World Keeper

Chapter 291: Styx

On my way back to the room, I sent out a call to Leowynn, letting her know that we’d be staying down in the world for a little while. Unsurprisingly, I felt her rushing into my spiritual realm before I even reached my door.

Once inside, I set the world to fast forward by twenty years, just as I had discussed with the two goddesses. At the same time, I communicated my plan to Leowynn while setting up my ‘Easy Reputation’.

I would be the halfling adventurer known as Styx. My achievements within the world were on the low side, as I was always more focused with exploring both new classes and new lands. Accompanying me was my student Rache, and her sister Thessa.

The last I had been noticed was when I tried to leave the nineteenth floor to return home. Shortly before that, I discovered a rather terrible truth about myself. I was born different, unbound by the ‘level limit’ system. This left me unable to travel between the different layers of Fyor, as my level had grown beyond what the gates would allow.

Instead, I was forced to send out the two girls to the other floors, letting them gather information for me and supplies that we needed. Meanwhile, I continued to train myself privately on an island not too far from the gate.

Of course, I didn’t expect that setting up this reputation would actually cause me to break the level limit system and continue being able to grow on Fyor. However, it was a legitimate excuse for why someone with a level over five hundred would appear in a place like this. I had already been told that there were people within the worlds who were occasionally born with system mutations, just as there were monsters.

With that set, I quickly designed my body and searched through the map for where the two goddesses had decided to set up base. Since I knew what names they were using, it didn’t take long for me to find them, at which point I went ahead and chose to descend.

Closing my eyes, I felt the warm blue light wrapping around me. Moments later, the salty sea breeze battered my face, and I felt a pair of hands lightly gripping my own. “Hey Styx!” I heard an unfamiliar voice calling for me as I opened my eyes.

In front of me was an unfamiliar halfling with golden hair and blue eyes, smiling happily to me. Standing just behind her was a confused looking girl with black hair, who I immediately knew to be her sister. Given the golden halfling’s strong reaction, I could assume that she was Aurivy pretty easily.

“This is… strange?” The other halfling spoke up, shaking her head. “Styx? The Goddess asked me to pass a message to you. She says, ‘It works on incarnations too, I suppose.’ What does that mean, sir?”

I blinked my eyes in confusion, glancing towards Rache, who seemed to understand as little as I did. After a moment, I began to realize what she was talking about. “Oh… Oh. Uhm, well, this is going to take a little bit to explain. Why don’t you tell me what you remember, Thessa? From the time we met until now.”

Thessa raised a questioning brow as she heard that. “That’s… quite a wide timeframe, sir. I suppose… I’ll summarize a bit, then? This is a really strange question for you.”

“Anyways… when Thessa and I had just turned eight, we were training in the fields of Nyra. Me with my hammer, and her with a staff. However, we were assaulted by more shadow wolves than we were able to fight off on our own.”

As we listened, Rache gave a small nod, an amused smile on her face while Thessa continued. “I took a pretty bad slash to my arm, and thought we were done for. Then, all of a sudden, you showed up to help us with your magic.”

“You had told us at the time that you were just passing through when you saw you needed help, but Rache begged you to teach her how to use her magic like that.” Thessa shook her head helplessly, casting a glance towards her sister. “Eventually, you gave in, and took her as your apprentice. As for me, I became the manual labor of the group, with you paying me a monthly wage.”

“From there, we began to move around as you trained us, though you did try to ditch us at first by moving to a higher floor. Naturally, Rache followed, even though her body wasn’t trained enough yet. You had to use your magic to strengthen her enough that we could all go back through the gate.”

“And well… I guess we’ve been together ever since? About five years ago, we came here and began exploring around for a while. When we tried to head back home, we found that you couldn’t use the gate anymore… because your level didn’t stop increasing when it should. Still having a hard time with that one, by the way.”

“That’s enough.” I let out a small sigh, shaking my head. It looked like Thessa had been thoroughly affected by the Easy Reputation system. Maybe it was because Terra couldn’t be in as direct control of her as Aurivy was with Rache?

I glanced towards the side, looking at Rache as if asking what she wanted to do about this. Rache nodded, moving over towards Thessa. “Sis, you see… none of that really happened. Well, I mean, the training bit at Nyra, sure. There actually was a guy that came in to save us, but the wolves ate him while we made a run for it.”

Thessa’s eyes widened in disbelief with every word Rache spoke. “But I remember…”

“Maybe it would be easier if I say it like this…” Rache laughed lightly. “Styx? He’s the Keeper. You know that you are the incarnation of Terra, and I am the incarnation of Aurivy. We have been training all these years so that we could be here now to help him with a plan that he wanted to carry out. We haven’t been in Soran for five years, it’s barely been over five days.”

“This isn’t a very nice joke, Rache…” Thessa said as she gripped her head, seeming to be trying to make sense of what was being said.

“She’s not lying.” I said as I walked over. “Ask Terra. She should be able to confirm it for you. Sorry, I used a little trick when I came down to help with my plan. I didn’t think it would work on you as well.”

Thessa nodded, closing her eyes. Suddenly, both hands came up to her head as she let out a cry of pain, falling down to her knees. Don’t worry. Terra spoke up to myself and Aurivy while Thessa leaned forward with her head on the floor. I’m just giving her back the memories of what really happened. This should be over soon.

As she said, Thessa’s screams soon died down into loud, pained gasps. “That… that fucking hurt!” She hissed as she slowly pushed herself back up.

“All better now?” Rache asked, a bit of worry in her tone.

“Yeah, yeah… I’m fine now.” Thessa spoke through gritted teeth. “I guess this means I’m not getting paid anymore?”

“I mean, I could probably still pay you?” I asked, while asking internally. Ryone, can I probably still pay her?

In response, a small, familiar bag fell down from the sky, landing in my hand. While the weight of it might have been negligible before when I was in Earth, it suddenly felt much heavier now. Enough that I nearly dropped it out of surprise.

“Yup… I can still pay you.” I said while lightly tossing the bag filled with currency in her direction. She caught it with a confused gaze, her eyes practically shining a moment later as she realized what was in the bag.

“This will do. Is there anything else I can do for you now?” She asked, tying the bag to her belt as if it weighed nothing. She seemed much more cooperative suddenly, placing her arms behind her back and leaning forward. “I set up a mine when we came here. There’s plenty of ore for me to use. Would you like swords, armor, anything like that?”

Rather than waiting for me to answer, Rache let out a laugh. “How about we start with you buying food first? We’ve got plenty of meat still, but…”

Thessa gave a quick nod, reaching into her pocket and pulling out a small silver badge. “Okay, Rache. I’ll be back soon with the food!” As she said that, the badge in her hand emitted a blue light, and she vanished.

“Is it just me, or did she change pretty quickly?” I glanced towards Rache once Thessa had left.

The golden haired halfling rolled her eyes playfully. “Thessa’s always been swayed pretty easily by coin. At least, now she has. Before, she pretty much just did whatever Terra told her. I still remember all that stuff she talked about happening, too. But, since I’m in direct control, I guess I have both sets of memories? Anyways, let’s show you around the house.”

I turned, finally getting the chance to see the home that they had made up close. It was hard to believe that Thessa had made all of this in five days, given that she seemed to specialize in physical classes. That meant she shouldn’t have too much training as a druid to speed things along. Though, Rache might have helped her with that.

It was a nice, two story home with wooden walls resting on a stone foundation. Glass windows could be seen evenly placed along the walls, while stone steps led up to a simple door. Inside, I was able to see that they had created some simple furniture, such as a couch in the living room in front of a transmission stone.

Various magical appliances were easily visible around the house, whether it was the cooking utensils in the kitchen, the lights along the wall, or even a blue stone that caused the room to be filled with a cool breeze. It felt in many ways like a modern home from my own world, causing me to let a small smile appear on my face.

“How in the world did you guys do all of this in five days?” I couldn’t help but ask out loud as she showed me around the bedrooms, and even the basement office.

“Well, most of it we actually brought with us. Thessa’s got insane physical stats, so we used a lot of our money buying things to prepare. All that we really had to do this last week was to get the house itself built. Between the two of us working together, that wasn’t too hard.” Rache answered with a shrug of her shoulders.

I gave a small nod as I heard that. “With this, I think we should have everything we need to make this work pretty well. By the way… does the transmission stone actually work?” I found myself asking, recalling the setup that I had seen in the living room.

“Yup! Since there are a few cities on this floor, they set up towers to broadcast near the descending gate. We made sure that we were in their broadcasting range, so we can watch whatever programs they play. Helps keep us up to date with what’s happening when I can’t head back myself.”

“I see… This will work. As long as we can get people’s attention, this should work just fine.”

Aurivy nodded happily next to me when she heard that. “We’ve been working on that! Though, I think it’s worked a bit better now that you used the Easy Reputation thing. I remember people have been asking questions about you the last few times I went to town. I figure we should have our first guest in a few days!”