[POV: Sloth]
I let out a truly enormous yawn, stretching my arms above my head until my joints cracked one after another. My legs followed soon after, extending beneath the blankets as I lazily worked the stiffness out of my body.
When I finally woke up, I felt like I was missing something.
I yawned again and used my staff to prop myself upright. Still half-asleep, I stumbled forward, opened a door that wasn't there, turned left, and stopped in front of a huge painting of a golden dragon. Lost in thought, I stared at it for several seconds.
Where did the sink go? And the mirror? I needed to go to work. I instinctively wiped the crust from beneath my eyes, yawned once more, and finally started piecing together where I was.
"Ah... It's gonna take some time getting used to this."
Once my senses finally returned, I found myself questioning whether any of this was actually real. I had gotten my sleep. I wasn't going to work anymore. I wasn't going to spend another day staring at a screen while pretending that the passage of time meant something. And yet, I still felt strangely uncomfortable. What about my routine? I had spent so long living according to a schedule that even the absence of one felt unnatural.
A tiny figure suddenly landed on the tip of my staff.
"Good morning, my great lord and savior!" the Nature Sprite chirped. "How did your sleep go? Was it peaceful? Restful? Did you dream of wonderful things? Oh, I hope you did! You deserve the most magnificent sleep in all creation!"
"Good, I guess so," I answered idly.
The Nature Sprite's face immediately lit up. "Wonderful! Absolutely wonderful! I am so happy that your sleep was good, my great lord! Your sleeping form was truly magnificent! Majestic! Serene! Graceful! Powerful! The way you rested was like that of an ancient sovereign finally granting the world permission to breathe! Even the stillness of your breathing contained the dignity of a divine being!"
She began vibrating with excitement as she flew around me in increasingly erratic zigzags. "You were the very embodiment of tranquility! A paragon of relaxation! A master of sleep! The supreme authority of lying down! No mortal, beast, spirit, or deity could possibly compare to the elegance of your slumber!"
I stared blankly at her.
She was singing my praises so enthusiastically that I couldn't even figure out where she was getting half of them from.
After completing another loop around my head, she suddenly flew straight toward me and wrapped her tiny arms around my cheek.
"How may I be of service to you today, my great lord?"
This was weird in ways that I couldn't even begin to figure out where to start. She was tiny, yet incredibly expressive. I didn't remember Nature Sprites acting like this in the game. They had been simple support monsters with predictable behavior patterns and combat routines. They certainly hadn't possessed this much personality.
I looked around the great hall. It was a complete mess. Furniture had been overturned, several fixtures were broken, and some of the pillars looked as though something had gnawed on them. There were scratches across the floor, debris scattered everywhere, and enough general destruction to make the entire place look like it had survived a particularly enthusiastic monster raid.
I pointed toward the mess. "Clean this place up."
"Yes, my great lord!"
The Nature Sprite immediately flew into action. She raised one tiny hand and pointed her fingers toward the scattered debris. A controlled burst of wind erupted from her fingertips. The debris lifted from the floor and began swirling through the air.
That was new.
I didn't remember Nature Sprites being able to do anything like that. The visual of her directly manipulating the wind with her fingers certainly wasn't something I had ever seen in LWO. I knew my monsters quite well by heart. I might have been lazy, but I wasn't brain-dead or illiterate. I had read the game's monsterpedia extensively. As someone who relied heavily on summons, knowing exactly what my summons could and couldn't do had been basic survival knowledge.
"What was that?" I asked.
The Nature Sprite froze. Her wings stopped buzzing for a moment, and her expression immediately became anxious. "Di-Did I do something wrong?"
"No." I shook my head. "You're doing well."
I meant it.
I wasn't reprimanding her. I was curious. I wanted to know the extent of what I could command her to do. She was so small that I hadn't expected her to interpret my orders so literally, much less find a way to accomplish them through an ability that shouldn't have functioned like this.
More importantly, it confirmed something I had already begun to suspect.
My summons had intelligence. That was incredible. I had initially worried about what would happen now that the world of LWO was no longer behaving like a game. Loyalty, personality, independent thought, and all sorts of other problems immediately came to mind. But intelligence also meant my summons could think. They could understand situations, adapt, and potentially protect me without needing every single action spelled out beforehand. That was far more valuable than simply having stronger numbers on my side.
I looked at the Nature Sprite. "Actually, I wasn't asking about the cleaning."
She tilted her head. "Then what were you asking about?"
"How did you move the wind?" I pointed toward her fingers. "Explain it to me the best way you can."
The Nature Sprite immediately relaxed. "Ah! You are testing me!"
I decided to play along. "Yes, yes."
Her eyes sparkled. "My lord is testing me! How wonderful!"
She flew into the air and spun around herself before pointing both hands outward. "It was my Aerokinesis ability! By actively tapping into it, I can move the wind with my thoughts! It is a little difficult, though. The wind doesn't always want to listen to me, so I have to concentrate very hard! It also isn't very mana-efficient compared to simply casting a spell normally, but I can make the wind move without having to cast one!"
So that was how it worked.
The combat mechanics of LWO had always been expressed through skills, spells, and abilities. Those were further divided into active and passive categories.
Aerokinesis was a passive ability.
Normally, it boosted the effects of wind-based spells and skills. It was also one of the prerequisites for learning more advanced wind-based abilities. It wasn't supposed to be something that could simply be activated and used to manipulate the wind directly. Yet here it was.
"Interesting," I murmured.
My mind immediately began running through the possibilities. If passive abilities could become active in this world, then the implications were enormous. A passive ability didn't necessarily have to remain limited to the numerical effects defined by the game anymore. With enough understanding, perhaps it was even possible to create entirely new spells or skills by combining the underlying principles of existing abilities.
Of course, I doubted it would be that easy. Game mechanics had rules for a reason, and simply knowing that something was possible didn't mean I knew how to reproduce it. Still, it was a fascinating possibility.
"Thank you, little Sprite."
The Nature Sprite froze. Her cheeks immediately turned bright red.
"Y-You called me little Sprite..." She clasped both hands against her chest, her entire body trembling with excitement. "How wonderful! How incredibly wonderful! I shall treasure this name for the rest of my life! From this moment onward, I shall become the greatest little Sprite in all creation!"
She shot into the air and began flying in ecstatic circles around me.
"I will work harder! I will become stronger! I will clean everything! I will protect my great lord! I will become worthy of being called Little Sprite!"
I watched her zoom around the ruined hall, feeling bad about accidentally giving her the name 'Sprite', because that was not really what I meant when I called her that. I had a feeling I had accidentally given her an extremely dangerous amount of motivation.
"I'll leave you to your work, then."
"Leave it to me, my great lord!" The Nature Sprite puffed out her tiny chest with determination. "I swear upon my very existence that I shall have this place completely cleaned by the time you return! When you come back, this entire palace will be so clean that you could lick the floor and—"
She suddenly stopped, her face turning bright red.
"I-I mean... clean enough that you could lick the floor! Not that you should! Someone as great as you shouldn't have to lick the floor! That would be terribly undignified!"
I stared at her for a moment before deciding not to question it. I really wished I had given the flavor text a more thorough read. I was starting to suspect there had been an entire fanatic lurking somewhere in the Nature Sprite's lore that I had completely missed while skimming through it. I was quite knowledgeable about what my summons could do, but I had to admit that I was lacking when it came to their more intimate lore. I knew fairies and sprites were generally portrayed as bright, cheerful creatures that loved nature, but beyond that, I had never really bothered to dig deeper.
Apparently, that had been a mistake. I left the Nature Sprite to her cleaning and eventually stopped before the palace gates. A huge wall of stone stood before me. Or rather, it wasn't a wall. It was the Golem Guardian.
I guessed the order to protect me had been interpreted rather literally. If it was assigned to guard the palace, then of course it would stand directly in front of the gate. There was also another downside to my summons gaining intelligence. There was now considerably more room for misunderstandings.
"Golem Guardian," I called out.
The Golem Guardian turned toward me.
It stood several heads taller than I did, its massive stone body covered in armor-like plates. A long sword rested in its hands, its broad blade looking less like a weapon forged by a blacksmith and more like a slab of metal that had somehow been given an edge. The moment it recognized me, it dropped to one knee. It held its sword with both hands and bowed its head solemnly. As a knight-class summoned creature, it was apparently leaning into the aesthetic quite heavily. When I had imagined my summons gaining personalities, I had been thinking along the lines of character, speech, or personal quirks.
I hadn't expected them to start role-playing.
"Great Lord," the Golem Guardian said in a deep voice. "Forgive me."
"Hm?"
"I have failed in my duty." The Golem Guardian lowered its head further. "I allowed that offending dragon to lay its claws upon your divine body. Such a disgrace shall never be repeated. I swear that I shall hone myself further. I shall become stronger. I shall sharpen my blade until no enemy can approach you without first passing through me. Yet I cannot forgive my failure so easily. I have failed in my sacred duty as your guardian. If punishment is required, then I humbly beg you to deliver it upon me."
I blinked. "Punishment?"
"Not merely to soothe your anger, my lord," the Golem Guardian continued solemnly. "I ask that you punish me so that I shall never forget this mistake."
It was so over the top that it left me speechless. Punishment, huh? There was no way I could explain to it the concept of a random encounter. The dragon attacking me had ultimately come down to bad luck. I had been caught in an unexpected situation, and the dragon had happened to have the means to get past my defenses. It wasn't exactly the Golem Guardian's fault. I sighed and carefully considered my words before speaking.
"All is forgiven."
The Golem Guardian raised its head slightly as I continued.
"It was not your mistake that the dragon attacked me. If an enemy truly desires to harm me, they'll find a way to do so. If their abilities are powerful enough to overcome my defenses, then there is little I can blame beyond my own skills and the countermeasures I put in place. Your duty is to protect me, but that doesn't mean you are responsible for every attack that reaches me. You did not fail simply because something managed to get through."
The Golem Guardian stared at me, its massive shoulders relaxing as it lowered its head further. "Your grace is boundless, my lord. I shall not forget it. From this day onward, I shall hone my skills in battle so that I may better protect you. I shall ensure that such a failure does not happen again."
It would be nice if it really could hone its skills.
I wasn't sure whether that was even possible, considering it was still a summoned creature. Certainly, the possibility existed now that the rules were changing, but I wouldn't even know where to begin.
More importantly, was it even worth trying?
A different question suddenly occurred to me. If one of my summoned creatures died and I summoned it again, would I get the same individual? Or would that individual be lost forever? If my summons had genuine intelligence, then they were capable of holding memories. That meant there was potentially something more to them than simply being creatures generated by a summoning system.
I decided to leave that question for later. Instead, I looked at the Golem Guardian. "How long have you been guarding this gate?"
"Fourteen hours have passed since I last saw you sleeping in your bed, my lord."
Fourteen hours? Since I didn't have the UI anymore, I couldn't tell the exact time. "What time is it?"
The Golem Guardian paused. "I am uncertain of the exact hour, my lord. However, I believe it is approaching noon."
I glanced toward the sky. The sun had yet to reach its peak. Close enough. The Golem Guardian and the Nature Sprite had both demonstrated a level of intelligence far beyond anything I remembered from LWO. They could converse, make independent judgments, and act according to distinct personalities. The more I observed them, the more convinced I became that something fundamental had changed.
"Thanks for your time," I said. "You did a good job guarding the gate."
The Golem Guardian's expression didn't change, but somehow, I could feel its pride. "Your praise is an honor, my lord."
That was when my curiosity got the better of me. Even if my idea failed, the only things I would lose were some time and effort. The Golem Guardian had nothing better to do anyway. There was no harm in trying.
I looked at the sword in its hands. "Try learning a skill."
The Golem Guardian immediately straightened. "A skill?"
"Yes. Swordsmanship."
Its stone fingers tightened around the hilt.
I pointed toward the blade. "Swing your sword with all your heart a thousand times."
The Golem Guardian looked at me as though I had just handed it a sacred command. "I shall!"
Swordsmanship was a passive skill that increased the damage dealt with swords. In order to learn it in LWO, a player needed the proper equipment, the required stats, and enough skill points to spend. It was an entry-level skill that opened the way toward more advanced sword-related skills later in the game.
Most weapons in LWO also had durability. The Golem Guardian's sword was different. The weapon was essentially part of its body, so if it wasn't recognized as a 'sword', then all of this swinging might be pointless. Besides, I had already reached the level cap back when the world was still a game. If there was still such a thing as a level cap now, I had no idea whether it applied anymore. If my summons could become stronger, though, that would only benefit me. The stronger my summons were, the stronger I became. There was no downside to trying.
"Just keep in mind that it might not work," I added. "Swordsmanship was a skill that could only be learned under certain conditions. You need to meet specific requirements, and I doubt you qualify for all of them."
The Golem Guardian bowed solemnly. "I understand."
"I don't want you getting your hopes up."
"I am grateful for your guidance, my lord." Its voice became even more serious. "I shall devote myself fully to your instructions. Whether this skill can be acquired or not, I shall not fail you."
I felt my expression stiffen. I had a bad feeling about this. If I felt bad after accidentally encouraging the Nature Sprite, I felt even worse now. I had basically gotten the Golem Guardian's hopes up with a completely untested theory and then told it to swing a sword a thousand times.
I sighed. "Well... good luck."
"Yes, my lord!"
The Golem Guardian raised its sword.
I turned away.
Hopefully, it would at least gain something from this.