Chương 3: The World's Greatest Villain Returns

"A great villain… Am I really seen as such?" In the last day of the game, her guildmates had logged in for what was supposed to be a grand farewell battle against her. It started as a heartfelt send-off, but once word spread, more and more nearby players began jumping in. By then Gloria had already become something of a local legend on the server, since no one sane believed it was possible for a single player to have racked up as many hours as she had.

The admins, many of whom were her friends, clearly enjoyed the spectacle, and so they kept boosting her stats to keep the fight fair, eventually turning the whole thing into an impromptu world-raid event where she stood against hundreds at once. But that left another glaring question… What happened to those hundreds of players, and why were they not accounted for in that little legend? Perhaps the elf simply hadn't told her everything?

She would reserve judgment until she read the full story of the so-called 'Judgment Day' herself.

"Woahhh, look at the lady, mommy! She looks so cool! She must be an adventurer!" One wide-eyed child pointed at her as he passed with his mother, snapping Gloria out of her thoughts.

'Right… adventuring.' Gloria rose from the bench.

"Now that I think of it, since my inventory does not seem to function at all, I appear to be quite out of funds." Don't get her wrong, she could definitely sell some of her God-level equipment for an absurd amount of money, but she grew angry at herself for even thinking of it for the briefest of moments.

'Okay, but how awesome would it be to go on a quick quest? I really, really want to reach Ara as soon as I can, but I also really wanna do a quest as well!' Adventuring had always been absolute joy to her that it was hard to put into words. She knew her priority should have been finding the others from the game, and Ara was the perfect candidate, but elves lived for like a gadzillion years. Taking one single day to slay some slimes or beasts should be fine, right? She glanced down at her hip and smiled.

While she had no access to her other stuff, she appeared to still have access to one crucial item. On the side of her hip, was pinned a single, and quite large emblem, one that displayed her adventuring rank. This was probably possible because those emblems were never a part of players inventories, and more a part of their info cards. Gloria lifted the badge into the light.

It was larger than she thought it would be, and it was jet black with deep red circular dents arranged in a perfect spiral pattern across its surface. This was the highest rank anyone could achieve, the rank of Eternal. Usually, climbing the ranks required hitting a certain level and completing a set number of high-difficulty quests. The higher the rank, the steeper the challenge became. The last two ranks in particular had absurd requirements.

Reaching the second-highest tier demanded a dedicated trial that many players actually managed to pass after enough attempts. But the highest rank? It was simply annoying, since you had to complete your daily quests every single day for two full years, without missing even one day.

'Hey, that made it more exclusive. And it was perfectly tailored for no-lives like me.' She stood up and began walking toward the Adventurers Guild. She had a good feeling that she knew where it was, since so shockingly little had changed in the three hundred years. Well, except one thing, because there was definitely something new about this city…. For a good fifteen minutes while she had sat on that bench, not a single person had flown into it.

Instead she had watched gigantic airships drift in and out of the city. Gloria recognized them instantly as White Whales, and they were exactly as the old lore described: prohibitively expensive creations of the southern human nations, built to haul cargo over the monster-infested wilds when the weather was kind.

'So that's why flying is suddenly illegal. If these puppies are here, then the whole area must be under heavy surveillance.'

"Quite unfortunate," she murmured aloud, coming to a conclusion that if they were in this city, it was quite likely that the short journey across the sea to the elven land was also just as monitored. She could defiantly just fly there, and no one could stop her from doing it, but she didn't want to get in too much trouble over something she had an easy legal answer for.

'If those airships reach the elven lands… then the Katamaran surely still does as well.' Katamaran was quite a magnificent ship—bigger than two dozen buildings stacked right next to each other, and pulled by an even larger slime that was larger than a mountain. It came once every week and was used in only four different ports, this being one of them.

It was the way you first unlocked the elven lands, but since it was only a twenty-second cutscene, and the fact that you almost instantly unlocked a teleportation anchor there, most people used it only once. She quite hated that fact, especially since that slime was probably one of the largest ones in the game, and probably the largest non-raid-boss slime ever—not mentioning that the ship was supposed to be like a small city of its own, with all kinds of wacky shops and services in it.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation. Gloria had been so lost in her own thoughts that she scarcely noticed where her feet were taking her. It wasn't until she finally looked up that she realized she had wandered all the way across the district and was standing before the very building she was hoping to find. The Adventurers Guild!

It was noticeably larger and set apart by a wide margin, its weathered brick walls rising nearly twice the height of the surrounding structures. The circular building had broad entrances on either side clearly meant for carriages, and in front of it sat several long tables where adventurers lounged in high spirits, no doubt celebrating the recent "festival of her doom." Gloria slowed to a stop, her gaze drifting over the adventurers gathered outside.

She took her time studying them one by one—their weapons, armor, posture, even the way they carried themselves. Before long, a frown settled across her face.

'Hmm... let's be charitable here...'

"They are all pathetically weak." The words slipped out of her mouth before she could stop them, almost as if mocking her thoughts.

'Gloria! That was too harsh! But… yeah, that's the core of what I wanted to say.' Most of them were only Silver-ranked, which was barely above the bottom tiers. She came to this conclusion trough her own quick look… But also through the emblems they were wearing on their hips, just as she was. It was also quite surprising to watch them wear those Silver emblems with such obvious pride, yet after a moment's thought Gloria arrived at what she believed to be the only reasonable explanation.

'Ah... they must all be beginners. Yes, that has to be it!' Satisfied with that conclusion, Gloria resumed her walk toward the entrance. As she passed the long tables, quite a few pairs of eyes drifted her way. Most lingered only for a brief moment before moving on, though several dropped to the large black emblem fastened at her hip.

'Hehe.' A small surge of pride welled up inside her chest… Yet the admiration she had secretly hoped for never came. One by one, the adventurers simply looked away, their expressions barely changing before they returned to their drinks and conversations as though they had seen nothing of note. Gloria's posture drooped ever so slightly.

'... Oh.' The reaction was, admittedly, about what she should have expected. The Eternal rank was prestigious, certainly, but hardly mysterious. Plenty of players had earned it over the years, and within the community it was viewed with a strange mixture of respect and relentless mockery. Whenever someone showed off that badge, the replies were almost always the same, and along the lines of: "Congratulations. Now go take a shower."

'... Those people were so mean.' Gloria tried to slouch her posture, though, somewhat annoyingly, her body simply refused to comply in any meaningful way, as if it had already decided what sort of expression she was supposed to be wearing in public and had no interest in negotiations. But never mind that.

She had, once again, drifted off in thought while walking, and, quite predictably, found herself already inside the Adventurers Guild without any clear memory of actually entering it, which was becoming something of a pattern she should probably address at some point. The interior was… different. Not unfamiliar, exactly, but expanded in a way that made her briefly question whether she had misremembered the original design or whether she had simply entered the wrong building.

The space opened wide into a grand hall filled with long wooden tables and even more people than there were outside. To one side was a bar, and, beyond that, what looked suspiciously like a small restaurant area, complete with people eating proper meals, which for a brief moment made Gloria's suspicion about entering the wrong building grow. But then she saw something which made her realized she was in the right place after all. The quest board.

Large, unmistakable, covered in pinned papers layered over each other in a dense arrangement. And beside it, a real receptionist desk, complete with an attendant sitting upright behind it, dressed in a sharply tailored black-and-white uniform that was so cleanly designed it almost felt ceremonial. It was also… identical as before. Or rather, it was so close to what she remembered that it bordered on unsettling.

"Bene advenisti ad Gildam Adventuratorum!" A pleasant voice came from behind the reception desk just as Gloria's attention had become entirely occupied by everything else inside the guild.

'Is that Latin!?' Her head snapped toward the source of the greeting. Behind the counter stood a young woman with short black hair cut into a neat pixie style, dressed in the unmistakable receptionist uniform.

'No way... None of the NPCs had ever spoken Latin. Of this I'm beyond certain!' Which meant... Could she be a player? Was this some clever method of finding others from Earth without drawing unnecessary attention? Trying to appear composed despite the hope rapidly building inside her chest, Gloria approached the counter with quick steps before speaking in the same language.

"Gaudeo hic esse!" The receptionist blinked, clearly caught off guard, then tilted her head with a curious little laugh.

"I'm sorry, what was that? I didn't quite catch it." Before Gloria could respond, another receptionist nearby greeted a different adventurer who had just approached the next table over.

"Bene advenisti ad Gildam Adventuratorum!"

'…Ah. Right.' If the greeting was simply a standard phrase every employee here was taught, then of course this woman wouldn't actually understand Latin. Gloria internally buried her face in her hands.

'I may have jumped to conclusions just a little…' The receptionist let out a small chuckle.

"I'm wondering what that was about? Are you feeling well?"

"It pleases me to be here. But the events of today have left quite the toll upon me, I fear." Gloria admitted. The woman brightened at that.

"Tell me about it! Everyone's been in a festive mood because of all the excitement, but all that celebrating can wear a person out. Drinking and celebrating is fun for the first few hours, but the excitement passes after the sixth… Never mind that, what can I do for you today?" Only then did Gloria notice some large black circles under her eyes, and that she might have been speaking from experience.

Gloria felt a flicker of relief at having recovered so smoothly, though a quiet thread of disappointment wound through her. Just an NPC after all… or at least someone not from her old world. Calling a living being an NPC felt kind of wrong to her.

"Good, I wish to partake in a quest."

"Wonderful!" The receptionist nodded and gestured toward the desk.

"I'll sort you out right away. First, if you would be so kind as to show me your emblem for rank confirmation?" With unmistakable pride, Gloria lifted the large black badge and placed it upon the counter. The moment the receptionist's eyes fell upon it, her expression froze. The color drained from her face as though she had just seen a ghost, her hands hovering uncertainly above the emblem while her mouth opened and closed without sound.