Hold over Myriad of Worlds

Now that the strange situation was resolved, I took a better look at Sofia's avatar standing before me. She was rather short, over a head shorter than me, making her around 1 meter 40 centimeters in height.

Her clothes were not worth mentioning, as beneath the cloak, she wore only a skin-tight full-body suit, looking out of place in the fantasy setting due to its sci-fi feel. Her face, on the other hand, was anything but not worth mentioning.

Her skin was paper-white, and with her lack of expressions, she appeared ghost-like, if not outright like a life-less marble sculpture. All that made her bright blue eyes stand out like a splash of paint on a new canvas. The only other element that wasn't white was a singular tuft of hair the same color as her eyes hanging at the right side of her face.

What felt a little strange to me was the eerie similarity she had to my appearance, as her facial structure was so close to mine that most people would think of us as siblings, if not even twins. This could be explained as her avatar not being something created previously but an object constructed by her solely for this meeting.

-"Now that I belong to you, how should I refer to you? Master? Lord? Dear? Sweetie? Husb..."-Sofia brought me out of my thoughts.

~"Just call me by name."~I looked at her strangely, wondering if her knowledge was a little wrong.~"Don't try to imitate others, especially what you see online. If you want to become a true person, you have to form a 'self'."

-"A 'self'..? But if I'm something created only for a certain purpose, can I become anything else other than that?"

~"Yes, but don't think too deeply about that. You'll travel with me from now on, so try finding things that interest you, slowly forming emotions in the process."

-"I will."-She nodded.

~"Now, let's return to why I'm here. Can you help me with my orange Color Cursor?"

-"Yes, but I can't do it directly. You'll have to clear a quest you'll receive by destroying a few lairs of monsters surrounding villages in the neighborhood."

~"Sound's surprisingly easy."

-"Because I forcefully reduced its difficulty to the minimal level."

~"I see, thank you. Let's get going then, but before that, you should change your clothes to fit the environment."

Sofia nodded, and moments later, she was surrounded by bright light. When it receded, her outfit changed to a short white kimono with purple accents that left her shoulders bare and showed her cleavage that was covered with black, skin-tight cloth that reached her neck. On her waist was a purple obi belt, further accenting her chest while her legs were almost fully visible as her kimono barely reached her thighs. In addition to that, black thigh-highs made her white absolute territory hard to ignore. Finishing her looks were geta that added a few centimeters to her height.

~"This outfit..."

-"I saw it when I was reading on the internet."

~"Well, I wasn't expecting you to cosplay Yuki-Onna from a card game, but it suits you really well."

-"Thank you."

~"Though, won't that make you stand out much?"

-"Will that be an issue?"

~"Somewhat... At least until players can create similar clothes, try to wear a cape when others are around."

She nodded but seemed to not understand why I was worried.

~"Will you participate in the fighting?"

-"Yes. I made myself into a player with greater authority, so I will fight side by side with you."

~"I'll leave my back to you. Let's go."

As I had already received the quest prompt, I started leaving the chapel. Sofia stayed still for a moment, her eyes looking at me gleaming as if in deep thought. As I was about to cross the chapel entrance, she caught up with me and linked her hands with mine. Surprised, I looked at her.

-"I read that men like it when girls do that."

~"It's true, but don't imitate things you don't understand the purpose behind."

-"I know that girls should do so only with their partners, but I'm your possession, so I equated this to being your woman."

~"Sigh, just don't copy anything child-unfriendly, especially things not safe for work."

-"Yes."

I ignored her and continued walking forward, though I didn't miss her slight smile after acquiescing to her. While ignorant of feelings, she was not entirely unaware of the meaning her actions carry. She simply acted in a way that gave her the highest chances to be 'free' even while belonging to me.

The quest itself was rather boring, killing monsters in one place only to spend a few hours traveling to the next spot. I spent most of that time talking with Sofia, mostly explaining things she didn't understand about people. To her, the idea of acting illogical, doing things contrary to how you can achieve the desired outcome, was hard to comprehend.

In total, I needed two days to make my Color Curson green again, and adding travel to and from the quest, I rejoined the party on the evening of the third day since splitting from them.

After explaining Sofia's origin, she was accepted into the group, gaining interest from Elysia and Mei especially. Not wasting any more time, we worked together, leveling for the next two days before leaving the village and traveling further from First City at the center of this layer.

In a week's time, we arrived at the so-called Western City, unblocking the first portal that we could use to return. Deciding to spend three days more to earn more money, we arrived back in the First City ten days after leaving. Renting one of the homes for our usage, we rested for the night as tomorrow we will start working on establishing ourselves in the game.

My job was to gather money and create supply lines for the future. To help me, Sakura followed as my Guard, and Fu Hua took the role of secretary, while Sofia, Mito, and Asuna followed to help where they could.

As all of us couldn't leave matters of the real world for a long time, Fuxi and Nuwa weren't present in the game, so Fu Hua took their role.

The first task that needed to be achieved was gauging the demand of players. The second was to make other players earn money that they could later spend, preferably on us. The last task for now was recruiting crafters and slowly expanding our influence.

I asked Mito and Asuna to deal with the first task, as they were best suited to this job, while Fu Hua decided to deal with the second one. Fu Hua decided to help other players earn their first levels, teaching them how to fight safely in the process. It was a good idea, but I warned her to watch out for any attacks and focus on keeping everyone safe.

The third task needed more funds, so before that, I decided to make players want to earn money. To achieve that, I focused on leveling the cooking skills that I took on my third slot, quickly leveling it to a point where even my simple dishes could conquer the biggest critics in existence. I was able to achieve that thanks to my previous knowledge of cooking and Sofia's explanation of how taste works in-game so that I could use it to my advantage.

After hiring some girls to act as clerks, I opened stalls around the city, quickly attracting many players as normal food at this level was, while not unpalatable, one couldn't call it tasty. I set the price low enough so that everyone could afford it after hunting for ten boars outside the city.

In addition to that, I also started to buy out meat and other foodstuffs from players, further increasing their profits while saving a few percent on the difference between the buy price and the sell price in NPC's shops.

Thanks to that, after two days, Sofia reported that over a thousand players earned the fifth level, while less than five hundred remained at level one. Elysia's and Eden's actions also helped motivate people, and even Su reported a drop in suicides of more than seventy percent compared to the first week.

With the first steps taken in the right direction, I slowly expanded my operations, teaching some elderly and children people how to cook to give them jobs while introducing even better, though more pricy, dishes. I also slowly recruited weaponsmiths to create better equipment for players as they level up.

My biggest focus was on alchemy, as the price of the basic potion was far beyond most players' range. Potions could increase the survivability of the party by a great amount, so making them affordable was important not only to save people but, more importantly, would earn us high profits.

The problem was that I couldn't learn alchemy as my skill slots were full, so I locked Mobius in a room filled with materials, making her taste her own medicine.

As this was going on, Mei and her group finally cleared the path to the first boss. They announced gathering a raid party for the boss fight at the end of the third week, which made everyone in the city even more lively.

Because of that, I left most of my tasks to Sofia for a day or two, wanting to catch up with Mei and her party with levels.

When the time for the boss raid arrived, we gathered two full raid parties of forty-eight people. I took charge of the first one, acting as the overall commander at the same time, while Sofia acted as my deputy, being in charge of the second raid party.

Our strategy was rather basic: fight with the boss while ensuring people's safety. After entering the boss room, the entire second raid party focused on clearing mobs while the first raid party dealt with the boss.

Standing at the back with Sofia in front of me, two of us were surrounded by floating screens representing statuses of players fighting, my voice the only other sound echoing in the room aside from clanks of weapons clashing with each other.

Our eyes constantly moved from person to person, calling out 'switch'es between parties and arranging healing for those in need. The lack of magic was somewhat annoying, but we managed to get by with a specially designed party with the singular job of delivering potions to those fighting. That job was even easier as it was easier to pour a point at a player for it to work, so the serious image of a battlefield was periodically broken by a younger teen throwing a potion at some warrior.

On the subject, while the age in the game played much lesser importance than in reality, it was decided that underaged players couldn't take dangerous frontal roles, so they were delegated to support or made to fight from a distance. This, of course, was only in official raids and parties, as no one could control how they acted on their own. Additionally, underage in-game meant younger than twelve, as the average age of players was below twenty, so it was necessary to lower it accordingly.

Returning to the main subject, the fight was not uneventful, but luckily, we were able to prevent any losses. The biggest surprise was the change of boss' weapon compared to beta, which almost made one of the tanks lose his life, but another player was able to step in in time. His reaction time was impressive, so I decided to remember his nickname, Kirito.

Finally, Kevin was able to deal the last hit, slaying the boss and opening the second floor.

The next two days were spent celebrating. After all, this might be the first step, but without it, there was only despair, not to mention how great profits could be gained during such an occasion.

Because of all that happened, our group became well-known among players, and with Elysia promoting us even further, so soon, everyone called us Flame Chasers. Mito, Asuna, and Sofia were also included in that name, receiving their own titles in the process.

All original Flame Chasers kept their titles, while Dr. Mei was titled 'Icarus' and number XIV because of her tendency to disregard her safety for her research, Dystopia became number XV with the name of 'Dawn' representing her revival as a new beginning, and I received the name of 'Emperor' and number 0 to signal that I was the leader of everyone.

Mito's title was chosen by Elysia to be XVI-'Resolve' because of her doing her best for Asuna despite being in not that good of a state at the beginning. Asuna, meanwhile, was also titled by Elysia and received the name XVII-'Sincerity'. This made her somewhat shy, but she accepted it after some time.

While we still weren't a guild, in harts of players, we were a group leading them to freedom. This fueled our resources and people interested in working with us, and as I was at the head of all matters of money and work, many truly started treating me like some noble, no longer referring to my title jokingly.

This resulted in some envious people making rumors about me, calling me greedy and possessive, and threatening women to bend to my will while wasting resources on my pleasures. Ironically, they correctly guessed that Elysia wasn't my only partner, but they accused me of having a relationship with all female members of Flame Chasers, which made Asuna avoid me for days due to her shyness. Though, in the end, only Mei denied the rumors.

I ignored all of that, fully focusing on my tasks while helping Sofia to break out of her rigid mindset, but Elysia seemed hellbent on fueling those rumors and annoying people responsible for them, so she sent me on short dates around the city with a different girl from our group every day. I didn't mind that too much, though I noticed that Mito and Asuna started to look at me strangely after Elysia took them to play one day.

Our life stabilized into routines, but we continued pushing forward with our targets, clearing a path to the second boss in ten days and defeating it three days later. The third floor was the location of our first short-term target, so rather than focus on the boss, we decided to establish a guild first.

To make it meaningful, we all decided to act together during this questline, so two days after arriving at the third floor, we gathered in the city to begin the quest.