>>6039959>>6039958>>6039830>>6039787Mhh, how about checking who we're dealing with before making any rash decisions? You try to 'rewind' the computer a little bit before you showed up. Of course, you're the only one seeing it, the game is running just fine in the background even without your direct intervention.
Let's see, it looks like she spends a lot of time online, albeit not as much as Josh as she actually has a job in some bakery. Not a high end job, but she looks like she's doing fine enough for herself. Her online presence is semi-anonymous, she does use a pseudonym, but refuses to show any personal information. She's very much into 'magic', checking every website she can on rituals and the likes. Most of it is probably fake, although you have to admit you can't remember everything from your past, so maybe you did forget a few spells. Whatever, you remember the most important ones. Conveniently, she also researched stuff that is actually useful to you. Like some recent rumors about an arcade and a strange boy occasionally seen playing a handheld game console. There's barely anything on these two, but even from the few details given you can recognize them, you hope they didn't get too ahead.
You rewind further, and you get to something more interesting. Back during high school, Hazel was bullied for her behavior. Turns out she didn't keep her magic interest a secret, and as she wasn't used to speak up for herself, it made her an easy target. Looks like her friend protected her from the worst of it as Luna was quite popular herself. There are a lot of pictures of them together and...
You look at one picture of them together, the way Hazel is looking at her friend... Lust? Maybe? No, it's close but that's not quite it.
You look at more pictures, and you can sense there's a pattern here, it's hard to notice, but there's no doubt in your mind about it.
It's envy.
It's not a thought she noted anywhere, she might not even be aware of it herself, but there's some degree of jealousy in each picture. Jealous of what? You aren't sure, there's plenty to be jealous of. Beauty? Popularity? Aptitude? Either way, that's something to work with, you wonder what Hazel is truly like inside. You can't quite <span class="mu-s">observe</span> thoughts just yet, but you can make educated guesses from emotion spikes.
You look back to the game, and the village is burning. Hazel didn't do the quest, her friend did it for her. Get pendant from dead mother, get to forest, you know the drill. Hazel is distraught by the burning village, but Luna doesn't seem to care, you doubt it tells anything about her, she just sees it as a normal video game after all.
Actually, Luna is much better at the game than Hazel is. She's not as good as Josh was, but she at least has some basic experience with that type of game, which is good because that player character can barely fight, and you're certain Hazel would die a thousand times before making any progress..
