The group marched through the rolling plains, they passed giant mossbacks minding their own business among the bushes and ponds of the great plain.

“And yeah, then one thing led to another and we took the continent over - though I was a pretty weak necromancer back then!” RuRet explained with a laugh.

His two companions, Zack and Jasper not only didn’t believe him, they saw his theft of the credit for such a crime rather embarrassing.

Jasper’s face was still a little bruised but it was healed for the most part.

The silence was interrupted by Jasper.

“Give me my damn weapons back!” he demanded.

RuRet folded his arms behind his head.

“No-can-do, you shouldn’t go around perma-killing people like that!” he replied.

“Besides, you can use this time to improve at your normal classes!”

“What are those, by the way?” he asked.

Jasper remained silent.

“He’s a sword and enchanter.” Zack finally said, earning a scolding look from Jasper.

RuRet shrugged.

“Well, if you’re really a protagonist, you should be able to win without your one-hit-kill magic exploit.” he remarked.

Jasper gritted his teeth.

“Bullshit…” he muttered to himself.

Not long later, the group entered the town of Levelgreen.

RuRet approached the large wooden board planted in the centre of the small town, on it were dozens of papers detailing different quests from players and NPCs alike.

“Let’s see… is there anything interesting to do around here?” he began.

The sudden sound of Jasper smashing his fist into the quest board caused RuRet to jump a little.

“WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU MEAN!? WE’RE NOT YOUR GOD DAMN QUEST PARTY!” he hissed, his face red with rage.

RuRet shrugged.

“Aww, come on! It’ll be fun!” he assured Jasper.

“HELL NO!”

RuRet breathed a sigh and reached into his pocket, pulling out a small quest-page and writing down his own, personal quest.

After finishing the it, he handed it over to Jasper.

“There.”

Uncertainly, Jasper looked down and read over RuRet’s quest.

“Difficulty: ???”

“Task: Find the one who asked for your opinion.”

Jasper crumbled the paper in his hand, looking up to RuRet with a menacing glare.

“I will find a way to kill you one of these days…” he hissed.

RuRet nodded.

“Sure, sure, now, come help me pick out a quest!” he exclaimed, waving Zack over.

After several minutes of arguing, the group eventually decided on a quest.

“Quest Difficulty: Easy”

“Task: Find and bring back a local thief called Laerton”

“Appearance: Harpy, white feathers, male”

“I could just take him out with the stamp!” Jasper exclaimed.

RuRet clicked his tongue.

“Yeah, but we need him alive!” he replied.

“I could still use a sleep stamp on him!” Jasper offered.

RuRet smiled smugly.

“Don’t take this the wrong way, but I think I trust this Laerton guy more than you…” he began, he sounded apologetic.

Jasper grinned.

“I swear to god I’m going to kill you…” he muttered.

Zack breathed a sigh.

“We’ll need to somehow get him to cooperate with us… either that or I’ll be able to knock him out with a sleep seal…” he began.

RuRet smiled.

“Don’t underestimate the thief that robs towns right beside the jGuardian base.” he warned, gesturing to the distant fortress bearing the jGuardian flags.

RuRet shrugged.

“Worst case scenario, we’ll kill them and leave the collecting to the undead I left in Levelgreen,” he shrugged.

Zack nodded uncertainly.

Seeing this, Jasper spoke up.

“Maybe Zachary should take the kill,” he suggested.

Before Zack managed to show his displeased expression to Jasper, RuRet nodded.

“Good idea!” he exclaimed.

“No, I really can’t!” Zack exclaimed, already anticipating the trouble his inability to kill another person would cause.

RuRet smiled.

“Of course you can! The fact is, the blood of all those people killed by Jasper here is partially on your hand!” he replied, still his usual gleeful self.

Zack remained silent.

Jasper looked at the two and smirked.

“But it’s alright! Neither of your kill-counts come close to mine! So as you murder-senior, I’d be happy to offer and or force some advice upon you!” RuRet exclaimed, proudly.

He gestured to the back of his hand where the number “213” was printed beside his stats.

For comparison, Jasper only had twenty-five kills and Zack had none.

“Looks like I’m travelling alongside two villains!”Jasper scoffed.

RuRet shrugged.

“You know what they say, one death is a tragedy, one-hundred deaths are a statistic!” he replied nonchalant.

“You’re just trying to justify your murders!” Jasper laughed.

RuRet smiled a toothy grin as he looked at the number printed on his hand.

“If you try to justify murder, you’re either always going to fail or you’ll start spiralling down a hole of self-delusions and lies.”

“Murder is simply an action, and like any action, such as swimming, cooking and sleeping, some people will call you evil for it.”

“If I was to slay a tyrannical king, I would be called a hero some and a murderer by some,”

“If I chose to stop the execution of a thief I would be called a hero by some and a criminal by others,”

“If I wiped a town off the map for the sake of fuelling my undead army, some would call it evil and some would call it an unfortunate event somewhere in Ajuan where the equivalent of seventy-two Arlepians were killed.”

RuRet breathed a sigh.

“If I was to kill you, right now, Jasper, you would be met with momentary pain and then be re-spawned at the nearest town.” he began.

“But if I perma-killed you, you would respawn as a new person, no guilt, no scars from the past, would you not call that a form of mercy?” he asked stepping towards the unwavering Jasper.

“Is that evil? Is cutting a rotting flower off and allowing the plant to sprout a new flower utterly, abhorrent?”

“Is there really, as some say, no justification? Is a murderer beyond saving?”

The fishman now stood inches away from the anxious Jasper.

“...”

After a few tense seconds, RuRet jumped back with a laugh.

“I don’t know!” he shrugged.

“I don’t care.” he added.

“Personally I value life greatly, thus, the death and birth of a new life cancel themselves out in my eyes.”

“So the only thing that can make murder either good or evil is the intent.”

“If Jasper chooses to kill the thief to make the quest easier out of laziness, I’d say that’s pretty bad.”

“But if he does it out of concern for the already poor village, that’s pretty good!”

“If Zack hesitates to kill the thief because he lack the courage to potentially make the wrong choice and feel bad, that’s pretty bad in my eyes.”

“But if he decided not to kill him due to the fact he only stole a piece of bread and only for the sake of survival, that’s pretty good!”

RuRet and the others walked through the rolling plains, the distant shack where the thief was allegedly staying slowly came into view.

“So, according to my logic, the worst thing you can do is justify murders, since to truly do so, is to lie to yourself and make your motives unclear.”

Zack nodded, unconvinced of RuRet’s logic.

Jasper didn’t comment, his eyes set on the shack, through one of the windows, they could see the flickering of a candle.

The building was a small, single-room, one-story home with a crumbling chimney.

That’s when it happened, the sound of magic could be heard as the group found themselves in a violet cube of light.

While Zack panicked and Jasper readied his fists for a fight, RuRet simply knocked on the violent walls around them, his hand was repelled by the barrier.

“Arcane Prison, eh?” he wondered.

From around the group emerged a party of twelve players.

They all wore masks and leather armour making them as members of a recently created thieves guild.

In a flash, they disposed of RuRet’s undead which remained trapped outside of the purple cube.

“Alright, guys, drop your cash and weapons onto the ground and we’ll teleport you some place safe!” instructed one of the masked figures.

RuRet looked around and realized they were surrounded.

“Alright, you two, what do you think we should do in this situation?” he asked, calmly.

“DO AS THEY SAY!?” Zack cried.

“I agree!” yelled one of the thieves standing in the back.

Jasper looked at the terrified Zack with a look of disgust.

“I say we kill them…” he said.

RuRet shook his head.

“Nope!”

The two looked at him.

“The correct answer is: we capture them and ask for extra money when we return the quest!” he explained.

Jasper breathed a sigh.

“You’re still going on about the quest!?”

Overhearing their “attempt at intimidation” the leader of the thieves guild folded his arms.

“Yeah, sorry to say, we’re the ones who posted the quest!” he laughed.

“...”

“...”

“...”

RuRet breathed a sigh.

“Aw…”

He looked legitimately sad.

“It alright, I still have a few gold…” Zack offered.

“THIS IS NOT THE TIME TO CHIP IN FOR A PARTY!” Jasper exclaimed.

“EXACTLY!” the leader of the thieves guild agreed.

“Maybe a necromancer can scare off petty thieves, but we’re professionals!” he exclaimed.

“You’re not going anywhere!” he grinned.

Sensing an opportunity to show off, RuRet smiled.

RuRet snapped his fingers as from around him appeared countless skeletons, they were fully armoured, carrying shield and sword.

From the looks of it, there were at least two-hundred of them.

Every few rows of skeletons stood a group of skeletons riding skeleton horses.

Rows of skeleton archers and skeleton crossbowmen stood in the back.

Skeletal mages stood in the back carrying staffs and wearing grey robes.

“Alright, but just as a heads up, I’m officially a lich!” he said with a playful wink.

He was referring to his auxiliary class.