Death in this world carries a great deal less fear with it than death on Earth. Could something even be called "death" without permanence? These thoughts were racing through Lucia's mind as a veil of darkness obscured her vision. Though she was disappointed over losing to Alfarr, she was much more worried about Marie. The young girl had left an impression on her, and she genuinely felt frustrated by her inability to save her.

  Fortunately, Lucia was not given much time to spiral into a sea of her own thoughts. Instead, this world confronted her with yet another otherworldly ndscape: a floating city amidst the clouds in the sky. The purple-haired girl stood atop a rge stone altar on the isnd's outskirts. From here, a vast sea of clouds surrounding the isnd could be viewed easily. For miles, clouds below and above filled the distance. However, a petite red-haired Umbral interrupted Lucia's trance-like state that the scenery had induced.

  "I can't believe you lost! Well, I guess I didn't even see who our enemy was, but you get the idea. You’re level 31 and should have been able to pummel him! Or rather level 30 now…"

  True to Sirius’s warning, death resulted in the forfeit of experience points.

  “Hey Lucia, you there? I’m supposed to be the sleepy one! We have to go save that girl, remember? We need to get back to Pristine Greenwood and-”

  "I don't have the skill to beat him right now, even with my over-leveled character."

  “Yeah, but…”

  "I'm almost positive that I am capable of beating him with a little work. I just need to understand the battle mechanics of this game a bit better. I don't know how magic or really anything else works here, so I think we should wait to go back."

  Theresia pouted at her request being denied, but she was not alone in feeling beaten down. Lucia truly wanted to resume the search the moment she respawned, but she knew that Alfarr was not a foe they could beat at the moment. Looking back on her battle with Sirius, it was clear to Lucia that she was not using her full power. Sirius was about 20 levels lower than her, yet he had almost bested her in a one-on-one fight. The duel between the two should not have been as close as it was.

  “Plus, I don’t even know where I am right now.”

  Before Lucia could open her map to check her current location, Theresia expined their current location.

  "Wow, you really weren't lying about losing all of your memories of FOO. This is Valeria, the capital of the Vel Empire. Any pyer in this area has likely seen it at least once."

  “Oh, so this is Valeria.”

  With starstruck eyes, Lucia gazed upon the city in the distance. Sirius had failed to mention Valeria's airborne nature, although it was like him to leave out key information. He also failed to mention the city's size. Since the respawn altar looked out over the isnd's edge, turning around revealed the city with miles of fantastical architecture. The sky was also littered with smaller miniature floating isnds, which raised a question in Lucia's mind. How did Gaian Ferefolk even build this city, and wouldn't the city's floating nature be more of an obstacle to them than a boon?

  She couldn't tell whether these ponderings resulted from overthinking video game logic or were legitimate questions. Still, these thoughts provided a distraction from the awkward silence created by a pseudo-shut-in and a sleepyhead; the two had been walking for some time with sparse conversation as the path to the city was of considerable length.

  Lucia had sketched out a rough pn while marching forward in the silence. First, they would search for allies to aid in the rescue mission, and then Lucia would have some sort of training session to better learn the game's combat system. This meant that the destination of their long walk was none other than the Valerian Guild Hall.

  When they eventually reached the city, the two were kindly greeted by two guards who seemed to be more invested in a card game they were pying than actually "guarding." As such, Lucia and Theresia were able to pass with little issue.

  The inside of the city was as breathtaking as the outside, especially the restaurants with balconies high in the air that overlooked the walkways and streets. Lucia could feel the urge to dine at one swelling up inside her as she passed by. Fitting for a city in the sky, Valeria’s architecture consisted of towering buildings and skybridges connecting them. Yet, the city did not feel overcrowded either; sprinkled about were small grassy areas providing a rexing pce to read or have a snack.

  Luckily, the scenery distracted Lucia from her worries on the entire journey to the Guild Hall. Immediately upon their arrival, Lucia walked up to the desk and asked the receptionist for advice while Theresia scoured the whole pce for potential party members.

  The Ferefolk receptionist Lucia was conversing with didn't have much information on combat or forming parties; instead, they were more focused on guild-oriented pursuits, a concept Lucia had no present interest in. Just when Lucia was about to turn around to inquire into Theresia's search, a voice called out to her.

  “Lucia, I found two people who are willing to help!”

  Three people approached: the first was a silver armored knightess with long blonde hair, the second was a bck-haired male sporting red highlights, and the third was Theresia. The two newcomers were also Gaians, as they cked the other races' more fantastical features.

  "My name is Magnus Schwarz, and this is my younger sister, Ceres Schwarz. Our csses are Summoner and Holy Lancer, respectively. We've heard what happened to your friend and we would love to beat this "Alfarr" guy to a pulp!"

  Magnus got straight to the point with the introductions of him and his sister. Lucia still had questions about their motivations, but she was in no position to pry or turn them down.

  Maybe listening to Theresia just got them fired up or something.

  Lucia briefed the two siblings on their current situation with no hesitancy. She recounted both the current and previous day to them, then confessed her ck of game knowledge and amnesia. Magnus and Ceres were both very understanding of the situation and offered to train Lucia on the journey back to Pristine Greenwood, an offer she graciously accepted.

  After the briefing, Magnus caught Lucia off guard with some prying of his own. Magnus was gathering information on the teleportation incident by investigating any unique situation he could find. He further delved into Lucia's experiences over the past few days, especially the events before her arrival into this world. Naturally, this meant that Alice and some other aspects of Lucia's past were revealed to the entire group. Despite her fears, they all reacted quite nicely to her status as a half shut-in.

  Just when Magnus seemed somewhat satisfied and the group was ready to take off, he sat everybody back down and began ying out a "theory."

  "There is something me and Ceres should confess to you two: I have memories of Ceres existing in the real world three days back. This shouldn't be possible, as she first teleported here four days ago."

  The gears in Lucia's mind began turning. What exactly did this mean? Before she could come to any conclusions, Magnus eborated.

  "It is very likely that we still exist back in our world and that our current selves are simply copies."

  Suddenly, the gears in Lucia's head stopped cnking and a pit of anxiety formed in her stomach. Alice may not even recognize that "she" had been whisked away. It was likely that at this very moment, a different version of herself, Quinn, nonchantly went about his business on Earth. For some reason, this thought scared her, and it scared her deeply. In these moments, Alice had always told her that distractions were the best remedy, so Lucia looked over to Magnus's sister.

  Ceres had stayed completely silent throughout all of this talking and simply nodded along when it was appropriate. She left all of the talking to her brother, who, in all fairness, introduced both of them kindly. It seemed she was a little shy, or maybe just not very talkative.

  Could she be a full shut-in?

  Lucia felt she might have found somewhat of a kindred spirit, but she was too shy to ask about Ceres's past. The silence was exceedingly awkward at this point, so Lucia spoke up.

  "I honestly don't know how to respond to that. It's a little shocking…"

  Magnus did share one thing that alleviated some of Lucia's anxiety, though.

  "Forgetting the events that led up to your teleportation is rather common—everyone I've spoken to has no recollection of the hours before their transportation. However, there is one difference between you and others: You likely only pyed this game for an hour or two before you were teleported. As a result, your lost memories included all your knowledge of FOO's mechanics. Also, I'm almost certain you were pying on Alice's character, as no pyer could achieve level 31 in a few hours of py."

  Lucia was likely a character belonging to Alice, meaning that this avatar almost served as a memento of her. In some ways, Lucia began to feel connected to Alice through her very body. This piece of knowledge granted her a tiny sliver of respite in this world of unknowns. On top of this, the mystery behind her ck of knowledge was suddenly solved.

  As the newly formed party finished their conversation, the sun began to set over the floating isnd in the sky, and so Lucia made the executive decision to wait until morning to set off. They decided to rest at a nearby inn, and they were all able to sleep comfortably despite their current predicament.

  ???

  Lucia was second st to rouse in the morning, with only Theresia sleeping ter than her. After a retively brief breakfast, the group glided from Valeria to the surface of the Vel Empire. A modest fog covered the world's surface as Vel had experienced a brief rain the night prior; this ck of visibility required Fairies to fly at higher altitudes. Thus, the party flew high above the valleys and trees that dotted the ndscape, at a height much greater than any of them were used to.

  This also altered the group's method of travel in a different manner: Since the distance between them and the surface was more significant, they began descending sooner than usual to avoid a sudden fall from the air. It was a retively tedious side effect created by the fog enveloping the area.

  On their first visit to the ground, Lucia’s training commenced. Magnus offered to show her the ropes of the game’s combat even though he considered himself to be less knowledgeable than Ceres, a decision no doubt made because of Ceres’s peculiar desire to remain silent.

  Magnus first touched on skills, a standard feature in many RPGs and MMORPGs. After Magnus showed Lucia how to open the skill menu, he described the methods behind using said skills. Most of them were activated by thinking of the skill's name, then the required MP would be taken and the skill casted. Some skills also required specific motions to activate in addition to imagining their name. Overall, it was a retively simple system that Lucia grasped with haste.

  According to her status window, Lucia's current css was that of a "Rune Fencer." This css specialized in the use of rapiers and magic; it would be most comparable to a "spellsword" vocation in other RPGs. Rune Fencers were also designated as an Advanced Css, or a css that has to be unlocked before use. Her status window elucidated that the css was unlocked by defeating 20 "World Bosses" with both the Fighter and Caster csses. A few miscelneous quests were also required to unlock Rune Fencer, but these seemed much less tedious than the world boss requirement. If it was not obvious, these feats were achieved by Alice while she had been no-lifing the game.

  Magnus also used this opportunity to expound on the different types of csses in FOO.

  "Everybody has access to the four base csses: Fighter, Protector, Caster, and Healer. After achieving certain feats with these csses, you unlock Advanced Csses. In theory, everybody has access to the same Advanced Css as you, although some unlock conditions are hard to accomplish in practice. Finally, there are Overture csses; these are the rarest csses, and only one pyer can have them at a time. Supposedly, they are unlocked in a simir manner to Advanced Csses, although the unlock requirements are probably much more difficult."

  Surprisingly, it was Theresia who butted in with a yawn.

  "That sounds like a shitty game. Only a handful of pyers have access to the most potent csses?

  "You didn't let me finish. There's a catch: Overture Csses can be stolen by other pyers through the act of pyer killing. On top of that, pyers will lose their Overture Css if they do not log in or leave a safe zone for more than three weeks."

  Obtaining an Overture Css seemed hard enough, but keeping one? That seemed impossible. Lucia imagined that anybody with an Overture Css would be assaulted the moment they left a safe area.

  Now that the expnations were out of the way, Lucia concentrated on building a rotation for the css. Lucia began mulling over her skills and noticed a pattern: the Rune Fencer css had an abundance of skills that required a special resource called "Runes." After she nded a hit with her rapier, a Rune Fencer would gain a "Rune" for use with their magical skills. A Rune Fencer could only hold a maximum of 10 runes, so the most efficient method would be switching between a physical rotation to build up runes and a magical rotation where said runes could be used to cast spells.

  "So that's what that symbol was before."

  On her first day in this world, Lucia remembered a magical symbol with space for 10 charges appearing in her vision. Remembering this felt surreal as the prior two days held more chaos than a year of her life on Earth. Just thinking about it made her head spin, so she gave herself a light sp on the cheek and continued her practical training.

  The party had found a group of trash monsters to practice on; Magnus originally desired to train on the world bosses in a low-level area known as the Velborral Mountains, but they had collectively decided that a detour into the far north would distract from the rescue effort. These trash creatures were much weaker than any world boss and provided fewer experience points, but they served as quick, convenient practice.

  With her purple hair swinging through the air, the young woman unched her rapier into the nearby creatures one by one. After each successful hit, Lucia gained another Rune for use ter. However, some Rune Fencer skills could be used without runes. Most of her physical skills were on a simple cooldown. One particurly useful skill was "Shining Lunge," which allowed Lucia to close the gap between herself and an enemy with immense speed while delivering a mighty thrust attack. Of course, this skill netted her another Rune in the process.

  Once 10 runes were charged, she distanced herself from the monsters and began the Rune Fencer's magical rotation. Some of the more noteworthy magical skills were the Runebolt and Runewave, a single-target magic spell and an AoE magic spell, respectively. Lucia's test of Runewave resulted in a massive azure wave clearing out the nearby monsters instantly. The spell’s potency, in combination with her level, was simply too overpowering for the monsters of this area.

  With the monsters defeated and the training session coming to a close, the party decided to move forward. As a countermeasure to the awkward flight environment generated by the fog, Lucia suggested that they postpone any use of flight until their capabilities were fully restored. It would be about another two hours before the party's flight gauges reached full capacity, so the party resumed their journey on foot. Through the fog, they marched towards the towering bck door in Pristine Greenwood.