“Haha...... Flying through the sky like this feels nice. Now then, where should We go first?” It was actually more troubling to decide where to go if one could go anywhere.
For now, this country was out. That elf bro might have put out an order to everyone to arrest me, and if that was the case it’d be annoying to deal with.
I just want to have a leisurely trip around the world.
“......Hm? Ohh, that’s...... We see, so it still stands.” While I was wondering what to do, something appeared on the edge of my vision. That something was a black tower, climbing high into the heavens.
I knew that building that was like the picture of a rude gesture challenging the heavens. I could never forget it. After all, that was the building I built with my friends, a symbol of our power.
The sky tower “Maphaahl.”
It was my base, made by me......no, by all of us.
“It seems our first destination is decided.” I changed directions and flapped my wings.
The distance to the tower I could see in the distance was unclear. Most likely, it was pretty far away, but that was no problem for me as I was now.
After all, I have these wings to fly with.
“Hah!” I flew as hard as I could towards the tower.
It was a perfect chance to test just how far this body would go, and, most importantly, I wanted to try flying for real.
The scenery blew past me at a tremendous rate, and the wind caressed my cheeks. This was just my feeling, and I wasn’t sure if I was right, but it felt like the scenery was passing me by faster than if I was riding a bullet train. And on top of that, I could pick out little details in the distance with my sight.
I could easily dodge any birds in my way, and it was easy to change directions while keeping my speed.
Ahh, it feels so nice.
It’s uplifting my heart.
Flying was such a simple thing. I never expected it would make me feel this free and be this wonderful! However, all good things must come to an end.
After only a couple minutes of flying, I reached the tower and had to suddenly put on the brakes. The wind blew violently, and the atmosphere shook. It was only logical that a corresponding amount of wind would follow if something slightly larger than a human were to fly at that speed before suddenly putting on the brakes.
A weak opponent might be blown away with just the force of that wind.
Next, I climbed.
Past the clouds and yet still higher, I aimed for the top of the tower, made so that only a fraction of the most powerful heaven-winged would be able to reach it with their flight.
According to a fairy tale, Icarus, who flew too close to heaven with his wax wings, had them melted and fell to the earth. However, my wings were not wax. Something like the light of the sun would never melt them.
I didn’t know how many thousands of meters above the ground the top of the tower was, but after reaching it, I looked for the sole entrance built there.
There were only two ways to enter the top floor: to come in from the sky, or climb up from the inside.
It was a troublesome little tower, if I did say so myself.
While reminiscing in my mind, I entered the tower and entered the area where only the leader was allowed.
In Exgate Online, players who created countries, or in other words armies, were allowed their own base. Most bases were castles, but there was no real need for them to be castles. They weren’t popular, but temples or shrines or, in extreme cases, cafes for some reason could become bases.
It made me think: I’m not sure how I feel about the center of a country being a cafe, but since it was allowed within the system there was no complaining about it.
Out of all those multitudes of options, I chose the tower.
Players were free to design their bases how they wished, so I got really into it. I customized the tower even more every time our forces grew bigger, and I even incorporated the ideas of players with better aesthetic sense than me, so I managed to make this “Maphaahl Tower” the single best piece of architecture in all of Mizgarz.
“......It’s grown old and worn. But We still see the resemblance.” Two hundred years had passed since this tower was in use, so it was quite worn and dirty. Even so, I could still see the shadows and traces of what the tower used to be.
The first thing I did was introduce my butt to the deep crimson throne, which, even after being broken, still looked imposing in the room.
The broken window was once occupied with stained glass.
Red, blue, green, gold, brown, orange, and silver. It represented the circle of seven elements that existed in this world: Fire, Water, Wood, Metal, Earth, Sun, and Moon. The glass, which even had the colors labeled, was now broken, however, with only traces of it remaining.
Elements in games were usually represented by the usual four: Fire, Water, Wind, and Earth, but Exgate Online’s elements were made with the seven days of the week as reference. In order of weakness to each other, it went: Water > Fire > Metal > Wood > Earth > Water, and the player was able to choose their character’s element in the character creator.
Of course, this affected the character’s magical abilities, so it was important for people planning to play magic users.
As for healing magic......in this world it was called “heavenarts,” and was treated as completely different from magic so even the heaven-winged race could use it, but the character’s element also played a big part in it. Messing up and making a fire-aligned acolyte, when fire basically didn’t have any heaven-arts in it at all, would make for a sad character.
However, failing like that was also one of the fun parts of this game.
Running my fingers along the cracked walls, I reminisced on fun times.
Everyone was there back then. Everyone who followed me talked about just how huge they would make our army, and we had fun with other conversations about pointless things or made promises to hunt together. We partied together like idiots way into the night, and drank like we were bathing in alcohol............
—......No, wait a second. Why am I remembering it like I was there?
Thinking carefully, the Lufas in the game was the one drinking booze. It wasn’t me. I was sitting in front of my computer.
In the first place, I was thinking of it like it happened a long time ago. But it was only a few days ago that my army split in two. It was way too early to think of it like a nostalgic memory.
This won’t do; could it be my memories are mingling in with Lufas’?
This was a mixing between games and reality.
Well, given how things are going that’s exactly how it was, though.
Also—.
“How strange. This should be our first time seeing this, but We feel it to be nostalgic. We feel relaxed in this place.” There was a sense of nostalgia welling up in my chest. It was strange, like I’d come back home after being gone for a long time.
Is something wrong with me? Or am I really starting to merge with Lufas herself? At the moment, I couldn’t tell.
“......Hm?” Suddenly, I heard a sound.
In this place, where I should’ve been alone, someone other than me made a sound.
Without turning my head, I looked towards where the sound originated from, and saw an unknown girl.
Her pale blue hair like the sea seemed unreal in its color, and her eyes were also a marine blue. She was wearing simple, white clothes, and her skin was fine and white like fresh snow. Her face was amazingly well formed.
......I don’t know this face.
At the very least, she wasn’t a member of my army, whom I allowed up here on the highest floor.
Who is she? Why is she here? “—Mistress Lufas! You’re Mistress Lufas Maphaahl, aren’t you?!” The unknown girl shouted and ran over to me, before gripping my hand.
She looked truly happy from her face to her smile, and I got that she was celebrating my return.
But sadly, I didn’t know her.
“You...... Who are you?”
“S-So mean! Did you forget me?! I’m your loyal advisor, Dina! For these two hundred long years, I’ve always, always been waiting for your return here, you know?!”
Dina? Advisor? What is this girl talking about? I had members of my army who acted as advisors, but none of them went by the name Dina, and I didn’t have an actual advisor. Least of all a girl named Dina......
—......
—No, there was.
Right, I remember now.
Back when I first made our base, I placed a lot of objects around to decorate the place, and I think one of those was a girl NPC.
That’s right, characters were included in the objects you could place around your base. They just walked around randomly and had no meaning and were complete background characters, but I definitely placed one here.