I Reincarnated as an NPC Witch

The Corrupted Truth

Abigail looks at it in its majestic form. She already knew this girl from the game. Although, she just appeared in one to three quests. The reason why she remembers her is because she has been mocking this character for months now. A real encounter with her is a little bit awkward for her. Abigail is a bit hesitant to even talk to her since earlier. It’s not that this gal would know the things she has been joking about her in her gameplays, it’s just something awkward for her. Yris, one of the characters she mocks the most, technically owns the manor she’s going to stay the nights with. She can’t stand looking at her with a straight face, especially when she remembers a thing that she said to her. This is going to be a long night.

“Oooh. Crystals.” Abigail muttered rather in a boring way. “Isn’t it beautiful!?” Yris squeals that made the crystal pop off out of her fingers. “Oops, I guess I shook it too much.” She puts her hand behind her back, “Anyway, can I just spend this night with you? Please? I can’t sleep and I can’t wait to have fun with you, so we will be sleepless tonight with magic!” Abigail giggles, “I actually slept earlier in the day, so I guess it will be just you who will be sleepless.” She covers her mouth, she didn’t mean to say that. She shrugs and whispered to herself, “Old habits never die.”

“That’s better! Besides, I am not that of a sleeper. I honestly don’t need much sleep as they think I do.” Abigail raises her eyebrow, “You don’t have the same sleeping pattern as others? Or, you just don’t want to sleep because it sounds cool?” Yris groans, “Are you like those people that sleep early in the evening.” The witch rolls her eyes and opens the door of the room she will be staying for some days. “If I can, I would. I have taken for granted sleep and I regret it.” She enters the room and turns her head to her, “Also, I don’t just get sleepless because I want to, but because I needed to.” She smiles as she approaches the bed and puts down her bag. Yris followed her in the room as much to Abigail’s dismay. “But, it’s time to get sleepless because you want to! Besides, you will not be sleepless anyway, so what’s the point?”

Abigail secretly rolls her eyes. She doesn’t hate this character, she just loves playing around and joking about her. “Even she’s speaking in scripted computer language, she’s still as dumb as she could be.” She whispered to herself, “Hmm?” The witch turns to Yris, “Oh, nothing. I am just mumbling and thinking out loud what things I need to do.” She forces a kind smile on her. For Abigail, this is quite fun, but a little bit risky encounter to do. She needs to stop herself from mocking this character and try to befriend her. She’s not in a livestream nor a gameplay video, she hopes that her attitude towards her in the eyes of the audience will not reflect her attitude towards her in a personal physical encounter inside a computer. “Oh! I think out loud too. It’s quite annoying that we could do that, sometimes in the worst scenarios and times ever.” Abigail sighs quietly, “Great, even her voice is much squeakier and much annoying or funnier than the game. This will be a great… just great evening.”

Yris jumps on the bed as she yelps a bit, “Oh god, this mattress is so hard. Why is it so hard!?” She looks at the witch, “I am sorry for this impression. I swear, we are welcoming you in this house.” She groans, “Dad is really cheap. The guests deserve the best!” Abigail looks at her and tested her exaggerated conclusion. She pressed down her hand on the mattress, it’s as soft as the other beds she has been. “It’s not that hard, compared to the mattress I got in my hut, this is 500x softer than that thing that’s made of fibers.”

“But, still!” Yris rolls her eyes, “This is still hard, I’ll demand dad to replace these quickly.” Abigail’s eyes start to twitch, “This gal is a lot more annoying than she was in the game. Probably because it’s much more scripted than this.” The magenta girl looks at her, “What did you say?” The witch looks at her rather innocently, “Oh, just commenting on how soft it is. It is really soft, I am not going to lie.” “Are you sure? Are you just giving pity on us? Don’t! We should correct ourselves. Besides, my father has everything he could have in this world, and he can’t replace this rock-hard mattress.”

“I think that’s a bit of an exaggeration on your part. I am telling the truth, this is the softest bed I have been on. It’s not that hard, it’s like your sitting in a cloud. As far as I know, as updated I am in research and science, clouds aren’t hard.” Yris looks away in embarrassment. Abigail smirks as she turns her head away from her. “It never gets old.” She said to herself.

“A-anyway!” Yris stands from the bed and from the fall she had when she got pushed to the edge by her own idol. She looks at her, “It’s time to show our abilities and maybe help me find mine! I only know how to get these crystals out from my body.” She opens her arms wide as different colored crystal shards shot out from her body. It surrounds her and she’s like a saint with the circle of crystal behind her back. Abigail was mesmerized by this. The crystals glow as well in accordance with their color. There are light blue, pastel orange, pastel magenta, and sparkly green crystal shards that surround her. Yris puts her clenched fist on her waist, standing proudly with her crystals. Abigail gives her a clap, “That’s impressive.”

“Really?” Yris squeals in excitement and claps. “I was right, these are impressive, because they are!” She rotates her hand around her wrist as the crystal rotates around her as well. “I can do this,” She points up and then down, making the crystal rise up in the air and down to her again. “And that,” She rotates around herself, making the crystal rotate around her as well. “And also that!” The crystals keep circling her, but this time in a horizontal arrangement. “I can only do much with these crystals, if something attacks me, I can do this!” She points at the wall as crystals start shooting themselves on the wall, sticking on it like a dagger. The crystals shoot one at a time and in the end, the rest of it shoots together, creating a swarm of sharp projectiles. Abigail claps, not in a mocking way, but because of her genuine amazement.

“I never thought a daughter of a count will be as powerful like that.” Yris giggles, “Not as powerful as you, Miss Crocus. It’s just something that was gifted to me. It was a great power that was bestowed upon me!” Abigail looks at her, “By whom?”

Suddenly, the mood dropped, the atmosphere became melancholy. Yris’ bright and delightful face became somber. The crystal she has slowly faded out of existence and the ones behind her back float down, fading in the process. “Well, by my mom.” Abigail looks at her as Yris sat back in the bed. “She’s a mage, she’s a mage with the power over gems, especially ones that grow out of the sea bed.” Abigail looks at her, staying in a distance, but she’s lending her ears. “She was respected by everyone, especially in the southern part of the continent. She holds one of the rarest abilities as they say, but it’s not really the cause why she’s madly respected by many people. She was once a leader of a village in Dafinesk. She was kind, she was a hero like you, just a little bit older.” She smiles, “It’s one of the reasons how my father and her met.”

Abigail is getting quite uneasy, a character in a game that has few appearances has a deeper story than her character, an upcoming character, a member of the main team. She’s also uneasy about how much she mocked her character with the deep conversation she’s having right now with her. If she wasn’t here and didn’t meet this gal, she was never sorry for what she did in her character in the game. How could a character, maybe a type of NPC with a personality that just came from the main character’s personality, patched up into one, has this deep story? There’s so much in this game that she doesn’t know. She knows to herself that Laurence was right about her exploring the world first before getting the things she need to help him. She has more to know about this massive simulated world with beautifully fabricated characters with background story, and personalities. How much more in the system where everything is much more complex, diverse, vast, and in a much larger world that she doesn’t even know how it works?

Yris sobs as she wipes the tears that are rolling on her cheek, “I wish you met her, you two will go along so well. She’s not that old at all anyway. She will be happy to meet a special witch, she hasn’t met one for a long time, she said to me before. It’s just…” She sighs, “I guess that’s not going to happen.” Abigail looks at her, “What happened to her?”

“I don’t know… Everyone is saying, even my dad, that my memory of her death is wrong and so surreal to even be true.” The witch was intrigued as she listens more, more than she could ever think she will listen to this girl. “My memory of her death was impossible. It was so impossible that they taught me that I got a severe trauma from it. I do, it’s not really possible to not have trauma when you saw that event.”

“What is it?” Yris looks at her with her teary eyes and wet cheeks, “Promise me you aren’t going to judge me like them. I am telling the truth, I am not crazy. Promise me that. Promise me that you won’t push that I am wrong, crazy, and still in a severe trauma because it’s not.” Abigail smiles at her, “I promise. How could I say that when I am not hearing it still?” Yris sighs, “I just don’t want to hear those words anymore. My memory isn’t lying to me, it could never lie to me.”

She gulps, “It was one fine day, a day that’s so fine and well that you never thought that it will go so horribly wrong that it could scar your life. I and my mother were picking flowers in the nearest meadows. It was mom’s way to calm, especially when she and dad is getting into a fight. It was our way to bond deeply as well. There’s nothing greater than picking flowers with her.”

Yris smiles a bit as it fades into a frown, “And, then, this man with funny black figure started to stalk us, to watch us across the fields. I said it to my mom and she said that I was just hallucinating it. So, I didn’t mind every creepy thing that I saw across that field. Although, every second, it’s starts to get closer and closer to us. I am starting to get uneasy as my mom decided for us to go home with the attitude that I am showing at that moment. But, all of the things I witnessed paid back to me. The figure went in front of us and said to me that it's going to borrow my mom. In a blink, she was in his arms. She was panicking. Then, black things started to surround her body. She was saying something to me but it was distorted. I can hear her screams but it was cut every single end of it. Then, she disappeared in front of me. That’s the last time I saw her and that’s the last memory I have in her.”