Chronicles: Second Earth Online

Chapter Eight

Angels are capable of accessing all magical elements. But Humans cannot. Their magical difference makes Angels more powerful than Humans.

--Second Earth Online Guide for Gaming, Characters

Life is like a race. You need to move forwards to survive. You need to bypass challenges and win. But not all the time you can win, you experience loss, grief, pain, and suffering. But most important of all, you tried running, you still moved forward. The group of Nex made their escape against the group of Mad Gorillas a fun way of racing, each glided past trees, jumped on huge rocks, bypassed rivers and went past meadows, if they continue with their current speed, they will reach the destined place as sooner as thirty minutes.

"We need to find a safe place to stay over the night. The sun here is setting and so do the sun on our real world." Fawn spoke while maintaining her speed. Nex looked at the scarlet-filled sky with the sun setting down half of its body and felt a rush of fear run down his spine. The whole day passed with their attention focused on the game and had no time to log out for eating lunch.

"Oh no." He said scared. The three looked at him, noticing he released some speed and let himself be fall behind. "Mom's going to give me a beating." Still he went amazed considering the game assessing his feelings and enabling his first fear.

"I see something up ahead!" Fawn said as she pointed something far in front of them.

"Yeah, TREES." Jake said. "We see it too."

"Dunderhead! Look beyond those trees!" Everybody looked harder.

They came to a small clearing where ancient pillars full of carved figures with an elegant curve at the top are lining in a circular formation. The ground became bricks of stone as they entered the circle. The pillars are excessively decorated with crawling plants that changes its hue from dirty white to mossy green. The plants often bear white flowers which makes the pillars somewhat beautiful. At the centre rests an altar, a simple rectangular altar with no designs at all. Though the topmost flat surface has engravings that are hard to understand.

"Is this an altar?" Fawn asked, followed by the inspection of Jake with the strange carvings. "King's Shrine." Nex said. "This is an altar for the offerings of the Kings and Queens of Second Earth." He continued.

"Wow, so we do have Kings and Queens here?" Jake followed after hearing the statement. "I think they're very brave and strong royalties." He continued, daydreaming.

"Guys, check this flower out, you will only notice its extreme scent when you sniff it." Fawn said as her face twisted with the unpleasant scent of the flower.

"Wow, what fragrance. This is a strong flower. I think a monster's sense is way better than a player, so this flower could have great effects on them." Nex said while observing.

"That's why they don't wander off around here, even Domestic Monsters." Fawn exchanged. "If I remember correctly what you said Nex, the manual did state something like that. If my memory serves me right, there are at most seven Kings and five Queens that stands as guardian deities of the whole world aside from Odelius the Creator."

"What makes them complicated to comprehend is the fact that they are not players." Nex corrected. "They must be AI, it's impossible that the Kings and Queens would be at the level of NPCs."

Nex opened the Window Popup while the rest watched him went to [Configurations] and prepared to click the {LOG OUT} button. "I guess I need to log out for the meantime. And if my calculations are correct, it would be tomorrow morning that I will be able to log in again so I hope we'll be able to meet here. But if luck is on my side, I can log in tonight." He said as his hands waved in mid-air before getting surrounded by a bright light and disappearing with a small pop in the air. Fawn waved him goodbye with a smile as well as the other three except for Annie who went back in her shy state.