Hiro returned upstairs to meet Liberty, who apparently couldn’t sleep, and felt restless in her room. He knocked on the girl’s door to call her out, and Liberty quickly opened the door for him.
“What happened? I’ve never seen Ace’s face like that,” she immediately asked. She had been holding back every question lingered in her head for the past few hours. Hiro stroked the girl’s hair, tidying it up because it looked a little messy.
“It’s over. They’ve all been released again. But Ace asked me to look after you here tonight,” Hiro explained the reason he was still in the girl’s house.
Liberty frowned in confusion.
“Ace is offline. He has to check something, and from what had happened to Exalted yesterday, he asked my help to take care of you while he wasn’t around.”
Hearing that, Liberty stared at Hiro for a few seconds. Her lips were already open to ask a question, but soon she closed them again. The girl then threw herself into Hiro’s arms and hugged him without saying anything.
Hiro stroked the girl’s back gently. He knew that Liberty wanted to know more. However, with what he and Ace had agreed with in the punishment room earlier, he couldn’t share what was going on down there with anyone else at all. That was all for the success of their plan.
What was clear, Dimitri and the two players who were the members of WynterRain’s fanatical community had been released, and they had been ordered to play the role of spies for Hiro and Ace right now. It was all thanks to Hiro’s kindness, because otherwise… Ace had already planned to get rid of them. And, to make sure that the three fans of WynterRain had sided with them, either out of compulsion or really regretting their actions, Ace showed one more ultimate weapon.
Ace had access to view the recording of all the memories recorded in all players in the game. Hiro only found out today after Ace showed it to him. Ace also told Hiro that he knew Hiro’s relationship with his sister through the same method.
Even so, some players, including WynterRain… their memory seemed to be blocked by something so that Ace’s system couldn’t penetrate it. This made the memories about WynterRain’s appearance could only be seen through the eyes of other players, not from his own point of view, so even Ace couldn’t guess what the man was really up to.
“What are you going to do now, Hiro?” asked Liberty, as she rested her chin on Hiro’s shoulder. Then, she looked the man in the eye.
“Are you sleepy?”
Liberty shook her head.
“Good. I’m not in the mood to stay at home and do nothing. Actually, I was trying to solve something. Do you want to come with me? Or do you prefer I take you to Everlasting guild base and let my friends take care of you?” Hiro asked calmly. He didn’t feel rushed in the slightest. His body felt like it was still too fresh and not sleepy at all. He didn’t even feel weak, even though he had been playing in the game all day.
This seemed to be the effect of the gaming capsule pod.
Hiro felt that spending his savings on buying that thing was the best decision he could ever make.
“I’ll go with you to solve whatever it is! Wait a moment!” Liberty suddenly went back into her room and closed the door in front of Hiro. However, in a split second, the girl had returned with a new armor that Hiro had never seen before.
“Wow! How did you get that armor?” Hiro asked in amazement at the exquisite and detailed of Liberty armor. By using armor that looked sturdy but still stylish in shiny gold, Liberty looked like a Valkriye right now.
“My father made it for me,” Liberty replied briefly with her eyes rounded perfectly. She also really liked her new battle armor.
Hiro swallowed hard. If the game developer was the one who gave it specifically to his beloved daughter, Hiro was sure that the power of the armor must be very enormous. There was no need to test it to know that there must be a lot of power cheats in the armor. What was clear was that Hiro was grateful that Liberty was not his enemy right now.
“You embarrassed me, Hiro. Stop looking at me like that.” Liberty blushed, but she quickly took Hiro’s hand and led him out of the house, as if she had spent all day at her house today and desperately wanted to run away.
Hiro was not surprised if Ace turned out to be locking her up that day.
“So where are we going this time, Hiro? You know… every time we go on adventures, it seems like we’re bound to get lost,” Liberty said with a chuckle as she recalled the exciting moments she had with Hiro.
Even though technically not all of their adventures had that kind of fate, it was true that going on an adventure with the girl made it look like he was gambling. Sometimes she gave him luck, and sometimes it was the other way around.
“Should we call the others?” Liberty asked. The girl couldn’t stay still again.
Hiro didn’t answer right away. He had to check the notifications that had been buried in his inbox first. The notification he got after successfully activating Aaron’s Charm. Opening the notification again made Hiro remember what he had done with the seductive Elve Queen, and he glanced at Liberty with a guilty look on his face. He just hoped that Ace didn’t betray him by peeking at his memory tape and telling Liberty about it.
[Go to the Eastern Forest of Asvesera, a place where fairies sing on a bright night. They’ll tell you what to do next]
That was all it said in the notification.
“It looks like there’s no need for help from the others. Besides, it was already midnight. I think they’re already asleep. And we’re just going to visit the fairies. I think they are not harmful. They weren’t aggressive the last time I went there,” Hiro explained. It managed to make Liberty even more excited to go to meet the fairies.
“The fairies! I haven’t visited them in a long time!” she exclaimed excitedly.
The girl, who was even befriended by the fairy NPCs, couldn’t hide her happiness.
“Have you ever visited the fairies in the Eastern Forest of Asvesera, Libe?” asked Hiro curiously. Last time, Liberty’s best friend, the fairy NPCs, were the fairies from the Beginner Town. From what Hiro remembered, the appearances of the two fairies were very much different.
“Eastern Forest of Asvesera?”
“Yes. It looks like you’ve never been there.” Hiro was convinced from the way Liberty answered with her mouth agape.
“Are there fairies in that place?”
“Yes, they are everywhere, but the fairies in the Eastern Forest of Asvesera… they can be called the sacred fairies and the Elve worship them. I mean the Elve NPCs.”
Liberty was dumbfounded while looking at Hiro. Her eyes blinked strangely for a few seconds before her enthusiastic expression returned.
“I can not wait to visit that place!”