Friendly Duo

"Blue," Nine said, calling out the System for the first time in a while. The little green turtle fell out of the sky as it was abruptly summoned.

Nine eyed Blue in bemusement, fending off the flying turtle's angry attacks. He didn't like coming out into the real world, preferring to stay with the Main System. He had everything he needed up there. Why would he like to be called out to do his Host's bidding?

Even if he was the Top System on this planet, he still had a job to do up there!

Blue pouted, dive bombing Nocturne when he didn't get the response he wanted from his Host. Nine reached out and held the flying turtle, Blue struggling fruitlessly as he swam in the air, held between Nine's index and thumb.

She whispered a few words to the turtle, causing him to freeze before nodding, disappearing quickly.

Nocturne breathed out, relaxed on the bed. He felt a bone deep satisfaction that practically radiated from him. He was relaxed as he mapped out the good aches in his body, feeling like he could purr from the satisfaction.

"Your plan sounds feasible. However, I'm worried that I may tip off the enemy," Nocturne said, still feeling languid.

"Mm it's fine," Nine said. "The core doesn't have much cognitive ability, so we're fine. Basically, it can recognize people, but it can't distinguish from our actions. We just have to wait until whatever being is inside the core to emerge whilst it still thinks that I'm under its control."

"Okay. I won't be telling anyone else, so rest assured."

Nine nodded. The less people that knew about their plan, the less they had to worry about word getting back to the Elves.

In a burst of energy, Nocturne dragged Nine back to the bed, looming over her. Then, since we can't interact whilst you're carrying out the plan, let's go for another round…"

Nine eyed Nocturne, slightly speechless, but obligingly tilted her neck.

Nocturne swallowed as he travelled the path Nine's hair slid against her creamy white skin.

Nine smirked.

X

Valerius crossed his arms as he stared hard at Zenith.

"Okay," Valerius said blankly. "Let me get this straight. You want to go into the Forest of Calamity. To have some fun, and maybe net yourself a familiar."

"Yes," Zenith said, practically jumping around.

Valerius eyed him dubiously. "You want to go into the Forest of Calamity, famously known amongst players as 'Death Trap Forest', with just the two of us? Are you out of your mind?"

Zenith scoffed, waving his hand. "Please. With me around, you think that we'll run into troubles?"

Valerius paused in his tirade. This was bad. Why was it that the more he listened to the resident genius, the more he felt like he was about to agree offhand? This did not say good things about his decision-making skills.

Zenith intelligently let Valerius pause to make his own decisions. This way, his best friend couldn't say that he was forced into this. Zenith rubbed his hands in his mind deviously, feeling like a devious villain tricking the innocent hero into something he didn't want to do.

"Fine, let's go," Valerius ended up saying in the end. There was a part of him that was terribly curious. After all, the worse that could happen was that they died and weren't able to log in for three game days, so what was the harm?

Zenith's resulting cackle did nothing to reassure the poor man of his bad life decisions.

The two quickly headed over to the nearby Forest of Calamity that hardly any adventurers visited due to the mortality rates that dramatically rose the moment they set foot into said forest.

Valerius eyed the spooky looking forest, once again questioning his life choices. Were they really going to do this? Everything in him screamed that he shouldn't, but some part of him whispered 'I want to paint this!' and the man was hooked.

Zenith hid a smug expression as he spotted the look on the man's face. He had been the one who designed this forest, adding the creepy feel. The trees hung overhead, almost looming, dark purple leaves that decorated the trees instead of usual green leaves added to the feel of the forest. Vines crept along the tree bark, twining around, sometimes almost looking alive to the naked eye.

The forest was a natural maze that seemed to change every couple of steps, throwing off even the most experienced of trackers. Many lives had been thrown away in this forest, due to fauna, due to flora, due to infighting. You name it, it had once happened and caused a death here.

Zenith and Valerius crept along, taking care not to carelessly touch something and set it off.

All of a sudden, something hit Valerius. "Wait a moment. Why are we even here in the first place? Did you just want to come here for the adrenaline rush or what?"

Zenith scoffed, crossing his arms. "Of course not!" he said, dramatically turning around to look at his friend. "We're here to get familiars, of course!"

Valerius stifled the urge to throttle his friend. "What familiar! Look at your level!"

Zenith obligingly looked at his lonely [Lv. 2] and looked back at Valerius. "Yes? What's wrong with it?"

Valerius made a little sound of wordless rage. "More like, everything's wrong with it! Exactly what kind of familiar do you intend to find at that level?!"

Zenith made a vague gesture. "Oh, don't worry about it. Whatever comes will come to me. Level does not matter!"

Valerius eyed him dubiously, but very obviously conceded. "Fine. One day. That's how long we're going to spend looking for a familiar. I'll do my best to keep you alive in that time."

Zenith quickly pulled the man forward. "Hurry up!"

"What?"

"Time's already ticking down if we've only got one day!"

Recklessly, Zenith charged into the depths of the forest, leaving Valerius aghast. "Wait, you're the developer of this game, you should know where to avoid, right?"

Zenith thumped his chest proudly. "Of course. You can count on me!"

Hours later, the weary and tired duo were panting harshly as they leaned on a tree, strengthless. Even the creepy aura the tree gave off didn't deter Valerius anymore.

"What. A great tree," Valerius praised, patting the tree bark. "So sturdy. Able to. Hold. Our weight up," he panted.

"Thanks," Zenith said, looking even more tired than the other man. "I. Designed it. Myself."

By the time they caught their breath, Valerius had already finished praying to all his lucky stars that they were able to escape from the Sixth Circle Magic Beast. Valerius had been given false hope when the beast hadn't attacked Zenith outright, foolishly thinking that the game developer really knew all the Magic Beasts in the forest.

Little did he know; the eccentric man was just winging it hard the entire time. In fact, the genius did not even know where they were headed, with his notoriously bad sense of direction.

Fake it till you make it, right?

Zenith practically lived for those words. Especially when he had no idea where he was going. Everything looked like it was planned the more confident he looked of himself. There wasn't a time where it failed him yet.

By the time they were Zenith fully recuperated from his fun little jog through the depths of the forest with only Valerius by his side, he noticed that the other man had already pulled out all his art supplies, randomly setting up below the tree that they took refuge in.

Zenith paused before shrugging, joining the man and staring at his slowly filling canvas.

As the sun set, the light hit the trees in just the right way, bare glimpses of sunlight shining through purple leaves. The contrasts of purple and orange glows were mesmerising to look at, and Zenith patted himself on the back.

Lost in his work, Valerius painted furiously, capturing everything that he emoted down on the blank canvas.

Zenith squinted in the direction of an opposite tree.

"Is that… a slime?" he mumbled to himself.

The eccentric man walked in that direction to take a closer look, feeling puzzled. There shouldn't be slimes in this area, though? At least, he didn't remember adding any slime Magic Beasts in this area. Generally at Lv. 1 or 2, slimes were mostly found in the beginner areas, not a middle-high class area like this.

The moment Zenith closed in on the slime in the middle of the clearing, he was instantly surrounded by a multitude of slimes.

"Woah!" he couldn't help but shout. Instead of feeling shock or fear like a normal person, Zenith fully indulged in his glee.

He dived towards the slimes, so many, in multiple colours. They looked like they were fun to play with.

Zenith's shout roused Valerius from his art-induced stupor, alarming him. "Zenith!"

Zenith ignored his friend, grabbing a little green slime, which looked smaller than the rest.

"Hi, little guy. What's your name? Ooooh, you're so cute!" he gushed, picking up another slime and doing the same thing as well.

The colourful slimes wobbled and moved, feeling no malice from this man. Their hackles, which had been raised earlier, calmed down.

Slowly, realizing that the slimes were not harming his pathetically levelled friend, Valerius calmed down and sat back down. Speechlessly, he pulled out a blank canvas and started to work whilst staring at Zenith.