Chapter 39.2
Chapter 39.2
She didn’t fully grasp the value of money yet, but it had to be a significant sum. She hesitated. What should she do? If she didn’t have the money, the decision would be easier, but it was precisely within her budget. Her hazel eyes fell on the prone fairy. Even though no one was tormenting it anymore, it lay prostrate on the table, as if begging for forgiveness. Do you really think this is real?
“Fine.”
Everyone, even the man who’d named the price, was stunned.
“I’ll give you three thousand gold. Give me the fairy now.”
“She’s crazy.” The reaction came from a nearby table. The speaker was too shocked to control their volume.
It was understandable. Baby fairies could be bought for 7 silver at the fairy shop. From their perspective, this was pure charity. No, worse than charity. She hadn’t even preserved her pride.
“Whoa, really? Really three thousand gold? I had a dream about a big snake last night. Maybe it was a dragon.” The man with the dagger, his face flushed with excitement, shoved his friends. There were no more obstacles. He quickly unfastened the shackles from the ashtray ring and yanked the chain. The fairy, dragged along the table, was now dangling upside down, supported only by the shackles on its legs.
Striding towards Adeline, the man thrust the dangling fairy at her. “Pay up now. Just like you did before.”
He could have initiated a formal exchange request, but he didn’t. He was afraid of being reported for fraud if the transaction was recorded in the game. His companions, holding sacks, surrounded him.
Adeline, standing tall, extended her hand over the sack. As before, gold bloomed from her fingertips. The onlookers gasped silently as the large sack rapidly filled. Clink, clink, clink.
Thud. As the sack filled, the man tossed the fairy onto their table. With a final whimper, the fairy collapsed, motionless. It appeared to have fainted. The exchange was complete.
If they had parted ways then, it would have been a satisfactory ending for everyone. The thugs got the money, Adeline rescued the fairy, the onlookers had a story to tell, and the waiter could deliver the now-cold food.
But as someone once said, human greed knows no bounds.
Adeline hadn’t agreed to the three thousand gold without hesitation because she had money to spare. She valued the fairies of District 10 as living beings. She believed no amount of money was too much to save a life.
But they interpreted it differently. They believed Adeline had more money, and, furthermore, that she wasn’t particularly strong. Even the intimidatingly handsome man beside her supported this notion. If he were strong enough to handle all three of them, he wouldn’t have let her pay.
This was that kind of world. A world where crime was so rampant that moral concepts were lost. Because it wasn’t real. Because it was virtual. The morals they upheld in their daily lives were merely flimsy truths maintained by the constraints of reality. Intangible concepts held no sway in an intangible world.
Perhaps that’s why, in the next moment, the man with the dagger roared and attacked Damian.
Before Adeline could react, the fool, believing the best defense was a good offense, launched a preemptive strike in the wrong direction. At Damian, who still sat with his arms resting on the table. At the one person in this place he shouldn’t have provoked.
The sharp dagger pierced Damian’s hand, pinning it to the table. A drop of blood splattered. The man had planned to follow up his preemptive strike with threats. Hand over all your money and belongings… There are three of us and two of you…
Such clichéd lines were waiting their turn.
But the man couldn’t speak. No one could have, in that situation.
Not when the dagger, pulled from Damian’s hand, was plunged deep into the man’s cheek.
Adeline was the only one who saw what happened next.
Damian, having retrieved his dagger, embedded the metal in the man’s face. Before the blade, now slick with blood, could drip, he yanked it free and flung it at the remaining thug, striking him squarely in the eye. Eyes wide, the man stiffened and fell backward with a thud.
That was the alarm bell.
Chaos erupted, engulfing the tavern. The man with the pierced cheek screamed, while his last remaining companion fled without looking back. The other patrons, caught up in the frenzy, followed suit. Tables overturned, chairs scattered across the floor as everyone scrambled to escape.
The injured man howled in pain, louder than the small boy he had tormented, many times louder.
“Sh*t, I can’t log out.”
There was no logout button. That’s how it always was.
A world too immersive sometimes becomes reality.
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