*'LOD'*

I was on a hill, overlooking an ocean of grass, that encompassed all I could see around me. Sun beamed off the grass, creating a scene almost too bright to be seen. Wind flowed through the grass, creating waves. It all looked like a field in summer.

If this was our reality, I'd love to sit here, relaxing, with a couple friends, maybe a girl or two, of course, pretty girls only. And just bask in nature. I mean, if it was our reality that is, and this certainly isn't...

This serene atmosphere was kinda ruined by all the screeching of the green figures, about as tall as my leg, screeching and screaming as their limbs and heads were torn off of their bodies. I mean, I can't blame them. I was pretty much annihilating them and their friends with my group. Us players destroyed the atmosphere just as much as they did too, with all our yelling, shouting and laughing at the massacre they just caused like it was nothing. I mean, this is a game, but that's taking it way too far.

"Okay, so guys, how does this work," I asked.

"You guys put me in charge. So I guess we'll just walk out to the low-level area and see how combat works here. If we die, the island is apparently protected, so it shouldn't be too bad. If we don't, we can make some money and get some drops. So it's a win, not quite lose situation." Said a guy, who was shorter than I. He had a more feminine build, and his curly, wild hairstyle mixed with his apathetic brown eyes, spoke volumes about his personality.

This was Doki, a person I met on the first day in this world. I mean, 'met' is a strong word. We sort of spontaneously became roommates, and then he passed out, so I had to carry him to his bed before sleeping myself. He seemed okay, a bit spaced out, and I had to introduce him to the world of girls. But apart from that, he seemed way smarter than I; at least on this, he cared about. He was a person who hated everyone who deemed that anything indefinite was important, and was blunt about it.

In front of us were two guys, a guy wearing armor that glistened in the sun. He had a very masculine build, short blond hair, and about a head taller than me. He was broad, with massive biceps and triceps but was surprisingly nimble on his feet and with his hands. He was dodging blows and killing small fries whilst keeping his own pace. This was Titanious, or 'Nio' for short. We met ballistic-ally today, I kinda stepped on a mine and we ended up with an awkward silence. He seemed like a good guy with more feminine hobbies, but as of now, I'm uncertain of his nature.

Next to him was a person who tried to mimic him, but stuttered and tripped every now and then. He had a more strong, but he had a less flexible stance that slowed him down, so every now and then he'd run to try and catch Nio. It was sort of like a chick following its mother, so I couldn't help but find this cute.

I met him today too, but, he was clearly shyer. He barely introduced himself before and let Nio say the rest for him, therefore I couldn't really conclude his personality and quirks.

Sorry, I forgot to reference why we were here. Me, Doki, Jeehan and Titanious, the latter two I only just met today, were now walking out of the village's protection to gain money and practice combat before our meeting with the mayor.

We got some word from the villagers that where we were going only had weak mobs. Of course, they didn't say what mobs, but that they were mobs we could fight at our current level. The reason, we had about two hours to blow, well, building up communication, our shortlists and getting to our location took a while, so we had about an hour remaining.

We decided our roles earlier, I was the 'Scout'. Basically, in bigger fights, I would go into the enemy flanks and cause havoc among the battle-mages and healers, whilst the Jeehan and Titanious would tank for Doki, who was the brains the operations, and healer. Yeah, this meant the battle stories I could tell the lovely ladies after this were limited. But my noble sacrifice would not be in vain. My class gave me good speed and high damage, so it was obvious that this would be my role anyway.

The list of skills we had was pretty weak, so we decided to go and try to level up. It was going well to be fair, for about 10 minutes we had been walking about, getting used to the mechanics and techniques behind fighting with one or two low leveled goblins. However...

"Wait, guys... STOP! Something feels off." Said Nio, he seemed anxious, as if he'd heard something in the distance.

"What do you mean?" Replied Jeehan, clearly curious as to the reason they were stopping.

In the half-hour we'd spent traveling, we had only fought individual goblins as a group, Jeehan and Nio alternated the tanking role, whilst Doki used his 'Bolt' skill or I got behind to assassinate. Considering how good our teamwork and positioning had been, we hadn't really been hit, let alone in actually in trouble, so I could see Jeehan's reasoning.

But as soon as I said that...

"... I don't how to descri... LOD, BEHIND YOU!"

I jumped forwards, rotating in the air. We decided this was better than just turning on a pivot because it meant I would get to see the enemy, and they wouldn't get the initiative, as they'd assume I would turn around in a daze, and try to attack. In which case, I could punish this and gain the initiative. I saw five goblins in front of me, one with a club had tried to swing at me, not expecting my jumping rotation.

Seeing this, Doki, who still seemed calm, simply replied in a loud, clear voice, "Oi! Formation 2, five gobs on LOD, Three gobs on Jeehan. Nio cover LOD, Bearing 90 degrees C . LOD, attack sparingly. Jeehan, hold, I'll back you up."

Upon his orders, I focused the five goblins in front of me. One had a small club, and four had knives, not exactly threatening weapons... Whilst waiting for Titanious to get to me, I tried to dodge their attacks. The goblin with the club was still trying to regain his control and pick up his weapon, so only the four with knives had any chance to attack me. I dodged the first attack by simply stepping back, one of the others tried to slash at my left flank, but it missed by a couple inches, so I didn't try to dodge.

I felt a tap on my shoulder, and I knew it was Nio. I hid behind him as he swiped, trying to get the aggro on himself. At this point, the guy with the club had come back, surprising Nio as he didn't see it coming.

After a few seconds, I backed away, whilst the goblins happily attacked Nio without batting an eye at my disappearance. Two of the knife-wielding goblins had died by his attacks so far, and the other two were out of breath, hopefully in the red. So I sneaked behind their flanks and said "Die" activating my Back-Stab skill onto the one with the club, finishing him instantly. A second or two later, the last one fell. Jeehan and Doki had seemingly finished before us, so we decided it was safe.

'Huh, I just leveled up. Let's see what's actually changed...' I thought, noticing that I was now level 2. I saw that I gained about 20 in total stats, mainly going into speed and damage, and had four points that I could invest in any of them. I looked at the skill trees and sighed as I saw no differences overall.

Everyone else seemed to be doing something similar, and since it was safe, I couldn't blame them. After deciding where to put our three points, we regrouped and decided to leave.

"Hey, guys. We seem to have the teamwork basics down and we spent a decent amount of time fighting, want to go back to town for the meeting?" Doki suggested. It seemed like a fair assumption to think that we'd made back the money we spent, so leaving before it getting too risky seemed like a good idea. With nods from me, Nio and Jeehan, we headed back to the town.

I felt something strike me, and before I had time to react, I felt two, three... No five different attacks on my back. Without the ability to react in time, I just watched my health bar sink into the red. When I could finally react, I let out a... 'Scream'. Which I hoped warned the others as my hp finally reached zero.

Huh. This isn't how I thought death would feel like. It wasn't a menu screen with the question 'Continue?' in big, obnoxious letters, almost taunting me to fight again, or die for good, which I assumed would be the case. It was more like I was still there. I could hear and see Doki and the other's anxious attempts to keep calm. I yelled, "It's fine, go on and win." No one could hear it for some reason. So I was confused but went along with it...

About 12 goblins were fighting with them. I assume four of them used a combo attack against my less than protected rear to kill me quickly.

The first order from Doki was "SHUT UP! PAY ATTENTION! 12 goblins, 180 degrees. Nio, Jeehan, aggro them. Then I'll support you."

Titanious and Jeehan got over themselves just like that, and aggroed the enemies, with Doki standing behind them. Both swiped at the goblins, and dodged or countered their attacks whilst doing so. Jeehan made fewer attacks than Nio, but still had more power behind his blow, killing a goblin in four attacks, where Nio took six. After five goblins had fallen, Doki moved further behind the two tanks, without any of the goblins noticing him leave, so stepped away to start his attack.

Titanious and Jeehan were still in the green, barely losing ten percent of their hp. But with Doki's departure, the goblins ended up surrounding the two, which is when Doki started the next part of his plan.

"Jeehan Def up on both. 3..." Doki told Jeehan to put his defense buff, which was specialized to the samurai class, on him and Titanious. Since he didn't use skills regularly, he did this pretty much instantly to Doki's command, whilst Doki was counting out, most likely trying out his skill 'Mass Leech'. It was a good idea because he all the goblins were surrounding the two tanks, who had more than enough health left to tank the friendly fire.

"2... 1... [BIND]" As he said 'bind' he activated the skill 'mass leech', tentacles seeped from ground sprouted to a max range of about 3 meters. Nio Jeehan and the rest of the goblins, who had been exchanging blows with each other until now, had their movement stopped by the tentacles Doki summoned.

The tentacles were sort of like thick, blood-red vines, they collapsed the ground under the people within the range, and then engulfed them, feet first.

Luckily for Doki, there also seemed to be a minimum range of about 1 meter, so there was an area surrounding Doki that had no tentacles. Noticing this, and how he was able to move freely, Doki took out a sword and started to attack some of the enemies caught in his bind. The bind did some damage, removing another tenth of Jeehan's and Nio's health, but Doki's attacks made it go by way faster.

A moment later, after some yelling from the two tanks, Doki noticed how low the other two's HP was. His AP was in the red too, but he cared more about his allies HP, so said "End bind". Immediately after saying that, all the tentacles went back into the ground, releasing their grips on all who were in there. He killed 11 out of the 12 goblins in that attack, and the last one only had a sliver of health remaining. A single slash from Jeehan and it turned into gold.

Before leaving Doki used one final skill, "Heal party". And as his own HP went down, Jeehan's and Nio's HP went up, at about one percent per second...

Since watching this became boring, I started to think about Doki's attack style. His attacks weren't as strong as a Battle-Mage's should be, it's more similar to a Healer's, so I think posing as a healer would be a more convincing bluff than a posing as a battle mage. And since the plan was to aggro the players in PVP subconsciously to him so he could bind them. Yeah, that seems smarter than a mage... I'll suggest the change to him later.

Anyway, whilst thinking that, Jeehan's and Titanious' hp were both over 300, so Doki said "[End Heal Party]" to cancel it. Doki concluded the fight, saying, "look, I know it's unfortunate that we lost LOD, but let's retreat with speed to the village. That took about twenty minutes anyway, we should head for the town hall right now." he continued.

-

And as they went to the town and I followed. There were views to be seen, but I cared more about my death and respawn, so that had to wait. For some reason, I now felt Jeehan's stare. I brushed it off as a coincidence, until...

"LOD? When did you get here?" said Jeehan, who was the first to notice me.

"Um. I've been with you all along." I responded. I was now confused. They ignored me until now, is this how the re-spawn system works?

"Huh, that's weird, I didn't see you.","You were?" Jeehan said, then Titanious added.

"Ah. So that's how the re-spawn system works." Proclaimed Doki.

"""Eh?!""" We all exclaimed in unison. I then retorted "Okay Doki, please tell the class."

"Okay, let me explain. Respawning's probably done by reaching a certain checkpoint, which would be the town entrance. Basically, whilst dead and not at a checkpoint, you'd be able to view the place around you, but not be able to interact with it. It's like one of those generic FPS games," It seemed like he was taking pleasure in taking the mick, and making himself seem as pretentious as possible...

He paused, he pretty much said that all in the same breath, so I was starting to question whether this guy actually breathed air. But as soon as this question was answered, he continued.

"Now, in those games, after the game has been decided, by the game being won, or leaving the defined battlefield/ game, the players who died respawn like nothing happened. Sometimes the player who died gets a punishment, like fewer points for dying compared to your allies who carried you. But..."

"Okay professor. We understand now, so spare us the rest of the lecture." I retorted. "So basically my XP and the money I receive from the fight was less than I should have due to my defeat. And since we all went back to the town, I 're-spawned' here."

"Basically. Well anyway, let's go to the meeting now."