They fell with quite a momentum, but it did not hurt at all. It was quite a soft landing, actually.
'Sniff' 'Sniff'
It even smelled good. Kai lifted his head up and saw Deimos glaring at him. The soft thing was... Ah.
She grabbed his shoulders and threw him to the side with a lot of unnecessary force. What a rude thing to do! He saved her sorry ass, and this was how she acted! Kai sprawled on the ground beside her, neither in a hurry to get up.
The night sky was lit with millions of picturesque, bright, beautiful stars. As if looking straight at the Milky Way—if the atmosphere that polluted the view in between did not exist. The game could get away with showing such breathtaking scenes whenever it got the chance to flex.
"Why do you keep showing your ugly face in my business, insect?" Deimos asked, looking at the beautiful sky. The words were biting, but the tone had no annoyance to it—just maybe curiosity.
"I was there for the NPC," Kai replied simply.
Silence prevailed again for a good minute or two before she suddenly asked,
"You recognize my name... Don't you?"
Kai's eyes widened with shock. She already figured it out! What in the hell... and why wasn't that beeped out? Any conversation that revealed alien species' personal info to humans was always bleeped out. For some reason, the beyonders never wanted humans to know what they were truly playing.
Kai chose to stay silent. It was his default setting anyway. He didn't want to confirm it for her.
"Ah, right.. you people can't hear anything related to the truth," she said and then added, "I both envy and pity your people."
So she retained the memory of her past life—same as him. And even though she said things like this in the open, she didn't fear what the beyonders might do to her. Did she know something about them? Should he ask and reveal himself? No, that was a dumb thing to do based on just assumptions.
Kai felt like he had to reply with something. Swayed by feelings or just out of his pure generous heart, Kai took out the ring he had taken from her loot pile and put it on her naked stomach. She took it in her hand and just stared at him with amused eyes.
"Aren't you an insect full of surprises.." she muttered.
"Human," Kai replied. "I am human."
"Which way are you going?" she asked, finally getting up. It looked weird with half her body censored up. Kai also gave her spare clothing he had picked up from countless PKs he had done. She quickly put it on, all the censored parts being removed and her angular curves returning.
"That way," Kai said, pointing towards the high mountain range behind the burning village.
He had thought about it, and climbing the mountain range with his skill felt like a very adventurous thing to do. It might give him options that others would never be able to have. Then again, he might find dangerous high-level monsters and nothing else. But it was a gamble, and he always liked to do things a bit differently—that's how he had acquired so much strength in his earlier playthrough.
Deimos's weirded-out expression told all that she thought of it. "Well, you have skills. If you ever want to make a name for yourself or truly do something ambitious, join me in the future. Right now, my name might not be so heard of, but soon I will be at the top of this world." She said it with a serious expression.
Kai just nodded, not telling her that he might be the biggest obstacle in her path—far from a good ally.
Ignoring the burning village, they both nodded at each other and walked away. Their paths going in opposite directions. Kai had already seen what the burning village had to offer, and he was not crazy enough to go back. Though he had depleted all his MP and should probably take a break before continuing further.
Deimos might have become one of the most powerful opponents of his, but she wasn't the only one. There were hundreds of other groups and players, all a threat to humanity in general. If he and Deimos had their memories of the past still with them, then maybe there were others. Plus, it was not the same game—no one really had an advantage, just memories and techniques of how to get better and make the future as they wanted with their own hands.
When Kai was just a few hundred meters from the high, greenery-covered stone mountain, the notification rang again—the ten minutes of the boss fight suicide mission had ended.
[Rank S Mission Vengeance failed.]
[1 level gained.]
[Achievement unlocked: Who Needs Strength, I Have Courage.]
[Received Item: Drops of Pure Exodian Blood.]
[Skill Points Rewarded: 1]
Woah! The lie he fed others really came true! Even failing the mission gave them rewards and experience. S-rank missions were just something else!
Kai had a big-ass grin plastered on his face as he turned back to see what would happen. He was quite far, but he could still see the massive figure flying up in the air. Once it reached sufficient height, the Exodian NPC released a massive, powerful beam of pure condensed purple energy onto the still burning village below. A gigantic explosion went off, covering the whole village and even the few places around it. A massive red mushroom cloud climbed high into the night sky.
The Exodian then just turned around and flew back to his city. There was no explanation of why he had done what he had done or who the hell he even was. But the character of each Nexus Kin spawned in this village now had a main story about the path of vengeance their character would go through—Kai predicted. And somehow on their way, they should meet the real protagonist characters and other players when the story became more than what the character's personal journey was.
Satisfied with his gains, Kai shot an arrow onto the top of a nearby tree branch and went offline there.