-----

  Vd’s party made their way outside of the city, where they were greeted by dozens of crimson-shelled humanoid beetles tending the crops, harvesting, and pnting seeds across the fields.

  Among the crowd, various of the beetles noticed the strange, overly pure presehat Emerlinda released as someone from Fantasia, Nature and Purity were sidered strange Energies in the Realm of Obscuritas.

  “E-Eh? What’s this?” Emerlinda looked around, dumbfounded. “B-Big red beetles—Uwaah! Why are they getting close to me?!”

  The beetles began sniffing Emerlinda while squinting their eyes, gring at her intimidatingly. They weren’t that huge themselves, smaller tha least, but they were quite a lot.

  And they weren’t weak either.

  “Those are my summons,” expined Vd. “When you obtain a Territory you gain a lot of bes; one of those is to create troops… These came included with the Territory Hero, Ia, she’s over there.”

  BZZZTTT…!

  Ia flew through the skies after hearing her master’s call, her giant i wings buzzing loudly as she desded in front of her master and his friends.

  “Master! You’re here. Are we finally having a battle?” wondered Ia.

  TRUUUM!

  Her enormous presence geed some sort of invisible pressure that made Emerlinda almost fall to her knees.

  “J-Just what sort of Familiars are these?!” She screamed internally. “I-I want to get out of here already!”

  “Not yet; we’re going hunting,” said Vd. “Make sure to protect the city while we are not around. Mother is busy dealing with the city’s expansion and other things.”

  “Oh… uood,” Ia looked a bit disappointed, but she the end anyway. “’t I apany you hunting at least?”

  “No, this is better with roup; we are already plenty,” said Vd. “We are lucky that Queenie hasn’t shown up, or it would be even bigger.”

  "Yeah, I agree. Also, Ia’s s she would trivialize everything, and we’re supposed to kill the monsters ourselves to get the most energy to grow stronger,” Chris expined while crossing his arms.

  “I see, very well then, I suppose… I will stay here, lonely,” sighed Ia as she noticed Vd patting her shoulders.

  “If something happens that requires your help, I’ll summon you to my side; don’t worry,” said Vd. “I suspeething could be brewing at the border close to the Silver Moon Family Duchy. So let’s stay alert.”

  “Oh! Very well,” Ia nodded, looking more excited for a possible fight in the near future.

  “Let’s go flying; walking is too slow,” said Vd. “Jese, you fly?”

  “I… don’t know,” said Emerlinda. “I don’t think I fly… yet. Maybe if I one day evolved, I could get wings! But nht now, nope.”

  “Okay, Camil lift yht?” Vd asked. “I guess she doesn’t know the Float Spell yet either.”

  “Sure!” Camil nodded. “Let’s go, Emerlinda.”

  Like that, the group moved across the skies, movihe Dark Forest, a couple of kilometers away from Elderbridge. They passed through several dried nds, a wastend of bck stone and strange miasmids, and stly, pins as bck as the night, made of Shadow Grass.

  “Wow, it is like an o of darkness…” said Emerlinda, gng from above. “I hought everything would be so dark here… I barely see most stuff.”

  “I guess that’s because people born in this Realm are adapted with Dark Vision, we see shapes and colors clearly even with a ck of natural light,” expined Vd.

  “Although there’s always some light, it’s dim, and it ges between silver, red, and green, the moons above,” Chris pointed into the sky.

  “ht!” nodded Emerlinda. “So beautiful! Over at Fantasia there is only oellite; it is only a Blue Moon; they say that’s where the Primordial Spirits live.”

  “The Primordial Spirits?” Chris asked. “What’s that?”

  “They’re like Aors to the current Spirit Tribes and Races,” expined Emerlinda. “They’re also sidered Gods, but there's a lot of them… Like nine.”

  “So those must be Fantasia’s Gods,” nodded Vd. “In here we got the three Moon Goddesses and then the Seven Evil Gods, who represent Deadly Sins. From what we’ve found out, apparently there were mods before. At least we know there was a Blood Demon King God at some point, but they all fell in some a battle. Ia is from that prehistoric era of Obscuritas.”

  “Oh wow, that’s so amazing!” Jese was fasated by the tale. “Fantasia has the Nine Primordial Spirits, but there’s also the Fairy King and the Fairy Queen, the Yggdrasil Tree, and the Divine Messenger Squirrel!”

  “So there are mods than in Obscuritas?” wondered Chris.

  “A bit,” nodded Vd. “Well, it’s not like it’s a petition… Wait, the Fairy King is a God?”

  “Eh? Is he?!” Chris wondered.

  “He’s sidered a Divine Being,” nodded Emerlinda. “I’ve never had the privilege of even beiely close to the big city where he lives with the Queen though.”

  “Woah, so my character background is…? Nah, probably it refers to another Fairy King,” Chris said.

  “I… don’t know anymore,” said Vd. “Is there another Fairy King out there?”

  “There are many kings, but none are called Fairy King,” said Emerlinda. “I’ve heard his name is Oberon and the Queen is Titania.”

  “Huh…” Chris muttered. “So in this world my father’s Oberon, Fairy King, and God?!”

  “Maybe that’s why you’ve got very powerful divine abilities,” said Vd. “I mean, your teiques and magic are really overwhelming.”

  “But isn’t that from my Trait? Like the heavenly emperor thingy?” asked Chris. “Uuuh, well, whatever. I’ll find out eventually…”

  “The background you’ve got is amazing…” Emerlinda said. “I envy you a bit, Chris! I wish I could have had something like that… But I didn’t want to risk a randomly geed Avatar. What if I ended up getting some ugly orc or troll thing? It was too much to risk…”

  “I ’t bme you for that; we went kind of blind to this,” said Vd. “But I suppose most normal people would just make their ideal avatar and background.”

  “Brother! I see the Dark Forest from here! Look!” Camil interrupted their versation, pointing into the distance.

  The girl, and mostly all NPever really cared at all whealked about IRL things, character creations, or anything revealing they were people from other worlds within these bodies.

  Perhaps it was some sort of i fun NPC’s minds had that they never questio or cared about such versations uhe Pyer insisted on talking about it with other NPCs.

  Therefore, evehey talked openly about this in front of them, no problems would ever occur, strangely, if not vely enough, despite all the realism this game world had.

  “You’re right, let’s desd then!” Vd nodded. “I want to try out my new Skills too, so this is perfect.”

  -----

  Pach