Chapter 2 - EPISODE 2 – PLEIADES (2)
“Young master?”
“Miss?”
Maja and Cordelia’s escort, a knight, said almost simultaneously.
That’s because Jude and Cordelia looked at each other out of the blue and said strange things.
Why are they here?
‘Didn’t we come here to meet the visitor?’
‘Isn’t it because we came here to visit?’
At a time when Maja and the female knight were thinking rationally, Jude calmed his astonished self and thought of the girl in front of him. And like himself, Cordelia was full of emotions too, such as embarrassment, surprise, and so on.
‘What? Why is Yellow Storm here?’
The girl in front of him, Cordelia, was so beautiful that the word “great beauty” could be attached.
The 2nd place Yellow Storm had nothing to do with Jude’s own fiancée.
But it was strange.
When their eyes met with each other, the player named Yellow Storm came to his mind.
It was good to say that it was an absolute feeling.
Moreover, it was important that the opponent showed a similar reaction to him.
‘No way.’
Is she really that Yellow Storm?
It was a dizzying story, but it wasn’t impossible.
In the first place, Outboxer009, who was Kang Jin-ho, also became Jude Bayer.
“Hmmm, uh, well. Excuse me for a moment.”
“Uh… Me, me too.”
When Jude mumbled first, Cordelia also mumbled.
However, the way he looked at her side was also unusual.
“First… Please sit down.”
“Uh… yeah.”
Once he sat down…
Maja and the female knight tilted their heads at the awkwardness of the two, but it was only for a short time.
Maja brought out the newly prepared tea, and Jude continued to exchange awkward glances with Cordelia.
‘Let’s test her.’
He didn’t know if only he felt something, but he thought that she would have felt something similar too.
If the opponent really is Yellow Storm like he felt, it would seem like a catastrophe has come, but if it really is, he would likely understand.
“No, no.”
Hi, Yellow Storm.
Jude’s voice trembled because he was embarrassed to say it out of his mouth.
But her reaction was good.
Cordelia flinched for a moment and her eyes opened widely.
“Ah…Aha.”
Hi, Outboxer.
Cordelia also spoke quietly, and at the time when Maja and the female knight tilted their heads again, Jude drove a wedge in.
“Hey…you too?”
“Yeah…me too.”
“Young master?”
“Miss?”
Maja and the female knight’s face now had a rather serious look of concern.
Why are the two suddenly acting like that?
But Jude couldn’t care less about the reaction of those two.
‘Crazy! Are you really Yellow Storm?!’
When he spoke with his eyes, the other returned a similar answer.
Jude took a deep breath for now. He wanted to ask a lot of questions right away, like what happened and when did she became Cordelia, but there was Maja and the female knight here.
Therefore, Jude tried to turn around.
“Coop reset 9:00 3-9.”
One of the contents of Legend of Heroes 2 is the coop mode that resets every night at 12:00 – meaning it was reset at midnight.
9 o’clock refers to the 9 o’clock direction, and 3-9 meant 9 blocks down – that is, 18 meters below the entrance coordinates.
Therefore, the interpretation of Jude’s words was as follows.
‘Let’s meet at midnight in the corner of my garden.’
Honestly, it would be difficult for a normal Legend of Heroes 2 player to understand what he meant, but it would have been understandable if it was the rotten water Yellow Storm.
And indeed, Cordelia nodded and said in a whisper.
“Roger that.”
It was a radio term meaning “understood” and is one of the most distinctive phrases of Yellow Storm.
“Hmmm, I’m glad you’re healthy. It’s already late today, so I’ll see you next time.”
“Hmmm, it was nice to meet you. I look forward to seeing you next time.”
They couldn’t have a proper conversation here.
So, after deciding on when and where to meet, they quickly ended their meeting.
When Cordelia and Jude stood up after talking to each other, it was Maja and the female knight who were confused again.
“Eh, you’re going already?”
“Miss?”
She was so surprised that Maja’s usual expressionless face was now full of surprise.
However, Jude and Cordelia had already reached an agreement and exchanged their greetings.
Jude laughed awkwardly and saw off Yellow Storm – no, Cordelia, who likewise walked out with an awkward smile and a quick walk.
“Young master? This is…”
“Well, that’s it.”
What the hell is going on here?
But one thing was certain.
The appearance of an ally who would be on his side and believe Jude’s words.
Looking at the entrance of the drawing room where Cordelia had left, Jude clenched his fist.
***
Jude Bayer’s father, Count Bayer, was out on a northern expedition with his successor, Gaël Bayer, who is the older brother of Jude.
It was a small-scale expedition, called the Northern Monster Subjugation, which was like an annual event, and the period from departure to return was one month.
In any case, the quiet part of the house was now even quieter. This is because most of the vassals here went on the expedition following his father and brother.
Having finished dinner alone in the room, Jude waited impatiently for midnight to come.
And finally, the deepest of night, midnight, came.
Jude sneaked out of his room and hurried to the garden.
It was still summer in terms of time, but the night air was cold as they were in the northern part of the country.
‘You’ll be able to find me, right?’
Standing under a big tree, the promised place, Jude looked up at the night sky with a worried face.
‘It’s a real Pleiades.’
There were two moons in the sky.
Selene and Helene.
Twin goddesses illuminating the night sky.
In fact, the two moons were even more beautiful and mysterious looking than when they were seen through the monitor screen.
“Hey.”
It was at that moment. With a very small voice that came out of nowhere, Jude became alert and looked up the wall, and identified the owner of the voice.
The owner of the voice was a red-haired girl wearing a hard-pressed brown hood reminiscent of monk’s robes.
“Yellow Storm.”
“Outboxer009.”
Speaking quietly, the same little voice came back.
And, whoosh…
Cordelia crossed over the wall using <Fly> magic and looked at Jude with a face full of mixed feelings.
“Really?”
“Yes, really.”
They just confirmed each other’s nicknames.
“It’s really something.”
“What?”
“I’m madly pleased to see you.”
At Cordelia’s words, Jude nodded. It was the same with himself.
He thought that he had fallen alone in a completely different world, but he knew a face – no, he was glad to see another person like him.
“Since when?”
“Two days ago. What about you?”
“Two days ago, too.”
“It happened suddenly when you opened your eyes?”
“Yeah.”
Jude and Cordelia squatted under the tree then and looked at each other with saying anything first.
It was Cordelia who first opened her mouth.
“Hey, aren’t you supposed to be a guy? How did you get a girl to go over the wall of a man’s house?”
“What is this sexism all of a sudden? And don’t you know Jude? Jude Bayer. Gueumjulmaek. How am I supposed to cross the wall?”
Come to think of it, it wasn’t just that.
“And since when did you become a woman?”
“From birth.”
“Huh?”
“From birth, you crazy guy.”
At Cordelia’s confession, Jude rubbed his eyes and soon spoke in an embarrassed voice.
“Yellow Storm was a woman?”
“Then were you a man?”
“I was a man.”
“I was a woman.”
“Yes, yes.”
Then again, they’ve known each other for five years, but they’ve never talked with each other in the common voice chat. When they met in the game, they met as game characters, so there was nothing for them to recognize about the other’s real sex.
“That’s not what really matters now.”
When Jude spoke, Cordelia nodded, though she frowned a little.
What mattered was that Outboxer009 became Jude, and Yellow Storm became Cordelia, and that this world was the world of Legend of Heroes 2.
Jude decided to try to lay the basics first.
“So do you? I mean…rather than feeling that I’m inside the game, it was more like my past life was ‘Outboxer.’ So…it seems to be the same for you too, ‘Yellow Storm.’”
“Me too. I feel the same.”
At first glance, there may be little difference, but in fact, there was a decisive difference between the two.
Whether or not they could return.
If you were really reincarnated in Pleiades, the world of Legend of Heroes 2, ‘Log Out’ would not exist. You were reincarnated in the first place, so where are you going to go?
But neither Jude nor Cordelia thought deeply about it. Though they felt strongly about the fact that they were both Jude and Cordelia now, there were also more important issues that they had to resolve.
““The Great Summons.””
An event where the angels and demons come down in earnest.
At first, he only thought about being strong enough to survive in a time of great tribulation, but that was not enough.
They had to stop the Great Summons itself, which would bring destruction to this world.
Of course, it was a vague story.
The advent of angels and demons was indeed the fate of the world of Pleiades.
No matter how much of a rotten water he was, it was too much for him to do it all alone.
But if he’s not alone.
If it was also with those who ranked as the 1st and 2nd places in the server rankings together.
“I like our picks.”
Jude Bayer and Cordelia Chase.
Both were non-mainstream characters that were far from weak ones, but the picks that she spoke about weren’t just about character performance.
Cordelia said with a bitter smile.
“Perfect for sharing.”
“Bingo.”
Jude was a warrior, and Cordelia was a wizard.
As with all goods in the world, there was a limit to the number of various gifts and items that existed in Pleiades.
If Jude and Cordelia were characters who walked the same path, they would inevitably interfere with each other’s growth.
But they were both warrior and wizard, so they could share the goods of the Pleiades with each other.
“I never thought I’d have a party here that I haven’t had in five years.”
“I know, this world is so weird.”
It’s ridiculous to be reincarnated in the world of games, but he couldn’t believe he reincarnated with the forever 2nd place girl. Moreover, they were also engaged.
“Anyway, I’d like to ask you to cooperate on this.”
“What cooperation?”
“We’re going to have to treat my Gueumjulmaek.”
“Doesn’t it automatically heal with an event?”
Indeed, it was true.
In the game, after starting as Jude Bayer and somehow spending half a year, an event was supposed to take place where Count Chase would send to Count Bayer the cure of Gueumjulmaek.
In other words, it meant that if he just waited calmly, he could completely cure the Gueumjulmaek.
But at Cordelia’s question, Jude said, kicking his tongue.
“That’s why you’re still second place even in a thousand years.”
“What?”
“Hey, be honest. You’ve never played Jude, have you?”
“No? I’ve tried? I know it gets cured because I’ve played him.”
“But do you agree to that? To just wait for half a year to get treated?”
There are 6 months in half a year, 180 days in 6 months, and 4320 hours in 180 days.
It was a such a waste of a long time.
Cordelia frowned back at Jude’s point.
“Then what will you do?”
“I need to treat it before that. Using all kinds of tricks.”
In a way that only they who have climbed over the stagnant water and reached the stage of the rotten water can do.
“Come closer.” Jude, who beckoned to Cordelia, began to talk.