Seeing her cry on my chest really moved me. I was frozen for a second there, my mind was overflowing with different emotions. I didn't know what to say or do. But there was one thing I needed to do nonetheless.
'Huh, nii-san, what are you doing?' I embraced her. I wrapped my arms around her and hugged her tight. I didn't know what to say or do, so I just needed to do something that would get the message across.
'Are you really my big brother?'I nodded and smiled.
'Haven't I made that clear? Or do I need to do more?' I bent down in front of her. 'Wanna go for a ride?'
Her face immediately turned red. I had her piggyback on me many times when we were kids, especially when she would get hurt. She would always be comforted when she was on my back. So much so that she even slept on my back sometimes.
'N-no that's fine, I'm just so happy you're here.' She smiled at me.
'Did you eat lunch?' She shook her head.
'No, I haven't.' Her eyes were expectant, she wanted something and I knew what it was.
'Then do you want to go eat?' She nodded her head violently
'Of course, I would love to!' She hopped around with joy.
'Then let's go!' I led her into the city. I had some gold coins on me it should cover the cost of food, I hope there's a decent restaurant that doesn't cost much. As I held her hand while walking through the city that was bustling with people and life. I had one thought that prevailed in my head.
She finally accepted my invitation, it should be something small, but I'm so happy. Whenever he had asked Akari out to lunch, she would always decline him and scorn him with her friends. She would laugh and point and insult. It hurt, it really did. But now it was different, and I was grateful for the chance that was given to me.
'What about this one? They sell cream puffs here from the looks of it.' Akari was always a sucker for sweets. Ice cream, candy, chocolate, you name it, if it was sweet she liked it.
'Sure, let's see what they have.' When we walked inside Akari immediately dashed toward the shelf. There was a large assortment of treats there.
From cream puffs to jam tarts and chocolate. Everything was there, I was surprised to see so many modern treats to be there in a fantasy game like this.
'Brother! Brother! I want this one!' She pointed to a cream puff in the shape of a rabbit.
'Then can I have one of these?' She took one off the shelf and placed it into a paper bag, 'I would also like one of these.' I took a plain chocolate bar.
Paper bags too? Interesting. Something else you wouldn't see normally in a fantasy setting. In the game you could never interact with random stores and buy their wares, there were only a select few you could go to.
'The price come down to 15 silver.' 15 silver?! That's exorbitant! 100 bronze coins made 1 silver coin and 100 silver coins made a gold coin. For reference a loaf of bread costs 15 bronze coins, so charging this much for some sweets was blasphemy.
But looking at Akari's cute puppy-like face I decided to pay up anyway. I dropped one gold coin into her hand and she crouched and opened up a cupboard and dropped 85 silver coins into my hand. I put them back into my wallet. 'Thank you for buying our sweets, we hope to see you here again!' She smiled widely at me and I smiled awkwardly at her. I'm never coming back here again, the prices are way too high.
Akari and I found a bench outside to sit on and we sat down on it. I looked at her eating her cream puff, her small delicate hands and her small mouth nibbling on the puff. It made me chuckle a little. I haven't seen something like this in a very long time, I hope it will last.
'Hey Akari, could you open your status window and show me your skills and stats?' She looked at me.
'Sure, status window.' I looked at her and she pointed towards it, but I couldn't see it.
'Others can't look at your status window unless you share it with them.'
'How do I do that?' She was a complete newbie who couldn't do anything.
'In the bottom right of your left status window, there is an icon with an arrow on it. Tap it, then it'll tell you to choose your sharing target then choose me.' She was tapping the air aimlessly for a good 20 seconds.
Then finally she pointed at me, then tapped the air one more time. A green status window appeared in front of me, contrary to the blue one you'd usually see. Is this because she's sharing with me?
Stats:
Strength: 27
Magic Power: 81
Mana Capacity: 361
Agility: 41
Speed: 38
Endurance: 24
She had pretty nice stats for a starting mage character, in addition to that her skills were also quite good too.
Lightning Chain, 35 mana cost. This skill was especially good because it would chain lightning between different enemies and hit all of them at once.
Firewall, 46 mana cost. It would put up a wall of fire anywhere the user wanted.
Wind Blast, 17 mana cost. It was a spell that would simply push the opponent back using wind, but it was quite a good spell.
Frostbite, 51 mana cost. It was a spell that would create ice spikes on the ground, then they would shatter and afflict the opponent with a debuff.
Those were all the skills she had at the moment but they were extremely good skills.
'Wow, those are really good skills and stats Akari.'
'Really? I don't know much. But speaking of which how do you know so much nii-san? And how did you get into that body?' Well, she was bound to ask eventually.
'After I got hit by that car and died, I woke up in this body. This body is Mordred Xander, the 2nd son of Duke Xander. Supposedly a failure and a moron.'
'Hmm, interesting, do you know anything about why we came here?
'Not a clue.'
'That aside how do you know so much about this world? When we were learning magic you seemed quite experienced with magic and how it works.' Guess I should reveal it.
'Right before I died, I was playing a game called King's Fall. I finished it just before I died.'
'So what does that have to do with the situation we're in now?'
'Well, this world is nearly identical to that of King's fall, the characters, the plot, the magic system and everything.'
Akari was left speechless, she was looking at me with her jaw wide open. She even dropped her cream puff. I paid 25 silver for that cream puff.
'This world is identical to the world of that game you were playing? So do you know a lot of secrets and things to make you really strong?!' I nodded. 'Is that how you're so powerful? I heard you beat that Dengen guy in a fight.'
'Well yeah that's how I'm strong, I know some secrets.' She obviously wanted to know some secrets.
'Can you tell me some? I want to get strong.' she seemed expectant. I sighed.
'In time, get stronger first then I might tell you some secrets.' she pouted at my rejection buy ultimately accepted it.
'How strong are you?'
'Well that's a bit complicated, I'd say I'm at an early-mid game power level.' She looked at me with an exhausted expression on her face. 'What's wrong?'
'You know I don't know what that means right? I don't play games.'
'Ah right, let's put it this way, let's put it on a scale of 1 to 100, with 1 being the weakest and 10 being the strongest. I'd say I'm about 42 on that scale.'
'That's not very strong right?'
'No but we're at the very start right now, I'm much stronger than most people at this point. For reference, I'd say you're around 14% right now?'
'Waah, I'm that weak?' She sounded surprised.
'Of course, you are we're only at the start.' She looked down at the ground in disappointment. 'But don't worry, you're power level isn't fixed, you can learn new types of magic and train and you will certainly get much stronger! So don't worry about anything, I'm here for you anyways aren't I?'
She lifted her head and grinned in pride.
'That's right! I'll get much more stronger! Just wait and see nii-san, I'll be the one protecting you in due time!' I could see a fire in her eyes, it made me proud as her big brother.
'I'll be rooting for you!' She nodded her head and looked at the sky, it was a beautiful red and orange.