The world around Alphonse spun violently. Spatial pressure felt as though it were squeezing his internal organs, violently forcing gravity and directional orientation to collide within his skull.
As the silver light faded, the sharp stench of sulfur and the searing steam from the freshly scorched swamp assaulted his senses.
Alphonse dropped to one knee. He clamped his right hand over his mouth, while his left hand clutched his violently churning stomach.
"Ugh..." A suppressed groan escaped his throat.
"Hah?! Who goes there?!"
An arrow of pure light was already aimed squarely at Alphonse's forehead. However, the moment Arcus realized who had emerged from the spatial distortion, the hostility on his face shattered.
The Sirius Piercer was lowered, but his expression instantly shifted into a theatrical display of monumental proportions.
The blonde man suddenly dropped to his knees, throwing his head back toward the night sky with his arms spread wide in absolute agony.
"O, Gods! Why must you mock me so?! Do you despise the sheer majesty of my prologue so much that you send this Dictator to end it so prematurely?!"
Fake tears began to well up in the corners of Arcus's eyes. "My saga had only just begun! I was destined to walk the solitary path of a lone wanderer, conquering the horizon on my own!"
Alphonse, who was still desperately trying to hold back his nausea, stared at Arcus with a completely flat expression. "Stop screaming that absolute nonsense... You're making my headache worse."
Arcus immediately ceased his wailing. He let out an annoyed huff, stood up, and brushed the invisible dirt off his pristine maroon suit.
"You look incredibly pale, Al. And why are you clutching your stomach like a man who just swallowed a boulder?"
"The sensation of teleportation in this world... is not the same as the game," Alphonse answered hoarsely.
He stood up slowly, regulating his breathing until the wave of nausea subsided. His eyes then swept across the surrounding area.
The swamp floor had been transformed into a massive plane of black glass that still emanated faint wisps of smoke. It spanned for hundreds of meters, yet not a single monster corpse remained.
"Where are the corpses of the Swamp Lizards you just fought?" Alphonse asked, his eyes narrowing behind his monocle.
Arcus smirked, letting out an arrogant laugh that vibrated through the air.
"Of course they've been vaporized into dust! The welcoming party for my arrival was far too mundane. I should have been greeted by a World Boss, or at least thousands of high-tier monsters, not a mere couple hundred grunts."
Smack!
"Ouch!" Arcus rubbed the back of his head, which had just been struck by Alphonse's hand. "Why did you hit me?!"
"You absolute idiot," Alphonse hissed, his forehead twitching as he suppressed his rage. "Every single one of those monsters was a source of funding. Their pelts, fangs, and cores are money. Why did you obliterate all of them without leaving a single scrap?!"
"A true artist cares not for petty loot! Besides, they were only low-tier monsters," Arcus retorted, defending his bizarre artistic integrity. "A battle must be concluded with absolute grandeur! That is what you call artistic integrity!"
"Grandeur for whom?! There is no audience in this swamp, Arcus!" Alphonse massaged his temples. "You killed Level 20 monsters with a [Tier S - Nova Blast]. Do you comprehend the meaning of the word 'Overkill'? You just set fire to a pile of cash purely to satisfy your own ego."
Arcus looked away, muttering under his breath about how 'ordinary mortals' simply could not comprehend true art. However, before he could continue his rambling, Alphonse grabbed his shoulder.
"What are you—"
"Shut up. Vrischil is waiting," Alphonse cut him off coldly.
His hand moved rapidly, weaving runes in the empty air. The teleportation magic circle flared to life beneath their feet once more.
"Wait! I literally just ate a whole roasted turkey right before I logged in! Give me a second to prep—"
The light swallowed Arcus's desperate words. They vanished from the silent, glassy swamp.
Upon a frozen expanse of ice, a white star descended from the sky.
Its light dimmed like an evaporating illusion, leaving Vrischil standing completely alone in the middle of a raging blizzard.
The bone-chilling cold immediately bit at her skin, but her combat attire possessed enough thermal resistance to entirely block the extreme temperature.
Vrischil opened her eyes. Her field of vision was clean, entirely devoid of HP bars or UI navigation menus.
Transmigration into reality. This body... it feels incredibly light, she thought to herself.
She drew the Fractal Ruin. The blade, constructed of woven transparent crystals, brilliantly reflected the ambient light of the ice plains. Although it looked as fragile as glass, the blade felt completely weightless yet emanated a bizarre, dense magical pressure in her grip.
She channeled her Mana into the weapon. Instantly, the crystal blade shattered.
Razor-sharp fragments floated all around her, dancing smoothly to the whims of her thoughts. Vrischil dispersed the fragments to a radius of hundreds of meters.
Through the magical perception she embedded within each shard, she could feel the minutest details of the surrounding area—from the shifting of ice pebbles to the howling of the wind at the edge of the frozen sea.
After recalling her fragments, Vrischil walked across the snowfield. Her mind was focused on her comrades. She was absolutely certain that Alphonse, wielding his [Tier EX - Akashic Terminal], would locate her shortly.
Suddenly, the surface of the ice directly in front of her exploded.
A giant polar bear erupted from beneath the shattered chunks of ice. Its claws were formed of jagged ice crystals, and its red eyes burned with sheer ferocity.
A Frost Giant Bear. A Level 50 monster.
The bear roared, shaking the freezing air, and lunged aggressively at Vrischil.
The Elf remained perfectly calm. She held the hilt of the Fractal Ruin, but rather than deploying all the fragments, she channeled her Mana into only the smallest shard of crystal.
The tiny shard was instantly cloaked in a lethal black aura, emitting a faint, sickening stench of death.
[Tier A - Aura Scorpio]
The black crystal fragment shot forward faster than a bullet, slicing a tiny gash across the bear's cheek before returning to float faithfully at Vrischil's side.
The bear continued its charge, but its momentum plummeted drastically after merely three steps. The colossal beast collapsed face-first into the snow, its body convulsing violently.
Starting from the tiny scratch on its cheek, necrosis spread at a horrifying pace. Its flesh blackened rapidly, leaking foul-smelling, coagulated blood.
Within mere seconds, the giant polar bear died with a whimpering gasp.
Vrischil approached, staring down at the massive carcass. The putrefaction process had not ceased. Its thick fur and flesh were still hissing softly, continuously melting and sloughing off into a thick puddle of black sludge right before her eyes.
In this world, my poison debuff does not stop simply because the target dies. This is far more lethal than the game's system mechanics.
She surgically sliced open the monster's chest with a single, clean motion to extract its Monster Core. The exact moment she pocketed the energy stone, her heightened senses picked up a spatial distortion directly behind her.
Vrischil reacted instantaneously. Every single fragment of the Fractal Ruin was coated in [Tier A - Aura Scorpio] and swarmed the point of fluctuation like the fangs of a predator.
At the exact same time, her body faded into nothingness.
[Tier A - Vanish]
Alphonse materialized in the center of the snowy plains.
The wave of nausea slammed into him once more, but this time he managed to endure it slightly better. Beside him, Arcus immediately collapsed face-first into the snow, gagging violently though nothing came up.
"Ugh... Al... you really intend to murder this prince," Arcus groaned weakly.
Suddenly, the atmosphere turned deadly.
More than a dozen pitch-black sword fragments halted exactly one centimeter away from Arcus's vital points—his forehead, his throat, and his heart.
"W-what?! Vrischil?! Release this handsome prince at once!" Arcus shrieked, his voice jumping two octaves in sheer terror.
In response, the fragments advanced one more millimeter, brushing against Arcus's skin. The Sagittarius let out a pathetic scream, scrambling desperately to hide behind Alphonse's robe.
Alphonse chuckled softly. "Enough, Vrischil. It's me."
From behind Alphonse, Vrischil's figure slowly materialized out of thin air. Her sword fragments seamlessly merged back together into a pristine, whole crystal blade, which she sheathed with a soft clink.
"I figured you would find me," Vrischil said flatly. Her piercing eyes shifted to glare at Arcus. "Why did you bring this blonde buffoon with you?"
"Hey! You're colder than the weather, you ice-cube Elf!" Arcus yelled, finding his courage again now that the poisoned blades were gone.
"That icy attitude is the reason you'll never find a boyfriend! Who wants to date a woman who carries a ridiculously toxic sword everywhere she goes?!"
Vrischil merely glared at Arcus with pure murderous intent, causing the blonde man to instantly duck back behind Alphonse's robe, shivering.
"I brought him because only the three of us landed in this initial wave," Alphonse stated, effectively diffusing their petty squabble.
Vrischil's expression shifted slightly. "Only us? Where are the other members of Pioneer?"
Alphonse sighed. "Information from the Akashic Terminal confirms that ten thousand Players arrived in the initial wave. The rest of our core members are most likely scheduled for a subsequent wave. I have no way of knowing when that will occur."
Alphonse's demeanor turned deadly serious.
"There is a more pressing matter. One hundred and twenty-seven Players have already died within hours. In this world, there is no respawn. Death is absolute. And our entire wealth stored within the Inventory... it has all vanished."
The freezing air on the plains seemed to solidify instantly.
Arcus gasped. His hands swiped frantically at the empty air, desperately searching for his system panel. "Impossible... my expensive coats... my premium hair gel..." he whimpered, his voice choking as he slumped lifelessly onto the snow.
However, Vrischil's reaction was vastly more terrifying than Arcus's pathetic wailing.
The silver-haired Elf stood completely paralyzed. Her eyes, which were usually sharp and utterly devoid of emotion, were now blown wide open.
Clatter!
Her grip loosened completely without her even realizing it, allowing the Fractal Ruin to plummet and strike the solid ice with a loud clatter. Vrischil didn't even spare a glance as her priceless weapon lay abandoned on the snow.
"V-vanished?" Vrischil's voice trembled, and it certainly wasn't from the blizzard. "Hundreds of millions of gold coins in the main treasury... thousands of mana crystals... and the millions of mana stones I just bought off the market right before the server closed..."
She stared at her own combat-gloved hands, as if desperately searching for leftover gold dust on her fingertips.
"I was the one holding the entirety of our Guild's wealth. And now it's all gone. We are..."
Vrischil swallowed hard. "...We are completely bankrupt."
"Back to absolute zero," Alphonse nodded mercilessly. "Right now, we are nothing more than heavily-armed vagrants with only the clothes on our backs."
"If we don't find a settlement or a reliable source of resources in the near future, we will die of starvation or freeze to death, not from monster attacks."
Hearing the phrase 'die of starvation', Arcus suddenly snapped back to life. He laughed discordantly while clapping his hands, desperately seeking an escape from their grim reality.
"But look on the bright side!" Arcus pointed directly at his own eyes. "The seal on my eyes is broken! Render distance doesn't exist anymore! I can see everything all the way to the edge of the horizon!"
He leaned his face incredibly close to Alphonse, pointing at his pupils. "Do you see this, Al? I possess the vision of a god, while you're stuck with those weak, ordinary mortal eyes!"
Vrischil completely ignored Arcus's raving. She pointed at the carcass of the Frost Giant Bear, which had now fully dissolved into a puddle of black sludge.
"You are correct. The loot system is gone as well. Monster corpses don't shatter into pixels. And my poison... its effects are far more destructive here."
"And one more thing," Arcus chimed in, grinning widely. "Skill Cooldowns are dead. I can rain arrows upon this world without ever having to stop."
Alphonse remained silent for a moment, staring intently at his two eccentric comrades.
"It is true that our combat capabilities have increased exponentially, but so have the consequences of every single action we take. From this moment forward, we are no longer playing a game. We are standing in reality."