“Excuse me, do you wanna team up?”

I turned around to look at the speaker and was surprised to see a low-level assassin. The assassin was a young boy of around fifteen, judging by his appearance. His white hair and blue eyes made him look almost angelic. Usually, lower level players aren’t courageous enough to ask for help from a veteran like me. It was quite saddening really, as I liked to mentor new people in the ins and outs of this new world that we had been introduced to. And this world had already been live for six months.

The sheer amount of dungeons to explore and artifacts to collect was the main objective of everyone in this world, after all. A game-like world that had completely replaced the normal world over six months ago.

“Sure, what would you like to do?”

The assassin seemed to hesitate while asking for my help. Maybe now that he had finally summoned the courage to actually approach me, he found the prospect of asking for my intimidating? I took this moment to look at his basic character sheet using my ‘observe’, which to my immense pride was level 47 which was among the top ten percent in the whole world.

The character sheet came up with his basic stats:

Name: LowlyAssassin

Lvl 2

Class: Assassin

Guild: Not affiliated (Maybe associated but observe not high enough)

“No need to worry. You can ask me for any info or help and I will be happy to provide it. I have nothing better to do anyway.” I tried to ease his worries so that he could ask for my help freely. I am of the belief that it’s the duty of the older veterans to support the newbies so that they stick with the tough profession of an adventurer and the number of adventurers can grow faster. After all, the adventurers were now the main sources of resources in the world.

That’s one of the reasons I was hanging out in the village of Aldon in the first place. Aldon was the starting point of all the adventurers who chose to begin their career as adventurers, exploring dungeons in the hopes of obtaining fame and fortune. I always tried to reach out to groups of newbies just so I could teach them the details of this path they had taken. Only six months had passed since the world had changed but quests for higher-level players like me had become essentially nonexistent.

It was just because the newly discovered dungeons and quests that were available right now were just beyond the means of even the highest-ranked players. Quests generally required groups, which was encouraged by the existence of guilds in the world. But sheer numbers wouldn’t do the trick. No, numbers with a sufficient level of power were required for the player base as a whole to progress in this new order and uncover all the mysteries it had to offer.

Guilds throughout the world were looking for new talent to blood and then recruit said talent into their guilds. I was a part of the ‘Roaring Dragons’ guild, the seventy-eighth ranked guild in the whole world before I had been encouraged to form an offshoot guild to serve as a feeder guild of sorts.

Thus, with the encouragement of the leaders of the ‘The Roaring Dragon’ guild, I had formed my own guild, “The Flying Mambas’. We just had three members at the moment, all of whom had been previous members of the ‘The Roaring Dragon’ guild but we had many prospective members we were scouting. We only wanted the best, after all, seeing as we were a feeder of a very prestigious guild.

The assassin finally let go of his hesitation as he said, hand behind his head, “Sorry, it’s just that I am a new adventurer and can't seem to get the hang of this class I have chosen to undertake. I looked at your gear and assumed that you were a high-level veteran. Can you help me with the beginner’s cave? As soon as I enter it, I am ambushed by the ravenous rats. I can’t seem to kill them and am stuck at level two.”

I just shook my head and said, “This game encourages group-building, especially in the beginning stages of the game. That cave is too high-leveled for a single level two player. You should have a group of at least three players.”

He gained a despondent look on his face as he said, “I am aware of that. But all my friends had already begun their journeys a long time ago. Now, they are higher level players while I am stuck at this low level. They seem unwilling to help me, seeing as they get calls from all over the world to perform missions or join groups. Now, I find myself wondering whether I made the right choice in choosing this profession after all.”

I was quite astonished to hear what he had to say, especially the tidbit about his friends. Getting called all over the world meant that they must be among the higher echelons of the population on this planet. Even I, a veteran from the earliest days of this world, didn’t yet have the opportunity to respond to requests from other nations or governments. I was more of a local hero, tasked to take out dungeons and monsters from the lower level towns or villages.

I tried to soothe his worries, not wanting him to change course so soon in his path. I also wanted to see if helping him would aid me in contacting a few of his friends so that I could benefit from their association, maybe even recruit a few of them for my guild or even the parent guild. Contacts in this world were of paramount importance. Higher-level heroes had better gear and just one or two of such gear that they gave out of sheer generosity would help any low levelled players to scale better dungeons.

“Don’t worry about those rats. I’ll help you if you want to. It’s a beginner level cave that I can easily help you scale. You can even have all of the loot, seeing as I already raided that dungeon a long time ago.”

LowlyAssassin nodded gratefully at me before asking, “That’s awesome. Can I get your name? I don’t have the ‘Observe’ skill at the moment.”

“My adventurer name is Scarlet Emperor. I chose the paladin class. What about you?” I already knew his name and info of course but I didn’t want to seem rude. Also, the ethics of using ‘Observe’ on humans rather than monsters were still being debated in the major forums throughout the WorldNetwork.

He replied, his tone eager, “My adventurer name is LowlyAssassin. As the name suggests, I belong to the assassin class. Do you have any tips on how I should progress in my selected class?”

I thought about that for a moment before saying, “You can follow the template that the top assassins in the world are following. Assassins are generally fast and stealthy. I would invest a lot of points into speed and agility. Also, focus on expanding your skill tree in the ‘stealth’ branch. That’s all I know, really.”

The assassin gained a thoughtful look after hearing my words before nodding to himself, probably having come to a decision. We made our way to the beginner’s cave, with him asking questions throughout the journey and me doing my best to answer them.

It wasn’t long before we were at the entrance of the beginner’s cave. People were milling about but the cave wasn’t busy itself. It wasn’t too much of a popular cave anymore, now that most beginners generally knew a veteran and fought in groups consisting of high-leveled people who took them to more difficult caves right off the bat, thus helping them skip some steps.

We entered the cave and almost at once I could sense that something was off. The entire place was silent, almost eerily so. There wasn’t a trace of any players and more offputtingly, any rats. I wasn’t too worried though, chalking this up as an unusual occurrence that was ironically, very usual in this world. We delved deeper into the darkness of the cave.

I activated my watch, prepared to take out my sword at a moment’s notice. The watch, you ask? A unique contraption designed to hold all your gear. Every person on the planet had one, no matter if you were an adventurer or not. It was the only gift we received from whatever deity had decided to ‘upgrade our world’, so to speak.

Once you lost your watch, your life was forfeited for good. It contained information about all your stats and the gear and artifacts you had accumulated. Without it, you were as good as dead. There were no replacements. As soon as you lost your watch, you became a relic stuck in the new world, destined to be a bottom-feeder. You lost everything, not only gear or artifacts but also your class and levels and you could not get it back unless you had your original watch back.

It was listed as the number one crime, stealing or taking in any form someone’s watch, punishable by execution.

I was suddenly greeted by a cacophony of noises, indicating that the rats we had come to hunt were near. I took out my longbone sword, one of only a hundred in this world, prepared to take on any onslaught of rats that may come our way. It was slight overkill but damn it, I wanted to show off to the newbie.

No sooner had I taken out my sword were we greeted by a group of rats, who were seemingly in a frenzy. Their behaviour struck me as odd, almost as if they had been provoked even before we had come here.

The rats gained a menacing red glow in their beady eyes as I was alarmed for the first time today. I barely swung my sword in time as a rat practically flew through the air towards me, its fangs bared, eager to finish me off.

I retreated a little, on my guard against these ravenous beasts. Before I could catch my breath and position myself however, the rats all moved towards me at once, intent on devouring me. I managed to hold them off just barely, using my longbone sword to great effect.

I had had enough of this adventure for now. I turned around and told the newbie, “We have got to get out of here! These rats seem to have been provoked before, through some potions or something, I am not exactly certain. Eradicating these particular group of rats isn’t a task for just the two of us. Let us go back and come back with a group.”

The newbie nodded, fear etched on his face, as we turned around, intent on finding our way out of this cave as soon as possible. But before we could move back too much, we found ourselves surrounded on all sides. I held my longbone sword in anticipation, prepared for an attack from all directions.

The rats showed an alarming amount of intelligence as they inched closer to us as one. Before I could concentrate on any one particular direction though, I felt a sharp pain in my left arm as my sword dissipated right out of my hands.

I looked towards my arm to see what had happened and to my horror, all that greeted me was a stump in place of where my arm should be. I also understood the reason for my sword vanishing, as my watch had separated from my body since still attached to my left arm.

Turning around, I received the greatest shock of my life in this new world as I looked at the newbie with an obsidian greatsword in his hands. It was a legendary item, one of only seven in the world. His appearance had changed too. White hair had been replaced by hair of the pitchest black and the blue eyes had turned red. But the most shocking aspect wasn’t the sword or his appearance. No, it was the menacing look on his face, ill-fitted on his visage which had displayed so much innocence and fear just a few moments ago.

Before I could so much as say a word, he had swung his sword in a wide arc at my left leg. My left leg separated from my body without my resistance and I fell over in a heap, my mind reeling from the pain and shock. I looked up to see him and wanted to ask him the reason for his actions when his appearance changed altogether.

Instead of the young child who had accompanied me to the cave, this was a grown boy out of his teenage years, similar in age to my own twenty-one years. I couldn’t comprehend what was happening or what sorcery he had used.

That was when he spoke and his words sent a chill down my spine. “For what’s it worth, I am sorry. I am just doing my job. Blame the one who put a bounty on your head, if you want to blame someone that is. I don’t think you have much time left to do anything, in fact.” His tone was so callous, as if he had just stepped on an ant, not killed another human being.

Without so much as a glance at me after that, he just picked my left arm from the ground before taking my watch from it. Swinging my watch in his hands, he turned and moved towards the exit of the cave, whistling a merry tune.

I looked at his back before I felt a bite on my still intact leg. To my utter horror, the ravenous rats all moved towards me, fangs still bared and hunger in their eyes that would haunt the nightmares of the best of the adventurers. I could only scream in despair as the rats finished me off, with only my heart-wrenching screams for company.

Outside the cave, the young man not named LowlyAssassin sent a photograph of his target’s watch to his client. He then put every item in the watch on sale in the black market, having no use for them, before shutting off his own watch.

“I hope the client sends my payment soon. I don’t think he would welcome a visit from the bounty hunter, after all.”