Chapter 4: Mansion of the Seven Deadly Sins – First Part

The ground suddenly disappeared from beneath Sila. He felt as though he was falling through a bottomless abyss. Sila’s body stayed in the air for ages before finally crashing into the ground.

Sila felt pain all over his body and immediately remembered Recovering Qi. He sat down and closed his eyes while concentrating, circulating qi throughout his body. As time passed, the pain gradually faded.

He also heard the system notification.

[The level of Recovering Qi skill has risen to 2.]

[The level of Qi Circulation skill has risen to 2.]

When Sila opened his eyes, he could now see the surroundings. He was in a large, dimly lit, rectangular room. The floor he was sitting on was covered with red velvet carpet. The walls were checkered black and white with a chessboard pattern. Strangely, there were no windows or doors.

As his eyes began to adjust to the darkness, he saw that there were two men standing next to him. One of them had black hair, was very handsome, and was wearing a black butler uniform; his skin was noticeably pale. He stood by the side smiling.

The other one had fluffy brown hair. He was not as handsome as the butler but had a nice muscular figure. He was wearing the uniform of an elite wuxia.

T/N: As you may know, wuxia is a term refers to traditional Chinese martial artist in Chinese novel. Its characteristic is mostly wearing long-sleeved clothes, performing lightless movement, and able to use inner force called qi.

Sila thought that the other two must have been waiting for him to finish circulating Recovering Qi for a long time as they didn’t interrupt him. As he would like to say something, the butler interrupted.

“Please don’t talk to each other, sirs, otherwise you two will be disqualified from the hidden quest.”

Sila then shut his mouth. The young man in wuxia clothing turned his head and nodded at Sila, to which he nodded back. Afterward, the butler continued.

“Firstly, I am Sebastian, the butler of the Mansion of the Seven Deadly Sins. Currently, my master is away so please allow me to act as his representative. I hereby welcome you two sirs to the Mansion of the Seven Deadly Sins.”

Both of them listened quietly.

“You don’t have to be so quiet, sirs. You two can talk to me normally, as long as you don’t talk to each other or mention something that is related to your identity.”

Sila felt relieved and asked Sebastian what he was wondering about.

“Why are we here?”

“You two are here to participate in the hidden quest, sirs. It’s a duo quest with a condition that two players participating have to be complete strangers to each other. Each of you also have to possess half of the emblem to this mansion. The emblem can be obtained by selecting a race before entering into the Hall of Beginnings, sirs.”

Sila nodded before looking at the man in wuxia clothing. He thought that this man must be either very remarkable or super lucky to have a race before going to the Hall of Beginnings. Excluding the slimes of which had a very high drop rate for their cards; he heard that other monsters’ cards had a very low drop rate. Since Sila was currently the sole player in the slime race, it meant that this man was in another race. Compared to this man, Sila felt he was far inferior.

Sila didn’t know that; this man was also surprised of Sila as well. This man had received the emblem a long time ago. When he saw the emblem’s quest condition, he felt hopeless. Finding another player who had selected their race before visiting the Hall of Beginnings was, by no means, an unrealistic feat. But he also couldn’t tell anybody since there was a condition that the other person couldn’t be anyone he knew. Although it was true that he could tell his friends in real life, Monster Soul Online was, however, a virtual reality game that scanned the player’s brain, so it would be pointless if he did that. Due to all these facts, his emblem had been always collecting dust in his item window to the point that he had totally forgotten about this quest.

“Where is this place?” asked the wuxia man. That was the first time Sila heard his voice.

“I cannot answer that, sir. I can only tell you that this place is not located on the Main Continent. It’s a place that cannot be accessed through normal transportation methods.” Sebastian answered politely.

“Then, what is your level?”

Sebastian smiled before answering, “I am a monster of the grim reaper species in the undead race, Level 350 Lord Rank, sir.”

The man in wuxia clothing exposed a panicked expression. Sila saw that and wondered what was wrong.

‘Is this butler’s level very high? But I once heard that level didn’t affect fighting ability, does it?’

With this thought, Sila asked. “Didn’t undead refer to a corpse? You don’t look like a zombie at all.”

“Undead means an undying being, sir. It does include a moving corpse though; but it’s a Squire Rank being, while my rank is Lord.”

“Is Lord Rank strong?”

As soon as this question came out from Sila’s mouth, the man in wuxia clothing suddenly stared at Sila as if he saw an alien. He clenched his fists tightly and started circulating his qi in secret. He looked toward Sebastian while worrying that Sila might get killed, as monsters in some species think highly of their rank and don’t want anyone to insult it.

However, Sebastian only laughed and smiled gently before answering Sila’s question.

“You must be a new player, aren’t you? Umm… I should say that Lord Rank is above Squire Rank by three degrees. For more accurate information, I suggest you ask others instead, since I am obliged to stay in this mansion without an opponent to measure my strength. Oh, but I used to spar with my master, and he said that I was ‘quite decent.’”

The man in wuxia clothing was a little more worried. Normally, monsters in Lord Rank were insanely strong and very hard to find. However, this monster said that it even had a ‘master.’ Now he really couldn’t imagine how strong its master, who once had said Lord Rank monster’s strength was only considered ‘quite decent,’ was.

“Well, we should end the question session for now. Allow me to explain the details of your hidden quest first, so we can start soon.”

Sebastian waved his hand, and the room was transformed into a luxury suite. There were many facilities available; such as a TV, refrigerator, liquor bar, and even a Jacuzzi tub.

“Please follow me, sirs.”

Sebastian pointed to two recently appeared doors. One was white and one was black. Sebastian led two players into the room behind the black door first.

The room they were entered had walls and floors in a deep black color. The size was about ten times wider than the room before; it was more like a wide field than a room.

“This is the training room, sirs. At the entrance there is an altar with a list of monsters that you can summon to fight against, you can also summon them simultaneously. ”

Sebastian paused for a while and then continued.

“Please note that all the summoned monsters will be of the darkness attribute, and they can only range from Squire to Knight Rank. In addition, these monsters will not drop any items, money, or give any experience points. Their purpose is for training solely.”

When Sebastian finished speaking, he led the two players back to the first room and guided them through the white door.

This time, the room was all white. Inside the room, there was a single treasure box on the floor. Sebastian opened it, showing them the gold coins inside.

“Here is the treasure room, sirs. Now you can see there is only one treasure box. But actually, the number of boxes will grow by one every one hour, and the treasure inside will get better each time. Some will contain gold, and some will contain weapons or accessories. Every item found in the treasure box inside this room will guarantee to be B Grade item or higher, even S Grade item could be found. You can walk into this room to see the treasure’s content leisurely, but taking it with you is prohibited, otherwise, you will be disqualified.”

Afterward, Sebastian took them to the first room.

“This room is the lounge; all necessary facilities are presented here. You can take everything in this room with you, whether it’s food, drinks, or even bed if you can carry it. This room also has five times the recovery rate than other safe zones.”

Upon hearing these statements, the eyes of the man in wuxia clothing shone as if he could think of something good.

“Well, now I am going to talk about the hidden quest. Both of you must have been waiting for a long time now.”

Both men nodded.

“Okay. This hidden quest’s content is very simple. From now on, I will start counting the time. The quest will end when the time is up, and you will receive the quest reward.”

“Time counting? How long?” asked Sila.

“I cannot tell you that, sir. It might be an hour or it could be a week.”

“Is the quest just for us to wait?”

That was a question from the man in wuxia clothing.

Sebastian smiled again. But it was a smile that Sila could tell as a wicked one.

“Yes, just that, but …”

Sila frowned. ‘I can sense that I definitely won’t like the next part.’

“…there will be a few ‘rules’ to this quest.”

“Rules?/Rules?”

Both Sila and the man repeated this word simultaneously.

“Yes, in this quest, you two will have to follow these rules, sirs.”

“And they are…?”

“First, when one player dies, the other will be given all of the treasures in the treasure room. Second, if the time count ends, in the case that the two of you are still alive, no one will get any treasure inside that room. Third, you two are forbidden from communicating with each other, by both speaking or by writing a message; you can still use body language though. Fourth and lastly, when one player loses their life, the quest will be counted as ended immediately.”

The silence fell into the room.

“Do you have any questions?”

“Umm…” asked Sila faintly, “What will happen? Why is there a part about losing life in the rules? Will there be a monster invasion trying to kill us?”

“No, sir. Please be at ease. It’s only the two of you here.”

‘How can I be at ease? This is like telling us to kill each other, isn’t it?’

“Does this mean we have to kill each other?” directly asked the man in wuxia cloth.

Sila’s face turned slightly pale. No matter how he looked, this man seemed a lot stronger than him.

“I didn’t say that, you know? Please just be reminded of the rules.” A sly smile lurked on Sebastian’s face, “Oh, there is something I almost forgot.”

This caught the attention of the other two.

“You two have an emblem to the Mansion of the Seven Deadly Sins, haven’t you?”

Both players nodded. They picked the emblem up and tried to give it to Sebastian.

“Please keep it. I just want to say that: in case that the owner of an emblem destroys his own piece, both of the players will be disqualified for the quest, considering that the emblem is not completed.”

Sila felt more stunned. This sounded like both players had his own insurance; in case that one felt like he couldn’t fight, he could just break the emblem, and no one would get anything. This could also mean one must kill without the other being noticed.

“That’s all. Now please excuse me, sir. Let the three of us meet here again when the quest ends. Oops, or maybe not three, but two, hmm… or… will there be only me? Fufufu.”

No one laughed at this joke.

“Lastly, I hereby wish you both to enjoyment and relaxation in our Mansion of the Seven Deadly Sins, sirs.”

Suddenly, Sebastian faded into the darkness; leaving two men still standing uncomfortably.

***

The atmosphere in the room had been very awkward for the first hour. No one said anything. Actually, it was the rules that stated that no one could say anything. The man in wuxia clothing now walked into the corner and sat on his haunches, closing his eyes.

Sila saw that and decided to do the same. He then started thinking about the rules since he had nothing to do.

‘Sebastian said we should try to remember the rules, didn’t he?’

Sila could summarize the rules as followed:

One: When one player died, the other who survived would get all the treasures in the treasure room.

Two: When the time ended, if both of them stayed alive, then no one would get even a single treasure in the treasure room.

Three: Players could not communicate via speaking or writing a message, though body language was allowed.

Four: The quest would immediately end when someone died.

Five: Although it wasn’t included as a rule; whenever someone destroyed their own emblem, both players would be disqualified immediately.

‘No matter how I think about it, these rules are forcing us to assassinate each other …’

Sila glanced at the man. The other was still sitting with his eyes closed.

‘Is this my chance?’

Sila thought, but then he recalled Crow’s final sentence before he was sent here.

‘Be careful. Do not let the darkness swallow your mind. I can only tell you that, otherwise it will break the NPC’s law.’

‘Did the word ‘darkness swallowing my mind’ mean this?’

Well, Sila was just vigilant. Normally, He wasn’t the type of person who attacked someone behind their back.

But what about the other? Would that man attack Sila behind his back? Sila didn’t know. They had just met each other.

Many thoughts were floating in Sila’s mind. But in the end, he shook his head, dismissing all useless ideas.

‘He still hasn’t shown any bad intentions toward me, how can I be biased against him then? I should just circulate my qi. Recovering Qi is very helpful, it’s better if I train this skill while I have free time.’

Sila sat down and started circulating his qi.

[The level of Recovering Qi skill has risen to 3.]

[The level of Qi Circulation skill has risen to 3.]

Sila smiled happily and continued to circulate his qi throughout his body. The skill levels then slowly increased.

As the skill level increased, Sila could feel that the time it took for his qi to circulate through his body had shortened. His concentration later entered into a state that was unaware of the surroundings, even the system sound telling him that his skill level had risen couldn’t be heard by him anymore.

Time had passed. When Sila came to his senses and opened his eyes again, he felt panicked as the man in wuxia clothing stood before him. This man’s hand was touching Sila’s head, the hand was glowing in white light.

Sila had seen this scene before when Crow slapped the table. That time Crow’s hand had been glowing in red light. But with Sila being hit in the head, he thought that it wouldn’t matter whether its color was red or white.

‘Damn it. I was too careless.’