Might as Well - Chapter 391 - Interlude 39.1 (Patreon)

Cynthia adored Magic Unbound.

It was so freeing to go “RAAAAAAH!” and then watch her enemies dissolve into rainbow pixels while having fun with her friends. Granted, she was very aware of the fact that she was very privileged, especially in the game.

With her sister’s job, and more importantly, income, her family simply stopped working. Her parents spent most of their days either playing the same game she was when she wasn’t in school, or traveling, or meeting up with friends.

Most of the people at school had figured out that her situation had changed, but as there were a lot of people who were even richer than they were, it wasn’t that big of news. A few people had approached her to see if they could figure out what had happened, but she simply played stupid, and after the twelfth guy was sent away with barely a nod of acknowledgement, most people had gotten the message.

Still, that didn’t mean they weren’t watching or listening.

Plus, they were not stupid.

It didn’t take long for her classmates to figure out that whatever had changed was due to Magic Unbound. Once that was clear, it was just a simple hop and skip to land on her sister. And while her sister took a lot of measures to hide her identity, it was nothing compared to the concentrated effort of a few hundred dangerously curious students.

That was when she realized that she actually had a security detail.

It was pretty neat watching them beat back the crowd.

Sadly, it didn’t get better.

Clarissa was indisputably one of the most famous, albeit low-key, players currently. Plus, she was a beautiful healer, which just ‘improved’ her image. Cynthia only experienced her fans’ reaction without her present, but even then she couldn’t imagine what she usually went through.

She just prayed people wouldn’t find out that Solar himself was regularly giving her lessons in-game.

Just the fact that, through her sister, there was a chance she had come into contact with Solar drew in a lot of crazies – the security detail gave weekly summaries – so she shuddered to think what kind of ‘people’ would try to approach her once that juicy little information was out in the wild.

Thankfully, so far she had managed to keep a lid on it.

Which lasted exactly until the moment that idiot approached her under the shade with several of her classmates, who somehow found out where she trained and saw the two of them talk. Cynthia just knew she would have to come up with something plausible for the next day.

Maybe she could tell them it was just a look-alike the guild used to distract people?

Probably would work…

Solar was known to be sneaky like that…

Thus, in short order, she was watching her sister’s boss and her on-and-off teacher carve runes into the ground that sent her head spinning.

Once upon a time, when she first saw him use them, she had decided to try to learn them. After all, if the strongest player had chosen them, then they must certainly be powerful.

Sadly, it wasn’t meant to be.

She had started to learn runes, but the complex interactions and rules gave her a massive headache. While it wasn’t something she couldn’t learn, Cynthia knew she would have to buckle down and devote a lot of time to it.

Instead, she put it aside and refocused on the spear and everything related to it.

She was good at it.

Stepping carefully between the lines of the insanely complicated runic circle that reminded her of some of the pictures of circuit boards in her textbooks, she arrived at the middle.

Sam just grinned at her.

“Just stand there and enjoy!” he yelled as Cynthia felt the wind pick up and the mana inside her stir.

She listened to the chanting with half an ear, making a note to make fun of him later for it, before she was distracted by her own mana surging and swelling inside her.

Her control, while not as prodigious as her sister’s or Solar’s, was probably in the ninety-ninth percentile. Even then, she couldn’t do anything. She just stood there and felt as the mana in the environment and the mana inside her clashed together, not unlike ocean waves clashing over somebody drowning.

Yet, she felt the exact opposite.

Her body was brimming with energy, and she felt that she could run back-to-back marathons at the drop of a hat.

Then, as she was exulting in this new feeling, the surroundings were simply washed away, replaced with a pure white vista.

At least for a moment.

But that moment was enough for Cynthia to notice that she couldn’t hear Sam’s chanting or feel her own mana.

Honestly, it felt like her original body back in the real world, devoid of the mana enhancing it.

Then the moment ended, and the roar tore through the white space.

The sound waves were invisible, but their effects weren’t.

Wherever the waves traveled, the white light was torn away, replaced by green, brown, gray, and white.

Another roar, and more of the white veil was repelled, slowly revealing an impossibly tall mountain.

She stood at the very base, surrounded by equally unnaturally tall trees and shrubbery, while the mountain, jagged and inhospitable, towered over her. While everything felt big and tall, she didn’t feel small.

Instead, she somehow felt… comfortable.

The mountain itself stretched so high that clouds formed around its base, and around the middle she could see twinkling stars and celestial bodies, seemingly almost orbiting the mountain, while the very top was shrouded in what she could only call a haze of gold and rainbow.

The roars continued, but now they were accompanied by mighty blasts of wind. No, more like wing beats.

It was at this moment that Cynthia realized that among the many rocks covering the side of the mountain, a veritable forest of shining eyes was watching her, all of them slitted and belonging to apex predators.

But they didn’t move.

Then, just as she was about to wonder when this cutscene would end, because while she found it supremely cool that Sam had managed to put together a ritual that had its own cutscene, she was starting to freak out a little…

Then silence.

The roars ceased, but before she could wonder what happened, another roar shook the very world she was seeing.

She felt her very bones vibrate from it.

Then, within a blink, there was a dragon in front of her.

It was absurdly tiny, probably the size of an adult cat, with shimmering golden scales and silver patina, and eyes of every rainbow, the slits in them dark as the void between the stars.

“Welcome, Cynthia,” it spoke in a voice so deep, it was almost a roar.

“Er, hello?” she returned the greeting, still processing the contradictory image in front of her.

“I’m the one who represents all those who are above,” it said, pointing up with a small claw.

Cynthia instinctively looked up and couldn’t help but flinch. Looking down at her from beyond the mountain were several vague shapes that reminded her of dragons, their eyes the size of stars, staring directly at her.

Averting her eyes, she refocused on the smaller dragon. Much safer.

“And we have questions for you, young one,” it continued.

What followed was a grilling session not unlike one she had suffered through when her parents thought she was doing drugs. Honestly… it was just a crush. Why they freaked out, she didn’t know…

But in the end, the small dragon looked at her and nodded.

“Acceptable,” it stated as if telling her the time of day. Yet, Cynthia could feel that all the attention was fully focused on her. “You shall be the first bearer of our bloodline.”

“Do I have to do anything?” she asked, half hoping and half dreading some kind of convoluted questline.

‘Hmmpf, if it is too hard, I’ll just make Sam do it for me…’ she thought.

“Nay…” the small dragon told her. “Your presence will be enough to anchor our bloodline to the world once again. As long as you bring honor to the dragons, we shall be proud of you.”

“Lucky me!” she declared cheerfully.

The small, cat-sized dragon smirked. “Yes. Lucky.”

She grinned back and gave the dragon a thumbs up. “What now?”

“Now we shall part. You will return to the material plane, Chosen of the Void, and spread the glory of the dragons.”

Cynthia saw the world around her begin to be swallowed by the pure whiteness. At first slowly, but then at an accelerating rate.

Before it fully vanished, she leaned forward, knowing she would have regretted not asking.

“Hey, can I pet you?” she asked, reaching forward.

The small dragon looked at her with an arrogant smirk. “As the first Dragonkin of your line, you’re permitted to touch my scales. Be honored.”

She took a small step forward and squatted down, just as most of the mountain vanished into nothingness. Her hand touched the small creature’s, and she couldn’t help but squeal.

“So soft…” she muttered as she ran her hand over the scaled back of the small dragon.

After explaining to Sam what had happened, Cynthia walked over to the training field and couldn’t help but swallow.

Sam was the best thing that ever happened to her family, so she felt horrible lying to him, but the skill demanded it.

[As the Wheel of Fate turns, so does your fate turn with it.]

[Your transformation has waylaid the path that Fate has wrought, and now that you step on the rough, uneven path, your own fate shall be waylaid.]

[Thanks to participating in a ritual that altered fate and contained a major artifact connected to Luck and Fate, you gain the skill Wandering Luck and a curse.]

[Wandering Luck: Level MAX (MAX%) (Passive) Your luck and fate are inscrutable. They change with the whims of fate. You can no longer gain or lose points in LUCK; instead, the value of your LUCK will fluctuate. It can never be 0, but aside from that, it can be any number. The higher the number, the less likely it is to appear. The number changes every day, but you can lock in a desired number for certain periods for a price.

Lock in for 1 day: Your LUCK value will be the exact same number the next day, but negative.

Lock in for 3 days: Your LUCK value will change three times a day for the next three days.

Lock in for 7 days: Your LUCK value will be only negative for the next seven days.]

That alone was something she would have kept silent from most people for fear of being exploited, though not from Sam. He would probably instantly offer some kind of solution.

Maybe a quest to upgrade it…

Or an artifact to negate the bad sides…

But no, the game system wasn’t finished with her.

[Cynthia’s Curse: Level MAX (MAX%) (Passive) A curse named after you, given to you by the God of Dragons. Every dragon is an apex predator, and so shall you be. Deal with your problems on your own, and prove yourself deserving of being a Dragonkin. Sharing the secrets of the Wandering Luck skill will cause you to lose it, permanently set your LUCK to a negative value, and leave you struck by further curses.]

[They shall watch and wonder.]

Closing her eyes, Cynthia took a deep breath, held it for a second, before letting it out.

‘I can deal with it. I can deal with it. I can deal with it.’

Opening her eyes, she opened her status screen and sought out the LUCK stat. The word LUCK was highlighted in gold compared to the normal-looking other stats.

LUCK: 33

‘Pretty normal…’ she mused, letting out a relieved breath. She would need to check it every time she logged in and go from there. With low negatives, she could maybe train and goof off, but if she managed to get some insanely high number then it was time to gamble.

Shaking her head, she refocused on the spear in her hand.

It was time to see how her new body worked.

***

Oliver felt a little stupid.

He had followed along after finding that creepy guy in that hidden house, but with every step, the entire situation became worse and worse.

First they had to leave the city, which happened through several barely built sewage pipes, filled with nothing but dust and stale air.

Then, when free of the city, where people could have recognized him, he was taken to a carriage and transported deep into the countryside.

There, after a surprisingly boring trip, aside from having to stare at the ashen skin cracked and crisscrossed with yellow and black light, his own pulsing with something similar, they arrived near a small, unremarkable mountain with a surprisingly flat top.

Entering through a small, hidden cave, he was soon led up a set of stairs into the hall of this, more than likely, cult.

There he was met with more people with the same ashen skin and gold and dark light shining through the cracks.

Each and every one of them was staring at him as the man he had met led him deeper.

Following that, he was led through a peculiar purification ritual – to shed the stench of the mortal world – and soon he was adorned in the same robe everybody around him was wearing.

Finally, after some nonsensical chanting, he was taken to the very top of the mountain.

There, he saw that the entire mountain had been carved away so that it looked like a giant bowl. At the bottom was a small flat area, carved with runes and surrounded by pillars with metal braziers on them, burning with yellow flame, with an occasional black-colored tongue of flame appearing and disappearing so fast that at first he thought he was hallucinating.

But he wasn’t.

The cultist led him to the middle of the circle.

At first he thought they would stay silent and commence some kind of unspeakably horrific ritual, but as soon as the last person stepped inside the area surrounded by the pillars, the flames on top of them practically exploded, casting their light over everyone.

Then Oliver had to watch as every one of them started bringing out stuff from their pockets or just the air.

Tables and chairs soon filled the area, covered in all manner of food, drinks, snacks, and whatnot. Somebody even fired up a small grill, and soon the sound of sizzling meat and vegetables filled the air, followed by their heavenly smell.

Blankly staring around at the joyous mood that seemed to fill the mountaintop, he glanced down at the notification.

[You were affected by a buff!]

[Golden Shadow Veil: For a set amount of time, and while you reside in this location, you’re hidden from the gazes of the divine.]

The same man who had brought him there then exclaimed. His face was much more expressive, and there was an honest smile on his ashen face. It honestly made him look much younger and far less threatening.

Oliver still found it creepy.

“Brother Oliver!” he called out loud, causing a few people to quiet down and stare at the two of them. He raised one arm, his hand holding a mug of beer. “Welcome to the hallowed grounds of the Golden Cicada Circle!”

Oliver just stared back, a bit confused. This sudden mood and behavior change made everything a bit confusing.

The other man seemingly didn’t care about his silence. He walked up to him and put his free hand on his shoulder. “My apologies for the subterfuge, but the gaze of the divine is everywhere. Just as the cicada sheds its shell, we too shall shed our behavior when returning to this hallowed mountain.”

This was enough for Oliver to break out of his confusion. “So… I’m not going to be sacrificed for some crazy ritual?”

The man let out a bellowing laugh, and several other cultists laughed with him. With a sour look, he even saw a few of them exchanging coins in the background.

“Oh, my! No-no! I’ve brought you here so that you too can join our ranks!” the man explained in a jovial tone. “Those who have been forsaken and cursed by the gods! We gather here, hidden from the gazes of the same divinity!”

“Do you have some grand plan?” Oliver asked hesitantly. If there was, that would mean some great quest with great rewards.

“Grand plan? Oh, no-no,” the other man answered with a bit of a chuckle. “Nothing grand. We just enjoy being free from those accursed eyes and occasionally help a brother or sister out. Like you.”

“Like me?”

“Indeed,” came the answer, his free arm still around Oliver’s shoulder. “Our usual meeting happens under the new moon, but your plight has touched all our hearts. Isn’t that right?”

Instantly the entire congregation raised whatever was in their hands and cheered.

“““Aye!”””

The man finally let go of his shoulder and gestured toward the bounty placed on the tables. “Come join us in this auspicious feast, and then we shall help you deal with your… curse.”

Oliver looked around, watching as robed cultists chatted casually, holding wine, beer, or other liquids and snacking on all manner of dishes.

In the end, he just shrugged and went for the nearest table and the largest cut of meat.

Digital food didn’t affect his cholesterol level, after all…

Finished with the feast, the tables were cleared away, and Oliver found himself in front of the whole group once again as they stared at him silently.

Their leader, whose name he didn’t know, wheeled in a blackboard and began drawing while somebody pushed him forward in a chair. Their leader, whose name he didn’t know, wheeled in a blackboard and began drawing while somebody pushed him forward in a chair.

“So. This is important, so Brother Oliver, please pay attention,” the man began, tapping the board with a piece of chalk. “We have a ritual that should help you, but you need to be aware of all the risks, dangers, and side effects before we can begin.”

Oliver blinked in surprise. It was rather refreshing being told all the dangers associated with his choices.

He told the man so.

The ashen-skinned man grinned and puffed out his chest proudly. “The Golden Cicada Circle prides itself on meticulous preparation and making sure all our actions have clear and concise results and consequences.” Then his grin withered a little, and a melancholy look swept over him. “After all, most of us joined after some unforeseen consequences of our actions resulted in the divine cursing us. We strive to avoid repeating the same mistakes…”

He thought back to his careless purchase and where it had led.

Honestly, he had to wholeheartedly agree with their mission statement.

Oliver leaned forward in his chair. “Alright. Where do we start?”

The man grinned and began drawing on the board.

“The first thing we have to go over is safety.” On the board, the words ‘Safety and You’ were written in chalk. “And what to do in an emergency.”

As he began to talk, Oliver had a sinking feeling that this was going to take a long time.

A/N: Safety and consent conscious cultist... I just thought it would really funny. Happy reading!