Pinocchio

After eating our fill, Match went to the border's village and met with the other kids her age. Those kids were a bunch of rowdy rascals that played like the whistling wind. Although the children in the town avoided the giddy Match at first, those kids learned to accept her. The group ran around and entertained Match for a while.

"Come back to this inn as soon as the sun goes down, okay?"

"Sure thing, Red! I'll be back before you know it!" Match replied, and chased the kids to their ends of the village.

Some villagers thought of us as intruders, wreaking havoc inside their town. They locked their eyes with our figures, monitoring us with our every move. However, their glares came to a stop after the merchant girl told them something. She frowned at them and scolded them like an older sister. After that ruckus, the villagers had a change of heart for us.

Those chilling eyes staring at us did not occur anymore.

The merchant went beside me and cleaned the plates. I told her she didn't have to do it, but the girl told me otherwise. The trader said that this gesture was the least she could do for me when I was the fed that fed the village.

But I could not help but ask her a question I had been longing to query.

"Why do you care about this place? Do you have anything in particular that you love about it?"

A long pause echoed in our atmosphere. I knew I made the conversation bitter, but I had to learn the truth. I wanted to know what happened to the nearby villages affected by the war against players and non-player characters.

After heaving out an exhale, the merchant girl explained. "My name is Olivia Dragonheart. I am half-human and half-dragonewt."

My eyes widened upon perceiving the words that Olivia told me. There was one creature that remembered having the same species as the dragonewts. It was the merchant that saved me from before, which was also a dragonewt. But the tradesperson that I kept meeting was a male, not a female being.

Olivia uncovered her hood and revealed her face to me. The scales on her skin enveloped her entire body. I glued my eyes at her and refused to avert my gaze. However, Olivia might have thought of my gesture as rude, since she took a step back and wrapped her shoulders using her arms.

"I know, I have horrible scales…" Olivia confessed.

"No! Who told you that? I think your scales are amazing! It was the same skin that gave me another chance to live in this world," I retorted, and cut off Olivia's sentence.

I did not know what Olivia had experienced in her life, but I knew that those were rough times. Her skin tone might have burdened her from being a merchant.

"That's why you wear a hood? To cover your scales on your body?" I asked.

Olivia gave me a nod and painted a smile on her face. "Other players and other people refused to buy from me after seeing my face and skin. So I covered them. Somehow, I am getting more money than I used to when I covered my face. They thought of me as a mysterious person selling them ancient goods!"

After saying the latter part of her sentence, Olivia's smiling face disappeared. It was as if a grim memory reminded her of something I did not know.

"It's alright if you don't tell me all the details. Match and I would leave soon, after a few days. We can't stay here for too long. We would only bring trouble to your place."

I stood up from my seat and went back to the house, hoping to get another hour of rest before prepping for the future. However, Olivia's hand grabbed the ends of my cloth, stopping me from advancing.

"Why did you ask all this? What's the reason behind the attacks of these players? Are you behind these assaults? Why do you want to know about me and my scales? And how did you know about another merchant with the same skin as mine?" Olivia bombarded me with questions. Her eyes pierced through me like a needle hidden inside the hays.

"I asked all this since your village might not last," I replied, but that was not even half of it.

Before answering her question, a notification popped in front of me. It did not alert me about the war, but it told me about Olivia. That dragonewt in front of me also unlocked the freedom that I have right now.

"Do you... perhaps know about the game?" I asked.

Olivia gave me a nod. "We merchants of the dragonewt knew about Code. But none of us had the free will to turn against our script. And even if we did, the dragonewts did not have the abilities to defend themselves against the players."

"Those latches turned against us and restricted our movements. The deities that the world believed in turned out to be players roaming around in Code." Olivia added.

"How did you know that this world was just a game and not our reality?" I asked.

Olivia let out a burdensome exhale and answered, "We just knew that the world was just not the same. All of us dragonewts knew that this place did not exist. We survive because the game developers say so. That information remained inside our heads, unable to do anything about it. So we turned a blind eye to these notifications and did what we do best."

"And what was that?" I asked.

"Our kingdom is finding the person who could free us from this game. The king of dragonewts, wielder of the Ruby Obelisk, tasked us to become merchants and look for that person... or creature. That creature might be a player or-,"

"Non-player character." I continued where Olivia left with her sentence.

The two of us stared into each other's eyes, unsure what to say afterwards. Olivia had a face that looked like she had seen a ghost. Although spiritual things were monsters hidden among the graves, those entities came not from the dead. The game developers produced them for crunching those experience levels.

I could only think about the dragonewts and their king. If that ruler held the obelisk, I could take that away and complete the game! I already have the emerald obelisk with me. That gemstone also granted me the powers of an elf, which allowed me to use the enchanted bow.

"You must be the one who wants to complete the game!" Olivia gasped. "A-are you really that player that will free us all?"

"I don't know about freeing everyone, but I know how to complete the game. And we were on our way to do that. We just need to go to Wonderland and retrieve the sapphire obelisk from Alice." I answered.

Olivia headed over outside and motioned me to follow her. I had no other things to do but tag along behind her as she led me to a remote place. I asked Olivia where the heck we were going, but that girl kept it a secret. She told me that this was a sacred place that nobody had the chance to visit.

But the site was right next to the damn village.

"There is something I want to show you," Olivia told me, and silenced my mouth.

The two of us went into the dark forest. All the grass kissing my feet pricked my toes. I was fortunate enough to have feet of steel, since Match and I had walked for over dozens of miles before reaching this townlet. As we stepped foot behind the creeping vines, there was a house that stood tall on its ground. There was a sign in front of the shack written with the words, "Goldilocks home".

The faint smell of porridge swam through the air and went its way towards our nose. I had already eaten my meal, so my stomach did not growl at the scent of food.

"What is this place?" I asked. My breath became heavy as we stepped closer to the house.

"I told you to meet with someone, right? His name is Pinocchio. He's a puppet made by Alice, herself. If you want to find any leads about Wonderland, asking this doll would be your best bet."

I blinked a thousand times after absorbing what Olivia told me. I could not believe her at first, since those words came out suddenly to me. But as soon as I went inside the room, a puppet greeted my eyes. That figurine sat on the rocking chair, staring at our bewildered faces.

"So this is the being that could help me reach towards Alice? It's not like I don't believe you... but I'm just confused about this."

"Pinocchio. My name is Pinocchio. A puppet that cannot lie."

"Did that thing just talk to me?"