"To be honest, when you sent the ssage that you'd take a bit longer than expected to co back to the village, I felt a great sense of relief after you told it was fine to close the shop."
Smoothly entering the shop he'd been managing yesterday, Juno had a faint smile on his face as he heard an incredibly familiar sound echo from the rear portion of the shop.
Making his way to the building's workshop portion, the man was soon greeted by the sight of the young man in the midst of forging equipnt, seemingly for the sake of replenishing their depleted stock.
Though his eyes were wholly fixated on Valyr's movents, the man continued to speak with a slight chuckle. "In comparison, when you told that you'd only be away for a day at most, I had to manage the shop for almost another half day on my own."
"Who knew your promises would actually end up having an opposite effect?" said Juno at the end, finding the entire thing quite amusing.
Ttang! Ttang! Ttang!
Although Valyr had heard everything Juno told him from the very start, most of the young man's focus was still on the piece of equipnt he was forging, knowing that even a small slip in his concentration would cause the quality of his equipnt at the end to plumt.
With that, it was only when the equipnt was finally finished did he turn to look at Juno with a slight smile, finding the man's words amusing as well. "Should I tell you that I'd take a few days to finish the things I want to do from now on, then?"
"That's entirely up to you," replied Juno in a joking manner. "After all, you've only asked for my favor twice so far. Who knows if my words now would actually be a constant later on."
"In any case, you sent a ssage a few hours ago to co here early. Do you want my help on sothing?"
"Not really." Valyr shook his head, briefly thinking back to the thoughts he had when he'd just returned to the village earlier that night. "Just thought you wouldn't refuse an offer to learn about blacksmithing from for a bit longer."
"Why would I?" Just as the young man had ntioned, Juno imdiately perked up at those words, his eyes blazing with motivation as he aid to improve his blacksmithing skills as much as possible.
Though, just as he was more than eager to learn a few more tips and tricks about blacksmithing, a nagging thought popped up in his mind all of a sudden, forcing him to tamper his excitent down as he asked, "Wait… there's no catch to this, is there?"
"There's none," said Valyr with a bright smile.
"…If you think helping out later for the entire day isn't a catch, that is."
…
"Urgh…"
"I shouldn't have accepted your offer if I knew helping you today would turn out to be this hectic."
Although Juno was incredibly glad to have learned a lot of stuff from Valyr for a longer ti than usual, that excitent imdiately disappeared the mont the Forge of Beginnings was opened for the day.
Initially, Juno thought that the number of people that would be entering the shop would be more or less the sa as it was in the previous days. To him, it would be at a level that bordered between the fine line of manageable and overwhelming.
Unfortunately, the number of people that entered the Forge of Beginnings this ti around was at least double what Juno had to manage on his own in the previous days, making him feel like Valyr's help wasn't really any help at all.
"Even I'm surprised a lot more people appeared today," said Valyr in agreent with Juno's feelings. However, unlike the man, he exactly knew the reason why there were more people in his shop this ti.
'It's now the second day Greater Beyond has been released to the public,' thought Valyr to himself as he continued to tend to the shop like he always did. 'From what I could recall, a lot more people were able to enter Greater Beyond on the second day rather than the first.'
Rummaging through his mories from his past life, Valyr was soon able to rember that all copies of Greater Beyond during the first day had been sold, partly due to scalpers and resellers buying multiple copies for the sake of making a profit.
With that in mind, the company behind Greater Beyond understood that the audience that wanted to play the ga was far greater than they'd imagined, prompting them to sell even more copies of the ga on its second day of release.
'If I rember correctly, they were able to sell like 500,000 copies during the first day,' inwardly muttered the young man as he briefly went down mory lane. 'Pretty sure they also broadcasted that number on the news that day.'
'Because of that, they made 2.5 million copies in preparation for the second day, thinking it was enough copies to et demand.'
'But surprisingly, even though it took a couple more hours than it did the first day, all copies of the ga were also sold out on the second day.'
'At the sa ti, those who bought the ga from resellers during the first day more or less got their gas on the second day,' said Valyr to himself, faintly recalling what he felt was a far simpler ti in his life.
'Of course, since I bought mine from resellers, that also includes .'
'Speaking of which…' As the thought ca to mind, a wild question soon ford in Valyr's head. 'Since I traveled back into the past, would it be possible for to encounter my past self here?'
The more he thought about it, the more he felt like the possibility was there.
After all, instead of dying or being brought to his actual body a few years back in the past, Valyr was instead brought back to the past as a being within the world of Greater Beyond.
'But wouldn't my existence technically render Valyr in the actual world as non-existent?' asked the young man to himself as he mulled over the question for a bit more. 'Plus, if he does exist, wouldn't it break so sort of law of causality or sothing?' In the end, Valyr pushed all of his thoughts on the matter to the side as he gradually found the entire thing confusing. Then again, he did find the idea of his past self still existing kind of cool, thinking of it as sothing like the future looking at the past.
Shaking his head for a bit to sort out his thoughts, the young man refocused his attention on the task at hand, continuing to serve the players that entered his shop like he always did alongside Juno.
Offering a bit of help to the players every once in a while on what piece of equipnt or item suited them, Valyr soon fell into the usual sense of rhythm he relied on while manning the shop on his own.
However, that sense of rhythm imdiately stopped the mont a certain player entered his shop, causing the question that lingered in his mind earlier to surface once more.
'Is that… is that actually ?'
As his eyes landed upon a young man that sported a head of light gray and a pair of golden eyes, Valyr seemingly froze like a statue all of a sudden, feeling as if it was difficult to process any of his thoughts at that very mont.
But of course, as soone whose stats basically made him superhuman, that feeling only lasted for a short mont as the gears in his mind began to whir as fast as they possibly could.
'Surely that can't be , right?' inwardly muttered Valyr to himself as he forced himself to keep working.
Faintly shaking his head, he eventually decided to check if the young man was his past self using his identification skill, bringing up all of the mories he had on his first day in Greater Beyond while doing so.
'[Superior Analysis].'
Ding!
————
[Ataraxia] (Level 3)
Class: Civilian (Rank 0)
Species: Human
Power Level: 27 (C)
————
HP: 30/30
MP: 30/30
Stats: 3 VIT, 3 STR, 3 AGI, 3 DEX, 3 INT, 3 WIS, 3 PER, 3 LUK (3 unassigned points)
Skills: None
Remarks: Nothing stands out. Incredibly normal.
————
"…It really is ."
As these words left his mouth, Valyr imdiately felt a sudden urge to head towards his past self as soon as possible, briefly going through all his mories once more as a player during his first day in Greater Beyond.
Surprisingly, the gray-haired player seemingly had the sa thoughts as him, sporting a faint look of curiosity on his face as he gazed at Valyr from slightly afar.
Seemingly recalling a few bits of information he ca across before entering the ga, the player soon moved closer to the young man, eventually allowing the two of them to face one another as they looked at each other's eyes.
Then, as if the sa thought ran through their minds at that mont…
They shook hands.
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