Yumily’s Airship rose to meet the island of Kalmoore and sailed over its green fields. The fleet of Airships manned by Kalmoorians parted in the middle to allow their passage, turned, and followed behind them in two rows of 5.

Aegis and Lina, holding hands and leaning over the railing at the front of the deck, peered down at the land below. They saw the lush green forests filled with low-level players fighting all manner of creatures, but one stood out to Aegis. There was a lone shield-wielder duking it out with a low-level boar, blocking the boar's charges and taking retaliatory swings at it with his sword, but missing a few times before finally taking it out.

Darkshot smirked as he followed Aegis’ eyes to see him watching the player. “Remind you of someone, huh?”

Aegis shook his head to himself with a soft chuckle.

It wasn’t long before the grand city of Kordas came into view. It looked as if Aegis remembered it, but with one significant change. The Skyport tower had been expanded, and a secondary Skyport was under construction on the city's outskirts, much larger but not as tall as the main one.

Yumily’s Airship was veering toward the tower in the middle of the city, but all of them aboard the ship leaned over to look down at the new, under-construction Skyport.

“Gonna get a bit busier in the skies, huh?” Kenji commented.

“What’s that one?” Rakkan pointed to a secondary construction yard inside the city walls, where the hull and frame of a gigantic Airship were visible. Carpenter players and NPCs were scattered about it, measuring, nailing, and cutting away to build it, but it was nowhere near completion.

“I’m willing to bet that will be Leonard’s new ship,” Aegis remarked.

Their Airship continued until it arrived at the tower. Before Yumily’s crew had even properly fastened her airship to the pier, a crowd of reporters and players was clustering around the end of it, barely being held back by a collection of overworked Korda's guards.

The boarding plank was lowered, and Serenity took the lead, stepping off onto the pier as the shouting intensified.

“Serenity, Serenity!” A VGN reporter shouted out at her. “What are your thoughts on VGN’s newest bard addition!? Are you worried she will outshine y-” A dead message appeared above the reporter's head, and not just that one.

Within seconds, Lina had shadow-stepped through the crowd and singled out every VGN reporter and killed them. Serenity was anxious about answering the question, but her face turned to shock when she saw the reporters' bodies disintegrating and being forced to log out.

“Sapphire’s gonna have to arrest you for that,” Pyri commented as Lina reappeared next to them on the ship. These words clued Serenity into what had happened, and she turned to look up at Lina, who did her best to look innocent while standing beside Aegis.

“She’ll have to catch me first.” Lina smiled down at Serenity, and Serenity returned a grateful nod. She took a few more steps down the pier, Kenji following behind her, but Aegis remained at the top of the ramp, his party waiting behind him. They’d expected him to walk down after Serenity and Kenji, but he stayed on top of the ship instead.

Serenity's fans cheered for her, asked for her autograph, and expressed their love for her new style. Beyond those cheers came several from Aegis’ fans and even from his party members' fans. He’d even spotted a Ranger excitedly pointing at a Kalmoorian pigeon pet that he’d hatched, hoping that Darkshot would notice him.

“Everything okay?” Pyri asked as she noticed Aegis’ hesitation.

Aegis turned to look back at her. “Do you think you could portal us straight to Rene?”

“You sure?” Pyri raised a brow, glancing between the welcoming crowds, the Airships leading them in that were now docking, and back to Aegis.

Aegis nodded.

“Oookay.” Pyri shrugged. “We’re going to portal to Rene!” Pyri notified Serenity and Kenji on the pier, causing them both to look back with surprise.

“Oh!” Serenity pondered for a moment. “I’ll come with you, then!” She eagerly turned and ran back up the boarding ramp. Darkshot and Rakkan gave each other confused looks, but no further questioning was done.

“Sorry guys, I’ve got things to take care of back in Rene, but thanks for all your support!” Aegis shouted out to the fans on the pier while Pyri began casting the portal. The blue doorway appeared, hovering above the deck of Serenity’s ship.

Looking through it, Aegis could see the portal altar and a crowd of familiar faces standing on the other side, waiting for them, and it felt much more welcoming to him. Despite the sighs and groans of disappointment he heard from the crowd atop the Skyport Tower, he stepped through the portal and appeared atop the altar in the city of Rene.

“Welcome back, woof!” Ruffily cheered as she ran up and hugged him, her tail wagging furiously behind her. When Rakkan stepped through the portal behind Aegis, Amlie broke from the crowd waiting for them in Rene and charged into him, hugging him tight without saying any words.

“How’s my horse doing?” Pyri asked, seeing Josephine, Erikson, and Chax smiling at them. Behind Pyri came Serenity, Darkshot, Lina, and Kenji before the portal closed.

“Well fed, don’t worry. I took good care,” Josephine replied, to which Pyri gave an appreciative nod.

“No trouble in Rene?” Aegis asked Chax.

“We’ve had to expand, lots of new inhabitants. Many players have been using your tunnel into the under-realm to grind the high-level monsters down there, and it’s increased the profits we’ve been generating. We could fund almost any construction or expansion your mind comes up with right now, multiple times,” Chax said while fidgeting with his interface as if doing calculations. “Got anything in mind?”

“No, not yet, b-” Aegis’ reply was interrupted by the sound of another portal on the altar opening behind them.

Through it, Aegis could see onto the deck of one of their accompanying ships, and the Night Hunters piled through it quickly.

“You’re not ditching us that easily,” Quinn gave Aegis a look as she stepped through first, followed by dozens of other familiar faces.

“You were so cool!” Sherry rushed past the others to get to Darkshot, looking at him with sparkling eyes.

“I know, right?!” Darkshot squealed at her.

“I missed you!” She added while throwing her arms around him.

“Really?” Darkshot asked in disbelief, but Aegis gave him a nudge in his back. “I mean, of course.” His voice deepened. “I missed you as well.”

Aegis rolled his eyes to himself.

“How’d you like our new darlings?” Captain Leonard smiled at the group as the crowd outside the portal altar grew significantly.

“I thought they were great!” Lina cheered.

“You guys built all of those ships very fast.” Serenity commented.

“We were very motivated.” Tullan crossed his arms and grinned proudly, but his pose was bumped by an excited Yuki pushing past him to get to Serenity. Upon seeing each other, their faces lit up, and they threw their arms around one another.

“You’re finally free!” Yuki whispered to her excitedly.

“I know!” Serenity whispered back, equally as excited.

“Does that mean we’ll be adventuring again?!” Yuki asked.

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“I think so!” Serenity replied—with each exchange, their voices got higher and higher pitched.

Herilon slapped Aegis on his shoulder with a little more force than necessary. “That was some nice PvP there, kid.”

“Eh, it was okay. Don’t give him a bigger head than he’s already got,” Sapphire said, followed by a loud crunching bite into a carrot.

“What’re you talking about? His head is the same size as before!” Ren joined in, hopping up and down excitedly and carefully eying Aegis’s head size.

Aegis couldn't help but laugh at the exchange. “You guys are all the same as when I left you.”

Quinn raised a brow at him while the others laughed. “Is that an insult or a compliment?”

“I’ll leave that up to you to decide.” Aegis shrugged.

“What’s the plan now? What world-ending threat will Aegis be taking on next?” Trexon asked him curiously, which brought silence to the murmuring crowd around them.

“Yeah, what’re we doin’ next?!” Ren asked with eager eyes. Aegis hesitated to answer as he felt everyone turning to look at him expectantly.

Seeing him hesitating, Pyri stepped forward in his place.

“Actually, we-” Pyri began.

“Before that,” Aegis interrupted her and gave her a look. She closed her eyes and nodded at him, taking a step back. “There’s something important I need to do,” he started fidgeting with his interface until he got to his inventory and found the soul dust. He pulled the dust out of his inventory, causing it to appear in his hands.

It was a large white pouch with its top tied off with a blue string, but motes of blue light were shedding from the bag and falling from his hands towards the ground, fading through the cobblestone streets they stood on as they landed.

With the pouch in his hand, the others nearby could inspect the item card of what he was holding and see that it was the soul dust.

“You’re going to revive an NPC?” Quinn asked.

Aegis nodded. “It’s only enough soul dust to revive one. I’m sure we’ll be able to find more soul dust over time, but I had to think long and hard about which NPC to revive first.” Aegis explained.

“No doubt it’d be Snowflake, eh?” Tullan asked him.

“What about Farlion? Woof!” Ruffily asked.

“I wouldn’t mind having my Aphrodite lover returned to me…” Captain Leonard spoke up in a pleading tone. Aegis turned to look at all three of them before returning to the soul dust in his hands.

“I thought about them. I did. They were all very important NPCs that helped us a great deal or meant a lot to us. I’d love to resurrect them in the future, but there’s someone much more important to bring back,” Aegis said.

When he finally looked up from the soul dust, it was Rakkan and Amlie that he was staring at. Rakkan looked back at him, briefly confused about why Aegis was looking at him.

“Resurrect,” Aegis began the cast rather abruptly, causing the soul dust in his hands to vanish. A pure circle of white light flared around him. A second circle formed in front of him on the ground, firing a beam of light towards the sky. It wasn’t so bright that everyone was forced to turn away, and their eyes lay on it with curiosity.

“It’s a 10-minute cast, right?” Lina asked on behalf of the onlookers, to which Aegis nodded.

“But who’re you resurrecting?” Rakkan asked. Aegis didn’t reply, just looked at him again. A few moments after the casting had started, the feet of an NPC began to form out of light inside the circle on the ground in front of Aegis.

Building up from the feet, a light silhouette grew into ankles, calves, and legs. The process was slow, but after over 10 minutes, the silhouette of a female NPC's body had formed out of light. Because the body was made of pure light and featureless, it was impossible to tell who it was. Not a single player present wanted to look away, though, as they were all witnessing the first casting of a never-before-seen spell.

Finally, when the 10 minutes were up, the light around Aegis and the NPC vanished, and the silhouette stopped glowing with light. The NPC took her proper form, her last equipped clothing and gear appearing on her body instantly.

She was a tall human with dark brown hair and brown eyes, wearing simple leather pants and soil-stained clothing. Aegis had never seen her before and knew her only by name. That was enough for the spell to take effect, as [Taeyal - Level 3] appeared floating above her head in white text.

It wasn’t just Aegis; with just two exceptions, no one from Kalmoore had any idea who this NPC was. Rakkan and Amlie looked upon Taeyal with wide eyes of disbelief.

“Huh… where am I?” Taeyal looked down at her hands and legs, then curiously peered around at the crowd of onlookers. “Where is Pellagrove?”

“Pellagrove is gone,” Aegis replied calmly. “The Avatar of Hatred destroyed it. You were killed, but I’ve resurrected you. However, it has been quite some time since you were killed. We’re now on the island of Kalmoore,” Aegis replied calmly while everyone watched with great interest at the exchange. Aegis’ viewership climbed to 15 million, putting him back in the top spot among streamers.

“I… I see.” She tilted her head downward with disappointment, but washed it away quickly to take Aegis's hands into her own. “Thank you very much. I… why me?” She asked curiously.

“Because of my friend, Renault.”

“Renault? Ah, yes! Renault!” She suddenly looked very frantic, with wide eyes. She glanced around at the players surrounding them, looking at knee level for the gnomish avatar she knew Renault to possess, but not spotting him. “Is he here somewhere?” She turned back to Aegis after not spotting him.

“He’s here. He looks a bit different now, but that’s him,” Aegis motioned to Rakkan, who gave Aegis a look of absolute disbelief. He was at a complete loss for words about what Aegis was doing, and his frustration slowly started to slip in.

“Why’re you doin’ this?” Rakkan glared at him, giving Taeyal a scary look that stopped her from speaking or moving closer to him.

“I uh…” Aegis saw his confusion and took a deep breath. “I had a hunch,”

“A hunch?” Rakkan was quick to reply.

“Yeah. Seraxus said that when he attacked Pellagrove and burned it to the ground, your grandfather wasn’t logged in. So, he had no idea anything would happen to Taeyal or her village. Therefore, if he had any last message for you, there’s a good chance he left it with her and had no reason to think you’d never get it,” Aegis explained.

“You used the true resurrection for a hunch?” Rakkan looked at him skeptically.

“If I’m right, she’ll be the most important NPC in the entire gameworld, right?” Aegis shrugged awkwardly.

“So, do you have any messages?” Quinn’s curiosity got the best of her, and she broke up the silence by inquiring with Taeyal.

“Hm? Uh, yes, sorry. This Eirene cleric is correct. If you are Renault, your father did leave a scroll with me. He told me he would be returning to his world and wouldn’t be coming back, but he wished for me to give it to you,” Taeyal replied timidly before fidgeting with her NPC inventory to cause an encased scroll to appear in her hands.

Amlie’s look of shock had her face going pale; she couldn’t decide whether to look at the scroll in Taeyal’s hand or Rakkan’s face. Rakkan hesitated for a long few moments before finally reaching out to take the case out of her hands.

“What’re you guys doing? Break time is over, let's get back to grinding,” Sylvia growled at her party members. She, Seraxus, Zuon, Gambit, and Hajax were deep in the underrealm of Puagas, battling against high-level 220 enemies that looked like beetles made of magma.

Sylvia eyed her party interface to see all of them at full mana and stamina, and was standing at the edge of a small platform in the middle of a lake of lava, getting ready to start fighting more enemies. None of her companions reacted, though—they all remained seated, quietly watching Aegis’ livestream in their livestream viewers.

“Give us a moment,” Zuon replied on the others' behalf.

Rakkan took the scroll, tears already swelling in his orcish eyes. He opened the wooden lid, pulled out several pieces of parchment, and unrolled them.

“You wanna read it in private?” Aegis asked him.

“Nah. It’s fine. You went through all this trouble to help me, so…” Rakkan shrugged, looking to see Lina, Darkshot, Aegis, Pyri, and Amlie looking at him sympathetically. He took a deep breath and unrolled the parchment, looking to the first page.

Dear Renault,

Thank you for showing me this wondrous world. You’ve made my last days much more enjoyable than I could have ever hoped. I felt young again, and had a chance to complete something I believe to be quite remarkable.

I know you’ve been hoping to change my mind, but I’ve already made it up. My sickness will take me any day now, but I want you to know that you shouldn’t blame yourself. It is my decision, and you were never going to change it. I’m happy with the life that I have lived, and I leave this world with no regrets.

I pray that you may live a life as enjoyable as mine, and that you too will someday have children and grandchildren of your own. Don’t lose your passion, and live your life to the fullest. I will forever be watching over you from above.

And if you ever find yourself in need of calm or guidance, I have left you gift. A combination of my expertise, and the wonders that your game has to offer. I had hoped to play it for you myself, but alas, my fantasy gardening skills won’t allow for the plants to grow fast enough.

With eternal love and happiness,

Your Grandfather

Rakkan finished reading the first parchment and pulled it to the side to see that the remaining parchments were music sheets with strange symbols mixed into the notes.

“It’s… a song, I think? I can’t read it,” Rakkan looked up, showing everyone the tears streaking down his face. It was contagious, as several others were crying silently alongside him.

“Would you like me to take a look?” Serenity offered, stepping forward with her hand outstretched.

Rakkan nodded, passing the parchment to her. Serenity looked through the pages curiously, tilting her head to the side as she tried to read the notes.

“I sort of can read it, but the page has strange markings. They look almost like flowers?”

“Ah, yes,” Taeyal spoke up. “Renault’s grandfather was trying to grow plants in our garden that could be used to play music,” She explained.

“Oh! I get it.” Serenity nodded, looking at the sheets more closely. “That’s a cool idea! I don’t recognize some of these plants, though…”

Amlie rushed over to look at the sheets over Serenity’s shoulder. The two looked over the parchments quickly while everyone watched. “I know them. I have them all in my fields, here in Rene!” Amlie’s face lit up with excitement, looking to Rakkan, who watched her and Serenity curiously.

“If you can organize them for me, I think I can use them to play this song,” Serenity turned to Amlie.

“No problem, come on, guys!” Amlie rushed away excitedly, pushing through the others and taking off down the streets of Rene. Serenity took off after her, absorbed in reading the sheets.

“We should follow them, right?” Sapphire commented as everyone else just watched Amlie and Serenity getting smaller as they got further away.

“Yeah, let's go. My grandfather would’ve loved having so many people hear his last song. I just hope it’s good.” Rakkan smiled awkwardly, and Aegis gave him a nod.