by Arthur Stone
Fear replaced them all.
Panic.
Horror.
On the first page, he saw Spider’s face staring at him. The avatar was small, but high resolution. It was him, his cynical tormentor. Dark could not be mistaken.
His mind was shocked back into thinking by the terrible picture as if by a bucket of ice water. He was instantly focused, alert, intent. As he stared at the hated face, he analyzed the context.
There was nothing to fear.
Indeed, he would do better to rejoice.
Spider’s face was positioned in a banner ad. A game screenshot had been used to make the picture—Dark recognized the torture room as the backdrop of the shot.
A short message was positioned under his picture on the ad: “We’re getting close.”
The designers’ message was clear. They were trying to convince Dark that his time alone was coming to an end. That soon uninvited guests would intrude, seize him, and take him back to hell. Kidnapping was easy if you had access to a player’s body and character at the same time.
In addition, Kim’s cronies had access to some game options unavailable to ordinary players.
Dark concluded that this was nothing more than an attempt to exercise psychological control over him. They had no access to his character, and access to his body was only half of the puzzle. If they truly knew how to get to him, they would have come without warning. How could they think he was such a fool? Did they think he would panic at the sight of the banner? That he would emerge from hiding and open the door to this area that all of X’s players dreamed of accessing?
It wouldn’t work. Dark was certain that he was well hidden here.
Besides, for the time being, there was nowhere to run.
He gripped the scroll he held in his hands, which he had collected from the corpse of the boss without thinking.
Scroll of Teleport. Consumable. Uses: 1. Required level: 68. Using this scroll will relocate you to a location you select on the map. Note: This must be a location which you have visited at least once. Locations added to your map by means other than visiting cannot be teleported to.
Even all of the bonuses he had earned would not get him close to level 68. There was no escape yet.
The banner could not be in response to his recent victory. It was simple in design, of course, but his enemies would have needed to realize what had happened, think things over, consider a number of responses, choose one, and quickly employ an auto-designer. In addition to purchasing the advertising space. That could not be done in fifteen minutes.
So the banner had been present before, or scheduled in advance. It had likely been there since Dark’s first global achievement. He had simply failed to check. The past ten days had been too busy.
Every action, of course, was meant to cause a reaction. Kim expected something. Perhaps he had concluded that Dark’s failure to reveal himself meant he was paralyzed by fear.
Nothing could be further from the truth. He had simply been unable to answer! In addition, he had been unaware of the message in the first place.
But they had likely assumed he had seen it. They probably had a corkboard up with innumerable threads linking evidence and theories of his mysterious disappearance from the locked torture chamber and his subsequent heroic destruction of an undiscovered monster. Perhaps there was more that Dark was unaware of.
Well, he would answer their banner. Instead of succumbing to panic, their victim had defeated two powerful monsters never before seen, one of which was a mighty boss.
That was not the behavior of a victim. It was rare that newbs escaping dungeons in loincloths progressed to nonchalantly felling a boss and an elite in a single blow. He had to respond in a way that surprised Kim and his cronies, at least.
A way that surprised them unpleasantly.
They were likely rushing to design new banners now. What else could they do?
Stretching his lips into a smile, Dark spoke with a new confidence.
“Get ready for this, bastards. Here’s my response to your ad. And this is just the beginning.”
Note: The player Dark has made his choice. He receives a Hero’s Star he may add to his name, along with any phrase he selects! He selects the phrase “Fearless Pioneer.” Congratulations, hero! Continue achieving great feats and you will be rewarded!
Many thanks to my readers!
I would be very grateful if you leave your review about the book read
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07VD6RWJB
I would like to heartily recommend the books Play to Live by D. Rus, my good friend and one of the founders of the LitRPG genre. The Play to Live series is one of the finest works in the genre, and a must-read for any fan.
I want to recommend my friend G. Akella's Realm of Arkon series. For the past few years it's been one of the top series in both LitRPG and epic fantasy genres, and deservedly so.
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