Chapter 2: Buffer or Bust?
The air crackled with residual data, a metallic tang that seemed to cling to Livia's digital tongue. A fresh wave of Cleaners surged from the pixilated ruins, their red eyes glowing with predatory intent, each one locking onto Livia. Anomali. Target. The word echoed in her mind, a cold whisper from the system, a terrifying constant. StormReaver's shout, "Buffer, you're with us, now! This isn't safe!" still rang in her ears, but Livia knew, deep down, nowhere was truly safe for her anymore. Not in this bizarre digital world, and perhaps not even in the real one.
StormReaver, or Ethan as Livia now knew him in her private thoughts, moved with a lethal grace that belied his massive greatsword. He spun, activating Abyssal Strike, a swirling vortex of shadow energy that tore through the approaching drones. Pixels exploded, raining down like digital confetti. IronVanguard, Dimas, was a rock. His Iron Bastion skill flared, forming an impenetrable wall of shimmering light that held the front lines against the metallic horde. The ground trembled with the impact of their blows. Livia felt a strange, internal thrumming, like a low-frequency hum, a constant, nagging reminder of her Lv. 1 status, of her inexplicable weakness in a world where she once commanded respect.
[THREAT DETECTED! SUPPORT EMOTIONS TO SURVIVE! +50 EXP.]
A group of Cleaners swerved past IronVanguard's impenetrable shield, heading straight for Livia. She felt a familiar panic begin to rise, a cold knot in her stomach, a primitive fear that transcended digital code. But she pushed it down. She had to focus. Her gaze snapped to StarSlinger, Alex, the Arcane Gunslinger, who was frozen. He stood there, gun half-raised, a familiar blankness in his eyes. Livia knew this look; it was his old esports trauma, the moment he'd choked on the biggest stage, a millisecond of hesitation that could spell doom in a fight like this.
"Alex!" Livia instinctively called out, channeling Empathy Spark. A pulse of calm energy flowed from her. It pierced through his mental block, like a shot of adrenaline to his core code, snapping him out of his internal nightmare.
StarSlinger's eyes snapped back into focus. He let out a sharp breath, then grinned, a wide, confident smile. "Thanks, Buffer! Almost had another 'incident' there!" He then unleashed a flurry of perfectly aimed Astral Shots, each glowing projectile finding a Cleaner's weak point. Drones imploded left and right, their forms shattering into harmless data fragments.
"Buffer?!" Livia squawked, a fresh wave of exasperation washing over her. Her hands clenched. "Buffer? You think I'm some kind of supermarket discount app? If I were, I'd buy all the discounts myself! I'm a Mental Supporter, for crying out loud!" The very word "Buffer" felt like a digital slap across her face, reducing her complex psychological skills to mere statistical boosts.
From nearby, PsychoBlaze, Rian, chuckled, dodging a Cleaner's laser beam with an agility that surprised Livia. "But you do give us discounts on our mental fatigue, don't you?"
Livia rolled her eyes. A faint, almost imperceptible glitch shimmered around her vision. It was like her own personal static, a soft visual distortion that only she could perceive around the edges of her sight. The world itself seemed to waver, pixels shifting, colors bleeding for a split second before snapping back into place. Was this the "further glitches" the system warned about? The price of using my powers?
"The Tokyo server is making my skills lag, Buffer! Could these Cleaners be from a hacker's IP?" SakuraSorceress, Mei, the guild's nimble healer from Tokyo, complained, barely managing to cast her Sakura Bloom in time to heal IronVanguard's battered armor. Her movements were usually fluid, graceful, but now she seemed slightly off, her usually cheerful demeanor replaced with a frustrated pout, pulling at her pink hair.
Livia sighed, a weary breath that felt too heavy for her digital lungs. "Mei, these aren't hackers... I think. And it's not the server. Something else is going on. Something wrong." The glitchy feeling that accompanied her words was growing stronger, a subtle flicker in her perception, like a bad connection in her own brain. It felt like she was a fragmented file, constantly trying to defragment itself.
"Nah, these Cleaners are just toxic NPCs from the game forums, finally got their revenge," StarSlinger joked, still blasting away, seemingly unfazed by the weirdness. "They probably got banned for spamming griefing tactics and decided to riot in-game."
StormReaver, Ethan, who had just finished off a cluster of Cleaners with another brutal Abyssal Strike, moved closer to Livia. He positioned himself subtly between her and the remaining threats, his broad back a comforting, albeit pixilated, shield. His gaze was intense, scanning her face with an almost unnerving attention, as if searching for something beyond the digital avatar. When a stray Cleaner managed to slip past his guard, he instinctively reached out, his hand brushing her arm as he swatted it away. The touch sent a jolt through Livia, an odd sensation that felt both comforting and... profoundly real. A flicker of doubt crossed his face, a slight hesitancy in his movement, as if he, too, felt something unusual in their brief contact. A spark that transcended the game's code.
"You're safe with us, Buffer," he said, his voice lower, almost a rumble, his eyes momentarily fixed on hers. "I'll make sure of it."
His words should have been reassuring, but they only deepened the unsettling feeling that gnawed at her. Safe? Nothing felt safe anymore. The warmth of his touch lingered even after he pulled his hand away, a lingering heat that defied logic in a world of pure data.
Then, the world around Livia shifted. Not the game world, but something else. A fleeting, horrifying sensation. A sickening lurch in her stomach, like falling through a void.
She was in a cold, sterile room. The incessant, rhythmic beeping of a heart monitor filled the silence, a stark counterpoint to the distant sounds of combat. A sterile smell of disinfectant clogged her nostrils. And then a voice, soft but clear, right beside her ear: "Her coma is getting deeper... We need to consider more aggressive options." The words were chilling, detached, clinical. She tried to move, to call out, but her limbs were heavy, unresponsive.
Livia gasped, a sharp, involuntary sound that seemed to scrape against her throat. Her head throbbed, a relentless pounding behind her eyes. A phantom pain echoed in her temple, as if someone had just pressed down on a tender spot with immense force. A dream? No, it felt too real. Too specific. The fear was too raw. She squeezed her eyes shut for a second, trying to shake the lingering image of the hospital room, of her own helpless body. The digital battlefield around her felt less real than the sterile reality she'd just glimpsed.
The remaining Cleaners suddenly froze. Their red eyes dimmed, their aggressive stances collapsing. Then, with a series of unnerving, jerky glitches, they dissolved, vanishing into shimmering data particles that floated away on the digital wind, leaving behind only echoes of their chilling presence. The battle was over, as abruptly as it began.
Silence descended, broken only by the heavy breaths of the guild members, the clanking of IronVanguard's armor as he shifted, and the faint, almost imperceptible hum of the Ethereal Nexus's lingering code.
[ANOMALY WILL BE DELETED IN 24 HOURS. FINAL DEBUG PREPARATION INITIATED.]
The system's voice, cold and devoid of emotion, sliced through the quiet, making Livia's blood run colder than any digital frost. The words hung in the air, a terrifying, inescapable death sentence. Delete me? My existence?
StormReaver turned to Livia, his expression grim, his previous amusement entirely gone. "What was that? 'Anomaly'? 'Deleted'?" He gestured vaguely at the space where the Cleaners had been. "These aren't normal Cleaners. They were hunting you specifically."
PsychoBlaze, Rian, rubbed the back of his neck. "Yeah, I mean, I've seen some weird bugs after patches, but 'delete in 24 hours'? That's a new level of server instability, even for Aethelgard Nexus!"
StarSlinger, Alex, piped up, "Maybe it's a new event? Like, a limited-time quest where Livia's the special 'marked' player? High risk, high reward, right?" His voice was laced with an almost desperate optimism.
SakuraSorceress, Mei, however, looked worried. "It didn't feel like an event. It felt... hostile. Like a firewall attacking malware."
Livia could only stare at the ominous system message, her mind reeling. The phantom pain in her head intensified, morphing into a dull ache. 24 hours? Delete me? This wasn't just a bug or an event. This was personal. This was real.
StormReaver's hand gently touched her shoulder again, a reassuring weight that made the glitch around her momentarily subside. "You're safe with us, Buffer. I'll make sure of it." His voice was firm, resolute, but there was a flicker of something new in his eyes—a deep concern, a protective instinct that went beyond just a Guild Master looking out for a powerful support player. It felt… personal.
Livia looked at him, then back at the ominous system message, her heart pounding a frantic rhythm. Safe? When the game itself wanted her gone? When her own body lay unresponsive in a hospital bed? A new, desperate resolve began to harden within her. She wasn't just bugged. She was a target. And she wouldn't go down without a fight. Not here. Not in her second home. And certainly not if it meant never waking up in her first. The next 24 hours would define everything.