"The HELL were you doing?!"
The first thing Jörmungandr heard when he stepped into the inn was the rebuking shout of the System as the smaller woman rushed him, pulling at his collar and shaking him, and his somewhat miffed older sister glaring at the System, a little annoyed at the sudden name drop on her part.
The woman in question had her once neat and dark hair loose and flaming red, her bright eyes blazing like the stars she created, her entire aura burning with fury. Jörmungandr tilted his head a little, his bangs glittering in the light of the inn lamps, interested that this little thing actually had a decent aura when pissed.
"You were supposed to help your Players, give them weapons, supplies—NOT NAP!!"
While Jörmungandr was napping, his people were being slaughtered.
The reason why was simple: all the other Players had received gifts from their Patrons at the start of the first stage, and as such, they were able to gain an advantage that Jörmungandr and some other Patrons lacked.
Meanwhile, Jörmungandr had no clue and gave the poor Players nothing.
In response, the System gave the surviving Players who chose the clueless monster some special skills in response to their hardships; ironically, this would help them in the long run, more so than the System realized, but at the moment, she was just pissed off at his negligence.
"Now," she continued to rant, "I had to step in or else all of them would die, so you're welcome with that! Do you know how many had chosen you?"
She jammed her finger into his chest, her glitching eyes turning red as her anger came to a peak.
"Of the eight worlds that collaborated in this game, all of which containing similar mythologies and intelligence, and totaling to a grand total of nine hundred BILLION people scattered across all of the servers in eight different worlds, six BILLION chose you. Six. BILLION. And how many do you have left?"
The System waited for his answer for a moment before roaring even louder, "HOW MANY?!"
"...1,983."
The System blinked at this, her eyes widening at the surprisingly precise number from the Serpent; she half expected him to not even by aware of the amount of people he had inadvertently killed via negligence.
"Yeah," she snapped, a bit calmer, "Not even 2,000 are left on just this server. Billions lost to the void."
She looked down, her hair smoothing and becoming darker and darker until it was navy blue, and her eyes were a midnight blue. She suddenly looked sad, sad and even a little heartbroken.
"I shouldn't have brought you at all, huh? I mean," she chuckled, her expression bitter and her voice shaking a little, "you didn't even do anything and you already killed people. I can see why the Norns said you'd bring destruction—you ruin everything without even trying."
Angry tears brimmed in her eyes, and she left with her final words sounding like poison to Jörmungandr, making him flinch for the first time.
"You really are a monster—you don't even feel anything, do you?"
His bright eyes widened before dimming, his hands curling into fists before slowly releasing them, an odd feeling welling up; he didn't like this emotion, but he chose to accept it, and try to understand it.
"Brother..." Hel's bright emerald eyes bore into his tourmaline ones before she continued, "just... consider what you can do, okay?"
The feeling got worse at her disappointed gaze, and she turned away, her long black hair trailing behind her like a mourning veil. He searched even further, trying to decipher exactly what he was being afflicted with, this heavy, aching feeling that surrounded his heart and made his very being feel even heavier.
He'd felt it before...
The image of that red hair fading away came to mind again, and the cold gripping him as it dragged him down into the depths.
Hurt; he was hurt.
He felt much better having given a name to the emotion.
"'Brother... just... consider what you can do, okay?'"
'...What can I do?'
❝𝑯𝒆𝒚, 𝑱ö𝒓𝒎𝒖𝒏𝒈𝒂𝒏𝒅𝒓.❞
His shoulders flinched at the thought that had invaded his mind, just like she had invaded his slumber.
❝𝒀𝒐𝒖 𝒔𝒆𝒆 𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒔?❞
𝑺𝒉𝒆 𝒑𝒐𝒊𝒏𝒕𝒆𝒅 𝒕𝒐𝒘𝒂𝒓𝒅𝒔 𝒂 𝒔𝒎𝒂𝒍𝒍, 𝒘𝒉𝒊𝒕𝒆 𝒇𝒍𝒐𝒘𝒆𝒓 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒍𝒐𝒐𝒌𝒆𝒅 𝒂𝒔 𝒊𝒇 𝒊𝒕 𝒘𝒂𝒔 𝒂 𝒍𝒊𝒕𝒕𝒍𝒆 𝒔𝒕𝒂𝒓 𝒘𝒊𝒕𝒉 𝒊𝒕𝒔 𝒏𝒖𝒎𝒆𝒓𝒐𝒖𝒔 𝒑𝒆𝒕𝒂𝒍𝒔, 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒉𝒆𝒓 𝒆𝒚𝒆𝒔 𝒄𝒖𝒓𝒍𝒆𝒅 𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒏 𝒎𝒐𝒓𝒆 𝒘𝒊𝒕𝒉 𝒉𝒂𝒑𝒑𝒊𝒏𝒆𝒔𝒔 𝒂𝒔 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒔𝒊𝒈𝒉𝒕 𝒐𝒇 𝒊𝒕.
❝𝑴𝒚 𝒈𝒓𝒂𝒏𝒅𝒇𝒂𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒓 𝒖𝒔𝒆𝒅 𝒕𝒐 𝒔𝒂𝒚 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒘𝒉𝒆𝒏 𝒘𝒆 𝒅𝒊𝒆, 𝒘𝒆 𝒕𝒖𝒓𝒏 𝒊𝒏𝒕𝒐 𝒔𝒕𝒂𝒓𝒔. 𝑻𝒉𝒆𝒔𝒆 𝒇𝒍𝒐𝒘𝒆𝒓𝒔 𝒂𝒓𝒆 𝒄𝒂𝒍𝒍𝒆𝒅 𝒂𝒔𝒕𝒆𝒓𝒔, 𝒘𝒉𝒊𝒄𝒉 𝒎𝒆𝒂𝒏 𝒔𝒕𝒂𝒓; 𝒔𝒐… 𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒏 𝒊𝒇 𝒊𝒕'𝒔 𝒂 𝒍𝒊𝒕𝒕𝒍𝒆 𝒔𝒊𝒍𝒍𝒚, 𝑰 𝒂𝒍𝒘𝒂𝒚𝒔 𝒕𝒉𝒐𝒖𝒈𝒉𝒕 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒘𝒉𝒆𝒏 𝒘𝒆 𝒅𝒊𝒆 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒈𝒐 𝒕𝒐 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒔𝒕𝒂𝒓𝒔, 𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒔𝒆 𝒂𝒔𝒕𝒆𝒓𝒔 𝒃𝒍𝒐𝒐𝒎 𝒘𝒉𝒆𝒓𝒆 𝒐𝒖𝒓 𝒄𝒐𝒓𝒑𝒔𝒆𝒔 𝒂𝒓𝒆, 𝒂𝒔 𝒂 𝒔𝒊𝒈𝒏 𝒕𝒐 𝒕𝒉𝒐𝒔𝒆 𝒊𝒏 𝒎𝒐𝒖𝒓𝒏𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒘𝒆 𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒄𝒉𝒆𝒅 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒔𝒕𝒂𝒓𝒔.❞
𝑯𝒆𝒓 𝒑𝒂𝒍𝒆 𝒄𝒉𝒆𝒆𝒌𝒔 𝒇𝒍𝒖𝒔𝒉𝒆𝒅 𝒓𝒆𝒅, 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒂 𝒈𝒓𝒊𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒔𝒆𝒆𝒎𝒆𝒅 𝒂 𝒍𝒊𝒕𝒕𝒍𝒆 𝒔𝒉𝒚, 𝒂 𝒍𝒊𝒕𝒕𝒍𝒆 𝒇𝒍𝒖𝒔𝒕𝒆𝒓𝒆𝒅, 𝒃𝒖𝒕 𝒔𝒘𝒆𝒆𝒕 𝒃𝒍𝒐𝒐𝒎𝒆𝒅 𝒐𝒗𝒆𝒓 𝒉𝒆𝒓 𝒇𝒂𝒄𝒆.
❝𝑯𝒆𝒉, 𝒔𝒊𝒍𝒍𝒚, 𝒊𝒔𝒏'𝒕 𝒊𝒕?❞
Jörmungandr raised his hand, swiping to bring up the screen of Players he was charged with.
[ Patronage Count: 1,851 remaining, +(8) ]
He swiped his screen away, and tapped on the [Abilities] tab, scrolling through the few he had, ignoring the overly edgy names like [Eyes of Death] and [Aura of Reckoning], hoping he could find something to honor the people who'd lost their lives.
Finally, he paused on the last ability, and clicked on it: [Wish]
>[Wish]
[A one-time use ability granted to all Patrons; allows Patron to create one, unchangeable skill that cannot be changed or traded for another skill.]
[Cool-time: ∞]
[Note: Restrictions apply. Skill cannot be used to destroy a soul; skill cannot kill more than 200 people at a time; skill cannot bend the laws of life or death; time or other laws of the universe cannot be bent; creation is severely limited—planets and worlds cannot be made, and limit of life creation is rabbit-sized.]
Carefully reading through the restrictions, Jörmungandr felt a little relieved—so his idea could still work; it didn't interfere with life or death, and it was smaller than a rabbit.
Jörmungandr went outside again, sitting down before quietly whispering, "Wish."
[Would you like to use [Wish]? Skill [Wish] can only be used once.]
"Accept."
[Skill [Wish] activated. Please imagine what skill you would like; the system will fit it to work within the bounds of the restrictions.]
Closing his eyes, Jörmungandr let the image of the skill he wanted to remain clear, and waited for the system to finish it.
Surprisingly, it took longer than he thought, since it was a fairly simple skill, but it was completed in the end.
[[Wish] successful.]
[Skill [?] granted.]
[What would you like to name [?] skill?]
"...Asta."
[Skill [Asta] completed.]
[Generating description...]
Soon, a new skill popped up, the name of the girl he'd met in his dreams not so long ago, and without hesitation, he tapped on the name in his [Abilities] tab.
———
The System, who had been floating in her Admin space, flinched at the sudden change in the server. Her bright eyes widened at the sight of wave after wave of white asters blooming where all of Jörmungandr's Players had fallen, on all nine servers of Nine Kingdoms, with all the people there.
+Beep+
[New skill registered.]
With a shaking hand, she tapped on the notification, her eyes widening with shock as she read the description.
>[Asta]
[An aster flower will bloom at the resting grounds of all individuals that are linked to entity [Jörmungandr]. Each aster will hold the memories of the fallen individuals, and only those that are linked to entity [Jörmungandr] can read the surface memories; full memories are reserved to entity [Jörmungandr]. Asters cannot be destroyed by outside forces.]
[4,894,238,149 asters bloomed]
She turned to the numerous screens in front of her, sweeping all of them away as she frantically tried to find exactly where that damned serpent was.
After an hour of searching, she found him, wearing a dark robe over a plain white tunic, and walking in the Fields of Midnight, as if searching personally for all of his Players; every time he saw an aster, he'd crouch down, touch the petals for a second, and would leave after a few minutes, his expression becoming a little more human with each flower seen.
Silent tears slipped down the still System's face, her heart breaking a little with every aster seen.
It was doubtlessly an almost useless skill.
It wouldn't help him in battle; it wouldn't give him an edge, and it wouldn't even help others.
A once-in-a-lifetime skill that could never be used again, and he used it up to mourn for the dead.
"'You don't even feel anything, do you?'"
"...Hah, this guy..."
Jörmungandr continued to walk forward, always stopping to smell the flowers along the way.