Evie felt the silence and knew that Ren was looking at her. How long was he quiet that she didn’t even notice? Did he ask a question just now? She wasn’t sure because she was focusing so much on his voice.

Evie’s face heated, and she cleared her throat. “You sure are knowledgeable.”

“I gathered the information before.”

Ragnar rolled his eyes at the side. Ren was a natural liar. That amount of information couldn’t be gathered from that little free hours they had before from all the beings present in the area. Not to mention that he and Evie was in a PvP fight a few hours ago.

Evie changed the topic when an awkward silence lingered between the three of me. “By the way . . . what happened back there?”

Ren retrieved his gaze from her and asked with an innocent tone, “What happened?”

“What happened in the PvP fight? Did you cause it . . . that thing with the beast,” Evie asked straight to the point.

“. . . As I said, I wish I had that kind of power.” Ren smiled, one that made Evie look dead to the side.

“I-is that so . . . ?” Evie didn’t persist anymore. From the start, she knew Ren wouldn’t say anything about what happened, whether he caused it or not. And she would respect that.

“I wonder why there aren’t any letters here. What kind of words and language they got here, anyway?” Ragnar asked after the short silence.

“. . .”

“. . .”

No one answered, and Ragnar grumbled under his breath as he looked over at Ren.

Ren lazily smiled. “Sorry. Are you talking to me?”

“No. I’m talking to myself. Of course, I’m talking to you. You’re the information gatherer here, right.”

Ren flashed a coy grin. “You think highly of me.”

No. You’re the one who said that you gathered information. Ragnar retorted in his head.

“But to answer your question,” said Ren, “the reason why there are no letters here is that in this continent, there are taboos. Every local believed that disregarding these taboos is accompanied by consequences.

“Writing is one of the Taboos here. So you won’t see any letters carved in any parchments or stones. Only pictures and symbols as evident in the tents, markings on their skins, and crafts. The locals believed that awful beings would pursue anyone until death whoever writes any written forms.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes. What did you do a while back anyway?” What Ren really meant to ask was, ‘you didn’t talk to any inhabitants in here and ask that question?’

Ragnar shrugged. “I took a nap.” What he meant to say was, ‘I’m not really interested in anything but the mask. I was just asking to break the silence.’

Ren rolled his eyes which meant, ‘Talk to my hand.’

Their sweet conversation ended when some of the players that wanted to defeat Ren before appeared before them. These included Lily and her friends.

Zack was storming at Ren with a face warping in anger, saliva spitting as he spat, “You! Give me back my sword! You cheater!”

His hissing voice drew attention to their direction, but Ren didn’t bat an eyelid as he spoke.

“Cheater?” his brow raised. “If I remember correctly, the five of you were ganging on a single lady.”

Ren laughed when Zack and his friends’ faces all turned dark. “It’s not my fault that you all died in the hands of a beast. I guess karma came real fast, huh?”

Zack gritted his teeth while Josh stepped forward.

“We don’t care if you stole our items. Just give back Lily’s staff. It’s gifted by her brother. Trust me. You should return that staff to her if you don’t want any trouble.”

“Staff?” Ren innocently asked while he briefly shot Lily a look. The girl was silent beside Kylie with a pouting face. Her eyes still zeroed on Evie’s mask. She was still salivating for it.

That girl never learns. Ren thought. “You have to be specific about which staff. There’s plenty of them where it came from.”

The mood turned stale, and the others looked at Ren like they wanted to take a go against him again.

Lily stepped forward. Her beautiful face brightened the area. “It’s the Gargoyle Staff. Give it back.”

Ren leaned a little and looked over at the dark sky. “Agh . . . that thing . . .”

Josh and his friends’ eyes shone before their hopes were shot dead back into the graves.

“I already sold all your items. Thank you, by the way.” Ren beamed.

Zack jumped from his skin. “You did what?”

“Why did you do that?” Josh whined.

“Don’t you know how expensive that stuff is?” Kylie scolded.

Ren crossed his arms in faked surprise. “Why do you guys look so surprised? You’re the ones who wanted to kill us and steal our items in the first place. Now that you all died, you want your items back? That’s laughable.

Ren’s face then turned serious. “If you can’t take responsibility for the consequences of your actions, then stay the f*ck out of my way.”

Zack back a little, teeth-rattling and fists shaking, but his legs were trembling.

The others turned quiet, too, and couldn’t look Ren in the eyes.

“You . . . you really don’t know who Lily’s brother is?” Josh threatened, and Ren was getting disappointed in him by the second. He really thought that Josh had the most sense out of the group, but he totally turned into Lily’s follower.

“I don’t know, and I don’t care.”

“It’s Scar,” said Ray, breaking his silence. He seemed to be the only guy left that was genuinely concerned about others. “If you don’t want the whole Black Lion after you, you should return that staff.”

Scar? Ren mused to himself, and he briefly shot Lily a look. No wonder she’s so annoying. Maybe it runs in the blood?

“Scar?” Ren chuckled. “The guy I defeated?”

. . .

. . .

Lily’s eyes narrowed while her friends clumped their mouth shut in surprised.

At the side, the other players snickered. Everyone knew what happened in the Guild War.

Ren continued, “Scar is a leader of a guild. He is a reasonable guy. He knows the rules of the game. You died during a PvP fight, so all your item drops belonged to the last men standing. And those people happened to be us.

“He isn’t some pitiful guy that will get back at me because I sold his little sister’s items during a fight. Especially since you guys initiated the attack.”

Watching from afar from the live broadcast of some players’ videoing the whole thing, Scar almost pukes blood. They won that Gargoyle Staff during a raid. Its price neared at least a hundred thousand if auctioned.

However, if he acted and targeted Ren, he’d be scorned and that would add smudge to his already deteriorating name. He couldn’t afford another bad publicity now. Not when what happened at the Guild War was still fresh.

No matter how Scar was mad at him, Ren was right. There’s only one outcome during a PvP fight. Win or lose. And everybody knew the consequences of such fights. They could only grit their teeth and move on.

Back at Ren and the others.

Ren gave the teenagers some tips. “Next time, don’t just blindly target players. You don’t know . . . their LCK is so high that once you’re defeated in the fight, all your items drop.”

“. . . Y-you . . .” Lily glared at Ren. Her face was bursting red like at any moment now, she would explode.

She and her friends were about to attack Ren when the latter stopped them with a loud, crisp voice, enough for everyone to hear.

“Whatever animosity is happening in the game, if we aren’t always cognizant of each other’s enjoyment, then we fail as a player. Remember that there’s no shame in defeat, but there’s plenty of shame if a player ruins everyone’s fun by taking things too seriously,” he quoted.

“. . .”

“. . .”

The bystanders all agreed with what Ren said and nodded their heads while they threw shady gazes at the other players who still wanted a go at Ren’s throat.

Feeling the heavy stares of everyone around them, Zack got cold feet while Josh turned embarrassed.

“Let’s go,” said Josh and released a heavy sigh. “We’re wasting time here.”

“No,” both Zack and Lily said with an edge.

“Forget it.” Josh tried to convince and pacify the two. “Unless you want to embarrass yourself further?”

“. . .” Zack took another ten second before he finally gave up and could do nothing but leave another empty threat at Ren. “Watch your back. We aren’t finished.”

Ren only reciprocated with a smirk. “Sure. Come at me anytime. But don’t cry and complain if your items and equipment dropped from your inventory, k?”

Clenching his teeth, Zack turned, and left before his temper would get the best of him.

While Kylie and Ray all tried to pacify Lily, dragging her away before she could do something that would embarrass them further.

With their leave, the others followed their steps, and peace was restored.

“I don’t know if I should praise you for causing trouble and always have a way out of it.”

Ren grinned at Ragnar. “I’m a nice guy. I even gave them a warning.” But then they attacked Evie. He wanted to add, and a good thing that he restrained himself.

Peeking at the girl beside him, Evie was already occupied with the clan fire.

But feeling his gaze and thinking that Ren needed a reply, Evie said in a low voice.

“I think you handled that pretty well.”

There was a small smile that almost broke Evie’s lips, and Ren almost stuttered, “. . . Thanks.”

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