Josh Maximillian PoV

Sitting on the desk doing some arrangements for my guild, slowly things were getting better.

Being a guild leader was no different from being a company boss. There were complainers, there were idiots, and there were the chief staff.

“Is it fine to not have Leo come over. He could at least get some support from the guild through gear.” one of the men in the room asked. Part of the administration, this man helped me set up and manage the guild and is the best administrator of my company. I even pay him extra with game money for his work.

“It’s fine, they won’t be of any use until they are at least in the 80’s range.” I told him.

“You sure? As a breeder, Leo could be a big help.”

“He’s only in his mid 20 range, besides his class is unique to bugs. No use trying to make him over work and not level up properly with skill grinding.” I tell him.

“I guess.” he said.

“Warren, you’re underestimating Leon and Debbie. There is a reason I consider each the best of their field in the research facility. Debbie is heads and shoulders above other plant researchers with a talent for using a few uncommon ideas to extract what she wants. Leon even more so is the source of more than fifty bug related vaccines and created over thirty different pesticides for some of the biggest plantation pests. Remember their class, Warren. One is currently a bug breeder class and the other is a plant breeder Druid, although they started late, it's a high investment to have them in the game.” I told him.

“I understand sir.” Warren nodded.

“Also, they are going to recruit a group in the south, they have been in contact with Debbie and their leader became a bounty hunter while the rest had even more rare classes after remaking their characters. With the update coming in two weeks they will be able to recruit them to the guild and from the south, participate as part of the guild in the new update to come while we go from the north.” I said grinning.

“Wait… you want to have them lead the charge from the south?” Warren exclaimed. “If I’m not wrong isn’t there a monster invasion in the southern desert at the moment?” Warren asked.

“Yep, the desert is currently even more chaotic than the monster infested waters of the eastern sea.” I say and grin. “Heh they will have a hard time to get through for sure.”

I laugh loudly and bring up a private chat with Debbie.

[Need something Max?] She asked.

[Where are you at the moment?] I asked.

[I believe it's called Eden, the last town border before entering the southern desert.] She replied.

[Wah! How the hell did you get there from the western borders in two days?!] I asked.

[With the help of Leo’s spiders, i caught a bird and learned to make wings for myself and using his flying bug as an aid along with my wings i was able to fly quickly over danger areas skipping small villages. I did mark a few that weren’t registered on the map, I’ll forward the locations to you.] She said and after a moment, three coordinates were marked out. [We are currently trying to get a sand boat ride across the desert to Uniden where our friends are but there seems to be something blocking the way and sand boat captains aren’t sailing.] she replied irritated.

I just sat there in shock by the speed, “Flying is totally a bullshit cheat.” I thought mentally, [There is currently an event with monsters rampaging in the desert. Stuff like level 120 Sand Worm and Sand Dragons with many more mobs like level 50-80 sand fish and some dinosaur like beasts along the routes with water.] i explained.

After the message was sent, it took about a minute before the next one followed, [Sorry, Leo just returned from digging around the town telling me that he just got five scorpions and a scarab beetle. Anyway, if it’s sand based creatures, there shouldn’t be any problems if we fly over the desert then.] she said.

I replied instantly, [Deserts are places with lots of wind and wind attribute monsters. There are a very large number of dangerous flying monsters so you better forget flying as your first choice!] I quickly replied.

[Oh…] she replied and only ellipsis followed.

Suddenly a private chat with Leo opened up.

[Don’t worry boss, we will buy our own boat and head off, we will think of something.] he said and the chat quickly closed.

The words were shocking, and I quickly replied, [You brats want to die! Oi!]

Sadly there are no replies. I massage my head and reread the last messages and wonder what was wrong with Leo’s head but considering he was hearing a second personality, there probably wasn’t anything good in there.

“Something wrong sir?” Warren asked.

“That bastard Leo said he would buy a small sand boat and wing it! Bastard is just throwing fucking money away!” I bellowed with some irritation.

It was his time to laugh, “Didn’t you say to not worry about him.” he joked.

I click my tongue, “Damn bastard, what can a level 20 do.” I said and opened the guild list and found his name, “Eh…”

“Huh? Something else wrong?” Warren asked.

“Check out Leo’s name and level cause I think my system is glitched.” I said.

“Why?” Warren asked and opened up the screen and found Droso at the bottom of the officer list as the weakest one. “It’s the same as before, Droso Level 42.” Warren said and froze, “eh?” he muttered and looked again. “He’s level 42 already!” Warren exclaimed.

“So I wasn’t dreaming, damn it! That bastard must have completed some quest and his level rocketed up. Lucky bastard, must have been a high class D rank.” I said.

“Yeah, that makes a lot more sense.” Warren nodded.

Sadly for them, they were quite far off.

***

Standing under a bazaar market that looked like what you would see in the arabian of the last century, Flor, Dark Droso and I just finished talking with Max and were having a laugh.

“Does the fatass actually think we are going to rely on ourselves to sail a boat?!” DD exclaimed.

“Oh stop that, he is just worried about us.” Flor said.

“Alright, let’s finish up preparation, we don’t have the luxury of waiting for either desert bug to grow into Tier 3.” I said.

“So how ‘do’ you plan on going about this?” Flor asked.

“Of course, we are going by boat.” I said.

The two froze and looked at him, “Jackass, didn’t we just joke with the fatass about it?” DD said coldly.

“We would be making the most out of the wind type bugs like the Storm Gale Strider and the Tempest Signal Beetle. Both can produce strong wind and in a desert where there is more wind, it is a better environment for them to use their abilities.” I replied.

“How do you know it will even work?” Flor asked.

“We can try out a few rounds while we learn how to sail the sand boats.” I replied.

“I don’t think this is a good idea though.” Flor said.

“Well, it’s worth a shot.” I replied.

“Dipshit, you do know that even the cost of a boat is expensive right?” DD said.

I just looked at him like an idiot, “It is expensive but don’t we have piles of level 150 and above monsters in the storage?” I asked.

He faltered there for a moment before nodding as he realized they had a gold mine that wasn’t cashed in.

“Alright, for now let’s get going and find a Sand ship Shipyard.” I said.

Asking around, we soon found it on the north side of town that was taken up completely by it. Wood came in from the central region and it was transformed into perfectly polished ships that even had tar covering for improved resistance.

Most ships were shaped like ancient polynesian ships which looked like two canoe parallel with a suspended platform on top and a storage underneath. The larger ones had small cabins on top. There were also common ship types like caravel shaped ones with similar canoe on each side for support so the ship doesn’t tip.

Of the money we once had, it was mostly wasted now, with my rise in level to level 42, we passed a large city along the way and I purchased better armor compared to the Great Elder Rabbitman set.

Flor was still low leveled in blacksmithing since she was travelling more. A good thing though is that with how long we have played, the corpse count for the bugs was so large for tier 1 and 2 races that after gathering everything up, Flor was able to actually use the exoskeleton for forging material. Those with earth attributes were the best for making shields and armor and those with frailer ones were much worse. She can’t really make much out of them since they are simple bug carapace but when made ‘pure’ they come out as level 5 armor while when mixed with iron in a 1:1 proportion, it comes out as a level 25 armor.

My armor is now a Black wolf Leather armor, it’s a level 40 set where each piece, torso, legs, boot, gloves, grant 5 agi, and 5 end each and the set bonus is 10 agi.

I was actually very excited when enough Blinking Crystal Beetles and Crystal Plate Roller Pill Bugs were gathered. I’ve already had the Drone separate their corpse to be used for armor and weapons eventually.

Looking around, we eventually attracted the attention of one of the shipyard foremen.

“Greetings.” He said simply.

“Greetings, we want to buy a boat to cross the desert.” I said.

“Not a good idea at this time, Desert beast migration and mating season, their coming from the south west to breed along the trade routes which tend to be safer. Only in about a month would it be safe.” The man said.

“We are travellers so even if we die it won’t matter, we have friends in Uniden in the south.” I tell him.

“No point really, sailing the desert sands is just like sailing the wide open seas. Do you even know how to sail? Do you know how to navigate following the stars? Do you think it’s as simple as ‘I want to buy a sand boat’ and you can start sailing?” he said coldly.

“Sir, it’s not that we thought badly but we are novice but no one is sailing. We can’t go flying so we can only sail even if our knowledge is limited.” Flor said.

The man sighed, “Far too many men and women said the same thing. Now they fill the belly of the beasts of the sand.” he said with a sad solemness.

He left without looking back and DD appeared behind me.

“I smell a juicy quest.” he said.

“No way newbies like us can achieve such a high level mission. It's at least D or maybe even B.” I said.

Quest ranks represent the impact of the end quest. E and F rank are common quests, D rank affects a city, C rank affects a nation in varying degree, B affects a region, A affects the continent and S affects the world.

“Should we try to get sailing lessons?” I asked.

“Let’s look around and check for some news before we do something that could cost us our lives and levels.” Flor replied.

Nodding we go to a tavern to eat before we split up and I go to the bazaar and purchase a space to set up a small stand and pull out a wooden plank before writing the words, ‘Emporium’s Bug Master Material Shop’.

Before setting up, I walk around and find a shop selling accessory masks that hide the upper part of my face and buy a simple one before going to the stand and calling out a few bugs, I used a pair to hold the sign while the rest came out with some of the pelts, claws and other materials.

Having a rough guess after surfing the shop with general items already in the early level 100, I was able to easily make a list for items from monsters level 120 and up worth several dozen silver all the way to a few dozen gold coins.

The game has been up only for 5 months so it was impossible for people higher than 130 to exist without being freaks of nature or people with money and a huge guild letting him take the last blow.

Items marked at level 120-150 were also rare commodities and after the bugs drew attention word spread… fast.

***

Standing in the top 3 ranking, the Champion’s Legion was one of the first guilds formed by the guild master, Heracles. He was one of the first people to start the game and the third to start a guild. His class was the first player to get the Monk class but it wasn’t the common one but a hidden version called Asura.

He got it after getting the common Monk class and was out adventurer when he fell into a hidden dungeon and discovered the class. It was a hybrid DPS and tank class.

Monk class are a tank class based on the fact that although they don’t use much armor like conventional tanks, using leather most of the time, they are tanks based on avoidance and deflection. For a DPS class though, it means he can deal explosive damage per second.

Because of this class, in hand to hand combat, he became one of the most famous people since he posted videos from early on and when he made a guild, it quickly attracted a lot of attention.

Now as the #2 guild, he has only two ‘true’ competitors which are the Dark Guild in 3rd place and the #1 guild Ares Guild.

The #1 guild is named off the Greek god of War, if this world’s god of war church heard of this, it would cause quite some trouble for them.

At this moment, Heracles was in Eden preparing his guild to cross to one of the two capital cities of the Southern region. He was preparing for the update so that he could become the first into the Southwest region and could be the first to claim and form a Base first so that his guild would reign supreme in the south. The problem is the monsters.

In fact, it wasn’t a coincidence because the North was in similar conditions to make it harder for the players to reach the locations and head to the expeditions. It also wasn’t that the Western Region wasn’t a better location into the south and north west but that it was inaccessible from that side because there was some kind of force blocking the passage on all sides of the western region causing the development of a single nation only and poorly developed at that.

It was said that only after the new regions were completely settled the passage to the western region and the North west and South west would open and the ‘wall’ to the west would move back giving a great deal of development option for this region.

“Boss!” Someone ran into the tavern and ran to the table that Heracles was eating with the top players of his guild.

“What is it?” He asked. His face was cold and his body had a few strange tattoos showing while he wore cloth martial artist clothing showing off his arm muscles. He was strongly built and had brown hair with dark eyes.

“There is some newbie in the market! He is selling high level drops!” the guild member said.

“So what, is it any reason to get so worked up about?” Heracles asked.

“That’s the thing!” He said huffing after running so long, one of the elites gave him a drink and after downing it, he looked at his leader, “The level rank of the items are from as low as level 60 to as high as 150!” he said.

The tavern suddenly went silent and everyone looked at the man who had been shouting. Heracles’ eyes were wide, “What bullshit is this?!” he asked.

“It’s not sir! I pooled some money with the guys and was able to buy one of the high level pelts!” he said and took out one of the War God Bear Pelts that Mary had killed and butchered, taking only the meat.

Handing it over they identified it and sucked in a cold breath.

“We are going! NOW!” Heracles shouted.

For someone to sell high level drops means it's either someone who got lucky or a gopher for a big guild. Such materials don’t come around easy and don’t get sold easily so it is probably some merchant guild. These kinds of guilds are even richer than the top rankers due to their business connections. Their roots are even deeper than the combat guilds.

They paid the bill and ran to the bazaar where they found the stand ‘Emporium’s Bug Master Material Shop’. As the name said, the man was a master of bugs because many bug monsters were flying around while holding different kinds of items and many people were shouting for one thing or another.

“Move them!” Heracles ordered and the guild began to push people aside. “I want everything you are selling!” he shouted.

Droso, behind his mask, looked at the group that pushed their way through and frowned since he had a somewhat organized sales rate going. He didn’t expect some shitty money bag to come and wreck his stand. Still business was business.

“These are the prices.” I pointed to the sign.

Item type

Level range

Price

Bear Pelt

130-159

50 gold a piece

Bear Pelt

110-129

30 gold a piece

Bear Claw (x5)

130-159

50 gold a set

Bear Claw (x5)

110-129

10 gold a set

...

...

...

The list was quite large and wasn’t exclusive to bear items, wolves, goblins, rabbits, hares, birds, and more named by level range and price.

When the prices were seen Heracles froze, he turned to their chief merchant, “How is the pricing?” he asked.

“It’s about 10% below the common NPC market price, if he went to the auction with all this though, it would give him a huge sum but the price would also drop quickly with the amount he had.” the reply came.

“Alright, we will pay half of everything but will buy everything off of you!” Heracles.

Silence filled the streets and Droso looked at the many as if he was looking at a moron. Suddenly from behind him DD appeared floating and began to laugh loudly.

The laughing was so out of place that everyone looked confused at the familiar. Common familiars didn’t have much personality yet because only the actual character making was done. The familiar system was supposed to come out only with the next update so they held back the personality for after the true update was done. To see such an expressive familiar was confusing.

“T-This idiot! Ahahaha this is too fucking funny! Ahahaha!” DD rolled around making Droso sigh.

He made a sign and the bugs all retreated. “Sorry but we can’t accept that. I don’t negotiate, pay or leave.” Droso said.

“Ah!” Someone suddenly exclaimed, “That’s Heracles! I knew I recognized him! He is the guildmaster of the #2 guild!”

As soon as the words got out, the bazaar exploded in commotion. A smiling sneer appeared on his face, “Still want to continue those words?” He asked.

“Yes, pay up or get out of here, you're ruining my business.” Droso said waving his hands in a ‘Shoo shoo’ manner similar to what people do when stray dogs get near them.

Silence filled the bazaar once more.

“Is this guy brain-dead? Does he want to antagonize the Champion’s Legion?” “I know right? What is his deal?”

Comments began to fly around. It got extremely noisy while Heracles’ face turned into a scowl.

“Do you ‘really’ want to avoid this chance? What follows won’t be nice you know?” he asked.

“So what if you threaten us? Why do we have to lower our prices just because you're the guildmaster of some guild? Does that mean we have lower my price of every guildmaster that appears in front of us just because they are in that bull shit top ranking? Bull shit! Get your fucking head out of your fucking ass you Jackass! You either pay full price or you get the fuck out of here!” DD suddenly roared, his killing intent suddenly covering everyone.

As the personification of Droso’s inner evil, his bloodlust was like a demon incarnated.

“I’ll pay!” A gentle voice suddenly said and out of nowhere, a young woman shimmered into existence. Her hair was black and silky, she wore thin black silk clothing perfectly showing off her beautiful figure and ample breasts. She had a red scarf covering half of her face and her hair in a ponytail.

Heracles’ eyes widened and then narrowed, “Black Cat, do you want to go against us?” Heracles said.

“Oh, please little boy, stop huffing and puffing, if you don’t want to pay then don’t. Want to trade? Tell me your entire stock.” She asked.

“I can’t believe it! It’s Black cat! The Vice leader in the Dark Guild, the #3 guild! I heard they were called the Dark Guild because their higher ups were all Dark Gamers!” Someone shouted.

The people in the bazaar were in shock once more but were getting numb from the many surprises.

“Okay…” Droso said and closed his eyes a moment before a portal appeared and a Gale Strider came out with a few sheets of paper that he took and handed it over.

She read them all, and it was set up to include the price range as well. Her brows raised up, “No wonder Heracles asked for half off on everything, the numbers you possess are enough to momentarily cripple even the top guilds. I only have the courage to purchase one fourth of your goods. If possible, we can also trade in goods for goods.” She said.

DD laughed lewdly, “Not only is she one hot bitch, she is good at business, if you didn’t have your woman, Jackass, I would have told you to try to get her.” DD said laughing.

Of course, what followed was a punch to the face from Droso himself, “Dipship.” he said, “Sorry about that, I haven’t trained it enough to keep it’s trap shut.” he said, “Anyway, one fourth is fine, and what kind of goods do you have?” Droso asked.

“Armor, weapons, Potions.” Black Cat replied ignoring the Familiar.

“Hey, why are two big guilds here anyway?” DD suddenly asked.

“What does it have to do with you?” Heracles spat.

Black Cat rolled her eyes, “We are getting ready for the update in a week, we are heading to Uniden, I’m leading the charge in the south.” She said.

Suddenly Droso’s eyes shined, “How are you crossing the desert, the sailors aren’t setting sail and the Shipyard isn’t selling ships?” Droso asked.

“My guild has connections with the king of the Highrise kingdom in the central region and we are going with some of the empire. They have their own sand boats and so does our guild so we are going as a fleet. They are sending part of the Royal knights as a way to expand the national borders to the west.” She replied.

“I’ll trade another fourth of my goods if you and your guild take me and my friend to Uniden. We have friends there so we were planning to join them there.” Droso said.

Her eyes flashed a knowing light and looked at Heracles with a grin, “I can accept that.” She said and the two shook hands.

“When are you leaving?” Droso asked.

“In about two hours.” She said.

“I’ll trade with you then after i call my friend and we will meet you there.” Droso said.

She nodded. She knew that this was to let her gather the money from her guild so that she can buy the materials.

Heracles scowled as he turned around, “Watch yourself! LET’S GO!” He said.

Droso didn’t even pay him any heed as he called Flor with a PM telling her to stock up on a lot of spices and food items that the Hive doesn’t have and meet him outside in the south side of town.

To his surprise, the girl didn’t leave, “Hey, i was curious but what class are you? I never saw anyone open portals like you do?” She asked.

Droso was caught off guard and frowned. Asking one’s class isn’t exactly rude but not polite either, if he was any normal class he might have said it but since he arrived here and went to sell things, he put everything about him as private so people others couldn’t see information on him.

Pausing a short while he finally replied, “It’s a hidden class, it’s similar to a type of Druids but it’s less of a hassle to pull things into and out of the Grove since I get a unique portal spell into it.” He replied.

She showed some interest but i had finished packing, “Sorry folks but that’s it for sales!” he shouted and walked out of the bazaar leaving some people rather resentful that Heracles had come and taken their chance of buying high quality items.