In the Land of Leadale - Volume 8 - Chapter Pr

The Story Thus Far

After a terrible accident left her permanently confined to a hospital bed, Keina Kagami enjoyed the only life still open to her within the VRMMORPG Leadale. Unfortunately, however, she died one day after a power surge short-circuited the equipment keeping her alive. A split second later, Keina woke up in an unfamiliar room and realized with shock that she looked just like her high elf avatar, Cayna.

After talking with the young girl Lytt, who had come to wake her and her mother, the inn proprietress Marelle, Keina was dumbfounded to discover this world was similar to Leadale except two hundred years in the future. Relieved to still have her AI support, Kee, Keina decided to embrace this new life and live as her avatar Cayna.

First, Cayna reawakened her Guardian Tower and, at the Guardian’s request, decided to set out on an international journey to rouse the other dormant towers. However, her basic knowledge of this world was iffy at best. It was Elineh, the kobold leader of a merchant caravan, and Arbiter, the captain of the Flame Spear mercenaries hired to protect them, who showed Cayna the ropes after the three met in the remote village.

In the royal capital of Felskeilo, Cayna registered with the Adventurers Guild. It wasn’t long before an old knight named Agaido and his granddaughter Lonti personally asked her to catch a young boy darting around town who, as it turned out, happened to be Felskeilo’s runaway prince. In addition to receiving compensation from Agaido, Cayna also gained the support of the aristocracy.

Cayna next set out to meet her three children: the High Priest Skargo, the Royal Academy headmistress Mai-Mai, and the master shipbuilder Kartatz. She managed to reunite with Kartatz first, but it was no easy feat. Thrilled by their first interaction in this world, Cayna mentioned that she had joined the Adventurers Guild and told him not to be a stranger.

Kartatz later held a telepathic family meeting with Skargo and Mai-Mai to let them know Cayna was in the capital. As Kartatz and Mai-Mai discussed what they could do for their mother, they also kept a concerned eye on their eldest brother Skargo’s wild antics.

As Cayna learned her way around the city, she reunited with Mai-Mai while on a Guild request and was stunned to learn her daughter was married. Later on, she visited the Battle Arena as part of a different request and discovered it was the location of another Guardian Tower. Her heart swelled with excitement, but this all came crashing down when the tower’s smoky Guardian disclosed the parting words and disappearance of its Skill Master.

As Cayna grappled with the shocking realization that she was the only player left in this world, her eldest, Skargo, fired up his skill effects and rushed to her side. However, one uppercut from his confused mother sent the High Priest headfirst into the ceiling. Cayna erected an impenetrable barrier around herself, so Mai-Mai and Kartatz had no choice but to collect their brother and leave her be.

Afterward, Skargo went wild for a completely different reason that sent Mai-Mai off the deep end. The two began to shoot ferocious spells at each other, and a sibling battle quickly broke out. As Kartatz rushed to escape the violence, he spotted his mother (who had locked herself away) buying street food without a care in the world, and he couldn’t help but miserably wonder what the heck the three of them had been so worried about.

Cayna subdued the family feud and apologized for neglecting her children. All three forgave her with smiles, and everyone vowed to come together and be a happy family once more.

Elineh then asked Cayna to escort his caravan as a guard, and they prepared to head for Helshper to the north. Mai-Mai came to see her mother off and asked Cayna to deliver a letter. She willingly accepted, but little did Cayna know of the pandemonium it would stir within her only a few days later.

The caravan stopped by a remote village on the way, and Cayna rescued the mermaid Mimily, who had become lost in the underground waterways. Once the situation was cleared up and everyone was back on the road, they came to a fallen bridge. Luckily, Cayna cast a spell that allowed everyone to walk on water and make it to the other side.

At the fortress along the national border, they were “warmly” welcomed by a group of bandits from the west. However, Cayna and the Flame Spears made short work of them and safely arrived in Helshper.

While in the city, Cayna visited a shop called Sakaiya to deliver Mai-Mai’s letter. It was addressed to the company’s founder, Caerick, who happened to be Mai-Mai’s son and, by extension, Cayna’s grandson. After a slight disagreement, Cayna ran out of the shop in a huff and met a female knight who was investigating the incident at the border. Her name was Caerina, and Cayna’s inner turmoil reached new heights upon the realization she was twice a grandmother.

Cayna stopped by the Adventurers Guild and then decided to ask Caerick for his help, despite earlier tensions. Elineh had mentioned the location of a possible Guardian Tower in bandit territory, and she was dying to check it out.

A group of rock golems attacked the knights just as Cayna arrived on the front lines, but she managed to step in and save them from the brink of annihilation. As a show of thanks, Caerina allowed Cayna to enter the fortress. She soon found the Guardian Tower and fought one-on-one with the former demon player turned bandit leader. He believed everything was still a game until Cayna drilled the truth into him. The outmatched demon began to cry and wail as she prepared to deal the finishing blow.

At the very last second, the demon player’s life was spared by Caerina and her Helshper knights. Cayna handed him over to avoid confrontation but limited his power with a collar. It was then the demon player realized she was a Skill Master.

Inside the tower, Cayna was dumbfounded when the reawakened Guardian informed her that Opus was its appointed Skill Master. He was a former fellow guild member and pretty terrible friend, but she still hoped he was alive in this world. Opus’s air of mystery deepened further when a fairy visible only to Cayna popped out of a book the Guardian entrusted to her.

After helping her son Kartatz fix a bridge on the way back to Felskeilo, Cayna took on a hunting request for the Adventurers Guild. As she prepared to leave, she ran into Lonti and Lonti’s friend Mye. The two ended up joining Cayna and were treated to an endless series of incredible feats.

Back in Felskeilo, Lopus was desperate to replicate Cayna’s skills and tossed one of his failed experiments into a garbage pit. Unfortunately, this was both a disputed point from the game’s Battle Events and the spawn point of a monster known to drop a special item. By a stroke of unbelievable coincidence, it reacted to the contents of the pit and summoned a dolphin-headed penguin monster.

Two players sprang into action as mass chaos befell Felskeilo. Oddly enough, Shining Saber and Cohral were former guildmates who had coincidentally reunited right before the incident. The duo’s skills were sadly no match for the monster, however, and they were injured in a counterattack. Even the nation’s best mages couldn’t leave a scratch.

Thanks to Li’l Fairy’s grim intuition, Cayna sensed the danger and dealt with it from beyond the city. Struck by the full brunt of her magic, the monster vanished in a pillar of fire.

After the incident, Cayna heard the inside scoop about the game’s demise from Shining Saber and Cohral. The latter also mentioned a Guardian Tower sunken in the waters around Felskeilo, and she transferred a skill to him as a thank-you.

Cayna arrived in the remote village for a quick visit but negotiated with the elder when a sudden invitation inspired her to take up residence. She met a group of researchers from Otaloquess as well. They were accompanied by a pair of sibling adventurers who served as muscle, and the younger sister suffered a mighty defeat after picking a fight with Cayna.

After watching his sister fail, the older brother Cloffe’s demeanor instantly shifted. He fell to one knee as an emissary of Otaloquess and informed Cayna that Queen Sahalashade was her niece. She was a Foster Child of Sahana, a former member of the high elf community who was like a little sister to Cayna. Cayna turned down Cloffe’s solicitation and shuddered at how everyone she ran into seemed to have deep government ties.

Cayna returned to Felskeilo and decided to join a group of knights who set out to crush the remaining bandits. Thanks to a bit of friendly banter, the knights mistakenly got the idea she and Shining Saber were engaged.

After overcoming an ambush and leaving the knights, Cayna entered a fishing village shrouded in a suspicious fog. As she wandered the unsettling, zombie-infested hamlet, Cayna met another adventurer named Quolkeh, who had come to investigate. She and another familiar face were protecting a young girl, the village’s sole survivor, in an underground storehouse. Cayna had previously asked the two for directions in the Adventurers Guild back in Helshper, and both were confirmed players.

Quolkeh’s partner was a dragoid and an old friend from Cayna’s Cream Cheese guild back in the game. He went by Exis these days but once played a sensible character named Tartarus on his main account. As Cayna and Exis continued to catch up, the trio made every effort to safeguard the girl. Cayna summoned a butler named Roxilius to watch over her, and everyone utilized their abilities as players to make short work of the enemy. The ghost ship and its underlings crumbled away in a matter of moments.

After awakening the Dragon Palace of the Fifth Skill Master, Cayna decided to adopt the young girl who had lost her home and family. She summoned a maid named Roxine to lend a hand and brought Luka to live with her in the remote village.

Not long after their move-in date, Cayna fulfilled a longtime promise to Lytt and summoned a creature to take her and the children on a scenic flight. Along the way, she saved Arbiter and the Flame Spears from a vicious monster attack. With the help of a magical item, Cayna realized that quest enemies were lurking in the area around the village and teamed up with the Flame Spears to eliminate them. However, a simultaneous incident occurred when Luka, Lytt, and Latem sneaked out of the village on their own.

Just as a horde of monsters surrounded the children in the meadow, a White Dragon came to their rescue. Cayna had given it to Luka as a protective charm, and the beast’s breath attack left deep scars in the forest as it scattered the enemy. Cayna rushed back to the village to confirm their safety.

Cayna next headed to Sakaiya to pick up a few daily necessities. While there, she also took the opportunity to introduce her great-grandson, Idzik, to Cohral and his party, who had come to discuss a request from the Adventurers Guild. Caerick informed Cayna that a conference would be held on the national border. Back in the village, Skargo greeted his mother and announced he had come to attend the meeting as the king’s representative.

Cayna and Roxilius later worked together to bolster the village’s defenses and packed enough firepower to kill even a player in an instant.

To expand Lytt’s and Luka’s horizons, Cayna decided to bring the girls along with her to Felskeilo. Roxine accompanied them, and everyone rode together in a remodeled golem wagon alongside Elineh’s caravan. However, the rarity of Cayna’s transport had also drawn the attention of troublesome nobles, and Elineh warned that she was secretly being targeted.

Meanwhile, they arrived in Felskeilo right in the middle of the city’s River Festival. Unfortunately, the main festivities were put on hold, thanks to a large mysterious shadow spotted in the Ejidd River, and an air of confusion lingered over the town. Cayna set out to eliminate this dark phantom at the request of the Adventurers Guild.

They rented a house from Elineh’s company as a base of operations while in Felskeilo, so Cayna left the children with Roxine and another summons as she set out to investigate the river. Meanwhile, a nobleman hired an underworld organization to kidnap Cayna’s loved ones, but Roxine protected the children from harm and thoroughly walloped the punks.

Two fiends sent by an unknown source greeted the men upon their return to the hideout. These surprise visitors inflicted gruesome atrocities upon them and sent each spiraling into despair as they were twisted into grotesque works of art. When these sickly masterpieces were discovered and one revealed the name of the devilish perpetrator, the knights went on high alert.

Cayna finally uncovered the truth of the unsettling shadow, thanks to a summons from the Guardian of the Battle Arena Tower and it wasn’t long before her Guardian Ring led her to the mobile Guardian Tower that had swum upstream from the ocean. Cayna devised an outlandish plan to keep the giant white whale in Felskeilo and even used her connections to get the knights and princess involved. When all was said and done, the whale tower became a divine messenger who permanently resided upstream of the sandbar.

Finally free of their woes, Felskeilo’s citizens rejoiced as the River Festival kicked into high gear. Cayna enjoyed herself alongside the children but got into a tussle with an arrogant noble when she stopped by the Academy. Nonetheless, he didn’t stand a chance against a magical Limit Breaker/Skill Master and earned himself a hearty smackdown.

As the festive air continued into the night, a demon and his hellish lackeys attacked the noble who tried to mess with Cayna. His fate was decided by a single coin toss.

Cayna visited Kartatz’s workshop on the sandbar to thank him for the lumber she used to build her home in the remote village. While the children observed the boatbuilding process, Cayna decided to kill time and go fishing. After reeling in multiple huge catches, she finally nabbed a chimera-like monster. Cayna defeated it with ease but realized her prize was some kind of chimera Event Monster after it dropped a rare ore.

Cayna ran into Cohral and Skargo on the road back to the village but found Roxilius groveling in the entranceway upon her return. He held a single letter that simply said, “Name it.”

Realizing this command meant Li’l Fairy, Cayna named her Kuu, since she seemed like Kee’s little sister. While introducing Kuu to the villagers, Cayna was baffled to learn that fairies supposedly brought good luck. When Caerick called upon her over a matter of wholesale magical tools, she introduced Kuu to both him and Idzik and accepted his request in exchange for convenience.

At the same time, she received an urgent player-only message from Shining Saber that said monsters were attacking Felskeilo. She dashed over to Felskeilo’s east gate and quickly saved a group of soldiers who struggled to fend off ptera from the Dinosaur Series. Once Cayna pummeled these, she told everyone to take shelter and then set out to crush the main enemy forces. After going all out to curtail the monster horde, Cayna sent the crimson pig Li’l P ahead to defend the west gate against the approaching detached column.

Meanwhile, one of Otaloquess’s biggest tourist attractions, a giant tortoise, had gone wild and was headed straight for the royal castle. Knights and adventurers alike were recruited to combat this dire threat, and they decided to contact whoever lived on top of the tortoise’s shell and ask them to alter its path. Quolkeh and Exis were involved as well, thanks to a request from the Adventurers Guild. They were coincidentally joined by an old dwarf named Hidden Ogre, who also happened to be a Skill Master, and the trio entered the building atop the tortoise’s back. Inside was a TV studio. A delinquent Buddha Guardian recognized them as game show contestants and initiated a slow, agonizing trial. Quolkeh lost halfway through, but Exis and Hidden Ogre managed to answer correctly within the time limit. The giant tortoise stopped within a hair’s breadth of Otaloquess’s castle.

Elsewhere, Felskeilo was still under attack, and an incident broke out when a peculiar monster took control of the knights and pitted them against the adventurers. However, the adventurers had long tired of the knights’ daily arrogance, and with a little instigation from Arbiter (who had also joined the fray), they incapacitated the knights by venting their pent-up grievances. Cayna soon made her entrance with Li’l P and exterminated the monster mastermind.

Cayna set up a meeting with Skargo (who had retreated to the rearguard in the previous battle) but was taken aback when the royal family decided to join them. The king and queen thanked her for watching over the prince and princess and defending the capital. Hoping to learn more about Opus’s whereabouts, Cayna questioned Skargo about the Night Sanctuary from Kuu’s memories. Unfortunately, it was all for naught.

However, after reviewing her own memories and realizing she’d misheard the name, Cayna quickly determined his location. She and Opus had built a dungeon as a way to mess with new players, and Cayna was surprised to find a village for would-be challengers had built up around it in present-day Otaloquess

In Otaloquess, Cayna ran into the werecat siblings Cloffe and Clofia, whom she’d first met back in the remote village. They decided to tag along for some reason, and the four (Kuu included) descended into the dungeon. Along the way, Clofia’s attitude did a sudden one-eighty when her brother mentioned that Cayna was the aunt of her beloved queen. Clofia’s subsequent guilt led her straight into a trap.

Cayna blasted through each dungeon floor to save her and finally arrived at bottommost level. However, a midboss demon stood in her way. In the heat of battle, his careless words triggered Cayna’s trauma and sent her into a blind fury. She vanquished the demon with a simultaneous rush of Special Skills.

Then, she at last reunited with Opus in the deepest depths of the dungeon. However, his anticlimactic response sent her into yet another frenzy.

Joined by Kuu, Cayna swooped down on Opus with her most powerful spells but collapsed after the earlier Special Skills sapped her MP. Opus ironically saved her and led the group to a hidden house in a corner of the dungeon village. He then left Cayna in the care of his elf maid, Siren, and disappeared. He had secretly gone to meet the owner of a tool shop in the dungeon village who also happened to be a former player. The two vowed to cooperate someday and soon parted.

Cayna took a leisurely wagon trip back to the remote village, but Opus hit her with a number of gut-wrenching revelations along the way.

For instance, he said that the VRMMO Leadale was created specifically for Keina. Not only that, he added that Cayna came to this world right after her physical death and had been sleeping in that dungeon for two hundred years prior to being tossed into the village inn. The game system had also synchronized with Cayna’s soul while she was napping, and Kuu actually controlled the subsystem. Incidentally, Cayna noticed how suspiciously friendly Kee and Opus acted around each other, but the two brushed off all questions.

Meanwhile, Caerina visited the former player/bandit leader, who now labored in the mines, and invited him to become a soldier.

After returning to the remote village, Cayna introduced Opus and Siren to Roxilius, Roxine, and Luka. Siren harshly disciplined the Double Rs for their constant bickering, accused both of neglecting their duties, and soon became head maid of Cayna’s household. The village held a welcome banquet for Opus, where he and Cayna served as the night’s entertainment.

The next day, Opus explained to Cayna how the game world became connected to this present one. She later flew with Luka to Opus’s tower. Because of this, there was no doubt the game system allowed Cayna to form a party with Luka and any other average person.

Once Cayna and her group arrived in Helshper, Siren informed them via telepathy that Helshper knights had come to the village. Cayna later reunited with Elineh and Arbiter at the inn and introduced them to Opus before heading off to the castle. Opus instead brought Kuu and Luka with him to the Adventurers Guild, and the three ran into Quolkeh and Exis. Opus wasted no time teasing the dragoid, just like in the good old days.

When Cayna reached the castle, Caerina led her to the knights and said she had invited the former bandit leader/player to join their number. She asked Cayna to remove his Punishment Collar so he could operate at full capacity.

After Cayna removed the collar of the demon player/ex-bandit leader Luvrogue and mercilessly toyed with him as payback, she left Helshper alongside Elineh’s caravan. After hearing about a tourney, she asked Opus about remotely broadcasting the event with a magic item. Sadly, Cayna couldn’t believe her ears when she heard that their guild base, which had stored a plethora of useful items, had been destroyed on the game’s final day.

For a brief moment, Cayna and Opus enjoyed life in the peaceful remote village with their respective servants. Then, one day, Cayna made up her mind to upgrade an item known as a Pair of Eyes, which could display images from one Eye to another. This would allow multiple villagers to enjoy distant sight and sound. She checked each tower’s Item Box for a projector, a special accessory item that could display visuals from a Pair of Eyes on a large screen and also play sound.

While switching from one tower to the next, Cayna noticed something odd about the mobile tortoise tower. It was a mere step away from Otaloquess Castle. Just as she was about to try to move it, Sahalashade, the Foster Child of the player Cayna had considered a little sister, jumped from the castle. The two reunited for the first time in two hundred years, and Opus and Cayna worked together to transport the tortoise successfully to the dungeon village.

Both the issue of the tortoise and the Pair of Eyes were finally resolved, and Cayna later heard from Skargo that the tourney would soon begin. Her troubles only grew when her fears came true and Opus decided to enter.

Cayna next took on a request for the Adventurers Guild, and the tourney launched safely (?) after she prevented a few disgraceful players from slipping in.

Even so, when players Shining Saber and Cohral went head-to-head with the ultimate swords they’d received from Cayna, the aftermath destroyed the Battle Arena and subsequently ruined the tourney.

Then, a young man who had been harboring a deep grudge against Opus since the Game Era appeared with a group of summoned beasts. He commanded them to attack the demon, but none listened to a word he said, since Cayna was their original creator. His revenge against Opus failed miserably.

A temporary festival replaced the tourney, and peace returned to the capital…