The next morning, Silva sat on a pile of debris and watched the sunrise. Falcon was still asleep on top of the tower. Frisbee was flying around Silva freely as he was deep in thought. Last night, Silva couldn't sleep well so he spent the time checking the functions of the tower. The functions were similar to those from the game but the problem was that there was a minimum amount of BP required to access them.
Name: Ares_010 (Silvanus Salvatore)
Soul ability: Domain (Evolution Available)
Body ability: Humanoid adaptation
World ability: Inventory
Battle Points: 536
Portal tethers: 1\5
Slot 1: Avaleria; Clean crab portal
Slot2: empty
Slot3: empty
Slot4: empty
Slot5: empty
Territory: Black Tower (Name change available)
Clan: unavailable (Will be available after first continental threat)
Silva's new status showed the change in territory. He had been thinking about it for a while and decided to hand over the black tower to Falcon when he woke up. The only thing he would do is anchor himself to the tower after the clean crab portal gets absorbed by it. There's a tonne of work to do but it'll be worth it after we upgrade the tower.
Falcon woke up a few minutes later and flew down to join Silva. "What are we doing today Ares?"
"We'll be going crab fishing." Silva said as he stood up and dusted himself off. "But first, I need to make you the tower master. I don't plan on spending much time on earth so I'll let you handle it."
After transferring ownership to Falcon, the duo flew around the webbed city. Falcon flew low, allowing Silva to collect the webs in his inventory. The webs were then dumped into the lake. The two players did this multiple times until the surroundings of the tower were clear of webs. "Ares, aren't we just pissing off the crabs by throwing all these webs in their lake?"
"That's part of the plan. Now, let's go pick up the nets we set." Falcon flew down and grabbed some of the wet webs in his talons. He was starting to fly up when he felt Ares jump off his back and into the water. He looked down and saw a fishman swinging a machete around underwater. The donut shaped blade was also moving around as though attacking something but Falcon saw nothing.
Falcon ignored the chaos beneath him and flew up with the heavy web. He eventually reached the shower and set the web down only to realize that dozens of the crabs were stuck to it. 'How's that possible? I clearly saw that the web was empty when I checked it under water.'
There was a splash behind him as Ares shot out of the water in his fishman form. He walked towards Falcon, the scales on his face disappearing along with the flipper like feet. Silva put on his clothes and sandals before reaching Falcon. "Kill those crabs and drag the bodies to the tower. The safe zone has already reached the shore of this lake. If we sacrifice more beasts to it, the safe zone will reach the portal and we can control what goes in and out of it."
"By the way Ares, how do you know so much about the game? I've been playing it for a couple of months and since you've played it for a year the difference shouldn't be this big. You know way too much about the game. If you want me to keep trusting you then you should tell me the whole truth."
"Fine, I'll tell you everything if you agree to tell me everything about you too. Deal?" Silva said as he extended his hand for a hand shake.
"Deal." Falcon shook Silva's hand and sat on the ground. The two players sat in silence and watched the clean crab's futile struggle to free themselves from the web. Eventually, Silva began his story.
"My real name is Silva and ever since I was a kid, I've had many mental disorders. I won't go into detail since I also never really understood it but I basically showed all the signs of a potential serial killer. Life was hard being treated like a walking time bomb or that's what you'd expect. But I honestly liked it. I preferred to be alone.
"My blood family gave up on me and just abandoned me one day. I could've found my way back to them but there was no point. I was eventually adopted by my current father. He wasn't right in the head either. He was too positive. Always happy. I honestly miss that ugly smile. Anyway, back to the game.
"My dad bought the game for me a few months after it was released. I played it for a bit and a new problem arose. In the game, I felt at home. It felt like I belonged there. So I became obsessed with it. I stopped eating, stopped talking, stopped basically everything just to play the game. I eventually ended up in a mental hospital about two months after the game was bought.
"In the end, I was released under the condition that I complete avoid the game so that I didn't relapse. It was great for a while, I got into college and could actually live alone. But, college got boring and a year ago, I ended up doing unsavory things to buy the game back. After that, I played again. This time with more control.
"My obsession was different now. Previously, I tried to win the game but this time I hunted down information. I spent the last year finding as many hidden Easter eggs as I could. So that's my story. I'm not gonna get too much into detail since we aren't that close. What about you? What's the story of the mighty Falcon?" Silva asked with a chuckle.
"There's nothing mighty about me. My real name is Charlie and I'm 14 years old." Charlie looked at Silva noticing the slight surprise on his face.
"That explains a lot." Silva mumbled to himself.
"My life is pretty normal." Charlie continued pretending he didn't hear Silva. "My parents were always away for work and I was alone with my nanny. My parents bought the game as a birthday gift. On the day the monsters came, my parents were home. For some reason, they didn't have any meetings that day. We had gone out an amusement park when the monsters showed up."
Silva watched as Charlie broke down to tears. He patted Charlie's back for a bit. "I.... I ran away. I got scared and I ran away. I left my parents behind. I could have saved them. I had my abilities back then but I ran away like a coward and left them. I'm a horrible person and a disappointment to my parents. I caused their death.
" Now, I'm alive without them. I'm alive despite being the one who killed them. I deserve to die. I shouldn't have been born in the first place." Charlie had completely fallen apart. Silva sighed and decided to open up too. Perhaps hearing that he wasn't the only one who suffered loss made his heart soften.
"My dad died saving me. We were at the pool with my little brother and sister and my dad's new girlfriend. When the beasts came, I was underwater and one of the monsters jumped in with me. I managed to leave the water but the monster was right behind me. My dad, he..... He pushed it into the water with him and it killed him.
"My brother, who had also been playing the game, got scared and teleported away. I wanna blame him for leaving us but I can't. I would have done the same thing in that moment. We were completely unprepared for it so running away is understandable.
"Listen Charlie, don't beat yourself up over what happened. You were just a kid and you still are. You need to move on and grow up quickly. This new world isn't suitable for kids. I'm not asking you to forget your loss. I'm asking you to use it as fuel to survive." Silva said and gave Charlie another pat on the back while standing up.
"Thanks Silva. I feel better now. I guess I needed to open up."
"That's good. But let's agree on one thing, don't make me say sappy stuff like that again. I don't like getting emotional." Silva said as he offered Charlie a hand to stand up.
"Then can you promise to call me Falcon instead of Charlie. I like my new name." Falcon said as they stood up.
"Sure thing kid. Now, kill those crabs and sacrifice them. I'll only help you today since I'm leaving tomorrow."
"Where are you heading to?"
"I'm going to Avaleria. I have some hunting to do." Silva said as he remembered the mage that nearly killed him. "One more thing, I'm giving you a task. You have to gather up 5,000 BP and unlock the tower shop before I return. I'll probably be gone for a few days to weeks."