ஜ۩۞۩ஜ▬▬▬▬▬ Part 3 ▬▬▬▬▬ஜ۩۞۩ஜ

After 1 week long travelling by foot, they had finally reached the outskirt of Beginner Town. Beginners could be seen fighting against Wild Rabbit in a group and solo. Wearing leather armor and a long braided pant, the beginners fought the Wild Rabbit diligently with a smile on their face. On their hands was a normal sword for beginner. Different from Ichiroku, Ichiroku does not have any sword when he started. If it weren’t for the dagger, he would have fought the Mermen barehanded.

Ichiroku went straight to the Game Centre with the excuse of raising his luck stat by gambling. On the other hand, Clarissa made her way to the Adventurer Hall to obtain the entire map of Einstel World. Different than regions map that needed to be registered from the region’s hall.

Beginner town looked exactly like what Ichiroku had first thought. It was a busy city, abundant with economy activities and newbie players. Merchants were seen along the busy sidewalk, screaming to their throat.

“Vincent Art Armor! Vincent Art Armor! I got a few Vincent Art armor for a cheap price. It will boost your defence and your appearance, a very matching armor for any new players with Artisan’s variation profession. 40 silvers only! First come first serve!”

“Ladies and gentlemen, I brought you the latest loot that we got from Beginner’s town outskirt dungeon! We have fought the Orangorang bravely and managed to retrieve the most exquisite weapon and armor that you can ever find in Beginner’s Town. I bring you Ronjest Spear and Scarecrow armor, both for 1 gold and 20 silver. We have only 4 set of this.”

“I am looking for party! I’m level 15 Merchant, I don’t have any spectacular skill but I can become your bag. I have thrice the amount of bag that you normally have. Can anyone party with me; I need to reach level 30 before next week.”

“Can anyone spare me some bread? I don’t have any silvers with me, but I will sure to pay it back twice the amount later!”

“Nervous because this is your first time playing this virtual reality? Confused about what you need to do? You don’t have enough courage to fight against the monster? You don’t have any battle tactics when you’re fighting against more than one monster at a time? Well do not fret! We will give you a tour and guide you on every single aspect in game for beginner with the price of 1gold and 5 silver only.”

Such screams were heard everywhere in the middle of Beginner Town city. However, Ichiroku took no heed to it. He walk in a fixed pace, moving without paying any attention to his surroundings. Reflected in his eyes was only one thing, Game Centre.

He entered the premises. He then drew a big smile on his looks, and slowly his mouth was hung opened. Without any delay, he moved to the one usual spot that he found familiar. The lottery corner, he spent 5 gold on lottery tickets. However, much to his grimace he did not get anything good other than a few Great HP Potions.

“Weird… my luck supposed to be a lot better now. This is weird.” Ichiroku thought while scratching his head that was not even ecchi, I mean itchy.

He thus, spent a few more gold on the lottery. However, the result was worse than before as he did not win anything. His gold that is on his possession is now less than 10. Ichiroku stopped buying the lottery when his gold amounted less than 10 gold. “My luck stat is 200… What the hell is going on?”

Ichiroku spent an hour inside the Game Centre. In the end, he fled the scene almost empty handed. As he exited the premises, two dry eyes stare into the empty sky, unable to perceive anything. Much as God who was not able to understand the will of fallen angels Satan and Lucifer.

He let out a long exhaled breathand he took a step only to fall on his knees. His eyes were showing whites as bubble began to flow out from his mouth. He looked like a CEO that had his company bankrupted due to his assistant using the company’s money to gamble and lost.

Ichiroku dazzling light of hope disperses into the thin air with the cries of the crowds. However, there were no players who bothered to bat an eye on the man who came out from the Game Centre looking so pathetically.

After a few minutes later, Ichiroku got back on his two legs. He began walking aimlessly blending perfectly into the crowds of side-characters. His weakened legs walk sloppily along sidewalk in front of the Game Centre. It was not long before a soft pat visited his right shoulder.

“I understand your feeling…”

Ichiroku turned his head. An old Elf that looked like a magician was nodding his head repeatedly. He was wearing a long white robe; however he had a black colored hair and beards.

“I’m sorry but who are you?” Ichiroku said meekly.

“My name is Gandarf. I myself am an avid fan to gambling. I’ve been gambling at this place since the first day I played the game. However there was not a time when I was able to hold the loot of my bet.” Gandarf sighed. He raised his looks and stare at Ichiroku eyes, “But what I see in your eyes is unprecedented amount of luck, you are on entirely different level than me! Maybe you can somehow work it out?”

“Work out what?”

“Here, after 3 months playing the lottery I had won this map. But I don’t know what kind of map it is, but I bet it must’ve been some kind of treasure map or something. Anyway, I’m willing to trade this map for little gold…” Gandarf added and while rubbing his palm against each other.

“You mean you’re selling it to me?”

“Well, you can put it that way.” Gandarf added.

“How much?” Ichiroku asked bluntly.

“For you, it would only cost about 10 gold.”

“What? That is way too expensive. I can buy 100 lotteries tickets with that.”

“But try to think of this, this map is a very rare map! I’ve tried to search for the location that was shown in this map at the Adventurer Hall’s world map but there was no showing where this map might be. So I’ve been thinking that this might be some special, or what they call as secret map?! Surely the reward would be more than 10 gold.

I wanted to go and find for it myself but I’m too lazy to do it. After all I just like gambling, not treasure hunting. I actually ran out of money right now and in need for quick cash. How about it?”

“But I only have 5 gold left.” Ichiroku replied and pulled out 5 gold coins from his pocket.

Gandarf swallowed hard.

“Gold is okay too.” He snatched the gold from Ichiroku’s palm away and gave him the treasure map in exchange. “THANK YOU!!” Gandarf said while running to the Game Centre.

Ichiroku had actually 7 gold and 12 silver left, he lied about having only 5 gold because it would left a bad taste in his mouth having no money while travelling even though he got a lady as companion.

He opened the map. The map shows a location that he does not have any clues about. Thinking that Clarissa would know something about the map, he put it away inside his inventory bag and continued on walking. They had made an arrangement to meet at the Guild’s Hall to search for information.

Even though Clarissa managed to a re-patched the patch index, thus made unlocking the Human race availability through quest possible, Clarissa herself does not know any further information about the continuation of the quest.

After an hour of walking around, finally they had found each other. Without any other further delay Ichiroku pulled out the map and asked Clarissa if she have any idea regarding the map.

“I don’t think I ever heard about this map before. My teacher had never told me something like this, are you sure this wasn’t forged?”

“I don’t think it’s forged, the map looks legit enough.”

“Anyway, I’ve asked a few questions here and there and there is only one thing that I know. I don’t know how to explain it but, things are going to get difficult from now on.” Clarissa added.

“What do you mean by that?”

“The info that I got are different from the info that I had read from the storyboard planner. Actually Sea Demon King was one of the Boss Monster who owned a Gospel. However, the Gospel that it supposed to have was the First Gospel. But you had defeated Poseidon and obtained the Gospel from him instead.”

“..and?” Ichiroku added with a very confused complexion seen painted on his face.

“The Einstel world that Einstel Game had created, might not be the same ‘world’ that they had imagined it to be.” Clarissa added.

Unbeknownst to Ichiroku, due to the glitch that happened during the update, the game had been evolving through the AIs. The glitch caused all connection to AIs had been cut off, and now the AI are moving on independent without a single string of code attach to the main server control system. In another words, The AIs had been moving about without any sort of command. The only things that it had are its personality, and background story, which they lived with inside the virtual world.

“Actually, at first we thought it was only a little bug, however the game is changing in a direction that the story board planning had written it. And I just confirm it just now, after Sea Demon King died, he will leave an artifact, and the artifact could be a clue to our next destination. But the Sea Demon King did not leave any artifact behind when it died. What was left was only a huge EXP and great amount of prestige. It was as if the game is evolving.” Clarissa explained.

“The game is evolving?” Ichiroku said in an amazed tone, he had always read about a game evolving without the consent from its maker in stories. But this was the first time he experienced the change itself.

“Now that you said it, the map might be some sort of clue for our next destination. Who knows what there is in this map for us!” Ichiroku said excitedly. He had tried to sound cheerful in attempt to make himself feels good about the ‘bad investment’ that he had in the Game Centre.

Clarissa frowned. She spread opened the map in Ichiroku’s hand and looked at it very carefully. She tried rubbing her palm against the map trying as though she was trying to clean it. Ichiroku on the other hand only looked at Clarissa without blinking.

“You find something?” Ichirou asked.

“No… However this map somehow intrigued me.” She replied, “You said about a man who looked like Gandalf right?”

“No, I said nothing about Gandalf. I was saying that his name was Gandarf.” Ichiroku added, but his answer was only to be replied with another question.

“Did he say anything else about this map other than the potential of it being a treasure map?”

“Well, he did say about the location that was shown on this map cannot be found at the Adventurer Hall’s world map. I have yet to see what does Einstel World Map looked like so I can’t say it for sure. But I had a good feeling about it so I bought the map.” Ichiroku said, “But I’m pretty sure that there would be some use and meaning in this map.” He added.

“Are you sure?” Clarissa replied, simultaneously turned her attention to Ichiroku.

“Yes!” He replied, “Because I have a freaking 200 luck stat and I wasted more than 20 gold only to get a few crappy items. It would be weird if that map isn’t some kind of event item that triggered by my bad luck, when I’m supposed to be lucky because I have 200 freaking luck!” Ichiroku screamed inside his little heart.

After Clarissa heard Ichiroku answer that was filled with brimming confidence, once again she looked at the map, trying to notice every single detail that she might have missed due to her impatience. She took the map from Ichiroku’s hand and raise it up above the air, facing against the sun.

“Aha!” Clarissa screamed out.

“What?”

“I think I know what to do with this!” She replied excitedly. The map was put onto the ground. On the other hand, Clarissa began moving her hand restlessly until she realized that the thing she was looking for was inside her inventory bag. “Open Inventory.” She said.

As though she was poking the oxygen that floats in the air, Clarissa pushed her fingers maneuvering her way through her Inventory. She screamed out “This is it!”, and pulled out a torch from her inventory.

“I have seen this in the movie, in every detective story there would surely be a scene were they put the map against the heat and the hidden image will be revealed.” Clarissa added and moved her torch above the map. She had made sure to put some distance between the torch and the map so the map would not get burnt in the process.

Slow but surely, a new layer of the map was seen.

Ttring!

You have found the secret map to Amun’rah Garden!

Amun’rah is the son of the Sun God. He who holds the power of light was blessed with power and authority. Rich was his name and Glory was his seat. He was the supreme Emperor of Mirufeim.

He who had the blood of God was revered as one of the most powerful Deities who rose to the rank of an Olympian. Amun’rah was one of the 7 Gods who had powerful ties with the Celestials.

Mourning for the fall of Celestials, he had made a Castle on the Sky in the remembrance of Alpha. Decorated with walls of art, embodied with light of grace. Sky Castle was truly a place to be remembered.

Only those with remarkable luck will be able to find the gate of Helheim that connects Mirufeim with Sky Castle!

You have seen the secret Map of Sky Castle.

+5 Luck

Ichiroku couldn’t help but smile. After all, he had wasted a lot of gold at the Game Centre, and somehow it was not for naught. Ichiroku had truly won a jackpot. Word alone cannot describe how happy and delighted he was with a raise of 5 luck stat. In addition, the map was another clue to their next Gospel.

“I knew it!” Ichiroku said out loud bursting with excitement. “I was not mistaken when I bought the map!” He added.

In all honestly, Ichiroku does not have any interest at the map at all. The only reason he bought it was because the excuse that he can make to cover up for his loss. “I didn’t win anything big, but I got this map.” That was the sentence that he was going to say when he was asked about his progress in raising his luck stats. Much to their delight, the map was actually their ticket to the next Gospel. With his 200 luck stats, Ichiroku was truly lucky.

“Now all that we need is enough travelling expense and a quick and efficient travelling method!” Clarissa clapped her hand and gave a side glance to Ichiroku.

“How about taking our time leveling up and device better strategies when we’re fighting? As I don’t want to experience the same thing that I did in Verlassen Island, I want to get stronger in any way possible regardless it is technique or ability.

How about we look for a few companion before we starts our journey. I know a few people who might just be perfect for our party.”

“Ohh, you already have someone in your interest corner. I reckon they are people that we can place our trust at?” Clarissa said.

“Of course! They are one of a few people that I had partied with other than you. You yourself know who are I’m talking about.” Ichiroku replied.

“Those Koreans?” Clarissa said.

“Yep!”

With that said. Ichiroku sent Yoon Jae another message. He had made an arrangement; they will meet at the Tindal Town.

Before they left the town, Ichiroku made sure to do all of the Beginner quests that he had missed during his first day. Less than 2 hours, he had complete over 50 quests including first monster hunt, animal skin and a few more others. Ichiroku did not know it himself, but his name was recorded as one of the fastest players that completed more than 50 main quests in less than 2 hours. Little that he knows, his name was on top of Beginner Town’s adventurer list in Einstel Game homepage.