game mechanic, latest info, even the latest trend. Unlike those second tier users that only had time to play the game, but remaining ignorance on how the game works.

Living like those third tier users that had all the time to play the game and knew everything about the game only to play their character foolishly was quite sad.

Every class in Emperor Saga had their own perks and specialty. Clever used of skills, manipulating enemies weakness and taking advantage of the environment were the

core to win against stronger enemies.

The fourth tier users, were the users that spend their time in the game, knew everything about the game and could skillfully played their character. Sadfully, they found it tiring to do every little things to increase their character stats.

“(More!)”

By the time he earned the title ‘hundred men slayer’ and gained ‘Skull Mask’ nicknamed, Emperor Saga’s community already regarded him as fifth tier users.

He was among the one percent users called ‘the challenger’. A world class player that aimed for the Emperor seat.

They were practically live in the game, knew every little detail about the game, used their avatar skillfully, and doing everything to increase their character stats. Everything, including training their real life body to gain bonus stats for their avatar and learning martial arts to fight more efficiently.

As Daniel finished his training drill, he washed himself soon after he arrived home. After having his meal, he entered the game.

*****

Your contribution in helping the caravan’s escape from the raid was highly praised by the ‘Merchant Guild’. The guild decide to award you with 15,000 guild points.

Congratulation! You had accumulated enough guild point to be promoted as rank B merchant. You are now is a rank B merchant. Various guild functions for rank B merchant were unlocked for you.

As he read the game announcement, He couldn’t help but smiled when he learned his hard work had payoff.

He aimed for rank A before arriving at the ‘Port City of Malak’ as it was the minimum rank for him to continue the class upgrade quest from there onwards.

You had unlocked ‘Contractor’ as your class upgrade. By upgrading to contractor class, various skill and stats upgrade will be made available.

Before completing ‘Merchant Class Upgrade Quest’, ‘Contractor’ class will be in trial mode, some function are not available.

Would you like to try contractor class in trial mode?

YES

NO

Once the ‘Class Upgrade Quest’ accepted, the game would unlocked various second tier class as long as the requirement to unlock the class was fulfilled.

Unlocking ‘Contractor’ as one of the option for his class upgrade was expected. Chrono did quite a numbers of high profile contracts which was the requirement to unlock the class.

He heard there were eight well known second tier class for merchant. Those classes were :

Dealer :The Market experts

+8 all stats upon upgrades

The class would be provided with ‘Market skill’, a skill that would updated the market prices for each item in every city in the world.

‘Negotiate skill’ upgraded to ‘Persuasion skill’

Shopkeeper : Shop experts

+5 all stats upon upgrades

The class would be provided with ‘Major Licence skill’. Shopkeeper doesn’t needed to take quest and bought licence every time they want to open a shop.

The class also had ‘Management skill’ a skill that allowed for lower worker wages and higher slaves efficiency.

Contractor : contract experts

+20 all stats upon upgrades

Enhanced 'Contract' skill

Other merchant skill only could be increased up to master level 1

Blacksmith : blacksmithing experts

+20 to strength and sense stats upon upgrades

Blacksmithing skill proficiency could be increased until Grandmaster level

Can cast harmless blaze.

Tailor : Tailoring experts

+20 to dexterity and sense stats upon upgrades

Tailoring skill proficiency could be increased until Grandmaster level

Can cast Fairy blessing

Chef: Cooking experts

+40 to sense stats upon upgrades

Cooking skill proficiency could be increased until Grandmaster level.

All the cook cooked by the chef lasted longer.

Alchemist : Chemist experts

+25 to wisdom and sense upon upgrades

Alchemist skill proficiency could be increased until Grandmaster level

The potent of chemical created was doubled

Artisan : Accessory experts

+25 to int and sense upon upgrades

Accessory and gem cutting skill proficiency could be increased until Grandmaster level.

Learned ‘Embed spirit skill’

There were some cases where hidden class was triggered in the class upgrade quest and one of them was specialized in fighting.

He heard the hidden class was quite beastly for a class from the merchant branches. Chrono did want to trigger such a class but his luck made him remained sceptical.

‘Contractor’ was the least popular among the second tier classes. The main reason was, other than ‘Contract skill’ , the class could only increased merchant skills proficiency up to master level 1.

Compared to other merchant class that could increase it up to master level 10, it was a great disadvantage skill wise and stats wise.

“Yes”

You are choosing to become a ‘Contractor’, are you sure?

YES

NO

“Yes”

You are now a ‘Contractor’

As it was just a trial mode, Chrono just accepted the class just for the bonus stats it gave. He thought of changing the class once he triggered a better class.

Stat Window

Character name

Chrono

title

100 Menslayer, Guardian Slayer

Level

110

Class

Contractor

Health

780

Mana

600

Fame

5000

Infamy

21,800

Strength

175(+80)

Dexterity

389

Endurance

54

Wisdom

51

Intelligent

64

Sense

134

Luck

38

Stamina

168

******

To recover from the last raided and discussing the future planning for the caravan, Gilbert announce that the caravan would stay on ‘Egil’ for ten more days.

The members filled the spare time provided with many ways . The mercenaries mostly did monsters subjugation quests as they want to recover their level back.

Merchants mostly did ‘merchant guild’ quests to accumulate more guild points. Some of the merchants took the opportunity to sell their goods and some others did independent city’s quests.

They were few members just didn’t login and some just hanging out at the city’s plaza. As for Chrono, he already decided on what he was about to do. Before that, he decided to prepare a few thing first.

At one of Egil’s back alley where no one saw him, Chrono summoned his slaves using the portal. As they were summoned, all the slaves kneeled with their right fist pointing to the ground.

Chrono realized the slaves were practically abandoned yesterday. He was forced to logout early yesterday due to his insufficient fund paying the cyber cafe fee.

That leave his slaves with the caravan without Chrono sent them back to the 'Secret Warehouse'. In a way, Chrono knew his slaves would survived. They received enough training for that.Before the slaves said anything, Chrono spoke.

“Follow me.”

And all the slaves answered in unison.

“Yes, Master!”

Chrono walked along the back alley, back to the main road. He then went passed the city’s plaza and kept on walking. Without uttering a word, he turned left just before he reached the castle.

After awhile, they reached a big gate guarded by two city’s guards. The gate remained open as the place welcomed every guests. They were words attached at the top of the gate which Yoblin Fai tried to read.

“L-u-m-i-a T-r-a-i-n-i-n-g S-c-h-o-ol….. Lumia Training School?”

“Quick!”

“Y-Yes, Master.”

As they entered the gate, five magnificent buildings were placed inside. While the slaves looked around, impressed with the beautiful places, Chrono just walked to the central building.

As they realized their master was further ahead, the slaves ran to catch up with their master. The inside of the building was quite spectacular, just to go to the receptionist, Chrono walked quite a distance.

“Yes, sir. Can I help you?”

“I want to enroll these guys to the school. Can you explain to me the detail?”

“Well, first you need to fill the formed and choose the course for them. Then, you need to pay the deposit of five copper coins for each slave.

When you decide to take them back, you need to pay base on how many day they stay here. By the way, if you don’t come back after three month your slaves will be kick out from the school.”

“Hmm, good enough. I need a teacher that specialized in teaching goblin. Please give me the best one.”

“That require an extra…”

“Doesn’t matter, just give me the best teacher.”

“...Okay, please wait. I need to call the teacher.”

As the receptionist went to find the goblin specialized teacher, Chrono turned back facing his slaves. To his slaves, he finally explained the situation.

“I will be gone for nine days. While I’m gone, you guys will be studying here. I’m expecting your best effort while you are here.”

“Y-Yes, Master.”

While he gave his speeches, the goblin specialized teacher arrived. She was a women from barbarian races. Unlike the typical barbarian, she wore a purple color one piece dress.

Her curly blonde hair, her bulging muscles and her tall stature made the purple one piece dress felt out of place.

“Hello, I’m Alice.”

“Hi, nice to meet you.”

To save time, Chrono quickly explained what he want from the teacher. For goblin Ai,Bai,Cai,Dai and Ei, he want the teacher to focus on stealth combat type while not neglecting the other skills.

While the other group, goblin Gai,Hai,Iai and Jai, Chrono want them to focus on manufacturing skills without ignoring the combat part.

As she heard Chrono’s briefing, Alice threw in a question.

“Hmm..What about the other two?”

Alice pointed on Yoblin Fai and goblin Kai as she asked. As he heard the question, Chrono walked towards the green color Yoblin Fai.

“This one is a bit special. He is quite smart, please just let him use the library as he please.”

As he finished talking, Chrono walked towards goblin Kai before he explained.

“As for this one, just let him train alone. You can occasionally bring sparring partner to him. But be warned, he’s strong.”

After he finished all the paperwork and the advanced payment, Chrono took out a ‘Return Scroll’ and disappeared.

*****

Northeast of ‘Egil City’, there was dungeon called ‘Fairy Whisper’. It was quite popular among the users in the North Continent because of the challenge it's provided.

Regarded as one of the deepest dungeon. The dungeon started from the first floor spreaded to a spectacular B99 level totaling to a hundred floor.

As the previous master of the dungeon hasn’t login to the game for over a year. The dungeon was free to be conquered again two months ago.

Normally ‘TerraNorth’ clan members would took actions and conquered the dungeon swiftly. After the clan’s disbandment, things like masterless dungeon was left alone as other powerful clans were busy trying to reunite the whole North Continent.

Just outside of the dungeon entrance, it was a ‘Safe Spot’ where the monsters didn’t spawn. Users that using the dungeon as their level grinding spot gathered here to recover from injuries or just took a breather.

From there, a light shines from above and a person appeared. While carrying a bag filled with repairing tools, Chrono walked towards the dungeon entrance.

Outside, he saw few merchants vendors. The merchants were quite relaxed as not many users came and bought their items.

Chrono understood the reason behind it. He didn’t said much as he was sure the vendors here knew the reason either.

As he about to enter the dungeon, he stumbled on someone he recognized.

“Esca?”

“H-Hi, Chrono.”

The items offered by Esca was plain compared to the other vendors. Regardless, every items offered by Esca were items that was high in demand for every dungeon crawler.

Potions and foods for various races and smoke bombs. Chrono thought Esca was good in selecting her products. The only problem was, the place where she stationed her vendor.

“Hmm..This items will sell quite well inside. Why not open the vendor inside? You can open it just beside my vendor. I only offered a repairing services, so we don’t have to compete.”

The kind offers from Chrono made Esca smiled a bit. Just as she about to say ‘yes’, she remembered something, her expression changed right away. She lowered her head, looking at the ground in silence.

“Esca?”

Chrono’s voices brought her back to reality, she finally found courage to face Chrono to answer his offer.

“S-Sorry, I am afraid of monsters. I guess I will just stays here.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, I’m sorry.”

“Nevermind., I guess I will be going now.”

As Chrono walked by, Esca just watched him from behind. For her first acquaintance outside of the city of Mafoso, she could only said sorry.

*****

As he entered the Dungeon first floor, he experience a drastic change of viewed. Compared to the relaxing atmosphere outside, the place was flooded with monsters and users alike.

Skills and magic projectile was everywhere, the floor itself was quite big, but every corners were filled with users or monsters.

For the places where monsters spawned, users gathered and fought for the kill. For every places where monsters didn’t spawned, users use it to relax and this was the place where merchants opening their vendors.

The monsters subjugated swiftly after they were spawned. The monsters couldn’t wander around like they were supposed to be.

This made the place has more ‘Safe Spot’ than it should be. The vendors were practically everywhere as long as it was not where monsters spawned.

On the top of rocks, in between stalagmite, near the waterfall, on the bridges, merchants open up vendors wherever they could.

It was the main reason vendors outside didn’t had much customers, the vendors inside were nearer to the users.

Chrono activated ‘Silent Dead’ skill just to be sure the monster wouldn’t targeted him. He walked around to choose a good place to open his vendor.

Merchants did fought between themselves for great spots to open up vendors. Chrono decide he didn’t want to waste time, so he just took a decent place to open his vendors.

He open up his vendor just a few meters away from a monsters spawn area. A wide places with a big pillar like stalagmite on his back.

Chrono kept on activating ‘Silent Death’ skill to be sure he was not targeted. As he open up his vendor, he started shouting to announce his repairing services.

“Repairing vendor! I can repair your equipments for a price!”

As they heard Chrono, the users that needed to repair their equipment started to come to his vendor.

*******

Repairing skill had increased to intermediate level 5

Around seven hours of repairing equipments, Chrono repairing skill has rose to a considerable level.

“(Hmm... I can finally repair ‘Ragnarok’ with this level of repairing skill. I guess I should call it a day.)”

“Sorry guys, this is it for today.”

As Chrono about to wrap things up, something unusual happens. It was one of the unannounced game updated.

It was said the game developer hided a few updated just to ‘surprise’ the players. And that ‘surprise’ brought Chrono to his demise.

“Monsters! Monsters!”

“What with the ruckus, just kill them….what the..”

Suddenly monsters spawned at a large numbers. They practically flooded the whole floor. To make it worse, every monsters spawned spot spawned intermediate level dungeon boss.

Users running around in panic made things worse as it created ‘monsters train’. When the ‘monsters train’ merged as the users running around, a huge stampede occurred, it was chaos.

“(Damn!)”

Even with ‘Silent Death’ skill, Chrono still had to run. Or rather, he was forced to run with everyone pushing him. If he happened to stumbled he would definitely died from the users and monsters stomping on his body.

In the spurs of moment, where the crowded users in panic and he couldn’t controlled the situation. Instead of the exits, the monsters managed to corner the users into a dead end.

From Chrono point of view the wall was still far away, regardless, the users in front just stop moving.

He couldn’t even moved his hand, his health was depleting with all the rough pushing. At the back line, the monsters and their bosses putting pressure on the people there.

“Hey! Keep on moving!”

“Don’t stop, dammit!”

“H-Hey, don’t push!”

As the users at the back kept on pushing,the front was forced to move again. With all of the back row pushing, Chrono finally reached the front row. And that was when he understood why the people in front stopping. As what lies in front of him was-

-an abyss of darkness.

“D-Don’t push!”

Chrono finally realized, the people in front of him were pushes into the abyss. The users behind just didn’t understand and they kept on pushing.

A single user just couldn’t win against the crowd. The ill fated Chrono was the next victim pushed into the abyss.

As Chrono fell, he realized it was much better to die earlier. It was too late for him to realize that. His body fell like a rock. Into the darkness of the abyss, his body disappeared.

******

Present time

Cheat Death activated, instead of dying, your health decreased to one.

From the forum, Chrono knew the dungeon first floor abyss ended at B77th floor. He was alone and felt like shit.

Falling from the first floor straight to B 77th floor dungeon would kill anyone. ‘Cheat Death’ skill saved Chrono.

He would travel up through the seventy eighth floor to the first floor exit, if that was possible. The problem was, it was impossible.

‘Fairy Whisper’ dungeon, the depth of the dungeon wasn’t just the only thing made the dungeon extremely popular.

It was the challenged it provided. At B71th floor, there was no stairs to go down the floor, just a single pit hole.

From that point onwards, only two option available for the players. Died and respawn at the nearest city. Or conquered the dungeon.

Both were impossible for Chrono, as he could only spawn at the current floor ‘Safe Spot’. And it was impossible for a single player to conquered the dungeon.

Unlike other continent, North Continent was in a warring state. Big clan all over the continent busy preparing their army to unite the north. They could careless about conquering the dungeon.

This lead to low amount of high level party trying to conquer the dungeon. Until B60 floor, it was rare for to see a party to go further.

‘Silent Dead’

Slowly, Chrono stood up. They were some monsters that would attack when they saw he moved, despite of him hiding his presence.

He hoped the monsters around him wasn’t that type of monster. As a precaution, he tried to move as stealthy as possible.

“(Maybe I should call for my clan help?)”

Chrono open his users interface and tried to open the clan chat. But the result was-

Error, no signal

-Discouraging.

“(What? Don’t tell me this kind of function work like phone signal. No signal because I’m on the ground?)”

Then, he tried to open the private message function.

Error, no signal

“(........)”

As he was in despair, he finally thought of something. If he open the portal, he could transport himself to his warehouse. He tried to open the portal just to find out-

Error, no signal

-He was screwed.

“(...I’m Screwed)”.

****