I opened my eyes. What I saw was neither the inside of a hospital room nor the pearly gates of heaven. In front of me, behind me, and all around me was a dense forest. I looked down. I wasn’t lying on the ground anymore; my body was resting atop a huge blue flower with white spots. After a bit of rolling, I was able to slide out of it, and discovered that my feet were completely bare.
Wait, were those my feet? I couldn’t believe how tiny they were. Like the feet of a small child. My hands too. Tiny baby hands. My chest—well, no problems there. In fact, wasn’t I actually a little bigger there? At least proportionally. Compared to the rest of me, I had to say I was pretty stacked.
Am I wearing a dress? It looks familiar. I can hear water.
I walked toward the sound of flowing water, and sure enough, there was a fairly substantial river there. As I drew closer, I discovered that this part of the river was relatively calm. In fact I could almost make out my reflection.
Huh?
Pointy ears? Light purple hair. Adorably plump cheeks. The person staring back at me through the rippling water wasn’t Lucia Morales. The surface of the water reflected the distorted image of Lilac Grimwood.
Now my chibi proportions made sense. Wait, how did any of this make sense? The last thing I remembered, I was lying in the front yard dying, and now I was here in a random forest with the body of the adorable character I created in Questonicia. That really was a generic title, wasn’t it? The developers got all kinds of flak online for being lazy. Personally, as long as they kept making cute things for me to buy, I didn’t complain.
I supposed it was pointless to wonder about the hows and whys. There was nobody around to confirm whatever baseless theories I came up with, after all. I sat by the edge of the river in stunned silence for a few moments, and then I stood up to take a better look at myself.
I was wearing a light purple dress that matched my hair perfectly. It was totally normal for Sprigians to walk around barefoot. In fact, at first there had been no shoes available for them at all. The developers had claimed that it wasn’t a mistake or a technical limitation, but rather for lore reasons: Sprigians maintained the balance of the world, and being barefoot allowed them to connect to the land. Eventually, they did release footwear for Sprigians, but if you looked closely (and trust me, I did), none of them had soles. In other words, all the Sprigian footwear only covered the top part of the foot so that their bare soles could still come in contact with the ground. The dress I found myself wearing now was one without any footwear that matched it well, so Lilac always went barefoot when wearing it.
On my left wrist was Lilac’s ever-present accessory, “Fairy’s Storage Bracelet,” which allowed me to access my home inventory from anywhere. Without this essential item, players could only change equipment at home, and they couldn’t carry much without a magic bag of some kind. This bracelet was actually fairly difficult to obtain, but my brothers had helped me complete all of the quests for it. In a way, it was a precious symbol of their love for me. Equipped to the same hand, on the middle finger, was a ring called “Fairy’s Homecoming Band” that allowed the wearer to return to their home point any time they wished. This was another rare item, one that’d cost me a lot of real-world money. In a way, it was a cherished symbol of my love for little Lilac.
Oh Lilac, with this ring, I promised to love you forever and never abandon you, but then I had to get hit by a stray bullet from some dumb neighborhood turf war. Life is cruel... No, life without cuteness is cruel. A little bit of adorable goes a long way. When you’re armed with the unbeatable power of lovable charm, even the cruelest world can feel like heaven!
...Oh yeah, I’m supposed to be checking out my gear.
No bracelet on the right wrist, but on the right middle finger was...a ring I didn’t recognize? I didn’t remember ever giving this to Lilac. It didn’t look like any drop we ever found either.
I tried to visualize my status screen, but nothing happened.
I should still be able to check my inventory, right?
With that thought, I could suddenly see every item in Lilac’s extensive collection in my mind’s eye. Right away, another unfamiliar item caught my attention. I withdrew it immediately. Outwardly, the object that materialized in my tiny hands was undoubtedly a tablet. It was similar to the one I’d bought to play the game—I mean, for school. The one I’d happened to have installed and played the game on because the screen was bigger than my phone. It had a light purple case, complete with a little flap to cover the screen. The border was adorned with a green and white floral pattern. On top of the other features...it was cute. There was no switch to turn it on or off, but when I touched the screen, it flickered to life. The start-up screen said “Fairy Sovereign’s Tablet” in the most adorable font, in white letters on a lavender background. Almost immediately, it showed me a screen that looked practically identical to the user interface on my old tablet. I went to check my equipment right away.
The unknown ring was called “Ring of the Fairy Sovereign,” and, according to the description, it served as proof of being fairy royalty.
“Huh?”
I couldn’t help but say it out loud.
Wait, is that Lilac’s voice? It’s adorable. She sounds so cute. I’m gonna read the ring’s effects aloud, just so I can hear more of that charming sound.
“Let’s see. Grants the skills Ruler’s Blessing, Gate to the Unseen Realm, and Heir of Balance. In addition, increases all status values by one thousand percent. HUH?! Isn’t that really good?!”
Come to think of it, I had noticed some major bonuses to my stats. Could those numbers even get that high in-game? I was far too casual a player to know for sure.
“Hmmm, no matter where I look, there doesn’t seem to be a battery gauge on this thing. Does it last forever, then? Maybe it runs on magic or something. Well, I’m not about to question it. If it works, great! Now then, let’s check everything out and see if there are any other surprises.”
I spent over an hour poring over my status screen and inventory list. Inside my inventory, there were plenty of adorable dresses and fashion accessories, various weapons—mostly for my healer class—and a ton of single use items, but nothing else that hadn’t been there before. That was when I decided to check into the new skills the Ring of the Fairy Sovereign gave me. By highlighting an item on my screen, I could click the help icon to get more information about it. Despite the amount of time I’d spent playing over the years, I still used it a lot—sometimes the help screen even revealed hidden lore about an item.