“Arch....” Eart suddenly muttered feeling that something was wrong as Miriel was accepting the prize of 3000 gold along with Lyndis accepting the lesser prize of 500 gold from the tournament.

“Yeah I know” Arch replied feeling that the atmosphere of the place became heavier. It seemed that something was going to happen...and now.

“Eart make sure you protect those two if any attacks comes to them” Arch ordered.

“I know..” Eart muttered focusing on manipulating the earth around those two to make sure nothing happened to them. If Eden were to find out that they were harmed under their care.

Also Eart felt that he must protect them no matter what. His pride as a pervert...no as a gentleman required him to protect them no matter what. He knew that Arch who was known as the 'Zero Range Archer' had no ability to protect which was one reason why he came around to help for a bit.

“Is it me or are there lots of suspicious movements around the place even with people leave” Arch muttered.

Eart checked and there were indeed some movements that he found suspicious as well. There were at least a dozen different people who were not acting like everyone else whether leaving or running off to a location.

“Arch, they're attack!” Eart waned suddenly seeing that something was flying to Miriel's head.

“Earth Sanctuary!” he chanted controlling the ground around Miriel and Lyndis.

BANG!

Eart shifted the earth around the Miriel in particular and just in case also protected Lyndis as well. The attack that seemed to come from a hidden weapon, as used commonly for assassin was blocked by the earth that he used.

The attack stuck clearly on the shield of earth with everyone wide eyed on what happened.

“I'm moving in” Arch simply said in a cold voice to Eart before moving out.

“Roger that” Eart replied in the same cold voice. Anyone who would face against the guild will die.

xXx

Following the blood-lust in the air, Arch could predict the location of each enemy. To be precise he had a skill that allowed him to watch everything in detail in a certain range though he could not keep track of everything when the range was too large though useful against single targets.

As such he immediately located the two dozen assassins that all were about to attack Miriel even now. It was a simple matter to him where he had to track down their movements when he had already located them from since a while ago.

“Divine Snipe!” Arch said dropping from the sky shooting at all of the enemies shattered around using his 'bow'.

Bang Bang Bang Bang Bang Bang Bang Bang Bang Bang Bang Bang....!

In an instant two dozen bodies fell down as well. He had not killed anyone yet since getting the murderer mark in these circumstances was troubling at least. He just went to fire some stone to knock them out else stop them until Eart can capture them himself.

Either way due to them having exceedingly high infamy and himself having a special title, he did not gain much trouble doing this.

However his attack caused quite the commotion when he landed on the ground fine.

“What the hell was that?!”

“Did someone die?!”

“Gun Fire in this game?!”

The sound of Arch shooting closely resembled the sound of a gun shooting in reality. In fact while in the beginning of the game, guns had not been created yet, it was another question decades later with Arch being one of the very few gun users though heavily limited in this respect.

But at the same time he didn't use a gun at all...yet. All he did was fire off some stones at the assassins.

As the 'Zero Range Archer' he had two special skills that was unrivalled. One was 'Divine Sight' that was something that Eden also had to spy on people. The other was 'Divine Dividing' which allowed him to continuously shorten the distance between two targets though it's original application was to halve things.

“Hmm?” In the mist of knocking out the other assassins that managed to live from his attack, he noticed that he saw someone he saw before...

“Die!” the man shouted jumping at Miriel. But before he could land a hit on Miriel and kill her, Arch shot at the man and Eart used his earth related skills to trap the man into the ground.

With the commotion growing larger, Arch walked up to the man and took a good look at him.

“Time to call Eden...” he mutter realising who it was with a sigh. He had also captured the other assassins and turned them to Alena to be dealt with before Eden came at least.

xXx

“So....who is this?” Sain had to ask. Right now he was looking at a dishevelled player in a cloak that apparently hired lots of assassins to kill Miriel. That was enough for Sain to hate this man.

“What will happen to him?” Miriel had to ask though since this was the man that tried to kill her. She had no idea who he was nor did he know his intentions.

“Well...” Eart tried to answer but he rather not. For a player, this kind of punishment was the worse kind and was the main reason their guild was feared beyond everything else.

Soon enough Arch said, “Eden is about to appear...” to which the man suddenly started to struggle violently trying to escape. A blue light flashed and Eden appeared. But he wasn't normal right now.

He had a ragged look and a fearsome look on his face.

“Which one is it?” he asked in a cold voice to Arch. Arch simply pointed at the man tied up and Eden proceeded to him. He said these words to him.

“I have warned you before. No second chances taken.”

“WHY?!” the man suddenly shouted, “WHY DID YOU KICK ME OUT?! ONE MISTAKE! IT WAS ONLY ONE MISTAKE!”

With his initial shock to the shouting gone, Eden made an evil smile and then said, “That one mistake cost some reputation. However more importantly you failed my orders in the end and therefore was kicked out of his guild. I only keep the useful ones.”

Eden looked at the group who were strangely quiet. They knew better than to speak up now since Eden wasn't the calm and almost 'loving' person they knew, but something else.

“Anyway I have some things to tell you lot” he turned to them ignoring the man for a second and then decided to rip his mouth off to make it easier.

A soundless scream was heard and made the group hold their breath as if they were in pain as well.

“From what Arch told me, you now know that I generally won't be nice to you when you reach level 200 right?”

The group nodded at once.

“In that case I will tell you what will happen to those who fail. Whether it is screwing up a guild quest or straining the guild reputation, I simply kick them out of the guild which is enough punishment. The negative impact would be enough punishment for most. However there are those who still...persist in trying to prove themselves right.”

Eden took a glance at the man without a mouth now.

“Some would try to harm the guild including trying to assassinate members. These people are dealt personally by me. There are a number of them counting the years.”

It was at that moment that Sain asked, “How many...were there before?”

“Hmm...” Eden thought about it, “I think there were in total of 182 players that were kicked out of the guild. Of those, half of them tried to 'bite' back on us and so I punished them again.”

“....”

“The punishment that comes from me is the deletion of the avatar or character and in other words the player itself.”

The group gasped. Dying in the game was one thing but to lose your entire character, that you made and grew over the years...it was something that was like cutting half your soul out. It was something that was unimaginably cruel to do.

Eden moved his hand and grabbed the man's head with it and simply said, “Deletion!”

Seeing this, the man's body started pixelating which was something that games never had in decades. Eventually those pixels shattered and disappeared...and a character was completely deleted from the game...

“....”

Eden was silent for a few moments but then turned to Miriel and Lyndis and said, “You two were the final two in the tournament right? Congratulation. Make sure you spend that gold wisely.”

Those were the words he left as he teleported away.

xXx

Some time later at Alena's place. While they were suppose to be celebrating but the mood was quite bad and Alena trying to cheer them up was not having much success.

“You need to be cheerful at times like this! Miriel you won the 3000 gold grand prize and Lyndis got the runner ups 500 gold prize!” she said to Miriel and the others noticing that they were quite pale after Arch said Eden visited for business.

In her heart, Alena knew what Eden did in the end. He showed them something that could crush all hope. However at the same time, it was only one side of Eden the world knew. To them, he was a cold hearted killer in all ways but to her...and her sister and family he was extremely kind like how he treated the group before today though he was angry for their sake.

“You guys were lucky” Arch simply said after not wanting to endure this solemn mood anymore. The group looked at him not sure on what to do.

Whenever it came to Eden, they seemed to not know what they should do. They were his puppets, this toys in the end...and if they were abandoned by him as well...

When Arch was about to say something, Eart appeared.

“Ahhhhhh! Don't be depressed! Let me rub mysel-”

BANG!

Both Alena and Arch knocked Eart away from the girls that were visually surprised at Eart's appearance. After flying away through the wall and dropping god knows here, there was a slight chuckle.

“Damn him...always taking an advantage when he can...” Arch cursed under his breath.

Alena sighed and then said, “I can't believe that he never learnt his lesson before in all this time...I remember dad almost killing him after trying to peek up sis's skirt.”

It was at that moment that the chuckle turned into a laugh.

“Hahahaha” Serena started laughing at bit at what just happened. It was like in those really old T.V shows where the villain was always blasted away. And what Alena said only made it funnier to her and the rest of the group.

Seeing this the rest of the group started laughing one by one as well.

“We gained a lot of gold thanks to this!” Miriel said excited on what she could do with the money.

Lyndis nodded and said, “We can buy lots of food for a celebration! I want a pizza party!” in response to this.

“As long as you don't eat it all alone” Shadow said though adding in, “I think we can be a bit loose on cash today” as a suggestion to which Sain nodded.

“Oh yeah, we still have school tomorrow so we can't stay too much” said Sain remembered about that.

“....”

Suddenly the laughter and celebration stopped as they remembered they still had school.

With a sigh Miriel said, “Why did you have to mention that....?”

Now was not the time to mention school of all things.

Onwards?PreviousExitNext

Author's Notes:

- This is the end of the 5th volume at last! That was rather...well fast and slow since it took around 3/4 of a month to complete

- If anyone did not notice yet (I think most), I mentioned in the TOC that I decided to extend this series to be much longer. In fact it would be twice as long now ending at 30 volumes in total...as long as I think I can do all of that...anyway the reason is due to pacing which in volume 6 & 7 in 'The Unfortunate Fool' was terrible. Months and years skipped often.

- Anyway this arc will extend into the next one as well due to this which means I can keep the current enemies, at least until the end of the next volume as well

- The prologue of volume 6 will be up tomorrow.