| Author: Starving Wind | Original Source: Joara | Word Count: 3649 characters |
| Translator: Anonymouss | English Source: Re:Library | Word Count: 2203 words |
| Editor(s): Silva | ||
My name is Claire. But in Blue Sky, my name is Tiara1. I’m ranked 9th among all the numerous players of the game, but only in terms of levels, I guess it’s still something to be proud of2.
Even without that trivial fact, I still love the world of Blue Sky. It brings me an excitement that real life can’t…
The euphoria of killing something that’s alive3.
I realized that I was part of the group often referred to as psychopaths before I had begun playing Blue Sky4.
I was a simple young girl born into a normal middle-class family in England, living a completely average life. I was pretty confident in my looks and had high grades, I was also obedient to my parents. Ah, perhaps it’s not so average considering that?
Anyhow, my normal life fell apart due to an incident.
That night, the rain was heavier than usual. I had gone out to play with some of my friends and was heading home late. I remember that I was walking together with my close friend Michelle, so I didn’t find it particularly scary since we both chatted loudly on the way.
But perhaps it was the reason why we had ended up meeting the serial killer whom the news had excitedly been talking about non-stop recently.
We were immediately suppressed by him and dragged off to a secluded area. When I opened my eyes again Michelle and I were tied up, and the serial killer was standing in front of us with a dark smile.
Even though both Michelle and I screamed out loud for help, he didn’t move or flinch at all. Perhaps he didn’t find satisfaction in just straight up killing us, as he cut the rope binding me and handed me a knife with a proposition.
“Kill your friend with that knife. If you kill her, then I’ll let you live.”
Was he really going to let me live if I killed her? That was the question I had in mind, but he was aiming a gun at me, so the only choice I had left in order to live was to kill my friend Michelle.
Because even if he were to kill me after I killed Michelle, I would still be alive at the moment.
That was the excuse I made to myself as I brought the knife in my hands close to her heart as Michelle trembled.
Even when I thought about it now, I was way too calm and steady considering what I was about to do.
The screaming that Michelle made begging for her life and the mad cackling that the serial killer made reached my ears.
I was simply in my own space and mind at that point. Everything felt surreal to me including the crying Michelle, the laughing serial killer and even myself holding the knife. As I imagined myself stabbing the knife into her chest, I felt a new euphoric sense that I had never felt before in my life. It felt even more exhilarating than whenever I sneakily m̲a̲s̲t̲u̲r̲b̲a̲t̲e̲d̲5.
However, what little reasoning remaining in my mind stopped me from just stabbing her with that knife. I must have judged that if I were to stab her, then I would have crossed the line that I would never be able to come back from.
Not only that, I felt that the serial killer won’t let me live as well. In the end, I had to make a decision. Should I stab and live a little longer? Or gamble, even if it could lead to my death?
If my mind hadn’t been calm back then, I wouldn’t have been able to make a decision. But I finally decided what to do, and twisted my body backward to toss the knife right at the serial killer.
Unbelievably, the knife flew straight into the serial killer’s eyes and penetrated deeply. Though it was unfortunate for the killer, I had a pretty high level skill in throwing a softball as a sport6.
And that was how I committed murder.
With Michelle being an eyewitness and evidence of circumstance I was given a judgment as self-defense, but I couldn’t forget the exhilarating euphoria I felt at that moment. The sight of seeing my knife penetrating directly into the eyes of the serial killer, and the sturdy heart that I could have stabbed.
If I had continuously suppressed my desires, I may have ended up becoming a serial killer. Because from that day on, I kept experiencing nightmares in which I murdered people.
However, the gods above gave me a gift. It was the world of Blue Sky.
I was able to quench my desires somewhat by killing monsters. However, what truly alleviated my desire was when I killed a player for the first time.
It was during an argument over the ownership of the monster on the hunting field which new players often hunted at.
As there were plenty of people and a small number of monsters, it was difficult for me to keep calm from their provocation while I was on edge, therefore it led to me killing the player.
From that moment on, for the first time in my life, I felt as if my mind had been relieved from decades of stress, coupled with the euphoric experience…
In the end, I had devoted myself to Blue Sky which I had started as just a hobby.
Thankfully because of my good grades in school, I was able to get into Oxford University and led a double life, that way I won’t be bothered by anyone.
Luckily the earnings in the game weren’t that bad so I was able to earn enough for my upkeep even without doing part-time work, and as the amount I saved kept increasing, I was able to save up enough to not only pay for my tuition but to live on my own.
Then I went on to live on my own without any hesitation. It was because I started hating hearing my parents trying to limit how much I played Blue Sky.
Of course, on the surface, I used the pretext of wanting to live in a house close to the university for an easier commute.
It wasn’t like I had asked them to give me money to live on my own so I received their permission quite easily.
Though they said pretty useless and conservative things like I should never live together with a man, since Blue Sky to me was more important than any man, I was able to promise them that easily.
As more time passed, my level got higher and the number of kills continued to rack up, to which I slowly started realizing that the feeling of euphoria I felt before was becoming more disappointing.
It sounded like the excuse the serial killer made when asking me to kill my friend.
That I wanted a new stimulation, a new feeling of euphoria.
Then I chose a mission, the worst possible one that the average assassin found difficult to complete. After completing it with flying colors, I received the feeling of euphoria as well as experience points and fame.
That was also how I acquired Nightmare, which was practically my other self and my most treasured item. And when I had earned the skill [Reaper’s Eye] which was considered high tier among P tier skills, nothing scared me anymore.
And not long afterward, I had found myself placed at 9th of the top-ranking users. If I were to liquidate all the assets that I had in Blue Sky, just how much money would I have in real life?
Due to the unique nature of killing players where you acquire the equipment they had, I had numerous valuable equipment as well. On top of that, I also had quite a huge amount of gold as payment for the contracts as well as various payments for secrecy.
I was powerful enough to stand on my own even without having a sponsor or being in a guild. Even arrogant high-ranking users shook with fear at my name. After I had actually sent one of the high-ranked users who acted contemptuously at me to hell, my infamy became even more well known. It was to the point where it had become illegal to utter my name within Blue Sky forums.
Of course, I couldn’t stop them from discussing me while being anonymous. However, I was certain that no user was willing to talk bad about me.
But one day, Wine, the guild leader of the Chaos guild which was one of the top 8 largest guilds visited me. Only VIP customers of mine knew the address to my temporary dwelling, and Wine was one such VIP customer of mine so she knew where I was staying.
Though I wasn’t particularly fond of this woman, we had a commonality in that we both had strong greed for profit which led to us having a connection and eventually a contractual relationship.
“Please kill ‘Merlin’ for me. I will give you 1 billion gold.”
“Isn’t that too cheap?”
Though I said that, I was certainly hungering greatly to kill a more powerful player. From a logical point of view, Merlin was a very tasty-looking morsel to me.
Mages are the absolute weakest against assassins like me, and the side income from the completion of the job will be quite hefty as well.
Wine seemed to know that I was going to accept it anyways so she didn’t raise the amount of gold at all.
“In return, I will create an opportunity for you to kill her.”
“Oh?”
It meant that she was going to bring the target to a specific location herself. As I was going to lose nothing from it, I nodded in agreement and participated in the war between Camelot Alliance and the Shining guild together with Chaos guild.
The battle Katalina participated in was in Carlisle City. Though I wasn’t that knowledgeable about history, I still knew that it was still a symbolic location for both Scotland and England.
Then I saw Merlin there. Seeing her destroy the battlefield with her overwhelming destructive force was truly fitting for her as the top-ranked user. It was a little unfair how she also looked just a little bit better than me yet also had a great upbringing.
I suddenly wondered what kind of feeling I would have from killing that perfect woman, and since she was my target for assassination anyways, I started to meld into the chaos of the battlefield.
Merlin wasn’t able to spot me and I was aiming at her directly. There was a huge difference in awareness. The situation was too chaotic for her to defend against an enemy she couldn’t even see. I aimed, waiting for her to begin casting a spell and at that moment I stabbed her with my Nightmare.
“Ahh!”
She screamed out loud in surprise, trying to cancel her spell casting but according to my intuition, this was the perfect chance for me to strike.
There had been no existence that was able to avoid this strike, and even if she were to miraculously avoid getting hit by it, the P tier skill that activated in succession would definitely kill her completely.
[Shield]What? I was surprised when my attack clashed against a white hazy transparent shield. Did she complete the casting of that spell in that short amount of time? That didn’t make sense at all.
“Phew… if it wasn’t for the fact that I and Ellie farmed our experience points real hard, I would have just died right there.”
Letting out a sigh of relief knowing that she avoided my attack, she began blasting her magic attacks at me. I couldn’t logically understand the situation at all.
How could she have cast that spell in such a short amount of time? Was it due to the new staff she acquired? No, it would be strange since she had never really used it this way often. There was a high probability that she may have intentionally hidden her actual power and skill.
As Merlin had noticed my existence and gone into a defensive position, it wasn’t easy for me to attack her. But still, it was at least easy for me to now turn the tide of the battle against her.
Either way, there were plenty of chances for me to kill her after pushing her in a corner somewhere, and it seemed like Wine was aiming more towards killing her slowly rather than in an instant. I agreed with her. Well, it would be more accurate to say that I came to this conclusion first.
And just as we were preparing to finally end her life, I met a woman in complete white armor. The most powerful user in the server, ‘Artoria’. Seeing the blindingly powerful aura she exuded, the more I felt the defiance in me wanting to completely erase the light she had.
Turning my eyes towards the greatest and most powerful target of assassination in my whole life, I fixed the Nightmare daggers in my hands and dug into the blindspot of her vision.
