"Classics?" Snowbunny mumbled to herself, but eventually dropped it when she noticed Typhoeus approach. "Hey Ty, how was the trip?"
Typhoeus playfully flipped her the bird before collapsing against a wall, he seemed exhausted.
"Hey Pelear, how are they doing?" Merlin asked the instructor.
"Well, Bunny here finished about an hour ago, she's a natural. She'll quickly grow to be as good as you." Pelear praised Snowbunny before he turned to face Typhoeus, "Scythe boy however, well he's got lead blocks for feet."
Merlin laughed at his assessment. After a few minutes of banter and Merlin learning about his friend's progress, a messenger came to pick him up. As he made his way over to the interrogation room, a large red alert box appeared in front of him.
┌───────────────────
[Message from the devs!]
Group one, there is only one hour left for today's session, you will receive another notification when it's time to log out.
If you do not leave by that time you will be forcibly disconnected, please make sure you're in a safe location when you log out.
└───────────────────
Merlin waved the window away as he followed the messenger, until he arrived at the interrogation room. Inside he found the documents he delivered alongside a clean stack of paper and various writing implements, and it seemed the messenger was going to be staying nearby just in case he required anything else.
Merlin sat down and began his work. He started by translating each sheet into common, word for word, drawing the symbols of any word he couldn't understand. And after about thirty minutes had passed, he was done with the translation. He spent the rest of his time creating a dictionary of the most common words he could think of, drawing the symbols and giving the meaning in common in the hopes that this might assist them in translating the rest of the language.
Common was the name given to the universal language that most allied sentient races communicate with. It was once the native language of humans, but through alliances and the mixing of cultures, it slowly began incorporating words from other cultures over time, mostly Elven and Dwarven.
All otherworlders were ingrained with the highest level understanding of common upon being summoned. The average player usually only learnt a handful of other languages at the basic level during their years of playing, while very few players like Merlin took it as a challenge to collect them all.
Eventually he received the warning that it was almost time to leave. Another red alert window appeared before him.
┌───────────────────
[Message from the devs!]
Group one, your session will end in five minutes, please find a safe place and log out.
The server will forcibly disconnect those who do not log out in time. Thank you.
└───────────────────
Only now did Merlin realise that the text on the alert boxes had changed. Now that they weren't the only group playing, the logout warnings were tailored to each group and sent out at different times.
"Alright, I've finished." Merlin alerted the messenger, informing him that his work was complete. "Please get the boss quickly."
The messenger ran out, and a few moments later the elf made his way into the interrogation room, he seemed to be in a hurry. Merlin quickly handed him the complete translation and the dictionary, causing a notification to appear before him.
「You have completed the quest, "Otherworldly Translator.", rewards have been delivered.」
"What's the matter? Why the rush?" The elf asked with a hint of curiosity.
"Uh, how do I explain." Merlin mumbled out loud. He thought for a moment before answering. "Basically, I'm about to lose connection with this world and temporarily vanish."
"Oh, right, is it that time already." The elf seemed intrigued. Fortunately the elf was interested in all aspects of otherworlders, so he was aware of this phenomenon already. "I've heard lots of rumours of people disappearing and appearing in flashes of white light."
"I haven't yet been fortunate enough to witness this." The elf seemed giddy, "Would you mind if I watched?"
"Suit yourself." Merlin said as he walked out into the tunnel and found a comfortable spot. "I'll be back. I've left you with a translation and a dictionary, good luck."
"System logout." Merlin spoke the command word, causing a prompt to appear before him asking if he would like to logout.
"Oh my, what was that language?" The elf's eyes widened with curiosity. But before he could ask any further questions, Merlin vanished in a flash of white light. The elf gazed at where Merlin once was with a large smile on his face, he reached his hand in and began gently swiping his hand where Merlin once was. "How intriguing..."
Merlin found himself floating around aimlessly in a black void, left with his own thoughts. Merlin realised that he had grown quite fond of this character, he reminded him a little of himself, eager to discover everything.
This wasn't the first character he had interacted with that had such a strong passion for researching the otherworlders, and he wasn't the craziest either.
Otherworlders weren't an uncommon thing in the world, and most NPCs just ignored them or treated them like regular people. Others found interest in otherworlders for one reason or another, some for good reasons, others for not so good reasons.
But there were some NPCs that for some reason found the existence of otherworlders unacceptable. Some reasons for hating them made sense, such as the NPCs who had a vendetta due to the vile actions that some otherworlders took for their own benefit or entertainment.
Others just hated otherworlders because they were different. Whether this be because they were unnatural beings that didn't have a complete soul, or that they were practically immortal, at least the player variant anyway, or because they just considered them to be the scourge of the world.
The hatred some NPCs showed for the playerbase ranged from merely showing disdain to actively waging war on player guilds.
A blinding flash of white light broke him out of his thoughts, and he found himself back in the virtual hub, the seemingly endless white room.
Arthur brought his arm up, where he saw the controls floating around it, he slapped the power symbol causing a prompt to appear. The prompt asked him to confirm his logout, and he answered with yes, causing the white room to quickly fade back into the black void he was familiar with.
A jolt ran through Arthur's body, waking him up from the machine induced trance. His senses slowly returned to him as he sat in the pod, he could now hear the familiar whirring of machinery.
He felt the capsule shift back into the upright position before the door slowly opened. Arthur remained seated for a few moments, allowing the groggy feeling to subside at least a little before he left. He briefly stretched his body before making his way to the briefing room.
He passed by the room for the second group, he glanced through the window and saw that all the capsules were still occupied. As he entered the briefing room he saw the roleplayer group sitting around and talking, Maria and Acai were also already sitting around chatting with the group.
"Hey, it's the old plant guy!" Alvira yelled out when she noticed Arthur appear. The rest of the group turned and greeted him.
Arthur approached the large group of friends he had made and took a seat nearby. His eyes immediately glanced towards the redhead, he noticed that she was looking a little pale, not to mention she seemed somewhat out of it. She was just staring silently into the cup of tea she obtained from the refreshments area.
"Hey, uh... Nora, are you feeling okay?" Arthur only now realised that he didn't actually know any of the real names of the roleplayer group.
The redhead turned to face Arthur, she gave him a slight nod before mumbling something that Arthur barely heard. "It's Rowan, and I'm fine, just-- tired."
Arthur realised that her username was almost an anagram of her name, just without the "w".
"Alright, well I hope you get better." Arthur tried comforting her before turning to the rest of the group. "Hey guys, could I get your names?"
"Oh right." The tall lanky guy who Arthur knew as Zankoku spoke first. "I'm Liam, nice to meet you."
The hefty guy that Arthur knew as Tiny spoke up next, "I'm Mason... You can still call me Tiny if you want, I don't mind."
Arthur finally turned to the short blonde girl he knew as Alvira and waited for her to introduce herself, but she sat there for half a minute with a smug grin on her face before finally giving in. "I'm Alvira, yes that is my real name."
"You used your real name as a username?" Arthur asked, before remembering that another idiot in the first wave just put lord in front of his name and called it a username.
"What? It's a cool name." Alvira retorted.
"Fair enough." Arthur nodded, "Well I'm Arthur. Nice to meet you all."
The conversation the group was having earlier resumed with Arthur involved, it seemed the roleplayers were telling Acai and Maria about what happened during the vampire den raid, but the conversation was interrupted by Alvira once again.
"Wait! you've got a lazy username too." Alvira blurted out once she realised what Arthur had done for his own username, "You're in no place to judge!"
It took a few seconds but the others seemed to make the connection too, nobody else bothered to comment.
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