Although Astrid had told him to grab whatever drink he fancied from the fridge, Alan explored the living room instead. Passing by a couch and armchair set in faux blue leather, he ignored the balcony with its sweeping view of the city and went straight to a wall full of framed, animated pictures.
Despite a trail of orange light spilling through the curtains and casting a glare across most of them, he could tell they had all been arranged in chronological order.
Reunions, celebrations, quiet moments in breathtaking sceneries…
Who is this blonde that keeps showing up in all of them? he asked himself, though he already knew the answer.
She never quit magic, he mused as he drifted back to the first photo, where Astrid wore a simple coat, a pointed hat, and a modest wooden staff. I don't recognize that gear. So this was taken some time after… that day?
Beside a smiling Astrid stood a black-haired girl who could barely look at the camera, dressed head to toe in dark clothes as if she were trying to disappear into the background.
The photo's caption read: 'The Third Shooting Star.'
This other girl, with mismatched eyes, was a constant, appearing in nearly every photo.
Her first friend.
Alan then noticed a transformation through the years. While Astrid's bright smile remained unchanged with the passage of time, the nervous girl beside her gradually became a brooding and guarded young woman. The photo where the change was most apparent showed them in matching outfits—sleek, deep-violet bodysuits with cutout detailing along the waist and shoulders, each piece tailored to the wearer so precisely it left little to the imagination. The caption read: 'Our first Tag Team Tournament.'
At least she never abandoned her… unlike me, he thought, his hands curling into fists as he moved to the later photos. There he found two other familiar faces: a shy Tamara Morin being locked in a headlock by a grinning Marissa Laflamme. Astrid and the ever-present girl sat across from each other in what looked like a pub. The caption read: 'Celebrating Novus' Fifth New Year.'
He squinted for a second and wondered if he could tap the photo. He did, and a small window popped up with more information: the exact date it was taken, the location, and the name of every participant. That was where he finally learned the girl's name.
Helen Reed… I'd like to meet her soon and thank her.
"Are you checking out those old photos? That's embarrassing!" Astrid called out as she pulled her bedroom door shut behind her.
She had ditched the blue makeup for a softer, natural pink palette, and traded the sky-blue skintight suit for a white lace crop top that left her midriff bare. Latex shorts clung to her hips like a second skin, riding low on her waist. A thick ponytail cascaded down her back and swung like a golden pendulum as she crossed the room toward him.
The fact that she was already put-together made Alan realize he had been standing in front of that wall of memories longer than he had thought.
"Hey there, city girl. You clean up fast," he said with an easy grin.
"You think?" She gave a twirl before looking at him apologetically. "Sorry for dragging you out here. I needed to wash up. I wasn't exactly presentable."
"Don't apologize. Tamara told me you were on a mission. That barely leaves room for breaks, let alone lunch."
"S-Speaking of lunch…" She glanced away and scratched her cheek. "You're right… I haven't had a bite since this morning." She waved it off with a giggle. "Found anything interesting over there?"
He snickered. "All of it."
She joined him in front of the gallery and gasped. "See this one? That's from my first dungeon clear. Does 'Dylak's Mansion' ring a bell?"
"I don't think I—wait! Isn't that the place we were planning to explore next?"
"YES! That's the one. A huge three-story manor packed with challenging bosses and one bloodthirsty vampire. It was quite a feat, believe me! We even had to bring in another—" She cut herself off, as if catching something.
Alan studied the photo and noticed a face that did not repeat in any of the others. With the frame of a doll and the face of a little angel, a girl was barely smiling at the camera while Astrid hugged her in celebration. Meanwhile, Helen was doing her best to look busy, lacing up her boots.
"Who's this?" he asked, his finger hovering inches from the frame to read the details, but Astrid pulled him aside and pointed at another memory.
"What do you think of this one? My first ever Epic-grade staff. Found it in a chest at the bottom of a lake. I've kept it to this day! N-not here, though. It's on display in my office."
"Your office?" he asked, with a curious look.
"The Guild Master's office…" she said in a small voice.
He let out a low whistle, eyes sweeping across the wall of achievements. "You're amazing, Astrid. I've seen what you've built. That HQ, it's incredible."
"I didn't build it from scratch, you know. I just bought the estate with the guild's treasury."
"Regardless, everything you've done is impressive."
Something about his expression did not sit right with her. She folded her arms and fixed him with a narrow look that made him shift slightly.
"What are you on about? You could've done the same if the roles were reversed."
He shook his head slightly, eyes still on the photos. "You think?"
She shrugged. "You weren't half bad with a sword back then. It wouldn't surprise me if you'd turned into a Ranker in my absence."
"Ranker?" he asked, as she slipped behind him.
"Anyway—why don't you hop in the shower while I throw something together, yes?" she said, steering him toward the hall. "You were sparring with Marissa, weren't you?"
Alan caught a faint vanilla scent from her and suddenly became very aware of the last time he had washed up.
Two days… God.
"Thanks, Astrid. I'll take you up on that. But you really don't mind me using your…?"
She tilted her head, considering, then gave him a pat on the back. "Not at all! Make yourself at home and use whatever you like. You can even toss your clothes in the wash. The machine will have them done before you've even finished rinsing your hair."
He nodded and made his way toward the short hallway lined with three doors.
"The one on your left, Alan," she called after him in a lilting singsong.
Once the living room settled back into its usual quiet, she puffed out her cheeks.
"Okay… let's get dinner going." She clapped her hands once. She already knew what was in the freezer before she even checked—but she held out a small, irrational hope that its contents would somehow be different tonight.
It was packed wall-to-wall with frozen dinner boxes reading: 'Traditional English Style Crispy Fish and Chips. Meal for One.'
She picked up a box and smiled. "Oh, lovely. Plenty to go around, in case he's really hungry!" She laughed for a solid five seconds before dropping the box on the counter. "ARE YOU KIDDING ME? Could you be any more of a walking cliché, Bradford?!"
But she had nothing else to offer, and ordering out was off the table after she had promised to cook herself.
"…Does this even count as cooking?"
She set another box on the kitchen counter, tapped them, and a virtual window appeared. She selected the Auto option, checked Maintain Hot, and the process began.
With nothing left to do, she went back to the living room and threw herself onto the couch with a sigh.
"What a day…" she muttered, hugging a pillow to her face.
First, the Admin quest. I can't believe World Bosses can get infected too. It's ridiculous! What is Ricardo Silva doing? I can only imagine the destruction that oversized turtle could have done to Iregorn. But whatever. As long as he keeps detecting the threats in time, we'll handle them.
Though am I imagining things, or are the glitched monsters getting more frequent? Four cases this week alone.
"At least we have the manpower to run multiple missions at once if it comes to that," she said, lying back to stare at the ceiling.
Finally able to think things through, Tamara's message from hours ago felt more cryptic than ever.
'The corrupted Bunyard situation in Windexeter has been resolved… by a Shooting Star who hasn't logged in for five years.'
"How did you do it, Alan?" She squinted her eyes at the blank white above her. "If nothing has changed, you shouldn't have the minimum level to handle a horde of those things. You should still be under level ten. After all, you disappeared that day… I saw it with my own eyes."
A grim memory surfaced—one she loathed to revisit.
The sight of Alan Warden walking toward her with a smile on his face, before his whole body dissolved into pixels. Just like when people died in Novus.
But no matter how long she waited at the town's Checkpoint, he never came back.
And worst of all, his status in her Friend List read: 'Offline.'
At first, she panicked.
In the beginning, she feared the worst.
She desperately retraced every area they had ever visited—even the place where they had first been brought into this world—but found nothing.
She cursed the resurrection system for failing to do its job, and even tried to replicate the suspected error in the hope of finding him in what the Developers called 'Limbo'.
But as time went on and her head began to clear, she kept coming back to that dreaded Friend List tab, and that single, infuriating word.
Offline.
And then it hit her.
For Astrid Bradford—who knew more than most about the inner workings of the Cryo-Pod, the machine that separated them from the outside world—Offline could only mean one of two things.
He's either dead—for real, from some technical malfunction—or he's simply outside, for whatever hellish reason.
She chose to be positive and held onto the second possibility. And that alone was what kept her going.
To train.
To level up.
To build the guild he had started.
To wait.
It was never my intention to become Guild Master, but in your absence… the System simply passed the role to me.
"It wouldn't be the first time the System does whatever the hell it wants," she said under her breath as she opened her User Interface.
Her personal profile appeared, and for a level-one-hundred user, the information on display was so extensive that the window had to be expanded just to fit it all. Still, the one thing she was looking for sat right at the top.
Astrid Bradford
Level
100
Class
Twilight Witch
Titles
Shooting Stars' Guild Master Golden Comet Novus' Brightest Star
She kept scrolling—until she cringed at the sight of the line she hated most.
Relationship Status
Single
She swiped the window away with a groan, pressed the pillow over her face, and let out a muffled shriek.
It barely helped. Her chest still ached with a dull, persistent cold, and a restless, crawling feeling crept up her spine—screaming at her to get up and level a mountain.
She rolled onto her side, pillow squished between her arms, and sucked her teeth.
I wonder if his reads the same—of course it does, you absolute muppet.
She squeezed her eyes shut as a soft beep announced that dinner was ready.
But it doesn't make a lick of sense. We even signed that stupid form Ronan asked us to fill out.
At first I figured the status was stuck because he'd been gone so long… But why hasn't it updated now that he's back?!
Novus? Hello?! He came back! Are you going to sort this out or not?!
The image of him standing in front of the photos suddenly flashed in her mind.
She had found him there, staring with such a careful, deliberate look on his face—or was it something else entirely?
What were you thinking about?
She could only wonder, and ask herself whether his mind was just as much of a mess as hers.
And it was.
Inside the shower, Alan Warden leaned against the white tile as chill water ran down the back of his head.
He needed it cold to quiet the noise in his mind. But that was going to be impossible.
'Alan Warden…'
A voice kept hammering inside his head.
Insistent. Relentless. Bouncing off the inside of his skull like an echo that refused to fade.
'It's time for you to know what really
happened aboard The Santa María…'
It made him groan and bare his teeth.
"I know."
'It followed us from Earth…'
His hands balled into fists until his knuckles went white.
"I fucking know."
'And it's your fault.'
Ironically, that last part settled something in him.
He opened his eyes and said quietly, "And that's why… I'll put an end to it."