…
Stepping outside of the taxi, Seoyeon bowed as Khairix stood around, admiring the massive structure in front of them, his jaw agape in awe, "Good luck, have a safe journey." The taxi driver said to Seoyeon as he waved them goodbye.
Soon, the taxi had left their view as it went back into the thick mist.
While Khairix was still busy looking around his surroundings, Seoyeon grabbed his phone from his pocket and sent a message to their group chat;
[I won't be available for a while because I have some matters to tend to, good luck on your journeys together, I'll return after several days so don't worry about me.] He tapped on the screen as it made a distinct sound,
Roderick had seen the message, as he replied with a thumbs up emoji, Seoyeon smiled and put the device away, turning to look at Khairix.
He teased Khairix, "What's wrong?" Seoyeon asked.
Khairix spoke up in an amazed voice—full of enthusiasm and energy—in stark contrast to the dull, depressing landscape around them, "What is this peculiar structure? I've never seen something that pierces the heavens like that, not even in the imperial capital city from my realm."
Seoyeon put his hands in his pocket as he snickered, closing his eyes momentarily to breathe and walking slowly through a dirt path, "Follow me, I'll explain everything while we're walking."
"This is the Luo Border, we're at the many entrances to a place known as the Zars Region." He said while making gestures as Khairix took a quick glance at the wall.
"What's the Zars Region, and more importantly, what otherworldly horrors await us on the other side of this wall for it to be this colossal in size?"
Seoyeon stifled a chuckle,
"Beyond this wall are two types of horrors: otherworldly horrors, beasts from the abyss; and man-made horrors, poverty, gambling, and pure human malice."
Khairix—not able to suppress his curiosity—looked at the wall once more, "Interesting… Perhaps my original judgement of the Overworld wasn't so far from the truth after all."
Seoyeon nodded as he let out a deep breath, pausing in the middle of the dirt path,
"It's a terrible place. There are a lot of beautiful places in the Overworld, but the Zars Region is most definitely not one of them… The Kain Plains may be the only exception."
"The Kain Plains?" Khairix asked,
Seoyeon looked back at Khairix and pointed behind him towards a structure protruding out of the wall, "The Kain Plains is an area within the Zars Region, it's the place beyond this wall, and the place that we're going to."
He turned around and continued walking forwards, as the two inched closer to the structure,
"Do tell, why are we on this journey anyways, Master Seoyeon? What business do you have in such a terrible place?"
Seoyeon spoke up in his usual monotonous voice, a calm and soft manner of speaking which flowed gently in the breeze, with not so much as a sliver of hesitation or worry, "We have several things to do in the Zars Region, we have an artifact to find, a dwarven blacksmith to meet, and a weapon to forge. Perhaps we can train our skills too, it'll be a productive period for us, Khairix."
There was a brief awkward silence,
Khairix soon replied,
"Yes, Master Seoyeon." He said with a quick nod.
Eventually, the two reached the structure that had been in the distance earlier, it was a small room extending out from the wall.
The structure was lonely, standing in the middle of a vast plain of nothingness—with only the dreary grass swaying in the eerie winds grounding Seoyeon and Khairix back into reality.
*Swing* The metal door—the only notable feature of the concrete structure—opened up.
*Step* Seoyeon and Khairix stepped in as their shoes carried dust into the already dust-filled and seemingly derelict structure.
*Flick* The light switch turned on as the fluorescent lights in the structure hummed with an eerie noise.
At the very front of the structure was a metal blast door. Seoyeon approached it and reached his hand out, extending his fingers out and placing his palm onto the cold, rough, metal.
Then, a flurry of particles appeared around his hand as interfaces flashed across his vision,
[Activating
[
The blast door then opened up, breaking the uncanny silence and faint sounds of the wind with a loud clanking as it slowly rose.
Behind the blast door is a red portal, orbs and specks emanating from it as a strange pressure filled the building.
"Let's go, Khairix."
Khairix nodded, "Allow me to go first, Master." He said, as he grasped onto his sword's hilt and walked in with a combat-ready stance.
Seoyeon flicked the lights in the room off as he walked into the portal too, taking one final look back at the room before the blast door and the portal closed behind him.
…
The portal made a strange noise as Khairix and Seoyeon walked out, subsequently closing afterwards.
Khairix's jaw dropped to the floor as Seoyeon chuckled, "These… Are the Kain Plains." As he spread his arms out, enjoying the breathtaking scenery.
The Kain Plains—a massive and vast plain unfolded before them, devoid of the thick fog from earlier, now replaced with a subtle mist which encompassed everything.
The grass was still just as—if not more—depressing and bleak as the grass from before. Although all of this was from behind a window, Seoyeon urged Khairix to come to him as he opened up a door leading to the outside.
The sun from within the Zars Region was dim, with only so little sunlight lighting up the environment, most of their surroundings were smothered in a dim, grayish blue light, as the skies were filled with thick, gray, clouds.
The cold, humid air flooded their noses as a strangely nostalgic and familiar smell wafted throughout the air. In the distance, absolutely colossal, ruined metal structures reached the skies, covered in ash, debris, and signs of decay, war, and devastation.
"What are those?" Khairix asked, pointing towards the peculiar structures in the distance, as Seoyeon squinted his eyes—barely being able to see them from afar under the muted and feeble sunlight.
"Those are ruins of megastructures once used to hold back the waves of abyssal monsters rushing in through rifts… Ever since the World Association and the Overworld's governments abandoned the Zars Region, those megastructures were scrapped by the people still living in the Zars Region, and used to repair what was left of their societies."
Khairix nodded, having understood the implications and history of the Zars Region, not just from Seoyeon's words, but from the overall mood of the region thus far.
"Let's go, we need to go to a specific city first." Seoyeon said, looking back at Khairix who was still too busy gazing at the skies and the blades of the grass on the ground.
"Alright, let's go, Master."
…
The two continued to walk under the gaze of the megastructures, their shadows leaving vast portions of the Kain Plains dark—only slightly illuminated by the ambient light—as they trudged through the grass and dirt.
They occasionally passed by ruins and debris as Khairix inspected them momentarily—his curiosity never-ending, as to be expected of someone who had been in a presumably medieval realm before being summoned to the Overworld.
…
Soon, the two—after what felt like hours of working with frequent breaks in between—had now come across a massive city in the distance, with lights blaring, buildings towering over others, and people scurrying about.
They approached the city, eventually being greeted by many houses all stacked upon each other in arbitrary formations, and chaotic store fronts and shops, all connected with a confusing and convoluted system of roads and paths.
"We're in the outskirts of City 8. Be on your guard, Khairix." Seoyeon said, as he and Khairix hid in a dark alleyway.
Seoyeon pointed up at clothes hanging from a clothesline, they were disheveled and dirty, but so were the clothes of most other denizens of the city, who were going about their day, filling the atmosphere with bright laughter, cheers, yelling, shouting, gossiping, and chatter—the usual sounds you'd expect from a bustling neighborhood.
Khairix reached his hand out and grabbed the disheveled clothes, handing a dirty coat over to Seoyeon as he received it out of Khairix's hands and put them on, Khairix followed afterwards by putting on a dirty jacket.
…
The two stepped out of the city, as Seoyeon glanced over at everything, from the dirty stores, to the haphazardly built houses. Memories started flooding back into his mind,
"I remember frequently visiting this place with FeiFei and my other characters when I was still playing Withering Moon. We often went here to talk with a particular old man in the city, the father of one of my characters who had died during a dungeon raid… Who we since then talked with so as to not cause them loneliness…"
He gestured for Khairix to follow closely behind him as they began walking through the streets, children playing under the streetlights with rudimentary balls made of paper and plastic. The artificial lights of City 8 were the only thing illuminating their surroundings, the dim sunlight of the Zars Region still couldn't penetrate through the skies.
The orange hue of the streetlights lit up the roads and pathways, as people went about their days in content and satisfied faces.
Then, Seoyeon approached a house, it was shabby and made of scrap metal and wood, the home of the old man who he had frequently visited many times before.
He approached the door, contemplating whether to knock and introduce himself, but then he suddenly heard a familiar laughter…
It was the character who had died in a dungeon raid from years ago, now enjoying her time with her family, as Seoyeon could only watch through the window and smile, "I wonder how many of my characters would've lived happy lives had they not decided to join me in Withering Moon."
The girl in the house, the familiar voice, belonged to a World Character, Seoyeon was sure of that, the World Character he had met long ago and who had joined Team 9. World Characters—characters from Withering Moon who weren't summoned via the Gacha System, but rather met in the world, introduced to the team, and naturally decided to join the player in their journey to the Horizon Tower.
Seoyeon shook his head, now knowing that he couldn't watch her life be stripped away once more because of a journey to the Horizon Tower as he remembered Aleia's words to him from when he was first transported to Eioth, "Don't worry. You'll see them again one day on your journey to defeat Aracles."
Right—he thought to himself, his journey was now to defeat Aracles, the abyssal being and ruler after conquering the Horizon Tower, the objective given to him by Aleia the Moon Goddess, and he thought back to her words for a moment, "If I see them again, and I bring them onto my side once more… Will they suffer the same death from when this was all just a game?..."
He clenched his fist, "No, I can not let my weakness allow them to die. That's why I need to get stronger, to return to Earth, defeat Aracles, and protect those that I had once lost before."
He stepped back, looking at Khairix who had a confused—yet understanding smile. The two nodded at each other as they continued walking.
…
"This time, I don't want any of you to die." He muttered to himself, Khairix looked on in curiosity and asked, "What was that, Master?"
Seoyeon stifled his laughter, letting out a faint chuckle,
"It's nothing."
…
He turned to look at Khairix momentarily,
"Khairix, I promise you… You will not die under my command, alright?"
Khairix—though confused—took his words to heart, and sincerely and earnestly thanked him,
"Thank you, Master Seoyeon."
…