The clouds passed overhead as the sun moved across the sky. For many long minutes, maybe even half an hour, Nacht held Aisha close, taking in every inch of the body she hadn’t seen in so long like she was trying to make up for what she’d missed. Then, finally satisfied, she released Aisha from her arms. Aisha had tried to break free several times, but Nacht had refused to let her go until now. Aisha stood panting, her shoulders heaving.
Nacht, of course, had merely been investigating Aisha’s body to make sure that nothing was out of the ordinary. She didn’t trust Levi for a second, and needed to look with her own eyes to make sure the devil hadn’t done something untoward to her beloved servant. It was her duty as the girl’s mistress, after all.
“Well, it looks like you’re in one piece,” Nacht said. “What do you say? Ready to put an end to this ridiculous dream?”
“Haah... Haah...” Aisha struggled to breathe. “M-Mistress...” she said, looking up apologetically. “May I ask a favor?”
“If there’s anything you want—” Nacht began, but Aisha cut her off.
“I-I’m sorry!” she said. “I know it’s not my place! But—”
Nacht held up a hand, stopping her. “That’s not true,” she said. “That’s not true at all! Listen, Aisha...” Nacht could no longer contain the emotions welling up in her chest. She beamed delightedly. “I love doing things for you! You should ask me for more favors! More and more and more and more! I want you to come to me! I want to spoil you! I’m not going to refuse to grant you a favor!” Nacht’s words brooked no argument. They were absolute. “So tell me! What’s this favor you want?”
“There’s someone I want to save...” Aisha began.
Nacht listened to Aisha’s story, about both the pain her friend was in and the determined battle she was fighting. “She reached out to me when I was hurting,” Aisha said. “This time, I want to be the one to reach out to her.”
Nacht smiled. It was a cheerful smile, like old times. “This dream’s coming to an end,” she said. “That much is settled. And when it does, that girl will lose her reason to live. Solitude is hard to resist and painful to live in, so you go show her how lucky she is to have you as a friend. Beat it into her skull if you gotta. Make her realize how important the bonds between living people are.” Nacht had nothing but respect for Aisha’s decision. She decided to do everything she could to encourage her.
“I don’t know if I can be as confident about that as you...” Aisha said. “But I’ll do my best!” Aisha’s quiet voice was full of determination.
~ ‡ ~
The two moons shone in the darkness, casting their red and blue hues over the land. The night was still. Too still, it felt, even for death. The peerlessly elegant and sturdy frame of Estoll Castle, with its drawbridge and towering gate of enchanted steel, stood in the very center of the night-wrapped capital city. Nacht flew over the gate, past a number of spires and fortress walls, and alighted upon the king’s inner palace. Immediately, the center of reality seemed to shift. The grand, magnificent castle, which seemed like an embodiment of nobility itself, became nothing more than a backdrop. It was as if only Nacht herself was illuminated by the light of the moons—as if the whole universe orbited around her.
Estoll had prepared countermeasures against flight magic, but had less security against someone like Nacht, who flew on actual wings. She laughed as she dodged past a few antiair traps, avoiding the line of sight of the guards on patrol and slipping into the palace.
Nacht cast her eyes over the hallways, which were lined with soft carpet. She smirked to herself. This was far too easy. Back in the game, invading someone’s home was no laughing matter. Magic traps that could detect intruders were common, as were poison needles launchers hidden in room decorations. Nacht felt a bit foolish for having been so on guard. It had seemed possible that invading this place would have put her in real danger, but Nacht could sense nothing worthy of giving her pause.
“This place seems kinda shabby for being their home base,” Nacht said frankly. She had been worried about the possibility that she would be stepping into a guildhall from Real World Online, in which case infiltrating it on her lonesome would be an impossible task. Alarms would sound, automatically detecting the presence of an intruder, and she would be left to face a tidal wave of guards. Instead, she saw only a scattering of stern-looking armed guards. Nothing she couldn’t handle.
Nacht sent the dutiful guards on a little trip to dreamland as she walked past, heading deeper into the palace. Soon, she reached her destination: a particularly conspicuous grand doorway, gray and imposing, that led to the royal audience chamber. She placed her hands on the heavy doors and pushed gently. Despite her slender arms, Nacht was a character who had nearly reached the level cap. Her basic abilities were more than enough to force the door ajar with ease, and it gently swung open. It was dark inside. Nacht stepped forward, toward the faint light she saw deep within the room.
The floor in the audience chamber was made of polished stone tiles, decorated with a rose-patterned carpet and lined with circular pillars to complete the effect. The room had an unsettling atmosphere that grew stronger with every step Nacht took into it. There was a low staircase leading up an elevated platform on which stood the empty throne, decorated with gold. Above it was the crest of Estoll, a golden lion. It was quite the lavish room. Just seeing it with her own eyes was worth the trip. Nacht, however, had other plans.
The ornate chandelier overhead glowed dimly, illuminating the dark room and masking another light source—a floating orb. It was concealed under a cloth decorated with the crest of Estoll and hidden from sight with high-level illusion magic, but Nacht’s Dragon Eyes spotted it easily. The glowing orb itself was a truly fantastic sight, its colors shifting like an aurora, but what truly drew Nacht’s attention were the images reflected within the orb. Beneath its brilliant surface flashed images of worlds that once were, now vanished beneath the sands of time.
Nacht saw the hidden realm where the dragons lived. She saw an ancient castle where the dead wandered to and fro. She saw a mechanical city where dolls and humans lived side by side. She saw an ancient magic kingdom, and a city of alchemy built in a barren desert. She saw a city in the sky, a pirate fleet on the great sea, and the ruins of a civilization swallowed by the waves. She saw the entrance to a cave buried beneath deep snow drifts. She saw the peak of a sacred mountain inhabited by giants. She saw a world above the skies and the angels that lived there, and she saw devils falling into the bowels of hell. She saw a secluded garden, hidden from the outside world, and a tower that marked the time in solitude. She saw a great fortress city—the first. And then, finally, for just a fleeting second, she saw a castle, shining with colorless light.
A melancholy smile crossed Nacht’s face. “Hah...” she said. “I wonder whose memories these are. There’s something nostalgic about them.” Then, she gathered her mana into her hand and dispelled the illusion. She reached out toward the orb that had shown her all those visions. It had been a long time since she had seen such a thing.
Suddenly, there was a harsh sound unlike anything Nacht had heard since coming to this world. A ball of blue light, like a comet, came hurtling at her at supersonic speed. Nacht glanced in its direction and wondered idly for a moment if she should dodge or deflect the attack before swatting it away with her own dark mana.
“That belongs to my papa, you know. No touching, please,” said a voice. It sounded young, but it was full of quiet menace. The short figure staring at Nacht from the shadow of one of the pillars, too, looked for all the world like a very young girl. Her big, round eyes glistened with a dim light. Her hair was a brilliant, eye-catching scarlet, and nearly as long as the girl was tall. Her presence, however, was far greater than her childlike body would suggest. Her keen killing instinct couldn’t possibly have belonged to a child. It was enough to take a mortal’s breath away—close in its terror to death itself. This girl was something far, far beyond human. She might have been the strongest, or second-strongest entity Nacht had met since coming to this world. She was certainly more powerful than the fire dragon. She was at least on the same level as Alhazred the storm dragon, if not even higher.
And yet, her terrible presence was not nearly enough to intimidate Nacht. Nacht turned slowly to look down at the girl and sighed loudly. “What’s this?” she said. “A lost child?”
“No, I’m not!” the girl snapped. “I’m not a little kid! Don’t treat me like one!”
“Hey there, little girl,” Nacht teased. “Would you tell me your name? Do you know where your mother is?”
“I said, cut it out!” the girl shouted. “I’m an adult!” Despite her objections, she sounded every bit like a child throwing a tantrum. Nacht laughed.
The girl was wearing a deep blue cape over a dark combat outfit that exposed a fair bit of skin and had a crimson brooch around her neck. Nacht recognized both as Legendary-tier equipment, but what really drew her attention was what the girl was holding. “Is that a Black Cross?” Nacht asked. “That’s quite the dangerous toy for a child.”
There was no mistaking it. The Black Cross was an Ancient-tier double-gun-class weapon, but it was hardly a rare item. It was reliably craftable in-game, after all. Nacht had seen it many times before. Still, it was a high-tier item with power far eclipsing an ordinary weapon, meaning that the girl also had the stats required to wield it. If she landed a solid shot, it could potentially inflict a serious wound, even on Nacht.
“Who are you, anyway?” the girl asked. “How do you know the name of the weapon papa gave me? It’s obvious you’re no ordinary person. You spotted me despite my Fairy Stealth ability and deflected my attack like it was nothing. How did you do that?”
“The name’s Nacht,” Nacht said. “But you can go ahead and call me your bestie, I guess?” The answer to the girl’s second question was simple enough. Her stealth was simply no match for Nacht’s Soul Search ability. She’d had plenty of warning that the girl was about to attack.
“I’m Erin Ayren Scarlet. You can call me big sis.” Erin floated up into the air, gazing down at Nacht.