Mythos Of Narcissus: Reborn As An NPC In A Horror VRMMO

The spiraling, maddening moon of Carcosa ascended into the sky, its light casting surreal, shifting patterns across the landscape.

The familiar hum of distortion in the air marked the arrival of the Ordeal of the Dusk, a phenomenon that painted the land in gradients of chaos.

"Huh, I'm starting to get used to this."

I stood atop the observation deck of the Landship, gazing out into the swirling, unearthly horizon.

As always, the maddening moon's presence was both magnificent and oppressive—a cosmic force that dared anything and everything to try its patience. The faint whisper of shifting reality buzzed in my mind, now that I'm no longer a mere mortal.

And of course, with the Ordeal of the Dusk, comes the special type Calamity Object that shall open the bouquet of horror in this garden of horror.

But unlike the usual, that special Calamity Object arrived with no fanfare, no dramatic eruption—just the gradual, insidious alteration of reality.

A ripple spread through the air, distorting the moonlight into jagged, prism-like patterns. It wasn't a physical entity that materialized, but a pervasive phenomenon, more akin to a rule carved into the world itself.

Even without Kuzunoha's usual commentary, I could sense the shift.

It was a phenomenon type Calamity Object.

"Ah, there it is," came Kuzunoha's voice from behind me, light and playful despite the gravity of the moment. She perched on the railings of the observation deck, her crimson eyes glinting with mirth.

She tilted her head lazily, as though surveying an interesting puzzle. "Hazardous Immortality. Sounds poetic, doesn't it? You could write sonnets about absurdity."

"It is not inspirational enough for me to make a poem about, sadly."

"What is the first special Calamity Object of the day?" Lupina asked, being carried by Charis as usual.

"Oh, nothing too catastrophic," Kuzunoha said with mock nonchalance, though the smirk on her lips betrayed her enjoyment. "For the entire duration of Carcosa's night, nothing within this region—not a plant, not a beast, not even our delightful little Calamity Objects—will be able to die.

"Not truly. Not even temporarily, if that's what you're wondering. They'll heal, regenerate, or simply ignore the damage altogether."

Phenomenon-types always brought rules that defied normality. Every time they appeared instead of the normal passive and aggressive Calamity Object, they always shift the playing field into something completely different.

In this case, the Hazardous Immortality would mean that our main focus of the Ordeal for the day is to mark a dangerous and rule-defying Calamity Object as a priority, and then prevent as much collateral damage as possible on our side.

"Well," I remarked, glancing down at the bustling Landship crew below, "That makes tonight's festivities much more visible." I gestured toward Lupina, who was already connected to her Cognitive Engine headset, her disembodied head grinning with anticipation. "Lupina, broadcast the phenomenon to everyone. Ensure they understand its nature before they encounter it firsthand."

"On it, boss!" Lupina's voice practically crackled with energy as she relayed the information to the bastioneers and Heavenly Maids, her tone laced with a mix of professionalism and her usual boisterous charm.

She was as happy as usual whenever I gave her any kind of task that was possible to be done in her current state.

Now that I thought about it, taking care of Lupina's mental state felt similar to preventing a pet from getting stressed.

It felt that way much more, because Verina stopped being that one adorable dog that I have. She became too powerful, too prideful, and too smart, inquisitive, and efficient—for the last one, only when I ordered it or when she felt like it.

She was no longer my cutie patotie that I wanted to pet and cuddle, in terms of my impression of her.

As the Ordeal began in earnest, the Landship defenses came alive. The newly-installed turrets swiveled into position, their Neural Alloy barrels gleaming faintly in the eerie moonlight.

The drones hummed to life, their cat-eared Supportive units scuttling to their posts, while the heavier Assault and Defensive Drones emerged from their hangars, each carrying the extra firepowers and lethality of our neuromorphic technology.

The first wave of standard Calamity Objects arrived in force—a chaotic blend of everything, from writhing, malformed entities and conceptual horrors that twisted the very air around them, to our usual Bloodhounds, Sandstalkers, and Shardfiends.

"With that phenomenon, everything became a persistent little bastard, aren't they?" Kara muttered, her voice crackling through the comms as she dodged a swipe from a grotesque, multi-limbed abomination.

"Don't waste too much energy on them," I recalled through the Cognitive Engine network. "Focus on containment. They can't die, but they can be suppressed."

From the Landship's core, the confidantes joined the fray, each bringing their unparalleled abilities to bear.

Kuzunoha stood amidst the chaos, her hands weaving intricate patterns in the air as she disassembled Calamity Objects with surgical precision.

It was the very same method of storing an item into her arcane storage, by turning something into pure arcane material and saving their structure schematic for when conjuring it again, drawing it from the arcane storage.

But in this case, Kuzunoha skipped the structural schematic saving of the process, which would just completely dissemble the Calamity Object into arcane material, in which she just removed from her arcane pool, completely dissolving the Calamity Object into nothingness.

"Mmm~ So efficient~" I called out over the din, my tone tinged with dry amusement. "Why don't you do this all the time, Kuzunoha?"

She laughed, a musical sound that belied the destruction she was wreaking. "Oh, darling Narcissus, where's the fun in that? Efficiency is so... boring. And the process? Ugh, don't get me started. Dreadfully unpleasant when it comes to living beings."

So, she just doesn't want to be bothered with this method unless necessary.

That was so like her.

Nearby, Viviane summoned a rift in reality itself, her fae magic creating a swirling portal that swallowed an entire group of regenerating Calamity Objects. They were deposited somewhere far from this realm—whether it was another dimension, timeline, void, or reality altogether, even though I wasn't entirely certain.

She looked visibly tired with every usage of that spell, however, even though the energy that she used to cast it was conceptually infinite because of how fae magic works.

"You're getting rusty, Viviane," I teased, watching her wipe a bead of sweat from her brow.

She shot me a glare, though the corners of her lips twitched in a faint smile. "Perhaps. But I'd like to see you trying to go back doing the thing you haven't done for multiple centuries, for an extended period of time."

"I'll make sure that the food is immensely nutritious for our beloved grandma, so you only need to work out every now and then." I gave her a thumbs up.

"I like slightly bitter stuff, in case you're wondering about my palate."

"Even your taste fits the stereotype."

Verina, ever the epitome of controlled destruction, stood at the forefront. Though, this time, she had no choice but to use more of her Furnace instead of relying on pure spellpower.

Her Furnace ability manifested as an intense, shimmering heat that reduced Calamity Objects to puddles of molten material, trapping them in an endless cycle of death and rebirth as they failed to escape the effects of her conceptual heat manipulation, or never.

"Narcy, can I get a kiss on the cheek for doing an extremely good job?" Verina remarked, her voice as deadpan as ever as another wave of monstrosities dissolved before her.

"For now, you'll get a pat on the head."

"Your hand is soft and beautiful as always."

"Of course, you're talking about me, after all."

"I wonder how it tastes…"

"My hand is not food."

"Twasty."

"My finger is not a pacifier."

"I-I think father's finger is as delicious too!" Charis exclaimed out of nowhere.

"See? Now you're becoming a bad influence on Charis. No kisses are in the making until the end of the ordeal."

"Fwair."

After some usual confrontation with Calamity Objects that could be easily suppressed and dealt with within the influence of the Hazardous Immortality, there were also a couple of Calamity Objects that needed an extra effort.

Alow hum reverberating through the Landship as a Calamity Object that had been identified as the Timekiller emerged from the spiraling moonlight.

It was an eldritch monstrosity—a towering figure cloaked in an aura of fractured time. Its form defied logical comprehension, constantly shifting between states of existence. Its 'flesh' appeared to be made of cascading clockwork mechanisms interspersed with organic material—each ticking and tocking in discordant harmony. Its elongated limbs ended in jagged, claw-like appendages that dripped with temporal distortions.

Wherever it moved, the concept of time itself bent and twisted. The ground beneath it decayed and reformed, objects aged centuries in seconds before snapping back to their original state.

"Well," Kuzunoha said, her voice uncharacteristically serious, "That one's going to be... tricky."

Viviane and Verina exchanged a glance, their usual banter replaced with quiet determination. Without a word, they moved into position, preparing for a coordinated assault.

As for me?n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

I'm here with Charis, snacking on some fruits that we picked from the hydroponic farm.

The Timekiller let out a soundless roar, an oscillation of distorted frequencies that seemed to ripple through the very fabric of existence.

Even the maddening moonlight dimmed slightly in its presence—the Calamity Object moved with an unsettling grace, every step fracturing something, and every movement was tied to a certain point of its history.

"Wee??" Sera attempted to land a sneaky strike toward the Timekiller, only to be missing completely as the Timekiller reverted to its own time and came back to a position that it had already taken in the past. "What in the radiant one!?"

Right, the bastioneers started to use me as their swear words now—

Even if one of our bastioneers landed a solid hit or any kind of neutralizing attempt, the Timekiller could just revert its own time and act as if nothing happened. What's worse is that it could also manipulate the time of anything that made contact with it.

Thankfully, our bastioneers noticed this first and gave an order to their Cognitive Engines to not order any drones to fight against the Timekiller, something that I would've done if no one did it.

Seeing the whole thing, Kuzunoha, Viviane, and Verina acted immediately. There was no need for words—this wasn't their first dance with something of this magnitude.

Kuzunoha raised a hand, her fingers tracing a sigil in the air. Her crimson eyes burned as she forced the Timekiller into the present through some ineffable arcane sorcery that was still hard for me to understand, locking the time-manipulating Calamity Object in this moment with a lattice of arcane constructs.

The sigil shimmered and pulsed, its edges jagged and unstable as it fought against the Calamity Object's attempts to untangle itself from the temporal anchor.

Then, Viviane's fae magic surged, tearing a rift in reality that reached into the depths of the past. The portal's edges crackled with raw, chaotic energy as she bound the Timekiller's temporal pathways, dragging parts of its essence backward into a timeline it no longer occupied.

The strain was evident on her face, but her resolve never wavered.

To support our grandma, Charis and I readied our handkerchief and wiped every sweat that was trickling down on Viviane's forehead.

Viviane looked at us with a confused and annoyed expression, but it was worth amusement.

Verina followed with a precision that was almost terrifying. Her Furnace manifested as an all-consuming wave of heat that targeted the Timekiller's time, forcing its existence to fast-forward far into the future relative to its own existence.

The 'heat' didn't burn in the conventional sense—it aged, eroded, and destabilized.

The Timekiller's movements slowed as its ability to manipulate time was constrained. Its jagged limbs flailed, carving streaks of distorted chronology into the air, but the combined efforts of the three confidantes held it in place.

Until its time passed the limit of its time-manipulating power, unable to return to the presence evermore.

""They did it!"" shouted Charis and Lupina. Even if they didn't join the battle directly, they learned a lot by witnessing their seniors.

"Narcy, can I get another headpat?" Verina shouted from the ground, far below the deck.

"No, but give you a heart gesture instead," I said, sending my signal of love with my hands.

Verina acted as if her heart had been shot, as she fumbled to the ground. "Too cute…"

"Narcissus darling, I want one too~!"

"No, that can only be meant for me," Verina said as she pointed her crystalline musket to Kuzunoha.

"How dare you take a monopoly of the market," an annoyed vein appeared on Kuzunoha's face. "Such a preposterous behavour!"

Meanwhile, Viviane could only sigh as she shook her head. "What are you, kids?"

They act like kids, alright.