I, as my video game character in our world.

“Sorry that you had to wait.”

I apologized to Desmond for coming later than expected, after all, I still had to exchange my sports clothes for my street clothes.

“S-Siana.”

He stuttered when he said my name.

“That’s my name.”

I mentioned the obvious and began.

“You wanted to talk...”

I left the sentence unfinished to make Desmond talk.

“Well, I haven’t heard from you since we departed...”

I took out my smartphone.

“Do you want to give me your phone number again?”

I looked at my hand.

“A smartphone? Can you handle it? Do you know how to use it?”

I looked at him with an expressionless face.

“Really, now!? I’m not from the outback. I’m just from another world!”

He looked at me in confusion.

“Does that mean you also have smartphones in your world?”

Déjà-vu? Didn’t we had this conversation before?

“We had something similar. It worked with magic instead of electricity.”

He looked interested, but I wasn’t, since these devices actually existed, but were used only by NPCs and not by players.

“This is not what you wanted to talk about... Come on, let’s talk on the way home.”

I at least urged him to go because I felt like something was watching me from a distance.

Definitely, Sam-me, but I should ignore it first.

Only, when we left the school grounds was it that Desmond started to talk about what he wanted to say.

“Say, how does it work?”

He looked at me and pointed his hand at my head and back.

“How can all of this just disappear? It can’t be invisible, can it?”

He waved through the air behind my back like an idiot.

“You’re making a fool of yourself.”

I replied to his action.

“Invisibility only helps to make something not visible. If I wanted to go through a door with invisible wings, I would either have to fold them back to prevent it from bumping into the door frame, and I would run the risk of hitting someone behind me. So the answer is not invisibility.”

He looked a bit stunned, and I suspected that he had already hung up on my previous comment, “You’re making a fool of yourself.”

I patted him on the shoulder.

“I make my wings transparent to everything. They are actually visible, but you humans can’t see these light wavelengths. Only I can see them, and only when I look at them directly, because a mirror doesn’t reflect their light frequencies.”

I touched my left wing and made a small part of the wing visible for him. The visible part was so small that it was barely seen from a close distance.

“Do you see?”

Desmond nodded, and I let go of my wing, and the visible part immediately disappeared.

“How come you go to this school?”

He changed the topic.

“My mother put it in one of the documents she left for me in the apartment.”

“Apartment?”

He put his head to one side in confusion at the word “apartment” and repeated it.

“Yup, my friend invited me to live with him. His apartment is huge for both of us. The only thing that bothers me is that he always climbs into my bed when I sleep!”

“Y-your boyfriend¹The same situation we had with Yasemin. Desmond mistook the meaning of her "Mein Freund."!?”

He became sensitive when he heard, “My friend."²She did it on purpose. :D

“Yes, my friend. He is playful and a real Casanova!”

His eyes froze, and his face went pale.

“S-s-since when have you been together? If I may ask?”

His second question was significantly quieter than his first.

“Hmm... since when... It was the day we both met for the first time.”

Desmond turned away from me, and I could hear him cursing softly.

My amulet started to blink.

“Woof!”

I was about to open the map when a dog barked and distracted me. I looked up and saw Fen running toward me.

...Fen!? What are you doing here?

Fen jumped at me and clutched my shoulder so he could lick my face.

“Puah! Stop it!?”

He didn’t listen to me and went on.

“Huh!?”

Desmond looked between Fen and me, irritated.

“Puah! Stop!”

With a little force, I put Fen onto the floor.

“Desmond, this is Fen, my friend.”

“Y-your friend? …the dog!? Ha-Ha-HAHAHA!”

Desmond held his face and couldn’t help laughing because he was embarrassed by this misunderstanding. After a moment, he stopped laughing and leaned down to Fen.

“Hi Fen, I’m Desmond.”

Desmond held out a hand to Fen for a sniff, but after a brief curiosity, Fen turned back to me. I patted him lightly on the back of the head.

“Fen, why aren’t you at home?”

“Woof!”

He barked at me slightly and started scratching the floor with one paw, then jumped and turned around.

“Fen, what’s going on?”

Fen ran in the direction we came from, towards our school. He disappeared behind a bush, and when I was about to follow him, Desmond and I heard a scream.

“Ouch!”

My Sam-me came out of his hiding place and rubbed his butt. Fen stood a little way away from him and made sure that he couldn’t run away.

“What does that mean?”

Desmond asked me in a low tone when Sam-me came closer with Fen as a guard.

“He suspects something, but actually he doesn’t know anything. So just don’t say anything about me.”

I didn’t know how well Desmond could keep a secret, but I trusted he could.

“You followed us. Why?”

I asked Sam before he reached us.

“I don’t like surprises.”

He was still rubbing his butt and watching Fen.

“So…”

I wanted him to start talking, but Fen suddenly turned in a different direction.

“Fen, what’s going on?”

“Grrr!”

He started to growl in the direction he turned.

“I don’t know what your dog has, but... something seems to make him upset.”

I shook my head.

“Definitely not! Fen is not angry, he feels a threat, and that makes me uncomfortable.”

As soon as I had said the sentence, the pendant on my bracelet began to flash red.

Red? Maybe an enemy?

I couldn’t say exactly what the red blinking meant, but I was sure we would find out in a moment. I threw my bag on the floor and searched the bottom of the bag for my daggers. I wasn’t sure beforehand if I should bring the blades to school, but I decided to because as long as you didn’t’ t misbehave, the bags weren’t’ t checked.

“Knives?”

Sam looked irritated and intimidated, and Desmond faltered briefly but then regained his composure.

“Should I be worried?”

Desmond asked me an impossible question, but I didn’t’ t want to scare him. I shook my head and replied.

“I don’t know with a 100% chance. It depends on what is coming up. So please put the tremor aside.”

Desmond reached for Sam’s arm, which was still swaying, irritated gazed between me and the direction I looked.

“Come on, guy!”

Desmond pulled Sam aside with all his strength.

I opened the map, on the bracelet, there was a faint glowing red dot in front of us, but the glow grew stronger with each blink.

*Krrk*

A crack appeared in the air before us.

I checked the area, but apart from Desmond, Sam, Fen, and myself, there was no one here, which was strange.

Funny, how can that be!? We are out of school, and no one goes this way from school?

*Krrk*

The crack continued to break open, and I paid attention to what came out of the crack. The head of a lizard went through the crack. The lizard had red scales, and little flames came from its nostrils.

A fire lizard!?

A fire lizard was on the difficulty scale, from 1 to 10, a 4, so a medium easy opponent. The Lizards weak point was the chest to belly area, like crocodiles. Fire lizards were more passive monsters in the game that only became aggressive when their territory was threatened or attacked. But the logic of the game didn’t’ t work here, and the lizard looked angered.

The lizard opened the crack further to get through it. It landed on the floor in front of Fen and me.

“Fen! You should go back too!”

I was about to send Fen back when his body suddenly started to glow and to grow. His size passed the size of the regular wolf and also that of a tiger. Only now did I realize whose race Fen belonged to. His breed was called Fenris wolf, not to be confused with the Fenrir³Fenrir is one way to write the name. Fenris is another... I chose the different writing to distance the Fenrir wolf from the Fenris wolves. from Nordic Mythology. The Fenris wolves counted as descendants of Fenrir, but unlike him, they were protectors of the world of SW. They were often found at temples in the game.

Despite its size, Fen was not fully grown because the full-grown Fenris wolves could be as big and long as a pickup truck. The older could communicate with other races using telepathy. There was also a very famous Fenriswolf NPC who gave difficult quests that were rewarded with rare or valuable loot. After completing its questline, you were allowed to visit the “village⁴Well, since when had wolves a Village? They're intelligent, so why couldn't they build a village.” of the Fenris wolves, but only once. Anyone who made friends with the wolves during the visit had a 5% chance by leaving the village to get a Fenris wolf cub as a pet. I was out of luck back then, but one of my guild members got one.

What was also mysterious was the strength of the Fenris wolves in SW. None was hostile, and not a single Fenris wolf-NPC could be seen fighting.

Before I could react, Fen pounced on the fire-lizard and whirled it through the air. It landed on the floor with its back. Its weak point was wide open!

“I'll take care of this!”

I dashed forward and jumped, with a quick movement I cut lengthways the belly of the lizard. Hits on the Weak points in SW resulted in immediate death.

Wow! That was incredible, I mean... I fought and defeated a real monster! Well, it was rather weak, but I won.

I looked at Fen.

We won!

The blood of the lizard suddenly spurted out of the wound and splashed over my clothes. I was bathed in blood in the middle of the street.

Fuck!

I was inattentive and didn’t expect to bespattered with blood, and there was no blood in SW. The reason was simple. The game got an age rating of 12 years.⁵Germany has five different age ratings. Low age to high adult: 0/6/12/16/18

“Fen?”

I turned to my huge wolf, at least I thought that, but Fen was back in his puppy shape and was wagging its tail in joy. When he came to me and the corpses, his pendant lit up, and the body of the fire-lizard dissolved in dust and was blown back through the crack by a light breeze. After a few seconds, the lizard had disappeared entirely, and the crack had closed again.

“You!”

Fen looked at me with button eyes, and I couldn’t resist petting him. Even the blood on my hands didn’t seem to bother Fen. While I was busy with Fen, Desmond came to me with Sam.

“Everything OK?”

Desmond’s voice sounded a little worried. I turned my head and looked at him.

“So far. My heart is pounding with adrenaline, but otherwise, I’m fine.”

Sam’s face was pale, and it didn’t seem like he wanted to say anything. He looked more absent-minded.

“What do we do with him?”

Desmond looked at Sam and immediately asked me about him.

“We cannot leave him here and waiting for him to “wake up” is also out of the question. Let’s go to me!”

He thought a moment before realizing what I said.

“Wait a moment! What?”

I pointed to my necklace.

“I found something nice about my apartment.”

I tapped the chain’s pendant. In response to my actions, it started to glow, and a white door appeared in front of me.

“Come over.”

I opened the door and kept it open. Fen ran in first, and shortly afterward, Desmond followed with the pale Sam. I was the last to go through and closed the door behind me.

“Place him on the sofa.”

Desmond nodded and placed Sam on the couch.

“Welcome to my humble home.”

I welcomed Desmond and Sam to my apartment.

“Did you know about the creature?”

Desmond looked serious as he turned to me.

“I know this creature, but I didn’t know it would appear in this world. I have to assume that more will follow.”

Desmond was not happy with my answer.

“Either you are the protagonist or the antagonist.”

He said the sentence to himself, but I could understand it easily.

“How should I be the antagonist?”

He looked up, startled when he realized that I understood what he was murmuring to himself.

“Uwa! Well... Well... Um... That’s... It’s complicated!”

He couldn’t utter a complete sentence when he turned red and went silent.