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 have 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.
What if this is real? The thought was ludicrous, but another thought struck her immediately. Oh, hell! I should have tried that first.
There was one absolutely certain way to prove this was just a game. She could log out and just quit the game.
She tried to flip to the system tab but…she couldn’t do it. The entire system menu had disappeared. Even giving the force-quit command to force the VR set to reboot wasn’t working.
Evidence was growing that she was inside some sort of alternate reality. That just led her to question if this was the same AEO world that she knew and loved.
“Sir, have you heard of a man by the name Danblf?” she asked with trepidation.
“Well, of course! I reckon everyone in the kingdom knows about Master Danblf,” Graia answered with a note of pride. He looked around to his men, seeking agreement, and they all nodded as if it was the easiest question they’d ever answered.
“I see. So he is known to you. Good.” But had this Danblf been Kagami’s character, or just some historical figure with the same name? “And what sort of person was Danblf?”
“What sort of person?” Graia cocked his head to the side. “Well, obviously, he was known to all throughout the kingdom. Master Danblf was associated with the Age of Strife almost thirty years ago—a true hero of the nation. Known as Danblf the One-Man Army, other countries trembled before his summoning powers. He was also one of the Elders of the Linked Silver Towers.”
He said it so matter-of-factly, and it fell perfectly in line with her memories, even down to the hokey nickname.
“Hmm… A hero, you say.”
“Indeed! In the war that followed our nation’s founding, he held off an entire enemy army, it’s said! The Elders formed their own unit and led a daring assault that plunged the enemy camp into confusion and chaos. I’ve also heard that he created refining techniques that few users can master even today. And he wielded the strongest of the immortal Sage arts! The tales of the Wise Men are legendary.”
All this fit perfectly with her own history—the tales of war, her Dual Class of Sage, even the refining techniques. Folk tales of herself, or of Danblf, were clearly being passed down.
“Hrmmm, I see. And what of Danblf’s final moments?” Her decisions from this point forward hinged on the answer to a single question.
“Final moments? Huh. I don’t think I ever heard about him dying, actually… If I recall correctly, he ventured out to the border to take care of a monster incursion about thirty years ago and was never seen again. There was no way Master Danblf would have fallen to a rabble like that, so a manhunt was held throughout the kingdom. He was never found.”
“I see. As I thought.”
The missing link had been found. She was now convinced that this was somehow the same world, just thirty years in the future. She wasn’t sure how the game had become reality, but she forced herself to calm down and stop worrying.
The pressing matter of the moment was whether or not to claim that she was Danblf. The name was famous across the land. He was known for his elegant, dignified appearance; for his battle prowess and summoning powers; and for being an Elder of the Linked Silver Towers.
And that legendary hero was now…an adorable young lady.
If a woman suddenly appeared claiming to be a male hero who disappeared thirty years ago, no one would take her seriously without a lengthy explanation. Even if she tried to convince people she was telling the truth they’d just ask for an explanation. And there was no way she could just admit she was fooling around with a Vanity Case to create the ideal female form. It would be certain career suicide for Danblf’s public persona to admit to something like that.
Just imagining the looks she’d get when she regained her former form made her break into a cold sweat. This was a scandal of immeasurable proportion.
Her only option was deception. If Graia and his fellow knights couldn’t use the Inspect function, then she had a leg up already. Decision made, and with no one else the wiser, she grinned to herself.
“Well, then, as to the question of my name. I am…Mira.” That alias seemed as good as any—a little white lie for the sake of protecting her honor. “Naturally, you wouldn’t have heard of me yet, as I’m new around here.”
As she spoke, her hand went to her chin to stroke Danblf’s beard, but all she felt was the uncanny smoothness of her porcelain skin.