Chapter Text
A new day in the game. A new fight to complete missions on a daily basis. In the Golden House Domain, Lumine wielded her sword and watched as the boss harbinger in front of her turned into the second stage. Lumine eyed half-cautiously of the repeated scene, almost mind straying. How many times, she wondered, had she fought with him like this?
Teyvat Online is a VR MMORPG game established by The Seven Company. Players can build their own characters to explore the world of Teyvat. The main gameplay is to explore this word, but players are free to choose how they want to play, and the system will automatically modify missions according to the roles and regions. Lumine planned to travel around the world after graduation. She chose to be an adventurer and traveler as she heard the sceneries were adapted from different views from the real world. Like many other adventurers, she had encountered an NPC called Childe during her journey in the game. This character turned out to be one of the harbingers from the antagonized organization, who was now also called as the lord of the Golden House by players.
Suddenly, the boss froze in the air as Lumine’s vision glitched. Childe’s transformation to the final stage resumed a few seconds later like slow motion in the movie. Lumine took several steps away from the enemy and mentally took notes to buy a better game device some time to prevent game stuck.
“Alright, I know you won’t respond to my words…” Lumine sighed and watched the boss transform slowly like a powerpoint show. “You are just playing your role and doing your job according to your codes, so I won’t hold grudge against you… but I really want a pet narwhal.”
The narwhal Lumine mumbled about is a pet gadget that will toggle around the player when used. It can be received as a battle drop after defeating the lord of the Golden House. But to her dismay, the narwhal drop rate is extremely low. It had been so long since her first battle with the harbinger.
“Everyone I know who plays the game had obtained a narwhal by now. Aether, Kazuha, Xiao, Diona, Collei… and even that unlucky Bennet has one now. I really don’t know what happened to me. Sometimes I doubt if I’m the only one who doesn’t have this gadget now.”
Lumine continued to mumble to herself, not expecting any responses. She watched and waited for the boss to finish his transformation, but her vision twitched again and glittered like old TV screens. Lumine blinked several times to see if it was some glitch issue or serious game stuck. The boss was still floating in front of her for his transformation, how did this take so long to finish?
“But you won’t come back if I reward you.”
More to her surprise, the boss harbinger responded to her with articulate language and halted the transformation. He landed gently on the floor, armor disappearing as he walked slowly toward her. Lumine held up her sword in defense and took a step back instinctively, watching him with narrowed eyes, putting her guards up.
Is this a bug? Something wrong? But it has never happened before. Why does the game boss character talk to her?
“Ah, sorry. I mean no harm.” Childe raised his hands innocently, “I just want to talk. You know, I‘ve watched countless battles here. Sometimes players come to me alone, sometimes they work as a team. At first, players will study my skills. They analyze and predict my moves and work together to defeat me. One battle may take 20 minutes. But as players become stronger, a twenty-minute battle was shortened to a few minutes.”
Lumine continued to listen without lowering her guard. She had heard about how The Seven built characters based on people in real life. For example, the Unusual Hilichurl is a reference to the president of Celestia headquarter. Maybe some programmers had typed some additional codes to simulate the real-life Childe’s personalities?
“Most of players just want to defeat me at first, but sooner or later they will all fight me for the narwhal. You know the gadget drop rate is low, so players have to come back again and again.” The boss harbinger laughed and continued, “But when I think it’s time to reward them for their persistence, they would never return to this domain.”
“That’s kind of sad…” Lumine whispered in a low voice.
“But that’s realistic, isn’t it?” He spoke nonchalantly as if he didn’t care about the fact he was left behind, as if he was talking about the weather, “I can give you the narwhal, traveler. But will you come back?”
“I will. I won’t just leave you here.” Lumine answered immediately.
What am I thinking? He’s just a game enemy character. Even if he’s modeled after some real person… She mentally clapped her face. Don’t empathize with your enemy!
The lord of Golden House was taken aback. He looked surprised and widened his eyes, much unlike an NPC enemy. Just as Lumine was about to say something as an explanation for her previous reply, the boss harbinger gave her a devilish grin. “That’s good to hear. Shall we continue the battle?”
And then everything went back to normal. The boss Childe teleported back to the center of the Golden House and finished his transformation. He then charged her with electro infused polearm in hand.
“Now this will make you cost—”
******
“You win… this battle…”
The last part of the battle went quite smoothly. Adventurer Lumine defeated domain boss enemy Childe quickly just like how she did in the past weeks. She watched the figure of boss harbinger dissipate as she had seen many times before and wondered if the glitched conversation was merely an illusion in bewilderment. But when she touched the ley line blossom for her reward, she indeed found a gadget of a small blue narwhal.
*****
At the Liyue branch of The Seven company, Ajax took off his game helmet and breathed. It was such a surprising experience to log in to this account after so long.
It was a day during his business trip in Liyue when he suddenly felt the urge to log in Teyvat Online as Childe. And it was a surprise he found himself in the middle of a battle and a traveler talking to him. Ajax couldn’t do anything during the system adjustment, so he listened to her words to kill some time.
It turned out she was almost complaining, much to his surprise.
And Ajax decided to make some fun of the player. He manually paused the transformation and walked to her, talking to this player as Childe just to see her reaction.
As one of the top managers at the Snezhnaya branch of The Seven company, he had participated in the game development and build. As a benefit, he obtained a backdoor account for the domain boss Childe who was the game special enemy modeled after him. He can control the lord of Golden House like a playable character when he logged in. Ajax found being an antagonist quite thrilling to fight different players, especially when he managed to defeat his opponents. Unfortunately, many players had responded in the questionnaire that Boss Childe was too hard to defeat. Some also complained that Childe was too aggressive, and they can hardly dodge his attacks. What’s worse, the boss Childe only appears during a certain time period during a week whether he logs in or not. Many players have to wait for another round or another day if they fail a battle. The company had to moderate the codes and weaken Childe to make the battle easier, much to Ajax’s dismay. He still enjoyed playing Childe with limited moves and reflexes but felt less rewarding as the players became stronger while Childe stayed the same. But on the other hand, it wasn’t like he would hang there as a boss character all the time. He had a normal game account anyway.
As expected, her startled and alerted expression was quite satisfying. He hadn’t got something rewarding from this account for a while, so he continued talking. Talking about how Childe was left behind.
It would be a lie if Ajax doesn’t feel anything about it, but the logical part of him had urged him to move forward. It’s only logical to leave weaker ones behind and challenge stronger opponents. And he couldn’t help but feel glad for those who had finally defeated Childe after several rounds. Congratulations. You’ve become stronger.
But to his surprise, the female traveler replied to him without hesitation and totally caught him off guard. “I will. I won’t just leave you here.”
That’s some lines usually shared between partners, right?
Ajax took a second to remember the job of a domain boss enemy. He returned his acting as the harbinger and resumed the battle. The traveler dodged most of his attacks and the battle was quickly finished as expected.
The ID Viatrix seemed familiar. Ajax was certain he had seen it somewhere, so he quickly signed out to search. It didn’t take long before he found her as a well-known blogger who posted detailed walkthrough blogs and videos of Teyvat Online. Viatrix’s walkthroughs were inclusive of game career selections, material collection and enemies’ confrontation. Of course, an extremely detailed explanation of Childe’s skills and moves was also included. She had started playing the game since its open beta. Viatrix had been invited to some game official events of Teyvat Online, that’s why he found this name familiar.
A new trend was posted just several minutes ago. Finally got my narwhal today! So happy!! (๑>◡<๑) With a game screenshot of her petting the small blue mammal.
It was then something hit him. Ajax clicked “subscribe” on Viatrix’s page and thought for a minute. He then quickly entered the administration system and added a few new codes for the domain boss.
Maybe one day I can see you somewhere in real life. He thought in amusement.
******
“Hey Lumine, you still going to the domain of Golden House? Didn’t you obtain the narwhal already?” Aether asked curiously.
It was the time period when that boss harbinger would appear in the Golden House. Aether had heard Lumine complaining several times about not getting a certain gadget. He also helped his sister fight that boss several times and even got one himself. He still remembered Lumine’s pitiful face when he asked if she got one and showed her his own after their teamed battle. Lumine even swung her whale plush at him, shouting “Tidal elegy attack! Give me that narwhal!” Unfortunately, gadget items like the narwhal are not allowed for trading in the game, otherwise he would give it to her the moment he got one.
Aether also won’t forget how she cried out with delight and relief when she finally obtained her own. She ran and hugged her twin and Paimon so tightly that almost hurt.
“Yeah. I just want to go.” Lumine answered.
“Okay.”
Their white ragdoll Paimon meowed and nudged her leg. Lumine couched down, gave Paimon a gentle ruffle of her hair, and scratched her chin. Paimon purred in satisfaction and laid down by her side. Lumine hummed and pulled the cat closer in a hug, wrapping her arms around Paimon’s small body and tucking her fluffy head under her chin.
“Lumine… You look happy recently. Did something good happen?”
“Oh, I just felt flattered by my luck and blog kudos.” She released Paimon and put on her game helmet.
To say Lumine was flattered was an understatement.
After obtaining the narwhal, Lumine still visited the Golden House in the game. At first, she felt stupid for her promise to a virtual game boss. But a promise is a promise, Lumine pondered whether she should keep it and return to the domain at least once, just to be thankful for the gadget drop. However, ever since that battle, she can find a narwhal in the ley line blossom every time she defeated the harbinger.
This isn’t really necessary. Thank you Childe but I don’t need these many narwhals… It’s not like I can use them all or put them in the Teyvat home…
But nothing else strange happened. Everything had gone back to normal. No glitches, no slow motions of transformation, except for the drops of narwhals. Lumine was sure the conversation between Childe and her was not an illusion, so she waited for the day when the glitches occurred again.
Lumine didn’t share this experience with anyone, not even Aether. She kept this a secret and wished maybe someday, the glitch would occur again, and she could talk to Boss Childe (or the one behind Boss Childe). She wanted to say thank you, or maybe just ask him not to send her too many narwhals.
Or maybe someday, she would find the one behind Childe in real life.