His nametag flicker in front of me.
"Willrus Strongblade"
I feel the tendons in my hand freeze as I go a step back.
Willrus: "Arcane Blink!"
A beam of magic shoots forward, and in the next instant, he's hovering in the air above the dragon-tiger's back. He swings his pickaxe as he does his body, taking every ounce of his strength into his attack.
Willrus: "Piercing Shot!"
The beast could only turn its head, just to see the pickaxe perforating its eyes with the force of a cannonball. The beast slides to the other side of the dirt street, hitting its back into a stone fence.
When Willrus' feet reach the floor, he looks at me. Cold sweat falls from my chin. I just didn't blink right away because of the fear dominating my body.
But instead of receiving any reactions from him, he simply turns to the beast and spins his pickaxe to have its head pointing to the floor behind him.
Willrus: "Wind Blast!"
Red electrical energy gets out of his body and gathers at the pickaxe's head, then the ground explodes and he propels forward, going just like in his first appearance, flying over the dragon-tiger that was now trying to get up on its four limbs.
Willrus: "Earth Smash!"
The pickaxe descends to the beast's body, hitting its back and kneading it to the ground. His weapon bounces upwards, leaving an echo wave that presses the beast down.
Willrus: "Piercing Shot!"
Red energy is gathered once more to the tip of his pickaxe, it suddenly stops mid-air and descends in a blast, going into the exposed beast's neck that had no scales. The pickaxe rips its flesh from inside out, going from one end to the other as he spins in the air with it.
A line of blood spills on the dirt in an instant, and a few dragon scales fall on the street.
From my position, the only thing I see is the divided neck of the beast, its insides being a black void that doesn't stop spilling blood.
Willrus lands above the beast's corpse, kneading it a little with his weight. He takes a second to stand upright again.
Willrus: "Strange…" – he mumbles far away.
He spins his pickaxe, cleaning the blood by throwing it to the ground. Then he falls to the street, lifting dirt on his landing.
Willrus: "It doesn't look like one of the Plagued, nor one of those shadow creatures from back in the first year."
He looks to the other end of the street, stopping when he sees something at the north mountains.
Willrus: "So that's why, uh."
He turns and looks at me.
I go a step back, seeing his eyes shining golden.
He's using divine vision.
He glares above my head.
My nametag--, shit. I'm not in my main, but if he put two and two together he'll know who I am.
He walks forward.
Using part of my main's name in an alt never was so regretting in my life.
But he stops in front of the children, seeing them paralyzed by fear.
Willrus: "It's all right. The monster is gone now," – his voice has a monotonous serious tone to it.
He crouches leaning on the handle of his pickaxe. The children look up, at the shining knight that saved them.
Willrus: "Go back to your parents, okay? Never go out without them knowing, it's dangerous."
After hesitating, the boy glances at the dead dragon-tiger, nods, and gets up. The girl keeps on holding his shirt as they leave towards where they came from, and went out of my sight.
After a long silence, I walk back. But then Willrus sighs.
Willrus: "You there."
I halt, my hands go to my daggers but there's nothing to grab, they are still leaning on the ground… near him.
Willrus: "Thank you for saving them. It was very courageous of you, an level seventy-five assassin would never win against that thing, especially with your equipment."
With his free hand, he picks up my daggers by the tip of their blades, then he stands and looks at my frozen hands near my hips. My blood freezes.
Willrus: "You're not the usual NPC, are you?"
He didn't recognize me.
It's alleviating, but I don't drop my guard.
Both of us remain a couple of seconds in silence.
I look sideways to search for possible escape paths in case he's baiting about not knowing who I am or charges to attack.
Willrus: "Hah."
I stare at him. His serious face gazing in doubt at me.
Willrus: "Why are you so wary of me?"
His golden eyes keep staring into my soul as he starts walking forward, each step kneading the ground. I glance at the dead dragon-tiger behind him, the one he killed with just a few moves.
Willrus: "People often tell that I'm not friendly looking but--…"
He looks up at the sky, humming in deep thought. One more drop of my cold sweat falls to the floor.
Willrus: "Wait, I know," – His eyes turn down at me. – "Perhaps you know me? And I know you."
I go two steps back.
Willrus: "That's it, isn't it? uh." – He faces straight at me.
"What are you talking about?" – my voice quivers. – "I'm an NPC, how could I know you?"
He stops walking.
My fake nervous smile fades away within the first seconds of silence.
His serious expression masks the confusion on his face, and his eyes go back to their normal dark brown color.
Willrus: "Then-"
"-You are a hero, aren't you?" – I interrupt him. – "I just came from a place where a bunch of you tried to kill me. That's it. I don't like your kind, so if you just leave me alone that would be enough."
Willrus: "Uh…" – he mumbles, pressing both my daggers against each other with his thumb, sliding their blades with a sharp noise. – "That doesn't make sense…"
He stops.
Willrus: "NPCs can't be attacked by players. It's been like that since the game started. Did it change?... or could it be…?"
That's when something stroke me as odd, the fact that he's talking to me so casually. It would be extremely strange from the perspective of a normal player.
"Wait…"
Willrus tilts his head in a frown.
Willrus: "Are you a player who transferred inside the game?"
My eyes widen. That confirmed my theory.
"That--"
I don't know what to answer. I'm still considering if he's faking not knowing me, or if confirming what he said would benefit me in any way. Maybe the best choice is to keep pretending to be an NPC.
Willrus: "The name SFO, or Samsara Fall Online, mean anything to you?"
"It- it does."
His face turns into a more stern expression.
"… I am- a player who transferred in it after the big update's release."
I said it as if I was responding to a policeman's interrogatory.
Willrus hesitated, his expression becoming darker for a moment but then it lights up.
Willrus: "Oh, I see," – he says somewhat happier. – "That's the same case for me too."
He continues walking towards me.
Willrus: "These are yours, right? The sheaths in your belt gave it away."
He gives my daggers back and continues walking from my side, going a few steps beyond my back.
Willrus: "The item 'Orb of Samsara'," – he says in a stern voice, – "do you have one?"
Both of us halt. The village remains quiet like a ghost town for a few more seconds.
"I do."
Willrus: "… hmmm. So, that is happening."
"What is?"
He doesn't answer me right away.
Willrus: "I presume your Orb of Samsara is Unique, isn't it?"
"… that's right."
Willrus: "Mine is also."
"Huh?--"
He also have one?
"That's impossible."
Willrus: "That is exactly what confused me. Uniques are supposed to be, well, unique. But having two of them breaks that rule."
The memory of Sigival giving it to me in that white room comes back to me. He didn't give any resistance to it, then he left me to die without worrying at all, and now there are two of them? The status of this item being a Unique was falling in reputation the more I think about it.
Willrus: "Inventory."
I turn to him, seeing that he's tapping and sliding his index finger in the air.
Willrus: "It is saying to be Unique. It wouldn't make sense to lie."
I sheathe my daggers, still resting a hand on one of them. I open the inventory as well. By tapping the Orb its information pops up, showing six red stars and the word "UNIQUE" written below its name. Then I close it.
"So what it means?"
He turns sideways to look at me.
Willrus: "Don't know. They could be fake copies, or maybe they are part of a real unique item… Or perhaps it is simply the nature of it, being the only Unique that can have multiples of the same kind. There's no way of knowing it."
Had he been considering this before, or he just thought of all that just now?
He resumes walking to the center of the village. I follow him a few steps behind.
"Did you find any other transferred players?"
Willrus: "Nope, you're the first one," – he says tiredly.
Willrus goes to a well and sits at its edge, at the center of what appears to be an open park, where the streets intersect in all directions.
"What about any normal players? Have you asked for help already? I mean, we are stuck in it, right?"
Willrus takes a second to look at me with his usual serious expression.
Willrus: "There aren't any players here."
"What? But I saw three of them in the dungeon I came from."
Willrus: "Yeah, but not outside of it. At least none that I found… My theory is that the server closed."
"Do you mean, like at an update?"
Willrus: "Maybe there are still some players online, but if it is closed, nobody will enter it anymore. No, actually, it already passed the twenty-four hours limit since I came here, so there shouldn't be any left. I still had hopes it would disconnect me, but here I am. Maybe the server doesn't see us as players anymore, or this is a separate thing entirely. Again, there's no way of knowing it."
"…Wait, this Orb only came on the big update, and it was what- about ten hours ago tops. There's no way it passed a day yet."
Willrus lifts an eyebrow.
Willrus: "No, I'm sure of it. I entered the game the moment it updated, I transferred here in the first hour of it. That was two days ago, I've been in this village since then."
"Well, I'm not a lunatic to play it at six a.m., I woke up-- I mean--, I entered the game around eleven, so it's five hours, plus… hmm… round it to three hours that I spent here. It's eight." – I show him an eight with my fingers. – "Eight hours since the update."
Willrus expression didn't seem to change, the only thing he did was scratch his chin in deep thought as he listened.
Willrus: "Our times are different, uh," – he mumbled.
I didn't need to ask to understand the conclusion he came with. Was it either some timeskip we weren't aware of, or time passed differently for us at some point. But one thing was certain: the real-time and the time we believe we are in now aren't the same anymore.