———Lynda———

  <5: 19 pm>

  “Hmm… It’s not as bad as the st time, at least.” This doctor said before starting to mumble something under his breath. Guess he is healing me right away? “Where has your friend gone? You two seem to always stick together if you get the chance.”

  “She got a cold, so she doesn’t feel enough to go into the dungeon with me.” It’s freezing outside, obviously some of us ought to get a bit sick.

  “And she didn’t come here? I’m sure I can get rid of that little problem in only a few seconds.” He casually said. That might be true, but his operation still cost money. I doubt it’s a lot, but she has weathered through it before, so she probably doesn't see the need. It’s not something threatening anyway, just lower her energy.

  “She’ll manage.” I said, not seeing the need to talk about this further.

  “Whatever you say. It’s done, by the way.” He said and I then touched the area with the cw marks. Thankfully it is gone. “Hmm… Three bucks is fine.”

  “What even is with your pricing…” I muttered, wondering if there is any logic to those. Whatever, just pay him and get this over with. “Here. I won’t be buying any bread this time around. See you ter.”

  “Make sure not to die out there!” He cheerfully said as I walked out of the clinic-

  “Ah!” I got a bit startled, seeing another doctor out here. “Sorry, Mister Cevin. Got a bit startled…”

  “It’s fine…” He said before looking at the entrance of this weird clinic. “Guess you were doing a checkup? Or perhaps treating an injury?”

  “Yeah? What about it?” Was he suspecting something about this guy?

  “Hm. Nothing important.” He said before walking towards the door. “Stay healthy, alright?”

  And then he went inside. I don’t think he has any wounds on him, and even if he does I’m sure he knows how to treat them… Huh. Didn’t Glery said something about this? Whatever. I should just go home and ze around or something. It’s still cold outside so I don’t want to be out here for too long…

  …Huh. Would you look at that. It’s starting to snow again. I guess I should do less internal monologue and go straight back home. Sometimes you forget just how cold snow can be. A bit weird to say, but snow only comes by a few weeks in a year.

  Anyway, I didn’t actually get to watch the stream of the tournament. Just kinda forgot that it even happened. I’ll check it out once I get inside and back to my room.

  There’s no homework today, and that floating isnd nonsense still doesn’t have a set date yet, and it’s not like I need to worry about that either. They would get grilled alive if they actually made us do dangerous work…

  All things considered, whoever is running the school is obviously out of everybody’s league, so parents being angry shouldn’t really be of any concern to them, and yet they have the courtesy to do that anyway. It’s not like they have to be honest about it either. I wouldn’t dare to defy whatever they said if it’s gonna result in me getting expelled or worse.

  That is to say, there’s nothing else I have to worry about, so I can use all of my time catching up to the tournament. It’s just the first day so there’s probably not a lot of upsets, but who knows.

  *Whirl*

  What the hell? It’s getting really windy all of a sudden… Is it gonna be a snowstorm? All the more reason to quickly get back home before I also catch a cold, or even frostbite.

  Quickly running back home using the kind of speed I would normally use for combat. Just gotta remember how fast I can move around now. With this it’s gonna only take me a minute or two before I reach my house.

  Braving through the snow does make me feel a little bit uncomfortable with how cold it’s being, but that’s plenty obvious. What’s important is that I’m almost there-!

  “Hah! I’m back!” I said, clumsily pushing myself on the door… Guess they’re upstairs. Whatever. Let’s shake the snow off and get a change of clothes. Get to my room immediately and start watching the VOD.

  Going upstairs and starting changing up and organizing a few things… That should do it. Just get the routine over with and holed up in my room for the rest of the day. If Glery were here we’d probably be hanging in there anyway, or in the living room if she’s gonna be staying over since morning. Sometimes she just stays here for a few days, but this time she just holed up in her room and tried to recuperate from the cold quickly. I wonder if those snake hairs are causing trouble, since they’re coldblooded, or maybe I’m thinking too much into it.

  Ahh… Home sweet home, or just a room, rather. I probably still need to clean it up a bit more, Glery was compining about it passive-aggressively. It’s pretty rare for her to be upset about something. Today though, I’m just not gonna worry about that.

  I’m gonna y down on my bed and just watch it on my phone. Plugging it in first just to make sure it doesn’t run out of power. I’m intending on skipping very little and probably going to be staring at the screen for a long while. Don’t want that disrupted. The game might have a lot of issues and I don’t py it often, but these tournaments are still very entertaining and worth the watch. I’m not gonna spoil the experience for myself.

  It’s… It’s supposed to be the first part of this year’s series, but THAT thing is deying pretty much everything at this point. I’m sure they are doing a lot of things behind the scenes to make sure there wasn’t a drought of content moving forward. Maybe they’ll compensate with mini-tournaments ter on.

  The production value seems quite high, somehow almost as high as the st one, which is st year’s championship. I guess all that time that was deyed was used for something. Now this is a fun watch already. Hopefully this keeps up. I’ve been avoiding all the spoilers and ignoring most social media, and by that I mean I just didn’t think about looking through it until now.

  They’re talking about how long it has been since the st LAN… Now that I think about it, what are these guys like now? Some of them are turned into demi-humans, right? I’m pretty sure that’s the case. I wasn’t following the scrims and stuff.

  Talking through the pyers, all of them discussing the new meta and the best teams…

  Hm? What are they alluding to this time around? Something about security? Why are they talking about that? I know neighborhoods have been getting dangerous and all that, but surely no terrorist act is gonna happen on- Actually should they really be talking about this when there are a ton of audience? Surely you don’t want them to even think about it.

  Doesn’t look like they’re crifying it any further before going back to talk about the game and its pyers. Seems like that’s gonna be a surprise ter on. Not sure when the gamepy is really gonna start but I have all day, so I’m not gonna rush. The VOD is pretty damn long so it might not be the best idea to watch all of it. I’m gonna skip past the break time at the very least, nothing important is gonna come from that.

  ———Wiina———

  <5: 37 pm>

  I wasn’t expecting anyone to come at this hour. Seems like they were afraid of me after all, and chose to come here during te hours where security should be a bit more xed. What are they even doing anyhow?

  “What are we even doing here?” One of them asked, echoing my sentiment.

  “What? Aren’t you curious what the backstage of this pce looks like? I sure want to know.” Oh. So they’re just some dumbasses using their power to sneak into the backstage for some scoop. Shouldn’t you try this when pyers and other officials are around?

  I thought they were trying to do some terrorism… Then again, if they want to make a statement, is a video game tournament the best pce for it? Probably not. These are just annoying fans more than anything, have a bit of power on them, even. Rather interesting.

  “So how are we going about this, bro?” Another one asked. Is this seriously the reason they are doing this? Like not even anything remotely grand? Kind of a waste, honestly.

  “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.” I make myself known, appearing behind the three and cause them to freeze up in terror. After all, I wasn’t here just a second ago. “To sleep with all of you.”

  Before they could even make an excuse, or even start infiltrating, I already put them to sleep with a spell. Now I don’t really know where I should put them, but I’m sure I’ll figure something out… Eventually. At least it’s good to know that I’m not patrolling around here for nothing. I could probably just cast a barrier through the entire thing or something, but even that has its fws.

  Anyway, this isn’t anything grand, but the work is- Hm? What’s this? A… gun? Are they seriously arming themselves for this? What a bunch of reckless idiots…

  ———Lynda———

  <5: 54 pm>

  What the hell is she doing here!? I caught a glimpse of her walking near the stage just now! Everyone else saw it too! Why in the world is she over there?

  Wait, was her name trending because of that!? I saw it on Chirping and thought it was weird. I felt like I would’ve known by now if she did something crazy, since she's the talk of the town and all. I guess being at a video game tournament which isn’t the most mainstream would do that. Not everyone is gonna watch it, let alone talk about it, at least offline.

  I’m so confused. I thought she’d be doing something… I don’t know, more important? It’s obviously wrong of me to say that since I’m watching this so religiously, but in the grand scheme of things it’s not like this tournament is gonna decide the fate of the pnet or something. I thought she was someone who looks at a bigger picture…

  Maybe I’m misjudging her? I have no idea what to make of this, I’m a bit too bewildered and I have more of the video to look through, like a few more hours. I don’t want to accidentally skip something with my mind occupied like that.

  ———Kenni———

  <6: 05 pm>

  “So this is the pce…” I muttered to myself as I nded on this isnd. The travel time is a bit too long for my taste. I need to conserve my stamina to make sure I didn’t run afoul of anything here on this isnd.

  There are a bunch of floating debris around the floating isnd, like orbiting rings around a pnet. The fact that it is happening here however, is even more notable. There shouldn’t be any force that would allow something like this to happen, which of course means that magic is involved.

  While I have seen a picture of it, actually stepping onto the isnd makes it plenty clear that this isnd is actually quite massive, and therefore the giant amalgamation of buildings here is also massive. It’s like a giant, bulky, and fucked up skyscraper. It’s certainly not something you see every day.

  Now the entrance itself actually looks quite clean, a road made of white tiles that leads into the entrance with white walls and door. It’s the one part of this madness-inducing location that looks cohesive.

  Now then, it’s time to go in and check the first floor. Is this a dungeon or something more? I want to know for myself, even before the trip is scheduled and ready to go. There is a beauty in discovering something by yourself. Just to be alone and have nothing to work on aside from your own intuition. It really makes one’s feat quite impressive and worthy of praise.

  Time to open the gate and get inside. The giant door might seem imposing, but it is not something that can sway me. Now let’s see what little secrets you can hold…