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“Ma’am, why are you crying?”
“Ah, Mr. Kim, is that you… Some of the stories in the game are so, so…”
“Real?”
“Yes. And through such vivid stories, to be able to access the minds of individuals like the inmates… it’s a beautiful thing. Don’t you agree?”
“Park Sun Ja-nim, you’re surprisingly sentimental.”
“Kya, Mr. Kim, is that praise I hear? Are you fancying me, perhaps?”
“…!”
“Wait-- wait! Don’t run away! It was a joke!”

--

“Thanks for your patronage, as always. How is the little Jay?”

A pretty young lady clothed in simple and modest leathers shook her head stoically. “Not good. Worse.”

Her voice did not match the lack of expression in her face. There was a hint of sorrow in the dark, somber tone.

“… I see. Well, I put in a little extra burdock root. Tell Helen I said hi, alright?”

Crow nodded, took the package, and left the small Apothecary. Picking up Jay’s dose of fresh herbs every day was one of her jobs.

She walked through the street. It was still morning, and she felt a slight morning chill. Summer’s warmth had already departed, and Fall was preparing to come in earnest. Thankfully, the change of the seasons was not severe here. A sudden frost like the one that nipped at the fingers and toes in the cold prison cells would have been disastrous to Jay’s health.

Although there weren’t many people on the streets, Crow was still uncomfortable and moved quickly. She weaved through alleys and squeezed through the tight spaces between buildings. On her first few days of journeying to the Apothecary, she had found a twisting set of passages that neatly skirted past Florisa’s store and avoided the main roads. Florisa took great delight in jeering when Crow passed, and although she didn’t mind insults directed at her, she couldn’t help but feel rather irritated when the woman picked on Helen. It was true that Helen was not a good Tailor, but she was a good woman.

Helen had accepted Crow with great enthusiasm. She taught Crow different types of stitches, but the most valuable information she imparted concerned the materials. There were all sorts of raw materials. Helen could take the fresh hide of a rabbit and turn it into a supple, soft piece of leather, seemingly by magic. In any case, Crow was unable to duplicate the action, and Helen had responded that she “needed more practice.”

There were leathers from the strangest animals. Wolf, fox, even badger hide were common and rather cheaply bought. It occurred to Crow after seeing these hides in great quantity that these animals must either exist in enormous numbers outside the city, or they had some method of constant replenishment. There were just too many hides to imagine that the numbers worked the same way as in reality. Perhaps it was a game mechanic; in any case, it didn’t really concern her.

There were also fabrics made of cotton and wool, as well as normal bovine leather. There were no synthetic materials. The thread was made of wound gut or wool. Helen even showed her a spool of thread from the long furs of a mountain goat.

At first, Helen only entrusted Crow with small tasks, like sewing on a side or practicing her stitches, or sweeping the floor and wiping the place free of dust. The lattermost took a good two days of constant sweeping to accomplish, but with diligence and steady devotion, Crow was able to wipe the store clean. It turned out that the copious amount of dust was a large factor in aggravating Jay’s cough, and when it was clean he was able to stay downstairs for longer as long as he was next to the stove. Within a week, Helen began to allow Crow to sew her own wares, tend and keep Jay company, and even brew his teas.

Crow’s Herbology stat was now at Beginner 3. Her Sewing skill was at Beginner 8, and her Handicraft skill had risen far more slowly, putting her at Beginning 3. Crow noticed that she could make more asthetically pleasing designs with higher Handicraft, so she assumed that was what the stat was for. It took her awhile to wrap her head around the concept of skill levels, but she eventually accepted their existences and even began to work towards their advancement. She was surprised to feel a strange satisfaction when her skills rose a level, accompanied by a tinkling noise in her ear. She had also picked up Cooking from Helen. It was only at Beginner 2, but thanks to her Handicraft, the meals she made were not bad, if elementary. Most interesting were the brief item descriptions of the products she made. As her skills rose, so did the quality of her products.

The clothing she had made mainly consisted of leather products. That was mostly due to the fact that she was most comfortable with leatherworking. Helen gave Crow enough material to make her own clothes. With it, she fashioned a finer pair of shoes and a new set of clothes. Since it was one of her first times making clothing, the design was a bit crude, but it was still a passable set, and comfortable enough. She also made a soft pair of warm leather slippers for Jay.

Crow had told the apothecary tender that Jay was not doing well. With the weather slowly getting chillier, Jay was always either huddled up next to the kitchen stove in a blanket or in bed. Catching a simple cold would likely be fatal for the child.

That was on the good days. On the bad days, it was painful to hear the raking, rattling cough that seemed to convulse his entire frame. On some days he woke with a fever and the sleeping draft had to be spooned into his trembling mouth. He was delirious then, his vulnerable little form going from shivering with cold to sweating and back again. He mumbled things about knights and adventures sometimes, but mostly he moaned and gasped for breath through the night, coughing and wheezing. Those nights were the worst. Helen was often driven to tears as she sat by his side in the dark, praying that he would not be taken that night. Crow kept silent vigil, but Jorgen could not bring himself to be in the same room for very long. It was too painful.

In some ways, Jorgen was not as powerful as his stature indicated. Sometimes Crow saw him run off in the night with Brutus loping alongside him.

But today was a good day; Jay had woken up with a mild cough, but a few hours at the stove had mostly driven it away.

Crow emerged silently from an alleyway and slid into the shop. She walked past the tables she’d spent hours clearing and into the kitchen. Helen was probably in the workshop.

As she’d expected, Jay was huddled up next to the stove, a large book cradled in his arms. It was one of his favorites, “The Adventures of Hagus the Great,” a rollicking tale of a Knight and his battles. Jay loved to babble about it.

“Crow unni! You’re back!” Jay tried to stand, but Crow quickly moved forward and pushed him back down with a gentle shove.

“Stay.”

Jay smiled, not put off by her firm and taciturn nature. They got along quite well. Crow was not much in terms of companionship, but for some reason, Jay had really grown attached to her. Perhaps that was a testament of his loneliness—he was not well enough to go to school or go outside and play with other boys his age. He had no friends. It was something that Crow could understand, and she accepted his friendship, somewhat against her will. Jay’s burbling charm could not be denied.

Jay returned to his book. He usually chattered when she returned from an errand, but he must have gotten to one of his favorite parts and was complete absorbed. When Jay tried to show her how to read his favorite passage, she had refused at first, but at his stubborn insistence she took a look at it. Surprisingly, it was in Korean and she could read it. An automatic translation system must be in the game. It was truly incredible.

Crow worked quickly. She unpackaged the herbs and brewed the tea, careful not to steep the herbs in for too long. There was a precise line between overdoing it and getting it just right. Her high level of patience enabled her to stand right next to the tea pot for several minutes, counting off the necessary time down to the second. It had taken a lot of practice to achieve this level of tea brewing. Jay had his tea three to five times a day, depending on the severity of his condition.

She pushed the lever to press the herbs to the bottom of the pot and poured the steaming brew into a cup. It smelled terrible, as always, but Jay seemed to welcome it, even enjoy it. He was a strange child.

At the smell of his sockwater, Jay looked up from his book, coughed a little into his arm, and smiled. Crow brought him the tea and sank into the kitchen wall to watch him drink it.

“Did you see any adventurers in town today, unni?”

“No.”

“Aww. I’d like to see a Swordsman, or a Magician! Did you know they have staffs or wands? And they wear robes! But of course it’s not as cool as the armor Soldiers wear, or Knights…”

Jay was very proud of his father and especially liked looking at Jorgen’s full plate mail. The kid was a walking encyclopedia of armors and swords. He had told Crow that he wanted to be a Knight some day.

Hearing that had made Helen very sad. Crow had simply nodded and asked him where he would get his horse. That had led Jay to start a whole new conversation about the palace stables and the prodigious mounts housed within. The Graystones could not possibly afford a horse—Jay had told her the cheapest one was a few thousand Gold, at least—the family could only barely buy Jay’s medicines.

Thankfully, Crow was able to start leading Helen in a new direction with the wares. She found that she couldn’t just sit back and watch as Helen mutilated the fabric and turned it into a monstrosity of poofs and puffs. Crow indicated her strong desire to learn to work leather, and Helen was game. The designs of her leather wares were actually quite good, and since leather was usually naturally colored, unlike the crazily dyed colors of the cotton, the final products were also aesthetically pleasing. More and more customers were beginning to seek the store in search of bargain leather armor and clothes. When Helen was not busily sewing clothes or being with Jay, she was tending customers.

There were also quite a sizeable number of young men who frequented the store. For some reason Crow could not fathom, they always asked for her. She did not attend to the valuable customers because of her lacking social skills, but since the store was connected to the kitchen and the workshop, she couldn’t help but walk through the store to get around. The people who saw her often returned, sometimes dragging along their friends. She didn’t think much of it, but more customers meant more money for food, which meant more bread. Helen had even bought some meat yesterday, and they had enjoyed a meat stew with dinner rolls. It had been delightful.

So she came when she was summoned, stood there with a blank and uninterested face, answered questions with blunt, one-word answers, and left when it got awkward enough that the customer hurriedly bought something to cover the silence. And then she was off to sew again, or finish chopping the vegetables for dinner.

She never did get quite used to Brutus, the wolfdog, but they developed a working relationship. She had no particular interest in him, besides the threat he represented, and he had no interest in her. It soon became apparent that Brutus loved no one more than Jorgen, and it was with a single-minded devotion that the wolfdog dedicated himself to his master. Crow never saw them apart. The only other humans Brutus liked were Helen and Jay. The wolfdog particularly liked curling up around Jay when he was by the stove, and the sight of the little boy dwarfed by the huge canine was terrifying and incredible at the same time. Crow had never seen an animal that carried itself with such care and intelligence. Brutus was a member of the family, and it was obvious that he was a trustworthy and valuable animal.

Crow had never really been a fan of dogs. If she had to say, she preferred cats over dogs. She had never owned a dog, but she saw them as dangerous, noisy, needy, and messy. The calm and composed nature of the cat suited her better. However, although Brutus was definitely dangerous, Crow saw more of the wolf in him, albeit a very domestic version of his wild blood. He never bared a fang at any of the family members, and was affectionate, but not overly so. He had a wolf’s pride, but the dog’s desire for companionship and was fiercely loyal.

She also never saw him eat. The wolfdog rivaled a small pony in size, and Crow couldn’t help but wonder where all the food to sustain him came from. Perhaps the animals in Royal Road did not require sustenance… but no, a game with a realism of 99.99% would not neglect such an important factor.

Actually, Jorgen didn’t seem to eat enough in comparison to his heft. The meager fare they consumed every day was plenty for petite Helen, sickly Jay, and slim Crow, but the muscular and beefy Jorgen could not possibly satisfied with just that. It was something Crow was mildly interested in. Jorgen and Brutus were not a usual pair. Over a period of nearly three weeks of working day and night at the store, that much had become clear.

Crow finished washing all the dishes that had piled up in Helen’s kitchen. She still did not have plans for the future. She didn’t even know what the purpose of the game was, and was only mildly comfortable with talking to 4 or 5 NPCs she had grown accustomed to over the last weeks in game.

As Park Sun Ja had promised, the 50 inmates spent nearly all their time in the capsules. The first time Crow had “woken up” was a little after becoming a Tailor on the first crazy day. She had emerged to that white capsule room, bleached of color, just as bleak as the rest of the prison. But now something was different. There was a strange ache in her chest. A world, full of color and emotion, was waiting inside each of those white capsules. It was the world of Royal Road. Before she knew it, it had become more than a simple escape for her. She wanted to go back, to feel that place again, and see those people. It was a place she had thought didn’t exist anymore. A place where she was whole, a real person, an existence that mattered to someone, something. She was Crow there, assistant Tailor to Helen Graystone, friend to Jay Graystone. She could start anew.

These thoughts were swimming in her head as Crow was herded into a white room, fed porridge, and put on a treadmill for thirty minutes. She went to the bathroom afterward, accompanied by a guard the entire time. While she was outside the capsule, she only saw four other inmates, and was forbidden to speak to them. Thankfully, Harpy One was not among them. The others also seemed preoccupied, lost in their thoughts.

And then it was back to Royal Road.

As she repeated this process again and again, she lost all sense of time in the real world. Day and night mushed together without much consequence. By her estimation, not much time had really passed in real life in comparison to the time she perceived in Royal Road. That was incredible to her—that the warping of time in the human brain could be achieved in a game seemed like something to be found in one of Jay’s magic books.

Of course, Royal Road was so much more than a mere game. It was a second life. For her, it was freedom.

At some point, at some time, Royal Road had become important to her. Jay, Helen, Jorgen—even Brutus and the apothecary tender, they were important to her. And that scared her.

Happiness is made to be taken away.

How much longer did she have?

***

She read.

Jay’s rasping, pained wheeze filled the silence between the words she read. She read of adventures, of Knights and glory and battle, so that Jay might forget that he was dying, even for a little bit.

The boy’s condition had plummeted in the last few days. He could no longer stand on his own, and even sitting up unaided was impossible. His bloody cough was his constant companion as his body fought desperately to stay alive for just one more painful moment.

A few days ago, he had suddenly fallen into a violent fit in the middle of a relatively good day. The tiny hand had come away smeared with blood, and Helen had sobbed while clutching the unconscious, senseless Jay. Crow had to gently pry her away so she could carry Jay up the stairs and into his room. He had not left since. He work up after two feverish and hellish days, and the first thing he asked for was water. The second was a story.

So Crow read.

He did not interrupt her, or was unable to. She stumbled over some words and was sure she butchered the names of his favorite heroes, but he just listened with his eyes closed, or slept. She often couldn’t tell. Her voice lacked inflection, but there was no objection, so she just kept reading.

At some point, she looked up from a book to find him awake, looking straight at her with unusually clear eyes. Helen had gone down to brew his tea, so they were alone. He looked at her for awhile, and she looked back, because his gaze demanded it.

“I’m going to die, aren’t I?” he said quietly. “I won’t ever be a Knight.” Then he looked away, as if to hide his tears, and shortly fell into another fit of violent coughing. Helen came into the room exclaiming, a steaming cup of sockwater in her hands.

Helen had closed the shop on the day Jay crumpled and moved her workshop to Jay’s small room. She usually sat in a corner, constantly watching Jay with one anxious eye, as she sewed. She only made clothes for girls and women, and never for young boys. Sometimes she left and returned with tea and food.

Crow kept reading.

Jay stopped taking sleeping drafts, except at night. His face was taut with pain even as he repeated turned away his face from the sockwater. Helen was upset, but she didn’t press the issue. No amount of sleeping potion would save the life that was ebbing away.

The worst was when he awoke screaming in the middle of the fourth night, sobbing and wailing and struggling, only to fall into an uneasy sleep again and have no recollection of the horror in the blessed morning. After that, Helen increased the intensity of the sleeping potion to near dangerous levels.

Crow read, ate sometimes, and watched Jay as he lapsed into consciousness and unconsciousness. On the sixth day, he moaned with a hoarse voice, “It hurts… it hurts…” as his eyes rolled weakly within a gaunt, haunted face. Helen sobbed and left the room. Crow never stopped reading.

And so on. Whenever there was a lull in the reading because of a pressing need to eat, Jay’s coughing was a little more violent, his clenched fists a little tighter than before. Crow’s sharp eyes caught these changes, as much as Jay tried to hide them, so she quickly shoved food into her mouth and kept reading.

On the sixth day, Helen tried to feed Jay some porridge during a reading of “The Folly of Damarcus.” His hand suddenly jerked up, knocking the spoon away, and he screamed something that came out garbled and incomprehensible. Then he vomited what little he had swallowed, dry heaved, and a foul stink filled the room. The sheets had been soiled. When his body was cleaned and the sheets were changed, the little boy’s bony hand grabbed Crow’s. He wept, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” Then he called pitifully for his mother, who was at his side in a second. He repeated the apologies, and wailed something that broke Crow’s cold, numbed heart.

“I don’t want to die!”

Crow had never felt this way before. She held Jay’s clammy hand tightly and continued reading about the story of Damarcus, a king whose untimely suicide caused a civil war in the kingdom.

The only face she hardly ever saw was Jorgen. The man could not handle the sight of his only son dying before his eyes and chose to run away. But even the time for fleeing was fleeting. Jorgen just refused to accept it, and that stirred a brand of fire in Crow. She was… what was this? Anger? It was yet another emotion she hadn’t felt in so long, an uncomfortable pain that pressed at her insides, demanding to be felt and acted upon.

Jorgen had not shown up for the past few days. So when he did, at night when Jay had already taken the sleeping draft and was far gone, Crow was waiting. Helen was asleep in the small cot she had set up next to Jay’s bed, but Crow watched from her corner as Jorgen trembled and hesitated to hold his son’s hand. He sobbed once, turned on his heel and left the room, then walked down the stairs with stiff steps and ran out of the shop with Brutus at his side.

Crow followed.

They ran at great speed, and it was all she could do to keep track of him. Her knowledge of the hidden shortcuts, though primitive, proved immensely helpful. After a few minutes, she had ascertained that he was heading outside the city, and so she maneuvered her way towards the gates. It was far more difficult on this nearly moonless twilight, but she had good night vision and was able to somehow keep up with Jorgen and Brutus. They didn’t notice her, for she was like the night. Years of practicing the art of erasing her presence for self protection helped her blend in, and she followed them like a wraith.

Jorgen and Brutus left the city walls and headed straight for the great forest that surrounded Granheim. Now that they were in the open, they moved even more quickly, and the small specks of their figures were soon gone.

How was it possible for Jorgen to move so inhumanly fast?

Crow followed what she thought was their trail, but by the time she really lost them, she had no clue of where she was. She had entered the forest and didn’t think she was too far in, but the entrance was nowhere to be found.

Hoot hoot.

She jumped. This was the forest. At night. Who knew what creatures prowled here, waiting for a vulnerable, unarmed Tailor to stumble into their jaws?

Crow slowly backed herself into a tree. Even the branches of these huge trees seemed to hold hidden dangers. There had been a dirt path, but she had followed Jorgen and Brutus off it. She shivered. Autumn’s chill was in her bones, but there was something else, something more primal. Fear.

It was her first time outside the city. She had no weapons, not even a metal ladle.

A rustle. And a shadow.

And then… what… what was that?

It was a two-legged monstrosity. Even in the darkness, she could tell that it had a contorted, fleshy body and an even more hideous face. A mass of dark, coarse hair fell around its broad shoulders. Most of its body was covered in rough and revolting fur, and six breasts sagged from its torso. It made grunting noises as it rooted in the dirt, putting meaty fingers of one hand into its mouth at times. The other hairy appendage held a large club-like tree branch.

THE FUCK WAS THIS THING?!!

She almost screamed, but kept her revulsion bottled inside her with great willpower. The creature didn’t seem to have noticed her yet, so she stayed flat against the tree, stilling her ragged breath and willing her heart to slow and quiet. Perhaps it would pass, it must pass, there was just no fucking way.

It drew closer, only a few paces away, when it suddenly stopped. With one finger in its mouth, its repulsive head slowly turned to face Crow, and it grinned, the yellowed fangs gleaming and the whites of its eyes glinting with horrible recognition.

She cried out then, ducked from the tree and ran away, her heart pounding, racing, faster and faster. She ran desperately past trees, knowing she was making a racket but not caring because IT WAS FOLLOWING HER.

And it was coming closer with each bound of those twisted legs, until she could almost feel its breath on her neck. She felt its claws catch at her back, but she surged away with a rush of adrenaline. A warm trickle ran down her leg.

And then, she was running and suddenly she was not. Her heart nearly burst when the thing finally grabbed a loose fold of her leather clothing and dragged her down. She fell into the balmy soil, her breath exploding from her burning lungs. The creature ululated with exultation and swung its club—

GRAAAWWR!

An earsplitting roar shattered the forest. Something huge and black crashed into the creature, knocking it back. A strong, furry hand grabbed her arm, wrenched her up, and shoved her away. She stumbled back, her mind reeling. She barely saw the face, but… Jorgen…?

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