Youthfulness

Chapter Seven

(Note: Behold, the male main character has arrived at the scene!!!!)

Dark_Magician.

No player would not know him. His user name resided highly at the top of leaderboard, like a king surveying his subjects.

He was literally a legend. Due to the ability of Wizard, his character, diversified so much that he could heal as well attack with spells or physically, players always complained about the uselessness of Wizard when the particular skill needed to be used to kill completely. Despite this assumption, Dark_Magician was incredibly strong in all of his skills. His flawless skills were famed throughout the entire system, and the best evidence was that he was among the top players.

Although Claire was also among the top players, she was just in the fifth place. However, Dark_Magician was in the second place. The player in first place, MapleKing, didn't play the game anymore, so practically it was him who dominated this game.

Claire stared at the user name, not able to digest the possibility in such a short time. How come a player with such a low level could pull the best player to the team? She decided not to ask.

Usually the team chat should be overflowing with messages, but this one was unusually quiet. Only some instructions from Dark_Magician and herself appeared on the screen.

The enemies in the mission were quite skilled. Unlike the monsters she just fought before, the enemies had a shield formation rather than the normal horizontal line. However, with Dark_Magician here, the fairies and guards all died almost instantly under his spells and hits from his wizard staff, like according to his command. In fact, only Claire and him remained intact with more than half of the blood after half of the mission, finishing ten matches with the ascending difficulty.

After another hour, the mission remained one more obstacle. It wasn't killing guards. Instead, it was answering some ridiculously hard questions after reading a paragraph in 10 seconds. Claire didn't have much difficulty in memorizing that much, but it couldn't be said the same way with the others. Although she knew Dark_Magician certainly would have memorized them as well, she was worried that the others couldn't memorize.

Luckily, the questions were shared, and Dark_Magician and she answered all of them, the others seemingly offline to pretend not to see the questions, obviously because they knew not the answers. All questions were answered correctly, thankfully, or else everything done before would be rendered useless. Relieved, they got the rewards, and the system proclaimed them as the third team to finish Search of The Stars. Dark_Magician must have done it for a few times.

Claire let out a sigh of relief. To be honest, having the top player with the team was the most comforting when playing this kind of "Mission Impossible". The admiration towards the savior of the mission was unspeakable and could not be described in words.

Before the team broke apart, Dark_Magician sent a friend request to her. This kind of top players rarely played the game because they could get fewer rewards when they exceeded the level of the system, which was 65. This is a rare chance to add such a top player as a friend, thought Claire, so she pressed "accept".

"Claire Young!" Alexander shouted. She jumped up from the couch involuntarily. She grumbled, "Alex, you impatient and ungrateful monster!" His laugh echoed from the second floor.

Alexander ran down to the kitchen, shouting, "Sis, if you are not cooking, I am going to burn down the kitchen!"

"Don't!" Claire, frightened by her twin's threat, threw down the phone and dashed to the kitchen, just in time to stop Alexander from ruining the kitchen. Alexander chuckled, and made way for her. She slipped to the counter, and asked, "Pork cutlet bowl or fried rice?"

"Pork cutlet bowl!" Alexander replied delightly, "Quick, Claire, I am starving!"

"Why don't you just ask Yvette to cook for you?" Claire grumbled under her breath as she prepared the ingredients.

Alexander pretended he heard nothing, and happily whistled as he laid himself on the couch Claire was initially resting on.

***

After they had quenched their hunger by filling their stomach with the yummy pork cutlet bowl, Claire turned her attention back to her game. Alexander peeked a bit, and smiled. Finally, his sister acted like a normal teenager. He silently returned to his room, where he called his boyfriend, Julian, and started chatting.

Meanwhile, Claire returned to Waterfall Village to do Messenger Mission. Although she disliked doing this mission, its rewards were not affected by the level of the system, but becoming more useful as she ascended to the higher levels. She decided to turn on the automatic mode. The monsters were so easy to fight.

A ping was heard suddenly. Claire checked her screen. Oh, someone sent her a message using the game's private conversation system. She opened the inbox, and found a message form Dark_Magician.

It was:  Are you married in the game?

Oh, that.

One of the unique function of this game was to get married with a player. Of course, it should be the opposite character sex, because same-sex marriage was not a popular thing. However, not everyone was willing to get married, because one of the players had to buy an engagement ring with the fake currency of the game. And it was expensive, requiring sometimes real money. Moreover, the players must do the Search of Angelican Rose. As mentioned before, missions starting with "Search of" were Mission Impossible. And the Search of Angelican Rose was Mission Impossible 2.0, the level harder than Search of The Stars.

Claire quickly typed: No.

The replied came almost instantly: All of my friends are married in the game already. Can you marry me?

I doubt you have ten friends, thought Claire, but then it hit her suddenly. God, Dark_Magician, the top player, was asking her for the hand in marriage.

In the intelligent mind of Claire, there was nothing except three words.

What. On. Earth.

After a shocked silence, Claire typed with difficulty: Why?

Reply came: I told you. I can only find you, the only friend in my list that is not married.

Claire had lost the ability to type intricate sentences. An unknown feeling rushed up from the tips of her toes to her brain, and her heartbeat went wild, as fast as hares.

As a result, the conversation went something awkward like this:

SleepingLotus: Okay.

Dark_Magician: Don't worry. I have an engagement ring in my inventory. You need not to buy it.

SleepingLotus: Okay.

Dark_Magician: Let's meet in front of Cupid in the City of Sacred Heart. We need to do Mistletoe Messenger to earn more Rings to get married.

SleepingLotus: Okay. Meet you there.

As shown, Claire practically was so caught off guard that she just answered yes to everything.

Rings, a kind of currency in the game just for marriage-related things, was required to activiate the Search of Angelican Rose, which in turn, if passed, allowed players to use the engagement ring to hold a wedding. After marriage, Pearl, another kind of currency, was needed, earned from the wedding and Lovers' Quest, but it was another story.

Anyway, Rings could only be earned from doing Mistletoe Messenger, a kind of mission that required cooperation from both players, because in some parts they had to answer questions at the same time and earn Rings if they both chose the same answer. Mistletoe Messenger could be done only twice daily.

Claire suddenly remembered something. They needed to communciate so to earn more Rings in a shorter time! Quickly, she typed: We need to communicate with each other  in other ways than within the game. You know the private conversation system will be deactiviated during the mission!