Ace woke up covered in sweat, breathing heavily. Memories of the horrific visions still lingering in his mind. He'd gotten a drumming headache and had to lay down again. His entire body was screaming at him to stop moving.
Lia who sat beside his bed watched as he sat up, frantically looking around with eyes shot open as if they'd seen something terrible.
"How are you feeling?" A concerned Lia asked with a worried expression. Not having noticed her until now, he felt a bit embarrassed, though he didn't know if it was visible or not. "I've been better. Definitely won't be moving around for a while."
"Good. Now stay true to that and stay there for a few days. You had just recovered from the dungeon and still decided to fight? I took you as the smart kind"
"Well I had to help defend the village. I couldn't just rest." Ace felt he had been wronged. Of course he had to help.
Lia raised her voice when she heard him retort, "I understand that you wanted to help the village, but rushing head first into the enemy lines was just straight up stupid and reckless."
"I'm fine, aren't I?" Ace responded not knowing what to say. He was taken aback by her sudden shift in tone. He realized he'd said the wrong thing when Lia stood up with tears in her eyes. She glared at him for a few seconds and then yelled, "Weren't we able to find you in time, you would have died!"
Lia walked hastily towards the door. Just then, Sage opened the door and was about to enter when Lia brushed past her. Both Ace and Sage were surprised and shocked to seeing a new side of Lia.
Sage closed the door behind her and sat down on the chair where Lia had just been.
"What happened?" Sage asked, confusion still evident on her face.
"I think I upset?"
"You think?"
"Yeah..."
The room got quiet all of a sudden. Ace felt something in the air. Like, something was different. He couldn't really find what exactly, but when he looked at Sage, he noticed her blushing.
"Was it cold outside?" He asked, thinking it was too early for it to be winter. He looked at her as he spoke and realized that she was avoiding eye contact.
"No..." She responded. Ace tried to come up with a reason why, "Why is she like this? Is it because of Lia? No, that can't be it... I've been living here for a few days now so I can't imagine it being that either." His mind was running, trying to figure out what could possibly have happened for it to become this awkward. Only then when he looked at her again, his eyes landed on her chest instead of her face and it hit him.
"ah..." He thought. "Listen. I'm sorry I ran in without thinking of knocking before, but I was-" Sage was quick to interrupt him. "It's fine. I shouldn't have changed where I did. Knowing that we live together, I should have-" Ace interrupted her this time.
"No you don't have to apologize. It's your body we're talking about." Ace scratched the back of his neck with his left hand, his right not totally willing to abide.
"So we're both fine?" Asked Sage.
"If you are, yeah. And if I am to be bold, truth be told, seeing your breasts is more pleasant than anything else." Ace couldn't believe what he was saying. He was totally getting ahead of himself and was about to apologize again when Sage responded in a matter he did not expect.
"So you do have that kind of side to you as well." She giggled. "It seems all guys are weird. Only some more than others."
Ace smiled, happy she didn't get angry with him. "Well, I try to be good." Holding his hand open as a sign of surrender.
As the fight had left them both tired, they spent the rest of the night talking. Ace also told Sage about his conversation with Lia. Sage noticing what he did wrong almost immediately smacked him on his left arm, leaving Ace in more pain than he needed.
He contemplated at first if he should tell Sage about what Asher did. He tried to find as many possible reasons to why he shouldn't but the reasons why he should way overweighed them. Sage understandably got very upset at this. If putting curses on others with pure ill-intent, then he'd definitely get cursed from Sage. While Ace didn't want to defend Asher in any way, he still told her to keep quiet about it. If Asher stuck around long enough, then he'd personally be able to get revenge. Having people talk about what Asher did would probably have Asher escape the second word got out.
After calming Sage down, they said their goodnights and she went to sleep on the couch while Ace remained on the bed. Ace felt bad for having her sleep on the uncomfortable bed but he didn't want to invite her to the bed. The last thing he wanted was to be avoided because of his easiness.
***
When Ace woke up the next morning, Sage was gone and sun was already up.
"I must have really been needing that sleep."
Bored. Ace spent most of the day recounting the events from yesterday. He wanted to make Asher pay for what he did but being in the circumstances he was, revenge was probably the last thing he'd get. Just as he was feeling hungry, Lia stopped by giving him some of the hunt they captured. After eating the same kind of meal every day since arriving in the new world, Ace made it a point to find something else to cook up once he'd gotten better.
After finishing his bowl of koboary stew, an unexpected knock sounded at the door.
"Who is it?" Asked Ace. It took a while for the person to answer but once they did, Ace sat up leaning against the bed frame. "It's your mysterious benefactor." Said the tall man who'd helped out during the fight.
"Please come in!" He said and thought he was finally was able to speak to the man but the second he entered, Ace's lungs felt like they were squeezed and not a single word left his mouth from then on.
"No need to strain yourself. If you want to talk with me, try and imagine me not being here. That should help." The tall man said and went to stand in the corner. He did as the tall man said and quickly noticed a difference. It felt really strange doing what he did but it worked.
"Who are you?" Ace managed to squeeze out between breaths.
"My name is Iliqen. For my occupation, I am part of the supreme eight in the elven kingdom but I'd prefer it if you didn't tell others about that." Ace almost felt honored being in the presence of someone that strong. "That would certainly explain his unreasonable strength."
"Why did you visit me?" Ace asked after a couple of breaths. Iliqen sighed. "I have two reasons. One, I want to apologize for putting you into unnecessary danger. I thought you were further ahead in your class specialization. I'm sorry."
Ace tried to look at Iliqen but quickly regretted it. His lungs screaming at his stupidity.
"What do you mean by class specialization?" He asked. It wasn't a term he was familiar with and probably something new to the game world that he knew of.
"Then I take it you don't know. In that case, let me tell you. Each class has an infinite amount of class specializations. Each one being different from the other. Even now, we don't know how many there are because new ones are discovered every now and then."
Iliqen seemed to stretch and then continued. "Your class is rogue which means that your specialization will be an upgrade to your rogue class. Often, you'd have an idea of what kind of specialization you'd get, but it seems from your reactions that you don't know."
"That's right. I had no clue this whole thing existed." Ace liked the idea of being upgraded but couldn't for the life of him think of what it could be. The only thing that came up in his mind was the horrific visions, but he wasn't sure how that would help.
"You didn't know? You must have been living very remotely in that case."
"Well we just arrived here a few days ago." Ace said but immediately realized he had messed. "You just arrived here? From where?" Asked Iliqen inquisitively.
Ace finally broke, figuring it was better to tell Iliqen the full truth and hoping for the best instead of keeping it from him. Ace thought that since Iliqen was one of the strongest in the country, he's going to find out sooner or later.
Ace took a quick peek at Iliqen to see his reaction and it was worth it. Never had he seen such a stoic person with that much of a shocked expression. The expression was short lived however as he instead started asking questions.
"What was the strongest race on your world?"
"Humans. But the thing is. We all who transferred over used to be humans. We got to choose which nationality we wanted to have when our appearance changed."
"So you guys lived in peace then I take it?"
"Sadly, we didn't. Greed and pride still ran through the blood of the leaders and countries would fight against each other for the sake of their image. Humans truly never knew what was best for them."
Ace noticed Iliqen was staying quiet and decided to continue. "However truth be told, we did live quite peacefully compared to this world. Murder and crime was less likely than an accidental death. We never fought if it wasn't on the frontlines with..." He thought about it for a second. "if it wasn't on the frontlines with machines that killed."
"You humans truly were strange creatures."
"Please. Keep calling me elf if possible. I want to fully integrate with this world and its' inhabitants."
"Alright." Iliqen nodded. He then asked a few more irrelevant questions before finally switching topic. Ace didn't have anything against talking about his old world but it for some reason gave him a strange feeling in his chest.
"Now onto the second reason as to why I came here originally. First, let me tell you about why I'm currently staying here. I was sent to patrol through the outskirts of our country to spot anything of importance and report it back to the main castle. The reason for this, I cannot tell you but I take it you're smart enough to figure it out with that brain of yours."
"Now that aside, I came here today not only to apologize but also to help you get stronger. Seeing as I won't be staying for long, I want to get started as quickly as possible."
Ace laughed a little and then said, "I'm afraid my body won't let me move properly. And I also promised two friends of mine that I wouldn't be fighting any monsters for a few days." He felt it was a shame to turn down such a valuable opportunity but it couldn't be helped.