CHAPTER 32: DISTURBING SILENCE

After lunch, Eirlys departed for some work-related issues, perhaps fixing the bug I wrote to her about previous?

I waited in my rooms for a few hours while Hailie also started her language studying session, she’ll get 2 hours of freetime right after this class, if I heard correctly. During the downtime, my stuff was getting moved, and sad news boys, the dildos were thrown out, they said it was too vulgar to be moved.

Though, I’m glad they kept my cosplay sets, otherwise we’ll gon have a fistfight.

After re-decorating the room, using a small bed lamp to barely illuminate the room instead of the giant light of normal humans, I heard a knock on my door.

"Cory!" Hailie said, jumping in excitement with her upperbody.

"Hailie!" I said, also jumping up with my arms in the air like a toddler, this healed me somewhat, "You’re ready for more adventure?" I asked like a Disney’s animated personified map.

"Yup!" She giggled with both hands to cover her mouth.

"Highfives?" I said, raising both palms up to her head level.

"High tens!" Hailie replied, reaching out to get our hands together for a loud snap.

That was so stupid and random... But I loved it.

I walked next by as Hailie was pushed on her wheelchair past the hanging chandelier, past the velvet oil paintings of forefathers I didn’t recognize. Though, I’ve used that word quite grand, "forefathers" were just some old countrymen, or an empty frame without a name.

This alluded to the fact that the Sonder Interactive empire was built by Eirlys and Hailie’s father, who was an entrepreneur in tech, and sadly not a inheritence thing, so not many recorded photos or paintings of their ancestors.

That fucked with my head, because... Self-made billionaire? In this economy? Without exploiting the middle class, committing tax fraud or illegal trading? Well, some things are best left unquestioned.

My pod had already been moved to my private room, but we weren’t going to use that, because this was a girls’ gaming session, and we were going to the game room, lads! Inside, I was mesmerized by a sleek dome of brushed steel and glass overhead like it was about to show a 3D movie, the whole room felt like futuristic parasite the mansion had grown overnight.

Five pods were waiting for us, humming softly in standby, I also glanced over and saw many other consoles; from arcade, highend PC sets, PS5, even a miniature archery range which seemed out of place.

I stood by the door with my jaws dropped and my eyes wide as I stared into what could only be described as heaven on Earth. It had a dark and purple kind of mood, complete opposite of the white and gold of the entire mansion... Oh god, this got my horny, I think I can build a fortress and live in here.

Then came Hailie Sonder.

"Oh, are you ready, Cory? Just picked any pods you want!"

Her butler, a long-faced man with hair so precisely combed it looked lacquered, wheeled her in effortlessly and silence. His white gloves were clean, and his vest ironed, I was kinda captured by his image for a second, quite a visually attractive man, outshining Hailie in a way.

I leaned against the doorframe and watched—mostly because it felt wrong to interrupt—while he gently braced her under the arms and helped her slide from the wheelchair into the pod with something that I could only described as reverence and grace... They would make such a great couple in that butler x young madam type of romance mangas.

He tucked her legs in gently as she couldn’t move them herself, folding a small blanket over her lap. She was wearing a dress so I supposed that was for modesty? Even though the lid of the pod would just close and cover her. He adjusted the headrest, smoothed her bangs, fixed her shirt collar, all unnecessary things. Then, finally, he placed a hand briefly over her shoulder, bowed, and left without saying a word.

There was something about the whole thing that made me forget how awkward I usually felt. I was intruding, somewhat, sitting back and just watching one part of a strange, fragile and cutesy world I’d wandered into.

"Ready?" I asked, sitting down on the pod right next to her,

"Yep! Time to go!" She smiled and signed back, Ready when you are.

We logged in together.

The Hollow greeted us with that same muffled hush it always did, a cold serenity of walking into a doomsday church after a mass suicide that left the world in shock. The second spirit was somewhere near the inner grove, beyond the fog-shrouded trees where even the moss looked reluctant to live.

"Let us walk over there, Hailie." I said, this time a bit more kind and less demanding, I noticed that I’m being more careful around her after all the circumstances of today.

But I forgot that she was deaf and couldn’t hear me, so I walked in front of her, and pointed towards one of the far corner.

"Ah! Yes!" She mouthed as she nodded.

Hailie’s prayers soon began after we found the shrine.

[You’re Entering: Domain Of The Tall Man]

[Quest Updated: Thorns of Grace]

First Spirit: Found

Second Spirit: Found

Third Spirit: Not Found

I drank some healing potions, getting myself to Full HP, before tightening the grip on my shield as I scanned the perimeter, occasionally glancing down at Hailie to make sure she had her eyes closed, this time, she wasn’t, so I reached down with my fingers to close her eyelids, and she didn’t budge, just obliged.

It’s best if you stay ignorant, babe.

After 30 seconds of nothing happening, my doubts began to grew. But it was short-lived, as I then hear it with my own ears and felt it with my own skin.

Rustling in the nearby trees, as well as leaves falling from many other trees in the area, which had me suspicious, so I raised my shield.

"Come out here, you ugly bastards!"

If shit turns south, I’ll just tell Hailie straight on that an evil enemy killed us and cry about how I couldn’t protect her...

But, nothing came.

I glanced back at Hailie.

Unlike last time, there was no storm of enemies. No footsteps or any enemy indication at all. The world was still, eerily so... One theory I’ve come up was... Maybe this was a stealth enemy, and as a Warlock class, I didn’t have the ability to detect them.

I paced in a slow, arcing circle around her while she knelt at the stones and pulled her fingers into a delicate praying motion.

I took a moment to observe the the spirit, making sure that he was the same as the man I remembered, and not some false spirit that was going to attack Hailie during her prayer.

This spirit, naturally, wasn’t screaming or sobbing or angry. It was a peaceful one, probably the reason why no enemy spawned even in this quest.

A tall man, draped in the tattered regalia of a long-lost priest, stood silently behind the shrine. His face was hollow but not cruel, as if he’d already wept everything out centuries ago. He didn’t speak, just watched Hailie, something like longing stretching across his translucent features.

The only sound was the low rustle of wind brushing the grass, and the occasional, almost imperceptible chime when her prayers aligned with whatever the spirit needed to hear.

I kept looking over my shoulder... This wasn’t right.

Of course, the [Cleric] quest was supposed to be easy, that was the entire point of the class, easy to obtain, easy to play, easy to operate, easy to get value out of (literally just spam random buttons of heals and buffs while getting protected by the entire US Army)

But... Should it be still this easy?

For the mourner, we had to fight just to keep her breathing. And now... now it felt like the game was holding its breath.

My fingers started trembling out of anxiety and my heart rate had ticked up without me realizing.

Hailie stayed focused, unaware of the silence pressing in from all sides. Deafness was her serenity, as her face remained a perfect calm, her lips moving soundlessly in her ritual.

I wanted to call out to her, to tell her to hurry up, to tell her something felt wrong. But that would’ve interrupted the prayer, and I didn’t know if it was worth it.

"What the fuck’s happening... what is happening, what is happening, what is happening, what is happening, what is happening, what is happening, what is happening, what is happening..." I started muttering.

Why am I even getting anxious? There’s nothing I couldn’t do. I am still using the debug exploit to turn off pain sensor, and I still have 5 other tricks I could use to make sure we get through this quest, but, I didn’t like the thickness of the fog at bay.

So I bit my tongue and kept circling as I watched the trees, hoping something would move, hoping that a slime or something would crawl out for me to push away.

Then, the spirit closed his eyes.

A pulse of warm light emerged from the shrine, pulsing once, twice, thrice.

Hailie didn’t react to it. Her hands kept weaving meaning into the air, but I caught the flicker in the corner of her eye. It was the same way she smiled when the wind touched her face in real life: Subtle, subconscious, and heartfelt.

"Almost done," I whispered, more to myself than anyone else.

Still nothing stirred.

That was the part that terrified me most.

When the spirit knelt and touched her forehead gently with two fingers, blessing her with silent understanding, I didn’t feel relieved. I felt like the game was setting me up for something.

What did I miss?

Hailie Sonder, the young and cute snow-haired girl wearing Ranger class outfit stood up slowly, she turned toward me with her usual brilliant smile, calm, content, as if nothing could hurt us now.

I gave her a thumbs up, but I didn’t smile back, knowing full well that I could be dead right now.