‘Still not sure what the dev’s were thinking with making the players help the locals work out how to handle players who break their laws Katy,’ I mentioned to my AI partner as I followed Harmon back out of the armoury to try out my new weapon for the first time. The old man was still pretty angry about what he had heard but he said that I could use one of the training dummies while he explained the situation to the captain.

“That’s not really a subject I know about myself, but enough people have been asking about that on the forums that Gransoft are going to do an announcement regarding that and some of the other more popular subjects tomorrow.” She replied.

‘I’m going to go right ahead and guess that two of the other subjects are the other AI’s like you and the NPC’s’ I replied the corners of my mouth lifting up in a smirk.

‘You’d be right,’ Katy giggled. ‘Not that that was a difficult conclusion to come to.’

‘Still it looks like the number of players is going to explode over the next couple of days.’ I replied sighing out loud.

“Is something wrong?” Harmon asked as my sigh caught his attention.

“Well, I just realised that it’s a good thing that we got this sorted out today,” I replied.

“Why is that?” Harmon asked cautiously the look on his face telling me that he didn’t think he would like my answer.

“Uhh, well it looks like there’s going to be a lot more outsiders coming to this world in the next couple of days,” I explained awkwardly.

Inwardly, I was growing ever more irritated with the developers who had left these NPCs without programming in the knowledge they needed to keep order in their countries with the sudden arrival of players. There were plenty of games where the developers took a hands-off approach to the games after they were released but with how lifelike the NPC’s in Soul Core Online were it just seemed cruel to leave things in their hands without giving them the tools that they needed. I was sure that I wasn’t the only player who had gone out of their way to help them, but I also knew that there were just as many players if not more who were more than happy to play a game where they could do whatever they want without ever receiving a punishment bad enough to stop them from doing it again. Eventually, I guessed that in a game like this places like that would completely break down and become lawless states which could I suppose give the other countries a common enemy to defeat thereby adding more events to the game but to me it just seemed unfair to both the people who created this world and the NPCs who lived in it.

But to my surprise Harmon just shrugged.

“There’s not much we can do about that,” he sighed his expression revealing the resignation that he was so obviously feeling. “The only thing we can do is deal with them appropriately which hopefully we can do now thanks to the advice you gave us on how to deal with criminal outsiders.”

“I just hope my ideas work,” I told him. I was hoping that they wouldn’t have to deal with too many players who decided to cause problems, but I knew that that would depend on the players themselves.

Parting ways with Harmon I headed to the area that the training dummies were set up and decided to check the Soul Links page now that I had slotted the Soul Core that Harmon had found for me into my new naginata.

Zeke’s Soul Links

Current Links:2 Skill Links

Basic Glaive Core

Level: 1/10

Soul Points 0/10

Skills

Slash: 150% weapon damage (Slashing). Cost: 15 Spirit. Cooldown: 3 Seconds.

Additional Stats

+1 Dexterity, +1 Constitution.

Basic Spellglove Core

Level: 1/10

Soul Points: 4/10

Skills

Ward: Absorbs up to 200% of Magic Power. Cost: 20 Spirit. Duration: 10 seconds. Cooldown:20 seconds.

Additional Stats

+1 Intelligence.

To my surprise the only real difference between the spear Soul Core and this one was that my Dexterity was increased instead of my Strength, the Skill that it gave me was almost identical other than the damage type that it dealt, but as they were both the basic Skill for their respective weapon type it did make a certain amount of sense.

After a few minutes of striking the dummy with my new weapon I also figured out why I got an increase in Dexterity from the Glaive Core instead Strength like I had for my Spear Core. Using the glaive was more complicated than using a spear because of the swinging movements required to properly use the blade especially when one considered the difference in weight, according to Katy increasing your Dexterity would help you deal with this easier but in the meantime I wanted to get used to using my new weapon the old fashioned way even trying out my new Skill which as expected was basically the same as Thrust, even having the same light around the blade of the naginata when I used it. After this I decided to try and adapt some of the kata I had learned for both spears and swords in the games I had played in the past to the glaive.

About an hour later I felt that I had done enough training and decided to head into the main offices to check on the progress Harmon and the guard captain had made on figuring out how we were going to handle the situation at the inn.

“Ah, Zeke come in,” the captain said upon seeing me. “We’re just finishing up on our end now. I’d like you to meet the guard who will be helping you out; this is Corporal Tylie.”

Corporal Tylie was an attractive young woman with light brown hair that went down to her shoulders and she nodded politely at me as I turned to greet her.

“Nice to meet you Corporal, thank you for taking part in this. I know that things like this aren’t easy to deal with,” I said reaching out to shake her hand. “Milly, the girl at the inn is an old friend of mine,” she explained her eyes flickering angrily as she shook my hand. “So, I have a personal reason for taking on this mission.”

Mission?

I glanced sideways at Harmon who shook his head at me sternly. From his reaction I was guessing that the Corporal was the overly serious type which I would normally find a bit irritating but considering the circumstances I couldn’t blame her. From what little I understood about dealing with people who had been sexually assaulted having a woman along that Milly knew would also be helpful if anything went wrong so despite my wariness at allowing someone who might find themselves losing their temper in the heat of the moment due to her connection with the victim, I just decided to go along with it.

“Alright then, let’s get this guy,” I said turning back towards the captain who nodded. “So, what’s the plan?”

As it turned out the plan was fairly simple, I would start talking to players trying to figure out who was behind what was happening while Tylie snuck in the back and explained what was going on to the innkeeper. But then we hit the part that I wasn’t a fan of; we couldn’t just arrest a suspect or suspects based on a hunch, so we had to somehow catch them in the act. Tylie had offered to pose as a new waitress which had solved that problem, provided that there wasn’t anyone at the inn who would give her away as a guard, if there was then we would have no real choice but to put Milly in danger again which was something that none of us wanted to do. I obviously didn’t like either of these options but try as I might I couldn’t think of something else that had the same likelihood of succeeding so eventually I gave in and agreed.

“Is there really no other way sir?” asked Tylie who was still unsure of the decision. The mask of discipline that hid her emotions started to waver showing just how worried she was about her friend.

“If we had more time then we could organise something,” the captain sighed. He obviously wasn’t any happier than the rest of us with the idea than she was but if we arrested the wrong man who knew what the backlash would be.

“Yeah, not many people willing to put themselves in that situation I’m afraid,” I said rubbing a hand over my face. “It’s too bad I don’t know any female outsiders who would be willing to help us.”

Harmon sat up in surprise as I said that.

“What do you mean Zeke?”

“Well at least that way if something went wrong, they could just return to our world,” I explained causing everyone to stare at me with wide eyes. “But sadly, I don’t know any.”

“Even if you did, we wouldn’t necessarily want to get them involved,” Harmon said sadly.

That was a fair point, this was a problem caused by players, so it made sense that they wouldn’t want to get any more players involved. In fact, I was still surprised by their willingness to allow me to be involved with something like this considering the likelihood of something going wrong, if I was lying about being on their side it would be easy enough to get Tylie killed. But I guess that’s why it was a test, in fact I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that Tylie would be keeping a close eye on me just in case I was planning to betray them.

Thankfully I didn’t have anything to worry about on that front, I had made the decision to help them and I wasn’t going to betray their trust now and seeing the determined look in my eye Harmon silently gave me a smile and a nod. It was good to know that the old man had my back.

“Well we should get going,” I said. It was already getting late in the day and like most games the monsters that come out at night were far stronger meaning that any players who stayed logged in would probably be at the inn or one of the bars in town, besides the quicker we caught those responsible for what Milly was going through the less she would have to suffer.

“You should probably get changed into something more believable before we go though corporal,” I suggested to Tylie who was wearing the standard mail hauberk that most of the guards wore which just wasn’t going to convince anyone no matter how attractive she was.

“He’s right corporal go and get ready,” Harmon said as Tylie opened her mouth to say something to me and she quickly closed her mouth.

Saluting to her two superiors she glared at me briefly before turning around and walking out of the room.

“Careful Zeke,” Harmon chuckled. “She’s a fiery one, makes her a good guard but it also means that there aren’t many guards who want to work with her.”

“Fiery? Wait I thought she was the serious type!?” I shouted. So, the whole ‘mission’ thing was more about her being overly passionate about her job? Well I guess it makes just as much sense, but it just made me more nervous about how she might handle things when we found the person who was hurting her friend.

The captain actually grinned at that as Harmon cracked up almost falling off his chair from how hard he was laughing at my reaction causing me to glare at him. This was no time to be joking around old man.

“I’m afraid not,” the captain said attempting unsuccessfully to regain his normal grouchy expression causing me to turn my irritated gaze his way. “Unfortunately, we were unable to convince her to let someone else take care of this so if anything happens please do your best to help her out.”

Yeah… really wishing that you were able to control your own subordinates, you’re supposed to be the guard captain remember?

“Don’t worry,” I said rolling my eyes at the still sniggering Harmon as he dragged himself back into his seat. “I was always planning on staying ready to help out.”

I raised my right hand and made a loose fist as I called my naginata from my Inventory in a flicker of light making both men jump.

“After all, if something goes wrong an outsider can be ready to fight in an instant if they’re any good at fighting.”

Both men gulped as the naginata flashed again before dissolving into particles of light.

“Yet another reason that we’re glad you’re on our side,” admitted the captain. “You were skilled enough with that spear that you could’ve killed more than a few of the weaker guards with ease and then you could’ve come back and do it again if you had wanted.”

I shuddered. What the man was describing was nothing less than the actions of a demon, I couldn’t deny that there were players who would do things like that for their own amusement but I had never been able to bring myself to attack people who I didn’t believe deserved it even in games I had always chosen the ‘good’ side or at least the side that had the most ideals that I had agreed with.

However, I disagreed with my ability to do something like that. The guards that I had seen were far better equipped than I was and that counted for a lot in games like this and someone like Jameson would be easily able to take me out to say nothing of Harmon. If that monstrous old man got serious, he could wipe the entire town clean of players in no time at all.

“So how did you find your new weapon by the way?” Harmon asked me apparently deciding that a change of subject was in order.

“Yes,” said the captain interest appearing in his eyes, it would appear my little sparring match with Harmon had impressed the man. “How do you like your payment?”

“It’s a bit different from what I’m used to using,” I replied happily. “But I think that it’ll serve me well.”

This wasn’t just me saying this out of respect for the two men in front of me, this was my honest opinion. I hadn’t been able to learn much more about the ways to develop my character yet, but I had decided that glaives would be my first choice when I went looking for weapons. The great thing about Soul Core Online was how easy it was to change your characters build and I was planning on having a lot of fun finding interesting combinations of skills and magic that I could then sell to people when I started to learn crafting skills.

“By the way I don’t know much about magic in this world,” I said realising that once again I had neglected to properly research things that as an experienced gamer I should be learning about as soon as possible, especially considering that I had a piece of equipment that allowed me to use magic. “Would you guys be willing to tell me a little about the magic of this world.”

“That’s a little odd considering that you outsiders can all use magic that we’ve never seen before,” the captain noted looking at me oddly.

“Ah,” I could see his point, especially since there were in fact outsiders who had chosen things like wands and staves as their weapons and been able to swap their second weapon choice for a Spell Core instead. “Well that may be the case but unfortunately I haven’t actually had time to learn any magic other than the basic abilities that all outsiders have.”

By the way I found it interesting that the NPCs thought that things like Inventories and probably even a player’s ability to respawn were magical. It did make sense in terms of how they understood things though which made it easy to go along with.

“Well I guess we can go over the basics,” Harmon said. The old man seemed happy to be doing something closer to his normal job of training the guards instead of dealing with the issues that the arrival of the players.

Magic in Soul Core Online was broken up into elements much like it was in other games, these elements were; Fire, Water, Wind, Earth, Nature, Lightning, Light and Dark. Though all elements had spells that could deal damage each one had their own specialties for example Fire was the best at dealing damage over a wide area and also had the most damage over time (D.o.t) spells, which was fairly normal. Water had some healing spells but was mostly specialised towards spells that slowed the enemy down while dealing small amounts of damage. Wind had both decent control and single target attacking spells. Earth specialised in controlling the environment and defensive spells. Nature was one of two elements that could summon minions to fight for you and healing spells. Lightning had both good area and single target attacks. Light was the best at healing and had some powerful defensive spells as well. And finally, Darkness was the other element that could be used to summon minions and had good D.o.t spells as well. You could also apparently use some support cores to add spells that the element you are using wouldn’t normally have which added another layer of personalisation to how each person could develop their character.

I was about to continue asking questions when we were interrupted by a familiar voice.

“Corporal Tylie Dell reporting for duty!”

Turning around I was surprised by the difference between Tylie when she left and the young woman that stood in front of me now. Gone was the mail and short sword that she had been wearing, now she was wearing a simple brown dress that looked the same as the ones that many of the village girls that I had seen walking around the village and had her hair bound behind her head in a short pony tail. In fact, the only thing that detracted from her appearance was the irritated look that she was giving me.

“Is there something wrong?” she asked me her blue eyes challenging my own green ones.

“Nope,” I said continuing to hold her gaze in a way that I would never be able to outside of the game. “That should work just fine.”

Tylie blushed slightly and looked away causing the other two men to hide the amused expressions that flickered over their faces. Apparently, she wasn’t used to being told things like that, not that it was easy for me to say either.

“W-well then,” she stuttered still unable to look me in the eye. “We should get going.”

“Alright, let’s go catch ourselves a criminal!” I said smirking at the bashful girl.