“Wow! What the hell happened here?!” shouted Lyndis seeing that the city was completely in ruins. Actually she knew that the city was in ruins but wanted to shouted that out. Also she contacted both Sain and Miriel while they were in game as well to inquire what was happening so she more or less knew what was happening.

Lyndis: Sain, Miriel! Are you two there? I logged in the game with the others.

Sain: Yeah, we in the city helping out.

Miriel: Get your butt here as well. You get contribution and a bit of fame as they help clean the city in this state.

Lyndis: Wait what?! Why the hell didn't you tell me earlier?!

Miriel: Because there was no point since you couldn't get into the game at all until now.

Shadow: That makes sense. Where are you two, we'll go to you first then.

Sain: ….

Miriel: ….

Shadow: Guys?

Lyndis: Are you still there?

Sain: Yep.

Miriel :Yeah...

Lyndis: Where are you two....unless.....you're doing something fun aren't you! Let me into it as well!

Sain: A-anyway I think we should at least relax for today since it's a rare chance since Eden is out of commission for another 4 days.

Lyndis: What are you two hiding from me?!

Miriel: I agree, do whatever you want today and then we can talk about what to do tomorrow.

Shadow: In that case, I'm going to look around to see what's happening on a small scale.

Raven: I'll go to the Guild Building.

Serena: In that case...I'll w-wait! Where are you dragging me?!

Lyndis: Guys....? Are you still there...?

Lyndis: ….

Lyndis: I'm SO going to find you two. Just you wait!

With that, the group chat cut off and Lyndis sped away running in a random direction trying to find Sain and Miriel since they seem to be doing something interesting.

[p=center]xXx[/p]

“Looks like Lyndis is trying to find us....” muttered Sain seeing the last words that Lyndis left them on the group chat.

Miriel sighed and then said, “Well it's not like she can find us since this city is pretty big...though I worry that she might ask people about us.”

“We're not exactly invisible though we kinda do blend into the background people a bit...” said Sain a bit depressed that he pointed that out. Sain was wearing a common leather armour set while Miriel was wearing a plain purple robe for magicians that was also common. They quite literally had no unique features other than what they looked like and the guild they were in.

“This is actually a good thing since when people don't notice you, they don't bother you” assured Miriel patting Sain on the shoulder.

“You Two! Stop talking and more moving! We need to clear this area before reconstruction can begin!” shouted a overly large man that was made of more muscle than brains. Miriel clenched her teeth just by the thought that she needed to take order by such a brute while Sain sighed seeing Miriel like this.

“Deal with it for a bit...we are at least partly responsible for what happened three days ago you know” said Sain lifting and carrying a large piece of wood from the ground moving it away to a pile.

“Then what about Gen and Master then? Aren't they the main cause to this?” asked Miriel since she was still pissed off that those two got them involved in a personal matter.

“They are currently still healing...plus from what Park told me before, they will be personally punished by Eden himself and that is more than enough to what happened according to him.”

“Anyway this is actually a good thing as well you know.”

“Huh?”

Miriel put up a face that said 'Are you joking' at Sain.

“For each plot we clear, we get 10 contribution points to the Kingdom and 1 Fame. Considering the size of the city it is possible for us to obtain 100 fame in total like we work harder than anyone else.”

“You know how unlikely that is? There are hundreds, thousands of other players who are thinking the same thing in the end. We'll be lucky if we can even get 10 Fame through this” scowled Miriel adding in, “The only good thing is that we can increase our relationship with the NPCs this way.”

“Yeah...ever since we joined the guild it felt like that they gave us a bit of the cold shoulder or are fearing us a bit...” muttered Sain sighing due to the changes that he only noticed recently. Due to the actions of Eden, 7 months went by in game with them all extremely busy with no time to waste and because of that; it was only now due to the recent events that he was able to talk to other NPCs in general.

'The Guild name....Sleeping Sheep Centre is quite a notorious one indeed...with a mention it to another player, they rushed to leave me alone...I guess I better not mention it to anyone else I might meet later on...better tell the others not to as well later....'

“Sain! Stop daydreaming and lift it up already! My arms feel like they are holding up something that twice my weight!” shouted Miriel red in anger.

“Right right” replied Sain with a casual smile helping Miriel move a large boulder that used to be part of a wall.

The two spend a great day of the rest of the day helping out and being ordered to the bone cleaning up by smashing large rubble and other materials into pieces and then moving them.

[p=center]xXx[/p]

Flashback to the day before...

“Guildmaster is that you?!” said Sain hoping that it really was Eden or Alexandra since it was certain that they would help them now.

“Which one are you talking about~?” asked a womanly voice since Sain could not exactly see anything outside the remains of the building since it was literally on him and Miriel.

“Don't joke right now! We are slowly being CRUSHED here! Our health points are barely being sustained by Sain healing us once in a while!” shouted Miriel in such a loud voice that Sain really regretted not being able to use his hands to block his ears from the sound.

“Enough of that and get us out of here Alexandra!!!” shouted Miriel in a rampage to Sain's ears.

“Right right, too bad I can't see you right now cuddling with Sain over there as well” said Alexandra in a humoured voice.

“W-what are you talking about?! I can only feel disgust here!” retorted Miriel.

“You know that actually makes me really sad when I hear that right?” muttered Sain under his voice for Miriel to hear. Unfortunately, there were three people nearby who could pick up on his voice and words.

“Ho Ho Ho, looks like something is steaming up~”

[Should we come back later...? It looks like this will take a while]

“Under-age Bad.”

“What the hell are you three talking about?! Hurry up and get us out of here!!!!” retorted Miriel even more much to the dismay of Sain's ears once again.

“Fine fine....let's see....too is too much trouble. Why don't we just blow this up and them get them out” said Alexandra not even bothering to trying to get them out safely.

“....”

Both Sain and Miriel felt a sudden chill then as if they were about to die. They both looked at each other frightened of the death to come crashing down on them literally.

“I'm sorry Sain. Cracked Barrier can only be casted on one of us” said Miriel with a tear in her eye.

Sain shook his head gently at Miriel and said, “Don't worry....your spell will probably be unable to stop your death either way as well.”

“Oi! Why are you talking as if I'm going to kill you? You do remember I have a couple of skills that can buff your defence and regenerative abilities right? Don't go all drama like on me.”

“....”

“Let's see.....this damn chant is too damn long to speak! Screw this, Blah blah blah, Holy Protection!”

Holy Protection has been casted on you

- Health increases by 15%

- Health Regeneration increases by 4%

- Damage resistance increases by 12%

- Due to not chanting the words to the spell, the effects of Holy Protection has dramatically decreased

Time Limit: 3 Hours

“....”

'Is....this fine....?' wondered Sain seeing the effects of the spell already being on the mid tier level even with it's power reduced.

“Anyway time for me to do the more interesting parts. Sw-”

“Wait wait wait! With these effects, we will still die if you use whatever your about to do!” shouted Sain noticing that Alexandra was the same as Eden as in she didn't know when to hold back at the right times.

At this rate, he and Miriel will actually die from her hands.

“...Fine...I'll cast a couple more on you just in case then.

Several moments later...

Holy Shield has been casted on you

- Damage will be reduced by 8%

- Holy and Dark Damage will decrease by 15%

- Defence will increase by 6%

- Due to not chanting the words to the spell, the effects of Holy Shield has dramatically decreased

Time Limit: 2 Hours

Warrior Protection has been casted on you

- Able to endure attacks that would normally kill you

- Damage resistance will double

- Damage negation by 3%

- Due to not chanting the words to the spell, the effects of Warrior Protection has dramatically decreased

Time Limit: 10 Minutes

Steel Body has been casted on you

- Body will harden like steel when attacked

- Defence increase by 5%

- Agility decreases by 15%

- Due to not chanting the words to the spell, the effects of Steel Body has dramatically decreased

Time Limit: 15 Minutes

Mighty Hidden Strength has been casted on you

- 1% chance of surviving with 1% health on fatal attacks

- Strength increases by 3%

- Agility increases by 3%

- Due to not chanting the words to the spell, the effects of Mighty Hidden Strength has dramatically decreased

Time Limit: 1 Hour

“....Was there a need to cast several of them like that quickly instead of chanting one single strong spell for us...?” asked Sain.

“Couldn't be bothered to use their damn long chanting. It would've taken me 10 minutes to chant through all of those spell at once even if I hurried it up.”

“Like I said, couldn't you just have used on powerful spell like the last time?”

“Time's up, Sword Wave!”

BANG!

Moments later....

“Cough Cough Cough...! Damn there's dust in my cough lungs. You okay Miriel? Miriel?”

Sain unfortunately looked down and then realised what kind of position he was in. To be precise, he was on top of Miriel and looked like he was either hugging her or pushing her down.

“....”

“....”

“How long are you going be on me!? This isn't some damn love comedy story!”

Whack!

“Ow!”

You took 10 damage

After several apologies and several favours to Miriel, Sain finally found forgiveness while a certain guildmaster made 'ho ho ho' sounds in the background spying on them for her own entertainment.

[p=center]xXx[/p]

Meanwhile at current time....

Raven walked through the rubble that was strangely ordered in such a way that it made it really difficult to go through. There were in fact other ways to go through the rubble but those paths were filled with people who when seeing Raven would stare at him for some reason.

'Better avoid people since they may drag me into something...' he thought and therefore with the intention of avoiding attention and more to the point people, he climbed over large rocks and wood that were shattered around the place as if he was a rat that was scurrying away from the harmful cats that hunt them down.

However unknown to Raven, doing this actually attracted more attention to him.

“Who is that idiot? Walking like that can only attract attention,,,,”

“Who cares! Blond hair and ocean blue eyes! Me get!”

“Wait! I was the one who saw that cute boy first!”

“....”

Raven completely ignored those conversations about him as much as he could as he reached the guild building.

“Unharmed?” wondered Raven seeing that all of the buildings surrounding it was damaged but strangely enough, the guild building didn't even have a scratch on it. To the distance, he could barely see that the giant library that the city had with top of the notch magic technology was unharmed as well.

It was as if whatever caused all of this intentionally avoided those two places.

'A bit suspicious but since the person resulting in this kind of damage is from the guild....'

Raven put aside the fact that this building was unharmed and entered it casually. Inside he looked left and right and eventually found that one of the guildmasters of this guild was sleeping peacefully on the sofa in plain view.

'Shouldn't someone have moved Eden somewhere else to sleep? I mean for a girl....wait seeing him like this makes me think Eden is a girl....better get a closer look.'

Raven walked over to where Eden was and looked closely at his face. Both his nose and mouth were small while his eyes and eyebrows balanced out with the rest of his face. His face was naturally thin and looked like a perfect person. Adding his long black hair to the mix, for certain most men will fall for him....even if there is a lack of breasts.

For some odd reason, Raven had the urge to poke at Eden's cheek and his finger unknowingly moved to that direction by itself.

“Hmm...? What are you doing little Raven~?” asked someone behind him.

At that moment, Raven felt like there was a demon behind him that could potentially ruin his life if she could. Pale from the thought and panicking a bit, Raven turned back with some tears in his eyes...which would happen if he could make expressions or could produce tears. However all Raven did was blankly stare at the person behind him with his emotionless face with no signs of changing while inside is a torrent of emotion.

“Haha, you are super embarrassed inside aren't you? That stoned looked on your face can't hide everything you know~” said Alexandra blending over to pinch Raven's cheek with a soft smile.

'Huh? What is going on? My face is normal as always....right?'

Raven started to unconsciously touch his face here and there to feel if there was any change in them. He more or less had this expression for years and nothing changed with it even when and if he tried.

“Wah, don't bother checking if anything changed. Nothing did...I'm just good at reading people's faces especially Eden's over there though that doesn't stop us from arguing all the time!” Alexandra moved her hand across from Raven and lightly touched Eden's cheek.

And then immediately squeezed it tightly as if she was pulling off a large chink of his flesh.

Raven could not help but to panic a bit since it really looked like Alexandra was about to kill Eden there.

“Don't worry so much, Eden has even more defence than me who is suppose to be the tank in our little trio....honestly I'm having some bad memories of Eden complaining that I wasn't killing him fast enough back at a certain Holy Trial.”

'Why would someone...complain of not dying fast enough...isn't it the other way around?'

“Even if I use my strongest attack here...which will probably kill everyone in the city in one go, I bet that Eden would still live through it! He's even more stubborn on living then the petty Emperor himself!”

Raven could not help but to blurt out, “You know the Emperor?”

“Yes of course I do. Practically anyone who is over level 800 knows him personally. Ah did you know that Weed is actually reaching the level 900 point? It's damn ridiculous on how much harder it is to get there from level 800 then to get to level 800 from 700! Just know that your levelling speed will dramatically decrease after level 200 and once again from level 400 and 600 and finally level 800 to the point that the previous point looked like you were levelling quite quickly.”

Raven nodded to this even though that even level 200 was a far distance away from him and the others right now. They haven't even gotten to the level 100 point yet and it is 9 month game time and 3 volumes into the series.

“Anyway where was I? Right! Talking about the petty Emperor Weed....as a little something for you since I have the time here's how we....”

Several hours later, Alexandra finished her story. As for the actual content....perhaps later.

[p=center]xXx[/p]

Shadow leaped from building to building in quick succession and speed as if he was like a flying monkey in the air. After taking a 5 minute breather due to his stamina running out unexpectedly while only running for 20 some minutes, Shadow looked around to find where he was.

'It's damn hard to find where I am in this city when most of the city is wrecked?! Who the hell was responsible in our guild that caused this mess?!' Shadow cursed the person that he probably knew who caused this incident which made things hard for him.

'Looking at this place....I can quite literally see the rest of the city as long as I go as high as 2 stories. That was how bad this incident was...most of the roads are covered in rubble as well which players and NPCs are working to clear out....other than that is the removal of all the rubble and then reconstruction of the whole city...I wonder how many months this will take...else the lord of this city could just spend money to fix it immediately....speaking up which, who is the Lord of this city? There was no mention of said person at all.'

As Shadow was in deep thought over this matter, he did not notice that a couple of people approached him.

“Umm....mister in black!”

“Huh?”

Shadow looked to the direction of the voice and found himself staring into the face of a young girl.

“Wa!”

Shocked, Shadow accidental tumbled back a few times, falling off the large rock that he was sitting on while thinking.

Thud!

You took 15 damage

“....”

Shadow could only stare blankly at the message in front of him as people gathered around him.

“He's no good! Impaired in the mind” said one child critically.

“Wait, the other adults couldn't even see him! He's the perfect person for us to use!” said another child not even hiding the fact that they were about to use him.

“Mister, are you okay?” asked the first child that caused him to fall to begin with.

“More or less” said Shadow as he got up pretending that nothing happened a few seconds ago. However Shadow was more curious in another matter.

“I'm pretty sure that my hiding skill was active....how did you lot find me” asked Shadow to the three children in front of him.

“Easy! We are masters of hide and seek!” said one child with dark brown hair and a large smile boasting of himself and his friends.

The next to answer was another boy with a lighter shade of brown, “We just looked in the place that other people didn't. It was like there was a strange gap in the place you were in like there was nothing there.”

“Yeah, after we looked a bit, you appeared!” said the young girl with chestnut hair as well as if she saw something amazing, “Say, mister did you use magic to do that?”

“....”

Shadow shyly scratched his cheek and simply said, “No, it's just something I was born with, not being noticed by anyone” with a sad smile on his face.

“....”

The three children stared at him and immediately looked impressed and excited at the same time.

“Cool! That's like a superpower right?!”

“Yep yep, it isn't something as common as the other stuff you hear about!”

“Mister, you're amazing!”

Shadow could feel that he was blushing right now and to the comments of children to boot! He could not help but to feel happy as he was complimented like that so easily and through the eyes of innocent children with nothing more than their true intent on their faces. It was the first time Shadow felt happy of his unique 'nature'.

However that did not even stop Shadow from remembering of all the pain he went through thanks to it.

“This....'ability' is nothing to be happy of. It's something I want to get rid of if I can” said Shadow bluntly silencing the praising children in front of him. It looked like they saw something scary or shocking from Shadow then as well.

“....”

The silence continued for another 5 seconds until Shadow stopped it seeing that this situation would not do good for these children's memories.

“What did you want me for again?” he asked to the children.

“Ah, we need another person to group hide and seek with!” said the girl.

“Group....hide and seek?” asked Shadow as if he was kinda forced to given the lack of information he had on such thing.

“Hide and Seek, but with more people seeking! That way, things are much more interesting! Don't you know what hide and seek is mister?” asked the girl innocently.

Memories...memories that Shadow did not want to remember pop up one after another.

One of the time the teacher forgot he existed.

Another where it looked like he was abandoned by those he knew and talked with seconds ago.

Then...one of hide and seek...where he hid for three days and no one came to find him which caused him to almost starve to death.

“Uh....I do know, not great memories of it though...didn't play it much. You know with me being super good at hiding and such” said Shadow awkwardly.

“Wow...” exclaimed one of the boys, “You must have been super good at it! Amazing!”

'These ones don't know of what traumas I went through by being super good at it...' Shadow smiled wryly to himself then.

“Anyway, I have time to spare for today so I might as well join you guys. How many more of you are there?” Shadow asked.

The three children thoughts about it hard as if they were doing some hard calculation and then said:

“Around 30...?”

“A class full of people?”

“A large amount!”

'What are these different answers...? I guess 30 is roughly the number...in total I hope.'

“Right! We have to hurry or else we'll be late for the game!” shouted one of the boys checking the time with the sun in the sky.

“Ah, mister hurry up!” said the girl quickly grabbing onto his hand dragging him along.

'Ah...this hand is small....fragile.....'

Shadow left those thoughts alone in his head as he continued to follow along with the children that dragged him into their playing.

[p=center]xXx[/p]

Serena was currently in an awkward situation.

“Hey, big sis! Let's do this!” shouted one overly enthusiastic child that could not be more than 10 years old. Of course to them, Serena who was only 13 years old looked like an adult to them or at least a older figure.

“With you, we can definitely win!” another child shouted into the air trying to encourage her.

“Haha” Serena could only awkwardly laugh it off since she was completely overwhelmed by their spirit.

To this, Serena sighed since she was somehow dragged into this all of a sudden.

She remembered what happened only a few hours ago...

'How did I get dragged into this again...? I think it was some child coming up to me and the pulling me somewhere saying something like a game....I wonder what the others are doing right now...?'

Serena simply waited while being quiet as more and more children, all of them averaged around 10 years or younger in age until there was roughly 30 people gathered; there was also another 'adult' amongst them aside from her.

“Shadow...?” muttered Serena recognising the person that the other team dragged in as well. With this, there were now 32 people here including Serena and Shadow. Shadow looked over at Serena seeing her and then took a moment and sighed giving a sad smile as if he knew that Serena was dragged into this as well.

“Let's begin the game!” shouted to what presumed to be the leader of this group of children.

The game started and naturally came out as Shadow's victory as the sole person to not be caught by the team Serena was in...not that she was trying to find him either way.

[p=center]xXx[/p]

The next day in game, the group gathered again.

“Gained a total of 15 fame and 150 contributions~” said Miriel happily seeing that a whole several days' work was paying off finely.

It was needless to say that fame was something extremely hard to get. Players that had over 1000 fame were still in the very low percentage while players with more than 10 000 fame was even lower. Those who had more than 100 000 fame were already considered legends and top players as well.

Next to Miriel was Sain who looked exhausted and was rubbing his arm where he hurt since he strained himself while lifting up too many things for too long. The the opposite side was Lyndis who was in a bad mood.

“So where on earth were you two anyway? I searched most of the city and you were anywhere!” she demanded. To this Miriel gave her a smile of superiority and said in a somewhat cocky voice, “Naturally somewhere you couldn't find us of course! Don't want you to interfere with what was going on after all” she licked her finger as if she ate something delicious after that giving Sain a slight shiver.

“W-what the hell?! Such S-shameless behaviour!” said Lyndis completely red imagining what Miriel and Sain were doing the previous day.

Sain sighed and then explained things since he did not want to be caught up in a big misunderstanding, “We were helping out, moving out rubble and moving in materials to rebuild the city. Plus we were doing this three days straight and only now, the builders and such are starting the reconstruction since the city is huge and so much needed to be cleared before anything started.”

“Really.....disappointing...” muttered Lyndis looking as if a good show was just cancelled.

'Why are you disappointed when you were the one who was flustered just then?' wondered Sain to the extreme change in attitude that Lyndis and while he's at it, Miriel can display.

Sain looked over to Shadow and asked, “So what did you do?”

“Playing with children. Serena was also dragged in as well” he replied calmly with some happiness in his voice as if he experienced something pleasant.

“Hmm...what about you Raven?”

“Was in the guild building. Alexandra was talking a lot.” As usual, there was no hint of his expression even changing even after 9 months of knowing him.

'Well it's not like that's something bad...right?'

“Right, we're all accounted for now. Now what were we called here for?” wondered Sain aloud. The group was in the guild building, that alone was not strange at all. Most of the time they slept here so this place would be considered a second home to them. But the problem was that they were called here which made them nervous.

Last time something happened, the city was destroyed...and they were still in the beginning process of rebuilding it.

Before that was a 3 month trip to mountains that was mainly then gaining some stamina from walking for so long and nothing much aside from the quest reward.

Click.

The door opened and Alexandra walked in with a serious expression on her face unlike most of the time that the group saw her.

“To put it bluntly, I need you guys to take care of some monsters. With....recent events, and the city more or less out of the count, monsters have been seen gathering in large numbers, probably to attack. Because of this, the city officials have put up a notice and a quest to protect the city by clearing out as many monsters as possible. As the guild who is responsible for both the current state of the city and protecting the city, we won't get any rewards for this...but on the other hand, it is a good chance to improve your relation to the residents of this city. Go for it~!”

Protect the City

Due to recent events where the city was mostly destroyed, monster have taken this chance to gather and attack the city. Protect the city by clearing out the monsters before their numbers gather up too much. There are reports of 4 main branches of monsters attacking the city.

Rank: C

Restrictions: City must not fall and Monsters must be eliminated

Reward: As part of the guild that is responsible for the current state of the city, you will not get any rewards aside form experience from this quest

Guild has accepted this quest, you cannot deny this quest

You have accepted this quest

“....”

'Why is it that the last couple of quests that we did...yes why is it that we were more or less forced to accept them whether it said that we can deny the quest or not...' thought Sain seeing that one of three quest slots were filled in again.

“Now I have the job to explain this quest in more details....” sighed Alexandra was if this was really a bother to do.

“Basically, the monsters can't breach the walls since they don't have enough power so they have to go through the four entrances that this city has. Since Ron, Gen, etc are out of commission, they are unable to help with things so therefore, Park, Anna and me will take three of the entrances while everyone else, mostly low levelled players like you will take the last remaining one....well you will focus on that sole entrance while other fools will try to get some kills with the rest of us. Monster that may come include wolves, bears, boars, goblins, kobolds and lizardmen. Nothing to fear but their level can go up to 150 in this quest I would think. I except each entrance will get around 300 mobs to deal with as well so you need to cooperate with other parties as well. That's all, the quest begins in an hour. Get to the east entrance while you can.”

With those words Alexandra disappeared from sight, probably to go to one of the other entrances in the city other than the east one.

“So...at least now we have a good way to gain some experience right?” said Lyndis trying to change the current mood of 'we were forced into something troublesome again'.

“Other people will be there....they will try to hog all of the kills and experience” said Shadow with a dark shadow above his head.

“People....people....” muttered Serena in an endless loop.

“....” While Raven had the same expression as always....there was a dark feeling around him now.

“Wait wait wait! You guys talked to other people right?! Why the hell are you guys like this now?!” retorted Lyndis seeing that those three were acting like this.

“Last time was Sain talking to them” replied Shadow bluntly with Serena and Raven nodding as well.

“Didn't you and Serena play with kids yesterday?!”

“This and that are different.”

“What of the people from the guild then?!”

“We have to get along with them so we forced ourselves.”

As Lyndis and Shadow argued over....not exactly argue but were talking rapidly, Miriel muttered:

“Other people....it will be hard to not insult them...Sain, take care of talking to people with Lyndis.”

Sain hearing this let out a sad laugh considering that the group that he was leading was a bunch of anti-social people.

Shadow plainly didn't want to get along with other people, Serena was too shy for that. Raven practically didn't talk unless he had to and Miriel didn't care for other people. Add in Lyndis' skills with talking and take into account that she might say something insulting to them, Sain was really the only person who could talk to other people....no players fine.

For some strange reason, this group was more than fine with NPCs.

Actually the group wasn't sure whether Eden and Alexandra were players but NPCs instead...except for Miriel who did her research on the group and found them to be players from the early days. Either way, they got along with them good enough for a professional relationship in the guild.

“Either way...we just have to be there and fight right? No need for cooperation with other group, we just need to make sure no monsters get into the city right?” said Shadow at the end of his long conversation which was omitted due to space reasons.

With that, the group went to the eastern gate.

[p=center]xXx[/p]

“This is worse than I thought....” muttered Miriel seeing the large crowd of players lined up.

There were around 100 people in total at the gate with eyes that said for other people to not get into their way.

“With this we don't need to work right?” asked Shadow seeing that this large group of players was enough to take care of a mere monster invasion.

“Doubt it, most of those people are lower levelled than us....and look like they're only here to be carried for the rest of the quest...” said Sain seeing that many, not most of the players were in beginner gear and don't even have weapons.

Examining the numbers of players that had proper gear and weapons, at most there were 5 other parties.

“So only 30% of the players here are able to fight....” muttered Sain not liking the numbers already and was expecting for many of these players to run away immediately when things went bad. At most, Sain expected them to gang up on a single foe and take it down bit by bit.

But this quest isn't going to release single monsters for players to kill outnumbering them. It's going to be the opposite with the players outnumbered and ganged up.

“This is going to be a massacre...” muttered Miriel on line with Sain's thoughts on the situation.

“Well might as well enjoy it then” said Lyndis irresponsibly as if this had nothing with her.

Sain sighed trying to think of a way to not draw too much attention while making sure that they complete this quest as well. Of course he could just take command of everyone here and force them to sacrifice themselves for the city...but that was unlikely to happen and they might turn on him when he did not expect it.

“Do we at least have a safety line...?” wondered Sain aloud seeing that this quest will fail with this immediately.

“Oh your....” muttered a voice behind Sain.

Sain turned around to find that he recognised this man in armour and was a guard.

“Captain..Guard...?” muttered Sain not actually knowing his name.

“Yep, I heard from that Alexandra that she sent you guys here as well. She's taking the north gate, Park is at the south gate and Anna is at the west gate. There are a few guards over there but the majority of those we can spare is concentrated here” he explained.

He then looked at Sain and the other curious and said, “Now that I think about it. I actually don't know the majority of your names...Alexandra explained you guys as, invisible man, little green girl, elf ponytail, elf mage, silent blonde and super average man.”

“....”

Sain and the others could not believe their ears of what Alexandra just used to describe them...and the fact that this man standing in front of them knew them from just that.

'Guildmaster.....can you not remember us like that? We do have names you know....'

“To be precise, we are not exactly here to help. Just to make sure that you freemen don't completely fail and cause many deaths in the city. There are 20 of us here at the actual gates to defend it while you lot will have to deal with them in the forest.”

“....”

'Doesn't that mean they're using us as a damper to reduce the amount of monsters attacking them and possibly overwhelming them?'

Sain tried to evaluate the strength of the Captain Guard standing in front of him to determine how useful he truly was...but all he felt was the seemingly unlimited strength that the others in the guild had like his master, the guildmasters as well.

A wall that was so high that he couldn't even see the top of.

“In that case, are you taking over command then?” asked Sain.

“What? Of course not. You lot can do whatever you want since you can just die and come back like nothing happened at all!”

“....”

Sain felt that there was now a high chance of them dying due to this quest.

“Of course those who run away will be let back into the city though their intimacy with the rest of the city will decrease quite a bit.”

The Captain Guard looked at the forest with keen eyes and then said to Sain, “Now then, go bunch up with the others. I'm going to send you lot out now.”

[p=center]xXx[/p]

The quest event had started, monsters started pouring out of the forest to attack the city. As the players, they were split into three factions.

The first was the 'I must defend the city with my life' group which had 20 or so people in them.

The second was the 'I am armed and can probably do well enough' group which had 30-40 people in them including the group.

The third and last group was the 'I am going to leech off the efforts of other people' group which made up 40 people. It was needless to say that this group was useless and were at the far back ready to run away when they the chance.

Naturally due to this, the 20 guards at the city gate were glaring at them, looking down at them since they were so weak and wanted to exploit other people's efforts due to that.

Now right back to the actions of the group.

“Three wolves coming our way!” said Shadow coming back from scouting and luring monsters to the group was that almost running around the place taking care of monsters.

“Right!” Sain nodded to this message and then, “Wolf Summoning!”

In front of Sain, a magic circle was rapidly being constructed and the wolf summoning known as Bright Luna or Luna for short appeared in front of them.

[Master, what enemies do you wish for me to slay?]

“There are some wolves coming to us so support us in the battle. This will be a long battle as well...” said Sain to Luna hoping that it didn't have hesitation on killing other wolves.

[Of course master, lowly common wolves are nothing to me]

Luna bared it's fangs and walked next to Lyndis and Raven who served as the front guard of the group as usual. This was the first battle since the time in the eternal dungeon. Sain touched the glove on his right hand in the area which had the 'mark'.

“Sain...you okay? Asked Miriel next to him worried.

“Yeah, it doesn't seem to be reacting at all” replied Sain with a smile. That 'Commander' or Alt personality doesn't seem to be coming out at all, “Anyway you should start buffing everyone then.”

Miriel nodded and then started her 30 seconds chant ending it with, “Melody of Speed!”

Agility will increase by 35% for 10 minutes

Just as she said those words, three wolves did jump out hitting, Lyndis, Raven and Luna all at once.

“Speed Strike!” “Shield Bash!” [Take this!]

All three of them counter-attacked immediately without retreating killing them all at once in one go.

You have gained experience

“....”

“That was rather quick....well they were at most level 20 I think” said Miriel confirming the drops and grabbing them into her bag.

[Master did you summon me for weaklings?] asked Luna in a disappointed voice.

“No...it's just that I was expecting something strong to appear that could put us in danger...well I just from here we just run away killing everything we see as much as we can” said Sain explaining things to Luna and at the same time suggesting what they were to do now.

Sain looked at the others and it looked like they had the same feelings as well.

“In that case, we should split up into two groups. Shadow, Lyndis and Raven will be one group which will actively seek out monsters in an area around the rest of us. When you need healing or buffs, come back to us and make sure you contact us every time anything happens. I rather not contact you when you're concentrating on fighting and distract you.”

“Right” “Roger~”

Raven nodded to those words and then left with Lyndis and Shadow in finding and killing as many enemies as possible.

Taking a breather, Sain looked at the quest details again.

Protect the City

Monsters have started to attack the gates of the city in hopes of trying to get in and destroy it. Protect the gates at all costs.

Enemies remaining: Approximately 3000

Enemies Slain in total: Approximately 1000

Enemies Slain by party: 17

Contribution to Quest: 17

Note that more powerful monsters will give more contribution to the quest

Since the event started, it had been an hour and already 1000 monsters had been slain in total. At this rate, the quest would finish up in another 3 hours. However Sain had a bad feeling about it.

So far there weren't that many monsters at all coming at the east gate and most of them were weak monsters as well. The amount of monsters that attacked the east side was less than 100 while there were in total 10 times the amount slain already...

'Are the monsters not spiting their forces evenly....? Considering that they will probably not get through from the other gates....I fear that more monsters will come this way and stronger ones as well....'

Sain thought about most of the weaker players that had little to no combat skills to their name or body. He was partly confused on why other players...higher levelled players weren't on this quest as well. Contribution and fame were the two things that all players no matter what level wanted no matter the level.

'Did....Alexandra or someone else stop them or gave them something with a better reward than this?' Sain wondered but now was not the time to be thinking of those things.

Enemy Slain counter increased to 18

Enemy Slain counter increased to 19

Enemy Slain counter increased to 20

Enemy Slain counter increased to 21

...

The counter continued to increase while he wasn't paying much attention to it. It was only when Miriel reminded him that they should look for enemies, that Sain snapped out of it.

“Okay, Luna can you find some enemies?”

[Of course master. There are some to the north of us. Your comrades are a bit further to the east so you should not collide with them]

“Right, let's go get some more kills” said Sain leading 2 people and a wolf along.

[p=center]xXx[/p]

At the same time, further east, a few kilometres east from the gate and where the group was. There was a group of people in black cloaks that quite literally screamed 'bad guys here' on them hiding away in the shadows.

“Is it ready yet?”

“No it will take another hour or so to completely awaken.”

“Good, I want it on them as soon as possible. Having this rampaging inside the city will cause a lot of trust issues later on if things goes well.”

One of the figures pat the large object that was covered in shadows with a smile.

“Soon...you can let out all your hate okay? For everyone's sake.”

“Stand back, I'm activating the device that will force awaken it.”

“Right.”

The figure stepped back while another placed a particular object onto it. This device let out and covered the object that was the size of a large boulder in golden light.

“This will be the first experiment.”

“I hope this works.”

“Whether it works or not is not the point. It's whether we were right or not.”

“Are you sure this is fine?”

“Of course.”

“But...”

“I know we are committing the worse taboo...but to end everything....this is needed to draw 'that' out after all for our revenge.”

“....”

“Yes we need to have a God ready to lure it out and kill it...everything else doesn't matter.”

“Bu-but what if someone else destroys it first?”

“Then we will retry improving it. Something that will lose to normal people won't be enough for our plans.”

“Right...”

The two figures waited until the golden light pierced further into the body of the object that they were standing in front of.

Ba-dum!

With a single heartbeat from the object, the two knew that they were succeeded at least in part.

“It doesn't matter how many times it takes, we will in the end kill you. This is how far our hatred goes for you...if only you didn't exist then....”

With hatred spilling out of him, the figure said the one word of the creature that he wanted dead more than anything else.

“Eden. You will die by my hands no matter what.”

Onwards?PreviousExitNext

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Author's Notes:

- Word Count: 7800~