Chapter 13

~ Lord_DPS ~

SW/SW/SW

The vampire player licked the sharp edge of his sword, sneering, “Summoner, huh? Awesome! I happened to hate them! Soo hate them! I’ll toy with you for a while before I kill you! [Triple Waves]!”

With a swing of his sword, he unleashed three waves of energy towards Ace. He was in panic to see such a tremendously powerful technique. So powerful that it shattered the ground. The admiration soon faded, however.

He needed to evade the energies or else he’d die!

Before Agriella could save him, the vampire cast some kind of paralyzing spell on her. As a result, she was unable to move and was forced to see her master killed in front of her eyes.

His eyes darted around, frantically trying to find some kind of fault in the attack. Gasping, he found one mistake in the technique. The farther it went, the wider the gap created by the energies as they traveled in this [ | /] pattern.

Ace ran away to make the gap bigger, but it was seen as a cowardly act.

“Master?!” Agriella called him. She was utterly confused.

The vampire laughed, “Look at that noob! Acting so high and mighty, but runs away! What a coward!”

Ace ignored the insult and stopped. The distance was good. With this, he could evade the incoming energies aimed at him.

His prediction was correct! The technique’s biggest flaw was that it could only be used in close range attacks. The gap became wider and wider as the waves travelled. Maneuvering swiftly, Ace placed himself in the middle of the gap and came out unscathed.

Everyone was flabbergasted.

“No way!” the draconian shouted in disbelief, “he avoided Triple Waves?!”

“My… technique…” the vampire stuttered, “…it failed…?”

So shocked at his attack was dodged, the vampire’s paralyzing spell grew weaker, allowing Agriella to break free. The lamia counter attacked. She successfully slashed the vampire veteran on his left arm. It only did 47 damages, but it was a satisfying attack nonetheless.

Now that he took damage from a lowly Beast, the vampire stood eerily quiet. A second later, his face contorted in madness. He was mighty pissed and the air he blew through his nostrils seemed to be on fire.

“How dare you?!” he screeched, “how dare you ruin my super rare armor, you son of a bitch?! Do you understand how expensive it is to repair this?!”

The sword he held suddenly was burning in black flame. It looked like the vampire just lost his control and Ace knew exactly why.

“I can’t forgive you… I can’t forgive you…! I will find your real self and kill you!!” he charged forward. His speed was insanely fast.

Ace couldn’t find his voice, let alone opened his mouth. His feet were firmly planted on the ground, as if they were cursed. He couldn’t move them no matter how hard he tried.

In an instant, the time seemed to stop.

The vampire thrust his sword at Ace’s heart, attempting to OHKO him. Ace was leaning back, petrified, and didn’t know how to act.

Before the blade reached him, Agriella jumped between them. It was unavoidable. She was pierced right in the middle of her chest. Blood instantly gush out as if it was molten lava from a raging volcano.

Ace, unused to seeing blood and someone murdered in front of him, suddenly lost his ability to think.

Agriella was lying there in the pool of blood, unmoving.

…she was sleeping, right? If she was sleeping, then why was there so many blood coming out from her body?

Ace lifted his palms and his pupils became nothing but tiny dots.

Blood.

Blood on my hands…

Blood…

Is this a dream…?

…fresh blood…

…I saw murder…

…should I call the police…?

Blood…

...

…Agriella was dead.

Ace shrieked in fear when Agriella’s body disappeared into nothingness, along with her blood on his palms. He was trembling and kept babbling about murder or some sort.

Thinking that an ordinary insult wasn’t enough, the vampire began to make fun of his Beast, “That was Agriella, wasn’t she? What a pathetic Beast. Excel at nothing but was labeled as an Uncommon Beast. What a joke. What a weak Beast like her could do, anyway?”

Ace was unresponsive and it irked the vampire. He kicked Ace on the stomach, shouting, “Don’t you go ignoring me, you piece of shit!”

The elf girl called him from the distance while evading the deadly attacks from the draconian, “Hey! What are you doing?! Help me!”

She let her guard down and was easily thrown at nearby tree from the impact. She had blocked the attack, but suffered major physical damage, leaving her HP at two. If there wasn’t a sword pointed at her neck, she’d rise to her feet by now.

The long-haired elf gulped. They were really going to die…

“Looks fun,” an unfamiliar voice joined in. They all looked at the source to find a green-haired teenager, dressed in shining white armor, stepped closer.

The newcomer had messy hair that reached to his shoulder and a pair of red eyes. They were piercingly cold, similar to a lion that stalked its prey. In both of his hands was a pair of white sword. The design was intricate, indicating that they were super rare swords.

“And who the fuck are you?!” the vampire demanded angrily, “why can’t people keep their shit away from us?!”

“H-Hey, hold it!” this time it was the draconian. Apparently, he recognized the newcomer. “That green hair, that armor and weapons… He's DPS!”

“The fuck?! That… the one who ranked five in the Arena?!”

Realizing that they were no match for him, they ran away.

Ace regained his sanity several minutes later. He blinked for a while and then jerked up with an alarmed stance, ready to fight.

“They are gone, you know…” the elf spoke. She received a sigh of relief.

Their savior walked near. His red eyes made them uneasy.

“Th-Thank you for saving us… we—” the elf wanted to offer him their gratitude, but was cut short.

“Okay?”

Both Ace and the elf locked eyes, confused.

“You okay?”

“O-Oh! Y-Yes, we are alright! I didn’t know what would happen if you weren’t there!”

The green-haired teenager, a human, tilted his head. He had his gaze locked on the elf, “Just passing through.”

Ace stared into space as they conversed with each other. He just lost it back then. He was completely lost it when Agriella was dead. Now that he could think clearly, Agriella wasn’t a player. She was a Summon Beast, an NPC, so she could be summoned back.

He didn’t want to be reminded of it. He was acting like an idiot back then, screaming and shivering like a coward. But it was his first time seeing people bathed in blood. Anyone normal would be completely freaked out!

…but why was he the only one who was scared? Didn’t the others see the blood?

Ace looked at his savior. His armor clearly showed that he was a Warrior. The armor was white from top to toe, giving him the look similar to that of a holy knight. His eyes were scary, though, red like blood.

His appearance looked like a holy knight who went berserk with rage.

The white-armored warrior lifted his head and looked at Ace. There was an indescribable feeling when their eyes met. Ace shivered, feeling the back of his hair rose. The air he was breathing was heavy as if he was inhaling metal. It wasn’t fear. It wasn’t happiness.

All of a sudden, something flashed inside Ace’s mind. They were memories.

No.

They were more like visions rather than memories.

Someone took a stance…

“…guess I can’t make you return to Travonka anymore, huh?”

Someone was laughing in madness…

“A… ha! Hahahahaha! He died! He died!! Blood, killing… taste so good… Kill… I want to kill more…”

A familiar person murmured, with tears on their eyes…

“…how could you? This is not you…”

“...this world is not real...!”

…

“…we miss you…”

What did they mean? What were these visions trying to tell him?

No. He must’ve been hallucinating. Yeah. They were hallucinations…

…but was hallucinating even possible in this game?

Ace shook that terrible thought, focusing on the savior in front of him instead. Glancing up, Ace found his name easily.

Lord_DPS, he was called.

What a weird name, that was what he thought, but well… he was the one to talk. The name AceKivras didn’t make any sense at all.

The elf was Elvaria, a name befitting a beautiful elf. Judging by her equipment, she was also a newbie like him. It would be good if they could team up…

To his surprise, DPS also felt the same feeling like Ace had felt earlier and asked, “…have we met somewhere?”

Ace shook his head, “No. This is our first time.”

He asked no further and instead gave him a key. “Take it and go to Dragonis Guild Hall.”

With that he left, disappearing into the tower entrance.

“…what was that about?” Elvaria frowned in confusion.

“Don’t ask me.”

It seemed that he had met someone… weird.

“Hey, thanks for saving me,” the elven girl smiled sheepishly. How cute…

“Nah, no prob. We have to help each other out, right?”

She frowned and bit her lower lip. “Are you okay? You were screaming like you’ve seen murder. That was scary, you know?”

What?

There was a flicker of emotion on Ace’s face before it was replaced by a cheerful one. “I’m fine… uh, my installation disc happened to be a special one, where you can see blood and stuff and I forgot to deactivate it. Sorry if I scared you back then.”

Thank God the elven girl accepted that bluff. If she asked of such thing, then it meant that…

“By the way, are you starting out as well?” she asked innocently. Her face looked exactly like his sister, Nia. “I’m kind of lost… This game confuses me.”

“Didn’t Alice guide you?” Ace asked back.

Elvaria nodded but scratched the back of her neck, “I have, but this is my first time playing games, online at that. Even with her guide, I still don’t know what I’m supposed to do…”

Whoa… it was Ace’s immediate comeback.

She hadn’t played any games at all, but suddenly played an online game? That was crazy. She would need tons of things to memorize.

Ace himself just a regular gamer, who played normal RPG games on consoles. From those games, he understood mostly the basics. When your HP went to zero you will die, you couldn’t cast any spells when your MP was too low, by drinking potions you could recover HP or MP.

But this girl… it was just wow.

“Y-You’re joking, right?”

“I’m not.”

Ace looked around and noticed that several mobs had begun to show up from their hiding places. This place wasn’t safe anymore since Agriella was gone. They should do the talking in Dragonis instead…

Ace gave her a Scroll of Return, “Here, read this. We should go back to the city and talk there.”

Elvaria murmured her thank you and read the scroll. In an instant, she was swallowed in a white light and disappeared, leaving behind several balls of light shining brightly for a moment before they completely vanished.

Ace wasted no time and used the scrolls. The same thing happened to him. His entire body was glowing brightly. The blinding light hurt his eyes, so he forcefully closed them. He was already in front of Dragonis Portal when he opened his eyes, Elvaria stood beside him.

“So, what are we going to do?” she bit her lower lip.

Ah, Ace remembered something. Lord_DPS gave him a key, didn’t he?

[Travonka Guild Key] popped up above the key when he withdrew it, along with a blinking dot in his map.

To be honest, he was taken aback. Guild Key? Didn’t it mean that Lord_DPS was actually inviting him to join?

He moved so that he could have a clear look at the Guild Hall beyond the Dragonis Portal.

Joining a guild, huh…?

Spoiler: Status

AceKivras

EXP Chart*

Atk: 5

HP (180/180)

Level 2

227/765

Def: 4

MP(110/245)

Human

538 to lv. 3

M.Atk: 19

Eiredrahl the Impure*

Summoner

5 Coins

M. Def: 13

Independent

Minimum piety

ATTRIBUTES

POTENTIAL

Equipment

No perks or abilities*

STR

5

Worst

Head

Circlet

VIT

7

Bad

Neck

Amulet

DEX

7

Bad

Body

Robe

PER

8

Bad

Back

-

INT

18

Superb

Arm (main)

Staff

WIS

11

Best

Arm

-

WILL

11

Best

Waist

-

CHA

16

Superb

Legs

Pants

* (tap to see)

Feet

Shoes

(Help)

Skill

Description

Level

Healing

VIT

Lets you recover your HP over time

2.667

Staff

VIT

How proficient you are swinging your staff

2.098

Running

VIT

Affects your running speed

3.004

Light Armor

DEX

How effectively you act while wearing Light Armor

7.145

Evasion

DEX

Helps you to evade attacks easily

8.430

Casting

INT

This skill helps you power up your spells

5.610

Meditation

INT

Gradually recovers your MP

5.917

Herbology

INT

Lets you identify any herb to its fullest potential

6.078

Control Magic

WIS

Prevents your ally to get hit by your spells

2.819

Memorization

WIS

This skill slows down the decay of your unused skills

3.677

Literacy

WIS

Allows you to read more difficult spellbooks

6.175

Control Beast

CHA

Lets you control higher-level Summon Beasts

7.931