Chapter 30: What Lies Ahead

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Part 1

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“G-Ghost?”

“Hey, babe.”

“W-What… h-happened?” Elly let out a little groan as she tried to sit up.

“Nothing much…” I answered briefly as I eased her to her seat with her back against the wall. She took a while to composed herself as I looked on worriedly at her. I feared that she might suffer from ‘who-knows-what’ negative status effects that this game kept dishing out to me and my allies. Fortunately, this time around my fear was unfounded.

“What about Mimi and Popo? A-And Rose?” I would not answer for her. I just moved out of the way and let the scene played itself. And when she saw what happened to the rest, the colour of her face drained. She immediately covered her mouth with both of her hands and her tears started to flow freely. Perhaps she finally understood what had happened after she was taken forcefully last night.

“Mimi?! A-and…” She tried to move and get closer to them, but I held her down firmly.

“Let the two of them alone.” Wiping her tears away, Elly stared at me with the same teary eyes. I never saw that sort of face on any woman who was close to me before and it made me a felt little awkward.

“W-What about you?” I pointed to myself and laughed it off. I waved Elly away and not wanting to her get worried about me, I turned myself and faced Mimi. “How’s he holding up?”

“Better… but we needed more elixirs and potions for him to properly recover.” Mimi explained as she wiped her sweat from her paws.

All of us except for Rose were inflicted with debilitating status effects. Elly was inflicted with the status > that rendered her unconscious and her maximum HP and MP were reduced by half. Once the status timer wore off, only then she woke up and her status began to recover to normal.

Popo was the worse of us lot. Not only he was inflicted with > and > – two status effects that halved his vitals, slowed down his recovering process and kept on decreasing his HP and MP over time – he too suffered grievous bodily injuries while trying to save both of our lives back then. The scar across his face that blinded his left eye was his battle trophy. If it was not for his last-minute burst of skill effects that destroyed the whole building and giving us some time to run away, our fate could be much worse than this.

Though Mimi was exhausted and her MP diminished to zero, she kept on trying her best to help her husband. However, without proper places and items to help her, Popo might not make it.

But that was our current challenge. We were not in any towns or civilizations that could offer us those items. We were underground hidden from everyone; players and NPCs alike. Truth to be told, with the price currently on my head, I was sure to attract unwanted attention anywhere I went within this Kingdom. Attacking the Royal Palace was considered a major taboo and all of us were now paying its price in one way or another.

“15000 fame?!!” Elly shrieked when Mimi told her what happened after she was taken away. She then glanced at me with an amazed face that changed to concern straightaway.

“Add that that I now currently have a bounty on my head.” I gave out a chuckle, chipping on Mimi’s story. “How much was it? 20 thousand gold coins? I thought it was 50,000 once we were done destroying the place. Hahaha!”

“This is not a laughing matter!” Elly was not amused. The price we paid to rescue her was high indeed. Something that she had been contemplating for a while. Judging from our current conditions, she was neither too happy to be rescued and end up like this nor kept hostage within the Royal Palace wall. Mimi tried to ease the blonde girl a little from her inner suffering with some calming words. And this was my cue for me to get out of the way.

“Well, I think it’s time. I’m going out.” I stood up and walked towards a dead end wall.

“W-Where to?”

“You stay here with others, Elly. Within this wall, all of you are safe but just keep your eyes on the rest. Once we get Popo’s back to his feet, only then we will think of what we need to do next.”

Reassuring her further, I gave her a smile and added, “No worries. I’m not doing anything reckless. Just meeting some of my contacts, that’s all.”

*****

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Part 2

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While waiting for my contacts, I scrutinized the Key Item, > given to me by Mimi. This was the key that enabled us to enter our current hideout – the same place where we ran away from God’s Wrath and found ourselves some treasures. A secret place that lay beyond the walls deep within a waterfall cavern located just half a day’s walk from the town of Brensberg.

We ran from the Royal Capital and having nowhere else within this Kingdom that we could safely travel, we decided to take some risk by returning there. I was holding the only means to enter the place; stuck between the wrath of the Kingdom and also the Gods. It was kind of a déjà vu; always running and hiding away from something. What a turn of event indeed.

“So, this is where you are!” Suddenly, two men came towards me just after the sun had set in. These two were my contacts; Al and Ed. They used the same short form of their real life name even in the game.

“Have you seen the latest posters?” Alfredo, the younger brother of Eduardo handed me a couple of flyers with my face on it. Sporting a totally contrasting look from the ever suave and cool as ice Ed, Al was lanky with spiky blond hair and a scar across his cheek on his boyish face. He looked like a proper delinquent, far contrary to his real-world innocent self.

“Hmm… impressive that they could get my details right. Especially the eyebrow.” I gave a chuckle and returned the flyers back to Al.

“That and also the increase of your bounty. As it stands, it is now at 30 thousand golds, mind you.” Ed came and handed me a bag that contained the items I had asked them to get for me. “It’s all in there. Whatever you wanted.”

I gave a wry smile to both of them. Meeting them at a PK-Zone nearby my hiding place had helped me tremendously. Other than us, no one else was here. Hearing that both of them had ordered all their guild members here for a field meeting, every other player dared not to trespass this area. Striking an Ambrosia’s members meant that those players were waging war on the 6000 plus strong guild. Not a wise idea as I could attest to since I too at the end of a much larger scale.

Once they knew what happened, the first thing they did was to laugh off at me. They knew I was a few screw loose when it came to people but to actually get on the most wanted list of the whole kingdom just for an NPC, that was beyond crazy. Most players would let their ally or any NPC died anyway. In that case, what they lost was a few points of their stats or a little fame. But a minus 15000 fame was unheard of in NPO. To them, I just entered the unofficial Hall of Fame all for the wrong reasons.

“Well, it could be 100k gold coins by the end of the week and I don’t give a toss.”

“That and also every NPC and player are hunting for you. Well… except for the few people of course. The other three were asking for you too, you know.” Ed reminded me about the trios. I had their messages but I just ignored them. They meant well but I did not want them to get into my business. Especially this kind of a business.

“Thanks for the items. Really appreciate it.” I wanted to be gone as swiftly as I came here.

“Anything else?” Ed asked of me. Al asked to leave us as he had to prepare all the other members before their Guild Master, Ed gave his announcements regarding the next event. The two of them must have been busy with the new event and by the way they went at it, they too must play an important role.

I shook my head. “I better leave before you guys start your field meeting here. Can’t have any of your members suspect you doing this…” I paused for a while and gave out a bitter smile, “…meeting a criminal.”

“If anything were to happen, I could always say that I had caught you.” Ed chuckled while handing me another bag. “Something to help you. Not much, but it’s better than having to meet us here in the open. Eyes and ears are everywhere if we are not careful.”

He was right. We must not get caught being seen together. I quickly left and returned to my hiding place.

*****