Afterlife Dream

"Dear Adventurers, welcome to the Red Bubble Playground! A Bubble War will begin in a short while. Please take your position!"

"Position?" I turned to Aurendiria, giving her a quizzical look.

She was equally puzzled. "What Bubble War?"

While we were trying to understand the instruction that we just heard, the double door at the ends of the hall opened up and a bunch of small bubble monsters poured out.

To be exact, the red ones poured out from the door behind us and the green ones from the door in front of us.

"War! War! War!" they chanted in a high-pitched voice.

Aurendiria and I both took our battle stances, but the small monsters did not mean to attack us.

"Heave-ho!" they cried as they swept us off our feet.

The green ones got me while the red ones got Aurendiria.

"Antares!!!" Auren cried, extending her hand after me.

"Auren!!!"

We did not have time to be dramatic because both of us were quickly kidnapped to where the respective bubble monsters came from.

As soon as the door closed behind me and the bubble monsters, I was let go.

"Preparation!" a green bubble monster that sported a mustache shouted. The other bubble monsters responded with an excited cry, "YES!"

While I was distracted by the mustached bubbled monster's ridiculous appearance, I was stripped naked.

No, you didn't read wrong.

I was stripped naked.

Bare.

"OI!" I shouted angrily when they even took my staff away.

They took my staff away! How was I supposed to fight the enemies now???

Despite my protests, I was forcefully dressed in an even more ridiculous green slime costume. It made me look like a green bubble monster with legs and arms. With naked legs and arms.

For a split second, I regretted calling my then Native Islander set ridiculous and ugly. Apparently, there were uglier costumes! I did not know where my dignity was. Possibly stuffed together in the corner together with my cool Dark Moon set. I would rather die than let anyone see me in this emasculating costume.

Unfortunately, the green bubble monsters had their own plans with me.

As soon as I was adequately dressed, they swept me off my feet again and carried me out through the double door.

As I was being carried on their heads, I saw Aurendiria approaching from the opposite side. Just like me, she was also dressed in a slime costume.

I could not stress enough how much I wished the green bubble monsters would just drop me on the floor and step on me until I died.

Just in case any of you thought that it was fine because we were dressed similarly, let me tell you why it was not fine.

Aurendiria was a girl, right. If she walked around in this kind of costume, people would call her cute.

And me???

I became a freak!

The bubble monsters set us on our feet, facing each other. Aurendiria took a good look at me, from head to toe. She stared at me in disbelief. I wanted to die.

And then, the bubble monsters tossed us each a trisula of the color that we were representing. I held the green trisula and Aurendiria the red trisula.

"Fight! Fight! Fight!" the bubble monsters chanted.

Aurendiria and I stared at each other.

"Um..."

Fight? Using the trisulas? Had the game gone mad?

As if answering the question I had yet to say out loud, the game's mechanical voice announced the mission, "Welcome to the Red Bubble Stage, Adventurers! The Red Bubble Boss likes good fights. Make sure that you give him a satisfactory show to make him appear. The stage is completed only if the Red Bubble Boss appears!"

"..."

"..."

Aurendiria poked at my trisula in hesitation.

"I guess we have no other choice but fight."

"Uh... yes..."

The timer above our heads lit up, counting down the time from the ten minutes mark.

The trisulas were not sharp. They were made of plastic, too. Aurendiria and I ended up poking each other using the trisulas. A round of booing sounds went through the spectators - red and green bubble monsters - as they watched our half-hearted fight.

"Oh no, the fighters are so boring!"

"The Red Bubble King is not going to come anytime soon!"

"Antares, let's get serious," Aurendiria furrowed her brows at me. "I can take some attacks. Stop treating me like a sick granny."

I laughed at her remark. "Fine, I said. Don't regret it."

We started fighting earnestly. Slowly the booing sounds disappeared and was replaced by excited cheers.

"GO RED GO RED GO RED!!!!"

"GO GREEN GO GREEN GO GREEN!!!!"

Time passed by quickly. When there were only two minutes left on the timer, the map shook and all the bubble monsters erupted in a cheer.

"The King! The King has come!"

Aurendiria and I stopped fighting and spread our legs in order to remain standing. The ground shook more and more violently. In the end, we had no choice but to cower on the ground as the wall burst and the Red Bubble boss appeared in all its grandeur. It was a lot bigger than I remembered back in the Dai City Party Quest. And it could speak.

"HAHAHAHAHA!" it hollered as it looked down at us, the two human beings that were dressed as bubble monsters.

"I have yet to see a better performance! Young ones, I shall reward the both of you!"

And then, two shiny pins fell into our hands.

"..."

"..."

We were both gaping at the Red Bubble boss in disbelief. Was that all?

It was not until the game spoke up again to announce the stage completion that we snapped from our daydreams and went back into reality.

The stage was the easiest one, and so it was natural that the rewards were not much. I got only thirty Life Points while Aurendiria got twenty-five.

As soon as we received our Life Points, we were back in the tent.

Aurendiria and I were still in our slime costumes!

"Oh, God!" I shouted in terror. "What happened to my Dark Moon set???"

My Dark Moon set! The set I basically got by shedding blood and sweat altogether! Those slimy bubble monsters stole them!

I was about to charge at the NPC when Aurendiria laughed and pulled at my costume.

"Antares, relax. Look at your inventory."

I immediately turned on my user interface screen and checked my inventory. Relief flooded my heart as soon as I saw that my full Dark Moon set including my weapon was there.

We changed into our original attires and tucked the slime costumes into our inventory.

"Hey, look, they are so nice. They even gave us a cute costume!" Aurendiria grinned.

"Cute? Embarrassing is the more accurate word," I muttered. I planned to sell off the costume at the nearest shop in town. One piece of gold coin was already a lot for it.

Time to draw another golden orb. Aurendiria took the previous one, so this time it was my turn to pick the orb. As I put my hand into the huge bowl, I kept praying silently in my heart.

Please please, please. Please let it be an easy stage. I would like to collect more Life Points today.

My prayer was granted.

Kidding.

I drew the last tarot card, The World. The Dimensional Master.

Both Aurendiria and I gulped.

"We want to skip, right?" I asked Aurendiria as if we planned to face the Dimensional Master.

"Myeah," she answered. "Of course we will skip."

We traded our slime pins against free passes again and skipped the stage. I gulped with anticipation as the translucent card that contained the Life Points hovered in the air in front of me.

I grabbed it, and... my mouth fell open in awe.

Five hundred points.

The numbers slowly disappeared and went into my user interface screen. I went from 1 Life Point to 683 Life Points within one day. And the day had not even ended yet!!!

"Come Auren, pick the next golden orb!" I happily urged her. She nodded at me with a smile and approached the NPC.

Her smile faltered when the golden orb that she picked unfurled into The Devil card. I had to check the event announcement on my user interface screen in order to know which boss it was, but I knew that it was not an easy one. It turned out to be the Ice Dragon.

The raid boss that I did not have the chance to fight to earn my cloak.

I no longer had any pin, but Aurendiria still had one that she could trade against a free pass.

"Well, Auren, I will see you outside," I waved at Aurendiria.

"Okay," she said.

I left the party and then the tent. Even with the lamps illuminating the inside of the tent, it was still quite dark. So dark that when I went out of the tent it almost felt as if the sun exploded before my eyes.