Igarashi Kaito wasn't surprised to feel the puddle of drool around his face as he slowly awoke. He had a bit of a habit of falling asleep at his computer, especially when he had a day off the next day and wouldn't have to wake up early. Not to mention that there was also a new expansion for Emerald Odyssey which... well, he'd actually probably slept through. He wondered how many of his friends in the guild had already gotten started, and forced himself to get up, wipe the drool off his desk and get back to work, by spending his day playing on his computer...
And then he opened his eyes, and realized that he wasn't staring at his crappy desktop computer. Instead, he was staring at a rather nice looking stone room. It was familiar... Not in the way he was hoping for, or even really in a way he recognized immediately, but familiar none the less.
Slowly, he looked around the room, and it was only then that he saw the giant eye-shaped window behind him, and the pieces fell into place.
"Oh... Ooooh noooo..."
This was definitely the office he'd built himself in Emerald Odyssey.
This... This wasn't great. It might be interesting, but he'd just gone from a world where he could live happily and safe to one filled with monsters that'd kill him as soon as look at him. And if this had gone the whole Log Horizon route, then it also meant he'd been passing himself off as a potential dark lord in a world full of npcs who were now probably powerful kingdoms. Even if he
wasn't the complete opposite kind of person in real life, that would put him in a little more danger than he was really used to.
But then again, if this was going the Log Horizon route, then there might be other people here as well.
"Alright, lets see how this goes... Uh, ok, open menu!"
His legs almost gave out from relief when the menu appeared, because that would make things
significantly easier. However, this realization apparently didn't stop his hands from shaking when he reached over to it.
"MasTeR."Kai totally didn't jump
or yelp at the new voice, whirling away from the menu to see a woman who appeared to be made of red, extremely reflective glass.
"A-... Astra? Is that you?"
Honestly, he wasn't sure if he wanted him to be right or not. Astra was an npc he made to act kind of like his assistant/general thing when it was only him building Edenkyte. She had some pretty advanced AI too, thanks to a surprisingly informative tutorial provided by the game itself. However, rather than give her much of a personality, he decided to make her more like a magitech android than a normal person, because he thought it would feel more appropriate for her character. And finally, she could turn into a sword, because in what he'd slowly discovered to be an unpopular opinion, he actually
liked Fi. Anyway, if it turned out he
was right, then this would make the whole "npc's becoming real, living people" thing more likely than not true, which as mentioned before, was terrifying. On the other hand though, having her around could make surviving in this place
quite a bit easier.
"YEs mAsteR. IS sOmETHinG tHe MatTeR?""Yeah..." He said, making note of her odd speech pattern. "Tell me, Astra, do you notice anything different about today?"
"I dO." She said, her body seeming to ripple and warped for a moment.
"My boDy SeemS to bE cOmPOsed difFerENtlY to HOw it UsED to Be. YoUR boDy is ThE SaME, bUT yOUr SouL is DiFFEreNt."And then her hand rippled, before distorting and flowing over itself to become a blade, and the time it took for her to go from standing at the door to holding it against his throat was almost faster than he could see.
"YoU Are lOrD DAnoNGOrF, buT You are NoT. WhAt are YOU?"To some, the fact that he didn't even flinch might've seemed impressive. If anyone could read his mind though, they'd know he just didn't have time to do much more than freeze up.
"Gaaaaaaahhhhhaaaaa..." He "said" slowly, before slowly raising his hands. "Uuuuuhh, ok... Let's explain this from the top."
And so he explained everything. Emerald Odyssey, the real world, the relationship between Igarashi Kaito and Danongorf before the Log Horizon style world shift, and finally a quick rundown of the show so that comparison made sense. He couldn't tell if she was skeptical or not, because her face never changed expression apart from the occasional ripple, but eventually she removed the blade from his neck.
"UnDERstooD." She said, causing him to sigh in relief.
"ThIS dOes ExPLaiN the anOmaLIes I hAvE DEtecTED.""Thank god..." Kai sighed, before giving her a look of concern. "So, you said your body is weird from the world switch. Are you ok? Your voice is kind of weird."
"It SeEms I caNNoT ReTAin My hUMan ForM at ThIS POiNt. WitH Your peRMisSion, I wiLl RevErt to BlADe fOrm unTil A soLUTIon iS dIsCoVERed."Even as she spoke, Kai could see that she was beginning to distort even more, and nodded.
"Right, do it quickly." He said, holding his hand out to her. As she took it, she quickly transformed into a red, crystalline shortsword, and he took an ornate sheath from the desk and placed her in it before attaching it to his belt.
"Alright, how are you now?"
"Analysis indicates my form is stable, Master. I will begin the recovery process momentarily.""Cool, just rest up for now." He said, before reaching out to re-open his menu, noting with surprise that he could actually do it just by thinking. A frown grew on his face as he looked through his friends menu, noticing that most of the guild seemed to be offline. In fact, most of his friends in general were greyed out. However, after a few more moments of concerned scrolling, he finally came across a familiar green name, grinning with relief. Sadly, it seemed she wasn't able to chat quite at the moment, but once nice feature of the game was that players could leave messages in that kind of situation.
@TheFake"Hey Kal!" He said, joy and relief audible in his voice. "Thank god someone else is here, I thought I was gonna be alone. Hey, meet me in the town. I'm gonna head in and see how many people got came over with us. See ya soon!"
Once he was done, he scrolled through his inventory and grabbed a Return to Town scroll.
"Ok, let's see how bad this really is..."
Inarrel
Danongorf wasn't entirely sure he didn't just teleport in falling on his face. He had barely needed to walk while in the office, so he hadn't really noticed it, but the difficulty of trying to walk around significantly taller was really starting to kick in here.
Even as he struggled to maintain his balance though, he could see that he clearly wasn't as alone as it had seemed from his friends list. As he stumbled through the streets, he could see more and more players appearing around him. He also saw quite a few people of the land, looking around nervously at the adventurers freaking out around them, and for the first time since he woke up he realised how lucky he was to have Astra around to force him to keep himself composed.
Unfortunately though, he couldn't really see anyone he knew. Not only was there no Kal, he didn't even recognize any of them. Everywhere he looked, it was freakouts. More annoyingly, he saw that more than a few of these freakouts seemed to be directed towards the landers. He wanted to stop them, but unfortunately, a fair few of them were clearly higher levels than him, and could probably take him out even before the town guardians could stop them. Considering the way he wasn't entirely sure players could respawn in this place yet, that was a risk he wasn't willing to take. Also, again, he probably wouldn't end up doing much more than losing his balance and falling on them.
Yet.
@PKMNB0Y@AnzaFinally though, when all seemed lost, he saw someone he recognized. He hadn't seen either of them very
often, of course, but he recognized the models of a ninja and a demon cleric he'd seen a few times while grinding for EXP. Unfortunately though, he'd decided to keep in character during each and every one of their interactions, so they only really knew the up and coming Demon Lord Danongorf!
So this might be a little awkward...
"Uh, hey guys." He said as he approached, giving a nervous little wave to the pair. "I'm Danongorf. I think we've met, once or twice? Maybe?"
Half Pint
Phase
Thespian
Emeth
Almalthia