Tell Ophelia the good news

As I sleep, my dreams take me to Ophelia. It is still a very dark place and I can still only see the outline of her body. But by now I have seen her so many times that I can confirm she is nude. At first, I thought it might be that clothes don’t transfer into dreams. But I can change my clothes simply by thinking it. Does that mean Ophelia doesn’t want to wear clothes here? Or can she not think of any clothes to wear? Or is there something else that makes her appear as such.

Regardless, I tell Ophelia that the tournament is over and I have played my last match.

“Did you win? Are you the champion now?” Ophelia asks.

“I’m afraid not.” I say. Then I tell her about the duel. How Url was cheating, but also how I upgraded to rank A, and subsequently got disqualified because I was no longer of the appropriate rank.

“I am glad you had your upgrade when you did.” Ophelia says. “If you didn’t, you would have lost a limb. At least now you remain in the best of health.”

“Yeah, in the moment I was quite disappointed.” I admit. “At the moment of my rank upgrade I felt a burst of energy. Like, all my mana was suddenly replenished and I could fight at an even greater capability than ever before … only to have it snatched away because of something I didn’t even control. A part of me really feels they should change the rules so that you don’t get punished for a rank upgrade in the middle of a match. But after the match they bring you into the other division.”

“You were playing the final match, right? And the A rank match had already been Faught.” Ophelia asks. “There were no more fights in the other division. That means the B rank championship would have been won by an A rank.”

I sigh and admit to Ophelia that she is right. “The judges were placed in a difficult position. I don’t know what I would have done. It would probably have been better for my rank upgrade to have come in one of the duels before the final one. At any rate, now that I have had time to think about it, I can say that I am very happy with my A rank, as well as the very rare archon class I now got.”

“That is good to hear.” Ophelia replies.

“And it is all thanks to you, Ophelia. If I wasn’t able to communicate with you in this place, I wouldn’t have been able to train enough to even make it to the finals to begin with. So thank you for helping me.”

Ophelia remains silent and slowly moves to sit on her knees. That is odd, I only ever recall her standing. Now that I think about it, she has also been speaking with a softer voice.

I move closer to her until my hands press against the invisible wall separating the both of us. “Ophelia? Are you alright?”

“Not quite.” Ophelia replies. “I sense that I am weakening. I don’t believe it to take that much longer until I am too weak.”

“To weak for what?” I ask concerned. “To appear like this? To live?”

“I don’t know. I am so confused.” Ophelia says. “I … don’t think you are strong enough to save me. But I am running out of time. You said you have friends. Are they strong? Would they be willing to help you save me?”

“I do have friends.” I tell her. “And I feel I can ask them for help on this quest. But before I can save you, I will need to discover where you are held.”

“I …” Ophelia says as she turns her head up. Then she lowers her head again with a sigh and says, “I don’t know. I know so little. I feel I knew many things once. Where did all that knowledge go?”

“Well, the one thing we know is that you keep appearing in my dreams.” I say. “Maybe we can start from there. Perhaps there are some spells that can detect dream-links or something similar.”

“Thank you, Darx.” Ophelia says. “Please, don’t take too long.”

…..

I then wake up in my bed and notice Kiara is no longer next to me. I look around and notice Kiara already dressed and with her hood down. She is standing in front of the mirror and is applying her make up. I know she doesn’t like having her face seen, so I first turn my head the other way. Then I take a deep breath, I groan loud enough for her to hear and slowly push myself up. This should give her enough time to put her hood on. But when I face her, she is looking straight at me with her hood still down.

“G-good mo-morning, ch-ch-cham… pion.” Kiara stutters.

I know that with her anxiety it is difficult for her, but it seems like she is improving.

I smile at her and answer, “Good morning, beautiful.”

Kiara immediately starts blushing and then quickly throws her hood back on.

“Sorry, it seems I am not quite ready for that just yet.” Kiara apologizes.

“Don’t rush it.” I say as I sit up in the bed. “Psychological things take time to overcome, right? Zrephia was also not build in a day.”

She brings her hands under her hood and starts attaching the straps which keep it from being pulled off.

“So, what shall you be doing on your first morning as an A rank?” Kiara asks.

“First of all, I am going to write a letter to my mom. She should be informed of a big thing like that.” I say. “After that, I’ll have to have my sword repaired. So, I guess I’ll be visiting a weapons shop.”

“You might want to try the crafters guild instead.” Kiara suggests. “By now you should have the money to afford them. They are capable enough to repair equipment in such a way you don’t even notice it had ever been damaged before.”

I get out of bed and start walking towards the bathroom while saying, “Yeah, good idea. I may also buy a third pauldron while I’m there. No need wear one with the Dark Dragon emblem on it now. That was just for the tournament.”

Once in the bathroom, I start a bath and call out to Kiara what she is going to do today.

“A lot of little things here and there. Among others, letting Healslut know that I ‘got the D’ as she puts it.” Kiara replies.

“Alright. I’ll see you later then.”

Kiara leaves sometime after I start bathing. Once I’m done, I get dressed and head for my desk to write a letter to my mom. Though when I sit down, I notice there is already a letter on my desk. It even has my favorite pen lying on it as a paperweight. Curiously, I took the piece of paper and folded it open to read what’s on it.

Congratulations on winning the B rank tournament again. I know, the judges disagree, and all your friends have already disagreed with them, including myself. But I feel the best way for me to let you know I honestly believe that is by repeating it a bit.

Also, here’s an imprint of my nipple as little extra bonus reward for becoming an A rank. Whatever Mia can do, I can do better.

Love you so much, Kiara.

And at the bottom of the letter are both the aforementioned imprint of her nipple made of ink, as well as a smiling face Kiara drew right next to it. Oh goddess. Now I’ve got 2 of those letters. I store Kiara’s letter with the Mia letters I still have and finally start writing the letter to my mom.

Once the letter is finished, I head down to the lobby to mail it, but I get interrupted by one of the guild servants. He tells me that Aelbrecht would like to speak with me. I am even given directions to his personal quarters. I knock on the door and wait until the guild master lets me enter. When I get in, I see that the room is segmented into 2 sections. The first part has got a round table in the center with several chairs. The wall right in front of me is the one with windows to let sunlight come in. The walls to my left and behind me are decorated with bookcases, all of them filled with lots of books. There is even a case for scrolls to be stored. They seem rather big too. Much too big to be for text. Those are probably maps. To my right is a short stair of 3 steps, but wide enough to cover the width of the floor. In that room I can only notice a desk. I guess that is where Aelbrecht does all of his work.

“Take a seat, Darx.” I hear Aelbrecht tell me. “There are some things I would like to talk with you about.”