Chapter 7: Whispers

Alice had a simple mission: collect 3 medicinal herbs. The classic beginner's quest, which can be concluded in a few minutes...

However, the player spent the last 2 hours searching without any success—while she is good at combat, her ability to find things is terrible. Especially when looking for small objects. Normally in quests like this, she would search the internet for the location of the items she is looking for.

"URGH! How am I going to find it?! There are hundreds of leaves here! It could be anywhere!" grumbles Alice as she stressfully searches in the blue bushes for a medicinal herb. "Is this some bug?! It's almost impossible to find!"

Fedora makes noises to attract Alice's attention, who turns her eyes and sees the Slime carrying 10 medicinal herbs—green-colored leaves—on its gelatinous head. "Glob! Glob!"

"... How?"

[Experience: 127/150]

With this quest, Alice finally realizes the objective of these missions, the game is teaching her step by step how to create potions from scratch. An idea that she would commend if she wasn't being held in that world.

After a few minutes of searching, the player found a beehive on the highest branch of a large tree—approximately 30 meters high—she is amazed at the size.

Fedora jumps to the trunk and begins to crawl up, but Alice grabs him "No, no. You've helped me before. I can't depend on you all the time. Here, eat this apple for now." she leaves the Slime on the ground and places the fruit on its gelatinous head.

"Glob. Glob." says Fedora, in a grateful noise.

Looking again at the size of the tree, she takes a deep breath and clings to the branches, climbing the tree "Hey, it's not so hard! It's like riding a bike! Wait, I don't know how to ride a bike-"

One of the branches breaks and she falls to the ground.

"Of course, it's not going to be simple..." mutters Alice irritated, as she gets up from the ground and cleans the dirt from her clothes. She begins to test plans to bring down the hive—initially, throwing small stones, which hardly affect her target.

"I don't know why, but I feel like I'm forgetting something. Well, if I forgot it must not have been important."

Alice begins to reflect on her abilities, realizing the lack of a long-distance skill. The swordsman class is very good, but has its defects: dependency on a sword during combat and the weapon's own limitations. If she were a sorceress, she could easily shoot a magic arrow to bring down the hive.

"A long-range skill wouldn't be so bad. Did they keep the system of creating skills?"

Alice frowns "Another convenient quest? So this the tutorial? Every time I need to learn something, a quest will appear? And wow, how much XP."

She sits on the ground, closing her eyes, and breathing slowly, trying to calm her mind. After everything that happened recently, a strong anxiety, as if her mind was stirred like a sea in a storm.

She wakes up in a completely dark dimension, with the only visible thing being the player herself. But she is sure she is not alone...

Echoing voices begin to torment Alice, amplifying her fear.

"Do you want to go home Alice? Why? You don't belong here, you lifeless!" whispers a female voice.

She has flashes of her school days—even though she was a great player in Arcadia, at school she was seen as a 'lifeless', which attracted several bullies. One group in particular bothered her every day, spread rumors, destroyed her homework, hurt her, and the teachers did nothing but give a small warning. With these memories, Alice realizes that the voice she heard was Trish's, the group's leader.

Hearing her bully's voice, Alice gets a more irritated expression, and in a sarcastic tone says "Do you want me to break your nose again, Trish?"

"If you had dedicated yourself to something that was really useful, you wouldn't be here! You could be home now, studying, maybe even have real friends. But unfortunately, I failed and created a disappointment..." whispers a male voice—Alice's father, Aiden.

She has more flashes, this time from a discussion the two had on one of his visits to his father's house. He seemed to be very stressed, Alice tried to cheer him up, but he just asked about her performance in school. She shamefully says she got some low grades and Aiden explodes in anger, triggering a discussion between the two. But the only thing that really marked her mind was her father's last words: "Goddammit Alice! We have already lost Arthur because of this damn game! Stop throwing your life away and go do something useful!"

Remembering these moments, Alice begins to feel immense guilt and in a shaky voice says "I-I'm sorry..."

"You are alone now, child. At least you had fun." whispers her mother's voice.

The whispers multiply, feeding Alice's uncertainties and fears, who falls on her knees screaming "SHUT UP!"

A pair of eyes shining in white are emitted amid the whispers, a being approaches Alice—who is amazed to see herself, but with black and white skin tones.

<'The Whisper' LvL. ???>

The creature pulls out a black sword and advances with a leap, making a top-down cut at Alice—who in quick thinking, throws herself to the left, avoiding the attack.

Alice, still trembling from her painful memories, tries to focus on the battle, but it was as if every phrase the Whisper repeats affected her mind.

He says, in a mocking tone, with Trish's voice "Good reflexes. Looks like becoming an anti-social player served for something."

"I told you to shut up!" Alice shouts as she advances to her clone, equipping the rusty sword and spinning in a horizontal cut. But the Whisper changes to a reverse grip a few seconds before the player's blade hits him.

[Perfect Block]

In the collision of the blades, Alice feels an impact coming instantly to her sword, and she is thrown back. In an irritated tone she murmurs "Damn it! He also has the Perfect Block... I need to surprise him, but how..."

As she was getting up, a voice calls her attention "Easy noob."

She turns around and sees the Whisper—wielding his sword with one hand—advancing to pierce her. She does a somersault forward, dodging the attack and taking advantage of her current location—crouched behind his legs—she makes a horizontal cut at his two heels.

But in an instant reaction the clone jumps, making Alice's blow futile. The player observes the creature—still in the air—wielding his sword with both hands and cutting the wind.

[Windscraper]

A cut of air flies towards her. She raises her sword and performs a [Perfect Block] sending the attack back to the Whisper. But he responds with another [Perfect Block].

Alice again redirects the attack to her opponent, but he had disappeared from her field of vision. Suddenly, she feels a powerful wind cut hitting her back—the impact throws her across the dark terrain, where she ends up going through a wall that didn't exist before.

Even after the blow, Alice feels nothing but a strong burning sensation in her back. She quickly gets up and analyzes the new environment: the corridors of her school.

The lights flicker, the lockers open and close, creating a sequence of uncomfortable sounds, and in the blink of an eye, the Whisper reappears at the end of the corridor—now assuming the form of Trish—walks slowly towards the player, with her expression of arrogance.

"Even in your favorite game, it's still too easy to step on you!"

Irritated, she shouts at her enemy "What does this mean?! I was supposed to create my skills here, not face... Whatever you are!"

The Whisper again assumes the form of Alice and cuts the air creating another [Wind Scratch]. Taking advantage of the distance, the player squats dodging the cut and then she runs to him and performs several blows with her sword—aiming to pressure him with the immense sequence of blows.

Surprisingly, the creature with only one hand parries all of Alice's blows without effort. With his big white eyes, he stares at the player without showing the slightest emotion and whispers mixing the 3 voices:

"This won't be enough."

He performs a single counter-attack, hitting the player's sword and pushing her back with his monstrous strength. And relentlessly jumps on top of her, copying her previous strategy of making a sequence of several sword blows.

Even with her high agility, she is unable to react against all the attacks at once, having her sword thrown away and receiving a [Wind Scratch] at close range.

Alice flies with the impact to the end of the corridor—hitting some lockers—again, her body has no evident injuries, just temporary pain.

She sighs bored, just staring at her identical copy... Until a discovery illuminates her mind and with a surprised look she says "Wind Scratch? Wait, I came here because I wanted a long-distance skill... If this is a copy of me, it means..."

The Whisper advances with several jumps, preparing a final cut.

Alice stands up determined, and replicates the movements of her clone—cutting the wind with her sword "I can do this too!"

From her blade, a cut of wind manifests itself in front of her and advances quickly to the creature—in a quick reaction, she uses the [Perfect Block] and throws the attack back at Alice, who already expected it.

She advances sliding under her skill, and approaches her opponent while raising her left arm to cut him. A predictable blow, the Whisper puts the blade in front of the blow seconds before being hit. Until...

"Unequip! Equip!"

The sword disappears and reappears—this time in her right hand—consequently making the creature miss the timing of the [Perfect Block]. Taking advantage of this temporary breach, Alice surprises her enemy with a [Windscraper] at close range.

The cut was more than enough to split him in half. His dark body returns to its initial state: nothing. In a last action, the Whisper smiles proudly at Alice. And then his body disintegrates.

[Achievement #004 unlocked: Skill Architect]

[Description: Unlock skillforger and create your first skill.]

The hallways disappear with the Whisper, and the scene transmutes to an open space, with a foggy floor and a white sky. The only thing actually present is a copy of Alice—made of smoke—replicating the [Wind Scratch] several times. Alongside her, there is a screen transmitting the information of the skill.

[Windscraper (1 Star)]

[Description: Create a wind blade with your sword to transcend your range and cut those who remain far away.]

[Cost: 10 Stamina]

[Requirements for evolution: 50 creative points + 4 Swordskill]

Players can create any skill as long as they follow a series of factors: Have the necessary amount of creative points (Earn 5 at each level and 10 by defeating certain bosses), mastery, and status—the better the skill, the higher the requirements. The Skill also needs to follow the player's range of abilities, for example, you can't be a swordsman and create a skill that allows you to spit fire, this would only be possible if he had an item that would provide that power.

Swordsmen have only sword techniques dedicated to physical blows, but they can break this limit using magical equipment or passive skills that allow them to use magic.

"So now I can use this skill?!" says Alice in an excited tone—it was as if her mind was lighter and her worries had lessened after the battle.

She wakes up back in the forest, sitting on the grass, while Fedora sleeps on her head.

[Experience: 77/225]

Without wasting time, she promptly cuts the air, launching a cut of wind at the branch of the hive. The fragile tree stood no chance, and the branch is easily cut and the hive falls to the ground.

Alice jumps for joy "HELL YEAH!"

However, her happiness is interrupted by the sound of several buzzing coming from the hive. It was a swarm of bees furious for having their home destroyed.

<'Bees' LvL. 1>

"Oh, I knew I was forgetting something..." murmurs Alice, in a scared tone.

The player runs screaming from the swarm, apologizing futilely. The bees continued to chase her relentlessly. Until...

[Ígnea Arrow: Explosion]

An arrow is shot at the swarm, exploding into flames and executing all the insects at once—and throwing Alice into a tree.

In a muffled tone is only heard an "Ouch." from the player.

Alice hears a familiar voice "Oh. It's you again." as she turns around she sees Sophie, the pink-haired elf.

"Hey! You're the Vulture from before!"