The void above Earth.
"Is this all we can do?" a woman shrouded in mist spoke, breaking the silence. Beside her, two asymmetrical figures also stared at the planet below them.
"We've done what we can," one of the two unknown figures spoke with a cold voice.
The other figure could only sigh. There was indeed nothing more they could do. This planet had already lost its divinities. Its supposed protectors had vanished, and all that was left was a declining shield, protecting it from outsiders.
If their boss didn't have a favor to pay to one of this planet's divinities, they wouldn't even be sent here just to… delay the inevitable.
At this time, a dark figure appeared behind the three. It was a black figure with a human form. It also gazed at the planet for a moment before turning its back and moving away. The other three looked at it but sighed.
They had neither enough power nor time. All they could do was slow down the declining shield and prepare this planet's inhabitants to face its would-be doom.
The woman spoke, "Ymir, is there really nothing else we can do?"
The black figure, Ymir, stopped. It raised its head, as if to look at the endless void. It spoke with a hint of sadness, "Mira, the lost divinities can't be replaced. And to create one, you already know the answer."
"Then what if…" Mira was unable to continue her words as she saw Ymir raise one of its hands and point at the endless void.
A blast of black light was released from that finger, going through who knows where.
Ymir then spoke, "This is all that I can do. Whether it'll make a difference or not is now dependent on this planet's inhabitants. Now, they have a little bit more time. Do as you wish. I shall rest."
Mira and the two figures beside her had shocked expressions. What Ymir had done was a great favor to this dying planet. They could only hope this action of his would cause a spark so great that they could survive the incoming calamity.
Deep in the endless void, a large shadow was slowly moving toward Earth. Its size was almost half of the planet. Looking closely, this enormous shadow was made of flesh and bones. It seemed like a mix of all creatures in the universe, knitted together to form a terrifying entity.
All of a sudden, a small, insignificant beam of light moved toward the enormous creature. Compared to the hulking shadow, the beam of light seemed like a speck of dust, much like an ant walking toward an elephant.
This beam of light, upon contact, spread out and engulfed the entire shadow within mere moments. In less than a minute, the looming creature of destruction vanished along with the beam of light, never to be seen again.
It was already afternoon by the time Louise had prepared everything he needed. Only now did he realize that he was a little bit impulsive, buying a plane ticket all of a sudden.
The flight would be three days from now, and in the next two days, he would be at Francis' place. As such, he could only bring more luggage because of this really bad decision, not to mention explaining his two consecutive trips to his mom were such a pain in the ass.
Louise sat on his bed and sighed. 'What am I even doing?' It was then that a thought crossed his mind. He had completely set aside something that he should have already checked since waking up.
"The game, what about the game?" Taking his phone out, he ignored all the notifications and checked the main menu. Going to the last screen, he saw that "Lazuli" was still there. He hesitated for a moment before tapping on it.
And then…
Well, the game simply booted up. The developer's logo of Zypher-Games appeared before the game loaded. And then a prompt appeared, telling him that 4 gigabytes worth of files still had to be downloaded and installed.
Louise's nervousness turned into annoyance. "So it's just a normal game and didn't really have a connection to that place?"
Thinking about the article and the many ways the others found themselves in that place, he realized that it did make sense. The medium wasn't important at all.
Pushing that aside, he simply opened Discord to check his messages. There were around 20 notifications, but most of them were announcements or private messages asking about work-related matters.
Realizing that Anna had still yet to wake up, he was about to close the app. All of a sudden, his eye caught a peculiar name among the many people who had messaged him—Ymir.
"This has to be a coincidence, right?" he asked himself before tapping on Ymir's name.
—Ymir: The blood-red sky will appear in six months. The opportunity will arrive in four days. Good luck.
—Moxie: Are you that Ymir?
[Message was not sent. User does not exist.]
Louise looked back to his time with Ymir. The latter had told him that there were only two months before the blood-red sky's appearance, but now, that black figure had suddenly left a message that it would be six months from now instead.
He was first confused, and then he became a bit relaxed. In each of the worlds he had been in, every time the blood-red sky appeared, calamities would occur soon after—natural disasters, the appearance of monsters and demons, and all sorts of unexplainable destructions. Ymir didn't answer the cause of these events, but he knew if those things appeared on Earth…
Just thinking about those horrors made him feel a tinge of fear. Originally, he didn't think too much about everything that he had experienced. He was still wondering whether it was real or not. Unfortunately, looking at how big a commotion it had caused, it seemed like things were more serious than he thought.
He didn't really understand the meaning behind the two months until now. Once the two months were up, it would be the end of the world. He thought of the two months as a time frame to indulge himself and do a lot of things he had yet to do, but when reality struck him, the two months were actually a timer before the world would be plunged into chaos.
Thinking about how the two months had turned into six months, Louise loosened up a little. It was a time that was neither short nor long. As for what he could do in this amount of time, he was a little lost.
Then what about the opportunity in four days? What did it mean? Realizing it was pointless to think more since he had no more clues, he just pushed the thought aside.
He went to his computer, tapped on the browser, and stared at the screen for a moment. Eventually, he began watching music videos. Only, he didn't realize that the videos he was watching were the same videos he had been discriminating against for a long, long time.
His phone buzzed. Opening Messenger, the chat with Francis and Fred popped up.
—Francis: Blue Dog. Notepad. More.
—Louise: What the f—?
—Fred: Same.
—Louise: What the heck are you talking about?
—Fred: …
—Francis: Dammit, Louise. Think about a blue dog with a notepad!
—Louise: Huh? Ah!
—Fred: [Facepalm]
—Louise: Same. Let's talk about it tomorrow. Might as well rest now, too stressed, man.
—Francis: Kayy
—Fred: Wanna play something?
—Louise: Well, whatever. Something that won't take a lot of time and won't annoy us to death?
…
It was already 7 p.m. when the three of them stopped playing. Of course, after listing a few games from first-person shooter games to MOBAs, they finally decided to play Dota 2. Unfortunately, it was exactly the game that would "take a lot of time" and "annoy them to death."
They only planned to play one game, but that one game became a really quick and fun win. As such, the worst words to say during this time happened: "One more?"
And that one more was such a tragic loss that they had to go for another one…
The next game was a very close game where they had narrowly lost from getting backdoored. And so Louise and Francis, being the hot-headed guys of the group, wanted to rise from the ashes and stop with a win.
Fred could only go along with their persuasion, and finally, they lost much worse than the second game since they made too many mistakes for being too aggressive.
In the end, the three of them blamed each other for why they lost three games in a row. All of them were pissed off and closed the game the moment they lost.
Louise was staring at his monitor as his mouse hovered over the "uninstall" option. However, he eventually decided against it as he had already done this multiple times in the past, only to reinstall it again upon the urging of his friends.
"Why did I even waste so much time?"
It was then that a knock came from the door.
"Dinner's ready!" Irish's voice could be heard from the other side of the door before she rushed down the stairs.
Louise sighed. "Might as well."
Going down, he saw that dinner was what remained from his takeout during lunch. It was not like he didn't want it, but he was just someone who enjoyed variety. At the very least, he didn't like to eat the same thing for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
Well, whatever was on the table should be eaten, so he just shut up and went over. The family dinner was lively as usual. Lucia and Julius talked about the latter's day at work, how one of the employees accidentally slipped and fell into a creek and smelled so bad.
It was quite a topic seeing that they were eating dinner. Other than that, they talked about the news of the three doors and inquired Louise about it, to which he replied that he had no clue.
Lots of simple things were talked about until Louise was asked by Lucia, "What time are you leaving?"
Louise thought for a moment and said, "Around 11?"
Irish spoke, "Isn't it dangerous to leave so late?"
Louise replied, "I already asked Mr. Alvin to give me a ride. He'll be fetching me here around that time."
Lucia asked, "Then are you sure you haven't forgotten anything? Towels, toothbrush, and other self-hygiene stuff?"
Louise thought for a moment before nodding. "If I forget anything, I'll just buy it at Francis' place."
"Then how about clothes and underwear, are they enough? You're going to fly directly, right?" Lucia simply bombarded him with more questions. She wanted to know whether he was really prepared to embark on such a long journey.
Julius, who was silent all this time, finally spoke, "You should check about the dos and don'ts. You should also have xerox copies of your IDs. Anyway, you're old enough to know what you should do. How long will you be gone?"
Louise swallowed the chicken he was chewing before replying, "I'll be at Francis' place for two days, and then I'll fly to Singapore on the third day. I'll be back next weekend."
Today was March 28. He was going to Francis' place for two days and flying to Singapore on the 30th. He would be staying there for a week before flying back. Ever since finishing college, this was the longest trip he had aside from those 3-4 days of stay at Francis' place every few months for vacation.
After a few more rounds of questioning, the dinner finally ended. Louise decided to double-check everything that he had to bring and printed more copies of his IDs just in case. Other than that, everything should be ready.
By the time he was done, it was already 10 p.m. There was still quite a long night ahead of him.