Polynya

“It’s trying to bite me but … ” He looks down at his hand and sees the spider gnashing at his arm. “It’s not real. I know it isn’t.”

“Is it disappearing?”

He shakes his head. The spider eventually gives up. It crawls up the side of Ryuk’s wall and back to its darkened corner. Once there, its eyes flash red as it completely obscures its body in the shadow of the room.

“Well?” Hajime asks.

“It went back to its corner.”

“So it’s still here? That’s odd.”

He shines his headlamp over there.

“No, it’s gone,” Ryuk reports back.

“We can discuss this in detail later,” Hajime says after a moment of silence. “I’ll need to do some research regarding recurring digital hallucinations. For now, I think you should log back in. I’m sure your guildmates want answers. Also, I think you should eat something.”

“I’m not too interested in lying on my bed at the moment.”

“Then dive from the living room. Everything is clean now and you can lie on the couch. And I want you to eat something,” he says, his eyes clearly reading Ryuk’s vitals. “I made some onigiri for later, but since you are awake now … ”

Hajime approaches the single window in Ryuk’s bedroom and opens the drapes. Outside, Tokyo whisks by in a frenzy of light. Aeros move through the air in their appropriate skylanes and the lights of Shibuya, a beacon in the distance, flash and dance across the slick glass of tall buildings.

“Fine.”

Ryuk pushes himself off the floor. He grabs his NV Visor and his Somnium skipbox, and heads to the living room.

Chapter 2: Choose a Quest

While Ryuk’s hunger may be satiated by the two onigiri he swiftly wolfs down, his confusion at Tamana’s betrayal shows no signs of slowing down. With this on his mind – as if there is anything else he could think about, aside from the digital spider that was just in his room – Ryuk lies down on the couch and sets his NV Visor on his stomach. He still needs to order haptic gloves, and as he places the visor on, he quickly makes a purchase over iNet from Rakuten.

And just like that, a new pair of gloves is on the way.

In the carousel beneath his purchase, he sees a more slim-line version of the visor he is currently wearing. It is also possible to dive using a person’s life chip, the chip in the temple of every Japanese citizen at birth. To dive using one’s life chip, an over-the-ear apparatus is necessary, but most people, oddly enough, continue to use the visor as it is the classic way to dive.

The sine waves start up on the inside of Ryuk’s visor, and he closes his eyes, letting the instant neuro-hypnosis begin. Before Ryuk can say or do anything else, he’s given spawning options and, naturally, he selects the current location of his guildmates.

His stats appear and after a three-second check, he swipes them away.

Ryuk Matsuzaki Level 13 Ballistics Mage

HP: 378/378                

ATK: 91          

MATK: 120

DEF: 69

MDF: 42

LUCK: 10

 

FeeTwix Fajer Level 17 Berserker Mystic

HP: 600/600                

ATK: 140        

MATK: 28

DEF: 81

MDF: 40

LUCK: 13

 

Hiccup Level 12 Shield Thief

HP: 525/525                

ATK: 76          

MATK: 13

DEF: 156

MDF: 74

LUCK: 25       

 

Zaena Morozon Level 16 Brawler Assassin

HP: 563/563                

ATK: 165        

MATK: 8

DEF: 93

MDF: 28

LUCK: 14       

 

 

 

We’re all healed up?

FeeTwix notices the confused look on Ryuk’s face and says, “It was Jim the hostelier. He set the room as a healing space as soon as we respawned here. Another perk of staying at this hotel, or hostel, or maybe it’s a hotel. Who cares? It’s a nice place! How are you doing? You holding up all right?” The handsome Swede walks over to Ryuk and places his hand on his shoulder. “Seriously, how are you?”

“Where the fick have you been?” Hiccup pushes FeeTwix aside and rattles his metal finger at Ryuk. “Your fickin’ wet dream Tammy decided to backstab the hell out of us, and there you go, disappearing like a little emo princess poofter snowflake bed-wetting fickboy back to the shithole from whence you came!” The goblin has already started in on a platter of lemon pepper dragon wings, the sauce of which is smeared across his face. “I’m stress-eating, goddammit!”

“Your face is a mess, Hiccup.”

The goblin uses his brass arm to wipe his lips and somehow manages to transfer some of the lemon pepper sauce to his pink topknot.

Damn goblin.

Orange haired Zaena with her dragon features and slim physique is beside herself. She’s pacing, her shoulders tensing and untensing as she plots her revenge. “We can return now,” she says without greeting Ryuk. “We will kill Tamana. I will personally see to it that–”