Afterlife Dream

Aurendiria was sitting on one of the benches outside of the tavern, watching the moon. I was unwittingly reminded of the night I spent with Wolfhound some time ago when we talked about his past life.

The air seemed to carry a similar atmosphere. It reeked of a heavy conversation.

"Auren, is something wrong?" I asked, taking a seat next to her on the bench.

Aurendiria turned her head and gave me a placating smile.

"I am okay. Don't worry about me."

I glanced at her facial expression. She said she was fine, but she certainly did not look fine. She pressed her lips into a thin line, and her gaze kept wandering into the distance. She was very quiet, and I felt out of place.

"Do you want to be alone?" I finally asked. Sometimes we just needed to be but we were too polite to shoo the other person away.

"No... Antares, no that's not what I meant. Please sit down."

Auren was too nice a person to make people leave like that. I rose to my feet and smiled at her.

"It's fine, Auren. It's fine to want to be alone to think. I just came to check up on you. In case you need to talk to someone later, I will be there, okay? I am just one click away."

Aurendiria stared at me for a while, and then she nodded. "Okay. Thanks, Antares."

I gave her one last smile and then I went back to the tavern. Inside the tavern, people were still eating, drinking, and chatting merrily and happily.

We celebrated until 9 PM, and then Ingenious started shooing everyone off to bed.

"We have to gather at 9 AM sharp at Dimensional Sphere tomorrow. That means that we have to be here at 8.30 AM sharp to go there together!"

"Okayyyy..."

"Yes, Sir."

"All hail Ingenious!"

Ingenious swatted at the players, chasing them out of the tavern like flies. "Go, go now!"

"Are the Dominion players going to come here to head there together?" I asked while gathering the empty glasses onto trays and putting them on the counter. Cecilia, Livina, and HellWitch were behind the counter, loading the dishes into the dishwasher.

"Thankssss, Antares," Cecilia chirped as she took the trays from my hands.

"Nope, they will gather at Chinatown and go from there," Hime answered my question. "They are very attached to their headquarters, just like we are."

Just as players were dispersing for the night, Aurendiria came back. She looked a little surprised, maybe even a little disappointed to see that the celebration feast had ended.

"Oh, it is done?" she asked, looking at the three girls behind the counter. "Let me help with cleaning up..."

Ingenious grabbed Aurendiria's wrist when she walked past him.

"Yo, Auren. Go to sleep now. We need you at your peak tomorrow."

"We are good, babe! Sleep well!" Cecilia shouted cheerfully while waving at Aurendiria.

Ingenious then dragged Aurendiria out of the tavern. She threw me a panicked look.

"Ingenious, wait. I need to talk to Aurendiria," I quickly said.

Ingenious frowned. He let Aurendiria's wrist go and muttered, "Don't take too long now. I don't want her to make mistakes tomorrow just because you keep her up all night long."

After everyone left, I asked Aurendiria whether she would like to take a walk outside. She quickly agreed. We thus took a stroll around Paradise Island. Under the moonlight, everything took on a softer glow. Even the mini-bosses who were trapped inside their cages seemed to be quieter. More docile.

"Sorry for my behavior before," she said. "I did not mean to be rude."

"I did not think that you were rude," I corrected her. "Auren, you should not think about that. I am truly not offended or anything."

"Mmkay."

Another period of silence followed. I had a feeling that Aurendiria wanted to talk about the raid the next day, but I did not want to push her. She should only talk when she wanted to. Else she would not feel relieved.

We went around the map three times in a row before she finally decided to open up to me about what was truly bothering her.

"Antares, during the meeting today, to be honest, I was against the raid."

That was rather surprising, considering how adamant Aurendiria had been to find BlackPuma. I thought that she would be the one who pushed everyone to go.

"I was not alone. Some other players also did not want to go, but then everyone looked at me weird."

Aurendiria's face darkened visibly.

"I want to save BlackPuma badly, but I am not the type of person to do things recklessly. Especially not if it involves 29 other people. Antares, we are not ready. We simply are not."

"Why do you think that you are not ready?" I asked.

Aurendiria sighed.

"There are old-time players like HinoKun, Ingenious, ArrowRain, and me who are strong from the very beginning with enough time to build our characters. There are also newer players like you who did not have the time to do all that. Not with us hogging the weekly ranks and what not," Aurendiria explained with an apologetic tone. "No offense."

"None taken," I said in response. "So then there are a lot of these newer players who reached level 150 and are not that strong?"

Another sigh escaped her lips. This time she closed her eyes in exasperation.

"Exactly. We as the support class know which players are good and which aren't when we run raids or parties with them. Antares, you can also see it right?

Some players never need to be resurrected.

Some players require the least support.

Some players would have been able to solo the raid if the raid extends to, say, ten hours or so.

These are all the marks of a good player. Unfortunately, the newer players disagree. They place a lot of burden on the Bishops to keep them alive. It makes me sick."

At the end of her rant, Aurendiria looked positively angry.

"Bishops are considered attackers, no longer some puny healers. Have these other players even thought about it? Their remarks today completely enraged me!"

I cringed.

I knew what Aurendiria was talking about. It really sucked to run such raids or parties, especially with strangers. How many times had I been in such a setting where I was only being used as a heal slave? It was not easy to escape the healer stigma. People would always see you as support class first, and offensive class later.

"Do you know what the grand plans today were? Bishops were told to stick with their parties at all costs to provide heals and guards at all times. We all hated to be reduced to heal slaves all over again, as if we were still only in our second job. But then Ingenious and HinoKun told us to be patient and just do our parts."

Aurendiria pinned me with a glare. I knew that she was not really glaring at me, but it still sent a chill down my spine. I had never seen her so angry.

"These newer players were spoiled aristo-brats, and I don't want them to think that they are in the right."

I bit my lip.

"And then I said... the bishops could also contribute to the battle and everyone - except the bishops of course - looked at me as if I just said something heinous."

After ranting for a while, Aurendiria's face color turned to normal again. She gave me an apologetic look. "Sorry that you have to hear all that from me. I must come off as a real bitch to you right now."

I shook my head. "I am also a Bishop now. I completely understand where you are coming from. I too, want to escape the healer stigma and be recognized as an attacker.

Aurendiria smiled.

"Thanks for saying that, Antares. I feel much better now after I get it out of my system. Rahhh, I am never again going to run the raid with anyone random. I liked it much better when BlackPuma was hosting the advanced raids."

"He must be very understanding."

"He is. You have not had the chance to join any raids with him so you don't know it, but he is very generous. Helps the new players the best he can, always respectful to any class and any level."

Of course, I knew that. I had also interacted with BlackPuma back then. He had been nice to me from the first day I met him.

"It is getting late," Aurendiria commented as she looked at the clock that hung in the sky. I looked at the time too and saw that it was already 10 PM.

"You should rest. You have a raid to run tomorrow morning."

Aurendiria nodded in agreement.

"Yup. See you again after the raid."

I smiled and waved at her as she went inside her home to rest for the night. I never thought that it would be the last night we talked to each other.

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