(3rd Person Narration)
[Soul… Armaments?]
Her voice cut through the fire's crackle, "And I've counted three of them on you already," the woman added, eyes flicking to the rifle, the pistol, and then the shorty peeking through the cloak.
[Soul armaments? My guns? Interesting.] His face stayed smooth, making sure to not let the thought leak.
While her voice cracked under its own urgency. "I assure you, you will be rewarded handsomely! And it's not like you'll be fighting alone—"
"More often than not, I find myself doing just that," Vincent cut in, tilting his head with a half-amused smile. "Say… how many soul armaments have you actually seen? None like mine, I bet. The big one…" he patted the rifle with mock affection, "she's called My Girl."
Her mouth opened, words stumbling. "I… haven't seen anything like it. It's powerful… but not unnaturally so for a soul armament."
"I know, right?" His grin was all bluff. "Soul armaments don't function like normal weapons. Each one bends the rules. Too bad you can't just snatch them off someone."
"Exactly!" she blurted, desperation bubbling closer to the surface. "That's what makes them sacred! But yours… it looks like some strange crossbow. Please…" her voice trembled into something close to begging. "Will you help?"
Vincent inhaled slow, closing his eyes as the grin slipped away.
Every ounce of logic screamed this was suicide.
His mana pool was laughable, barely a puddle.
His regen was insane, yes, but it didn't change capacity. He shoved everything into regen and control. Stats nobody sane touched as much as he did.
In the sea of ruined builds in Endlessness, his was probably the most ruined.
And yet… he was still one of the top players.
Not because of genius.
But, because he lucked into Iṣṭva for his Esper Skill.
[But still…is my life… or my guns... Are they really worth more than half a million people?]
The fire gnawed at the silence as he thought.
Then the woman stirred, finally pushing herself upright.
Her eyes were colder now, wrapped in resignation.
"Fine," she said, voice low. "I'm sorry for taking so much of your time. If Caldera still stands by the time you reach it, come find me, and I'll repay you for saving my life. And if it falls…" she glanced into the flames, then back at him, "…then you're free to loot my corpse. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a home to defend."
She turned, boots crunching pebbles by the river, walking straight into the dark.
"Alright, fine! Let's go then!" Vincent barked, leaping to his feet as he threw his hands up like a kid being denied candy. "Nothing I've got…hell, not even my life is worth more than so many."
The words froze her mid-step.
Shock flickered across her face, then softened before her lips curved into a smile.
A real one.
Her blue eyes curved like crescents in the firelight.
Vincent's chest tightened before he immediately covered it with bluster. "You better not have hyped me up with lies!" he barked, straight at her face.
Her smile lingered, faint but unwavering.
"I spoke no lie," she said quietly, "or may Liora, The Dawnmother, take my life."
The fire popped, sparks tearing into the night.
"My name is Lyra Elovar," she said, her voice softer than ever before, "What's yours?"
But her words seemed to have vanished into the crackle of the flames.
Vincent stood frozen, eyes wide as though lightning had just struck him.
"…Hey! Are you listening?" Lyra snapped, irritation creeping back in.
But he didn't hear her.
Inside, his mind reeled. [Liora? The Dawnmother Liora?]
His throat went dry as the memories hit—the temples, the laughter, the hours spent talking when he should've been raiding.
Endlessness didn't run on scripts.
No dialogue wheels, no pre-baked branches.
Every NPC was an AI sharp enough to pass for human.
That was why the pods cost a fortune. They were basically supercomputers wired to an artificial general intelligence.
You didn't click "flirt" and watch canned lines.
You lived it.
You spoke, joked, teased, and argued... and they responded.
Plenty of players had found their best companions that way—random NPCs who grew into legends at their side.
And Liora? She was his in-game girlfriend.
Was...
One he'd courted just to see if he could.
And for a while, she'd felt real.
[So how the hell is she here?]
"HEY!" Lyra snapped, waving a hand in front of his face.
"Wah—?"
"You coming or not!? We've already wasted hours!"
"Yea—yeah! And you wasted hours with your beauty sleep!" he stammered, scrambling to pick up his gear.
She turned into the forest, boots grinding pebbles. "Like I said, I'm Lyra. And you?"
That gave Vincent another pause.
Liora was here somewhere.
The only way to know would be to play along.
"Odin," he said, a grin twitching onto his lips. "My name is Odin."
He had planted the seeds.
Now all he had to do was wait to see what pops up.
"Alright, Odin." Lyra nodded once, eyes sharp. "No more time to waste."
Mana surged around her, kicking up pebbles and dead leaves as she dashed into the black forest, vanishing like she'd been swallowed whole.
Vincent coughed, waving dust out of his eyes while the other hand massaged where the pebbles hit.
"Yeah, I'm not sprinting behind her," he muttered with a strained chuckle. "Not like I can anyway."
He trudged forward at his own pace.
But he didn't get more than two steps before she was back, cutting through the trees with a glare sharp enough to pin him in place.
"Wah! Hurry it up!"
"The hell you mean hurry it up!?" he barked back. "I can't run that fast!"
"Just reinforce yourself!"
"Lady, I'm an Esper!"
Her eyes narrowed, and before he could blink, the world tilted.
"Wha—"
Vincent's boots left the ground as Lyra swept him up clean, arms locking under him in a perfect princess carry.
"We don't have time for your shenanigans!" she snapped, her stride shaking the forest floor with each mana-boosted step.
"Hey!—Hey! Lemme go! LET ME GO!" Vincent flailed, cloak tangling in his arms as the fire behind them shrank into darkness.
Branches whipped past, roots blurring underfoot, as the forest's winds roared as she carried him deeper in.
Back at the now-abandoned fire, the flames crackled low.
And then, with a hiss, a single golden spark curled upward.
It shimmered, flickering against the night, and from it came a voice.
Faint, ancient, yet familiar.
"…Odin?"
The voice lingered in the clearing, as if the forest itself had spoken it.