Star glimmered with excitement. I could literally see stars in Star's eyes. Her nervous grin became an eye-to-eye smile. The joyous radiance coming off of her is unfathomable. "O..M..G.. We can play together! Right? Right-right-right-right?" She immediately jumped out of her seat and slammed my table.
BANG!
Her excessive gesture caught everyone's attention, bringing the room to a silence. It was embarrassing to have so many eyes on us. I told her, "Heyy… How about you calm down for a second? Sweat's running down my cheeks. I glanced back and forth to try and signal to her the amount of attention she's attracting.
"How can I calm down when I'm this hyped! Why didn't you tell me yesterday?! We could've played together!"
"Hold on now—"
Star suddenly grabbed both of my shoulders and shook me intensely. "Play the game with me~!"
I became disoriented as the juices in my brain sloshed around from the shaking. Everyone was looking at us. I don't think they have ever seen Star this excited before. And neither have I. It was getting more and more embarrassing as the seconds passed.
She shook me so much that my chair also started shaking. The more she shook me, the more off balance I became. Add to that, she kept pushing her weight on me as I shook. I started panicking in the moment. One more push and we'll both fall down. "Star! Stop it! You're gonna make us fa—WHOAA!"
Thud!
I felt the sins of my past crash down on me. My head had planted onto the floor, definitely concussed from the fall. Not to mention, the weight of Star squished me into a Hallowell pancake! She isn't that heavy, but her elbow struck my stomach so hard, it almost made me puke. "Damn it, Star!" I yelled.
I think she headbutted me as we fell. She looks somewhat unconscious.
As she opened her eyes slowly, her face was filled with confusion, as if she was as surprised as I was. She looked around slowly, noticing everyone's stare. And then she looked at me and the state we were in.
Star quickly picked herself up and said, "I—I'm sorry! Are you hurt, Lucy?" She patted down her clothes to clean the dust. Her face immediately went apologetic, her fingers twiddling.
I sighed as I got up. "It's class right now. We'll talk about the game later."
"Ehh?! No way! No one's gonna study anyway! We can still talk about it!"
"I am going to study," I said as I fixed my chair and sat down. I immediately reopened my books, trying to ignore the blatant staring of the whole class.
"Hmph!" Star sulked. She is probably going to be bummed about that, I'm sure. But it's less embarrassing this way.
----
The rest of the day went on as normal. Seems like Star has already moved on about yesterday's text thing. She's started talking to other people again, picking up and adding to the discussions they're having. It's nice to see her talk that excitedly.
As the final bells rang, people started leaving the class as quickly as they could. In the span of five minutes, my entire floor had become empty. It was back to just the two of us.
While I was packing my bags, a shadow slowly went over me. It was Star, standing in front of the backlighting window, menacingly. She didn't say anything, though, implying that I'm the one who's supposed to say something.
"About the game…"
She slammed my desk with a large BANG. Her mouth still shut, waiting for me to finish my sentence.
"…I have to go buy groceries first—"
"WHAT?!!" She shouted.
I explained to her about my fridge situation, along with the fact that I didn't eat lunch today. The yelling just got even louder. "YOU TOLD ME WE WERE GOING TO PLAY TOGETHER!"
"I said we'll talk about it."
"You can do groceries later, right? Come on, just play!"
"After groceries."
"HMPH! Fine!"
Star settled down with that agreement. She packed her very empty bags up and prepared to walk home. She stood by the door, waiting for me to finish my packing. While she was waiting, she asked, "Did you bring the umbrella, Lucy?"
…
Crap…
I had completely forgotten about the umbrella! It's my turn today! Because my mind was filled with all of that damn Eclipse Event, I've completely forgotten to bring my umbrella.
"I… forgot…"
Her mouth hung wide open as she facepalmed herself.
"Whoopsie… Heheh… Sorry…" I looked down dejectedly.
"Ugh! You're such a mood today!" She said. "I guess we'll be walking home without one then."
"Sorryyy…"
----
Luckily, the sky was kind to us today. There's a nice breeze, and the sun isn't beaming on us. Star and I were relieved to find out that we won't get sunburnt today.
I thought Star would be upset because of what I said about the groceries, amongst other things. But her cheerful walk still radiated so much energy that even the people who just briefly glanced at her became infected with happiness.
She's always like that. Her walk so filled with glee, and her smile so wide, it can fit a whole bowl of cereal. Maybe a whole meatloaf, or a pie even…
…
I think the hunger is getting to me.
Star filled the silent walk with talks about the game. She described what she did yesterday that made her ghost me for hours on end.
"So I spawned in the literal center of town. That was quite lucky, not gonna lie. There were people there that gave me some clothes to replace what I was wearing. It was nice of them.
Then there was this guy, right? He was with his group of guys, and he came up to me and said, 'Yo, wanna join us?' They told me that they were going to go kill some mobs. Then I said I didn't have any weapons, so I can't come. Then, get this, he gave me an extra enchanted sword!
I mean, how cool is that?
It was all glowing purple, and the edges of the blades were glowing gold. Dude, they gave me, a beginner, a high-class weapon. Lucky me, am I right?"
I nodded along as she told me her stories. Honestly, every word she had said has all gone over my head. I was only pretending to pay attention as she told me stories.
"So then we went out of town. There was this field, right? Apparently, the slimes spawn there or something? Oh yeah, they told me the quest was to collect slime loot. We were doing a quest.
There were all these slimes that popped out of the ground. It was so cool! They were like liquid and see-through, and the way they bounced around was so cute! I could literally watch them for hours on end.
The guys immediately killed a bunch of slimes. I wanted in on the game, so I also went killing. You know, at first, it was hard to kill them. But they always spawn back within a few minutes anyway. Using a sword isn't as hard as I thought. It felt really cool to hold a real sword. Well, not real.
Actually, have you gotten a weapon?"
"A sword and shield, yes."
"Ooh. Nice. Anyway…"
----
She kept going on and on about how she easily killed all the slimes she needed, and about how she wielded the sword, and about how she was better than everyone else at killing the slimes. I don't know; I think she's good at killing slimes.
"… And then after we got the loot, the guys brought me back to town. And then… uh… right!
We went to the town hall to turn in the quest. They got a lot of Gold for finishing the quest. But they didn't give me any! How unfair is that?! I literally killed more slimes than them all combined!
So I complained to them. And they said that they'll give me my share if I follow them till the end of the day. I was gonna log out to tell you about what I just did. But because they told me that, I had no choice but to join them, right? I'm not gonna have my efforts wasted.
So… Sorry for not texting you. It was for a good reason. Oh, and they gave me the sword too! It's mine now; I still have it."
"Sure…"
"I went and followed them everywhere. They weren't doing any more quests, so we were just walking aimlessly through town.
We went to sell some of the extra loot we got, which I did get a portion of. And then we went to this bar. Actually, they allow anyone to drink alcohol there. Like—I was even allowed to drink. I was asked by the guys to drink with them.
Obviously, I refused.
I mean, come on, I'm like 6 years below the legal age to drink. Well, I did consider it.
It's a good thing they also served orange juice.
So yeah, I was just sitting there talking to them. I think we left like a whole 2 hours later. I was getting pretty bored by this point. So I asked them how much longer I needed to be there.
They were drunk by this point, dude. I mean like DRUNK drunk. They could say single words. But they did say just a little longer.
And then… Well… They went to a women's clothing store. I didn't even know there was a clothing store. I don't even know why you'd need a clothing store in a game. But they were just walking around the shop, picking things up and inspecting them.
Sometimes, they'd ask me if I'd like to wear the thing they're holding.
Ugh. Dude, they were holding, like, swimsuits and lingerie. I was really uncomfortable by this point. So I said I'd wait outside while they explored the shop on their own."
"You haven't left by then?"
"No. I wanted the Gold! They were probably almost done by that point. They were already drunk enough that they would've probably stopped pretty soon. I would've waited longer if that girl didn't pull me away."
"What girl? What do you mean?"
"So, while I was waiting outside, I was suddenly tugged by someone. A girl… Wait… Actually, I don't know if it was a girl. They were like— as tall as me and were wearing a hood. But there was a little bit of long hair that I could see through the hood, so I just assumed. It could just as well be a guy with long hair, though.
She tugged me and grasped my elbow. I was panicking by this point, right? So, I kept trying to pull myself away. I wanted to scream "help," but I was too stunned to speak. This girl has got the grasp of a hulk, dude. I legit couldn't get her off of me.
So she pulled my arm, which forced me to follow her. And she ran really fast, which almost made me lose my pace… Oh yeah, she was wearing a skirt.
We went very far away from the guys. Frikkin' lost all my Gold b'cause of her.
And she brought me to some random alleyway, right? And she just left me there like that! Wh—what kind of kidnapping was that? I wasn't even tied or trapped or anything! And she said nothing to me! It was such a low-effort kidnapping that I felt less panicked and more annoyed by her gesture.
I literally just left the alleyway nonchalantly and ran away from there as fast as I could. I wanted to go back to the guys, but I didn't really pay attention to which direction I needed to go.
So, I eventually just gave up and logged out. It was like 9 by this point…"
"I see… So that's the reason you weren't active on text."
"Yeah… Sorry about that."
"Well, at least you had fun, right?"
"Mhm!"
----
As she finished the story, we arrived at the local market. I told her to go home and prepare her VR while I do some shopping. Though at first, she wanted to help me do the shopping and refused to go home. She eventually caved when I said, "We can play 'till midnight."
She hopped her way over to her home while bidding me farewell.
----
An hour and $100 later, I've obtained my calories for the week. The bags weren't too heavy as I brought them back home.
After I arrived, I quickly tidied up the place and placed everything where it belonged.
Though I'm generally a patient person, the one waiting on the other side isn't as patient. So I moved as fast as possible to finally be able to play the game.
But where were we going to meet? She didn't really say where we're going to meet later. It was definitely going to be a problem. However, when I checked my phone, that question immediately got answered.
『Sanguine: We'll meet at the town gate, K? My name's also sanguine there, btw』
It was a text message from Star, a.k.a. Sanguine. Seems like she's got it all figured out.
I quickly booted up the game and went into gaming position. Helmet on my head, I closed my eyes and waited.
----
It was a quick sequence. As I opened my eyes, I was back where I logged out before.
『Welcome back』
Celeste greeted me as I took in my surroundings.
I was back in the staff breakroom, where Ms. Elith gave me the link to the game forums. Unfortunately I didn't get any info, though, so I'll put that on hold for now.
The room was empty. The two staff members who were here were also gone. Well, I've already completely forgotten their name. It's probably a good thing they're not here.
I walked out of the backroom and reached the counter. There was no one in the store. Though the lights were still bright orange, they illuminated the emptiness of the room. It was all so silent, a contrast from yesterday's visit.
Suddenly, I heard a ringing bell that came from the front door. A man who wore an adventurer's attire walked into the bar. He must be thinking I worked in this place. It made me nervous to the bone.
I didn't know what to do. Is he going to order from me? Does he know me? Why is he walking to me? I became frozen as the thoughts jumbled up my mind.
He finally reached the counter after an agonizing 5 seconds.
"I'd like a Slime Soda, please."
Shit…