It was already night time when I got inside the forest. It was a dark and eerie atmosphere, every step that I took, and every breath that I exhaled, I can hear the sound of it; I was taken aback when I stepped on a dead branch which caused me to jump backward. Night forest isn’t good for my heart. I knew that this was only a game but the sense of realism that it had caught me unguarded.

The owl was making a weird sound when they sensed my presence. Bats, snakes and all other kind of nocturnal animal was ‘partying’ inside my head. I forgot how many times I had to remind myself that it was a game, it was only a virtual reality game.

After hypnotizing myself with the same sentence over and over again, I was finally able to calm myself down. I pull out the dagger that I equipped as my main weapon to the distance. Pushing the dagger using my left hand onto the darkness whenever I heard a weird sound resounded throughout the forest caused me feeling a little bit tired. I hope my satiety won’t drop due to this.

By minutes I was getting deeper and deeper into the forest. It was at the point where I couldn’t see anything that I remembered about the light stick that Eden gave me. It was literally a stick that works out as a match.

After I lit it up I then continued my journey. There were several [x] marks on the island map. Usually a map will only available when a player discovered the place and mapped it by themselves. But since I was running on a quest, Sheldon gave me a map and marked the place where the herbs location might be.

But as he himself was quite unsure of the location because it has been a year since he last visited this Island, there are high probability that the plant habitation had either destroyed or changed due to the geography condition was changed when the Mermen attack. Well, that was what he told me.

To be honest, I don’t even sure how can the Mermen attack who by far all I know was using claw to attack can change a terrain, more over a Level 1 Mermen. Putting that thought aside, I was forced to re-map the forest and the herb location. I should’ve got an extra reward for this!

While keeping the map interface opened, I walked deeper into the forest with a dagger on my left hand and a light stick on my right hand. The [x] mark began to start blinking when I began to get nearer to its location.

So far so good, there was no random monster that appeared out of nowhere. If things continued in this fashion, I might even be able to warps things up in less than an hour.

The first herb that I found was the Arols Leaf. The Arols tree was quite short, and the leafs are easy to pluck, I don’t even need my dagger for it. I plucked ten leafs of Arols. Even though Sheldon only asked for five, knowing that the reward for the quest was > I took another extra five leafs for self use.

The leaf has a peculiar smell on it; it smells sweet like a perfume that my sisters always use but also emitting a darkish purple aura just like my sisters does. Great, looking at these leafs somehow reminds me of my sisters. I better stuff it inside my inventory bag now.

I then continued further into the forest. I might have already said it before but I will say it once again, this forest is freaking creepy. Those crawling roots that goes as far as the eyes can see are main contributor for this forest creepiness. Not to mention the sudden glint of the owls eye, also the sound of bats moving from one tree to another.

It was quite bothering me why I was the only one that received this kind of quest, while most of players that was flocking over the Mystery Woman like a bee waiting their turn to sip on the honey only do quests that goes as far as the city boarder.

They must’ve read this quest and its sub-quest somewhere in a forum that I don’t know and avoiding it because the low reward and the ultra creepiness. I should’ve done a lot more research about this game, but for now I have to endure it. Once I sold my monolith capsule I will be forgetting about this virtual reality game and focus on getting rich in reality, by lottery!

AS I was deep in my thought, I reached the marked location before I knew it. The [x] mark on the map was blinking, the herb that I found was Ergen Leaf. I clicked on the quest info and clicked the Ergen Leaf, for information.

Ergen Leaf is some kind of herb. This herb is only available in Verlassen Island.

I was quite surprised, I mean… That’s it? The information was so lacking that I was dumbfounded. How can they not state what kind of potion or medicine it would work as? Even flash game provides better ingredient information!

On the ingredient info interface a picture of the leaf in question was provided. According to the map I’ve reached the place where Ergen Leaf would be, but after looking around for a few minutes there was nothing that looked like an Ergen Leaf sighted.

Even though I am no professional hunter, one can know that this place or rather this terrain was never tempered with. There were no sign of Mermen invasion that happened at this place or some kind of battle which destroyed the terrain. I was beginning to feel tired looking for something might not been there in the first place. Sheldon must’ve marked the wrong location.

I mean, the last time Sheldon visited this place was a year ago. Won’t he remember things incorrectly? I may sound stupid but he is an AI after all. There exists such thing as bugs and glitches. I bet his memory became all fuzzy due to server lag or something. But I was just assuming things here; it might not be the case after all.

I gave up on finding Ergen Leaf and decided to leave it for last, for now I should go and find the next nearby herb.

I continued my journey by walking in an orderly fashion. Slash first then walk, before every step that I took, I slashed my dagger into the thin air about three times. Even though I know there was nothing in front of me, I still do so because who knows what might come jumping out of nowhere.

I also set my focus on the surrounding area, using my ears to its utmost capability. I was able to discard the annoying creepy sounds like snakes slithering and owls ‘night disco song’ that was playing non-stop since the time I entered the forest.

My eyes were somehow able to adjust to the surrounding lightning. I can somehow see further into the distance without the help of my light stick. I was no longer afraid of this dark and creepy forest like I once did.

I’ve said it once and I’ll said it twice, I’m amazed at my own adaptability rate.

§§§

“Sailor 1!!!” The husky voice of No Hair resounded throughout the village.

“Yes captain!” Sheldon replied in an obedient manner.

No Hair who saw Sheldon poking his head out from the tent replying to him, moved his hand calling him over. Sheldon nodded and walked in reply.

“Where did that lad go?” No Hair asked.

“Ichiroku?”

“Yeah that lad.”

“I asked him to find me a few herbs to be processed into a medicine. Why, is there anything that you need from him? If there’s anything that you need right now I can do it instead. I just finished with the second phase of the patient treatment.” Sheldon said.

“Hmm… It was nothing serious; I was just about to ask him to accompany me to the southern side of the island.”

“Is there anything that you need to do there?” Sheldon asked as he was getting quite interested in what his Ship Captain was saying.

“I received some report from our fellow navy that a group of Mermen was sighted at the southern side of the Island. There was something weird going on there. I wanted to bring him along to exterminate those vile creatures. But seeing as he had gone for an errand looks like I have to bring you instead.”

Sheldon swallowed hard, he had never liked fighting even if it’s against monster. As the only skill that he learn was treatment skill, most of the time he stand useless when there was a sea monster subjugation request. Captain No Hair can handle any sea monster single handedly and Eden made a great supporter with his skills with knives.

Due to Captain No Hair being an expert in fighting on sea he was never left with injury, which literally rendered Sheldon ability useless.

Sheldon was having a complex about this as he feels good that no one was injured, but at the same time he felt useless because he cannot fight on equal group with his comrades.

Realizing that on Sheldon face was painted an expression of complexion No Hair said, “Which reminds me, where did that lad went to?”

“He went to the forest,”

“Hm, then I will go and do a little scout at the north area. By the way which forest did he gone off to?”

“The forest where there is a huge Mangdora tree. He left a few hours ago; he might already be too far inside the forest.”

“I see, Mangdora Forest is like swamp, there are lots of herbs that can be found there. If I’m not mistaken that was the place where a new sub-species of Mangdora tree were sighted. It will be quite hard to differentiate between a real Mangdora tree with roots and Mangdora tree sub-species that have legs that look like roots.”

“A new sub-species?!” Sheldon asked bewildered.

“Yeah, I didn’t know it myself. There were no such things as Mangdora tree sub-species when we left the island a year ago. Before we set out to retrieve the supply from Beginner town, I ordered Scout Boy get to the island before us to investigate the area. Supposedly he were to get an information about from where the Mermen might come attacking, we can prepare an early counter-measure. But the investigation didn’t go too well because of the Mangdora tree sub-species. Those creatures begin attacking him out of nowhere and now Scout Boy was bedridden. ”

“I see…”

“Wait, don’t you know about this Mangdora tree sub-species?”

“I just know it now.”

“That lad is in danger… Our Scout Boy is level 25 and he was heavily injured and that lad is only level…” No Hair paused; he raised one of his eyebrows and asked, “… What was his level again?”

“I don’t quite know Captain but I guess it’s lower than level 10.”

No Hair exhaled deeply. He raised his chin and focused his sight onto the starry night.

“Rest in peace lad...”

§§§

I’m dead I’m dead I’m dead I’m dead I’m dead I’m dead I’m dead I’m dead I’m dead I’m dead!!

I am so dead!!

What the hell is that thing? Is that supposed to be Mangdora tree? That is not a tree that is a freaking monster! Did Sheldon trick me? No, he’s an AI and a quest NPC he doesn’t have the brain to trick people. But if he didn’t then what the heck is that? A Mangdora tree does not attack people, or at least from what I’ve learned from the quest info.

Or is that a Mandgore tree?

It has the same appearance of a Mangdora tree, even the roots look the same. No matter from which point I looked at it, that thing is a Mangdora tree. Am I supposed to kill it to retrieve its root? But Sheldon said nothing about killing a monster to obtain the herbs.

I ran using all my might, the trees, the branches; I was no longer in a stat that I can be mindful about it. I just kept on running, turning left and right and sometimes moved in zigzag fashion to shake off the Mangdora tree away.

But my efforts were rendered useless when I heard a thundering roar resounded throughout the forest.

“Grawwrr!!!”

- You have heard the cry of Mangdora Creep

- You are stunned for 3 second

- Your are in a confused state, unable to use any skill

It’s not a freaking Mangdora tree! It was a freaking creep.

As I was stunned for 3 second the Mangdora Creep managed to close the distance between us. The creep moved its flailing roots towards me, thankfully the stunned effect has gone before the root hits me and I managed to avoid it by hair breadth.

I was so lucky.

I jumped backward like a protagonist in an action hero anime and somehow managed to increase the distance between me and the creep by 10 meters. This jump power is surreal! I feel like I’m a superhero in a certain action pack anime!

So far so good, I have yet to receive any sort of heavy damage other than the flying debris from the tree that the flailing root of that creep destroyed.

Those debris slowly chipping away my HP, but I let it slide because it only reduce my HP by a slight amount. If I can keep running and escaping like what I’ve been doing, I can come back alive. Ask help from No Hair and kick this creep ass!

That is, if I managed to get out from this forest. I don’t know what the penalty for dying is, and I don’t feel like knowing it now.

“Grawwrr!!!”

The creep thundering roar resounded throughout the forest once again, and like before; I was stunned for 3 second. Every time I was stunned there was nothing inside my head other than ‘dead by the branch’.

As if it was toying with me it used its roots and flailed it around aimlessly. I was forced to ‘break dance’ in order to avoid all of those roots that moving without significant pattern. One of the flailing roots hit me. I was thrown away and only stopped when my back slammed hard on a tree.

I coughed so hard for a few times that I thought I was coughing blood. But gladly I was not, but the pain that I felt was indeed real. I know they are striving to make a virtual reality game which is a lot more like a reality, but can’t they left out the sense of pain away and changed it with tingling sensation on the foot or something?

If I were to die in this game, I’m pretty sure I’ll be dying for real in reality.

Another flailing root reached out to me, I was of course evaded it as fast as I can by jumping forward with all my might. The dead leafs that was on the ground was flown above the air as I was screeching through the ground.

My breathing was hazard; I can feel the blood rushing through my head.

“… Puha…” A small voice was heard from the Mangdora Creep, “Puhahahaha!” The Mangdora creep burst out laughing. “You weaklings, what a noob. Stop running and fight me!”

The creep talked?!

“What are you dazing out for noob. Is that human sized brain of yours unable to comprehend what I am talking about?

This creep is surely talking isn’t?

“This is why I hate human; you humans are too stupid… Running won’t help you, sooner or later you are going to die and become my exp! Why don’t you just surrender and let me kill you, it will be easier for the both of us! Don’t waste your time.”

This creep is pissing me off.

“Seriously, I’m saying that this is for your own good… You human are weak! Why don’t you just accept that and cease that futile running of yours. Look at your appearance; you looked even worse than the beast dog!”

Shing!

One of the Mangdora Creep flailing roots was cut off. I was so pissed off by the creep trash talk that my body moved even before I command it to. I jump backward a few more times, trying to increase the distance. I know that I’ll be a dead meat if I were to clash with the Mangdora Creep head on. I thus looked at the inventory and saw the card.

Without any hesitation I equipped the card on my right hand exchanging with the light stick that I thrown away before. Without wasting any more time I jump upward and threw one of the cards that I had in my inventory toward the creep. It stuck perfectly on its head.

I was in trance, the intention that I had a few moment ago to get out from the forest and ask for No Hair assistance was no longer resided in my train of thought. All I was thinking about was to kill that little piece of trash and make its body parts as fire woods.

The Mangdora Creep roars once again, but I was not stunned. Instead I kept on using my cards as shurikens and threw it all at that Mangdora Creep head.

The Mangdora Creep roars became even louder, and my attack became even faster! Keeping a safe distance from the creep, I attacked him restlessly. Cards by cards flew from my hands, even though I was never good with darts surprisingly the card that I threw hit perfectly where I wanted it to hit.

I wonder if it was due to my dexterity and agility stats. I’ll make sure to check it later after I beat this Mangdora Creep ass.

The Mangdora Creep was surprised when his roar didn’t stun me. It was now keep on flailing its numerous roots in a speed that was entirely different from before. I was left with no choice but to jump backward a few times to avoid from being hit.

But I was unfortunate as one of the roots was hidden underground; it attacked me when I was in mid-air. I was unable to change my trajectory as there was no ground under my legs to do so. The root hit me from my blind spot and I was slammed onto the ground.

I felt an excruciating pain spread throughout my body. The pain was nothing to joke at. It felt like my eyes almost popped out when I was desperately trying to endure the pain. My HP was reduced by a quarter.

This is by; if I get another 3 attack from that creep I’ll die. The creep hp was only reduced by 7%. I guess attacking just using the card and hoping to kill it was pushing the limit. I had to think of an alternative way to attack it without having to face him directly. Regardless, I kept on attacking it using the cards ran out. By the time I was out of cards to throw with, the creep hp is reduced by 20%.

It was then that another barrage of attack came, this time it was not a flailing roots. But instead a straight thrust by countless roots that look almost like a spear when it’s blurred because of the thrusting speed.

I was severely mistaken, with this kind of attack; I will be history even if 1 attack hit me. There was no opening for me to charge in directly using close range attack. And even if I keep a distance and throw things at it, the barrage of roots thrusts will parry it even before it reached the creep. Rather than parry, the roots will literally destroy it.

I then jumped off the ground and land on a branch of a big tree. I somehow managed to grasp the essence of moving my body in this virtual reality. I can really jump high, I don’t know how high I can jump but from the previous movement that I made I think it was about 10 meters.

After the creep saw me standing on a tree branch it moved its barrage of attack once more and destroyed the tree that I was standing at. I managed to avoid its attack by leaping from tree to tree circling the creep.

I took the scattered debris at any chance I get and threw it at the creep. Instead of parrying it, this time it caught the debris and threw it back at me. The debris flew at me with the speed of a ball that was pitched by major baseball league player.

I was able to evade it by a hair breadth, but still it grazed my cheek. It was painful, but not as painful as getting hit from my blind spot like before. There was a trace of blood that could be seen. This trashy creep, even my dad had never slapped my cheek before, how dare you!

There was no debris nearby me, and I don’t have any more cards to throw with. Having a quick glance at my inventory there was still 1 item left. It was a dice. A great queen once said, if there was no bread and let them eat cake. If there are no more cards, this dice would do.

I equipped the dice as my secondary weapon. Jump off from the tree and land softly onto the ground. Took my stance, wiped off my sweats, I was literally posing like a pitcher that going to pitch a winning ball. But of course, I was merely throwing my dice at the creep.

Putting my entire strength onto my right hand, I took a deep breath, not minding about the barrage of roots thrust that was going to hit me and moved my tightly gripped fist vigorously like I never did before other than the night grip exercise that I never missed for the past 6 years

Pow!

A sound wave was created from the instantaneous movement of my hand.

Just kidding, there were no sound wave, it was just the sound of the roots thrust that missed me and hit the tree behind my back instead.

The dice hit the creep head directly.

“Puk.” A small comedic sound was heard.

I looked at the creep HP. There was not even 0.01% damage dealt. Great, just my luck…

Or so I thought, but the sudden notification popped out surprised me.

Lucky Dice RollYou rolled number 6

‘The Eye’ are watching you, seeing you fighting without fear has ignite ‘The Eye’ interest in you. You received the blessing of ‘The Eye’ for 5 minutes.

All stat are tripled.Progress : Blessing Phase 1 Normal 10%

What the!

My stat! I better check my stat!

Player InfoNameIchirokuLevel8RaceHumanProfession"The Eye Apostle"Stat Info:

Strength : 75

Stamina : 60

Dexterity : 15 (+25)

Agility : 69 (+25)

Intelligence : 0

Wisdom : 6

Endurance : 3

Luck : 300Additional Info:

Attack : 375 - 385 (+10 – 19)

Health : 2250/3000

Mana : 100/100

Defence : 225

Attack Speed: 34.5 % (+12.5%)Enhancement

Lucky Dice Roll (6) - ‘The Eye’ are watching you, seeing you fighting without fear has ignite ‘The Eye’ interest in you. You received the blessing of ‘The Eye’ for 5 minutes. All stat are tripled (Stat bonus given by item are excluded).

Holy what?! My basic stats are tripled! Including my luck! And my profession changed from nothing to ‘The Eye Apostle’. This isn’t a glitch isn’t? Does this came from the dice that I threw? Seriously…?

I was rendered speechless.

“Guehehehehe!” I smiled and unintentionally let out my voice. “Gahahahahahaha!” and I screamed louder than before. The creep who was startled by my sudden change in attitude was bewildered. It halted all of its attack.

I am OP! I can feel the power! I can even beat Onii-sama! Oh wait, Tatsuya OVERPOWERED level is way over your normal OP so… I can beat Miyuki!

Now feel my rage!

I put all my strength to my right legs, lowered the upper side of my body and jumped with all my strength. My freaking 75 strength! I dashed toward the Creep, way faster than before. The Creep lashed all of its roots right at me.

I tried to avoid, but then I found that it was no longer necessary. The damage that it dealt was so little that I didn’t even lose 5% of my total HP. My right fist went straight at its head, but I didn’t stop moving. More accurately, I wasn’t able to stop from moving forward.

The momentum that brought me forward didn’t stop when I got to where the creep was. The result was I dragged the creep forward with my fist on its face. I pulled my fist and gave the creep an upper jaw nabs, and the creep went straight above the air.

Before the creep went further away I grabbed one of its roots, and pulled it down. It was so easy, as easy as pulling an oxygen filled balloon. The creep fall hard onto the ground, and a small crater was created due to the impact.

But I didn’t stop there; I took my dagger and slashed the creep head where I deemed that was where the cheek was.

“This is for my cheek that you grazed with your petty counter-attack!” I said menacingly.

The creep used all of its roots and thrust it directly into me from every side, but all I feel was the sensation of tingling pain on my entire body. The damage that it dealt was only 3% Even after thrusting it over and over and over again the total hp that I lost was only 16% if I were to calculate from the very first attack since my stat were tripled.

I caught one of its roots and pull it until it was separated from the main body. It only damaged the creep by 5%. This is good, if it were to damage him like 20% of its hp then this will end too quickly. I pulled another and a few more.

The creep was screaming, it was writhing, it was crying in agony.

“Tell me noob mob... You noob! You noob! How does it feel to be tortured by a stupid human? Hahaha!” I mocked the trashy creep.

It feels good! Being able to trash talk the one who trash talked you before just because they are stronger than you is the best feeling ever.

“Curse you human!!”

I mustered all my strength and pulled out all of its roots in one go. The creep HP becomes red indicating that it was lower than 10%. I once again pull out my dagger and with both of my hand; end the creep pitiful existence from the virtual world.

Well it actually took me more than 50 slash on the creep head but, I’ll omit that part. I won’t sound as if I’m OP if I need more than 50 slash on the creep for it to die.

Or at least that was what I wanted to think. But it seems there was a countdown on the grayed Mangdora Creep corpse.

23 hours 58 minutes 25 second before revival

- You have killed the South Mid-Boss of Verlassen Island.

- You have gained a level!

- You have gained a level!

- You have gained a level!

- You have gained a level!

- You have gained a level!

- You have gained a level!

- You have gained a level!

- You have 35 additional stat points to be distributed.

- ‘The Eye’ blessing period has ended, your stat has returned to normal. As a side effect you are not able to use the dice for 6 days and you will not receive any fame reward from the quest that you were doing.

- A new profession has been unlocked; would you like to change your profession to a Gambler?

A new profession?

***