Rise Online: Return of the Legendary Player

"Sheshh! What a scare you gave me! For a moment I thought I was in trouble, but luckily you are Emma's friends." Klaus blurted out after taking a deep breath.

"Man, it's a good thing your face isn't famous, because your avatar literally looks like you in real life. If it wasn't, we wouldn't have even recognized you." Orkoi said.

Klaus scratched the back of his head, a little ashamed of his mistake. "I know, I know... I've never been very creative with characterization and stuff, and I hadn't played anything for a while until I decided to test Rise Online, so I jumped the gun and allowed the system to keep my real appearance."

"Um. That's understandable, and amazingly enough, since RO is most people's first virtual reality game, it's a more common mistake than you might think." Orkoi said, smiling to reassure Klaus.

"Emma?" Dodir asked with narrowed eyes, still thinking about Klaus' recent outburst.

Orkoi patted the small man on the shoulder and said:

"He's talking about Bloody Lily. Don't you remember when she told us her real name?"

"Ah! So he was talking about her! But wait, how do you know the real name of our captain?" Dodir asked.

"That's a long story." Klaus said with a little consternation. "Well, I'd love to stay and chat with you, but I have to ask some questions at the reception. You wouldn't mind keeping my identity a secret, would you? I mean, I trust everyone Emma trusts, but it's a different story if the people who know who I am also know where I am."

"Don't worry about it. Your secret is safe with us. That little guy might be a little loud and troublemaker, but if there's one thing I really respect about him, it's his sense of honor and justice, no wonder he always thinks he's an anime protagonist when he's playing. Right, man?" Orkoi counted and then gave Dodir a light slap on the back.

Dodir was a little afraid to agree with this last statement of his friend, but he nodded determinedly anyway. "That's it!"

Klaus smiled. "Thanks, guys. See you later!" He said, turning away.

"Hey, wait a minute." Orkoi called after him, causing Klaus to look back and then immediately said, "I don't know if you've become friends with our captain or what, but if she trusts you enough to tell you her real name, you must already know that she passed the special program, too, right?"

Those words from Orkoi made Klaus' world go gray and slow motion for a few moments as he digested the sentence.

"I don't know exactly what state she went to, because we haven't exchanged messages since then, but I know she didn't go to New York, otherwise she would have told us."

When Orkoi looked forward again, he saw an expression on Klaus' face that he had never expected to see, a mixture of surprise, happiness and shock.

"Why, you didn't know?" Orkoi asked in surprise.

Seriously, Klaus denied it with his head. "No, the last time I spoke to her was a long time ago. Anyway, it's good news for her. I'm happy for her. Well, if you guys don't have anything else to talk about, I'm gonna go."

"Okay, see you later." Orkoi said.

And Dodir just waved his hand a little, still being stubborn.

So Klaus went his way and Orkoi and Dodir went theirs. Orkoi couldn't even imagine how many questions he had put into Klaus' head with a simple piece of information about Emma.

She didn't tell me at all that she had also received a letter from NIST and we spent a few hours together at Christmas and I told her about the letter I had received... .... Could it be that she was still undecided, and that's why she didn't say anything? Or maybe she had already decided to leave and didn't want to tell me? Klaus wondered as he walked.

His head was literally a whirlwind of thoughts.

Klaus couldn't tell if he was happy about the good news or sad that she hadn't told him. At the same time, he was a little confused by the fact that she had not made the selection for the special program for New York State. Were the invitations based on the state of birth?

Klaus vividly remembered when Jayaa had told him that his parents had a law firm in Washington, but Jayaa had never specified whether the firm was in Washington State or in Washington D.C. Since that was the case, perhaps Jayaa and Emma were originally from one of those two places, which was why she had been invited to a selection process outside of New York.

At that moment, Klaus felt the delusional urge to open the messaging app and send Emma a message asking about this. He was very curious. However, he quickly came to the conclusion that if she didn't tell him, she probably didn't want him to know.

Just thinking about this case made Klaus feel as if an arrow had pierced his heart.

So he quickly thought of sending a message to Jayaa, after all, if Emma left the apartment, Jayaa would surely know where she went.

Klaus opened the messaging application and wrote a message to Jayaa.

"Hi Jayaa, what's up, I heard that Emma passed a selection process for the special program, do you know which state she went to?"

However, just as Klaus was about to click SEND, he remembered that he had not only told Emma, but also Jayaa that he was going to take the selection process for this special program, and yet neither of them had told him that Emma had also received a letter for the selection process, nor that she had passed.

When Klaus realized this, a hole appeared in his chest and he immediately deleted the message he had written. He thought he was a real friend of the Nielsen brothers, but once again he seemed to be wrong.

...

Edited by: DrHitsuji

If you want to see original illustrations of Rise Online characters, consider helping me on pa treon: Pa treon.com/NandoFalske

More character images in:

https://discord.gg/bpqq9u4gS8

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