“Yup… It’s kind of hard to turn down Vera…” Alfred turned towards her and Cherry as they talked on her bed. “I’ve known her since I was three days old… Her mother even let her go on trips with me to other countries.”
“Sounds like she’s as special as she looks,” The Weapon’s expert whistled, starting to blush as he stared over at her. “I’ve heard she also went to a dojo… If she explained it correct, you were in the state rankings?”
“If you even cared about those rankings, yeah,” Alfred nonchalantly answered, “The international rankings were much harder to get on… I only made it to fifteenth place at my peak. However, I never even faced the fourteen above me on the rankings.”
“You made it onto the international rankings!” The weapon’s expert looked at him with shock. Respect brewing in his eyes as he stammered backwards. “I can’t believe you didn’t mention that detail Vera! I would’ve given him a better set of armor!” The man patted him on the shoulders, his every tap causing Alfred’s body to bunch up.
He’d clearly heavily invested in strength. His name also happened to be Grant. Alfred took the time after meeting him to introduce himself to everyone else in the group. He already knew Cherry who still had the same nonchalant attitude towards everything. He’d met her in Juniper beach with Vera sometimes to go get drinks and surf. She was quiet, but she also had the second highest level in the group at 27.
Alfred grew a little tired of getting praised and stepped out of the house. Grant followed behind him as did Vera. She looked at him with a smile before turning to Grant and pushing him in the arm. For some reason, he began to feel a strange feeling in his stomach. Something about Grant being within five inches of Vera made him want to puke.
“Hey…. Since we’re both previous martial artists… Why don’t we have a spar… If you can beat me with my stats reduced to your level, I’ll make you a Vice Leader…”
“You’d get a higher percentage of experience in dungeon raids… However, I’m sure it will take you a few weeks to reach level 15…” Grant smiled, looking at Vera to see her opinion. “I’ve been dying to show this little lady here how strong I am… You wouldn’t mind would you?”
“Not at all,” Alfred looked at Vera as she shrugged her shoulders. “However, how do we fight? If you fight me with your higher level, I’m sure I’ll lose because of your higher stats.”
“It’s simple… There is a duel option… I’ll send you a request, and the Game Makers will automatically lower my stats to around your level. However, since you have more training, you mind if I give myself a minor handicap?” Grant’s eyes seemed to begin to shine with killing intent. “I’m not going to underestimate you….You’re clearly stronger than you look.”
Alfred nodded his head. A prompt soon appeared in his vision. He clicked it open and looked at its contents.
Duel Request from Grant
Grant’s Current Record 15 wins 0 losses
Grant has offered a minor handicap In his favor. His stats will be set to level ten and yours will remain at level 8. Are you certain you want to accept these terms, or are you too scared?
“Accept,” Alfred clicked on it as Vera stepped back. She hadn’t seen Alfred fight in a while since his tournaments on EARth. She’d always been on the sidelines when he went to events in different states. His father was never there, and was always working, so she tried to make sure to get to the events.
Alfred quickly took a martial stance and seemed to take on the form of a dragon. However, because he was playing a Shadow Walker, he had his two daggers drawn.
Grant stood roughly three meters away from Grant as a countdown reached zero to start the duel. Alfred shot forward and slammed down his fist. A hundred daggers seemed to shoot out of the ground and burst towards Alfred.
He quickly hopped over them before he twisted his foot into the air and sent a sprawling kick into Grant’s side. He stumbled before Alfred sent out three quick punches with his fists. He didn’t feel it appropriate to stab his new guild leader.
Grant has lost 80 health! (Vital damage x2)
Alfred landed back on his feet as Grant brushed off the pain traveling up his spine. He could tell his vital points had been tapped by Alfred, and he calmed himself down before three small bombs appeared in his hand. He launched them and activated [smoke screen] before following it up with an [knife barrage].
One of the blades graced Alfred’s arm causing him to lose 5 hp as Grant slammed into the smoke like a tank. Alfred had no choice but to hop to the side as he slid his foot between Grant’s legs and tripped him onto his knees. Putting his knife to the back of his neck, he held it tightly against his throat before Grant laughed.
“Heh, you really are an international champion! Welcome to the guild!” he said, smiling with glee on his face. “However, you mind saving me some face and accepting a draw, haha?”
Alfred received a request from Grant for a draw, and clicked accept. Putting away the daggers, Vera rushed up to Alfred and tossed her into his arms. Grant, whose face had been full of smiles, suddenly turned sour and pale. He saw her cute dimples raising in a way he’d never seen directed towards him.
With a scowl he got up and pat Alfred on the back before grinning at Vera as she playfully teased Alfred with her eyes.
“You’re definitely worthy of a vice leader… Thanks for the party vera, I’m going to head out and go prepare for a dungeon raid… When you make it to level 15, come join us, alright Alfred?”
“You’re not bad yourself,” Alfred replied, still feeling the adrenaline traveling in his veins. “However, your biggest mistake was the smoke bombs. I’m an assassin class and you’re a melee class… If you—”
“He knows,” Vera said, interrupting him with a smile. “Anyways, thanks for coming today Grant… I’m going to do some solo missions today instead of the normal dungeon runs… I hope you don’t mind right?”
“Not at all…” Grant bowed as he exited. “Tell the other four to meet me at the Guild Hall just outside of town… When you’re level 15, you’re welcome there any time, Alfred…”
Guild Request Received: Vice Leader!
Grant has sent you a request to be one of the vice leaders of the guild.
You will receive 5 percent more experience in dungeon raids than normal guild members. You will also get more drops compared to normal guild mates.
Would you like to accept?
Alfred accepted the request before Grant trod off with a musing stare present in his eyes. The other four visitors soon left as Vera brought Alfred inside and gave him a confused stare.
“I don’t know how to say this, but Grant really gets under my skin,” Vera said, causing Alfred to laugh. “I’m glad you beat him up, or I’m afraid he would’ve taken me as a trophy!” Vera grinned at him, squeezing his muscles playfully as they sat together on the bed.
“I noticed that he liked you,” Alfred replied, staring into her brown doe eyes as she extended her bright smile. “However, why did you join his guild if you hate his guts.”
“It be foolish not to use these looks for good…’ Vera pouted as she looked up into the sky. “He’s one of the top seventy guild leaders, and he promised me to help get my sister back… It’s hard to turn down an offer from a top seventy guild in this game… I’ve seen women do crazy things to get into Green’s guild.”
“Just don’t do anything stupid, Vera,” Alfred suddenly looked angry, staring at the window. “This is a real game and impacts your physical body… If he wanted to… you know… you’d have a hard time stopping it.” Alfred got up and walked towards the door. “I’ll be back after I do some more missions… However, now that I’m here… please don’t do anything foolish with that body of yours okay?”
“Yes… Alfred,” Vera said, a poignant look on her face appearing. “I just have to let you know I seriously cried every night you weren’t here… Be back by eight o clock so we can eat dinner alright?”
Alfred waved and walked ou
t the doorway heading towards his mission center across the way. Vera, on the other hand, opened up her guild window and saw a message from grant inviting her to the city. She sent him an okay message as Alfred walked in and loaded the mission window.
Chapter 8: LEvel up
He clicked to the kill missions and saw that the Hell missions had been locked. However, according to Rexam, he had activated story mode at level 7. He first decided to open the store and spend his current experience on some new gear. He had 3,250 experience after completing the hell missions and heading to old Bird’s Joint.
There was also a window to upgrade equipment available in the store, however, he chose not to improve such low-level equipment. There was upgrades for durability, defense and attack available from the blacksmith shop, however, it didn’t make sense to upgrade until he at least had a set of rare gear.
He found a set of level 8 uncommon assassin’s gear in the store being sold by a player for 1000 current experience. The store acted as a black market of sorts, and there was also regular equipment being sold by the Game that could be bought by anyone. He bit the bullet and purchased a set of assassin’s armor that also worked well for shadow walkers. It upped his defense by 50 altogether, and provided him with +8 agility. After closing the store, he opened up the story mission prompt…
“You should be a little bit more careful with story missions,” Rexam said, her voice sounding worried. “You’ve already set the record for reaching level 8, and are nearing level 9. Perhaps play it safe and do a normal mission?”
“First tell me if there Is any bonus for completing normal missions,” Alfred didn’t want to waste any time. “I’d really like to go to Hermia Kingdom before nightfall… There is a girl there that i… I… she could be in trouble.”
“I don’t think it’s worth dying over,” Rexam said, sounding more human than machine. “Now… there is a 50 percent experience boost for completing five hard missions in a row… They also have a much higher success rate of around ninety percent…”
“Well… I guess I’m going to complete hard missions then,” Alfred loaded the story mission window for the first time. It appeared on the mission table with a click on the HUD. Rexam made a disgruntled churl as he looked at the larks available.
[Story Missions Available…] (Shadow Walker)
Silver crypt Hunter (Normal Lvl8)
Guilt Mage (Normal Lvl8)
Talons of darkness (Hard lvl9)
Battleground dominion (Hell – Locked)
Story missions are specific to class…. Please select a mission you’d like to complete… Hell mode is locked until sunrise tomorrow
Alfred clicked on [Talons of Darkness] and the mission prompt loaded. It had a pretty good reward even when compared to his last hell mission.
[Talons of Darkness]
[a few ravens have started to appear in various parts of Larimar Kingdom under the control of Hermia’s Beast Experts. They’ve been been killing small pets for nourishment and have even poked out a few eyes.]
Objects: Kill 15 / 15 Ravens
Bonus Objective: Kill the Beast Expert (25 percent experience Boost)
Mission Rating: C-
Reward: Enlarged Storage Bag (uncommon)
Would you like to accept the mission?
“It’s actually in the city?” Alfred said, looking at the prompt. “The other kill missions were all not in Larimar Kingdom, right?” Alfred asked, not expecting the missions to affect the actual game. “Wouldn’t that mean that if I complete this mission, it would affect the relationship between the two kingdoms?”
“There are millions of people doing quests,” Rexam reminded Alfred as her voice intoned dryly. “Only missions that are A level and above can truly affect the two kingdoms…. So far, the most difficult mission completed was a B- Mission.”
Alfred nodded his head and accepted the mission. A bright light seemed to pull him up into the sky before he appeared on a farm. He’d forgotten that Larimer Kingdom included territories that weren’t part of the city. He landed in a field with a lush surplus of crops standing three feet above him. A few farmers were tilling the land with oxen plows moving on their behalf.
A small girl noticed Alfred appear and rushed up to him. She showed him, for some reason, the dirt on her hands before she smiled and latched onto his hand. She seemed so excited and he didn’t know how to react. Her father saw the two of them together and rushed out of the barn. He just finished butchering a few chickens to send to the city. His white clothes had been sullied with blood and his hair was combed back into a bun.
Alfred waved to him as the little girl smiled and pulled him up to her dad. She seemed to be an effervescent little bundle of joy that caused Alfred’s grim downcast eyes to show a tinge of happiness.
“You found my little girl!” The little man said with a smile, opening up his hands as she rushed into his arms. “I told her not to talk to strangers since she was two, but since she can’t talk… well.. It’s hard to blame someone that’s so cute…”
“I don’t blame you… I had a half-sister once… Before my dad got divorced for the third time,” Alfred said with a mix of emotion, his hands gripping onto his daggers as he heard the sound of crows squawking in the background.
The little girl shook in response to the sound of crows, and her dad picked her up before cradling her in his thick arms. Her little blue eyes turned to Alfred as she began to shiver. She pointed up into the air as Alfred turned around. A large crow was in the sky flapping its wings and observing down below. It wasn’t alone.
Five crows appeared behind it with red glowing eyes. Alfred gave the girl a calming smile before he spun a dagger around the tip of his finger and tossed it rampantly into the sky. The crow immediately got hit in the stomach causing it to lose all of its health. It fell down from the sky as the other crows separated with angst in their caws.
“I’ll take care of the Ravens for you today little girl… Go inside with your dad, and I’ll come find you after.”
She nodded her head and wiped the tears from her eyes. Alfred made sure she went inside before turning and rushing to reclaim his knife. He found the Raven’s nearly one-meter body in a pile of crushed cornstalk. Yanking it out he jumped back in fright as a strange feeling traveled down his spine.
What looked like a much smaller raven burst past him as he stumbled forward and fell towards the ground. After a quick summersault he saw a farmer’s shadow getting attacked just a few feet away. Three ravens grasped at the man’s head before Alfred rushed forward and slashed two in the back. The last one made sure to impale the man in the chest.
“You… you actually dared kill my ravens… Because of you, I had no choice but to kill that disgruntled farmer… However, I think my mission can wait now that I can kill you instead,” a man said appearing out of the stalks, grilling Alfred with an intense stare.
“Good luck trying to kill me with just those ravens… If you think I’m scared of a couple of birds, think again…” Alfred warily approached the Beast Master, killing intent radiating from his eyes. He felt enraged that the man actually claimed it was his fault the man died. He wasn’t’ the one who set the ravens out!
He had twelve more ravens to kill and could hopefully kill the Beast Master as well. He tossed one of his knives into a black bird swooping down and burst forward and sent out a series of slashes. The Beast Master jumped back once to dodge and made it nearly twenty feet into the sky.
He perched onto one of his ravens as he began to laugh. However, soon he started to fall as blood burst out of his faithful companion.
You hit a black raven for 300 damage (Vitalx8)
Target has died.
Alfred rushed forward and picked up one of his knives from the fallen corpse of a raven. The man screamed as he fell onto the ground as a series of birds appeared out of his sleeves and spread out on all directions.
Three went towards Alfred and the other eight went towards the Barn. He immediately used his
max agility to appear in front of the beast master… his opponent’s eyes glistened with amber as small little beetles shot out of his sleeves.
One of the beetles hit Alfred in the arm causing minor damage as the man’s iris’s dilated with fear. He kicked up some dirt in the air and panicked before Alfred flipped over his shoulders and placed his knife against his neck.
With a quick slash, the Beast Master died and fell onto the floor in a pool of his own blood. The Ravens, without their master, went insane and all crashed onto the floor. Alfred didn’t understand what kind of affect beast masters had on their flock, but he quickly took out the ten ravens, and checked the Beast Master's coat. He had a small level nine dagger hidden in his shoe, and a set of body parts in a little box.
Alfred tried not to vomit when he looked at all the fingers, toes, and eyes gathered inside the little coffer. He put the two items away in his bag filling up 2 / 30 slots. It acted like a bag in almost every game, and sucked up the two items while removing the weight. The little girl rushed out of the farm as Alfred dragged over the corpse of the beast master and the dead farm hand. With a sullen look on his eyes he immediately apologized to the Father.
“It’s not your fault… He’s killed 10 NPCs in the last month in these parts… I’ll take poor Joe over here to get respawned in the graveyard... However, that beast master’s body should be torched… I mean… sorry… it’ll least keep him from respawning for a few weeks…”
“Good to know,” Alfred said, dropping the two corpses and cleaning off his hands. “I guess I should ask if you need anything else now that I completed the mission… I would’ve been transported back normally when the mission got completed…”
Heaven's Gate: Volume 1 (A LitRPG Adventure) Page 5
