“It's all not bad you know” said Gen encouraging Sain.

But at the same time, Shadow asked, “How can this be not bad. We are now to required to destroy an organisation like that all of a sudden? With no preparations? No idea of their members and bases as well? What about their strengths? What if some members run away?”

Those series of questions were the same ones that the rest of the group kept asking their hearts as well.

To this, Gen only grinned and said, “Don't worry too much about it. While they are well hidden, at best they are a fairly new organisation and their size isn't too big. Plus their strength at best is around the level 300 point.”

“....”

That still did not make it better, in fact them being of that strength meant that currently, none of the group could even fight some of their top brass since they were only level 202. How could they close an almost 100 level difference.

“And on the plus side, since this a rare case of a B rank Guild Quest, some other members of the guild will help out for their vacation, well compared to what Eden forces them to do usually. Most of them are still in the 10 restricted zones controlling any invasions that may come through” said Gen still smiling.

“....”

A B rank Guild Quest was equal to an A rank Quest. This was something that would not count as a vacation...but compared to the latter, something like this would be a vacation. After all, quests involving the 10 restricted zones were mostly at least A rank and sometimes were S rank.

In fact, half the quests that were classed, S rank involved the 10 restricted zones in some way.

“Anyway master” said Sain starting the conversation again, “Now that we are involved, what should we do?”

“Other than get stronger quickly?” asked Gen to which Sain nodded, “You need to wait since we literally have nothing on them now except that they may be in the area.”

“....”

So even if they wanted to do something, they could not since even the rest of the guild had no idea on what to do. Perhaps if Eden led them...but from what Sain heard he would be busy for the next year and half with the other two on something.

Plus they still needed to speak to Alena...since it has been a while.

“I want to ask something” said Sain.

“What is it?” asked Gen with a frown. This would never be good since that Sain is asking for something.

“I want to know about the other members of the guild. We really only know the guildmasters, master and your comrades and Arch that 'Archer', Eart that 'Earth Mage' and Eri that necromancer. Oh and Alice as well recently.”

“Hmm...I guess it would be fine to tell you about the others...” Gen said with a sigh. Then he started his long speech on the other members of the guild.

“I think Eden already mentioned this to you but there are a total of 29 members to this guild excluding off members that come and go without actually joining. However there are those like Alena and Risene who aren't officially part of the guild but might as well be except that Eden doesn't allow them to be.”

Gen started counting something and then said:

“The guild can be split into say 5 factions. The first are the guildmasters, the second is me and those guys as the few natives in the guild and the third are you guys as the new rookies which work as a team.”

The group nodded to this. Certainly they knew all of this already.

“But then it becomes complicated with the other members” Gen sighed, “Most of them honestly work better alone so Eden let them and they complete their work well enough as well. You already knew Arch and Eart so no explaining them. Eri that Necromancer also has a sister in the guild called Ari who is a....”

“A...?”

“Magical Girl...cough.”

Gen looked like he really did not want to say those words.

“On the male side there is a shovel knight user so is really good at duelling. That Death Metal Bard user who infiltrate me with that tool you freemen call a guitar. However he's really good at leading armies and such. There's this weird thief that can't deal physical damage but can set powerful debuffs on enemies. And also there is that Pudding Mage guy which...I can't explain in words on what he does nor on how he got that class in the first place.”

“....”

For some reason Arch and Eart seem normal right now. Every last one of these guys were all strange and unusual.

“Now on the female side there is a Vampire Knight called Yuna, don't mess with her. A White Rabbit called Kuro as well who uses a giant hammer to smash even trolls into paste, don't mess with her. And the last is Nue who is a string user and a snake...never mess with her if you are not into puppet play where she breaks you.”

“Master did you...” Sain looked disappointedly at his master.

“No! I didn't try to hit on them! Plus all of them are actually older....damn I'm getting the chills again!” Gen looked all panicked and such blurting all of this out. The impression he made on the group went to the negatives then.

“....”

With a cough and ignoring what just happened, Gen continued, “Then there is this strange one...”

“?”

“A few years back Eden took in a person that seemed normal for the most part. Kinda out of place in our guild you see...but according to Eden, he forced him to go serious which is something that is impossible for most to do even in this guild. Name was Hiiro and is a Word Master or something like that. Even Eden said he was interesting...though in the end Eden still beat the crap out of him to force him him join.”

“Master.”

“Yes Sain?”

“Is there a reason why you don't remember the names of the first four male members?” he asked.

“....”

“Anyway I believe you already saw the last member which Alexandra forced in, that one in the maid outfit. His name was White I believe...and a Dragon King. Never mess with Dragon Kings, ever” Gen warned, “Even other Dragons are tame compared to a Dragon King of all things...”

Sain was a bit saddened that Gen ignored his question but more so because he really forgot the names of the other male guild-mates...perhaps he would need to ask Mel and Jenny about it.

“Anything else you want to ask?”

“Umm...” Sain thought of when Alena tried to contact his master that one time only to connect to be cut off, “In that case, can we talk to Alena then? I know you have some way of contacting her at least.”

“....”

Gen closed his eyes and thought about it. In the end he said, “Fine...” and took out a communicator orb that was similar to the one that Alena used to contact him before. After pouring some mana in, the orb glowed and a voice came out.

“Gen? This really isn't a good time, Risene started drinking and she's like mum in how...”

CRASH!

A loud sound came through at that moment as well.

“Actually, Sain and the other brats wanted to talk to you for some reason. Going to leave it here for them to speak now.”

With that, Gen left the room leaving the group with the communicator orb still working.

“....”

Since there was no response from the group, Alena talked instead, “Hello Hello?”

“Umm...is this a bad time?” asked Miriel speaking up for the group instead.

Several more sounds of crashes was heard.

“...Don't worry about it. My husband is just being used as a sandbag for my sis.”

“....”

The group had no comment for that. Especially how she sounded like she didn't even care about what was happening on the other side to her husband. Sain wondered what was Risene really like...as another daughter of Eden and Alexandra.

“Anyway what did you want to talk about?” Alena asked.

“No idea, Sain wanted to talk you see” said Miriel turning over the communicator orb to Sain.

“Sain?”

“Yeah.”

“What is it? Do you really like being my errand boy that much?” asked Alena.

“....”

For some reason, Sain saw Alena smiling as she said that now. She must be very stressed right now. Well it was no wonder since her husband and sister came back all of a sudden and one of them seems to be beating the other up.

“Anyway we passed our 2nd class advancement trial thing set by Eden. I was wondering what was happening on the other side back in Lily city” asked Sain.

“....”

Alena took a moment to say, “In the six months you guys were gone? Not much, there is still that issue of rising number of monster nests and dens, but other than that not much. On a much more personal scale, I need to stop my sister from drinking. She is like mum when she rampages and she is quite strong as well. Hopefully Ares isn't negatively influenced by it...” she sighed in the end.

Sain let out a laugh and then said, “I'll give the communicator orb to the others then. Maybe they have something to talk to you about.”

“Oh, I wanted to know some opinions on some dresses-”

Sain quicker than anyone could tell pushed the communicator orb onto Sain and left the room. After all, he had a message from a certain person.

xXx

At the back-room that was quite dark, a place that would be definitely suited for the type of conversation he was going to have.

“I'm in a place where they won't hear me...well 'them' at least. I don't think you care if Gen cares” said Sain.

“Well...you're right since I already told Gen about this but he denied doing the dirty work prompting for you to do so instead” said Eden through a message.

“So this is part of the quest that was pushed onto us?”

“What do you mean pushed? You lot were the hold reason why this quest appeared in the first place. I even had to withdraw a couple of members from the 10 restricted zones who were on guard duty there for this quest! Any Guild Quest over B rank needs to be carefully done.”

“I got it so what do you want?” Sain's tone was quite cold right now and uncaring. Rarely anything good would happen with such a conversation with Eden.

“Just a small mission.”

“And will this count for that guild order that you need us to do as well?”

“Unfortunately no. That order will be something more significant than what I want you to do. Anyway to destroy this [Little Droplet] organisation, tell me, what would you do normally?”

“Find the source and eliminate it?”

“Precisely why we won't do that. They tend to hide better when you fail the first time, therefore the second option would be-”

“Draw them out, right.”

“However there is a small problem here.”

“We don't know where they are or how they operate.”

“Therefore to cut off the supply to this organisation we need to do one thing.”

“Attack supply routes at certain area...” Sain was not happy at all of this outcome. Because they did not know which supply routes to target...they-he would need to target several of them, most of which are not related at all.

“Well compared to letting this organisation live, this is a small sacrifice.”

“....”

“If you are unhappy of this task then you don't actually need to kill anyone. You have enough skills to do that right? Besides, letting some of them live will draw [Little Droplet] out even more.”

“I understand.”

Sain made his resolve though there will be especially trouble if anyone else found out.

“Also, another thing. I'm putting another person from your group to help you” said Eden.

“...!”

The door opened and another person blended into the darkness along with Sain. A person of his height, but dark hair with equally black eyes and a presence so faint you could barely feel it, especially when his footsteps were naturally small.

“So this is what you were doing in your off time” said Shadow closing the door. There was no looks of judgement in his eyes as he accepted what Sain did and what he-they would have to do now.

However Shadow sighed and said, “If it is this kind of work I guess I know why you can't tell the others about it. So how long will this mission last for?”

Sain ran through his thoughts and calculated the estimate of how many supply routes to various places they would need to attack.

“Around a week at least” said Sain, they needed to complete this in a week else there would be more tragedies than necessary. After all, these supply routes are more than not to small towns and villages that would starve without them.

They would be killing those innocent people off by doing this.

“All is for the kingdom and more importantly the guild and even more so for that one goal in the end” said Eden before cutting off there.

xXx

Logging off the game, Peter came out of the capsule. It was time for class now. The last time he and the others logged out was 4 days ago in game when they were still in the middle of that dungeon.

Due to previous accounts of them skipping classes and exams, starting this semester they will be forced to attend every 2 hour class for the 4 days they have it plus another 2 hours on the last day on another matter.

What that last thing was, Peter did not know, but this would be the first class he would have in the General Course which takes place of the second day of the week. The first was naturally Combat class with Alexandra.

This lesson would be followed up the next day with Eden's history of the continent and then the next with Viv's analysis of classes and skills. In all, aside from the weekend, their time was cut a bit short due to this.

However Peter accepted it, in fact it was a bit of good news for him since he could come away from the game for a bit. What he had in plan was not something he would like after all.

Plus this game him some time to relax as well. Aside from just that mission Eden gave him and Ian, he had another task with the rest of the group of coming up with ways to find hints at that organisation though if one cannot come up, he would have to force one to come up.

Plus there is that matter with the younger siblings of Aria as well to consider. And finally he was wondering what members would be joining them on hunting this organisation down. With them and their masters, it would be twelve already. A few more and half the members of the guild would be working on this.

Peter guessed that there was a limit of cockiness even for a S rank guild though he had to consider they were being drawn out for another matter as well. One that he did not know about, but there was really no point in thinking about it.

“Say Peter” said Maria in a familiar and relaxed way, “Do we really need to take this class? We didn't even go to the last one once!”

Peter sighed and said, “Guild orders, this is also our punishment remember.”

“If not kicking us off the game for more than a month bad enough!” Maria pouted upset though she at that time focused on her training and made great improvements with her swordsmanship in game.

“Is still our punishment though. It's not that bad since we only waste 2 hours here, 8 hours in game on these classes a day. Plus we have the weekends off” said Hina.

“Isn't that more or less what normal students at some places have in terms of time spent?” asked Ian.

“Actually I think it's even less. Those in highschool still need to suffer 6 hours days for a 5 day week. We only get a third of that. Most universities force students through twice what we need to do though they are optional though” Hina answered Ian's question.

It seemed that Hina didn't want Ian's blood today...though that just may be an in game thing.

“Yeah but still, we don't need to pay attention to class at all, so there's that as well” said Ian in a lazy tone.

“That's being rude..right?” asked Grace disapproving of Ian's idea. For some reason both Hina and Maria started rubbing her head with a strange expression on their faces.

“Meh, it's probably going to be boring anyway” said Ian with a 'hmp'.

Either way, it was what Ian said. The Advance General Course subject they were doing was indeed quite boring and most of them were very tempted to ignore the lesson itself.

xXx

Back in the game, the group was in discussion of what to do about trying to take down the organisation called [Little Droplet] and more importantly right now, trying to find traces of that organisation in any ways.

“Whether it is anything that a organisation that size requires...people, supplies, connection or even influence, there is absolutely none we can find at all!” said Miriel with a deep sigh.

They had been searching for a few hours now, been looking through records of the city that has been granted to them for this task. However, or rather as expected there was nothing at all. It was actually not strange at all since they would have covered their tracks in the most obvious ways already.

“This is getting nowhere” said Shadow, “I think it's better for us to pursue other leads.”

“Where?” sighed Lyndis.

“Who knows...” Shadow said, “Maybe we should split up for now and see if we can find anything in a week.”

“....”

Sain knew why Shadows said that but the others did not.

“A week?” asked Lyndis a tiny bit suspicious. However Sain said, “I would be surprised that we could find anything in a few days. A week could give us enough time to perhaps find even a slight lead that may lead to an actual lead.”

“In that case” said Miriel, “Should we all go alone then?”

Sain nodded and said, “I think so, cover more ground. Otherwise we can leave the city and grind if we're not up to sitting through...this for a week.”

The rest of the group nodded and it was decided they would search for a week individually.

However then, Sain said, “That reminds me...we need to upgrade our equipment as well. These outfits are only level 120 and we are 80 levels higher than them now...their defences despite being good gear, they will eventually be a burden.”

Lyndis agreed but said, “But at the same time, we are really used to them...”

“True” said Miriel, “But it will be good to use new designs for the new equipment we will be having.”

She said this while looking at her outfit.

Upon those words, Lyndis looked delighted at that thought but also asked, “I wonder if it is possible to just upgrade our equipment rather than change it.”

“That may be possible...have to ask one of our masters about it...I think there are blacksmiths and tailors capable of doing so but they cost a fee to do so” said Miriel but she once again looked at her outfit.

“I don't like the stares I get while walking around with...”

Sain looked at where Miriel was and she seemed to be concern about her revealed legs. Sain had no problem about it but that just might be him.

“Well we can talk to my master about it in around a week or so as well. Or you can give the designs to a tailor first and charge it to my master's name” said Sain uncaring about Gen's expenses.

“That would work” said Miriel agreeing, her impression of Gen was bad to begin with. Miriel immediately left to the tailor store to design a new outfit for herself.

“That reminds me as well...I need a new sword” said Lyndis looking at her sword. She too went out, probably to a blacksmith.

“In that case I really need a new staff...I had this one since level 30...” Serena also decided to get a new staff now. She was kinda overdue 170 levels though her spells weren't weak at all, as such is the power of training her skills and spells to a higher level than most.

Anyway with that, Raven was left in the room still looking through those papers while Sain and Shadow left.

xXx

“Well that takes care of that” said Shadow. Both him and Sain were together as the rest of the group went to find leads on their own.

“....” However Sain was still frowning.

“What is it this time? You know you are being super quiet now right?” asked Shadow not liking this Sain that much.

There seemed to be a different side to Sain that is only revealed here. One that seemed to be a lot darker than that goody good shoe one that is kind to a fault to people he knows. Well this one wasn't so bad so far, or so Shadow thought.

He smirked inside a bit wanting to know how Miriel would react to this kind of Sain.

“Anyway where should we go now?” asked Shadow ignoring that Sain was acting like Raven.

“To the south-west, we will begin our...no my plan there” said Sain in a cold tone that was similar to an angry Miriel. For some reason, Shadow was reminded of when Sain commanded them in their early days, it was like he reverted back to that state.

“Ai ai 'commander'” said Shadow walking aside with Sain out the city. For this time period, the rest of the group wouldn't know what they were doing.

And if they asked, then they could use the excuse of searching outside the city as one.

“Hmm...also will this be fine? I mean you don't have the stealth skill do you” said Shadow.

“Talkative as ever Shadow” said Sain with a sigh, “Shut it when we need to do the important stuff okay?”

“Wow, what a change in attitude” said Shadow astonished. Miriel would certainly cry if she saw this kind of Sain...or she could be excited in a strange way.

“But you still didn't answer my question” said Shadow in the end.

“You don't need the stealth skill to use stealth. It only helps if you do, plus most of the people who detect me end up dead” said Sain.

“....”

Shadow honestly felt that this Sain was really strange. What kind of switch was developed all these months and years due to Eden?

xXx

Merchant A walked along side the carriage with food and other necessary supplies with his old cracking bones that would soon no longer be able to makes trips like this. The reason why he was called Merchant A was a strange event where one of those freemen called him that and that name stuck on.

However he didn't mind as it was from one of those heroes that help end the final war where the continent was finally united. It took the combined power of the freemen several decades to do so and he was only starting off as a merchant during that time.

He made quite a profit and eventually downsized with the years as peace came. But he never forgot his roots, trading with small villages all over the place.

But soon enough it became a small mission of his to lend supplies to places that the Kingdom knew needed more and could not provide. The kingdom's population was quite large after all, with no major war and monster attacks lowering in the decades, the humans have spread quite far and wide.

Now there are those who venture to the 10 restricted zones for land while in his youth, it was a place of complete and utter terror. A nightmare they called the place.

But that was in the past and times changed.

So why were the mercenaries that he hired to protect and the carriages of food and supplies all dead?!

“Hmm...seems like that old man is the only one left” said a voice in the darkness. It was night and there were torches shattered around the place.

“I thought I told you to only kill if necessary” said another voice, this time it was much colder than the first.

Merchant A did not know why this happen. He was just delivering some supplies to a poor village nearby? Were these people bandits? Rebels? Or perhaps assassins on his life?

“Burn the carriage, leave the old man” said the cold voice. However the other voice responded with, “Hey hey, the old man will die in the night if you do that.”

“Are we suppose to help him then?” asked the cold voice.

“Point taken.”

The next moment, the carriage burst into flames.

“No! NOOO!” Merchant A screamed. If this all burnt up then...those people in the village would starve! He wildly swung his arms at the flames, trying to put the fire off but all he did was catch himself on fire as well.

“Ahhhhhhhhh!!!” He screamed in flames as his old body burnt like a candle. The last words he heard were, “Well that was a stupid thing to do throwing himself in flames to put it out.”

xXx

Looking down in the burning corpse of that old man that seemed to be a merchant of some kind, Sain felt a slight bit of pity. Why? The reason was that his goals were noble at least to use his own funds that he gained during the early stages of his life as a merchant in the middle of war to profit to help others.

However, even so, Sain felt no hesitation to end his life if it came to it. Plus that old man practically killed himself though it looked like he had little time left of travelling around so far.

“Hey, looks like one of those mercenaries actually survived” said Shadow a few metres away from Sain. Due to Shadow's night vision skills, he could tell things better than Sain though Sain usually just relies on his own sense for the most part instead of skills.

“Is that so?” said Sain walking over to where Shadow was.

And there it was, the mercenary was crawling away with a trial of blood following behind him in the dark. He stopped accepting his fate.

“What do we do now?” asked Shadow.

These people were NPCs...which meant their bodies would stay here for a while, even more so if they were connected to a quest to be.

“Burn the bodies, make it seem like something not human attacked I suppose. It wouldn't be too far fetched since there is a good rise in monsters that are popping all over the place right now” said Sain.

His eyes flickered downwards and found the mercenary started to crawl away now. Looks like he didn't like the idea of being burnt to death...in that case.

STAB!

Sain's spear went in the mercenary and killed him.

Killed a mercenary of the Kingdom!

- Infamy +100

- Due to no one knowing your acts and part of Independent Guild, Infamy is cancelled out

Looking at the message, Sain was happy enough that the infamy he gained was cancelled out by the fact no one else knew of the act and that he was part of an Independent Guild...

Fame and infamy will only be gained and stick on you if people knew. But for some strange reason when you kill a strong boss monster you will gain fame even when alone.

He guess it meant that there are people out there keeping track of such things. But at the same time, there were people who were keeping track of crimes as well which was why he gained infamy as well.

Either way, it was just a mechanic in the game and Sain really didn't care about it unless it affected him too much.

He looked around and found nothing else to do here so he said, “Let's go, there are a couple other people we need to attack” to Shadow.

Shadow responded with, “Got it.”

And both of them disappeared into the night once again. A week later, there were many rumours of some unknown bandits attacking the supply routes to small villages and towns. There were several groups of people who went to find these people, but there were no traces of them in the end.

Some people wondered the reason on these attacks while others were happy for the chance to gain fame and contribution to the kingdom, but none of these things were learnt in the end.

But these unknown attacks did exist.

Simply because a large group of players were slain by them though it was done so quickly that there was barely any video footage able to be shown by it.

xXx

And so three weeks later and with the same incidents were happening over and over to the point that it could not be ignored by the Kingdom anymore and therefore a quest was formed to solve this case.

However even so, the rest of the group did not take the quest to solve this at all. The first was that they were busy already, and the second was that two of them were actually on the receiving end of this quest.

Oni Mask of Concealing Identity Durability: 20/20 Defence: 1

A mask of an Oni, a mythical being of rage in the eastern parts of the world. With this mask on, you instill terror into enemies and hide your own identity

Sain had that mask so he was safe for the most part in his identity being not revealed. This was the same mask that he used all the time back in Lily City when he needed to sneak around due to missions from Eden.

“This thing became like a good luck charm to me now...” Sain muttered looking at the mask again. It was black in colour which made it especially hard to tell where it was in the dark.

But those who get a good look of it therefore gets easily freaked out due to that.

Even if he was caught, others would only see him as the a guy wearing an Oni Mask which makes it perfect for him to use it right now since they are on to him and Shadow.

Speaking of Shadow, all he did was cover his face using that scarf of his which was actually quite handy since it gave the same effects as his mask to conceal their identities. Sain called Shadow over and asked, “Are you sure that that scarf can hide your identity? If you get caught...”

Shadow sighed again and asked, “Are you sure you can hide your identity with that mask on? I mean if you wear it at any time besides now, won't you be caught?”

“Don't worry, no who saw this mask lived to see or tell in the first place” replied Sain as a matter of fact.

“Also why didn't you wear that mask before? I mean it is useful since you don't gain infamy thanks to it right?”

Sain looked at Shadow confused and said, “Because it wouldn't be fun otherwise?”

“Why do you sound like a serial killer saying that?” sighed Shadow. He just saw Sain looking at that mask with a soft smile as if he was pleased with it. This kind of action was unusual but not uncommon when looking at a rare weapon for something.

Sain only muttered to answer that quest, “I wonder if I can let loose with this...”

Whether Shadow heard or not did not matter much as he became extremely quiet which caused Sain to lower the amount of sounds he made to listen in as well though with much more difficulties than Shadow.

“Are they over here?”

“Search in that area”

“If we can find them, we can kill them!”

Both of them were alerted to this, the other side weren't exactly making their presence unknown at all. Small animals and what monsters were near all ran away by now.

They knew they needed to take action right now if they wanted to live. Even if the other side were on average 50 levels below them, it didn't mean there weren't any strong people in there or that they could be underestimated at all.

Being mobbed by a dozen or more people at once wasn't fun.

“How many?” asked Sain to Shadow that seemed to have moved to the tree branches up high. In this situation Sain had no choice but to be the tank here...or hidden tank as he liked to refer it to as.

“Around...50 I guess. They're really not pulling any stops here” said Shadow with a sigh, “I wish I had a skill that lets me tell what level they were at least. You're the only one who can tell such a thing without a skill.”

“Can you estimate their base level then?” asked Sain though immediately saying, “Though I guess with these numbers they are around at least level 100 and at best at highest, our level? Anyone stronger won't bother with these tasks unless we're unlucky.”

“What's the point of asking me that when you say that?” sighed Shadow.

“Hey I head something over there!” someone far away shouted to which Sain and Shadow noticed was pointing in their direction.

“Damn, revert back to that cold and silent side now! This 'you' is to chit chatty for this!” Shadow cursed at Sain in a low voice before saying, “The usual plan in dealing with them?”

Sain moved further back in the bushes and said, “No, that won't work. Too many of them. We could escape but that will be troublesome later on. Better to split them off and use a hit and run tactic.”

“Got it, what about the clean up?”

“Don't bother with it, there are too many” replied Sain.

“They will send stronger people then!” said Shadow in the same low voice but with a more urgent tone, “Plus I'm wondering if we will level up faster than the others due to this. Won't this allow us to gain experience quickly? The excuse of hunting monsters won't work if we are suddenly 2 or 3 levels above them.”

“Oh, actually the 'Party Scan' skill has a feature that spreads experience evenly to all members no matter how far.”

“How does that work?” asked Shadow interested at the wrong time.

“Basically we don't gain experience as fast but later on everyone will gain experience faster than before for a while based on the experience we gain right now and split it so those with less experience will gain more until it evens up.”

“Is that why Lyndis and Raven levelled up quicker before?”

“More or less. Rather not tell them this since it's a pain to explain to some people.”

Both of them thought of Lyndis and sighed.

There were more rustling sounds and shouts of people getting closer and closer. They didn't have much time before a fight broke out.

“Anyway, they are getting closer, good luck with surviving” said Shadow before disappearing. Even for him, actually for both of the, facing 50 foes at once was a bad idea. Especially since they weren't exactly the type to be able to tank damage.

Therefore, Shadow would strike at unexpected places to confuse them and Sain would lure and split them up into smaller groups to allow Shadow to continue using hit and run attacks. This way, thing will turn out chaotic and there was a chance for them to win.

Though if things came to it, both of them would use 'Boost'. His own would allow him to see the positions of the enemies and Shadow's own will allow him to split into more parts to attack multiple people at once.

Therefore it was also important to draw them in as well since the usual plan of him tanking it while Shadow quickly finished them off would not work here. Sain was sure that he would die before Shadow could kill more than three of them even with boost.

It seemed that the other side had mages and priests in their groups as well. Shadow would target them first. No, the first to die will have to be the thieves and archers since they could have vision skills that could track them.

Either way, since they were only 20 or so metres away, now was the time to act. Sain was sure that Shadow was on the other side of this 50 large group to cause them to be confused on the point of attack.

“Wolf Summoning” chanted Sain allowing the magic circle to be formed that shone like the sun in this dark forest area.

“Light?!”

“Over here!”

“Attack!”

[Master? Enemies?]

Upon Luna being summoned, he immediately knew of the situation since Sain had been summoning him recently for these kinds of tasks. There was no need for Luna with the others since six of them was enough to deal with normal foes to begin with.

But without the other four here and only Sain and Shadow, using Luna was extremely important right now.

“Attack on the edge, retreat and continue to attack this way” ordered Sain to which Luna nodded and bared his fangs at the players before leaping and clawing one of them.

“Wolf?! Mages attack!” someone shouted seeing that Luna attacked one of their comrades. In an instant, a dozen magic spells went to Luna but using his speed that was even higher than Shadow, Luna's came out unharmed retreating into the shadows before appearing elsewhere and attacking there.

As the players focused their attention onto Luna, a scream echoed at another location. It seemed that Shadow started his work now. With that, there were only 49 players left to kill.

“Guess it's time for me to work then” muttered Sain in a low voice activating both 'Compressed Magic Mastery' to it's fullest as well as 'Boost'.

Boost has been activated. All stats, effects and consumption will double

Effects of the 'Mark of the Serpent' is now active. 'All Knowing Eyes' is now active.

Compressed Magic Mastery has been released. Magic Strength +900%

Sain looked at the windows that confirmed the activation of both abilities. Even so, Sain was not used to seeing his magic strength power increasing so much. Even though normally at this stage it would only increase by 300%, three times, it tripled to 900%, nine times due to the stacking effect of the skill of saving mana on the cost of having no benefit from the skill for most of the time.

Furthermore with his 'Violent Energy Circulation' skill boosting magic strength by 150%, it seemed to have multiplied the first by two and a half times leaving it at a 2250% magic strength boost, something that higher than even the fully mastered 'Magic Mastery' skill.

It seemed that 'Mastery' type skills only added on seeing that Serena and Miriel's 'Magic Mastery' did not multiply with their other magic mastery skills but only stack on.

But there was also 'Boost' doubling EVERY effects as well as his stats which made it go even higher that Sain didn't want to calculate it at all.

However their circulation skills seems to be an exception to this and therefore Miriel's own ice magic is two and a half times stronger than before multiplying with her two magic mastery skills.

If he recalled, based on his calculations, her ice magic is a bit stronger than the effects of 'Compressed Magic Mastery' being activated without the multiplying effects of his own circulation skill.

Basically her ice magic was usually very strong, though it did not make much sense to Sain that Lyndis' own fire skills were on the same level as Miriel's ice spells though Lyndis prefers the sword to using it.

But as Sain was thinking of this, which was actually a bad time to do so, it seemed that someone spotted him.

Before he knew it, five people came to attack him. However putting the mask on, Sain only grinned. Only five?

“Magic Arrows” in a cold tone, he fired off 7 Dark Magic Arrows due to the effects of his circulation skill causing it to change colour from a bright colour to a dark into the five players that were charging at him.

BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG!

The Magic Arrows hit three of the players and instantly killed them. As such was the power of spells beyond normal limits since especially his that could rival and surpass mages that focused on magic power before anything else.

“Rune Engraving: Sharpness!”

Sharpness effect as been applied to spear, damage as been increased

Sain activated one of the new skills he had and applied sharpness onto his spear temporary to increase it's damage.

Thus he charged up with his spear in hand and stabbed the fourth player before kicking him and slashing at the fifth player that could not react in time. Both of them seemed to have died quite easily.

From their reaction, they were certainly lower level than him at least. He won't gain that much experience from this.

“Over there! Attack the one in the mask!” someone shouted drawing his attention to them. There were four archers aimed at him right now which was a bad thing. They would shoot even if he tried to stop them using magic.

Therefore...

“Double Edge Enchanting: Intelligence to Agility, Wisdom to Endurance!”

“FIRE!”

Several arrows, more than than four flew at him, they seemed to have used a multi-shot skill or something like that.

He activated another of the new skills he got. With this skill, he poured his intelligence and wisdom stats into the other two increasing his speed and resistance to the arrows as he dodged. However due to the 50% conversion rate of the skill, at best he was barely at double his speed but was several times more tougher than before.

You took 372 damage

You took 441 damage

You took 368 damage

But he still took three arrows even when dodging with a combined damage total of over a thousand.

“Moderate Heal” he chanted healing himself.

You've regain 2100 health

Even though his healing spell regained more health than the damage he took, he still used it since every last bit of health mattered here.

But at the same time, since most of these players were weaker than even the usually weak him in his base state, Sain felt there was no need to retreat right now.

Firing off spell after spell, even using his 'Evil Rule Art' on the stronger players to stop them, he, Luna and Shadow more or less using their superior skills and stats alone managed to cause this overly large group of formerly 50 players to collapse so easily.

Sain knew this of course. After all, controlling such a large group like that was extremely difficult, it was better to split them into smaller groups and perhaps even smaller groups again to control them.

If it were him who was commanding this group, he would at least split this large group into three, front, middle and back.

Stab!

He killed another player effortless constantly adjusting his stats to suit the situation best.

xXx

At a time where only so few players were left.

“M-Monster!” someone shouted to which he responded by shooting him dead using his magic spells.

Oh there was some irony here. Here he was in a guild of monsters, weaker than the others by far in his own opinion and he of all things was called a monster.

Then what of the others? Were they not stronger than him? What of the other members of the guild? Were they all not high levelled players and powerful in their own right?

And what of the guildmasters? Able to make such powerful beings submit to them. What the hell were they if he was a monster?

However the fact was that he was here to destroy them now that they were going against him. Any kind of pity was unnecessary at all. Right now, the once massive group of players, split in confusion and chaos only had a fifth of it's numbers left.

Three against 50 and they have come so far.

But it seemed that these ones were stronger than the rest. They had a look of arrogance in their eyes and showed it since they didn't not even move one bit when the battle started.

“The experience and reward will be ours!” one of them shouted bulging in muscle. He was a barbarian it seemed. A race that had high strength, agility and endurance growth but no ability to use mana or the stats associated with them.

From the feeling he got...

“Over level 200 eh.”

Sain could only smile under his mask at them. 10 players over level 200 in front of him!

He did not know what he was feeling or that his mind was changing facing these players but the fact was that he felt like breaking them. The others were simply too weak for any enjoyment to come from killing them.

Analysing them quickly, Sain counted there were 2 archers, a priests, 3 mages and 4 warriors including that barbarian. Quite a party though normally the limit of a party was 6 players else you would experience a penalty to it.

“Don't interfere. All of them are mineeeee!” ordered Sain in a ecstatic state.

First he would need to disable that priest.

“Evil Rule Art: Sleep Hypno!”

With that, the priest fell asleep immediately and so one of the life lines of this group of 10 players was cut off.

“Damn, kill him!” The rest of the players noticed that Sain had acted and were now attacking him. The four warriors charged first forcing the other players to stay their hand in fear of friendly fire.

“Evil Rule Art: Mind Shock!” But before they came, Sain targeted that barbarian and forced confusion, lowered defence and lowered dodge onto him. He would take care of him later.

Following this, Sain danced around the three warriors attacking him, firing off magic attacks onto the other players, not them causing the warriors to be further infuriated at him but what they didn't know was that they caused their comrades to not fire on him.

“Magic Arrows!”

His attack penetrated one of the archers not expecting an attack from him when three warriors were pressuring him. However Sain betrayed expectations when he fired off 'Mana Bolts' at the mage killing him as well.

The last archer tried firing but Sain chanted, “Evil Rule Art: Astral Bind”, using the spell onto him and then finishing him off with 'Magic Arrow'.

The three warriors were quite weak thankfully. Because of this, he managed to kill the 2 archers and a mage before the other two mages decided to bombard all of them with their spells.

“Lightning Shock!”

“Wind Blast!”

A combination of lightning and wind came their way. Immediately seeing this, Sain grabbed one of the warriors and pushed him in the line of fire. The two spells collided onto this poor players and he died.

“What?!”

“Damn you!”

“Ahahahahhaa”

Sain felt joy as he felt them contemning him. However he needed to finish things quickly as that priest was finally waking up and that barbarian was finally able to move without tripping now.

Throw~

“Gah!”

All of a sudden, Sain's spear ended up in the priest's stomach. Sain had no idea what made him do that but it worked.

“Magic Arrows! Magic Arrows!”

And from both his hands came magic arrows from two spells at once. Frankly this was the first time he casted two spells at once successfully not that he didn't try before. The only case of success was with that ball of light spell that didn't even count as a spell.

However the effects were quite destructive. Two of the warriors facing him were instantly killed taking that much damage and the third was even wounded. He kicked that third one down on the ground before chanting, “Magic Arrow” killing him as well.

Finally there was only that barbarian left.

“....”

Sain stared at him in a strange way. He wondered what he would do. With his double axes at hand, the barbarian screamed and charged at Sain who was unarmed.

“Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!”

Sain wondered if the barbarian screamed in fear or to get courage.

“But either way...Evil Rule Art: Downplay Rule.”

A combination of poison, paralyse, confusion, sleep, weaken, slow and mind break hit the barbarian who was already weak to these kinds of spells. He tripped unable to move his muscles and spazed out a bit on the ground as well.

“How boring” commented Sain before retrieving his spear from the priest and killing the barbarian and last of this group of players.

You have completely eliminated a large group of 50 players!

- Due to this events, you have gained 100 Fame

- Fighting Spirit +5

- Endurance +10

Due to killing so many players, Infamy increase has multiplied to 7500

However due to action being done under the use of a Mask of Concealed Identity, Infamy will only apply when wearing the mask in the area

[Master]

“Sain.”

Both Luna and Shadow called out to Sain seeing that the battle ended with their victory. Sain looked over those two and said, “Collect the loot, sell the ones we don't need and keep the ones that seem useful in the future. Also hide the fact we were involved from the others.”

[Understood...but how do I collect them?]

“Right, can I slack off for a bit. I'm a bit tired.”

Sain sent them both a cold glare which somehow went through the mask he was wearing and said, “What do you think? Figure it out yourself.”

Onwards?PreviousExitNext

Author's Notes:

- Word Count: 8600~

- Took longer than expected. Due to me playing Drakensang with Ninnin which took up more time than you think and second, today I was sick with 5 pages left...well the chapter is here and Uni is coming up in a few weeks...watch as I say I will slow down and instead pull out 2 days chapters several times in a row...

- Another thing is that there is an ongoing MT Ark translation going on.

https://arkmachinetranslations.wordpress.com

- Link is here if anyone wants and those who have not realised it exist (Like me and Ninnin). It is up to Vol 8, Chap 3 in translation which means 4 volumes to get through :)