Chapter 3 : Ancient Cave

Ding!

You have found a mysterious Ancient Cave.

The cave was left behind by a mysterious expert.

There is no additional information about this place.

Ragna couldn’t believe what he saw. He arrived in the center of a spacious cave with 4 meters height and about 10 meters in diameter. The place was round and a bit small, but it was not cramped at all. The cave was dark, but there were glowing moss’ all over the place, illuminating the cave and the passage.

“Where the heck is this... I should’ve been transferred to a town. Why am I being transferred here.” Ragna muttered slowly. He was still in a daze because of the sudden development.

“Maybe this was just a bug. I think I will be transferred to a town if I wait”

Ragna waited for a few minutes, but the rays of light that he expected never came.

He got mad! He kicked the cave wall, hoping that it would break down. Maybe, there would be someone behind that wall, secretly filming him. He hoped that it was just a reality show where people got pranked.

After a few moment of rage, he quickly calmed down. Ragna was known as a rational person. He knew that the best thing to do was not to kick some stupid walls.

However, he still couldn’t do anything. That’s why he thought that the best course of action was to calm down and analyze the situation.

“I need to regain my calmness. First thing first, I should check my status. Status Window!”

Ding!

Name : Ragna

Title : -

Class : -

HP : 100

MP : 100

Strength : 10

Endurance : 9

Agility : 8

Dexterity : 8

Intelligence : 10

Wisdom : 9

“This status doesn’t seem bad, full points in intelligence and strength. Looks like I could be a mage or fighter in the future” Ragna seemed a bit happy, looks like he found some blessing in disguise.

What Ragna didn’t understand was that this status was high enough to make other people gape in astonishment. Even professional fighter only got 9 points in strength and endurance. Unfortunately, he didn’t realize it because he arrived in a different place than everyone.

“There doesn’t seem to be anything that could help me now, let’s try to explore the place a bit!” After examining the status window, he closed it and start moving.

He could feel the damp air around him. The place was a bit dark but it was still on a manageable level.

Soon, he found a small passageway that seemed to lead him to another place.

He followed the passage, hoping that he could find someone there. After a minute of walk, he finally arrived at the end of the tunnel.

Unfortunately, the place where he arrived to was nowhere near what he imagined.

“What.. Where the hell am I ?”

The cave suddenly turned into a spacious temple. The temple was constructed by numerous yellow blocks with strange symbol written on top of it. The ceiling was rectangular, different from the cave where he was.

It seemed that the cave was a hidden passage to get into the temple. Ragna was dumbfounded with the sudden change, everything seemed to grow weirder and weirder.

Fortunately, there was only one path to go forward. There was no use in hesitating, sooner or later he would have to explore the place anyway.

Ragna proceeded cautiously, then he saw something in the middle of the path. It was a statue of a golem.

The golem has a height of 2.5 meters with big limbs twice the size of a normal human. It has no face, just 2 gems that could serve as an eye.

“It.. won’t attack me, right?” Seeing the huge golem, Ragna felt shivers ran down his spine. He believed that the statue won’t move and attack him but his body didn’t seem to agree.

Then, he kept walking… Suddenly, when he got into the radius of 5m from the golem, the jewel in the golem’s eyes started to shine!

The golem started to move!

“NO! Please don’t, I just want to pass this path, please don’t disturb me” Ragna started to scream, he knew that something was wrong and it surely was a bad thing.

Cracks appeared on the body of the statue, revealing the yellow body underneath it. It seemed that the golem was made of the same material as the temple.

Then, Ragna could see that the symbol written in the heart of the golem flashed with a red light. The golem stared at Ragna and shouted

“INTRUDER!” The red jewel in the golem’s eyes was giving anyone who saw it an explicable sense of danger.

The golem ran toward Ragna. Ragna knew he had to run, but his body betrayed him. He stumbled and fell.

“NO! NO! NO NO NO!” Ragna screamed, he truly regretted provoking the golem. His uncle always said not to go near anything suspicious when he was a kid, now he knew why.

“DIE INTRUDER!” The golem raised its hand, punching it towards Ragna.

Ragna had no ability to dodge, he covered his face with his hands, hoping that the force would lessen somewhat.

Unfortunately, the golem’s punch contained an enormous amount of force that he wouldn’t be able to withstand.

BANG!

It was an instant death.

…

“What do you mean by ‘it can’t be helped’ ? It was your own damn fault, to begin with. Is this how the company treat its customer?”

Raka was fuming with rage whilst talking to the operator. He got disconnected right after getting killed by the golem.

The system has a penalty that prevents people who died from reconnecting until the next day started. That means you wouldn’t be able to start until the next night which is at 21.00 PM.

The first thing he did was to call Digdaya Corp., the creator of Maya. Sadly, the operator shrugged him off by saying that it was their busiest time and they didn’t have enough hand to solve every complaint.

“We are really sorry. It may really be a bug from our server, but we can’t solve it right now. You have to wait for at least 2 weeks before we could do anything.”

“The thing is, you got your gear from a lucky event, that’s why there are no remuneration whatsoever.” The operator added.

Raka fell into deep silence. He knew that it really can’t be helped because he didn’t spend any money to get the gear. Still, he felt that he was being disadvantaged as a player. He had to push the matter somewhat.

“2 Weeks from now, everyone will be high leveled already. This is a huge disadvantage for me. Can you guys at least

give me some compensation?”

“The best thing we can give to you is an extra +2 stat from the basic amount when you get to recreate your account. I think that is a great deal seeing that most of the player only have 6 or 7 points in their basic stats”

This was their trump cards, by giving them a bonus stat that is a bit above the average, most of the people would stop nagging them and would wait silently.

Unfortunately, he was talking to Raka. The one who got full stats on strength and intelligence.

“Eight points your ass! I got full points on strength and intelligence. This is unacceptable! Hey-”

Tut.. Tut.. Tut..

The operator hung up. He couldn’t believe that a youngster would try to deceive him.

What full points? Even those professional athletes only got 9 points on their strongest stats. He even said 2 stats. Hmph, I’ll call you grandpa even if you only have one full stat points.

That night, Raka couldn’t even sleep because of anger.

…

The next morning, Raka stared at the gear in his hand with complicated feeling. He wasn’t sure whether to just patiently wait or try to do anything else.

If he waited, he would get another gear. Sure, the stat loss would hurt, but it was merely 1 or 2 points. The delay too was somewhat acceptable because there were still countless people who were waiting for their gear.

However, Raka was unwilling to part with his name. Ragna was a part of his life. He was already attached to that name because of constantly using it on every possible occasion.

‘And there was that strange feeling’

The truth was, Raka felt something strange when he entered the temple. He felt that he was somewhat familiar with

that place. His instinct told him that he has to follow the path no matter what.

It was also the reason why he kept walking even though he knew that the golem was suspicious.

His instinct already helped him countless of times in his life. He was able to safely dodge much danger because of it.

“I think I need to explore more. There’s no harm in trying”

In the end, he chose to follow his instinct.