Eliona's War 2: Veiled Healer

Chapter 4

Welcome, Severance! You have successfully loaded into the World.

Updating...

Name: SEVERANCE

Designation: CITIZEN

Class: BATTLE DANCER

Affiliation: VEILED

Congratulations! As a Citizen of Eliona, you may now participate in unique opportunities. To learn more, speak to your clan.

Pale letters floated before Severance, bright against the endless black enveloping him. It was like waking up from a deep sleep, with awareness slowly pushing through the fog.

The words faded. Muffled sounds drifted towards him, a low grumbling that gradually became recognisable as garbled voices. He strained to hear them, to understand what was being said. Maybe they could explain what was going on, because now he was certain that this wasn't the usual log-in process.

Time remaining: 03:46:55

Another System notification pulsed before him. Maybe it was his imagination, but he thought the darkness lightened just a shade with its arrival.

Is it going to let me out of here? A little unnerved, Severance tried to move or make a face, or do something, but that proved difficult when he couldn't even feel his body. Am I going to be stuck like this for four hours?

A light voice suddenly intruded, a little muddy as if passing through water, but he caught the last few words. "—look! It moved!"

"I saw it." A calm, familiar voice.

Gray suffused the darkness like snowflakes scattering through the air. Eventually, Severance became aware of lying flat on his back with sunlight warming his face.

He opened his eyes and immediately squinted against brilliant daylight. It prompted him to grimace and lift a hand to shield his eyes. Why was it so bright?

"Hello, Severance."

"Hm?" Lowering his hand, Severance turned his head to see a familiar Elionan man beside him. It only took him an instant to recognize Olen's blue ear studs and narrow features.

Olen appeared to have been there for a while, for he sat quietly with his legs folded beneath him. His hands rested on his thighs, and the only thing that moved was his clothing and ebony hair, tugged gently by the breeze.

"You're awake!" A small girl skipped into his field of view. She stood by Olen, tiny fists on her hips. This was Tayci, one of the clan's only two children, and today she was dressed up in a black dress with her long hair in pigtails.

"Olen said you were napping, but you were lying there for hours."

"Hours, huh?" Severance rubbed at his eyes. She had to be exaggerating, as kids generally tended to do. With a faint grunt, he sat up.

"Not quite," Olen chuckled. His gaze flickered skyward for a moment, then returned to Severance. "You arrived a little over an hour ago. We've been waiting for you to wake."

"You didn't have to—wait, what did you just say?"

Severance remembered the System notification from a minute ago. It had given him the normal countdown of just under four hours, so there was no way that could be right.

"There's nothing to be worried about," Olen was perfectly calm. "The first arrival after gaining Citizenship can take a bit of time. It should be much smoother going forward."

First arrival after citizenship?

"What does that mean?" Severance's voice came out faint, his mind struggling to catch up to the strangeness of it all.