[Congratulations! Your summoner has completed a quest!]
[You have received an upgrade!]
English? Did these dragon ears deceive me?
'Status window'. Those were the words she spoke, I stared at my summon,
Her red eyes were bright and reflective, like a mirror, yet I still couldn't see myself in them. The lower parts of her eyes reddened, her pale skin did little to fight her blush as it started to creep over all her face, even her ears were not spared, her eyes became puffy, she was staring at me, her lower lip was trembling, as if she was about to speak but couldn't.
It was like she was fighting back tears. No, that's exactly what she was doing, but I was too distracted by the new screen to care.
[Name: ??? ]
[Level. 3]
[Growth Stage: Baby]
[Levels to Next Stage 2]
[Race: Dragon]
[Role: Deity]
[Divinity: 0]
[Skills]
[Sp.3]
[Party]
[Quest]
[Stats]
What the hell was this? I was starting to feel old. What did any of these things mean? If the trigger word was status window. Would the other words provide an explanation?
'Stats.'
[Strength 30]
[Endurance 40]
[Faith 50]
[Divinity 0]
[Mind 25]
[intelligence 15]
These numbers meant nothing to me; I had no metric to compare them to, but I assumed the higher the number, the better.
The sound of a sniffle brought me out of my investigatory process. The silver-haired beauty wiped her nose with a sleeve. Now she was truly on the precipice of tears, her trembling lips opened, and a word that felt strangely familiar came out.
"Bahamut"
[Congratulations! Your name has been realized.]
[A shard of your essence has been released.]
[+ 10 to Divinity]
I ignored the text, which didn't make sense to me, and focused on my summon. She had given me a name, one that I felt was mine since the start of my existence. Strange considering my previous name was...
A hint of panic entered me.
I couldn't remember my name; it was like that part of me was erased, but while that was worrying, I couldn't show panic in front of my summon. So, I resolved to fix it later.
"Y-you und-understood M-me." Snot started to form as the early stages of crying elapsed. Her dainty hands tried and failed to grab her handkerchief. My poor summon was breaking down; any little push would make her break into tears.
How do I console a crying woman? Should I pretend not to know what English truly was? That felt a bit disingenuous, and I was not the type to run away from my problems.
I cleared my dragon throat and spoke with my mighty voice.
[Do not cry fine Maiden is the mere recognition of a language, truly something to cry over?]
"Y-you're r-right..." She stopped sniffling and carefully reached for her handkerchief. This time, achieving her goal, she blew her nose and tried her best not to cry.
She stabilized her expression, her eyes returning to their usual blank look, her expression encapsulated in a fine icy sculpture.
It seemed like her face only changed in extreme circumstances.
She opened her mouth, and in less than a second, immediately broke down into tears.
"I'm from Gaia, I don't know where I am, I don't know anyone, I just know the name of this stupid game, I tried so hard, to act tough, but this is awful I miss my home I miss Fastfood, I miss my air-conditioned room, my VR capsule, my mom and dad, my cat and dog. I can't believe I was found out in a day, God, I'm the worst transmigrator ever."
She wiped a tear from her eye and continued pouring out all her feelings.
"And everyone hates me, I just wanted my class not to be nerfed, I didn't think they would put me in this stupid game, and then, and then, everyone is just so mean, and I don't know why. I'm a stupid duke and I have a stupid system, and I don't know how to get out of this stupid world."
I flew behind her back and rubbed it with my dragon hands
[There, there] I cooed [Let it all out, tell this mighty dragon everything]. She nodded, tears running down her face.
She continued to cry and let out all her hidden feelings. After a while, she let out a big breath and clapped her cheeks.
"I think I'm okay now." She steadied herself, her blank expression returning.
Was this part of her character traits? The rapid shift was concerning, but I was in no place to comment on her coping mechanisms.
I flew back towards her front and landed on the bed.
Information was important, so I had to figure out the genre of this game. Although none of it mattered to me, a Dragon, I felt a certain kinship with my summon.
I had a chance to plead ignorance and pretend I didn't know what she was referring to, but I honestly couldn't care less. The innate arrogance of a dragon made me feel invincible.
[What sort of game was it?]
"A VR MMORPG." She played with her hair as she spoke, but she might as well have been speaking gibberish.
[VR MMORPG?]
This wasn't faux ignorance, I truly didn't know that genre, and the word VR, I had never heard of.
"Virtual Reality, massively multiplayer online role-playing Game."
If she thought the abbreviation was the problem, she was sorely mistaken, although I wasn't that old in my human years, I currently felt like an old head.
I felt like saying English mother trucker, do you speak it, but I had to maintain some sort of decorum. Plus, I didn't want to be too harsh and make her cry.
[In normal people speak.] It was odd for a dragon to say those words, but I had to know.
Perhaps she assumed I was also a transmigrator, thinking the words would make sense; unfortunately for her, she was wrong on both ends. I was neither a transmigrator, nor did the words make sense.
"A boomer?" She looked at me with a blank stare.
Oh, she had jokes now? Acting like she wasn't crying ten minutes ago. I puffed out my dragon chest and ignored her words.
"Were you not a Gaian?" My summon looked at me with a raised eyebrow, her nose slightly wrinkled.
[Gaian? The world I observed was Terra.] I tried to say I was originally from Terra, but the words changed as I let them out.
Strange, it reminded me of the fact that I couldn't remember my name.
"Terra? Isn't that just another name for the Earth Mother?"
I looked at her with my head tilted, an imaginary dragon eyebrow cocked.
"The main god we worshipped?" She continued, as she looked at me, seeing the blank expression on my face.
[Ma'am, there is only one God, and 'He' is not Terra.] Now it was her turn to look confused, she stared at me blankly.
"Are you denying your godhood?" Her words confused me even more. Me a god? I sure didn't feel like one.
"How interesting, the world you observed was not my world but a mirrored one." She touched her chin as she looked up to think. The word scholarly was the perfect one to describe her current expression.
She shrugged her shoulders and continued to speak, as she took a worn notebook and started to write on her bed.
"Virtual reality is a digital world you can inhabit by the use of a capsule-like device." She wrote the words as she spoke.
Are we just going to gloss over the fact that she called me a god?
"And an MMO game is an online, um, online is-" She paused as she tapped the page with the end of her pen.
I guess we are.
[I know what online is.] She rolled her eyes as she continued to explain.
She sure got comfortable with me quickly.
"Where a massive number of players inhabit a world." She looked at me before continuing to write. "Oh, players-" I interrupted her with a glare.
[I know what players are.]
"The game we are in is called New Frontier and is a live service game that gets updated regularly."
She finished writing everything down and tore the page out before handing it to me.
"You do know how to read, right?" The face she made irked me, but I let it slide and received the page with my dragon hand.
She extended her hand for a handshake. "My name is Diana; it is a pleasure to meet you, Your Grace."
I ignored the fact that she named me after a fish and extended my courtesies.
[Bahamut, likewise.] I shook her hand with my tiny dragon hand.