Ch 11- Live Again

"Leaving so soon? I guess it's not surprising since there's not much you can do hanging here all day. Take this as a gift from me".

Yuki reached out his palm and gently set a beautiful blue gemstone earring gently into Glacé's hand. His eyes widened 'never imagined receiving a parting gift haha'. As his eyes crinkled into a bright smile he looked back at Yuki's face. "This is?…".

"It's a special communicator device, once you equip it, it will allow you to contact NPC's who have given you their 'source code'. This means that whenever you need to make a request or ask questions you can send them a message directly rather than traveling to them in person. These devices aren't common, and many NPCs won't willingly give their contact info away unless you leave an extremely good impression on them. I've already put mine and Elder Dan's communication inside. Feel free to reach out, but not too often. Good luck out there".

Yuki raised his eyes and stared at Glacé warmly "consider this your special gift for being the first player in the game and the future of our race". Yuki's warm smile shifted to a sly smirk the next moment, he swiftly grabbed the earring back "let me help you to equip it". Glacé nodded excitedly for a second and then froze 'by "equip" he doesn't mean?….'

The next moment Glacé felt a searing pain in his right ear that lingered. "Ah!". He screeched at the sensitive pain in his ear and looked at Yuki incredulously. Yuki gave a gentle laugh seeing his face and patted Glacé on the shoulder.

"Now get out of here, I don't think I need to tell you that being in your original form is much faster when traveling whether by leg or flight; our natural form is superior. My last gift of goodwill is a world map you can use to guide you; we're roughly somewhere in this area".

Glacé stared at the forest Yuki pointed at and nodded he then quickly scanned the map 'hm seems rather bare, I wonder if it automatically fills in as I discover new places?'.

Glacé spotted an elven territory in the neighboring forest and mentally decided to try his luck there first 'they should have high favorability with my race'.

"Got it. Thanks for everything, I'll see you around Yuki". Glacé shifted back to his adolescent unicorn form and spread his wings out. As he was just about to leave he suddenly recalled something "Mole!!!". Glacé called for his pixie companion and after waiting a moment he poofed right before his eyes. "It's time for us to leave, would you like to hold my mane and follow or go off on your own?".

Mole excitedly hovered around Glacé and nestled into his mane, tying two pieces of it around himself to stay secured in place.

"Ha ha. Alright Let's go".

Leaving those words Glacé took off and cast a light spell on his horn to help navigate through the thick silver fog. 'I remember the fog will thin out and if we just keep moving we'll then be in the silver forest'.

After a few minutes of gliding the fog really thinned out and Glacé could see the vague outline of silver trees, he picked up his pace, and soon the fog completely dispersed.

*Ding* 'Discovered "Mystical Silver Woods" Your map has been updated'

'Just as I thought, the map will update automatically' Glace thought triumphantly.

The woods appeared entirely before Glacé, revealing a stunning scenery before his eyes. It was still early morning and the light peeked through the gaps in the silver tree leaves. The air felt damp and slightly cool when it hit Glacés face 'it's so serene'. He slowed down and landed and decided to trot through the forest 'who knows? Maybe I'll run in an NPC or something, there's no reason to rush'. Glacé didn't realize how different he was acting compared to his usual playing style, he was completely taken in by the atmosphere created by the game.

*Ding* 'Message notification'

Glacé who was enjoying the atmosphere felt it was ruined after hearing the system's notification. He shifted shape (as he still prefers to navigate with his hands) and opened the "Social" tab and saw that he received a message from his agent. Glacé grimaced and sighed 'I almost forgot about work, hah' he tapped to open the message.

"Kelly! We're all fixed and ready to go! The CEO had the team add an additional one hundred servers! So there won't be any more such crashing issues, we're counting on you to bring all that money back and rake the traffic in. So start streaming immediately, please! I'll be watching and reaching out from time to time, our platform is counting on you!".

"Ugh". Glacé held his forehead and looked at Mole who was hiding in his lavender hair "looks like we'll be walking like this for a while". Glacé equipped his black cloak and covered himself tightly. Then he silently went to his live broadcast settings and paused before hitting the 'start broadcast tab'.

"Just as a precaution" Glacé fiddled with the setting to make it so whenever the word 'Winged' or 'unicorn' or Glacé was spoken it would automatically be filtered out so that the audience can't hear it. Glacé nodded in satisfaction, went to his game settings, hid his avatar's name, and only after completing these things did he open the broadcast.

"Welcome back everyone! This is Catcher here, bringing you the first look into the gameplay of Gaia Techs, soon to be released game, "Lichen". I know we got cut off rather rashly last time, but I've been informed that everything has been taken care of and such an incident will not occur again. I've already been in the game for a day and a half, so I'll give a quick summary of my experience and what you all have missed thus far".

- 'Ahhh it's Catch!'

- 'Hey is it just me or does his avatar look smaller than it did in the creation space?'

- 'Seems smaller +1'

- 'Definitely smaller, is it magic?'

For the first time since showing his real face, Glacé carefully focused on the barrage and started to answer his viewer's questions as he saw them. "You're all right, my character is smaller. I used magic to change my shape a bit as my character was a bit too eye-catching. You all wouldn't want me to be attacked and captured by slave traders right?".

- 'At least pull the hood down so we can see your beautiful face!'

- 'Woooo I wanna see the beauty again'

- 'It seems you're in the woods, it should be okay to show us for a bit right?'

Gkacé stared numbly at the barrage.

*Ding* 'Message notification'

Glacé had a bad feeling, he opened the social tab and saw a short message left by his agent "give these people what they want! We'll all get more money and traffic! Sacrifice your face for the greater good".

Glacé sullenly pulled his cloak hood down and watched as the barrage fall silent for two seconds. Then all sorts of fireworks and stars flew across the page and the viewers were spamming the barrage so fast Glacé couldn't focus on a comment for more than a second. So he decided to ignore the barrage and talk about the game.

"I've reached level eleven so far and am a Mage by trade. I received a chest earlier and got two eggs from it; the first one Hatched this little guy". Mole flew from his hair and gently landed on Glacé's outstretched palm and nuzzled against his fingers while Glacé continued to elaborate. "His name is Mole and he is from the Pixie race, although he looks cute and sweet he's actually quite vicious. When I tried to hatch the second egg he directly destroyed it before it could be hatched". Glacé chuckled a bit as he explained his woes to the barrage.

- 'Ahhh this is a meng attack right? Two little cuties together?!'

- 'So cute, he must have been jealous of the other egg lol. Rip Catcher, you'll never be able to have another pet'

- 'So cute!'

The barrage continued along these same lines and Glacé couldn't take it anymore "does anyone have any questions regarding the game they'd like to ask?".

- 'Ohhhh me! How does avatar creation work?'

- 'what race did you get sorted in Catch?'

'Phew finally some normal comments' Glacé couldn't help but breathe a small sigh in relief.

"Avatar creation was really simple and fast the AI will scan you and your body will shift and morph. Then players should be sent to their race's starting village for a gameplay tutorial and world information. Or at least that's what happened to me".

- 'So what's your race then?'

Glacé saw many viewers asking about his race and felt a slight headache coming on, so he just flashed a dazzling smile and raised a finger to his lips making a shushing gesture "it's a secret". The barrage started screaming again and Glacé spoke "alright, that's enough chatting for now. Let's put the focus back on playing and enjoying the stunning views and characters in the game".

Without looking at the barrage response he quickly exited the streaming page and started walking with Mole. Talking to the air as he walked "an NPC gave me a world map and I'm currently trying to go to an elf territory that's nearby". So like this Glacé started a long trek explaining the things he's learned about the game so far. Thankfully he held back from saying how much he felt the game had it out for him and kept his criticizing words of condemnation to himself.