Jay sat in the common room of the clubhouse for the Women's gaming club. In the past few days he had spent pretty much all of his free time in this building, although most of it had been playing Listonia. However, because this building had a small kitchen with a microwave and a sink, he was able to make simple instant meals. Occasionally some of the club members might join him, but they would usually opt to go out to eat or head to the cafeteria on the school grounds.

Currently, he was eating a bowl of instant noodles while lost deep in thought about how he would approach his next challenge of traveling to the final altar. As he slurped at the noodles, he failed to even notice that the back door to the capsule room had opened and 2 figures walked out. One of them was a girl with fiery orange hair who was wearing a simple t-shirt and shorts and had her hair in a ponytail. The other was a stout girl with wavy blonde hair who was also sporting a t-shirt with some white capris pants.

As Jay continued to enjoy his meal, he started to hear murmurs speaking from Vicky and Zoey who had entered the room. As this wasn't uncommon, he simply re-focused his thoughts and finished his meal. Before he could even finish off the broth at the bottom of the styrofoam cup, he was interrupted by Zoey looking at him inquisitively. As their eyes met, Jay was met with an unexpected question.

"Are you a Serial Killer?"

The abrupt question nearly made him choke on the last bit of noodles that he was chewing on and he had to punch his chest a few times to clear his windpipe while coughing.

*Cough* *Cough*

"What the hell are you talking about??"

He was finally able to give a response after regaining his composure and quelling the coughing fit. However Zoey's immediate response made him even more confused.

"He's even more suspicious now, and here we thought he was a decent guy."

"I agree, that sounds like how a serial killer would respond."

It was at this point that Jay realized he was being messed with and he turned from Vicky who had responded and saw Zoey looking at him with a grin from ear to ear.

"AHAHAHA, I'm talking about this!"

While laughing, Zoey shoved her phone into Jay's face and it took a moment before he realized a video was playing. In that Video was the depiction of a church, but the scene that was playing out was incredibly graphic as an elf was brutally murdering a small boy. Above the elf's head was the clear display of a player's name in blue: Gii

"Oh? Someone recorded that?"

Zoey made an exaggerated surprised face and pointed at him in an accusatory manner.

"He admits it! we've been hanging around a murderer!"

"Alright, enough with the act. Seriously though, why the heck did you do that?"

Vicky brushed off her friend's act and then directed a serious question at Jay. Jay finished off the rest of the meal he had been interrupted from and then stood up and answered her question.

"Long story short, it's a prerequisite for a unique class."

As he walked across the room to deposit his trash there was a moment of silence from both of the girls as they were not expecting such a straightforward answer. Eventually Zoey was the first one to break the silence and shouted.

"Hey I knew you were hiding the good stuff from us! If you know about special prerequisites for classes, why couldn't you give us the details when we talked about what kind of classes we wanted to play?"

"First of all, I only know the general features of the classes you are looking to play and they match the playstyle you want. Second of all, Learning the prerequisites is not easy at all and I only know most of what I need for this class because it's the one I intend to play."

"You intend to play a murderer?!"

"Actually, now that you mention it, I think he kind of already told us that..."

"HUH!?"

Zoey turned to look at Vicky who had just spoken.

"I had forgotten, but remember we asked him what class he was going to play after he gave us all those tips about our classes? He just said he was going to be an evil character. I thought he was being purposefully cryptic, but I guess he was telling the truth."

Zoey scrunched her brow and then suddenly had a realization as the lost memory resurfaced. Then she abruptly switched gears and returned to the video.

"By the way, you're like super famous now! This video is causing a big stir on the forums! it's like the first time they've seen gameplay from an evil perspective or something. Not to mention it is really shocking to see"

"Really? That will be really annoying. I hope I don't start getting recognized."

Jay could feel a headache coming on just thinking about it. Vicky chuckled at his nonchalant response before she began to pull Zoey out the door with her.

"Well i'm starving so i'm going to get a good meal, Good luck with that Mr. Serial Killer!∼"

"Bye Mr. Serial Killer∼"

As the 2 girls waved and exited the building while laughing, Jay continued back into the capsule room to resume playing Listonia, a single thought ran through his head.

I really hope I didn't just gain such a terrible nickname...

***

The sun shone down on a winding and narrow mountain path as a grey furred creature standing about 4 feet tall, walked menacingly along its way. Suddenly the creature stopped and let out a loud yowl. Standing about 30-40 feet away from this creature was another of its kind, this one had a deep maroon colored fur. The two small furred humanoids growled and yelled at each other as they slowly eyed each other down like 2 cowboys in a western.

Suddenly the red furred creature lunged toward the grey furred one and the 2 started ferociously mauling one another. As the 2 creatures loudly tore each other apart and fur and dirt began to spread everywhere, there were 2 shadows that darted across the area of the path that they had been blocking. One of these shadows was a wood elf with a green bandana that had a red skull on it and the other was a human male with black hair and a strong looking build. He wore a set of simple leather armor that was the most common set amongst tier 1 players, the adventurer's set. After the 2 had cleared the area where the creatures were fighting, the human turned and spoke to the elf in a jovial tone.

"Whew~ that was a close one brother! Thank goodness we have good timing! HAHAHA"

"Yea we got a bit lucky another Kolak showed up there."

Obviously the elf of the duo was Gii. He had been traversing through the mountain paths as he had intended when he surprisingly came across another player. He had been caught off guard when he saw the name of a player floating in the air. Normally he would have tried to ignore them and be on his way, however this player actually had recognized him! He didn't recognize him because of the recent video that became popular, but actually recognized his IGN because he was also an unofficial member of the Ravenous guild that had been recruited!

The guild had created their own website with their own forums, so many of the players used that in place of a guild chat and as a way to become familiar with the members of the guild. There was even a whole registry with the names of the current members. Gii didn't participate in the conversation that much currently, but he had still made his IGN known amongst the guild by casually joining into some conversations. Although he was reluctant at first to join up with the player named Mountain Maniac, he had proven to be a very capable teammate.

With his help they were able to distract the kolaks or come up with methods to avoid them that would not have been possible to do on his own. For example, because he had mountain climbing gear that he was proficient in, they were able to reach areas that would not be easily reachable for a single person. As his name would imply, this player was a mountain climbing maniac and had been trying to traverse these mountains on his own for a few days now. He was very excited to finally have someone to join him on his trip.

"Man it's such a pity that you only intend to travel partway up this mountain, I'm sure we could make it to the very top as a team!"

"M, I told you I'm only doing this because I have a quest at the resting area about halfway through, we actually have made a really good time and should make it there pretty soon."

As they were traveling down the path it began to split with part of it leading into a cave in the mountain and another leading around a precarious edge. Gii stopped to think so he could try to remember the path and make sure they continued down the correct one. As he was thinking it over, his new Friend who liked to be called M, began to walk toward the precarious path.

"Obviously the most dangerous path is the correct one!"

"Wait! I think we should head in the tunnel!"

Gii began to sweat as he remembered this part of the path. The area where M was heading was actually a shortcut, the only problem being that it led to an area with a large group of Kolak's that would work as a team. The other path was longer but actually much safer because you just had to be careful of the path itself.

Gii couldn't help but pity the mountain climbing maniac and hoped his luck was not so bad in the real world. Every time they had been given a choice to make a decision on where to go, M would undoubtedly choose the worst option possible. It was no wonder he had spent real world days trying to traverse this path but had made barely any progress!

That being said he was definitely a capable climber and he had even acquired specialized mountain climbing skills and equipment. Although Gii had prepared the basics like rope and other materials, he would not be able to use the specialized tools as well as he didn't have the related skills. Gii had to admit that M was correct and they made a pretty good team in these circumstances.

With Gii's navigation skills and M's equipment and specialized climbing skills they were able to avoid pretty much every chance of interaction with Kolaks as they walked through the branching and winding pathways through the mountain. Although it was slow going they made very steady progress until eventually they came to an area that Gii had recognized. There was a small wooden sign hung up on the cavern wall with the hand painted words "traveler's respite" and an arrow pointing down the path they were heading.

"This seems really suspicious...are you sure this is the right way?"

M turned to Gii who slowly nodded in response.

"This is the right way, but keep your guard up, there could still be Kolaks."

Gii knew that the hardest part of the journey was coming up. There would be a fairly big hidden valley area where large numbers of Kolaks would gather. In the future it would become a fairly popular hunting spot for tier 3 players, but for the two of them who were tier 1, it would be a treacherous challenge.