Even if you think its cruel that is how the story goes, im cruel like that
Hope you enjoy!
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Flames devoured the whole room after Zero burst through the door.
A crashing sound behind him that made his ears ring was explanation enough as to what was going to happen to the rest of the house.
He had to get out of here and that fast.
The smoke clouded his vision and he didn’t see the stairs until he went headfirst down them.
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Lifepoints lowered by 10
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Hurting all over Zero got up at the bottom of the stairs, the flames hadn’t reached downstairs yet but the smoke did. Holding a hand before his mouth he stumbled into the living room.
Only horror awaited him.
Tara and Margery were lying on the floor hugging and trying to protect another but it was futile, stabbing wounds covered their entire body’s and their empty eyes and open mouths where enough confirmation.
In the middle of the room Khanas was fighting in a fury of rage against 5 green skinned humanoid creatures, their height not much taller than children’s.
He knew it was Kobolds, they all were swinging small daggers at Khanas and jumping right and left, the bearded man himself had been stabbed countless of times and streams of blood left his body by the minute.
A sudden burning sensations filled Zero.
It started in his belly when he saw Tara and Margery on the floor in a grotesque last hug to protect one another, burning him from the inside anger swelled up.
It grew with every second until it filled every inch of his body as he saw Khanas fighting for his life and for revenge.
Without even realising he pulled the practise sword out of his inventory and gripped it so tight a message popped up telling him the durability of his weapon got reduced.
He didn’t care.
The fire spread behind him down the stairs licking at his ankles.
He didn’t care.
Seeing the NPC’s that treated him nicer than anyone else and offering him their home dead, killed, that he cared about.
His face was one of fury as he struck the first kobold his sword could reach.
The little green creature flew across the room disappearing as its body turned gray. Striking right and left Zero showed no mercy and hit so hard that his weapon lost durability with every strike until it broke apart in his hands.
3 more Kobolds vanished and the last one he ended with his own hands, after seeing his face the Kobold froze in horror but Zero didn’t care. He pummelled the vile creature to the floor until his fists where soaked in blood.
After the short skirmish was over he hurried to Khanas that had collapsed on the floor after Zero intervened.
Zero helped the man sit up against a wall while the flames slowly spread all around them.
“Goddamn Kobolds!”
Khanas spat those words out together with some blood and then looked at Zero.
“I don’t know how many more are outside but take this son, you will need it”
He handed him the sword he was holding and Zero recognized it as the one from above the fireplace.
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Old Soldier sword
This sword has seen countless battles until its previous owner perished but it was retrieved between the body’s. Soaked in the blood of many it has survived longer than most swords would.
Damage 7~10
+ 5 Strength
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“Take it and live Zero. The forest is a dangerous place and if you want to survive you will need everything I can offer together with this backpack we wanted to give you when you would leave us.”
Khanas handed him a Backpack containing a small bottle of water but otherwise empty.
“Now go, I have a family waiting for me on the other side but you still have a chance. May the gods watch your step.”
And with those last words the old man breathed out for the last time.
The eyes of the man he once knew became lifeless and Zero could only watch in despair.
His own eyes burned, probably from the smoke he kept telling himself.
Slowly he turned away and started running.
Outside he could hear Kobolds screaming and howling in madness. He left the burning house at the back and ran straight towards the forest.
Lucky enough for him the Kobolds weren’t smart and didnt surround the house to keep anyone from escaping but instead enjoyed the show from the front of the house.
Running was all he did for about an hour.
He mourned those good people while he ran for his life.
Yes they where NPC’s, not real but could he help himself knowing that they would be gone forever? No.
They felt as real as could be to Zero and to some degree that scared him. Just how realistic did the creators make this game to awake those strong feelings inside of him?
He also had a guess that this wasn’t a coincidence, the house and the family was indeed a starting area so could it all have been scripted?
If so that was beyond cruel and made his anger well up again.
He swore if he ever saw a Kobold again he would do all he could to kill those parasites of nature. Bloodlust filled his eyes and a wicked smile appeared on his face.
After his stamina was spent he had to take a break and leaning against a massive tree he cursed his luck. Why did he have to start in a gigantic forest cut off from every civilisation? If at least he had a map...
As if struck by lightning an idea surfaced in his head and right away he said
“Show World map”
To his own surprise a box appeared showing him a small part of Everworld. A lot was not even discovered yet.
He looked at the small dot representing him, apparently he was in the Country Tenraim far to the East very close to the border of said Country.
The closest Village he could see was Northwest from his current location, about a two day trip Ingame. He would never make it if he stayed like this, he was too weak to survive in this forest and it was still night right now.
That nothing had attacked him until now was close to a miracle.
Zero had to train but it also had to be somewhere moderately safe. Looking at the map he tried to find a location like that somewhere close to him, a valley or an open field of some sorts where he could see what attacked him a lot sooner than in this forest.
A Mountain to the south of his location peeked his interest.
If he could establish a base on the mountain that would be great, wide field of view for whatever came to attack him and only little possibilities of something attacking him from a blind spot.
Having a new goal for his survival he started running again. It took him only 20 minutes to arrive at the mountain that seemed like a wall shooting straight up into the sky, he doubted his own climbing skills so he went around it slowly.
At some point the wall beside him shrunk and turned into a slope that he could walk up without a problem.
It was starting to turn day and seeing some wolfs a little further up ahead he decided not to venture too far, unwanted attention was not something he needed right now.
Searching for some kind of hole or ditch he went around the slope again and luckily found a cave big enough for Zero to crawl into on all fours. He made sure nothing else except him was in the cave and then covered the entrance with tree branches and bushes so from the outside it looked like any other place on the slope.
Satisfied with his little hideout Zero logged out.
For a while he was lying on his bed, deep in thoughts and remembering again Khanas and his family. It hurt even in real life knowing they were no more.
He really had liked them from the bottom of his heart.
It was a first that he actually cared about someone else except himself.
With a sigh he decided it was pointless to think this through even more and went to sleep, nightmares of fire and bloody fists plagued him all night long.
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“Manison go back to work right now your break was over 10 minutes ago!”
Zero’s boss yelled.
It was similar to a hurricane blowing in your face when Ronald his boss screamed at him. He swore he could feel his cheeks being pushed to the side from the airpressure.
He only nodded and went back to his job of filing and organising in the factory. In reality he had only just sat down to take a break when his boss decided that his break was over.
Zerp could hear his co-workers laughing when he walked past them to get back to work while everyone else was on break.
Treatment like that he was used to, singled out, left alone or being yelled at for no reason, it was all too familiar to him. The world was a cruel place indeed.
Maybe it is about time to give a bit more insight about Zero’s work place. The factory he was working in produced a certain amount of parts for mobile phones and computers. Not entire phones or computers, no they provided essential parts while other factories provided the rest.
He worked in the middle of a giant chain of production one could say.
The actual job he did was managing/archiving and to catalogue all the supplies and deliveries that arrived. Moving, lifting and filing heavy crates was what Zero did nearly 10 hours a day. It wasn’t a bad job but the treatment and pay could have been a lot better.
After work he went to change out of his actual uniform just like the rest of his co-workers.
For some reason Zero stood in front of the mirror to inspect his features.
A lot of girls would have liked his build, taller than average, skinny but not to the degree that he looked like a rake. He had dark brown hair nearly black that was shoulder long and eyebrows as if chiselled by a famous sculptor together with his hollow cheeks and elegant jawbone he looked quite handsome if this narrator might say so himself.
The problem were his eyes, void of any emotion towards other human beings, one could only see hatred and disgust when he looked at you.
Zero didn’t hate you in particular just that over the years he had become shallow of emotions, broken by people he once trusted, stabbed in the back by his friends and stepped on by people he needed. A deep rooted hatred for humans settled inside of him.
That was the reason he never had a girlfriend before and the few friends he once had only left a bitter taste in his mouth.
On the way outside a guy named Andrew bumped into him.
“Watch out where you are going Manison, wouldn’t want you to get hurt.”
The guy’s smile he showed Zero suggested the exact opposite, promising a beating if the opportunity showed itself.
He decided to ignore it and went home only stopping at a gas station to buy some groceries for dinner.
The desire to enter a different world was strong again today.
He explored the mountain range a bit, instead of only rocks and a few grasses here and there quite a bit of vegetation was accumulated all around. Trees and bushes as far as he could see.
The only enemies that seemed to live here where wolves and rabbits.
Shockingly enough the rabbits had a level of 5 and the wolves one of 20, a big gap even to the rabbits for Zero being a level 1.
Also after a failed attempt to slay one of them he also found out that rabbits liked to be in parties of 5 or more if you attacked them, he didn’t even want to call them rabbits anymore after they viciously gnawed his ankles during his struggle to escape.
Pondering over the issue for a moment he sat down.
If he tried to get near the rabbits to attack one all would come thirsty for blood, in a fight he wouldn’t stand a chance.
He was bound to the melee approach having no bow and not knowing any magic, it was a serious problem.
After thinking for a while what other games had with pulling aggro only archers, mages and shouts from tanks came to mind.
A sour expression was on Zero’s face not finding a solution to this problem.
He tried to think of what he would do in real life if he wanted to grab someone attention if one couldn’t shout or make noise it only left the option to wave or visually make them notice you, but what did you do if they had their back to you? Suddenly his eyes fixated on a stone.
If the senses of hearing and seeing were not an option, touch might be one, or in this case getting hit by a stone. It was the only idea that had a high possibility of success.
He looked for a stone not too big or small and positioned himself about 20 feet away from the horde of rabbits sitting and nibbling for grass.
His first throw missed completely and only irritated a few rabbits, their intelligence wasn’t high enough to realise what happened so only confusion and a slightly heightened awareness was left.
His second throw hit one of the rabbits on the side.
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6 Damage dealt!
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The rabbit's health had only lowered by a very small amount but now the creature looked around to see what happened and spotted Zero.
This time it charged at him alone.
Smiling he brandished his sword and waited for the animal to be in range, he would have to get used to real fighting. His first swing towards the head of the small creature was a miss and he was bit at the leg, he realised his mistake in a split second.
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Health was lowered by 13!
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Zero had underestimated this small rabbit but in the end it was level 5 and he was level 1.
Level and stats were like gravity in this place, if your level was lower you had a big chance of dying.
With all he could, twisting his body in the strangest ways he tried to avoid the little critter but he couldn’t do that forever and soon he was hit again, a fifth of his health was already gone.
Zero knew he had to fight back but he only ever trained with Khanas and had no experience in combat other than that.
The thought of the old man’s last words came to his mind again and with a sudden surge of anger he swung his sword down slashing the side of the rabbit that was about to bite him.
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9 Damage dealt!
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He would not die here!
Fighting as if possessed by a demon he used every trick he could, if he was bitten he would drag his foot and make the rabbit lose balance to stab it, when he dodged he purposely kicked the attacking rabbit in the face, stepped on it and did everything else he could think of to better his chances.
This was not a fight of honour, this was kill or be killed, simple as that.
With a shout of rage he evaded the jumping rabbit and cut the poor thing with one last slash in half.
Dazzling experience surrounded him and a small part of meat was all that was left of the rabbit.
He won but he was not happy with his win. Realising again after this fight how weak he was, memories of a burning house surfaced and with an outburst of rage Zero reduced the regional rabbit population that day, it was hard to say if they would recover but they where rabbits in the end, their spawn rate was pretty high.
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