EC

Chapter 10

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*kua* It"s a nice day, the noisy ones are gone and no one"s home, guess I"ll go for a nap. Bro has been sleeping on that bed thing a lot lately, guess I should try it. I casually walk my way back home, entering the door. I wipe my feet at the doormat and make my way to the book room. I open the curtains, letting the sun into the room. I hop onto it, it"s nice. I can see why he"s always on this thing. As the sun warms my body, I close my eyes and fall asleep. *chiin* Biometric registration complete. Would you like an avatar? "No, leave me alone, let me sleep." *chiin* Would you like a tutorial? "No, I said leave me alone." *chiin* Character creation complete. Welcome to Second Phantasia, Beast Novice, the previous player is located in the southeast of the continent, would you like to start there? I open my eyes in anger, I just want to sleep. "If I say yes, would you shut up?!" I realize I"m not on the bed anymore. There"s shiny and spinning lights all around... am I under water? *chiin* You are now in the Feia region, thank you for choosing Second Phantasia, I hope your stay is enjoyable! *byun* I don"t see anyone speaking, the shiny and spinning light get brighter gradually, until I can no longer see and has to close my eyes. The next thing I know, I"m on a hill of gra.s.s. Where am I? How did I get here? I don"t think sleep is a good idea now. I sniff the air, but I don"t know this place. There are plants, water, animals... oooh, is that a rabbit I smell? Following my nose, I walk quietly along the gra.s.s. In a bit, I spot a lone rabbit digging into the ground with big front claws. I don"t recall rabbits having claws, but I could always go for some food. I stalk the prey as usual, waiting for my chance. Seeing its back turn to me, I leap out and grab it by the neck. *byoon* *gapu* *supa* "Ow!" The d.a.m.n thing claws my face, causing me to let it go. Wait, why isn"t it running? s.h.i.t s.h.i.t s.h.i.t! It"s standing on two legs and circling me! What kind of rabbit is this?! I look around, there are some trees maybe 15 seconds away behind it and there"s a pond on the left with the same distance. Seeing the claws, I think I will take my chance at the water. I slowly back away, waiting for the rabbit to strike. It leaps at me after a dozen seconds or so, I dodge and take this chance to run into the water. Wait, it"s chasing after me?! *bashan* I run with all my might and dive into the pond, small fishes under me scatter away. I swim leisurely as the rabbit gets to the edge of the water, stopping there and staring at me. Oh, so it can"t swim at all? This will be easy then. I swim to a shallow part of the pond near the sh.o.r.e and circle a bit. The rabbit moves closer to me. I was stupid the first time, but now I know I just need to avoid its claws. I splash some water and then run up to it. As expected, it swipes its claws at me. I was ready though, so I take a side step, grabbing it by the neck and throw it into the water. *bashan* A nice splashing sound was heard and the rabbit rapidly sinks to the bottom of the pond. It struggles in a panicked fashion before reaching the shallow part of the sh.o.r.e, I run up to it and throw it into the water again. *bashan* It sinks to the bottom again, but this time it isn"t as panicked and reaches the sh.o.r.e in record time. No matter, I will just throw it in again. *bashan* And again. *bashan* It struggles to get to the shallow part this time. *gapu* *yusa yusa yusa yusa* I grab the tired, wet rabbit by the neck and shake it repeatedly. I feel a small *pakin* and then drop it on the floor. *furu furu* I give myself a good shake to dry myself. Normally I would get brother to cook this, but I have no idea how to get back home. Since it hit my face, I will just start eating it raw. *pero* I lick my lips after finishing most of the rabbit, it"s surprisingly plump, I really want to have one cooked. While I"m thinking about how delicious a roasted one of these would be, I hear a loud *zabun*. I turn to see where the noise is coming from and see someone had jumped into the water, with a cloud of insects following. Curious, I walk up to the source of the ripple that"s a good distance away. I can see a little one at the bottom. *buun buun* Oh s.h.i.t! The swarm of insects is after me now! *bashan* I jump into the water and get to the bottom of the pond. I remember this happening before when we went after a beehive, the trick is to get to the bottom and stir up the sediment before swimming away and get out from another spot. I start digging up the mud at the bottom before swimming toward the little one. *pichan* I stick my nose out of the water for a quick breath. The little one isn"t moving at all, worried, I dive back down toward it. It seems to not be moving, no good. I drag it along the bottom of the pond, it"s somewhat slow going, but it"s hard to pull in the water since I can"t carry it. *pasha pasha* I manage to get us to sh.o.r.e on the other end, the cloud of insects seems to be gone. *sasu sasu* "Hey! Wake up!" I start shaking the small one. s.h.i.t! "Someone! Help! Some young one is hurt! Someone! Anyone!" *byoon* I start jumping on the little one while screaming at the top of my lungs. I see a man running toward us. "Over here! Quickly!" The man got near us, others seems to be showing up from the way he came from. He stops about 2 seconds away and stares at me. "What are you looking at?! Help it! I don"t know what to do!" I back off from the little one, and let the man work. "Well?! DO SOMETHING!" That seems to have snapped the man out of his stupor and he gets to the little one. "Charlotte? d.a.m.n it! Hurry! I found Charlotte!" The man carries the little one on his back and starts slapping her back. *u u aan aan* "Shiii, it"s okay, it"s okay now." Eventually the little one spits out a mouthful of water and starts crying. The man continues to comfort her. "Oh good." I relax as soon as the little one starts crying. The man carries her gently while looking at me with a complicated expression. "um... thank you for saving my niece?" The man with short brown hair is making a confused face when he says, almost like a question. "She will be okay?" "um.. yeah." *furu furu* I shake myself dry now that everything is over and fall over in relief. "Can I ask where we are?" Before the man can respond, more men and a woman arrive, surrounding me. Some of the men are wielding sticks. All of them look at me with hostility, I get up when I see the men get into a fighting stance. *garuru* I growl at them in response. "Woah woah woah! Easy, it saved Charlotte." The man let the little girl down and put himself between the men and me, the little girl runs up to the woman and begins crying again. I look up at the back of the first brown-haired man, "I think I will go, take care." "Wait wait!" The man turns around and tries to stop me. I turn back and see the other men and the woman look at me with more stupid looking faces. "Are you lost?" I nod my head. "Um... it isn"t much, but come rest at our village first. Sorry for our reaction, we... have never seen your kind before." The man is bowing toward me now, the rest of them still have their stupid faces on them, but at least I don"t see any hostility anymore. I see no other choice, there are just plants, trees, water, and more of the same. I don"t see the large rocky hills anymore, so this is likely nowhere near home. I nod again. The man stands up, and starts leading the way.

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It"s almost evening now, the sun is low in the sky. With the help of the brown-haired man, I learned that I am in a place called Feian Plains. I have never heard of this place. But the people also said that the only big rocky hills are to the west which is several months away. It"s supposedly dangerous to travel there, so I should either go with a group or wait until what they called merchants come by. It seems I will be stuck here for a while, but this... fluffiness, hhmmmmmmmm! The brown-haired man brought me to his home. It"s a room that is attached to a bigger home, he served me something they call bread, it is like a long straight branch that you break before eating. I have never had this before! If only there"s some tender meat to go with this! *konkon* *kara* There is a knock on the door before it opens. The brown-haired man had left earlier, telling me to enjoy my meal. It appears he has now returned with the young one and its mother and they enter the room. "Now what do you say?" The man asks the little one, who is now in an overall without the part that separate the legs. "Thank you for saving me." It lifts up the cloth hanging off of her and gives a little bow. "Um... you are welcome." It runs up to me and gives me a hug. "Now now, let Mr. Gui finish his dinner." The woman gives me a little bow before coming to pick up the little one. *karan karan* There is this ringing noise, "What the... Gui, you are logged in?" "BROTHER! Where are you?" The three of them jump at my sudden yell. "Sorry, sorry, I can hear my brother talking to me." I look around the room, but all I see are the furniture, the food, the wooden floor, the window, the wooden floor above and the three people. "You... can talk? Um.. give me a minute, I"ll try to log you out." "Log out? I don"t see any logs here, just wood." "Don"t worry, I will bring you back." "Oh, I can come home?!" I start jumping around the room. The three of them are staring at me. "Hm, thank you for the food! My brother is going to bring me home, so I guess this is goodbye." "Goodbye?" The man half asks. "Brother?" The woman is just as confused. The little one struggles away from its mother and gives me another hug. Rubbing its face on my back. *chara* "Okay Gui, put your eh... paw? Yeah, your paw onto the blinking panel. You will be back right away." "What"s a panel? Oh." A blinking thin box appear in the air. "Okay, I"m leaving now, so long. And stay away from those bees from now on!" I hit the box in the air and everything fades to black. "Mr. Gui?" The medium sized furry body collapses onto the floor as though asleep. "Wait... Mr. Gui is an immortal?!" The short brown-haired man says in shock.

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*gishi gishi* "Are you okay?" The gray fox gets up from the bed and gently headb.u.t.ts the young man standing at the head of the bed where a console is located. *wo wo* "Um... I can"t... understand you outside." *wo wo* "How did you even log in?!" *wo guruguru* Kun sighs, "at least I understand that, okay, let"s go eat first. I"ll tell them I will be a little late. I will figure this out later." *wo wo wa* The two head to the kitchen after Kun types something on the console.

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Elsewhere on the internet - Second Phantasia forums "Wow! Someone unlocked the Beast form avatar!" "But who would use that? How do you even use your skills?" "There"s bound to be a way, don"t worry. But they didn"t announce an expansion though." ... "Wah! It"s so cute! I"m going to reroll a character just for the avatar!" "You can finally be the b.i.t.c.h that you are!" "Shut up you troll." ... "Request: More Avatars" "Pffft, as if the company will listen!" "Actually, they never announced anything, maybe there are more out there?" ... The official and fans site forums for Second Phantasia exploded with threads talking about the new avatar. There haven"t been any announcements about changes to the races, so its appearance was unexpected. Users were allowed to pick a race from Human, Dark Alf (Dwarves and Gnomes), Light Alf (Elves and Mers), and Demihumans (Reverse Anthromorphs) only. The new Beast race is now selectable for new users. Demands for an answer from the company have been met with silence and redirection, this led to large amounts of users rushing to try out the new race. None of them would have suspected a real animal had entered the game.

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