Last Shelter Online

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[You have a new friend request from NightFall]

It was already midnight when she opened her Friend Request menu to see the friend request that had been there for several days.

She opened NightFall's avatar profile, activated 3D mode, and had the mini avatar displayed in front of her.

The girl couldn't help but let out a long sigh as she let the 3D mini avatar continue to walk in place. She had been doing this for a few days now; when night fell, she would activate the 3D mode for Nightfall's avatar and stare at it until she fell asleep.

Even so, she felt different today. Unlike the previous nights, she finally met the owner of that avatar face-to-face. She felt a little regretful for not being able to say anything to that avatar's owner, and that regret made her chest feel stuffy, keeping her up nervous longer than the previous nights.

Knock knock!

Someone suddenly knocked on the bedroom door from the outside. However, instead of responding to it, the girl turned around with her back facing the door and pretended as if she was already sound asleep.

A few moments later, the door was quietly opened. A young man with similar features to her, especially his eyes, looked inside the room from the door.

"Are you asleep, Libe?" he asked in a soft voice.

No response.

"Good night, I love you."

When the man went back out and closed the door, the girl inside opened her eyes and displayed NightFall's 3D avatar once again.

"What should I do?" she muttered, asking herself.

"If only this was real… If only you and I were real."

Her blue eyes were glistening. The girl's vision blurred for a few moments before tears finally flowed from the corners of her eyes.

"Good night, Hiro."

…

Outside the bedroom.

The older brother didn't immediately sleep that night. His mind was filled with annoyance and curiosity mixed all together.

With careful steps, he quietly walked toward a secret underground room while warily looking around, making sure that nobody was following him.

The house the two were living in was quite large. Even so, there were no signs of other people apart from them living there.

After walking down the staircase made of natural stone bricks, Ace arrived in front of an iron door approximately four meters tall and put his right hand on it.

[Scanning in progress]

[Access granted]

The iron door automatically opened upward, opening a path toward a dark room. As Ace stepped in, the lights in the room automatically turned on.

In the room, five giant monitors were stuck onto the room wall, forming a semi-circle. In the center of those monitors were a control panel with three keyboards, a row of colorful buttons, and several levers with various functions.

A seemingly comfortable office chair was in front of the controller.

When the iron door closed back down to isolate the room, Ace had already sat in the chair and inputted a certain code to display an image on the five monitors in front of him.

[Searching…]

[Player ID: WynterRain…]

[Username: WynterRain]

[Job Class: Archmage]

[Bloodline: Dark Elf]

[Current Level (Locked)]

[Battle Rating (Locked)]

[Personal Data Information (Locked)]

[Current Location (Locked)]

[Status: Online]

[Joined since January 2027]

His eyes paused at the last line.

"...2027?"

[Finding Recording Files of WynterRain…]

[None.]

Ace let out a long sigh and leaned on the back of the chair. With his eyes on the giant monitor in front of him, he carefully read the available information on WynterRain's profile.

Just a bunch of text, with no images whatsoever. Even the avatar's profile picture was just the default player profile picture, a picture of an NPC.

Who knew what WynterRain did to lock the information about his avatar this way. Even LSO's data copy device couldn't access it.

This piqued Ace's curiosity even more and prompted him to activate the other screens to find more information. But…

Where was he supposed to begin searching? He had absolutely no clues whatsoever.

While he was thinking, he decided to activate the other screens to find information about another player that had also been bugging his mind for a while now.

[Searching…]

[Player ID: NightFall…]

[Username: NightFall]

[Job Class: Barbarian]

[Bloodline: Demon]

[Current Level (Level 29)]

[Battle Rating (Locked)]

[Personal Data Information (Age: 18)]

[Current Location (Event Venue)]

[Status: Offline]

[Joined since December 2028]

[Finding Recording Files of NightFall…]

[5 files have been found]

[Sources: Player Liberty's Data storage]

"Hm?"

One of Ace's brows rose when he saw the source data of the recording files that the system found with the keyword 'NightFall'. The five files available in the system came from none other than his little sister's private data storage.

Recording files were files of recordings done by players in-game, like screenshots or video recordings that could be done by everyone in the game.

"I'm sorry, Libe."

[Copying 5 recording files from Liberty's Data Storage]

[Open all files]

The five monitors in the room instantly displayed five different screen recordings. The recordings were from Liberty's point of view, and they made him forget to breathe.

Ace's chest suddenly felt tight. He couldn't get a word out of his mouth. His temperature had rapidly risen, and his body reflexively shook as the monitors played the recording files.

[Deleting the recording files from Liberty's Data Storage]

[Files have been deleted]

Ace closed his eyes to calm himself down. After he felt considerably calmer, he turned off everything in the room before hurrying back upstairs.

With heavy steps, he re-entered Liberty's room. The sight inside surprised him.

Liberty was still awake.

The girl was sitting facing the bedroom door when Ace opened the door without knocking.

"Liberty?"

Liberty didn't have time to hide what she was doing.

NightFall's 3D model was still walking in place facing forward in front of her. Meanwhile, the girl's eyes were swollen and her face was reddish and slightly moist.

"What happened?" Ace quickly rushed to hug Liberty. He couldn't bear to see his sister on the verge of breaking down like that.

"Brother… I did something bad."

Liberty instantly broke down in her brother's arms. Despite Ace's tight embrace, Liberty was still trembling quite heavily.

"No, Libe. You didn't do anything wrong. You did the right thing."

Sob. Sob.

Ace patted his little sister's shaking back. Seeing his sister in this state, he felt as if his heart was being pierced by something invisible.

"Do I still deserve to be loved?" she asked in a whisper, her voice trembling. Her arms hugged her brother's back extremely tightly.

"Of course. Don't say that. Everyone loves you, Libe. You're an angel."

"But… But, Brother… sob… I'm…"

"Shhh. You will always be loved. Just trust me. Okay?"

…