Ju froze in fear, her grip on her reclamation bow tightened. The screams of terror, combined with the dreary and destroyed city she was in was enough cause a spurt of irrational fear. Her eyes roved around as she saw that most of the others in the group were also seized up. The only ones unaffected were her twin, Kurokami, and Rynner. Those three seemed to be, for lack of a better term in her mind, ‘amping up’. The screams and the city all seemed to cause them to initiate their fight instincts, rather than their flight.

Pete could feel it coursing through him. He hadn’t felt this way in a while, the last time being when he’d gotten in a fight with an opposing track runner who had spiked him as he was passing which had cost him the heat.

‘Is this what they call a fighter’s high?’

He felt himself getting excited, almost as if he was looking forward to whatever was causing the screams. Unheeding the situation of the rest of his teammates he grabbed one of their arms and began to force his way through the crowd. It was surprisingly easy, given that the other people in the crowd were more than willing to put a few more bodies between them and whatever was ahead. The progress was still too slow though, and he eventually resorted to shoving. This of course received exclamations of anger that was heightened by the tension.

It still took an absurd amount of time, though that was unsurprising given that by now there would at least be 40 million people trying to crowd into one city! But that was to be expected of a B class quest being completed by level one players!

It was then that he heard a sudden intensification in the shouts and screams and felt a rumbling. Pete saw the people ahead of him being crushed by something large and humanoid. He desperately leapt to the side, pulling his hapless teammate along with him.

It was a Bone Giant! The creature moved through the crowd with a swift viciousness and slaughtered players by the hundreds if not thousands! Pete covered the head of the teammate he had dragged along with him as he gazed in fascinated terror on the gargantuan mass of bones that was crashing through the crowd of users. Wherever it went bodies would fly, turn grey in midair, and be gone before they could hit the ground.

Pete had been so caught up in watching the Bone Giant wreak havoc amongst the players that it was a while before he felt something small squirming on top of him. He looked down and saw that the teammate he had grabbed was Shiro! He released his grip and her head rocketed up away from his chest as she desperately sucked in air.

“Phua!”

“Errr, sorry…Shiro right?”

“….”

She didn’t say anything and just nodded. She seemed to be the quietest out of the three sisters, as well as the youngest.

She crawled off of him and was about to stand up when another player shoved past them and she was tossed right back on top of him. More players began to run away from their vicinity until they were the only ones left.

Pete helped Shiro up after the players passed, he looked up to see terror in the eyes of the newbies and trepidation in the eyes of the veterans. He had a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach as he turned to see the Bone Giant wheeling about only a few meters from where they stood, looking for its next victim. Then it spotted him and Shiro, the only ones who stood outside the crowd.

The Bone Giant’s teeth made a horrible clacking sound as it began to make its way towards them. At first it moved slowly but then gradually picked up speed.

Pete and Shiro were paralyzed, never in their lives had they ever seen something as terrifying as the Bone Giant. After all it was a three meter tall mass of cracked yellow bones with an abnormally shaped human head that had two fiery red orbs for eyes. With each step its wine barrel sized ribs would rattle in the sockets that connected them to its spine. What made it worse though was that they could smell the stench of decay rolling off of the monster as it rushed towards them. When faced with such a horrifying new experience, anyone would be stopped by fear.

Now it was almost upon them! It raised one of its dreadful fists in preparation to bring it smashing down.

Pete and Shiro were still paralyzed, unable to utter a single squeal of terror.

The fist came rushing down towards them and at the last moment Pete was finally able to move and pushed Shiro out of the way.

*Crunch*

Pete felt his bones almost instantaneously crumble to dust under the immense force of the fist. His body had been almost completely flattened!

Pete raged internally, wishing he had been able to move sooner to at least have done something to the monster before meeting his first game death!

He then felt a flutter of hope as he watched his health rapidly drain away.

“TORI!!!!!!!!!!!!! Fulfill your promise! Transform me into a vampire!”

He had no idea if Tori was within hearing range but it was the only way he could think of being restored before dying.

His health was now almost completely gone, there was nothing but a smidgen left, when a large bat practically slammed into him.

It then bit him on the neck!

*TING!*

-Hidden race ‘vampire’ has been unlocked; do you want to become a vampire?

When you switch to a different race that race’s special abilities can be used.

But, the penalty for dying is 3 times the normal rate of experience, and skill.

There are restrictions on equipment that a vampire can equip and use.

The vampire race’s physical abilities are incomparably greater than a warrior’s and have great vitality, battle ability and they can use magic.

As long as you are a vampire you can promote to a Vampire Queen or a Vampire Lord.

But, if you are killed 7 times or a silver nail is embedded into your heart you return to being a human.

“I accept.”

Pete faintly whispered out.

*FOOM!*

A red mist swirled around Pete as he transformed into a vampire! Status messages began to fill his vision with the effects the transformation had on his starting stats and new racial abilities he gained!

“Welcome to the Nobility of the Night, human. My debt to you is repaid.”

Tori quickly sped off, still in bat form.

Pete stood up and stretched. He rolled his head around a few times, just to confirm all his bones were back to normal. In front of him the Bone Giant had turned away from him and was now advancing on the cowering Shiro, the people in the crowd had still not helped!

‘These bastards.’

“Oy, bag’o’bones! You and me ain’t finished yet!”

The Bone Giant paused and turned to look at him. Its jaw clacked a few times in confusion, it couldn’t understand how the insect it had just squashed stood again!

“Yeah that’s right, you and I still have some unfinished business!”

Pete released the greatsword from his back, it began to shine with a holy light! He pointed the tip straight at the Bone Giant.

“I’m going to send you back to your grave you piece of shit.”

Pete gave a feral grin that revealed newly formed fangs and rushed forward at an impossible speed!

The Bone Giant aimed a punch towards him, but it never connected. Pete had vaulted over the Bone Giant! He quickly spun around and used the momentum gained to swing the sword upwards, the light tracing the cut as it went from the left hip to the right shoulder. The spinal column was completely severed in the process!

- Aaaarrrrgghhh!

The Bone Giant collapsed forward and began struggling on the ground as its spinal column reformed, it had been stunned! The sudden ferocity of the attack from out of nowhere had surprised it. Pete ran towards Shiro, picked her up off the ground and dashed towards the crowd.

He set her down at the front edge of the crowd.

“Wait here.”

*Nod*

Pete heard a clacking behind him, he turned to see the Bone Giant standing up! He looked around and saw that not a single person had attacked during the brief time he had moved Shiro out of harms way.

“What are you idiots doing? Open fire!”

The other players had been entranced by the scene that had recently played out and hadn’t even thought to participate. Pete’s

words seemed to break them from their spell as every wizard, priest, and archer raised their hand or weapon and launched a deadly conflagration of fire, arrows, and holy spells.

Bone Giants are around 200 in level, and given that this could be considered a dungeon their abilities would obviously be greater than normal. This of course had led to the wholesale slaughter of any players in its path. Pete on the other hand had been level one; even after his transformation he was still relatively weak in comparison. His advantage had been the agility and strength he had gained from the race conversion. This is what had allowed him to dodge the Bone Giant’s attack, however it was not enough to do any real damage to the bone giant.

Thousands of arrows, holy spells and fireballs on the other hand annihilated the Bone Giant. When the flashes of light finally stopped, it had already turned grey and disappeared.

Silence followed the aftermath. The crowd of users now watched Pete, he shifted from foot to foot as a scowl formed on his face. None of the people in his party had scored the final hit, so they had not gained any of the experience from the Bone Giant. This obviously annoyed him.

Looking up, he saw the expectant eyes of the other users on him. He realized they seemed to be waiting for him to say something. He paused for a second, the raising his sword he shouted.

“These big guys are nothing! Let’s crush them like everything else! Let’s reclaim Morata and get that bonus!”

“YYYYEEEAAAAAHHHHHH!!!”

The crowd roared in approval. He then turn and charged off in the direction the Bone Giant had come from. The braver and greedier of the crowd rushed behind him. The ground rumbled under the thousands of feet as the users made their way into an open square.

Within the square, Death Knights roamed about. They turned their glowing eyes towards the wave of users flooding in.

-Living, they must be killed!

-There can be no living here!

The Death Knights formed ranks and began to march forward. The users slowed, seeing the organized undead marching towards them. Pete was about to begin charging towards the death knights, heedless of the other users, but he felt a small tug on his sleeve. He turned to look down at what was causing the snag and saw Shiro.

“What are you doing?”

“Dangerous, without the others.”

Shiro looked down. It had become quite apparent to Pete that she was a bit shy. His initial reaction was to discard what she said and continue running, he wanted to level up! But the habits his parents had ingrained into him kicked in and he paused to consider her words. He looked up and saw that they stood alone against the Death Knights; the other users had stopped at the entrance to the square. He turned to look at the Death Knights and saw they were starting a charge. Something had to be done, otherwise he would die! He had already given up his humanity to avoid death once. He didn’t want to see what triple penalization would do to a level one!

“Alright! Mages! Fire the first salvo! Warriors to me! Priests heal when ready!”

Pete raised his blade once again and let loose a war cry. The other users paused, but they still had the initial rush from his earlier speech flowing through their veins. Quickly they took up the cry and soon a thunderous roar resounded through the city. It could be heard even farther off where others were engaged in battles.

The mages launched their magic into the Death Knights; the combined power of the hundreds of fire balls was enough to stop the charge. By then the other melee fighters had formed around Pete.

“Wait here and cover my back Shiro.”

*Nod*

Releasing yet another war cry, Pete rushed forward. His newly enhanced speed quickly putting him at the head of the warriors as they charged at the still reforming Death Knight line.

-It is useless human!

“Sorry but I’m not a human!”

Pete brought his sword down as the other warriors crashed into the Death Knights. After the initial surprise of the melee assault, the Death Knights quickly recovered. There was only so much a level one user could do against a level 200 Death Knight! Warriors began to fall left and right! By the end, only those with some form of martial training or fighter’s instinct survived. These few that survived were then continuously supported by the vast amount of priests behind them. Occasionally concentrated attacks of fire balls and arrows flew through the melee to hit targets that were left open when a warrior would dodge an attack. After nearly two hours of this the fighting ended.

You have leveled up!

You have leveled up!

You have leveled up!

……………..

Pete observed all the status messages briefly before closing them. He was curious what his current stats were. He hadn’t had a chance to really observe entirely how the racial transformation had affected him.

“Status window.”

Status Window[quart=Name,Alignment]Pete,Neutral[/quart]

[quart=Level,Class]65,none[/quart]

[quart=Race,Title]Vampire,none[/quart]Fame0[quart=Health,Mana]1050,250[/quart]

[quart=Strength,Agility]50,60[/quart]

[quart=Wisdom,Intelligence]20,30[/quart]

[quart=charm,Luck]15,10[/quart]

[quart=Vitality,Endurance]80,50[/quart]Resistance:

-5% fireAs a Vampire, most religious spells will harm you

His eyebrows climbed up his forehead in surprise as he observed that he had also gained the charm stat with the racial conversion. Though in the end it did make sense given that what he had transformed into seemed to have an obsession with beautiful things. After thinking it over a while he figured that it would be best to enhance what the race’s special characteristics were. Until he had a class he would have to rely on the racial abilities he gained to survive the reclamation of Morata. With this in mind he distributed the 325 stat points he had earned.

Status Window[quart=Name,Alignment]Pete,Neutral[/quart]

[quart=Level,Class]65,none[/quart]

[quart=Race,Title]Vampire,none[/quart]Fame0[quart=Health,Mana]1850,665[/quart]

[quart=Strength,Agility]130,140[/quart]

[quart=Wisdom,Intellect]60,75[/quart]

[quart=charm,Luck]15,10[/quart]

[quart=Vitality,Endurance]160,50[/quart]Resistance:

-5% fireAs a Vampire, most religious spells will harm you

Satisfied with the end result he looked around the square. People were swarming the area, picking up japtem. Others had already left in search of other monsters to kill, their greed for EXP and japtem overriding their fear. He had heard just after the fighting had finished about what had happened to the initial waves.

It appeared that the first wave had been completely wiped out. So the second wave waited until the third wave had come through the gate and then they went in together. It had been a massacre, as soon as they had walked in, skeletons had swarmed them. Warriors had attacked them from the front and skeleton archers had fired into the crowd from the broken rooftops above. It had only been due to the sheer size of the group that any had survived. By the time that this initial fight had finished, the fourth wave had arrived. After they walked in, they had met up with the survivors which had then led them as they began to systematically purge the city of the undead. The fifth through the seventh wave showed up and while thousands of users fell. The reclamation battle seemed to be gaining favorable momentum. It had even gotten to the point where the higher level users branched off into a separate group and began to work their way around the perimeter of the city, leaving the newer users to attack the interior. It wasn’t till the tenth wave arrived that everything went to hell. With the reinforcements from the tenth wave, the users began to aggressively pierce through to the center of the city. Their goal was to reclaim the four squares that bordered the goddess Freya statue that stood at the center of a manmade lake. The hope was that the goddess would be able to grant blessings possibly if they reclaimed her statue.

However, when they reached the first square the Bone Giants had greeted them! There had been four originally, the one Pete had fought against was the last one. Those four Bone Giants along with another small army of Death Knights had been enough to wipe out the higher level users from earlier waves. By the time the eleventh wave had crossed into the city. Most of the high level users had been eliminated, leaving only a majority of ninth and tenth wave users to quake in terror as a single Bone Giant plowed through them.

After Pete heard the story he understood why the users hadn’t been able to take down that single Bone Giant until he had attacked it. They had been gripped by fear! Their morale had fallen so low with the death of the stronger users that they had felt helpless against a new and superior enemy.

Pete continued to ponder over this after adjusting his stats until he felt Shiro grab his shirt and a shadow fall over them from

where they had been sitting in the square, waiting for the rest of their party to find them.

Pete looked up and saw two faces. One was a very stern looking Korean male, the other was the face of a goddess! It was Weed and Seoyoon!

He stood up, wondering what exactly such a famous pair wanted with him. He felt Shiro’s grip tighten on his shirt as she hid slightly behind him. Looking down, he put a hand on Shiro’s shoulder and squeezed reassuringly. Although they had only just met that day, two hours of desperate fighting is enough to bring anyone close together!

Looking back up he saw that Weed and Seoyoon were just standing there. Weed, just looking at him and Seoyoon just looked to the ground. It almost seemed as if she was getting more and more embarrassed by the second. The two pairs stayed liked this for much more than a comfortable time. Eventually Pete got annoyed and let his polite smile slip off to be replaced by an annoyed frown.

“A picture lasts longer.”

“…….”

Weed still didn’t say anything. The embarrassment that Seoyoon seemed to be experiencing was almost palpable to Pete and Shiro.

“Seriously, what do you want?”

It was for only a second, but to Pete it seemed as if this rotten smile seemed to form on Weed’s face! From Weed’s perspective this was great! Get the person to ask you a question so that they would then feel obliged to return the favor!

“I wanted to talk to you about Tori.”

“…..What about him?”

“How exactly did you meet him.”

“I met him on that other plane of existence.”

“What caused him to turn you into a vampire?”

“He owed me one for giving him some blood.”

“……..I see…….. do you know where he is now?”

“No.”

“….”

The silence returned, Weed had wanted Pete to complete his last answer with some information on where Tori might have gone. But Pete was still very annoyed with Weed and decided he wanted some information himself.

“I must say I’m surprised, that such a great warrior from Royal Road didn’t step in during this past fight. What were you doing?”

Straight to the point to make sure Weed couldn’t just subtlety avoid the question! Weed winced slightly, but knew that he owed the person before him a few answers.

“I was supporting my wife.”

“So you’re a priest this time! I must say that is a surprise, the great god of Victory is now a priest.”

“……”

“Then again that almost makes sense. One would have to wonder what kind of benefits you would receive as both god and priest.”

“Nothing more than any other priest of that religion, my only benefit is that I can give out the quest to convert to a priest of the God of Victory.”

That was too much information! Pete hadn’t even asked a question that time, at least not directly. Weed was definitely hiding something.

“Which I may add, is the only religion that doesn’t negatively affect vampires. It must have been hard in this previous battle without the help of a priest.”

It was Pete’s time to shift uncomfortably. It was true; he had nearly died in the last battle when Shiro had tried to support him. It was only thanks to his massive starter vitality that he had made it through!

Shiro’s lip trembled slightly, she had wanted to help Pete since he had saved her from the Bone Giant but all she had been was a burden. She released her grip on Pete and stepped forward, towards Weed. He noticed her and looked down towards her.

“Hello, what’s your name?”

“Shiro…. I want to convert ---”

She managed to mumble out only a bit before her shyness got the better of her and she ended her sentence abruptly.

“To a priest of the God of Victory?”

*NOD*

“Shiro wait, what are you doing?”

Pete was confused, he wasn’t sure what had caused Shiro to speak out now of all times. She turned towards him.

“I’ll support you.”

She managed to finish her sentence this time, but immediately blushed and turned back around towards Weed. Who in turn smiled a rotten smile! He wanted this! He desired to convert as many priests to his former character’s religion!

“Well then Shiro. Here is your quest; you must offer up all your japtem to the God of Victory in a prayer for your friend over here.”

*TING*

Class Conversion: Priestess of Jeonshin Weed

You have been given the quest to convert to the class of a priestess of Jeonshin Weed. You must offer all your japtem in a prayer for your party’s victory in battle

Quest Difficulty: F

Quest Reward: Conversion to Priestess of Jeonshin Weed

“Shiro, wai—“

“Accept.”

Before Pete could stop her, Shiro accept the quest. It wasn’t that he had misgivings about the quest, it was more so that he had misgivings about who gave it. He glared at Weed.

“I really dislike you. I hope my brother does kick your ass in the end.”

Weed gave him an annoyed look, “What exactly do you mean by that?”

“That guy, the one dashing through the gate behind you? He wants to beat you, he made you his target for his end-game.”

“…..”

“Though maybe I’ll make you my target instead, I could actually beat you right now. With my abnormal stats, even with her EXP boost I doubt the two of you could defeat me.”

Seoyoon quickly stepped in front of Weed, determined to protect him. Even in anger her beautiful face seemed to be that of a wrathful Valkyrie rather than the typical grotesque glare of an angered person. Pete raised his hands and backed off.

“But then again, I’m pretty sure my brother would kick my ass here and in real life if I did something like that. Y’know, that whole ‘dibs’ thing. Let’s go Shiro.”

As he said this, he turned and tapped Shiro on the shoulder before sauntering off towards the sounds of fighting that were coming from the main thoroughfare to the next square.

Seoyoon glared after him, while Weed looked thoughtful.

“If that’s just the little brother…… I might have to work harder.”