Assassinate Wonderwind [Book 1 Completed!]

My remaining time in Thailand passed in a flash. The evening of April eleventh hit, and tomorrow was officially the last of the 60 days I was allowed to stay in the country as a tourist. I found myself packing my bags, while Veyra sat on the couch.

“Should I grab an elite visa?” I asked. “That’s like twenty grand for an extended stay?”

“That whole thing is a scam,” Veyra said. “It’s not like Thailand is worth twenty grand just to visit.”

“Well, you live here.”

She snorted, smiling at my luggage, but said nothing. I stuffed the final shirt into my bag, having to use force to fit everything after a shopping spree doubled the amount of clothes I had here. That shopping spree turned out to be the first of our two visits outside, the second being a quick trip to the nearest beach, just to say I hadn’t flown to Thailand for no reason.

We’d been afraid of getting recognized, which turned out to be a valid fear. A group of Thai Wonderwind fans joined us, awestruck to see us in the wild. They were nice, thankfully, and we chatted with them for an hour before Veyra and I hid ourselves back

With that, our agreement of holding a trial phase was now completed. We’d lived together for almost two months.

I loved it, as I knew I would. There were difficult days whenever Veyra’s illness decided to break into our routine, sure, but everything was worth it just to wake up with her every morning.

What about her? How should I ask her about it?

I’d threaded that topic carefully, not wanting to rush a conversation. Now seemed like an appropriate time, though. I thought of my words.

Veyra spoke first. “Your sister said she wanted to see me in America, right?”

My head bobbed up from the ground. “Yeah. I think my family would love to see you.”

“Mhm,” she said.

“Are you considering it, or?”

“Yeah, I’d like to visit. It's just difficult to get there. Like, first of all, traveling is a huge hurdle to get through—always, and no matter where I’m going. I’d need to arrange a lot of things just to survive the flight.” She didn’t look confident. “It’s possible… But also, my mom is still here. I’d like to stay here for her.”

“Right,” I said. “I won’t pressure you to come.”

“Then again,” Veyra continued, “the doctors said that my mom could probably visit VR soon. There’s a good chance her mental state will be clearer through the neural receptors.” Veyra watched her reflection from her mirror. “But the real world is special in a way, just like you keep telling me. She would want to see me there as well.”

“I’m down to visit Thailand again instead.”

“I also want to visit. If my mom could speak right now, I think she’d want me to live my own life to the fullest. I’ll have to think about it.” She turned to me. “Do you want to see her, by the way? I think there’s still time today.”

I stopped fighting the zipper of my bag. “Sure. If you’re fine with letting me see her.”

“Well, I don’t think she’ll even remember seeing you.” Her eyes lowered down. “Maybe it’s pointless. It’s pretty much the same as visiting someone in a coma.”

“I’m down,” I said. “You want to go see her anyway, right? I’ll come along.”

“Alright.” She nodded. A worried, somber expression. “I’ll call a taxi.”

***

As Veyra said, traveling with her was way more difficult than with the average person. That went for short trips as well. I helped her get dressed and secured her to her wheelchair, before we headed outside to wait for the accessible cab, which took more than fifteen minutes.

The reason for the delay became clear right after departure, as the van got stuck in the first intersection. Driving in Bangkok was almost slower than walking. Traffic was absolutely insane. The short drive to the hospital took us over thirty minutes.

Once there, the hospital was similar to the ones at home, if not for the foreign language on all the signs. I followed Veyra’s directions past the bright hallways, until we were made to wait outside her mother’s room.

A short wait later, a nurse called her name, “Siriphanh!”

“That’s us,” Veyra said.

“Wait,” I said. “Is that your surname?”

“Yep,” she said. “I guess I haven’t mentioned it.”

Veyra Siriphanh, huh? I thought. I’d need to practice pronouncing that name correctly, wouldn’t I?

She smiled lightly as she pushed the wheel herself, entering the room. Four beds were lined up next to each other. Three had elderly people, one of whom was awake. “Veyra!” the lady said. “Sawasdee.”

Veyra responded in Thai. They shared a few sentences, and I had no idea what they were talking about.

“That’s Mali,” Veyra told me. “She’s been here with my mom for a while. I don’t think she speaks English, though.”

I greeted her with a smile and a nod, and we moved deeper, to the last person out of the four beds.

There she was—Veyra’s mother—who I recognized immediately. She slept calmly with a few IV tubes attached to her. She was frail, even more frail than Veyra, and slightly older, but she had the same freckles and hair.

“Hey, mom…” Veyra said quietly in English. “I actually have a boyfriend now. Someone who isn’t a douchebag. Can you believe it?”

Her mom’s chest moved up and down as she breathed on her own, though she didn’t wake up. Veyra watched with a somber smile. I stayed with her, not saying anything. The silence felt strangely intimate.

“I haven’t been talking about enough nerdy stuff to you, Mom, have I?” Veyra eventually began. “I think my career is slowly becoming more successful than yours. Or actually, that’s a lie. It kind of happened overnight. I still wouldn’t beat you in StarCraft, though.”

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Veyra sat calmly with her hands on her lap with long pauses between her thoughts. “I might become the best mage in the game if I keep working hard. The best player already thinks I’m better, but he doesn’t think he’ll lose. He has more experience. He’s just too good to beat in a one V one.”

“I’ve gotten dual-casting to work, though. Kind of like how I was the first to use Enkindle alone. Do you remember that? Maybe other mage players will finally start to practice when they see how far behind they’re falling without quick-casting.” A slight smile crept onto her cheeks.

“My boyfriend has been playing a fighting game. It’s called Art Of Steel. He’s already one of the best in the world. I think he’s on a break, though.”

I smiled a little, but stayed quiet. The last part was true. Steel was fun, but my matches were getting repetitive. The game wasn’t as engaging as Wonderwind in the long run.

“I might visit him in America at some point,” Veyra said. “Are you okay with that, Mom? You would be all alone. I could always call you, or see you in VR. It’s really the greatest invention ever, just like you always said.”

She went silent, just watching her mother, as if hoping her words were registered somewhere in that calm, recovering mind.

I noticed a bunch of letters on the nightstand with scribbles drawn on them. That was clearly Veyra’s cutesy artstyle.

“Could I write a letter for her?” I asked.

Her head rose. “Oh, sure. I think they had paper here…” She turned her chair toward one of the cabinets, where she found a pen and a paper.

I picked a seat to write, but of course, I spent the first few minutes tapping the pen, wondering what to write about. I was never a literary genius. If anything, my lack of academic prowess would have probably gotten me expelled from school if I didn’t drop out on my own.

I had things I wanted to tell her, though. It didn't need to be pretty. I just needed to say what I wanted to say.

Hello!

I’m Aiden from New York. Veyra’s boyfriend. Maybe she has already introduced me in one of her letters. Thank you for being an amazing mother to her. She really loves you a lot.

I asked her out for a date in Wonderwind last year, and she said yes! Somehow, I managed her to come compete in Worlds with me. That was really the best experience of my life. I’m now visiting her in Thailand for the first time. I’m still learning new things about her every day.

She’s thinking of getting a new pet frog, like the one you used to have. Maybe that would be a good birthday gift? I personally prefer cats, though >_<

Her smile makes me happy every day. I love her a lot. I promise to take care of her for you.

Recover well!

I wasn’t sure how to close the letter, so I drew a heart. I folded it and slid it in with Veyra’s other letters. “Don’t read that,” I told Veyra. “It’s embarrassing.”

She chuckled. “I won’t.”

We stayed there in silence for a short while longer, but we’d arrived so late that the visiting hours were about to end. We wished her a speedy recovery one more time and returned home.

With that, my time in Thailand was over after one more night of hugs and cuddles.

***

“Thanks for having me,” I said outside boarding at the airport the next day. “This was awesome.”

“I mean, you were the one taking care of me,” Veyra said. “I’m impressed I didn’t make you lose your mind yet.”

“You’ll have to try harder next time.”

We were both grinning with Aree pushing Veyra. She’d need to help Veyra back to the apartment after I was gone.

“We need to lock in with our Wonderwind grind, by the way,” Veyra said. “We've been slacking. I feel like we haven’t made any progress ever since the guild wipe.”

I smiled awkwardly. The reason for slacking was pretty obvious. If Aree wasn’t here, I would have joked about it. Instead, I said, “It’s our trend to fall behind and then explosively make it back up, isn’t it?”

“Sure, except all of our big successes have stemmed from luck,” Veyra said. “We should start preparing for Worlds soon.”

I nodded. Worlds 2027, six months from now, would be the next true test for us. Many gods would undoubtedly join us in the three V three tournament. Maybe even all of them, looking to prove that our singular win against Annath was just a fluke. The forums still saw us as dark horses. We just didn’t have enough results to prove ourselves.

We were still way more popular than I would have liked, though. A group of guys twenty-year-olds were waiting for the flight back to New York close to us, and they kept glancing in our direction, nervously silent. I considered walking up to them to ask what was up, but decided I was too tired for that today.

Suddenly, one of them shot up from his seat, drawing glances from all around. He squinted at his phone, mouth open.

“Leo, what’s wrong?” his friend asked, nudging him to sit back down.

Leo stayed on his feet. “No way. Wonderwind is shutting down?”

“Huh?” his friend asked.

“Look at this! Wind Virtual just made a post! ‘The Final Year Of Wonderwind.’”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“Look at the front page!”

Veyra heard it too. Her face turned to concern. “No way, that can’t be real.”

We both reached for our phones. Sure enough, the pinned post was there. Not just on Wonderwind’s forums, but also on the official app.

I stared at it with my mouth open. “What the fuck?”

The post had a group picture of Wind Virtual’s dev team with a sign that read, “Thank you for playing!”

Pressure built up in my chest as I skimmed through the huge walls of text. What the hell was this? Surely, Wonderwind couldn’t have been shutting down? This wasn’t April Fools, was it?

At the bottom of the post was a TLDR.

• Caverns Of Creation will be the final expansion of Wonderwind, and 2027 will be the final year of new items or bosses being added.

• Wonderwind’s servers will stay open as Legacy Servers, but the game will receive no balance updates.

• The game’s final boss is still yet to be defeated. The guilds and players who contribute in its hunt will earn a special title and a personal gift from Wind Virtual Games.

• Worlds 2027 will be the final Wonderwind legacy tournament officially hosted by Wind Virtual Games.

“Aiden?” Veyra said, showing me her phone. “There’s another post!”

That one was titled, “Wonderwind II: Ascension Of Legends.”

The group of guys began shouting now. “Wonderwind two!? Seriously? I just bought a rare sword! Did I just waste my fucking money?”

Veyra was reading the post intently. I looked it up as well, and was met with another wall of text. I skimmed through to the TLDR.

• Wonderwind II: Ascension Of Legends releases on the first of January, 2027.

• Players with a Legacy Wonderwind account are eligible to play both games with no additional cost to membership fees. Character and guild names will be kept.

• Players may transfer up to five legacy gear pieces from the original game to Wonderwind II. Transferred items will retain their rarity and abilities, with an additional Legacy Item tag.

• Legacy Items will not have a level requirement; stats and abilities will instead scale with the player’s level.

• All player levels will be reset.

• Wonderwind tournaments will continue to be officially hosted by Wind Virtual Games in Wonderwind II: Ascension Of Legends

“Wonderwind two, huh?” I felt concerned, of course, but I also grinned at the thought.

“So it’ll be a fresh start for everyone?” Aree asked.

“Yeah, except existing players can bring gear from the old game,” Veyra said. “I guess they’re trying to avoid the economy collapsing. Item prices will start jumping all over the place anyway, I think.”

“Good thing we sold all that crap,” I said.

“Yeah, I think now is the time to buy items for cheap. Keep an eye on the auction house.” She kept looking at the post. “It says they’re keeping the same developer team. That’s good. This doesn’t seem like it’s just a cash grab. I think they finally decided that power creep was getting too insane.”

Behind me, boarding was underway with the rest of the line wondering what the fuss was about. “The final Worlds of Wonderwind one, huh?” I said. “A fresh start could be fun.”

“Absolutely,” Veyra said. “I hope they haven’t fixed too many bugs with the new game.”

I grinned at that. Our time to talk was running out. Of course Wind Virtual had to post the juicy news right now. “Will you be on tomorrow?” I asked.

“Yeah?” Veyra said. “Of course I’ll be on.”

“Alright,” I said. “We’ll make the final year our year. How’s that?”

“Sure, something like that.”

It was just about my time to get in line. We looked at each other, silently spending the last moments of the vacation together. I gave her one final kiss on the forehead.

“Love you,” we said at the exact same time.

I blinked at her. Then I chuckled. “See you tomorrow.”

I boarded the plane, and while I still had internet left, I googled, “Accessible apartments in New York.”

Tomorrow, we’d see what sort of chaos Wonderwind had fallen to.