Chapter 5:
Chapter 5: Let’s Open the Odyssey Chest
Onlife: Between Virtual & Reality
This time… she was dead serious.
No hesitation. No holding back.
I must’ve triggered something in her, a nerve, a memory, a rage she’d been hiding until now. Her swings weren’t just fast, they were furious, deliberate, laced with a deadly precision. I felt her killing intent like a blade pressed against my neck. It was suffocating.
She wasn’t stopping.
Every move I made was just barely enough. I dodged, parried, slid beneath her strikes, but a question gnawed at me:
Was she holding back all this time?
Because suddenly, now, it felt like she’d stopped playing with me. Her strength surged with each hit, her speed accelerated. My defense began to crack. My movements lagged just a half-second behind hers. I could feel it now, small cuts. At first, I thought it was just the air pressure from her swings, but no… My HP bar was slowly bleeding out.
She was hitting me, fast enough that I didn’t even register the impact.
This wasn’t a duel anymore. This was survival.
So I pulled my trump card:
Splitting Jack.
Yeah, the name’s still a work-in-progress. But the move? One of my best. It messes with my molecular integrity, basically phasing me in and out of reality. Makes me intangible. I can pass through objects, even through people. For one minute, tops. Any longer and I start taking internal damage.
It’s not invincibility. It’s a countdown.
Now, her attacks passed right through me, but I had to stay in phase, constantly. That meant time was against me. My HP would start dropping soon even if she couldn’t hit me. I couldn’t keep this up. I needed distance.
So, I used another glitch ability: short-range teleport. Only five feet at a time, but it was enough to leap out of her kill zone.
In that brief window of safety, I drew the Dangatana. Custom-made, like all my gear. Sleek, jagged, glitch-touched steel that doubles as a firearm. I aimed it straight at her and fired two shots.
But not ordinary rounds. These were special, my own design.
Shock bullet.
Follow-up knockout round.
Weiss Shi had sliced through Judeth’s bullets earlier like they were confetti. But that was before she knew about my weapon. She didn’t know the Dangatana’s capabilities, no one did.
So when she instinctively slashed the first bullet, the moment her blade made contact—
CRACK!
A surge of electricity burst through her body. She froze mid-move, stunned.
And that was when the second bullet landed, dead-on. Not enough to kill, but enough to knock the wind out of her and send her stumbling.
Without wasting a moment, I leapt forward and brought my blade up from below in a rising arc—
SLASH!
A perfect vertical swing.
Her mask split in two, cracked clean down the middle.
Two halves fell away like broken porcelain.
Silence.
And then… I saw her.
For a moment, the whole battlefield faded.
Her face, porcelain-pale with a faint blush of rose in her cheeks. Smooth, silver-white hair framed her delicate features like strands of moonlight. Her eyes, bright, glacial, almost too sharp to be human, locked with mine.
She looked stunned. Not just from the bullet. From me.
I had hit her.
I had unmasked her.
And maybe… just maybe…
I had gotten to her.
I felt my chest rise. For a moment, I was proud.
But that moment…
That’s what cost me.
Because it wasn’t just her beauty that stunned me. No. It was something else, a memory. Or the ghost of one.
Her face, it felt… familiar.
Where had I seen her before?
My vision blurred. A dull pulse throbbed at the base of my skull.
Was my mind trying to remember something? A name? A moment?
But it was gone. Slipping away.
I spoke, barely above a whisper.
"Who are you…? Have we met before?"
She didn’t answer.
And then she vanished.
Not fled, vanished. One second she was there, frozen, exposed. The next, gone. Like a glitch in the system.
Panic surged. I gripped my Dangatana tighter and scanned the field.
Where is she?!
Then—
"BEHIND YOU!!!"
Judeth’s voice, sharp and frantic, cracked the silence like a gunshot.
I turned.
She was there.
Right behind me.
Eyes cold. Expression unreadable. Her hand raised.
And at the tip of her fingers—
Her pistol.
Held inches from my face.
She pulled the trigger.
And everything went black.
Am I dead?
That was the first thing that crossed my mind. Then again… no, that didn’t make sense. Could I even die in here? Am I unconscious? That shouldn’t be possible either. We’re inside a virtual reality, so what the hell happened to me?
Maybe my pod broke again?
Everything was dark for a while, floating, like I was stuck in limbo and just when I thought I was going to glitch into the void, the system finally reinitialized.
A soft blue glow lit my vision.
I opened my eyes. I was back at the safehouse.
I sat up slowly, my head still foggy. "Was that… a dream?" I muttered, rubbing my temples. "Weird. It felt so real…"
"It’s ‘cause it was real," said a voice.
I turned to see Jarrod and Judeth slumped on the couch nearby, looking beat-up, defeated, and silent. Like players who had just been handed their first real loss.
"So we lost," I said quietly. "We lost everything."
And yet… I was still here. Still logged in. In the past, whenever I lost or died, I’d get forcefully disconnected from my pod and booted out of Onlife.
"Wait… why am I still online?" I asked, checking my HUD.
Jarrod answered. "Because you didn’t die."
I blinked.
My hand flicked through the menus. Inventory: intact. EXP: still there. Skills, equipment, nothing missing.
Except… my HP.
"Holy crap. I’m at one. One HP?" I said, staring at the blinking red bar near my name.
"Yeah," Judeth replied. "Weiss Shi used the 1HP Pistol. It renders you unresponsive for a short time, just enough to end the match."
I frowned. "How long was I out?"
"Ten minutes," Jarrod said.
I paused. "She… spared us?" I asked, voice a bit softer now.
Judeth shrugged. "We don’t know why."
I leaned back into the chair, head spinning, trying to make sense of it all. That final moment, her gun at my temple, the glint in her eyes, she could’ve ended me. But she didn’t.
"And the Easter Eggs?" I asked, snapping back to the point. "Are there any left?"
Jarrod nodded slowly. "Three. But don’t get any ideas."
I exhaled in relief. "Wait—what if she gave us one? Out of pity, or—"
"She didn’t," Jarrod cut me off. "We lost, Jack. She didn’t pity us. She spared us, but she didn’t hand us an Egg. We didn’t qualify."
I sat there, chewing on that bitter truth.
"But there’s still three left. That means—"
"Don’t," Jarrod warned. "Even if we sprint for them now, someone else is already ahead. We need to rest. Rebuild. We got outplayed by Weiss Shi. She could’ve banned you for glitching, too. Be lucky she didn’t."
I gave a half-hearted laugh. "Maybe she didn’t ban me because she wanted to see me again."
Jarrod and Judeth both gave me blank stares.
"Alright, alright, jokes aside…" I sighed. "I guess we’re not gonna be one of the 1,025 players who get early access to Alchemy & Alloy."
We all fell silent.
"Guess we wait for next year," I added with a small smile.
"You’re not mad?" Judeth asked, looking a bit surprised.
Jarrod nodded. "Honestly, I expected a tantrum. This is probably the most mature you’ve ever taken a loss."
"Hey," I said, grinning. "Keep insulting me and I really will die, jokes aside, yeah, I’m upset. But we fought hard. We lost fair and square. I’m not gonna cry over a game." I glanced between them. "At least I didn’t lose alone. I had you guys with me."
That hit a bit harder than expected. Judeth gave me a look, half proud, half amused.
"Still," I added with a smirk, "I’m happy about one thing."
"Oh yeah? What’s that?" Judeth asked.
"I hit her. I actually hit Weiss Shi. And I unmasked her."
Judeth slapped her forehead. "Seriously?"
Jarrod leaned forward. "You know… as much as you joke around, you’ve got a point. No one’s ever landed a hit on Weiss Shi, let alone unmasked her. We might be the only ones who know what she actually looks like."
Judeth tilted her head. "One thing though—what happened back there? It looked like you were in some kind of trance. Like she hypnotized you."
Jarrod grinned. "I bet he fell in love the moment he saw her face."
…He was half right.
But I couldn’t tell them the real reason. Not yet. Not until I understand myself.
So I played along. "Yeah," I said, scratching my cheek. "She was gorgeous. Maybe she spared me ‘cause she fell in love too."
"Yeah, right," Jarrod muttered, suddenly locking his arm around my neck and giving me a noogie. "Or maybe she was too disgusted to bother."
"Let go, you jerk!"
I broke free, rubbing my head. "Anyway. So what now?"
Judeth smirked. "You owe me help with my date with Camille."
"You’re joking, right?"
Jarrod cut in. "We could reopen the convenience store. We closed early today."
I stared at him. Unimpressed.
Then I turned to Judeth. "Guess I’m helping you plan the perfect date."
Jarrod just laughed.
"But first," I said, "there’s one thing we can do to replace the Easter Egg."
"Oh?" Judeth raised an eyebrow.
"The Odyssey Chest. We still haven’t opened it. Since someone dragged me to work before I could."
"Well excuse me for trying to suggest a group activity," Jarrod said.
I got up, walked to the back room, and pulled the Odyssey Chest out from where I’d hidden it.
We gathered around the table, all three of us staring at it. For a moment, it felt like we were kids again, about to open a birthday gift.
"Remember," Jarrod said, "this won’t match the Easter Eggs or Alchemy & Alloy… but it’s still something."
I placed my index finger on the glowing rune.
"Here goes nothing."
Click.
A soft whirring noise echoed as the chest opened.
Our eyes widened. My jaw dropped.
Even Judeth, usually calm, was speechless.
We stared in disbelief at what was inside.
No hesitation. No holding back.
I must’ve triggered something in her, a nerve, a memory, a rage she’d been hiding until now. Her swings weren’t just fast, they were furious, deliberate, laced with a deadly precision. I felt her killing intent like a blade pressed against my neck. It was suffocating.
She wasn’t stopping.
Every move I made was just barely enough. I dodged, parried, slid beneath her strikes, but a question gnawed at me:
Was she holding back all this time?
Because suddenly, now, it felt like she’d stopped playing with me. Her strength surged with each hit, her speed accelerated. My defense began to crack. My movements lagged just a half-second behind hers. I could feel it now, small cuts. At first, I thought it was just the air pressure from her swings, but no… My HP bar was slowly bleeding out.
She was hitting me, fast enough that I didn’t even register the impact.
This wasn’t a duel anymore. This was survival.
So I pulled my trump card:
Splitting Jack.
Yeah, the name’s still a work-in-progress. But the move? One of my best. It messes with my molecular integrity, basically phasing me in and out of reality. Makes me intangible. I can pass through objects, even through people. For one minute, tops. Any longer and I start taking internal damage.
It’s not invincibility. It’s a countdown.
Now, her attacks passed right through me, but I had to stay in phase, constantly. That meant time was against me. My HP would start dropping soon even if she couldn’t hit me. I couldn’t keep this up. I needed distance.
So, I used another glitch ability: short-range teleport. Only five feet at a time, but it was enough to leap out of her kill zone.
In that brief window of safety, I drew the Dangatana. Custom-made, like all my gear. Sleek, jagged, glitch-touched steel that doubles as a firearm. I aimed it straight at her and fired two shots.
But not ordinary rounds. These were special, my own design.
Shock bullet.
Follow-up knockout round.
Weiss Shi had sliced through Judeth’s bullets earlier like they were confetti. But that was before she knew about my weapon. She didn’t know the Dangatana’s capabilities, no one did.
So when she instinctively slashed the first bullet, the moment her blade made contact—
CRACK!
A surge of electricity burst through her body. She froze mid-move, stunned.
And that was when the second bullet landed, dead-on. Not enough to kill, but enough to knock the wind out of her and send her stumbling.
Without wasting a moment, I leapt forward and brought my blade up from below in a rising arc—
SLASH!
A perfect vertical swing.
Her mask split in two, cracked clean down the middle.
Two halves fell away like broken porcelain.
Silence.
And then… I saw her.
For a moment, the whole battlefield faded.
Her face, porcelain-pale with a faint blush of rose in her cheeks. Smooth, silver-white hair framed her delicate features like strands of moonlight. Her eyes, bright, glacial, almost too sharp to be human, locked with mine.
She looked stunned. Not just from the bullet. From me.
I had hit her.
I had unmasked her.
And maybe… just maybe…
I had gotten to her.
I felt my chest rise. For a moment, I was proud.
But that moment…
That’s what cost me.
Because it wasn’t just her beauty that stunned me. No. It was something else, a memory. Or the ghost of one.
Her face, it felt… familiar.
Where had I seen her before?
My vision blurred. A dull pulse throbbed at the base of my skull.
Was my mind trying to remember something? A name? A moment?
But it was gone. Slipping away.
I spoke, barely above a whisper.
"Who are you…? Have we met before?"
She didn’t answer.
And then she vanished.
Not fled, vanished. One second she was there, frozen, exposed. The next, gone. Like a glitch in the system.
Panic surged. I gripped my Dangatana tighter and scanned the field.
Where is she?!
Then—
"BEHIND YOU!!!"
Judeth’s voice, sharp and frantic, cracked the silence like a gunshot.
I turned.
She was there.
Right behind me.
Eyes cold. Expression unreadable. Her hand raised.
And at the tip of her fingers—
Her pistol.
Held inches from my face.
She pulled the trigger.
And everything went black.
Am I dead?
That was the first thing that crossed my mind. Then again… no, that didn’t make sense. Could I even die in here? Am I unconscious? That shouldn’t be possible either. We’re inside a virtual reality, so what the hell happened to me?
Maybe my pod broke again?
Everything was dark for a while, floating, like I was stuck in limbo and just when I thought I was going to glitch into the void, the system finally reinitialized.
A soft blue glow lit my vision.
I opened my eyes. I was back at the safehouse.
I sat up slowly, my head still foggy. "Was that… a dream?" I muttered, rubbing my temples. "Weird. It felt so real…"
"It’s ‘cause it was real," said a voice.
I turned to see Jarrod and Judeth slumped on the couch nearby, looking beat-up, defeated, and silent. Like players who had just been handed their first real loss.
"So we lost," I said quietly. "We lost everything."
And yet… I was still here. Still logged in. In the past, whenever I lost or died, I’d get forcefully disconnected from my pod and booted out of Onlife.
"Wait… why am I still online?" I asked, checking my HUD.
Jarrod answered. "Because you didn’t die."
I blinked.
My hand flicked through the menus. Inventory: intact. EXP: still there. Skills, equipment, nothing missing.
Except… my HP.
"Holy crap. I’m at one. One HP?" I said, staring at the blinking red bar near my name.
"Yeah," Judeth replied. "Weiss Shi used the 1HP Pistol. It renders you unresponsive for a short time, just enough to end the match."
I frowned. "How long was I out?"
"Ten minutes," Jarrod said.
I paused. "She… spared us?" I asked, voice a bit softer now.
Judeth shrugged. "We don’t know why."
I leaned back into the chair, head spinning, trying to make sense of it all. That final moment, her gun at my temple, the glint in her eyes, she could’ve ended me. But she didn’t.
"And the Easter Eggs?" I asked, snapping back to the point. "Are there any left?"
Jarrod nodded slowly. "Three. But don’t get any ideas."
I exhaled in relief. "Wait—what if she gave us one? Out of pity, or—"
"She didn’t," Jarrod cut me off. "We lost, Jack. She didn’t pity us. She spared us, but she didn’t hand us an Egg. We didn’t qualify."
I sat there, chewing on that bitter truth.
"But there’s still three left. That means—"
"Don’t," Jarrod warned. "Even if we sprint for them now, someone else is already ahead. We need to rest. Rebuild. We got outplayed by Weiss Shi. She could’ve banned you for glitching, too. Be lucky she didn’t."
I gave a half-hearted laugh. "Maybe she didn’t ban me because she wanted to see me again."
Jarrod and Judeth both gave me blank stares.
"Alright, alright, jokes aside…" I sighed. "I guess we’re not gonna be one of the 1,025 players who get early access to Alchemy & Alloy."
We all fell silent.
"Guess we wait for next year," I added with a small smile.
"You’re not mad?" Judeth asked, looking a bit surprised.
Jarrod nodded. "Honestly, I expected a tantrum. This is probably the most mature you’ve ever taken a loss."
"Hey," I said, grinning. "Keep insulting me and I really will die, jokes aside, yeah, I’m upset. But we fought hard. We lost fair and square. I’m not gonna cry over a game." I glanced between them. "At least I didn’t lose alone. I had you guys with me."
That hit a bit harder than expected. Judeth gave me a look, half proud, half amused.
"Still," I added with a smirk, "I’m happy about one thing."
"Oh yeah? What’s that?" Judeth asked.
"I hit her. I actually hit Weiss Shi. And I unmasked her."
Judeth slapped her forehead. "Seriously?"
Jarrod leaned forward. "You know… as much as you joke around, you’ve got a point. No one’s ever landed a hit on Weiss Shi, let alone unmasked her. We might be the only ones who know what she actually looks like."
Judeth tilted her head. "One thing though—what happened back there? It looked like you were in some kind of trance. Like she hypnotized you."
Jarrod grinned. "I bet he fell in love the moment he saw her face."
…He was half right.
But I couldn’t tell them the real reason. Not yet. Not until I understand myself.
So I played along. "Yeah," I said, scratching my cheek. "She was gorgeous. Maybe she spared me ‘cause she fell in love too."
"Yeah, right," Jarrod muttered, suddenly locking his arm around my neck and giving me a noogie. "Or maybe she was too disgusted to bother."
"Let go, you jerk!"
I broke free, rubbing my head. "Anyway. So what now?"
Judeth smirked. "You owe me help with my date with Camille."
"You’re joking, right?"
Jarrod cut in. "We could reopen the convenience store. We closed early today."
I stared at him. Unimpressed.
Then I turned to Judeth. "Guess I’m helping you plan the perfect date."
Jarrod just laughed.
"But first," I said, "there’s one thing we can do to replace the Easter Egg."
"Oh?" Judeth raised an eyebrow.
"The Odyssey Chest. We still haven’t opened it. Since someone dragged me to work before I could."
"Well excuse me for trying to suggest a group activity," Jarrod said.
I got up, walked to the back room, and pulled the Odyssey Chest out from where I’d hidden it.
We gathered around the table, all three of us staring at it. For a moment, it felt like we were kids again, about to open a birthday gift.
"Remember," Jarrod said, "this won’t match the Easter Eggs or Alchemy & Alloy… but it’s still something."
I placed my index finger on the glowing rune.
"Here goes nothing."
Click.
A soft whirring noise echoed as the chest opened.
Our eyes widened. My jaw dropped.
Even Judeth, usually calm, was speechless.
We stared in disbelief at what was inside.
Please sign in to leave a comment.