Astral Online: Cursed by the Demon Lord to Become the Strongest Beautiful Girl, I Rapidly Grow and Dominate with Cheat Skills Despite Being the Weakest Profession - Chapter 117
Chapter 117: Silver Rest
Before the date changed, Sora logged out and fell asleep in bed, only to have a strange dream.
The setting was a large garden in the castle of the Dragon Kingdom.
In the center of the garden sat a red-haired woman, her face buried in her hands as she wept.
A man sitting next to her, placing a comforting hand on her shoulder and offering words of solace, was someone Sora recognized.
?? It was Dragon King Otter.
Which meant that the woman crying beside him was likely Alice’s mother.
As Sora wondered why she was seeing an image that shouldn’t exist in her mind, the woman tearfully apologized to someone.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry…”
“It’s not your fault. How could it be? No one could have predicted that we’d draw the unlucky 1% chance.”
“But… you…”
“It’s all my fault. No one can blame you for falling ill over this, and I won’t let anyone do so.”
The atmosphere was heavy and serious.
Drawing the unlucky 1% chance? What could that possibly mean?
Sora was confused by the information she was receiving from the two in front of her, unable to fully grasp what was happening.
The only thing that came to mind was that this might be an important clue for a future quest.
Luckily, Sora couldn’t interfere with them, so she decided to quietly listen to their conversation.
However, the Dragon King and the Queen continued to repeat only words of apology.
“It’s not your fault,” or “It’s not your doing,” as if they were burdened by some guilt.
Just as Sora was beginning to feel at a loss over what to make of it all, someone suddenly tapped her on the shoulder from behind.
Startled, she jumped and turned around. Standing there was a beautiful red-haired woman—the model from the portrait she had seen earlier in the castle.
“I apologize for showing you such a distressing scene. It seems that when our connection was made, part of my memory was revealed to you.”
—What? No way.
The woman before her looked like an older version of Alice, with an air of refined elegance that spoke of her noble upbringing.
Sora tilted her head in confusion, glancing back and forth between the two frozen figures on the bench and the woman standing in front of him.
There was no mistaking it. This woman was unmistakably Alice’s mother.
As Sora stood there in confusion, the woman smiled gently and bowed.
“Nice to meet you, hero who brings light to the world. I am Mime Fafnir, the Queen of the Dragon Kingdom and Alice’s mother.”
“H-Hello. I’m Sora…”
Her beauty was overwhelming, but more than that, her perfectly graceful greeting left Sora momentarily flustered as she returned the greeting.
Mime raised her head and, still smiling, continued.
“Sora, the Dragon Kingdom is once again facing the threat of the Demon Dragon.”
“The threat of the Demon Dragon…”
“Yes. To overcome it, we will need your strength and the prayers of two Shrine Maidens.”
“Two Shrine Maidens… Could you possibly mean Alice and Satanas?”
“I am bound by the laws of this world and cannot explain in detail. But you are wise, Sora. I believe you will understand what needs to be done.”
As she spoke, her body began to gradually turn into particles of light, starting from her toes.
“Oh… it seems the time has come.”
“Mime… you—”
“…Hero, I am sorry for asking so much of you. Please, take care of my ‘daughter.’”
In that instant, a mechanical voice interrupted: ?Warning from the World Support System: Temporary connection with the ?Bringer of Light? through the ?Dragon Shrine Maiden? in the Real World is ending. Some information has been disclosed. It will be processed accordingly.?
A cold, robotic girl’s voice echoed around him, and Sora’s consciousness began to fade.
A powerful, irresistible force. Absolute, leaving no room for defiance, stripped her of all freedom in an instant.
Sora instinctively reached out, but her fingers could not touch Mime, who had been standing right in front of her moments ago.
Her body dissolved into particles of light, and Sora’s consciousness returned to the waking world.
……………………
“Mime-san—!”
She called out someone’s name, her right hand outstretched.
“Huh… what did I just say…”
She stared blankly at her outstretched hand, puzzled by her own strange behavior.
All she could remember was that someone had told her the Dragon Kingdom was in danger and asked her to protect the Shrine Maidens.
A vague image of someone grieving with someone else lingered in her mind, but the details were blurry, and she couldn’t make sense of it.
The only thing she could say for sure was that she felt as though she had been entrusted with something very important.
But she couldn’t remember what it was.
It would have been easy to dismiss it as just a dream, but the indescribable feeling lingering in her chest wouldn’t go away.
Sora let out a deep sigh, and since she couldn’t fall back asleep, she decided to head down to the living room on the first floor.
She quietly left her room, trying not to make any noise, and made her way down the hall and the stairs to the first floor.
Recently, Shino and Kurono had been visiting frequently, so the living room that had been lively during the day was now silent and empty at night.
There was no sign of Shiori, who would sometimes sit on the sofa, seriously flipping through fashion magazines with her keen sense of beauty.
She had mentioned recently starting a casual quest in ?Astral Online?, so she was probably in her room, fully engrossed in the game by now.
If she remembered correctly, the quest was called ?Get Them Before They Get You?, a cooking quest with a rather ominous name.
The condition to start the quest was to eat the chef’s recommended dish at a small NPC-run shop in the corner of the first capital, Yggdrasil.
There were no level restrictions, and it was an easy quest that anyone could accept.
Adventurers who accepted the quest would receive a “Cooking” skill and, from there, would face off against various chefs. By winning all the battles, they could ultimately earn the title of ?Master Chef?.
The benefits of the title included increased recovery from fatigue when eating food and enhanced effects from the meals you cooked—an amusing perk for a hobby skill.
According to a member of Shiori’s clan who had already completed the quest, the only annoying part was that the small shop owner acted like a master, standing in the back with his arms crossed as if he’d been the one training them, despite offering no guidance at all. Other than that, it was a fun quest.
Sora pulled a bottle of barley tea from the fridge and sat down on the living room sofa to take a breather.
She took a swig, feeling the cool tea soothe her throat, and exhaled with a contented sigh.
Propping his chin on her hand, she muttered quietly to distract himself.
“A cooking skill that restores fatigue, huh…”
In ?Astral Online?, managing fatigue was an issue for all players, especially during long-distance walking trips.
After several hours of walking, fatigue would build up to the halfway point, triggering a warning and the application of the ?Slowed? status.
At that point, the player’s physical movements, dashes, and movement skills would all be halved in effectiveness.
If fatigue continued to accumulate, it would eventually result in ?Exhaustion?, rendering the player immobile for 30 minutes.
Fatigue management was difficult, and the penalties were significant.
She recalled how much trouble she’d had with it during the last expedition to the ?Spirit Forest of Spirits?.
But if the *Cooking* skill could help manage that fatigue, it might become essential for future gameplay.
“But man, cooking, huh? It’d be convenient to have, but I don’t think I can manage it. Being required to work at the same level as in real life is just too much for me…”
So far, the hobby quests that have been discovered, offering useful skills and titles, are cooking, sewing, and cleaning.
With sewing, you can make protective clothing, and cleaning gives you a title that increases resistance to status ailments a little.
Even for quests with fun, casual elements, it’s interesting that they offer useful skills and titles.
“I’ve been playing pretty quickly lately, so maybe after finishing the Demon Dragon King thing, I’ll head back to *Yggdrasil* and do some fun quests with Kurono.”
“You really are all over Kurono, huh, big bro?”
“Of course I am. Until our parents come back, it’s my role as her cousin-brother and guardian to make sure she doesn’t feel lonely.”
“Hmm, sounds like you actually like her, don’t you?”
“Well, if you asked me whether I like her or not, I do like her. But Kurono’s feeling lonely because her parents are away, so doing something that would take advantage of that emotional vulnerability would be…”
Just as Sora was about to finish her sentence, she realized something. She had been speaking as if she were interacting with ?Lucifel? from the support system in ?Astral Online?, but this was the real world, not the game.
So, who was she talking to now?
There was only one possible answer. Nervously, she turned around to see who was standing right behind her.
Sure enough, it was her younger sister, Shiori Kamijo, the girl with the black hair.