When the plot-skips players into the game world

Chapter 761: Chapter 144: The Child’s Dream and Nightmare Chapter 761: Chapter 144: The Child’s Dream and Nightmare In the Fairy Kingdom, a mortal audience with the Queen seemed a sacred and rare event.

Simply walking on the dreamy Rainbow Bridge, Aiwass found fairies visibly gathering in greater numbers around him.

They were all there to watch.

—Perhaps because “Grace” was a familiar figure to the fairies, the novelty-seeking fairies curiously clustered around Aiwass.

The first to arrive clambered onto him, later ones flew low like skittering puppies by his feet; and the stragglers could only encircle Aiwass, following him like levitating cannons.

Suddenly, from somewhere ahead, singing broke out.

It started with brief chaos, then quickly tuned into a highly harmonious choir.

Those fairies conjured a variety of musical instruments in their hands.

Though they appeared small, the sounds were loud; when gathered, they became a roaring sonic wave.

As the fairies began to sing together, fantastical miracles emerged—
At first, a floating magic carpet that spared Aiwass from walking, as he sat cross-legged on it; soon the carpet transformed into a silver-white carriage, drawn by two unicorns in front.

Suddenly before Aiwass’s eyes, the carriage grew increasingly opulent—expanding from one tier to two, then three.

In the end, it became a colossal cake tower, and Aiwass sat at the very top as decor akin to a fruit.

In addition to the two unicorns, a multitude of doves now also pulled the carriage.

In front of Aiwass, an ancient piano materialized unexpectedly.

The instrument was alive—sporting tiny, fairy-like wings, it hovered in front of Aiwass.

Clearly, a fairy had taken on this form.

He touched the keys with a sense of nostalgia, a wistful look flowing in his eyes.

Soon, Aiwass struck the keys.

The piano’s sound was raw, yet rich with emotion.

Before long, Aiwass regained his mastery.

Grace, following behind, looked towards Aiwass in astonishment.

…The Archbishop can do this too?

The surrounding fairies coordinated with Aiwass.

Quickly, the joyful singing turned into a symphony.

It wasn’t a difficult piece, but it was rife with whimsical and fantastical notes.

Under the accompaniment of the “background music,” the cake carriage beneath Aiwass picked up speed.

Grace was no longer walking on the ground but flying through the air.

Even so, the main group grew further away from her—
Before long, the apex of the Rainbow Bridge was crossed, and the far shore came into distant view.

A palace so immense it seemed exaggerated.

Spire-like, the pure white palace was, upon closer look, crafted from ice and snow.

Snow fell from the sky above, and toy soldiers dressed in red cotton at the entrance shivered violently in the cold.

The end of the Rainbow Bridge tilted upwards into a steep incline, and Aiwass aboard the cake carriage was launched by the fairies—those fairies not flying high enough were batted away, tumbling end over end.

Only the fairies on Aiwass kept on screaming as they spun with him.

Defying the laws of physics, as the cake carriage beneath Aiwass spun, the massive, towering cake tower somehow didn’t collapse or throw him off.

They whirled through the air like a rapidly spinning bone, producing a whizzing sound akin to a boomerang.

Just then, from inside the ice palace, a carpet made of blue ice spread out.

But this ice carpet wasn’t laid on the ground.

Instead, it looped around like a roller coaster.

Ultimately, upon reaching beneath Aiwass, it sliced the towering cake carriage in two!

Only the small section of the tower—little more than a meter high—on which Aiwass sat transformed into a small trolley.

Like a child in a supermarket cart, Aiwass rode at high speed, whirling around the twists and turns of the icy roller coaster.

During this, the shivering fairies persisted in their music, providing Aiwass with a musical backdrop.

Aiwass was left with no choice but to continue playing the piano.

During this, however, most of the fairies on him were spun off—each time one fell, the ensemble lost a layer of sound.

Eventually, only Little Fairy Nilim burrowed inside Aiwass’s sweater, tightly clutching at his collar, avoided being thrown off.@@novelbin@@

Of course, it might have been simply because she did nothing, while the other fairies were busy playing their instruments.

And in the end, there was only Aiwass’s solo.

But even amid the snowstorm, the sound of the piano effortlessly pierced the sky.

As the cake cart swiftly glided over the icy carpet, all the doors of the ice and snow palace opened one after another upon hearing the music.

The toy soldiers clad in red cotton uniforms, guarding on both sides of the doors, uniformly lifted their heads and saluted Aiwass with chests puffed out in respect.

They seemed to be not much taller than half a meter, and it was obvious to the naked eye that they were made of wood beneath the heavy cotton uniforms.

Yet, they shivered as if frozen, appearing as if they were living creatures.

—Although this scene seemed quite fairy-tale-like and interesting, Aiwass knew that these simply-designed toy soldiers were actually very frightening Phantom Demons, on the same level as Succubi and Penalty Demons.

Moreover, they had lived for a very long time, any one of them descending to the Material Realm would be at least of the Sixth Power Level.

And depending on the “atmosphere,” they could stack various ludicrous BUFFs on top of that.

With that in mind, the scene before him suddenly became terrifying—being surrounded by at least three to four dozen Phantom Demons all above the Sixth Power Level.

And as Aiwass ventured deeper, their numbers continued to swell.

In fact, they were all emissaries of the Fairy Queen.

The Fairy Queen’s position was equivalent to that of a Celestial Marshal.

However, she wasn’t called “Fairy Celestial Marshal” because the title of “Fairy Queen” could be actively inherited—Titania was not the first Fairy Queen, nor would she be the last.

Though most fairies do not live past twenty, any fairy could potentially become the Fairy Queen.

And this was a very natural racial rule: the Fairy Queen creates new fairies, and if she finds life boring, she can abdicate on her own.

Afterwards, a fairy would naturally mature and become a new Fairy King or Fairy Queen.

There were no clear promotion rules, nor defined duties or terms of office.

Everything was like the rules of the Path of Beauty, vague and whimsical, decided by the heart.

And Titania was a rather capricious Fairy Queen, under whom the “decorative style” of the Fairy Kingdom would frequently change.

Each time the style was switched, they would transform into creations matching that style.

The Fairy Kingdom didn’t have a specific form, or rather, each child invited into the Fairy Kingdom could envision what the Fairy Queen’s abode would look like, and it might transform into what the children had imagined.

Regardless of what the Fairy Kingdom became, these “animate objects” were actually the same group of actors inside.

If it were Spring Garden, they would become handsome male and female servants; if it were a Candy House style, they would become Candy Soldiers; if it were a horror theme, then they would be floating Ghost Servants or Haunted Teaware.

The ice and snow palace before them was actually the Crystal Ball—if one approached from outside the Rainbow Bridge, they would find that the location of the Fairy Queen was enveloped by a massive crystal ball, so in truth, it was a toy theme.

Therefore, they were actually playing the part of wooden toy soldiers.

Aiwass had a particular impression of them—because even they possessed memories.

In a later fairy side-quest, there was a Candy Soldier that, upon encountering a player, would say, “Eh, why have you come again?”
These “toy soldiers” were extensions of the Fairy Queen’s authority.

They all had real and pure souls, followers of the Fairy Queen in life and her emissaries in death.

Among them were some fervent followers who, struck by the Fairy Queen’s breathtaking beauty that could destroy rationale, fell in love with her—also known as bootlickers.

Of course, their pursuit was doomed to fail…

as fairies do not require sexual reproduction.

In some ways, they are more akin to plants, propagating through flowers and fruits.

Others grew tired of the deception, hardship, and pain of the real world, preferring to devote themselves to this eternally beautiful fairy-tale world.

These individuals were of pure spirit, and that’s why they could play alongside the fairies.

For these people, this might also be considered as a “beautiful afterlife”—no hunger, no pain, no death.

They just needed to obey the Fairy Queen’s orders, dressing up in various roles every week to amuse the queen, the fairies, and the children, perpetually living in joy.

The only regret was that there were no vacations, no personal time, and they could not leave the Fairy Kingdom…

for the Fairy Queen was also very good to them, bestowing upon them much strength; this made their true nature extremely terrifying.

While these soldiers didn’t possess the fairies’ bizarre power to do as they wished, because they were actually the Fairy Queen’s “imagination,” their illusions were extremely potent—not that the illusions were indestructible, quite the opposite.

The illusions had no defenses and would shatter upon dispersal.

But if one didn’t see through the Illusion Technique, their attacks would be clumsy and comical, like elite soldiers wearing puppet suits pretending to have a slow-motion brawl.

The moment one attempted to dispel the illusion, they would morph into strange and abstract horrors, their attacks becoming extraordinarily swift, displaying abilities completely out of keeping with their former style and capable of wiping out an entire group on the spot.

It was like, “Didn’t you notice the assassin sneaking in?

His Stealth is so inept,” “I did, so let’s not say anything.

Pretend we didn’t see him.”
And because of this troublesome mechanic, the various statuses on them could only be dispelled by completing specific mechanics—not difficult, but requiring cooperation.

Though the instance itself was indeed fun and entertaining…

that was usually when joking around with friends on voice chat.

Considering that you might occasionally get matched with teammates who lack intelligence, are too lazy to think, or don’t understand the mechanics, dragging everyone else down with them, the matchmaking environment of fairy instances could turn into a disaster movie.

At those times, hearing the phrase “Eh, why have you come again?” each time they restarted became quite devastating.

And these creations were actually part of the fairy tale.

—They were, in fact, “children’s nightmares.”
Nightmares are also part of fairy tales.