Before I continue, at least let me explain why Jeongyeon and I snuck into DahTzu’s camp in the first place.

Mina wanted me to kill them for their experience points, mainly so that I can hurry and level up. It was also her way of dealing with their incompetence. Two birds with one stone, right? 

There was one problem with that whole thing: I’m not an assassin, plain and simple. Killing people in their sleep was a terrible thing to do, whether it was in a game or not. Besides, Dahyun, as I recalled, could feel the Phenomenon. If I harmed her, she’d feel every slice, every cut. The very thought of trying to kill her in such a terrible way was sickening.

My plan involved keeping them alive. The knife was symbolic; if I snuck in while they slept, stabbed the dirt between them, and then left, when they awoke, they’d find that I was a good person worthy of their trust for not killing them. I’d need their trust for the next part of my awesomely strategized plan.

 

 

I struck true, the knife digging deep into the ground with a soft but satisfying crunch. I rose, wiping sweat off my forehead, and signaled to Jeongyeon that the deed was done. She nodded and stepped out with me into the night air. Quietly, we took any weapons they had nearby and snuck away, just to be safe. If they didn’t agree to my terms, they might get angry and try to kill us. Not having weapons would make it easier for Jeongyeon and I.

Once we were at the edge of the clearing, far away enough that we had enough distance between us if things went awry, I pulled my pan flute out and blew as hard as I could.

The only way in which I can describe the sound it let out was that it sounded like a hoarse screech, not unlike the way a person who’s been crying for a long time sounds. It echoed through the clearing, loud and clear, and there was an immediate response, the exact one I wanted. Inside the tent, Dahyun and Tzuyu scrambled out. They immediately searched for weapons, but when they saw that all of them were gone, they looked dumbstruck.

“Now,” Jeongyeon said, and we stepped out into clear view. Tzuyu recognized us first.

“You! ChaeYoungster!”

“Yeah,” I began, walking their way in a slow manner. I didn’t want to spook them, in case Dahyun had some spells up her sleeve that could be summoned in less than a second’s notice. “It’s me. Listen carefully. I have instructions for you. Follow them, and maybe you won’t be hurt in the process.”

Dahyun and Tzuyu exchanged glances, and I continued. 

“Look inside your tent. There, you’ll find a dagger–“

“Knife!” 

“–you’ll find a knife embedded into the dirt. I put it there. I was above your bodies and you were at my mercy. I could have killed you, but I did not.” Just as I asked, Dahyun and Tzuyu peeked in, finding Jeongyeon’s knife exactly as I described. “In exchange for such...kindness,” I struggled to say, feeling a little weird about asking them to be thankful that I didn't kill them. “Um, I want to ask for your help. Accept and surrender yourselves first, and then I’ll continue.”

Dahyun and Tzuyu shared another look. Dahyun nodded, and I relaxed. I smirked at Jeongyeon, proud of myself. This strategy was easy peasy. Maybe I was cut out to be—

I got cocky. I stopped paying attention to my surroundings, and that’s when Dahyun, who had secretly pulled out Jeongyeon’s razor-sharp dagger from the dirt, threw it directly at my head. 

It struck me straight in the eye.

Has that ever happened to you? Have you ever had something sharp and deadly strike you in one of the most vulnerable and vital parts of your body? It’s not pretty, I’ll tell you that, though I’m sure anyone could imagine it.

I screamed and fell to my knees, the pain making it hard to hold myself up anymore.

“Chaeyoung!” I was vaguely aware of Jeongyeon shaking me and calling my name, but the shock of the attack was too strong. It was like being frozen solid. Even if I wanted to move, I couldn’t, and I was cold all over. 

I started shaking really badly, the shock wearing off and leaving me with a more intense feeling of utter pain. It became hot suddenly, unbearably hot, and I began to sweat like as if I was in a jungle in the middle of the hottest day instead of in a forest on a cold night.

I heard grunts in front of me, but I couldn’t tell what was happening exactly. Maybe Dahyun had decided to attack Jeongyeon next and they were currently in battle. 

I started crying because I knew that I’d have to pull the knife out in order to heal myself properly. With my good eye, the right eye, I watched my shaky hand raise and pull up the spells menu. I selected the only spell in my arsenal, the Heal spell, and equipped it. I numbly wondered if it would be possible to heal the wound a bit, then pull on the knife a little, repeating the process until I safely pulled out the wretched thing with nearly no pain. I didn’t get to find out.

All the commotion didn’t go unnoticed by a third party. As I kneeled on the ground, the moon had been shining brightly above me, but at that moment, a mountain rose above me, blocking the light. They had barely registered in my brain, those deep growls, when something that felt akin to a thick three trunk swiped at me, making me fly to the far right. The impact of landing on the ground sent a shockwave through my head and I was sure the knife had been pushed deeper into my eye socket.

“Chaeyoung!” I heard Jeongyeon again, but my name was followed by a pained grunt and a limp body landed on top of me, knocking any breath I had out of me. The hair of the body was blonde, and I was horrified to see it was, of course, my friend. My good eye traveled up and I calmed a little when I saw she still had HP left. 

 

YooTheBest, LVL 60

 

86 HP

 

Jeongyeon was just out cold for a moment, I guessed, since nearly ¾ of her health was gone. Shakily, I removed her from myself and tried to continue healing. My own health was pathetic at 5 points away from death, due to the knife and Gucci’s swing.

Dahyun, with Tzuyu in tow, walked close and peered at us. There was an indiscernible expression on Dahyun’s face, but Tzuyu looked very uncomfortable. 

“Did Mina send you?” Dahyun asked me, but I couldn’t speak. Moving my jaw felt like a terrible idea with the head-splitting headache that was working it’s way down starting at the top of my skull. She became angrier for that and her face reddened. “I asked, did Mina send you or not?”

I wasn’t sure how she had figured that but assumed she had her own reasons to assume that this was all Mina’s doing. 

Tzuyu whistled an order to Gucci, and the beast reared itself, ready to pounce on Jeongyeon and I, when, suddenly! A volley of arrows flew over the tops of the trees behind me!

Each arrow struck true and got Gucci square in its exposed shoulder. It let out a pained wail then fell to the ground with a thump. It wasn’t dead, I could tell by it’s heavy breathing, but it was actively taking damage from the arrows; the Cerberus turned green, yellow and red intermittently, indicating poison damage, similarly to how Nayeon’s poisoned bolt had done to SaMo.

There must have been about thirty of forty arrows lodged into Gucci’s body, too many to have been shot by Momo and Sana alone. They were damn good archers, but they weren’t that good, were they?

Tzuyu cried out the beast’s name but found no time to care for it as an entire group of girls rushed in from the forest and into the clearing. They rushed into Dahyun and Tzuyu, smothering them before they could react at all. Beside me, I saw Jeongyeon sit upright to watch the scene before us. 

When the dust cleared, Dahyun and Tzuyu were bound by the very ropes that had held their tent. 

Who were these newcomers that came just when things were getting dire? 

Jeongyeon got up and tripped over to them and one of the mysterious girls met her halfway. It was— Jihyo?

Carefully, I sat up and saw that the large group of girls was nothing more than just Nayeon, Momo, Sana and Jihyo, but cloned somehow. Before my eye, more than a third of the girls shimmered out of existence, leaving my four friends left. I gasped in awe. Was that a special kind of illusion? Who had such a cool ability? I wasn’t sure, but figured I’d find out in due time.

“Chaeyoung!” Nayeon noticed me in my bad state first and darted over, the glowing ball that was a healing spell already in her left hand. “I didn’t think it would be this bad.” She reached for the knife but I whimpered, scared of the pain that would come from removing it.

“No, Nayeon, please,” I said weakly.

“Oh, Chaeyoung… We have to get it out. Heal yourself first, though. If we don’t get your health up, I’m afraid I’ll end up killing you,” she said, referencing my 5 HP. I nodded, equipped the spell, and soon my left eye felt like the physical embodiment of static: it was uncomfortable in a way that felt like I had a whole hive of bees nestled carefully between my brain and my skin. However, it was a more welcome sensation than just straight up pulling the knife out with no aid. After filling my health about halfway, she began to tug on the knife, asking me to continue healing myself.

I’m not gonna pretend like it didn’t still hurt. Of course it did. There’s something that feels wrong–unnatural– about having something foreign move inside of you. But you know what hurt more? Yes, more than a knife to the eye, it hurt to see Nayeon, Jeongyeon, Momo, Sana and Jihyo look at me with such pain and worry in their eyes. 

Jeongyeon couldn’t even look directly at me. Her eyes hovered somewhere to my left, and I knew then that she blamed herself, at least partially, for what had transpired, though it’s obvious that none of it was. All of this, their evident sadness about seeing me in so much pain, it was...horrifying. 

It had always been obvious that I needed to get better at this game to level up and get Mina out of here, but at that moment, I found another reason to fight so hard: my friends, the new ones I had made here in Paracosmos.

 

 

By the time I ran out of magic points (I was really jealous of Jihyo and Jeongyeon’s seemingly endless reserve), the knife was out. 

I felt warm tears prickle my eyes and I thanked her for her help. If she hadn’t helped me, I think I would have preferred to just keep the weapon embedded into my socket than risk any more pain. 

“Hey, no problem. How do you feel?” Nayeon said, a small, motherly smile on her face.

I felt a phantom pain there, in my left eye, like it was still in there, pushing deep. It was almost like the time Dahyun killed me, sending me to the Game Over screen. I remembered feeling a numb pain between my eyes, like the arrow she shot into me was still there. “It almost feels weird to be able to see through both eyes,” I opted to say instead, wanting to get past it. 

Nayeon frowned. Could she tell I was hiding how traumatized I was? Either way, she dropped it quickly, turning instead to our new hostages.

All of 6Mix gathered around DahTzu, in fact. Tzuyu seemed quite calm despite being tied up, almost like she had accepted the loss already. On the opposite end of the spectrum was Dahyun, agitated, demanding to be released. 

“Alright. I will. Well, maybe. You didn’t take up my first offer and instead attacked me, but I’m nice and will offer again. Surrender completely and join our team, at least temporarily.”

“Why do you need us? Did Mina send you?” Dahyun asked, squirming in her rope handcuffs.

“In a way. She sent me here to kill you for your EXP,” I said, noticing how Dahyun didn’t look too surprised. She must have expected that, some sort of punishment for failing to bring me to Mina. 

“Well? Why didn’t you? We were asleep. You could have slit our throats and we wouldn’t have been able to do anything about it.” Dahyun’s words made Tzuyu frown deeply. She seemed troubled, like she didn’t agree with Dahyun at all. 

“Because I want you two on my team– not necessarily in the guild yet, but you can accompany us, add more experience to the pool. I mean, you girls definitely know stuff about this game that I lack,” I said as convincingly as possible. “Stuff that I need .” 

“Like, perhaps, info on how to defeat Mina in your final battle,” Tzuyu said, and interestingly enough, there was no hint of a question in the statement. The hair on my skin bristled. I had no idea that they knew about it, as I had assumed that Mina had kept the fact from them, almost jealously. I should have figured though, that she’d boast her evil plans not only to me, but to anyone that would listen. 

“Yes,” I breathed out, and Sana jumped in to ask how Tzuyu knew about that.

“She never shuts up about it. Originally, I chalked it up to Mina having some sort of persecution complex, overly paranoid over nothing. Everytime she rambled to Dahyun and I about her plans, it gave me that vibe. Now, after all of this, I see I was wrong.”

“You want us to join your circus troupe and in exchange, I get to help you and exact my revenge on Mina?” Dahyun said darkly, an odd little smirk on her face. “Well, sign me up.” She raised her tied fists in the air, and so did Tzuyu.

So they made their choice.

Gingerly, Jeongyeon handed me that cursed knife and I cut DahTzu free, but not before warning them, specifically Dahyun: “I see you’re easily motivated by revenge. Your attack on me and my friends in those plains and now this? You’re volatile and easily swayed by your own emotions. Don’t think I won’t keep an eye on you.”

“Don’t be so quick. I’m not crazy,” Dahyun said, rather unconvincingly. “I do want revenge, but I’ll do it vicariously through you. Mina deserves to be taken down a peg, and a little break in playing the game to go with you would be the big blow to her pride. That’s all I desire. Truly.” She and Tzuyu rose from the ground they had sat upon and stretched now that they were free. Dahyun rotated her head, making her blue hair fly around. 

Tzuyu took special interest in her wrists, which were heavily chafed. I felt guilty about it, as Tzuyu seemed like the chillest out of the two, but a quick healing spell and the harm was gone. “Now is a good time as any to...apologize for Gucci. I don’t know if, besides ChaeYoungster and Dahyun, any of you feel pain here, but if you do… sorry. I was just playing the game, you know?” 

Nayeon raised her eyebrows, and I thought she’d dismiss her, but instead she shrugged. “It’s fine. You seem nice, so you’re forgiven.” Sana didn’t like that one bit. I could tell by her derisive snort.

“Anyway, what’s our first move, captain?” Dahyun interrupted, her tone lightly dipped in sarcasm.

I tried to act like it didn’t get to me as I adjusted the straps of my leather armor, making a point to show that this was once hers and that it was mine now. I said, through gritted teeth, “Jihyo is the one you’ll be answering to. She’s the guild leader.” I stepped back and gestured to the aforementioned leader.

Dahyun is an already pale girl, but when she saw Jihyo, she blanched even more. She looked afraid of her. “Is- is that a full set of heavy armor?”

“Yes,” Jihyo answered. 

“As in, armor that the warrior class uses, one of the only classes with enough stamina to use it?”

“The very type of armor.”

“And is it Dragon Scale armor? The kind of armor that requires either a fat purse full of coin to purchase, or the person to defeat an actual...dragon?” Dahyun asked again, her voice shaking slightly.

I had no idea what was going on, but the air w