Knights & Mages Online; The Lightnovel

Chapter 11 "I Kinda.. Died"

"Zerthai's just DMed me." Alina clicked her message box.
"What's he saying?"
"Umm.. Generally getting mad at me about my resign and questioning me about The RoadHouse. I think I'll just tell him that I've joined The RoadHouse.. but nothing more."
"He'll get angry." Kai stated.
"He already is. Doesn't matter, I'll tell him not to take it personally and The RoadHouse might think about an alliance between the Dragon Knights in the future." she sent a message back.
Both boys nodded.
"Umm.. Seth?" asked Alina, making him look at her, "Is this.. real?"
She was checking Seth's stats. She could, since they'd added each other as 'Friends'.
"Yeah." Seth simply replied.
"You're level 83?!"
The blonde boy scratched the back of his head while smiling shyly.
"That makes you the highest leveled player in the game!!"
Seth kept smiling nevertheless while saying;
"I might have the highest level but that certainly doesn't make me the most powerful one, considering that I'm an A Rank Healer. So we have to train ourselves to keep our Guild Rank on the top. For our safety and also to clear the game as soon as possible."
Both Alina and Kai nodded seriously in agreement.

ㅡㅇㅡ

That night someone knocked on Seth's door.
"Come in."
The door opened quietly, it was non other than Hikaru, aka Kai. Now he was wearing casual clothes, definitely more comfortable than the raid gears. KMO was a well thought-out game. You could even create your own wardrobe with the clothes you purchased from the various shops. But.. seemed like Kai wasn't really interested in that element since he was wearing a simple black shirt and gray sweatpants.
On the other hand Seth was wearing a loose pink sweatshirt with a black gamepad logo on it, black shorts and gray slippers that had cats on them.
"Can we talk?" the black haired boy asked, he had a calm expression like the usual.
"Sure." replied Seth, dropping the pen and the papers in front of him.
Kai sat on the bed which was right next to the study desk after he closed the door behind him.
"What were you doing?"
"Ah, some strategy planning and.. stuff. I actually write tips about the monsters I've fought before and gave it to the bartenders for them to post on their walls but.. some choose to sell them anyways."
"Oh."
"Yeah."
There was an awkward silence between them, the more they thought about the atmosphere, the funnier it got and both started chuckling.
"So," the pink shaded began, "you have a girlfriend. How did that happen?" he'd never thought Kai would be the one who'd find a lover in here. Also.. with his personality.
"She.. uh.. saved my life. And.. well.."
"Geez, don't be so detailed." Seth teased. He knew Kai wasn't good at talking about personal stuff so he let him go.
"I actually wanted to ask you about how you're doing with.." he gestured the blonde's body.
'Ah.. maybe I should've told him sooner.' the guild leader thought.
"I.. umm.. actually didn't really have a problem with a male body. It really wouldn't matter to me." he tried to explain but it was obvious Kai didn't understand a thing. Well, Seth wasn't great at explaining either so he tried once again, more specific this time;
"I'm genderfluid. Most of the times I'd feel like a girl but other times I'd feel like a boy and will dress as such, even though I have a female body in real life. Sometimes I'd like to use feminine pronunciations and sometimes masculine. Sometimes I'd even feel like both genders and it'd feel confusing to me as well and I get really anxious about it.. So, what I'm saying is, it didn't matter to me when I got stuck with my female body and now it also doesn't matter that I got stuck in a male one." Seth waited for a moment to let Kai process all of this. "And I like men.. even though I feel like a boy sometimes."
"..Oh." Kai said finally.
"Thanks for your concern though." the blonde smiled at his friend softly, "This might be a lot to take in..?" he added.
It was, sometimes, for some people, a lot to take in. He had fall apart from some of his friends, mostly his love interests because of this part of himself. This also took a little part of shaping Seth's habit of spending his time in gaming, where he could be whoever.
"It's.. new." Kai replied, "This is my first time meeting someone.. like you. But as long as your personality doesn't change, I'm cool with it. What matters is your actions anyways, right?" the black haired boy smiled encouraging in the end.
"Right." Seth agreed, smiling broader now.
"Okay, then.. So I actually have 2 more questions."
"Look at that, you're actually holding conversations longer than 5 minutes." the Healer joked.
"Someone has to check up on you." muttered Kai drifting his eyes to left, then asked;
"Why is your MP as huge as an S Rank's?" he opened the A Rank Healer's profile from his 'Friend List', shoving at the blonde's face.
"I.. actually don't know." Seth smiled, "it happened while I was in the Glitch. The thing is.." he raised the left side of his shirt, exposing couple of black cracks coming out from his heart to back, to his shoulder bones, "I kinda.. died."

To Be Continued~