Reincarnated In The World Of The Last Game I Played - Chapter 79

A friend of mine is a psychologist and he said that if I stop doing what I like because of the sadness, I would soon go into a state of depression.

So here I am, do what I like. Writing… I hope my mood doesn’t affect the writing.

Good reading.

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Weeks after the fall of Athena, the Valkyries settled in Basilica.

This was Oliana’s idea after she see the Adventurers Guild that Athena had founded. She gathered all the Valkyries scattered across the islands and created the guild’s first S rank clan.

Lobana stayed there, helping Oliana from beginning to end and when everything was ready, she left on a journey to find Athena.

Obviously she didn’t believe her friend was alive, but she wanted to give her a dignified funeral and burial.

After all, Athena was a queen and as such, she couldn’t just have her body rotting away in an unknown place.

She wanted to descend to the world below, but that place was unknown to her. Besides, as far as she could remember, it was impossible to travel with a ship down there.

There was a high risk of the ship being destroyed by monsters before it even left the islands behind, so that was a risk she couldn’t take if she wanted to complete her objective.

Lobana spent months searching each island for a way to descend and each time faced the same frustration, it until she reached Veand where she learned that somewhere farther north, she had a portal.

However, the woman had been in the kingdom for more than three months and still had not been able to find the portal.

She was returning to the inn after a night of wasted time in a ruin, when a girl of elegant beauty bumped into her then spoke the name of someone already dead.

“Do you know Athena?” Lobana asked in a cheerful voice that she didn’t match her mournful expression.

Lobana surveyed the group with tired eyes. Three very different girls and all with unique beauty.

“Yes, we know… who are you?” Anemus asked.

Lobana had never seen a nymph before, few had a nymph as mates these days, though they are not uncommon to be found in her line of work.

Thinking that Anemus and Fotiá were some variation of elves, Lobana continued the conversation.

“I’m Lobana, I used to work with and for Athena. She was also a good friend…” Lobana said while looking away.

Her amber eyes gleamed slightly as they moistened, and the woman filled her lungs with air, holding back her tears as she remembered Athena disappearing within the clouds.

The girls looked at each other and Fotiá’s eyes sparkled. “Mommy’s friend?! Where is she?”

“Huh? “Mommy”?” Lobana’s eyes widened in surprise, anxiety and fear. “Y-you are Athena’s daughter?”

“Yes!” Fotiá responded with explosive animation. “I felt she was in the north. Is she here?”

“Huh?”

“Anemus, we’re going to see Mom sooner than we expected!”

“Eh? N-no-Wait-”

“I can’t wait to see her! She said she was going to give me a present!”

Fotiá spoke excitedly while Anemus and Lunnia paid attention to the woman’s expressions. They saw what Fotiá didn’t and quickly deduced what the woman was thinking.

“Fotiá, shut up for a moment.” Anemus said as he put her hand over the girl’s mouth and looked directly into Lobana’s eyes. “What happened to Athena?”

Lobana’s heart trembled and the air refused to leave her lungs. It was like she was drowning. She didn’t want to break this news right away to Athena’s daughter.

(Wait! Daughter? Athena said her daughter was four, so today she should be at most six…) Lobana looked at Fotiá and then back to Anemus. “Who are you? Athena said her daughter was four, it was two years ago and it’s impossible for this elf to be six.”

“Elf?” Fotiá tilted her head to the side and Lunnia burst out laughing.

“Only Athena to say things halfway!”

Anemus slapped her palm to her forehead and slowly exhaled. “Frankly…”

“I am not an elf, I am a nymph.” Fotiá said with her chest puffed out. “And I’m 344 years old and not six like Mom.”

“Huh?” Lobana’s eyes rolled. “344? Athena too? Eh? Wait-…”

All that was too much information for Lobana’s tired mind. She couldn’t stand it and passed out.

“Fotiá, you killed the woman…” Anemus said in a serious tone and Fotiá froze in place.

***

“Where are we going?” Hercules asked as he followed Athena.

Athena turned to the young man, put her hands on her hips, and spoke. “To the south-east. Haven’t I already said it?”

Athena wore only the pants she refused to return to Hercules and wore her hair to hide her breasts.

After Hercules staring at them, Athena realized that she wanted to show them only to Anemus and Mifa.

Hercules had on him a extra pants that he stole from the demons, but no shirts. He had used them to make dresses for the two girls, Malana and Idna.

“It took me two years to get here after arriving on this continent, and now you want me to make it all the way back south?”

Athena turned her back on the young man and the children and continued walking. “I don’t want anything. You can stay here if you want.”

“But why the south-east?”

“I have a house down there.”

“But don’t you live on the islands in the sky?”

“Yes.” Athena said and pulled the girl with dark hair and pink eyes by the collar of her rags. She was poking at a white flower surrounded by a small pool of dark water. “Malana, this flower is poisonous.”

That was a knowledge she didn’t forget about the game. This flower had a powerful poison that kept its victims alive for a long time. She had used this flower to make poison gas bombs for her terrorist attacks on cities and towns in the game.

“Eh?! T-thank you!” Malana said and Athena smiled as she put her down again.

“Like I was saying… Yes, I live there on the floating islands. But a long time ago, I built a house down here.” Athena said as she helped Kalta across the ravine.

“When? You said you’ve only been in this world for a maximum of three-” Hercules said while helping the girls.

“This is irrelevant.” Athena said, interrupting the young man without looking back.

Yet again Athena refused to talk about how this world was part of a game or the game was part of the world.

Not even she really understood and it had been a while since she had stopped caring how this world worked or how it was created.

They walked for half the day, making short breaks for the children to rest and had their pace slowed by monster attacks.

Athena and Hercules were at the edge of a canyon and Athena was pointing away. “See that hill down there?”

“The one with a lake in the middle?” Hercules asked.

The scenery was far from pretty.

The forests were dry and bleak, monsters lurked everywhere, the lakes were polluted and the wind carried the miasma with it.

The hill Athena pointed out was beyond this devastated landscape. A small hill with a white grove around it. Beside it, another hill with a lake in its center. The water had mist on its surface, showing its heat.

“Exactly. I want to get there tomorrow night. I need and want to take a shower.” Athena said and looked at the children. “You need to too.”

Everyone there was in a pitiful state of dirt. The kids were so grimy that it was hard for her tell what color their hair was.

Hercules stank to the point where crows and vultures would try to eat him if he stopped moving and Athena was no better than that.

“It will be difficult… Now I don’t have a weapon and I don’t know how to use skills without using a sword.” Hercules said.

“This is easily resolved.” Athena walked to a dead tree and broke a branch as thick as a broom handle and about three feet long. “There’s your new sword.”

“Huh?”

Athena smiled angelically and said. “Protect us with everything you’ve got.”

“Eh? You can fight too!”

“I can, but I won’t. I’ll protect the kids and try to fix me.” Athena said and pushed the children closer to Hercules.

At that moment, in the place where the kids were seconds ago, a giant centipede appeared.

Athena cut into several pieces with her claws and said with a big smile to the young man and the children. “I got dinner!”

“Yuck!” Hercules frowned in disgust and the children’s expressions were no different.

***

Anemus, Fotiá and Lunnia were back in their room and Lobana was lying on Fotiá’s bed.

They intended to leave that kingdom that day, but they found Lobana who seemed to have something to say that interested them.

The woman snored thunderously and Anemus couldn’t concentrate on reading her new book.

She closed the book and let out a sigh while Fotiá tried to make a humanoid flame dance in her palm.

“I’m bored…” Fotiá informed pouting. “I’ve already taken six showers…”

“I am too, but I don’t want you to go out with that weirdo out there…”

“How can a prince be so perverted?” Lunnia asked. “Aren’t they supposed to be charming? In all my life I’ve never met a prince, so I’m not sure. But I read in a story that they were supposed to be gorgeous people…”

“Isn’t that a fantasy?” Anemus asked as she supported her chin with her palm.

“Serious?”

“If we kill him we wouldn’t need to be locked in here.” Fotiá insinuated.

Lobana lifted her head and in a groggy voice she said. “I would not do that…”

“Oh! You woke up. Finally.”

“Why wouldn’t you kill him?” Anemus asked, putting her attention on the woman’s words.

“One of the prince’s personal knights is a disturbingly strong former mercenary.” Lobana sat up in bed and thanked Lunnia for the tea. “I thought he had left this life, but a killer will remain a killer no matter where and how he lives.”

Anemus nodded thinking of Athena and Hades and asked. “How strong?”

“It would take ten of me to kill him.” Lobana said with a sheepish smile.

Fotiá looked at Lobana with a raised eyebrow. “You are strong?” She asked as she tilted her head.

“I’m one of the strongest in my mercenary group.” Lobana said proudly and then that pride melted at the thought of Athena. “But I’m not that strong when I needed to protect Athena.”

“Ah!” Anemus reacted to Athena’s name and looked directly at Lobana. “What do you know about Athena?”

Lobana stared at Anemus and several thoughts crossed her mind. (Is she also Athena’s daughter? No… Athena said she has one daughter. And this woman in heavy armor?) Her eyes passed from Anemus to Lunnia and then landed on Fotiá. (Who is she? Is this girl really Athena’s daughter?)

The mercenary pondered for a few seconds and decided it was better to put all the dots on the i’s.

“As I said earlier, I worked with and for Athena for a few months and we became friends…”

Lobana told everything that happened. All battles, how Athena became a queen, how she fell in love and how she died.

“I’m on a journey to retrieve her body.” Lobana cried and apologized for being weak and unable to save Athena. “That’s the least I can do… Forgive me for not save her.”

Only Lobana’s voice and crying were heard in the room.

Anemus had an expression of sadness and anger mixed in her face and her eyes cast guilt on Lobana.

On the day of her fainting while looking for Fotiá two years ago, she already knew that Athena had died, but when Fotiá said that she still felt the woman, she couldn’t help but believe.

She had to believe, she wanted to. Otherwise, it would mean she would never see Athena again.

Anemus and Lunnia had the most pure and utter sadness in their complexions. Anemus was about to yell at Lobana when Fotiá raised her voice.

“What are you talking about? My mother is alive.”

“Huh?”

Fotiá crushed the fire puppet in her hands and stood up in front of Lobana. “I don’t know if what you said is true, but my mother is alive and I still feel her.” Fotiá said confidently in her affirmation.

The room fell silent again with the three stunned people staring at Fotiá.