She Professed Herself Pupil of the Wise Man Vol. 1 Page 2

  In just a few moments, the entire goblin horde had been routed. A few moments more left them lying dead on the battlefield, the earth stained black with their blood.

  It was over. Of the two colors that had once decorated the field, the green was broken and the silver regrouped into formation. The men stood tall but were wary of the Dark Knight.

  Must have been nearly a hundred of the little buggers, thought Danblf. He glanced over the bodies to confirm the job was done and dismissed the Dark Knight from the battlefield.

  With that chore taken care of, it was back to puzzling over the odd evidence he’d encountered in the past few minutes: the smells, the tastes, the unfamiliar reactions of the goblins. Only one possibility made sense.

  There had been an unannounced patch last night.

  It was hard to believe that the sense of smell and taste in VR could be reproduced at such an intense level. He was truly experiencing the game world with all five senses. As far as he knew, no other company had developed anything this revolutionary. It was kind of strange that they’d debut a breakthrough technology in a video game, but there was no other possible explanation.

  Well, props to the dev team, Danblf decided. The update was probably why my system didn’t shut down when I passed out.

  With that mystery solved, he noticed the sound of clanking armor drawing closer and turned to see a knight bearing a shield engraved with the symbol of the great tree and moon—the coat of arms for the Kingdom of Alcait. Danblf knew that that shield would turn away swords, spells, and dragon fire alike. The elite knight’s mirror-like armor reflected and blended in with his surroundings, and his red cloak marked him as the captain among his men.

  The knight raised a hand to halt his illustrious unit from a respectful distance away before stepping forward alone. His swept-back gray hair was flecked with white, and a slanted scar was carved across his chiseled face like a badge of honor. He was elegant and handsome—although not at Danblf’s level—but his face was unfamiliar.

  Odd. The Wise Man thought he knew all the elite-level captains in Alcait.

  “Pardon me, miss,” the captain said. “That knight in the black armor—I assume that was a summoning technique. Was it yours? We weren’t sure if it was reinforcements or not.”

  Danblf looked for the person the knight had addressed, but he found no one else on the battlefield. Was this some sort of joke? Or an insult? As he glanced around, he saw one of the goblin corpses roll to the side before an unknown creature emerged from underneath and fled into the forest.

  “Hrmmm, so there are still…survi…vors?”

  The moment he spoke, he knew two uncomfortable things were true. The first was that whatever had escaped wasn’t a goblin.

  “What the hell?!”

  The second was that he was speaking in a high, lilting voice.

  Danblf stared at the knight, dumbfounded. His image was reflected in the mirror-shined armor of the knight captain standing before him. He moved his right hand, and the reflection moved its left. A woman stared back at him and widened her eyes. He was speechless.

  He recognized her—silver hair hanging down to her waist, quick-witted blue eyes, cheeks with just a hint of blush, a small nose, and cherubic features. She was wearing Danblf’s gear, but the proportions were all wrong.

  She was Kagami’s ideal female warrior that he’d created with the Vanity Case.

  Chapter 2

  WHAT THE HELL?! Danblf racked his brain trying to remember what he had done before he passed out.

  Meanwhile, the knight captain looked on in bewilderment at the totally spaced-out woman before him. While he waited for her to come back to reality, a few of his subordinates approached with a report about the escaped monster. It was wounded but nimble and had escaped before they could finish it off.

  As the captain ordered his men to split into teams and continue pursuit, the woman stared at her reflection in disbelief. Sure enough, the figure staring back was the female avatar that Kagami had created the night before. But why? He made the character, sure, but he never actually clicked to confirm the changes. Right?

  Slowly, a few details arose from the depths of his memory. He had canceled and logged out… But that was where the memories ended.

  Maybe I didn’t log out. Did I fall asleep before that? It might have happened before I could hit cancel. Everything after my sister called me for breakfast is a blur.

  As he panicked, a thought occurred to him. Using his bracelet terminal to operate the system menu, Danblf navigated to the status screen, which displayed information about his character.

  Name: Danblf Gandador. That checked out.

  Class: Summoner. Nothing wrong so far.

  His home country and base location were listed correctly as well. His magical power stats were still outstanding, and his physical attributes were in line with most mages. The modifiers his special gear provided to offset lackluster stats also seemed correct.

  Everything was exactly like he remembered. He hadn’t logged in with the wrong character. Danblf hadn’t been deleted. These were the stats that Kagami spent the last four years developing.

  But as he tabbed over to the equipment list on the status screen, his hope evaporated.

  The avatar was clearly wearing Danblf’s bespoke wizarding gear—one-of-a-kind and commissioned by the King of Alcait upon Danblf’s ascendance to the role of Elder of Summoning. Each piece was specially ordered and produced by other players who were craftsmen of renown. Only the dignified personage of Danblf would have access to those items; that was the problem.

  At any prior point, it would have been the elegant, refined personage of Danblf, resplendent in his robes. But just like the mirror image in the knight captain’s armor, a beautiful young lady stared back from the status screen.

  Convinced this had to be some sort of mistake, she grasped the hem of her robe and pulled it over her head. The corresponding equipment line on her status screen changed to None. Letting the robe hang in one hand, she began to check over her now-exposed body as her silky silver hair fluttered in the breeze.

  Her pert breasts were just a handful, and she had fair, almost translucent skin. A modest butt sat atop a pair of shapely legs. This was absolutely the female avatar Kagami had created with the Vanity Case.

  “Whoaaa! Whoa, whoa, whoa! What are you doing?!” Having finished issuing orders to his subordinates, the captain turned to find the woman naked and oblivious. In a single graceful motion, he swept his red cloak around her shoulders. The rest of the knights within eyeshot exercised steely self-control and hastily turned their backs on the scandalous display.

  Well, this seems like a bit of an overreaction from the NPCs, thought the woman.

  Skilled players could acquire a retinue of NPC followers, and she’d assumed that was the case here. She had taken the knight captain for a player, but either the rest of the knights were players as well or the AI had gotten a significant upgrade during last night’s patch.

  “Come on!” the captain admonished. “A proper young lady should know better than to go around exposing herself like that. You’re lucky that you’ve found yourself in the company of noble, honest knights. The world is full of people who might take advantage of you in such a state. You shouldn’t let your guard down, miss.”

  More troublingly, their reaction settled the matter: he was now a she. It seemed that somehow, some way, she had screwed up and completed the character change. She needed to wrap this episode up and fork out another thousand yen to fix the problem before anyone caught on to what she’d done.

  A frown stole over her face. Still covered by the knight captain’s cloak, she replaced her robes and checked the status screen to make sure her avatar was no longer naked. Then she passed the cape back to the captain.

  “Is that a User’s Bangle? Is she an adventurer?” he muttered, glancing at the woman’s arm while reattaching the cloak to his shoulders.

  A User’s Bangle? she asked herself. What is he ta
lking about?

  The captain was clearly looking her wrist terminal, but she’d never heard the term before. If he was a commander, especially the commander of an elite unit like the Magic-Clad Knights, then he obviously must’ve been a veteran player. But since all players would have a wrist terminal, why would that be a surprise to him? With every answer, more questions bubbled to the surface.

  “If you are asking me if I’m an adventurer, well, of course I am.” As confusing as the situation was, she knew that at least was completely true.

  Her voice was still shocking to her ears. The cute, lilting tone mixed with Danblf’s verbal tics had a dissonant effect that made her wince.

  The Voice was part of Danblf’s roleplaying shtick. Kagami figured such a dignified-looking character should have an equally dignified voice. And after four years of playing and speaking in such a way, it was a habit that came as naturally as logging in.

  Even though that cadence didn’t fit her current avatar, the thought of modifying how she spoke was strange and uncomfortable. She began to ponder how she should talk now that she was a woman, but she abandoned that train of thought quickly since there were more pressing matters at hand.

  “I see. So you are an adventurer,” the knight captain confirmed to himself. “Well, we appreciate your help, young miss. But can I ask about that black knight? I’ve never seen anything like it. What sort of technique did you use?”

  “What do you mean? It’s clearly just a summoning skill.”

  The woman followed this statement by resummoning her Evocation: Dark Knight, causing the minion to reappear beside her. The surrounding knights were unsettled by its oppressive aura, but the captain stared with great interest. He gawked at the black knight and the ominous presence that surrounded it, standing in stark contrast to the woman’s own delicate appearance.

  “Summoning! How marvelous. And it’s an armor spirit… How rare.” Lost in thought, the captain stared at the black knight, circling around it and inspecting its grand stature.

  There were two types of spirits used by summoners. Primordial spirits were strong but difficult to locate and subdue, while manmade spirits, found within human creations, were easier to handle and tame.

  A lesser summoning technique could be used to call manmade spirits forth from armor—the armor of those who had waged war would produce Dark Knights, and the armor of those who had died protecting the innocent produced Holy Knights. While it was a nominally easy spell, Danblf’s continued use of the Dark Knight had honed it into a swordsman who could rival top-tier summoned spirits.

  It seemed strange that the captain would consider such a rudimentary summoning technique to be a rare sight. Summoners used low-level techniques all the time. It would be rarer to find someone who’d never seen it before.

  “I wonder when the request for assistance went out,” said the captain. “Don’t misunderstand me, miss—we’re grateful for the help with these hordes appearing so frequently. It would have been nice to know you were going to join us, though.”

  The captain’s complaint was belied by his happy expression. It was clear that the knights had their hands full with this fight, but his comment added more layers of mystery to the situation. First, monster hordes were normally dealt with by whichever of the Nine Wise Men was on duty that day, no knightly backup necessary. Secondly, monster hordes weren’t that frequent.

  “Hrmm, but these attacks only happen once a month. That doesn’t seem like too much to handle.”

  Perhaps some people considered that too frequent, but she was getting another vibe from this conversation. It was as if there was some fundamental difference in worldview between her and the captain.

  “Once a month? Maybe that was the case ten years ago. We’ve had three incursions in the past four weeks.” The captain gave her a skeptical look, then turned glumly back to the Dark Knight, looking the summon over like he was comparing their physiques.

  “Did you say…ten years ago?” That was the red flag she’d been searching for. Time in AEO moved at the same rate as time on Earth. Ten years ago would have been six years before the game entered open beta mode.

  “Come now, miss! I’m sure an adventurer already knows the stories—the war against the demons that fell from the sky and the Defense of the Three Great Kingdoms. Monster horde appearances have doubled since then.”

  “The Defense of the Three Great Kingdoms, you say? I’ve never heard of that.”

  “Really? Huh. Well, I guess you would have been just a child—too young to be adventuring.”

  She opened her system terminal in search of answers. A screen popped up and she began navigating through the menus. To the knights, she appeared to simply poke at the empty air in front of her, as if shooing away gnats. The captain patiently waited for her to say something as a confused look spread across her face.

  She ignored the comprehensive timeline displayed in the History tab, instead staring speechlessly at a single entry at the top of the list.

  Ark Calendar Year 2146, April 23rd, it said. The second prince of the Kingdom of Milston was born. He was named Atolzard.

  The birth announcement wasn’t what shocked her. Panicked, her eyes flicked to the top left where the current time and date were displayed.

  Ark Calendar Year 2146, May 12th, 3:12 p.m.

  “What day is it?” she demanded, staring into the captain’s face.

  “It’s Wednesday, m’lady.”

  “No, no, no! What year, month, and day is it?”

  “Oh.” The knight captain withdrew and opened a silver pocket watch. “It’s May 12th, 2146.”

  The game had begun in the year 2112.

  It wasn’t a bug; the knight captain’s answer matched the one shown on her system screen. Unless the dev team had decided to skip a few decades of time on the in-game clocks, thirty years had elapsed since Kagami passed out.

  She scanned through the timeline, and an endless string of unremembered historical events scrolled past. Sure enough, on June 20th, 2136, an event called Defense of the Three Great Kingdoms was logged.

  Grasping a lock of her silvery hair, she held it up to her nose. She inhaled deeply, smelling the faint vanilla-like scent of a sweet shampoo. Then she put the hair in her mouth. It was largely tasteless, but her tongue and lips could feel each individual strand.

  If full five-senses VR had been patched into the game, the patch notes would have been documented somewhere on the timeline. The two prior updates were still listed in the history files, along with documentation, but there was no mention of an upgrade beyond that point.

  The mystery grew deeper and more troubling.

  She began to question her earlier assumptions. Why could she suddenly taste the grass and sniff the air? Would technology like this really make a surprise debut in a video game? How could it be this flawless in its detail and execution?

  It all seemed completely impossible, and yet her senses weren’t lying.

  That left one highly improbable option. One that she didn’t want to believe was true.

  The woman closed the menu and looked squarely at the captain, who had grown even more perplexed by her strange behavior.

  “Ah! I realize we haven’t properly met, miss. My name is Graia Astol, Captain of the Magic-Clad Knights’ First Squadron.” Captain Graia added a slight bow to the end of his introduction. His eyes were full of interest as he stared back at the woman. “And while it’s evident that you are a skilled mage, I still do not know who you are. Would you do me the favor of introducing yourself, miss?”

  Who didn’t know about Danblf, one of the Wise Men of Alcait, for whom even the label of sublime seemed insufficient? More uncertainty arose.

  Introducing yourself upon meeting someone, and asking their name in return, was a natural thing to do in most cases. But that only applied in the real world, not in the game. When a player opened an inspection window, the inspected player’s name was automatically displayed floating above their avatar. There was no need to hav
e a discussion about it, and yet Graia had introduced himself and asked her name in turn.

  “Why not merely Inspect me?” Something else was going on, and she posed her response as a test against a new hypothesis.

  “Hmm…” Graia peered a little more closely at her, searching for some hidden clue to the riddle. “Well, you’re quite skilled, young miss, but I’m afraid I cannot deduce your identity. I apologize. Does anyone else here recognize her?”

  The knights present shook their heads and shrugged, saying they didn’t know who she was either.

  “Hrmmm, I see…” She knew some players considered it impolite to Inspect other players without express permission, sort of a roleplaying tic, but even those players should have been willing to take a peek once permission was granted. The captain and his knights should have known instantly that she was Danblf, despite the change in appearance.

  Yet not a single one recognized her. The only conclusion she could draw was that the knights around her were unable to use the Inspect function, including the knight captain.

  “None of them can use basic game mechanics,” the woman muttered to herself, hand on her chin. With this new information, she began forming yet another hypothesis.

  “Ah…I do apologize, miss. As you can see, we are but simple swordsmen and unfamiliar with adventurers and magic.” Graia mistook the woman’s silence for shock at not being recognized. His fellow knights also appeared apologetic and slightly embarrassed, which just made her theory that they were individuals with agency seem more likely.

  They seemed real in every way, but they obviously weren’t NPCs or players. VR might be advanced, but it simply wasn’t capable of anything this complex. She had no choice but to abandon the idea that this was some sort of software update.

  Slowly but surely, she kept coming back to an old urban legend. It seemed impossible, but with all the evidence stacking in its favor, it was also impossible to completely deny.