Origin ARS 3 (Origin A.R.S.) (20 page)

Shara gazed at the tiara in her hands. It had been set to bi-furcate her consciousness so that she could help Rhea and her Scott, while she had the chance to get to know the cute and fat version that she had chosen for herself.

The goddess smiled brightly. Despite her decision to continue to help her sister, Shara would only focus on the fat Scott for the moment. She planned to stay in his world for an entire week, in fact.

She had her paperwork signed and accepted. She even had her avatar design approved. She would go to that Earth as a cute teenage girl who wore a Catholic school girl outfit. For the first week she would be entirely human, as that would allow her to get to know him better before she made him the deal of a lifetime. When she returned, she would log into ARS. The time difference between realities was fairly great, only a short time would pass here compared to the one week on the Earth that she intended to visit.

Rhea was going to be busy with her version of Scott for the rest of the day, anyway. They had a lot to talk about.

Shara placed the tiara atop her head and grinned like an idiot. Finally, there would be a Scott just for her!

She logged into the system and her avatar was immediately projected onto the screen. She would spend her time split from it. Basically, she chose to watch herself walk around that human world instead of undertaking full immersion. In many ways it was like she telepathically controlled a game character.

Shara giggled to herself and her onscreen avatar did the same. The avatar had been created just down the street from Scott’s house. It did not take long to arrive. She watched her miniature version knock on the door.

She had to knock several times before someone answered. The person who came to the door was roughly six feet tall and looked like a pumpkin with legs. Shara threw her arms open wide then leaned forward. Her avatar hopped forward with her arms open and gave the fat Scott a tight hug.

She giggled happily then had her avatar look up and say, “What a big sexy husband I have!”

“H...Husband?” asked the fat Scott. The man blinked then staggered back a little, taking mini-Shara with him.

The goddess nuzzled against his fat hairy chest then sighed. “Yep, I’m yours forever.”

The scene continued in that vein for roughly a minute; before she made her avatar pull open the buttons on her top. She then told him about how she had the world’s most common super power and he would soon have his own.

The fat Scott wasted no time in reaching up to massage the glorious orbs that were presented to him. His facial expression became quite lecherous, and he began to drool.

Shara smiled brightly. He liked her! This was going great.

However, everything began to change a few seconds later. The fat Scott started to become flush. He favored his left arm. He began to make choking and gurgling sounds. Soon after, he clutched at his chest then fell heavily to the floor.

Everything became silent after that. After about a minute both Shara and her avatar on screen nervously said, “Uhm...”

***

The soft whisper of the wind through the leaves of the mountain forest was quite soothing. However, that soft and gentle sound was incapable of completely setting Scott’s heart at ease. Rhea had told him that she would explain everything to him today. However, she had chosen to drag him out into the wilderness to show him something first.

They had traveled hand-in-hand for most of the trip. Normally, she would have a gentle smile on her lips because they were showing such open affection for each other. At the moment, she wore her cold ice-mask expression.

Ero sat atop Scott’s shoulder with her hands resting gently on her thighs. The beautiful fairy was aglow with excitement. She would spend a little time with her two most favorite people in the world, and no one else was around.

They walked for a short time then Rhea raised her hand. “Up ahead is what I want to show you, Scott.”

He nodded at her and he started to walk forward. She stopped him and said, “No, I need you to climb up one of these trees and look down into the valley. You need to see what I do.”

Scott was a little confused by her secrecy but he complied. He walked over to the tallest tree that he could see nearby then looked down into the area up ahead. His eyes widened when he spied what looked like a herd of armored creatures. They were like a cross between a deer and an armadillo. They were also bright pink in color.

He stared at the closest one for a while then tried to make out what its level was. He could not be certain but he knew it was a two digit number and the first number was not a one. “I see a bunch of armored monsters.”

“Those monsters that you see up ahead are quite common here. I’m glad that your survival skills allow you to see them so far away. It would be too dangerous for you here if you were always being attacked in random encounters.” said Rhea.

That was one of the perks of his survival skills. He could see monsters at times, up to a certain range. Random encounters still occurred but they were far less frequent now that he could just swim or run toward the monsters. It also made the world seem more real to him.

“You make it sound like it would be more dangerous for me than for you, though.” said Scott.

Rhea smiled gently then nodded. “Yes, it would be. Scott... Please don’t ask any more questions until I am done. Also, stay here and do not interfere.”

“Rhea, what are...?” Scott started to ask.

She shook her head. “Just watch.”

“Alright...”

The high elf unsheathed her sword; a blade that was incredibly dark yet gleamed in the light. It had an appearance similar to light gleaming off of an obsidian mirror. “Once my first attack hits start counting out the seconds, please.”

“Sure...” said Scott. Now he was just plain curious. Was she really going to attack all of those monsters on her own?

Rhea nodded once at him, as though she had read his mind. She turned toward the monsters up ahead then took one step forward. She lowered her body toward the ground by bending her knees then gripped her sword in both hands. She pulled it back and to the side, and then held position for a full second.

Scott watched her slam her blade forward then became nothing more than a bright blur of light. She moved so fast that he could only see the beginning and the end of the motion.

After traveling over a hundred feet forward in an instant she glanced back at him then slowly gave him an exaggerated wink and a wide joyful smile before she repeated the movement. This time she blurred forward with enough speed that he could only blink twice before she made her first attack. She had covered several hundred feet at speeds too fast for his eyes to see, even with his accuracy stats.

He nearly forgot to count when she made her first strike. She came out of her straight-line blurring motion and unleashed a powerful arcing overhand strike that crashed down upon the hapless pink armored monster with enough force to completely bisect it in a single swing. It fell sideways in two separate heaps and burst into motes of light before it hit the ground.

Scott counted slowly, “One- one thousand. Two-one thousand. Three-one thousand...”

By the time Scott had reached eight-one thousand in his counting method, Rhea had slain more than half of the monsters on the field. Each had been destroyed with a single uncompromising and expert strike.

“Nine-one thousand.” said Scott.

Rhea blurred forward then swung her blade in a wide arc that caught three armored monsters in one strike. The effective range of the blade was nearly ten feet due to the extension factor. Due to her massive attack damage and large melee radius, she cleaved through the heavily armored beasts like they were made of butter.

When Scott spoke the words, “Thirteen-one thousand” the last of the monsters in the valley exploded into motes of light. Using swordsmanship alone she had annihilated nearly two dozen monsters much higher than her level.

“Wow, Rhea is amazing!” said Ero. She had watched the whole thing with wide, fascinated, eyes.

“Yeah...” said Scott. He could scarcely believe it. She was capable of that level of skill and damage per second, but had never shown it even once! It was both the sexiest and the most emasculating thing he had ever seen in his life.

Scott blinked when the battle music ended and a battle report appeared before him. He had earned experience for that?

<<<
Battle Report
>>>
 

Your party has defeated twenty-six Hot Pink Armordoes. Due to your distance and lack of interaction in the battle, your rewards will be reduced to ten percent of their true value.

+ 21696 EXP

+ 850 Fayth

+ 13 Ability Points

Item(s) Acquired

Hot Pink Armor Plate X 8

Armordoe Antlers X 1

--

Congratulations! You have gained 1 level!

Level 18 > 19

<<< * >>>

“S-shit...” whispered Scott in shock. The normal music of the mountain forest played gently in the background, but he did not care. Just ten percent of the experience from that battle had given him an entire level. Had he been in the battle and actually attacked something, and survived, he would have jumped to level thirty something!

That was obscene! How powerful
was
Rhea? She slaughtered those things like they were nothing.

The beautiful high elf blurred back into the area then sheathed her sword. She looked up at Scott. “So, how did I do?”

He blinked at her, uncertain what to say. Ero smacked him on the side of the face and whispered, “The time, probably.”

“Oh! Oh you... Thirteen seconds or so...” said Scott. He shook his head and stared at her like she had suddenly turned into an entirely different person.

Rhea sighed softly. “So slow? That’s terrible. Seems like I lost a step.”

Scott’s left eyelid began to twitch spastically. That was her going slow? He gripped the tree tight as a sudden wave of vertigo hit him. He had nearly fallen out of the tree!

“Rhea! You were awesome!” called Ero. The little fairy fluttered down to the elf below then shot forward and gave her a face hug.

Rhea gasped for air and then tried to pull the excited girl away. She was much harder to dislodge now that she was bigger, but the elf girl’s absurdly high strength and agility allowed her to perform the herculean task.

Scott hopped down from the tree then jogged over to her. “Did you gain a level, too?”

“I wish! No, that knocked off a large chunk of my needed experience.” she said.

“Really?” asked Scott in shock. He would have gained over two hundred thousand experience points!

“I need ten times as much as you to gain a level and my experience bonus is nowhere near yours, remember?” asked Rhea. She smiled at him sweetly then reached out her hand.

Scott took her hand then gripped it gently. “I remember.”

They smiled at each other for a moment, but eventually Rhea had to break the mood. “Scott, there were some questions that you had for me...”

He nodded to her. “Yeah, but give me a moment. I’m too busy thinking about how awesome you are.”

Rhea blinked. The color of her face slowly shifted to a light pink tinge. She slowly closed her eyes then bit her lower lip. “D-don’t say embarrassing things, I-”

Scott kissed her warmly on the lips then held her tight. Her eyes flared opened briefly then closed slowly. They held each other close for quite some time.

Ero fluttered around them in a slow circle; a little sparkling cloud of dust trailed behind her and made a halo atop them. She smiled brightly and seemed quite happy at the development.

They drew back slowly, fairy dust glittering in their hair. Scott looked at Rhea. She looked back at him. Ero looked at them both then grinned. The one thought running through her mind was, that she could not wait until she was bigger. The fact that she looked back and forth between them both was rather telling.

***

Shara sighed as she watched her avatar cry during Fat Scott’s funeral. She wore a tasteful black ensemble with a widow’s veil. The people who attended would occasionally glance over at her in wonderment. How had Scott known her? More to the point, why was she dressed like his widow? A few of the less savory types openly wondered if this meant she was available.

Back in her room Shara cried softly. She could not get an emergency resuscitation done since she had abandoned her powers to enter that world. While there were many super powered beings in that reality, none of them who were locally available would be willing to resurrect her poor dead Fat Scott.

She’d had nothing else that she could have done about the situation, so she chose to allow the time dilation to spiral a bit and soon several days had passed. She had re-started the avatar program with a new clothing set.

Shara made her avatar walk away from the ceremony after it ended, many men had gathered around to offer their condolences. She announced that they had just gotten engaged the day he died. For a moment, several other overly large men seemed to contemplate having a heart attack of their own.