Since the majority wanted to leave right after eating, the group soon said their goodbyes.
Xi Yang stuck around the longest, accompanying Jian Lin until everyone else had left. The other man clearly didn’t want to leave, taking half a step forward and glancing back with disappointment until he was out of the door. Even in reality, he was so similar to a wolf or dog.
It was rather adorable.
Jian Lin stayed until everyone was gone, then retreated into the backroom where his grandfather was, playing around on his phone to a cup of wine.
“Grandpa.”
The old man looked up from his book and grinned. “You look exhausted. Did you have a bit of fun?”
“Mn”, Jian Lin hummed quietly. He felt tired – mentally. He didn’t feel the need to repeat this soon, but at the start – when it hadn’t been everyone – he had quite enjoyed the mood. Maybe just meeting Xi Yang again would be nice.
“I’m proud of you”, Grandfather Jian said, slowly and loudly.
Jian Lin’s lips trembled a bit.
The old man knew what was best for his grandson. He busied himself, packing up and making sure that Jian Lin wouldn’t feel watched. He didn’t talk much, either. “Let’s get you home for some rest.”
The drive back was quiet, with only the radio playing. Jian Lin listened with his eyes closed, suddenly feeling really warm inside.
Who knew what kind of state he’d be in if his family didn’t support him like this.
Jian Lin went to bed early that day.
It was surprisingly boring to not be accompanied by Haven, even though Xi Yang contacted him all the time to play other games together. It wasn’t quite the same – like being out of your hometown. Xi Yun often joined them for games, showcasing a much higher level of skill than in Haven, which made things more interesting.
In the end though, he too complained about missing that second world of theirs.
At least the end of the waiting period was nearing.
With nothing much else to do, Jian Lin opened Haven’s homepage. He pressed his finger against the scanner on his keyboard, thus allowing himself to log into his account. There wasn’t too much you could do out of game – it was only forum access, an overview of your current data, your map and quest log.
Jian Lin opened up the map and marked a couple of things by hand. He didn’t have a map of the castle – the minimap would not go into such detail – but he could draw a rough sketch for himself.
Thoughtful, Jian Lin opened up the description of his title again.
【The Ice Emperor lives inside his frozen castle, looking at the world through tired eyes. With only the stars to accompany him, the Ice Emperor is the second-most loneliest person.】
The castle owner was not alone, as he had originally assumed. There were a lot of people around him, but then again, loneliness did not equal being alone. It just meant that despite there being people around, the castle owner still did not feel like there was someone at his side.
Jian Lin moved to open his quest log.
The castle owner was the true Ice Emperor. Then was Tiamat the miserable one? He had thought it was weird that the description did not say “person”.
【Quest – Misery
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
Someone is asking for your help.
Tbe, ktb tjnf cba xliifv klatbea gfjrbc jcv vb cba ufa jggbujca vef ab sbeg rajaer, tjr mjeuta rbwfbcf’r fsf. Ktfs cffv sbeg tfiq.
Olwlafv defra (Jjccba yf rtjgfv vlgfmais)
Gegjalbc: Fcilwlafv
Efkjgv: C wlrfgjyif bcf’r ojnbg
Mjliegf: ???】
Aljc Olc gfjv atgbeut la jujlc, tewwlcu atbeutaoeiis. Aera jr tf kjr jybea ab mibrf atf ibu, tf ogbhf.
Something.
Something, something.
Something was…
Off.
He looked over it once. Twice. Thrice. Every word, every phrase. What had changed? What was different?
After the fourth time, he noticed it.
Not in the description. Not there at all. Not even actually the title.
Quest.
That’s what it said.
Quest.
Not World quest, or Side quest or Main quest.
No, it just said Quest.
A thing that didn’t exist.
Before he realized it, he was dialling Zhang Ziyi’s number.
“Good afternoon! It’s a bit unusual for you to call me. Is there a problem?”
“I think I found a bug.”
“We love bug reports! … Okay, not really, bugs are troublesome. But better they’re reported. Can you describe what happened and what you- …Ah, you can’t be inside the game, so there aren’t any reproduction steps, are there…”
Zhang Ziyi mumbled to herself for a while. Jian Lin waited for her to calm down before he spoke up.
“I have a quest in my log. I think it might have been given to me by Tiamat? It fits the setting, but it’s not a main or side quest. It just says quest. It might be because it’s just the homepage but this has never happened before, so-”
“That’s odd alright! We don’t have a separate key just saying quest-” She stopped herself. “Uhm, I won’t bore you with that. Let me see…”
As Jian Lin’s manager, she had a viewing right to his account. Jian Lin could hear her typing away on the keyboard.
“That’s… very odd. What was it before?”
“A world quest.”
“A personal world quest?! I don’t think that’s allowed. It might be that there was some hiccup in the system and a quest got revealed before it should… I’ll ask someone if I can get some info about it.”
Minutes passed. The young man listened to her wander around, talking to people. After some time, a number of confused voices had joined the group walking around, trying to find out what had happened there.
Finally, Zhang Ziyi returned to the phone. “We don’t have the access rights to more details, but here’s what I know: The quest giver is indeed Tiamat. The quest also has the markings of a world quest, as in, there doesn’t seem to be a fixed way to complete it and the range of its effect is large… But I can’t see any parts, which means this would be a one-part world quest, moreover a personal one… I contacted one of the higher-ups, but they just said that it’s okay the way it is. They said that the newest update is going to bring a lot of changes, so we should just wait and see.”
She sounded jittery. Even in the company, not every employee had all the information about Haven. Some insider-info spread for sure, but most were as clueless as the common player. Information about Haven was sought after and well paid for, which was why they were likely protecting themselves by keeping quiet. If they had given this hint out, then they were fine with people knowing something was up.
Zhang Ziyi was watching the plot as excitedly as everyone else.
“But who designed this?”, Jian Lin whispered uncomfortably. “Who decided to give me a personal quest?”
“Tiamat, I guess?” Zhang Ziyi laughed sheepishly. “So, one of the programmers has a theory. NPCs can give out personal main quests, right? It might be that that’s what Tiamat did, but because her every movement is so… impactful, the game automatically set it as a world quest. Now that might have been corrected, but because the quest is too big for a main quest, it got stuck on just quest. Maybe?”
Does the game’s independence reach that far?
Jian Lin shivered involuntarily. From one second to the next, the thought of AIs turned much creepier. Since the NPCs were so lifelike, he mostly treated them as real people, but…
Thinking about it, it was quite scary that a bunch of zeros and ones were able to imitate human thinking to that level.
“I see”, he forced out, pulling his knees up to his chest. “Thank you for asking around.”
“No, I have to thank you. This could have been a bug, after all. Ah – now that we’re talking anyway, I might as well tell you that the capsules are almost ready. They’ll start shipping tomorrow and in two to three days, everyone should have them, which means Haven should open up again on Saturday.”
Hearing that, the young man sat up straight, soft brown eyes shining with excitement. Funnily enough, neither his face nor his voice revealed the emotion. “Okay.”
“Ah, will you tell Bloody too, please? In that case we won’t call him. I think he’d prefer talking to you”, Zhang Ziyi commented with a certain undertone that Jian Lin did not know how to place.
He agreed and hung up before calling Xi Yang. As expected, the other was overjoyed at hearing that he could return to the game soon.
“It’s so weird. It’s supposed to be just a game but… I guess it’s the AIs? It feels like an actual world. It’s like being transmigrated into another world.” He chuckled. “Like those novels. Hey, what are you going to do if Haven ends up being some parallel universe?”
“That would be-” Jian Lin paused and deliberated for a moment. “Scary.”
“Riiight, you did say the castle owner looks like you. That would be pretty scary.”
Jian Lin nodded even if Xi Yang couldn’t see him.
“Well, it also wouldn’t suit the usual plot. Usually the people there fight against some final boss or keep a demon plague away, but we… we just exist in the game. Sure, we fight, but I wouldn’t say the kingdom can’t manage on its own. I wouldn’t see a reason for us to be sent over.”
The blonde man didn’t have the slightest idea what his friend was talking about. He had never read that type of novels, so he didn’t know the tropes.
“On that note – there was something I’ve been wondering… Ah, don’t make fun of me, I was really bored these days. I had nothing to do. Anyway, we don’t know if there’s like, some overarching story to Haven, right? But have you thought about the title? Why is it called Haven? Because the only actual haven we know is the place where the newbies start, and if it’s a metaphorical haven, who is it for? For us? For the players? It’s not like there’s a place in the game that’s called Haven.”
Indeed – neither a city nor the kingdom was called Haven. The human kingdom was called Solstice, the same last name that the royal family had taken. The other areas were wildlands – while elves and dwarves gave names to their cities, they tended not to set borders. Each city was its own little kingdom, in a way, and they didn’t interfere with each other. So far, there wasn’t a single dwarf or elven leader.
Or maybe there was, and they simply hadn’t unlocked the storyline yet.
Either way, it was indeed a bit confusing that the game was called Haven when there didn’t seem to be a larger reason for it.
“Maybe it’s the continent’s name?”
“Eh, who knows… I’m really just bored. When we get back, we gotta talk to the prince right away, then get back up the mountain and-” Xi Yang began to walk up and down the room, talking away. “Aaaah! I wanna go back already! I mean, the other capsule MMORPGs aren’t bad, but-”
The era of the capsules began with the full-dive RPGs and evolved with MMORPGs.
With how many people in the country played games, Haven’s playercount was insane, but if you looked at the percentage, it wasn’t overwhelming. More than enough people did not play Haven – because they didn’t have a capsule or didn’t like the game.
It was understandable. Haven had a unique approach, for sure.
Not everyone could accept how single-mindedly the company insisted on keeping the game’s rules the way they were.
Other games ensured more fairness, especially in terms of character development and classes. While the character was loosely based on the player’s actual looks, there was a large margin in how much you could change your appearance. Additionally, everyone got the same basic body type; the game ensured that everyone started out with roughly the same amount of strength, agility and everything else.
The job-classes were well balanced, with everything having carefully placed advantages and disadvantages.
It felt fair – and like a game.
Which was exactly what Haven did not want. It officially announced itself as giving people the opportunity for a second life in another, fake world, which meant that basic equality was impossible.
Those that did not like it left… but most people stayed, too tempted by the surprising level of realism Haven offered.
“I didn’t even like Haven that much at first. Then, in the newbie village, I brought back a couple of mountain flowers for the little daughter of a quest giver. She was so happy that her mother actually gave me a larger reward. I think that was when I was caught.”
“It’s nice”, Jian Lin agreed, closing his eyes. Any kindness, any cruelty, any politeness and disregard – everything would be repaid. Not always in kind, but it did have an effect.
“Soon!”
Xi Yang laughed happily. Jian Lin listened to the sound, feeling himself relax.
Author’s Note
Next chapter is a little extra that I’ll just throw into the middle. I felt it’d be good to see things from Bloody’s perspective for once.
I gotta say, I’m having fun throwing all the confusion into the mix. A bit more guess-work for everyone.
Little Theater
Zhang Ziyi: “I ship you two. Two cinnabuns together.”
Bloody: “I… appreciate that?”
Xi Yang looking back…indeed adorable!! 🥺🥺🥺🥺
AI sentience is indeed scary….makes me think of all those trapped-in-a-game stories….
Say what? Getting isekai’d without meeting the real life endboss truck-kun? Bloody, that isn’t nice D: (But okay, you are talking about novels, there they like to use the “read a novel and get sucked in” trope xDD)
Haha, Bloody. I can see the tail wagging behind you xD Soon you will see Ice again. (Or just knock next door hihi~). But what he thought about (Haven) is kinda interesting and I guess you have enough for us in store, eh Owl-sama? >3
Thx for the ch ٩( >ヮ<)۶
sips tea Well, I personally like my conclusion the everything a lot. Let’s see what you all think, mmmh?
Also, Almighty Truck-sama has yet to grace any of my novels. One day, I have to invite them over for a visit….
thanks for the chapter <3
Thank you for the chapter!