening it was the time when a player was hit by a shrapnel coming from a rubble due to the occurring battle and blood began flowing from the cut which is not a part of the game effects."
"And then, we felt fear. And mind you, when that emotion triggers, you will definitely have the urge to make a run for your life, and that's what exactly happened."
"Other players tried to use a Town Return Scroll to escape but its usage is nullified inside. So the only option is the door we use to get in. But the beast won't let us get away that easily."
"Making it worst, the door and our only way out is slowly shutting."
"Seeing the door slowly closing, I made the run for it but my speed tells me that I won't make it in time before the door shut, but ironically, I was hit by the monster's tail and was tossed directly straight to the other side of the door." She said with a smirk on her face.
"It was so painful being hit by that monster's tail and then being tossed and slammed to the ground as an after effect. It felt like I was hit by a speeding truck."
"Then the last thing I saw and remembered is that I saw the elder brother of the Guild Master as he carries and tosses his injured brother out of the dungeon."
"And then the door shut close."
"So is my vision, as darkness slowly replaces the light."
"And when I regain my consciousness, I realized that I am still outside of the dungeon facing the horrific gigantic stone door."
"So I decided to log out of the game, but something terrible happened that time, no matter how many times I press the logout button, I am still facing the huge stone door, I am still inside this fucking game!"
"So I decided to return to the guild mansion in Lorencia and that time, I heard the bad news about the elder brother of the Guild Master and the rest of the raiding team. That they were all dead and what's funnier is that it's been two days since that."
"Imagine that? Two days?! Two whole fucking days! And it just felt like I just lost my consciousness for just a couple of minutes." She exclaimed and then continues on her story.
"Then that very time, I met this person inside the guild mansion, she told me the fact that I was also on the brink of death because of the shock my brain received but good thing that doctors managed to avoid it, but the shock is too much that it eventually leads into a coma."
"And you know what came into my mind when she told me that? The whole time, I was thinking of my sickly mum and what is going to happen to her without me."
"But after her telling me about my physical body's current state, she also gave me an offer, she said that she will shoulder my hospital bills and so do the medications for my mum as long as I work for her."
"And all I have to do is stay inside the game and play it without spreading any word on to what happened inside that dungeon."
Hearing it, I had a hunch that the woman is definitely related to the game company, might be someone in their social affairs or so, but she is definitely connected to it.
But why just let her login and play the game? What's the connection?
I was wondering who the person might be since she said that it is a "she" in her previous statement so I asked her about this person.
"And who might this person be?" I said and she immediately replies.
"I dunno, she didn't tell me her name or affiliation and I didn't bother to ask either." She said while shuddering her shoulder.
I have a lot of questions in mind, but it is much better if I have a talk to this person she is referring to personally.
"Hey, when do you normally meet this person?" I asked her if there is a chance that they meet in a specific place when that person has a request for her.
"We don't, she just pops out of nowhere and then has a quick chat with me." She said.
Now that's one elusive woman.
But before I could continue my inquisition, the interior of the cave began rumbling, and in some cases, when something like this happens it only means one thing, and it is bad luck.
"Shit, it's happening!" She yelled and immediately turns her head in a certain direction.
Before I could even say a word, she immediately runs in that direction where she turns, so I stopped her by holding her shoulder before she could run away.
"Where are you going?" I asked since she is going in a different direction from where I remembered Carol and her guild's master went to.
"Does your dictionary even have the word "Shortcut" in it?" she said
"If we take that path, they'll be dead meat before we could even reach the entrance." She added while pointing to the direction where Carol and the rest of her guild took.
"Well said." I said and then I called for Alex and Emily that is pulling the last guy out of the ground where they half-buried him upside-down.
And the four of us rushed in the direction where this woman is headed.
Wait, I still didn't have her name yet.
"Hey, crazy miss, I been thinking about this the whole time."
"About what?"
"How should I address you?" I said.
She smirks and then she told me her name.
"Just call me Luca."
She said and took the path she suggested.
Okay then Luca, I don't know where we are going and what awaits there, but she sure is determined.
And I also wished that she didn't because what's going to happen next…
Is something I regret.