The smell of coffee and yummy food assaulted her senses as soon as Cecilia reached the stairs.
She walked down step by step, with her mouth salivating.
This is also something that wouldn’t happen in the game. It was impossible to salivate.
Yet, despite the hunger that cried from inside her belly, she couldn’t stop analyzing everything around and inside her.
"Oh, you finally came! You took your time, eh, Miss Cecilia?"
"Hehe. I’m sorry. I had to check some things before coming."
Marya had run to Cecilia as soon as she reached the floor. The shine of her eyes and her smile were the kind to melt the heart of any person, no matter how grumpy.
Behind her, a chubby woman, probably in her late thirties, was cleaning the counter.
"Good morning, Miss Cecilia. I am Gertrude, Marya’s mother and owner of this inn. Please, take a seat wherever you like, and I’ll come serve you."
"Thank you, Miss Gertrude."
The dining area of the inn was cozy, with around eight tables distributed in it. With a quick look, Cecilia calculated that it could probably harbor forty seated people at any given moment. That said, it was empty now.
She chooses a table near the wall and sits down, waiting for the breakfast to be served. In the meanwhile, she took note that the innkeeper was a full human. Then probably Marya’s father is the elf.
"Here it is, bon appétit."
"Thank you, Miss Gertrude."
The plate in front of Cecilia had scrambled eggs with cheese, sausages, and some loaves of bread. She started digging in immediately, with the hunger of a person who had only fed through intravenous serums in a hospital bed for the past year.
Normally, tetraplegic people would be able to eat normally. And she had eaten in the first years. At some point, she started having digestion problems, and solid food became less and less frequent until it stopped completely.
"Oh my. I didn’t think you would be so hungry. Just chew properly so you don’t get choked, miss."
Gertrude sat on the chair at the other side of the table, with a kind smile.
"I’m sorry... It’s been so long since I last ate something solid."
"No, no... It’s okay. Just take care."
Cecilia nods and slows down, making sure to chew properly. It’s been so long since she last chewed anything that the advice of the innkeeper seemed very sound.
"It’s all so delicious! And the coffee as well!!"
The game also had food. Tons of different ones, at that, which gave tons of different bonuses depending on the ingredients, their quality levels, and the skill level of the cook. But they weren’t the simple scrambled eggs with bread.
Actually, she remembered the NPCs making simple food like that for their own needs. But they would only fill the hunger meter, without any extra bonus. All the beneficial recipes used some sort of monster or special and hard-to-get ingredient.
And yet, this food didn’t look like anything in the game. Food was just an item that you would place on a table, and then use the command ’eat,’ and the item would disappear, including the plates.
And yet, here was Cecilia, chewing on a good-to-god sausage and filling every single nerve of her sensory organs with its taste.
"It’s delicious!!!"
"I’m glad you think so. I can serve you seconds if you want, no increased cost."
Cecilia felt really tempted but thought about her condition and decided against testing the limits of her body so soon.
"No, thank you. It really is delicious, but I don’t want to indulge in excess."
A gleam shone in the innkeeper’s eyes as she gave a short and hearty laugh.
"You’re right on that. I wish my daughter heeded those words more than my own actions."
She laughed again before continuing.
"So, may you indulge my curiosity a bit?"
Cecilia raised her eyes from the plate to look at Gertrude’s face.
"Of course! If it’s something I’m able to answer."
"Well, what were you doing in the forest yesterday? I heard from Mutt, the hunter, that he found you unconscious and naked there."
"Huh?"
Cecilia’s greatest fear was confirmed. She was indeed found naked. And what’s worse, by a man alone in the forest. She’s lucky for being intact, because if it were the wrong kind of men... she could only shiver at the idea of what might have happened.
And yet, she didn’t have an answer to that question. Because, to the extent that she knew, ’yesterday’ she was on a hospital bed playing a game.
"I know that it might sound weird, but the truth is... I don’t know. I have no recollection of even being in a forest yesterday. Marya said that we’re in Aberswan... Is this the Aberswan in the kingdom of Drakestadt?"
Gertrude’s eyes widened, the expression on her face turning more and more serious as Cecilia spoke.
"Yes, this is the kingdom of Drakestadt, the western border, to be more precise. Do you have any memories of coming to this place?"
Now that she thought about it, when she was playing, she was indeed going to Aberswan. Not exactly to Aberswan, but to the capital. It just so happened that Aberswan was the next village on the road she was taking.
The devs of the game used to be very restrictive in the mechanics for fast travel. The only way to teleport somewhere was to personally set a rune there.
A player could have only three runes at any given time, and they couldn’t carry other people or vehicles or mounts. Even items or stacks of items above a certain value threshold were barred.
Those design decisions meant that all large-scale trade was done by physically moving stuff around in large carts and mounts.
As the inventory of almost everyone was very restrictive, and logs and stones occupied actual space and weight, the caravans could become really big. Which meant they would have big targets on them.
The resources were also very unevenly spread through the game world, making trade a real necessity for the player villages that would slowly arise and then become nations. That MMO was a sandbox with a heavy Survival feel and fully fleshed-out social mechanics.
The trade routes becoming targets meant that the merchants (players who wanted to just buy, sell, and get rich) would hire escorts (PvP players). Sometimes the battles for securing a trade route would get massive.
Someone once said that Hyperborea was a ’Valhalla meets EVA Online’ but in a high fantasy setting, and it was so spot-on that it became a common phrase in the fandom.
And that was exactly what Cecilia was doing. She went to the tower of a wizard who was selling some very specialized herbs she wanted. ’Very specialized’ meant ’too pricey for teleport,’ so she was returning home by foot.
And yes, even players like Cecilia would often just buy what they needed instead of going gathering themselves. That’s because of how big the game world was and how sparse and actually scarce high-level resources were.
That specific herb only bloomed for three days each year, in the bowels of a volcano. There were people who loved to farm for those challenging timed things, and the price made them very valuable, but Cecilia was content with paying the price and devoting her time to other things.
But yeah, she couldn’t explain all that to Gertrude.
She confirmed that the village is in the kingdom of Drakestadt, which meant that she could probably find other players and ask someone to send a bug report to the staff.
That said, there definitely wasn’t an inn in Aberswan. It was a small and new village, recently built by the kingdom. Cecilia herself was part of the group that built the first buildings and the palisade wall and set the street layout, just a few weeks ago.
So she decided to ask about it.
"Is this inn new? I don’t remember there being any inn here the last time I visited."
Gertrude tilted her head.
"Oh? It sure makes you think about how long elven people live. This inn has existed for two hundred years, and my family has been the owners of it ever since."
"What???"