Chapter 262
As mana flowed to the System, parts of the System quickly came back online. It was like a ripple, cascading through old and new enchantments. Alice’s repairs, combined with what remained of the original System infrastructure, quickly began to pulse through the System. Parts of it didn’t work. Parts of it were still broken.
But enough of the System was intact that it could still activate, and while it wasn’t optimal, it was enough. As the System came back online, mana cascaded out of the mainframe. For the first time in months, System mana returned to the world once more.
And as people regained access to mana, the world began to heal.
* * *
Boris hadn’t been feeling well for the past few weeks.
Actually, Boris hadn’t been feeling well for the past few months, now that he thought more carefully about it.
During the months he had felt wrong, it had felt like a hazy, indistinct fog had clouded his mind. After the strange Mage girl had come and inspected him and given him that enchanted ring, he had felt a little better - but there had still been times where he couldn’t focus on a thing besides farming. Where his hands itched for a plow, even though he barely knew how to use one. When he felt the need to grab seeds and sow them into the soil, even though he knew it was the wrong season.
He hadn’t been sure how he knew it was the wrong season, either. All he had been able to think about was how much he wanted to farm. To become one with farming, to become a [Farmer], to lose himself in the image of a perfect [Farmer] that existed…
As Boris’s mind drifted back towards those hazy, confused days, a System message flickered in his mind for a moment, before it deleted itself.
| Detecting early access to the System. Patching…
|
| Mana bubble reinstated. Access to the System disabled until the age of 6 is achieved, and a strong enough concept of self-identity is established to resist external mana corrosion is acquired.
|
Had he just imagined that notification?
He must have. Everyone knew children couldn’t get System messages until they were six years old. It was a mark of having grown up, at least enough to start learning and preparing for the future. Boris wasn’t six yet.
He shook his head, and decided to ignore the strange message he thought he had seen. Instead, he focused on how weird he felt.
The strange, maddening impulse to toil in the fields as a [Farmer] disappeared. It didn’t completely fade away, but it faded from a crushing, devastating override of his own mind to a more subtle background noise. He could ignore it if he chose to.
Boris’s mind snapped back to what he had been doing for the past several months.
Why… why had he been trying so hard to work in the fields before he even grew up? That sounded so boring! He had more important things to do! It had been months since he last played with Johnathan and Triss! They were only a few months away from turning six, and once they turned six, the adults would make them all work on levelling their Classes and their Attributes! They only had a few months of total freedom left! The three of them had been planning to go to the creek and eat some of the berries that grew there, and have a proper feast before any of them got too old… right? Boris had to admit, his memories were a little hazy.
His friends were probably super angry that he had ditched them to go farm or whatever! He had to make it up to them before they drifted apart! What in the System’s name had he been doing?
Boris shook his head, and rushed out of his bedroom and into the living room. Then, he froze. His mother stared at him with one of the most strange expressions he had ever seen. It was an expression she usually only had when she talked about his father. One that he couldn’t quite put a name on, but knew that it meant his mother wasn’t feeling good.
“Boris?” She said. Her voice was soft. Hesitant. As if she were looking at a fragile piece of glass.
“Mom?” He asked. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
His mother blinked in surprise. She stared at him, as if she were trying to process what had just happened.
“Boris? Are you here?”
Boris blinked in confusion. He had never left, had he?
Natasha crept up to Boris, and then touched his face, as if she were trying to see something. She looked him directly in the eyes.
“What’s my name?”
“Mom? Why are you asking me such a weird question? Your name is Natasha.”
Natasha, Boris’s mother, blinked as she looked at him. Then, she started laughing. Before Boris could react, she pulled him into a hug. He felt a few teardrops splash against the top of his head.
“You’re back. I missed you so much,” his mother murmured, as she held him tightly and stroked his hair. Boris wriggled his arms and legs as he tried to squirm out of his mother’s grasp, but after a few moments, his mother released him from the suffocating hug. Then, before he could react, she reached over and kissed his forehead, before she pulled him back into a hug.
Boris stopped wriggling, although he felt very confused. His brain had been a bit weird for the last few months, but he wasn’t sure why his mother was acting like he had died and he had just returned from the grave.
He scratched his head again in confusion. Had he been sick? But he didn’t remember any symptoms of being sick. He hadn’t been stuck in bed waiting for a [Doctor] or [Organic Mage] to come fix him, and he hadn’t been so sick he kept puking or coughing, either. He didn’t remember any illness-related symptoms at all, in fact. All he really remembered was wearing a few different enchanted rings, and wanting to farm, and he vaguely remembered his mother freaking out when some kind of [Farmer] ring hadn’t worked the way it was supposed to when he wore it?
Boris scratched his head one final time, and then shrugged. His mother was clearly just being weird. Still, she got like that sometimes when she talked about dad, too. Even if he wasn’t quite sure what was happening, he leaned into his mother’s arms and gave her a firm hug back.
* * *
The [King] of Illvaria felt something strange ripple through his lands. It wasn’t something he could physically see, and it wasn’t something he could directly observe with his Perks, either. However, he certainly felt it when one of his Perks started telling him that the lands he governed weren’t so sick anymore. For months, Illvaria had felt as if it were plagued by some kind of blight. The people were sick, the monsters were working together and performing actions they never would have in the past, and the environment was growing increasingly strange and hostile.
Now, at the very least, it felt as if some kind of miraculous [Organic Mage] had somehow mass-healed most of Illvaria. He realized that strange girl that Ethan had been parading around for months had done something. After all, they had gone on a mission to fix things. The mission she had gone on, to figure out what was wrong and fix things, must have succeeded.
Of course, there was more to the story that he wasn’t certain of. The System itself had broken down, and while he had gotten a good chunk of the story, and could infer more, there would probably always be bits and pieces of information at the Immortals chose not to share with him. However, he didn’t mind that. The kingdom of Illvaria had always had a policy of granting its Immortals and powerful Mages a fairly high degree of freedom, so long as they didn’t do anything evil or break major laws. That was part of why the country of Illvaria had succeeded as an institution, in his opinion. The Sun Knight alone had proven just how much value an Immortal could provide to a country, if the Immortal was loyal and worked to protect the crown. In seven centuries, the Sun Knight had even protected the country against many threats, and not all of them had been external. The Sun Knight had occasionally worked to mitigate the damage from an incompetent [King] or [Queen], and from the perspective of modern history, the [King] believed that the Sun Knight had never once failed the trust that the original founder-[King] of the country had vested in him. Failing to take action might not give him the same power and influence that changing world history could, if he interfered with the restoration of the System itself and somehow inserted himself into the process - but the [King] of Illvaria believed that sometimes, ignorance was best for the safety of his people and future of Illvaria.
He just hoped the other [Kings], [Queens], [Emperors], and [Empresses] of the world had the same attitude. Since the System itself had somehow broken, and Alice had somehow gone to successfully fix it, it was best to just leave it alone. The past few months had already proven just how bad things could get without the guiding hand of the System to keep the world safe.
Then, the [King] sighed. That was probably just wishful thinking. He would need to make some plans for the future - but that could wait until the Immortals returned. He would consult with them first, and see what information they were willing to share and what they thought they needed.
Either way, at the very least, the apocalypse had halted. There were remaining problems to clean up - all kinds of them, in fact. But the world itself no longer felt like it was sinking towards destruction.
The [King] smiled, and decided that he also needed to figure out some kind of reward for Ethan’s new apprentice. Ethan had been trying to push that girl to Immortality, right? He could give her something related to that, then. Perhaps a high level [Teacher] to help her make the final push to Immortality…
It would also do some good in cementing any loyalty she might have towards Illvaria. The [King] was at least somewhat confident that people born in Illvaria would want to stay in the country, since it was always easier to work with a country you had grown up in, compared to making a new life in a totally foreign country. However, loyalty was a fickle thing, and Alice hadn’t had centuries to prove her loyalty yet. Rewards were important to make sure people still wanted to be part of your country and help it succeed.
The Illvarian [King] smiled as he thought of Illvaria gaining another Immortal, blissfully unaware of the fact that almost every base assumption his future plans were built on were completely wrong.
* * *
Illa felt it the moment the world changed. Something… corrected itself. It was as if there had been something missing from the world, and it had returned. The Perk that Illa had relied upon before things got crazy stopped incessantly whispering of hidden dangers to her. For the first time in months, the hidden threats in the world around her had lessened instead of growing. Illa grinned.
Illa couldn’t see the unique types of mana that Alice could interact with, but she still had a fairly good idea what had changed. The System had probably just returned.
She had a pleasant breakfast as she waited for other reports to start coming in. Her Perks told her that the danger had passed, but she wanted to see a few more reports to make sure she wasn’t completely off the mark. There was nothing more dangerous than bad intelligence when one was trying to act as a leader.
A few hours later, reports started to trickle in. People were recovering from Class madness as well, even those who didn’t have any kind of related ring for their more obscure Classes. When people tried to select new Perks, instead of garbled messes of disjointed words, they were now legible again, even without any of the enchanted rings distributed by Cecilia’s subordinate enchanters. Even if people didn’t use one of the ‘Class Rings’, such as the [Farmer] Class ring that had been entrusted to the town of Cyra, they could now seemingly level up safely again. It was only a few hours of test results, so there could be some kind of nasty surprise waiting for them down the line… but Illa suspected there was not.
Alice had come through. She had done it.
She made her way out of her manor and towards the local Church of the System, where she quickly met with Father Friedheim.
“Is the System back online?” Illa asked the local [Priest of the System].
“Everything seems to be in working order again. The Great and Almighty System has returned from abandoning us,” said Father Friedheim. “Plenty have recovered from Class madness as well. Most of the former madmen seem a little bit confused about what has happened over the past few weeks… but they’re better now.” Then, Father Friedheim laughed. “It seems that we will no longer need to engage in special [Willpower] training exercises, either - though I suspect that plenty of people who got hurt during the chaos will want to keep the Classes going.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” said Illa. There had still been far too many losses for her liking, but at least things were stabilized again. They could explore the new chaos and work to fix things now that half of the workforce wasn’t going completely mad.
“It’s just a shame that most of the recolonization effort has collapsed,” said father Friedheim, before he sighed. “The abandonment of the System hit the towns of the south very hard. The monsters are more dangerous, too. Based on what I’ve heard, the monsters are still just as intelligent and cooperative as before.”
Illa sighed. Cyra had survived, since it was the harvesting site for one of the more important enchanting materials to keep people safe after the collapse of the System. A good amount of funds and manpower had been poured into keeping the area afloat.
The same could not be said for any of the other towns in the south. The southern recolonization effort was dead, and with how many people died, Illa doubted another attempt would be possible for the next several decades. As much as she wanted to celebrate the return of the System, it wasn’t like every single disaster related to it had cleared up overnight. Humans could safely level up and interact with mana again, or at that’s what her reports seemed to show. However, plenty of other problems remained.
Still, at least they had the tools to fight back now. People needing to avoid levelling up without an appropriate class-related ring, as well as the manpower devoted to handling those with class-madness, had both seriously hindered efforts to handle other problems. Things weren’t perfect, but she had a strong suspicion that at the very least, they would survive. Recovery would take time… but there was a future to look forward to again.
* * *
Vellin, an adventurer from Fendrallia, stared at the giant swamp, and frowned.
Over the past few months, the swamp had been… different. Apparently, several months ago, some Immortals from Illvaria had come by and killed ‘The Heart of the Swamp,’ a legendary monster that was apparently responsible for making the swamp grow larger and deadlier. After they killed it, the swamp had noticeably shrunk… for a while.
Two days ago, everyone who had suffered from Class Madness had spontaneously recovered. While their memories were often a little hazy, they were back to normal, so clearly something had changed for the better - probably related to that little Immortal that had passed by a few months ago.
Unfortunately, things hadn’t totally changed. People being able to pick Perks again and no longer suffering from Class mana madness had certainly made things dozens of times better - but the swamp hadn’t fully retreated. It hadn’t returned to the way it was before. The swamps were dangerous now. New monsters had appeared in the swamp. The swamp itself sometimes even felt alive, even though Vellin knew he must be imagining things. The monsters in the swamp were far more dangerous than before. They were stronger, faster, and worst of all, better at hiding. Even more frustrating, some of them seemed smarter than they used to be - and they could work together to hem in adventurers and force them into more and more dangerous positions if they weren’t careful.
He shook his head, and inspected the bag of dream flowers he had collected. They were useful as an enchanting material, and one of the local enchanters had asked him to fetch them - and foolishly, he had agreed, thinking that with the other calamities slowly dwindling down, he would have an easier time delving into the swamps again. He’d believed that the chaos was finally settling.
Things were getting better, but there was still a lot of new crises that had appeared in the world, even though they were much smaller in scope. Healing and rebuilding would be a slow and difficult process.
He sighed. At the very least, monsters no longer pulled crazy stunts like the time several months ago when they had besieged and nearly broken into the capital of Fendrallia. A relief force from Morendia had alleviated that siege, but it had nearly been an extinction event for the entire country. He didn’t even want to think about some countries in the Shil Confederacy that had simply stopped existing during the crisis. A few countries, like Illvaria, had gotten by with relatively few casualties - but plenty of countries had faced such devastating losses that they had basically ceased functioning or existing at all.
Things had certainly improved over the last few days… but it was a new and dangerous world. Vellin just hoped that he had what it took to survive and thrive in it.