Chapter 570: Chapter 563: Innocence

Sofia didn't even realize that she let herself fall asleep.

She woke up to sounds of melodious humming and splashing water. The source of which was of course the only other person here, Velania, sitting next to her on the border of the lake, her feet rhythmically going in and out of the water as she hummed an unfamiliar tune.

For a bit, Sofia decided to stay just like this. However, it was hard to fool the senses of someone so high-level, Velania noticed as soon as she finished her song.

“Ah! Sorry, I didn’t want to wake you up…”

Sofia sat up, taking a deep breath of the ambient mana. Velania had changed her clothes, she was wearing a pure white sundress that seemed to sparkle in the light. It left her right arm fully exposed, showing the burn scars that ran down her entire body.

“It’s nothing,” Sofia waved her concerns away, “I didn’t even mean to fall asleep in the first place…”

“I can relate to that,” Velania answered with a giggle, “You look nice like this,” she commented on Sofia’s demon form, “a shame to cover it up.”

“Maybe you’re right. I just feel safer with my armor on,” Sofia said without thinking, instinctively reaching out for the piece of armor still laying in the grass between Velania and herself. Oh crap. Her hand stopped just above the dragon-scale armguard.

“Was it Romuald who told you?” Velania asked, her voice calm and her eyes lost in the distance, “How much do you know?”

Sofia sighed, “Death’s hound gave me a message from Sorrow the first time you lost consciousness,” she admitted, “It didn’t say much, just not to mention a certain topic around you…”

It was Velania’s turn to sigh, “I see. I appreciate your concern, but I shouldn’t be bothering other people with my own issues…” she said, her right hand fiddling with her hair without much energy.

“It’s nothing. If you consider Sorrow your aunt then we’re family, aren’t we?”

“There’s family and there’s family. Wouldn’t you say?” Velania answered with an air of melancholy.

Sofia had to think about it for a bit, “Yes and no? My sister Saria is the only close blood-relative I have left, and I love her with all my currently nonexistent heart, but I love the rest of my new

family also. There might be a difference between the two but that doesn’t make them any less important. Or did you not mean it when you called Sorrow Auntie?”

“I did!” Velania answered in a heartbeat, rightfully annoyed, before she sighed again, her eyes unfocusing as she stared at the lightstone above. “You’re right… How shameful… I should be the wiser one…”

Sofia couldn’t contain a hearty laugh. “I’m just a bumbling idiot who loves skeletons a bit too much, I simply happen to have a looooot of experience with having an adoptive family.”

“You shouldn’t insult yourself like this,” Velania retorted, “I’m glad you seem pretty smart. Much smarter than I was at your age… You’re going to need it for the Escalation game. I’ll be sad if you lose.”

“Right, we need to do this. I’m ready whenever.”

“Don’t you want a helper?” Velania asked curiously.

“Not if having one more person around is going to make you stress out more.”

“I will be alright,” Velania answered, resolutely clenching her fist. “J- Just… Mind telling me what they are like first?”

“Hmmm… Everelle is… Special. Do you know about summoned heroes?”

Sofia took Velania’s following silence for a no.

“She’s a human from a different world. The system has been summoning them with the help of the Gods. It’s a bit of a complex topic…”

“A different world… Hmm… Like this one?” Velania asked, as the surroundings changed from day to night in the blink of an eye, the lake, forest and mansion disappeared, and in their place rose a golden wheat field, battered by strong but silent winds, and in which a small clearing had been made where Sofia and Velania were. The only part of the surroundings that was unchanged was the cemetery’s thicket in the distance, and in the black sky dotted with numerous stars, a huge blue planet was slowly moving.

Is that Arssovax? Woah… It takes up half the sky…

“Is this a sight from your memory?” Sofia couldn’t help but ask as she felt herself being slowly pulled away from the ground.

“A scene from my childhood,” Velania answered, her eyes fixed at the sky. “I didn’t remember it was so beautiful…” she mumbled, overwhelmed by a sudden wave of nostalgia.

“It really is…” Sofia said, unable to look away from the two swirling vortexes in the layers of blue clouds completely covering the giant planet. By now both Velania and herself were already floating a dozen of centimeters off from the ground, and they were being pulled even more strongly as the blue planet came closer to the center of the sky.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

The scene suddenly changed back to the calm lake, though it was now night, the two women landed in the grass with a thud.

“Ahahah… That was a bit too mana-expensive…” Velania said with embarrassment.

“That was insane. Your magic is incredible,” Sofia said, replaying the scene in her mind. The wheat field seemed infinite and so did the sky and its millions of stars. That such a scene could be recreated, even in an illusion of sorts, was mind-boggling even for someone who had experienced one of Joah’s virtual worlds firsthand.

That made Velania smile a bit but she said nothing, so Sofia took the occasion to answer her previous question. “It’s not quite the same. From what I understand, her planet should be one that’s so far away we cannot even see it in the sky. It’s honestly a mystery how we manage to summon them here, and it’s a one way trip. No hero ever managed to return to their world, as far as I know, not even the creator of the system.”

“The person who made the system is from another world?!”

“Hmm… As thanks for showing me this, let me get you up to speed on what has happened in the outside world since you locked yourself in here. Where do I start… Ever heard of the Higher Races war?”

About two days later, in the back garden of Velania’s mansion, Everelle was sharing dungeon-exploration tips with Sofia. Velania finally came running out of the mansion’s back door, carrying a large crystal ball, some kind of red cushion, and a clinking pouch.

“I got everything!” she triumphantly announced, as the peaceful scenery instantly changed to a vast empty white room.

I don’t even understand what’s real anymore…

“Are we finally allowed to hear the rules?” Everelle asked.

“Yes, yes, just let me set things up and we can start any moment. You both do have your death protection spells ready, right?”

Sofia and Everelle nodded.

“Alright, it won’t take long.”

A strange runic pedestal appeared out of nowhere. Bookie would recognize the pedestal from his market trial, had he been there; Velania placed the red cushion on top and the iridescent crystal ball over it. She then opened the pouch, and a wave of mana gushed out of it, Velania pulled out a handful of small blue rocks out of it, and with her telekinesis power, spread them out to the borders of the white room.

Concentrated mana rocks for rituals?

“These will power the shield,” she explained without more detail as she closed the pouch and made it disappear into thin air, despite not owning any storage item. She then touched the crystal ball, as if trying to see if it was going to wake up and bite her. Of course nothing happened. “Everything seems in order,” she said, “Hopefully you win, if only so that I don’t have to spend another six thousand years powering this thing up…”

That got a concerned look out of Sofia and Everelle both, but Velania just kept going at her own pace.

“T- The rules, then… It’s really pretty simple, especially now with the system, Romulad was able to improve the design and… Well, so. Escalation is a game where the first to die loses.

There are two ways to die, either you die because of what happens in the arena, or you die if you get five curse marks,” Velania explained, marking a pause as if she was trying to remember the rest of the rules.

“I’ll never not be surprised that the fairies in this world are so savage compared to the ones we had in fiction…” Everelle commented.

“I’m more surprised that you had Fairies and Flying lizards in your fictions but no Kleptras,” Sofia quipped back, avoiding the D word for Velania’s sake.

“We don’t really like insects,” Everell answered with a shrug.

Velania continued without paying any mind to their interruption, “The game goes like this, when it’s your turn, you put your hand on the ball and say a word, then it appears in the arena. For example, if I were to say water, something like this might happen,” she said, as the floor of the room was suddenly covered in a thin layer of water.

“What if you don’t know what the word I’m saying means?” Everelle asked.

“The artifact will be pulling the information from your memory if necessary, so it should work,” Velania explained. “So that’s the basic principle, we take turns making things appear, and try to kill each other with it, but we are forbidden from attacking each other directly, we can only use the words, and in an indirect way. If I say sword, for example, I won’t be able to pick it up to attack you. But you can use your magic to defend yourself from the arena.”

“How does it work since we’re two on the same team, we get two turns?” Sofia asked.

“No, you are functionally one challenger, so you share the curse marks, though if one of you dies from the arena, the other can keep going. The other limitation is, since you are a guest, Everelle, you can only give three words throughout the game.”

“Three words… Well, I can work with that. I’ll give you three words you won’t forget.”

Velania smiled, “This will be fun!” She paused for a second. “Alright, we have almost all the rules, except for the actual escalation part. The game always starts with the word ‘Hydrogen’, because it is the cheapest and only stable thing you can make with mana. Although a lot will appear, the mana cost will be counted for one unit, so for Hydrogen it’s probably like 0.1 mana or something like that? When I learned the game we didn’t have such precise measurements, but the artifact knows. Like if you say water it will count the mana for one drop, if you say ocean, since it’s a wider concept, it will count the mana for the minimum amount of water to make the ocean you envision in your head. Then the other person has to say a word that costs more but not more than double the cost, within a time limit of sixty seconds. And we just take turns like that! That’s it!”

“What if the word we say costs less than the previous one or more than double?” Sofia asked.

“That’s how you get a curse mark!” Velania answered, before she made the water in the arena disappear. “You also get one if you fail to provide a word in the sixty seconds, in both cases it becomes the other side’s turn again. That’s all the rules. Any questions?”

“Can we make living things appear?” Everelle asked.

“Not a specific person or creature, but anything that exists or has existed. You can ask for a human but not for a Velania,” Velania answered, nodding to herself. Sofia thought that she seemed pretty excited to play. “Fairy custom is that the challenger gets the first round,” she finished.

“Wait,” Everelle said, raising a hand. “Now that we know all the rules, can I have a quick talk with Sofia in private before the game begins?”

“Of course,” Velania approved right away.

After a short conversation with Everlle, she and Sofia came back.

Sofia confirmed with Velania that she was also ready to start, then she walked up to the pedestal, put her hand on the crystal ball artifact, getting a feel of the reality-bending amount of mana compressed inside.

“Hydrogen!”