A thousand notifications split over Emilia’s vision, ranging from congratulations on surviving the raid, to a final step count, to friend requests from her new, northern friends.

  Realistically, she knew she should look at them. Most likely, there were at least a few things in those notifications that would be important. She should look at them. She couldn’t make herself.

  Rather, everything within her felt like it was cracking apart. Grief—so much grief.

  Grief for the friends she had made inside the raid, whose fates she would never know. Concern for Astra, who she may never hear from again. Heartbreak for Caro, their little life snuffed out too soon, and all because of her.

  If she had said no, way back at the Risen Guard compound—demanded they stay there—they probably wouldn’t have died. If she hadn’t attacked Conrad’s family, perhaps they wouldn’t have destroyed Livery.

  Maybe.

  A part of her knew that wasn’t a given, and Hyr had made it clear as they spoke, in the short time they had together before Caro’s death, that their fate had been sealed long ago. How long, how sealed, the syn either hadn't known, or simply hadn’t said.

  There was that, and the gnawing knowledge that she had seen the cruelty in the eyes of Conrad’s family—his sister and brother, in particular.

  Breathing—as much as one could breathe in the simulated environment of the Virtuosi System, where she was lingering before either being forcibly ejected by Payton or leaving of her own accord, assuming he was done fucking with her knots—she tried to remember what she had thought in Livery, in the labyrinth, and the city that came after that. That family would have destroyed a city eventually, would have maimed and killed countless people for a weapon—for the fun of it. She might have been the catalyst, but they would have harmed the world somewhere, no matter what.

  It made a difference. It made no difference at all.

  People were dead, and her involvement had meant those people—that child—were the ones to lose their lives.

  So many lives affected by that stupid fucking raid—by raids in general. It made Emilia’s blood boil, and she had to force herself not to pull up Helix’s message logs about the state of Hail’s alterations to her training system. Later, when she wasn’t liable to use what she saw as more kindling for the fire burning inside her. Dealing with Hail—because she couldn’t just leave all the multitude of questions that had arisen over the last few virtual weeks unanswered—could wait.

  Chances were whatever they were doing wasn’t completely new—although she really hoped if they’d connected the real aether to the virtual raids, it had only been done after Helix left Hail, five weeks earlier. If not—if he had been there and let this happen—there was a chance she was going to kill him.

  Mentally shaking herself, knowing that mourning Caro and all her friends could wait until she was back in her physical body, Emilia began sorting through all her notifications.

  The easiest were the friend requests, which admittedly, she hadn’t even realized were a thing—she’d been expecting contact information to be exchanged through Hetexia, not the raid system itself. A part of her said it wasn’t something people could do in every raid, but she had no idea how accurate that was.

  Then, her Censor told her it was accurate.

  How… strange. To have a Censor again. To have forgotten that it would pop in with answers when she needed them, no prompting needed.

  It had only been a few weeks, and yet, it felt like getting used to this world again might very well take longer than living without a Censor and her skills had, especially since she had come to rely so heavily on her core within the raid. Well, she’d always wanted to see how much fucking around was needed to make Censors accept core usage from regular Baalphorians. There was a chance she’d be using what remained of her allowed Virtuosi hours hacking the thing—it was long overdue anyways.

  Accepting the friend requests from Hyr and Zyrex—and immediately getting another message from the former, asking if she had arrived back in this world alright—Emilia shifted to looking over the rest of her notifications. Dutifully, she sent Hyr back a message that she had, but was heartbroken. The syn replied that they were the same, and were looking forward to getting out of the Virtuosi System after they got through all their notifications.

  Even without hearing their voice, Emilia could hear it, annoyed and lilting as they sighed and bemoaned the notifications. It was sweet, and strange. It had been so long since she’d made a new friend, someone who continued messaging her with little things as they mutually sorted through all their ridiculous notifications.

  Then—

  [Hyr: Did you receive a message about a gift from the system admin?]

  As she still had several hundred notifications to get through, Emilia sent back a message that she wasn’t sure yet, along with a complaint about how many notifications this stupid raid had on exit. Yes, a bunch of them were notifications about rewards, but for the most part, she had no particular need for what they were giving her. Sure, she had a virtual space that she could decorate with some of the ridiculous, virtual decor items, but for the most part, the rewards were simply transferable to other raids run by the company who managed the world of {A Life (not) in the Stars}.

  A list of compatible raids popped up, none of which Emilia recognized by name, nor did she have any intention to join them. Instead, she fired off messages to her various, raid inclined friends, asking if anyone played these raids and wanted her shit. Despite the early hour, it didn’t take long for a few to message back.

  Sil was first, telling her he’d take a few, as he played one of their low-key, life sims occasionally, as well as asking where in the stars she’d gotten them. Emilia sent back a quick message, telling him she’d fill him in later—as much as she could message him the whole situation, this felt like something that should be spoken about face to face.

  A few of their local raid friends responded as well, claiming a few more rewards for this or that raid. Everyone was so polite, asking for only a few things, all of which Emilia sent along immediately so she wouldn’t have to deal with it again. Still, she had so many items, and she decided to give it until that evening. If no one else—none of her old friends, people she hadn’t contacted in a decade, mostly—asked, she’d tell those who had to divvy everything else up between them.

  Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

  Eyes trailing over the names of friends she hadn’t spoken to in forever, Emilia tried not to worry that it wasn’t just the early hour keeping them from replying—that it wasn't them being offended she’d fucked off for so long. It would be fair, if that was why they weren’t responding. Stars knew she deserved their ire, for avoiding them for so long.

  It still hurt, and as she continued on, her eyes burned, and she let out an exasperated groan, annoyed that she allowed tears in this world. Some people turned on settings that forbid crying, because even in virtual form, it hurt—unless you turned off pain sensors as well, anyways. Emilia never had, for the simple fact that when she wanted to sob, disappearing into her mind was often the easiest option, even if experiencing emotions in the real world was always a bit more cathartic—hence the waiting to mourn Caro and her friends once she left this place.

  More and more items sorted between her piles of keep and fucking get rid of, too many useless achievement notifications that gave her nothing but a growing sense of annoyance, Emilia finally reached the last few dialogs, their content hidden behind a wall privacy, as though waiting for her full attention to reveal themselves.

  The moment the first did, she knew why: they were actually important.

  [Congratulations! You have won first prize in {A Life (not) in the Stars}!]

  [Your prize will be available before noon today!]

  [If you encounter any problems, please contact us!]

  [Please note: Your tickets to Ship’o Stars may be redeemed on any available cruise in the next three months!]

  [Please note: You can check our availability here!]

  So many exclamation points, but also, how had she won? Yes, she’d been a part of the final push to end the blood curse, when she and the others had followed Carne’s directions and activated their {Blood Marbles} at the same time. Emilia had seen it, in those fleeting moments before she was pulled from the world: something had changed. That was great, but she was also pretty sure that wasn’t what had won the raid, particularly because Hyr had been a part of that as well, and a quick message to them told her they hadn’t won anything. Not even a lower prize.

  So, why?

  Did the why matter? Not really.

  Still, she wanted—no, needed!—to know!

  A query to her Censor—mostly because it had been bothering her to use it again—told her she hadn’t received any information on why she’d won, which was annoying. Seriously, it was going to bother her forever if she didn’t figure it out.

  Emilia had barely thought about it before she sent a message off to the person she now knew V to be, questioning both their mental state—it wasn’t like they’d sent her any messages, despite exiting the raid shortly before her—and whether their hacking skills could learn why the fuck she had won!? Did it feel strange to ask someone she had partially taught how to hack if he knew or could figure it out? Yes, but also, given what the man had revealed during the raid, it seemed that he’d already been hacking into the company that maintained the raid, trying to figure out when it would run again. Better to go straight to someone who already had a door into the company, rather than figure it out herself.

  Then, of course, the mild panic she had about not having heard from the man yet began to boil as her message went unanswered.

  It was fine. The guy probably just got distracted. His mental state had been fine before his in-game death, so surely it would be fine now, right?

  Annoyingly, Emilia wasn’t completely convinced of this, and instead looked over the list of available cruises. Fortunately, the note about available cruises seemed to more be legal jargon than anything—no one wanted to get caught having a full cruise when they told winners they could use their tickets anytime—and the soonest flight—the one she needed to be one—leaving late that evening, had enough openings for her tickets.

  A short conversation with whoever was responsible for booking heroes onto the cruise later—during which she convinced them to let her book spots without giving the names of anyone but herself yet, as she still had to confirm who exactly would be coming with her—their rooms were set.

  Two suites for ten people, each with their own individual room. Ship’o Stars wasn’t messing around. As much as she’d been treated like shit within the raid, they were giving her some pretty nice accommodations for a week. Of course, in theory, they would be there to make the raid more interesting for guests—employees, of a sort. Well, tracking down whatever asshole had knotted Pria could very well make their vacations pretty fucking interesting, especially if things went badly.

  Sighing and trying not to worry about what sort of mess that would be—not to mention which of her limited friends she could even talk into coming with her—Emilia flipped back to the other secretive message, the last one to go through before she could get the fuck out of there and start arranging things.

  Man, she wasn’t going to be able to sleep today, was she?

  The last notification was strange, to say the least. Where the colouring of every notification from the raid had been in tones of red and black, this one was a light purple, with glittering silver woven through it.

  It was, both surprisingly and unsurprisingly, a message from the system admin—what system admin, Emilia had no idea.

  [Congratulations, on saving that world. I know it came at a great cost to you, as well as many others along the way. While I have watched this world, and many others, for many eons, I am never quite sure of how to feel of the platform maintainer and raid designer’s manipulations. I neither want any world to be wiped from existence, nor do I enjoy watching their machinations tear apart the lives and souls of those residents of the raid, nor those of your world.]

  [There is little I can do to make this right—and before you wonder, no, I do not know how far Hail’s integration of aether is, nor how far the manipulations of the heartcores will spread or reach. I am an observer, for the most part, and touching the worlds of the raids is difficult, at best.]

  [But it is not impossible.]

  [Do not hope I can do this again. Nor am I able to tell you the path forward from here.]

  [That, you will need to figure out for yourselves, but know, your ability to utilize my gifts is closer than you realize. I have faith that you will find it, one day. Until then, mourn, but know, that grief will become happiness again, one day.]

  What?

  That was… strange, to say the least. Someone who watched over the raids—for eons, no less—but couldn’t directly interact with them? An AI who collected data on the raids, maybe?

  Emilia was still blinking into the emptiness of the Virtuosi System, wondering over the strange messages, when another notification popped up, informing her that an item in her inventory had been transformed.

  That alone was strange enough, but the item that had been transformed wasn’t one she’d been able to bring back to this world—she’d tried. Caro’s {Blood Hairclip} hadn’t been something that could be transferred back to this world, something that had broken her heart—all she’d wanted to do was have a memory of that child, their little gift to her and Hyr, with her in this virtual space.

  It hadn’t been movable, and yet, here was a notification, telling her it had been inside her inventory regardless, and was now something else entirely.

  [Notice: {Blood Hairclip.1} has been transformed into {Soul.frag.part1}]

  [Emilia: Hyr… did you?]

  [Hyr: Yes. I assume you received one as well?]

  “Yes,” Emilia replied, mind whirring as the reality—the possible reality, because she wasn’t fucking getting her hopes up for something that might not be—of what she was looking at—of what she and Hyr had been gifted—sank in.

  Fragments of a soul.

  The fragments, most likely, of Caro’s soul.

  That was… what even was that? Good? Bad?

  Good, because that meant Caro’s game soul might be transferable… somewhere. The real world? Into Virtuosi Space? Another raid?

  Bad, because Emilia had no idea how to even start figuring out what to do about it next.

  Fuck.