The newborn child is crying the lament of coming to this new, frightening world. But she is safe, in Cecilia's arms.
As Cecilia, still a bit astonished, looks at the little girl, Marya moves with determination, handing a scissor to her.
"Here. Mom cleaned it and heated it before handing it to me."
Cecilia blinked, looked at the scissors, surprised, then understood.
"Oh, yeah. Sorry, I spaced out for a moment."
The baby was still attached to the mother through the umbilical cord. It was the last step but still necessary.
She deftly cut the cord, the body moving almost by itself, as if something in her unconsciousness already knew exactly what she needed to do.
Then she took the baby to the remainder of the clothes that were already prepared over a table and quickly cleaned the baby.
Marya was already finishing the cleaning of Margarete with the water of the basin, but the bed was still soaked in blood.
Cecilia wrapped up the baby and brought it to Margarete. The bed was still soaked with blood, so she quickly crafted a new bed on the side, using a woodworking technique.
"Margarete, I will move you to this other bed, because the one where you are now is not in a good state. Marya will hold the baby for a little bit and then give her to you right after. Is that okay?"
"Yeah… 'Her'?"
Honestly, Margarete was too exhausted to say anything more. She had just been on the threshold of death and was brought back. She was just happy that she and the baby were alive.
"Yes, it's a girl. Here, Marya."
Marya takes the girl with great care, then Cecilia picks Margarete up without any effort and puts her safely in the new bed, which was already crafted with clean sheets and a comfortable mattress, pillows, and cushions.
((Hehehe… And they used to tell me that paying for that much extra inventory space was a waste. It always pays off to have materials the moment you need them. Of course, I can't carry enough wood to build a house, but a few planks can save the day sometimes.))
Satisfied with herself, Cecilia settles Margarete on the new bed, and Marya hands her the baby. Right after that, someone knocks insistently on the door, and they can hear Mutt's voice.
"Hey! Is everything okay?"
Marya looks at Margarete, who then nods affirmatively. The father can already enter, so Marya goes and opens the door.
In the living room are not only Mutt but also Gertrude and some other women of the village, but only Mutt enters.
Cecilia performs another healing on Margarete, who then asks her a question, with a weak voice.
"Cecilia… May I name the baby after you?"
"Of course!"
"Her name will be Ceci, then."
With a bright smile, Cecilia agrees. She was able to be useful to someone, and this was her reward. For someone who always thought of herself as being a dead weight, it was the happiest thing that could happen.
Gertrude offers to take care of the rest of the cleaning, so Cecilia excuses herself, cleans herself, and goes back to the inn.
:::
"What the hell was that…?"
Cecilia was in her room in the inn, sprawling on the bed. She had cleaned herself as best as possible before leaving, then did a more thorough cleaning in the inn and switched clothes.
She was now reviewing the events of the morning, trying to make sense of them.
First, the elephant in the room. A baby was literally born. Ceci didn't spawn like a game character. She was delivered in a real-life manner. Everything was too real.
She couldn't pretend that this world was a game anymore. Nor was she allowed to think of them as NPCs. That birth drilled home the flesh-and-blood reality for Cecilia.
"No matter how I look at it, those are real people. They aren't AI. They bleed, and they can literally die. Margarete almost died, as did the baby. I'm so glad I was able to bring them back…"
That made her remember the other thing that transpired.
"Was that butterfly… a message from Ephemerys?"
In the game, sometimes a GM would appear using an avatar of the goddess in the game world to create quests and stir the player base. And Gertrude said that after the 'Closing of the Servers,' the gods disappeared.
She couldn't say that it was really the goddess. But she knew that it wasn't an effect she herself created. It came from outside the room, through the window.
Also, it came the moment she felt like she was actually having faith in the goddess. It could be a coincidence, but it would be too much of a coincidence. She felt, at that moment, that she had truly surrendered herself to the goddess.
She was the one who came up with the idea, in the game, of a deity of death. Helen and a couple others participated in the back-and-forth that led to the creation of the basic structure of the lore.
Then, the next time the devs sold a customization pack for priest characters, she bought it. She took what they had written and sent to the devs: 'this is what we want.' And the devs created it and added it to the game.
The main temple was in Drakenhof, the capital of Drakestadt, because it was the nation where the Dead Nerds Society lived. All members of the guild converted, but she was the only priestess of the group.
The deity had attracted some attention as the patron goddess of the strongest guild in the game, so soon several players joined the priesthood and spread it throughout the world of Hyperborea.
It was at that moment that she abdicated the seat of Oracle of the Cycle, because managing that many players was too much social interaction for her.
So, in a sense, she was the 'creator' of the goddess. Yet, she felt now like a worshiper. That contradiction was too weird.
"Oh, speaking about being the creator… There's Aelindra. I wonder… If everyone here is not an NPC but real people… Does that mean that she is ACTUALLY my daughter?
…
Wait… Even if people who are born here are people, maybe the NPCs from back then that are still alive are still NPCs?
But what if she really starts acting like I'm her mother? What if she believes and feels like I'm her mother? She's over five hundred years old. How can I be her mother if I'm only eighteen? I'm not ready."
She rolled around on the bed, restless. She wasn't physically tired, of course, but she was emotionally drained.
Her physical stats weren't that high, if compared with other max-level players, because she focused on a social and mental build. But they were still absurdly high when compared to normal people.
And her mental stats were the highest among all players in the game. Yet, the mental attributes were intelligence, wisdom, and memory. None of them made it easier to deal with emotions like Vigor did with physical tasks.
"Anyway. I need to go meet her. I need to talk to her, then I will know. And, if she is really a person with actual feelings, then I have a responsibility.
Also…
I didn't see any form of religious expression in this village. It is small, but large enough to have at least a local parish or chapel. I'm a bit afraid of asking about it here, but maybe the main temple is still there?"
She had, obviously, built the temple along with Helen. It was a cherished memory for her, and she found the idea that it might have been turned into a ruin terrifying.
At that moment, there she could hear some happy banter on the street outside. It was Gertrude, arriving back to the inn with Marya in tow.
"Oh, and then there's Marya. She witnessed everything that transpired there, and she used a technique and also has some talent for magic herself. I totally need to talk to those two."
With that thought, she stood up and steeled herself to go down the stairs.