Arthur desperately ran through the forest without pause and unexpectedly came upon the stone altar he and Alex had found earlier that day.
The deer is missing?
The deer once on the rock as a sacrifice was missing, and only a puddle of blood remained in its place. Three of the totems around the stone were toppled as well.
Whatever the goblins kept at bay was now unleashed onto this world.
Arthur ran for a while and his stamina was starting to run out. He took a short break and reached out his arm to lean against the nearest tree. As his hand made contact with the tree, it made a squelch.
Arthur turned to look at the tree with horrified eyes, his hand was touching what seemed like a tree made of flesh–It was humans morphed into the form of a tree.
Arthur backed away from the fleshy amalgamation and screamed.
How did he not notice it at first? Arthur cocked his head back and realised that surrounding him was a forest of the same grotesque trees, it was not long before a nauseating putrid stench hit his nose.
It smelled of rot and death.
Arthur panicked and started to run deeper into the forest.
Countless exhausting minutes passed. Arthur stopped to catch his breath and his eyes wandered around to look at his surroundings before he made a grim face.
He was back in the same place as before.
The shadows of the trees started to move and the silence of the forest changed to the disturbing wailing of women and children coming from all around him.
Arthur was being hunted.
***
Alex woke up in the dead of night, he rubbed his eyes and looked around for Arthur who wasn’t present in the room.
“He’s still not here…”
He groaned and got out of bed with messy hair and noticed that Arthur’s bed looked the same as it did when he saw Arthur leave the room.
“Did he not come back?”
He checked the entry logs of the room and the most recent record was Arthur leaving 3 hours ago.
“This kid is unbelievable, in the dead of night?” he sighed and headed out of the room before stopping as he remembered to check something.
He opened up his menu and glanced under the spot of his name, “Good, my HP regenerated.”
[Alex]
Level 4 [3/200]
[Health: 5/5]
[Stats]
Strength:2
Dexterity:4
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Constitution:1
Intelligence:1
Wisdom:1
Charisma:3
Heading downstairs, Alex saw three rowdy men drinking ale and sat down, thinking of what to say.
“Hey, have you three seen the boy with the title?”
He could have said Arthur but they might not have understood what he meant in their current drunken state.
“Ya! Ya! He was here just a moment ago!” The man on the right said.
“Where did he go?”
“We saw ‘im talking to the wall!” One laughed.
“What?” Alex was utterly confused.
They pointed to a spot on the street next to one of the residential houses NPCs lived in.
“He held the air for a lil bit and then had this hugeeeeee shock on his face ‘n ran out the gate like a horse I tell ya!” The one in the middle joked.
Fuck, it must be about something related to his little brother.
He knew Arthur was reckless when it came to his little brother as he’d seen on the night when the minotaur invaded, no sane person would risk their life like that.
Alex sighed and rubbed his furrowed brows before looking at the drunk men with a serious expression, “Gather your friends and wake up whoever is ready to go out on a suicide mission.”
The three men’s eyes widened and they quickly sobered up from his words.
“What’s happening?”
“The kid with the title is getting into deep shit and my gut feeling is telling me that I alone won’t be enough to protect him”
The three looked at each other and considered what to do before looking back at Alex.
The first man’s tired eyes turned bright and he laughed, “Why not? So we’re going to go and save that little hero? Sounds fun!”
The three of them stood up from their seats and scattered, soon the entire town’s players were awake and they all gathered near the gate.
Among the noisy crowd, many spoke amongst themselves as they speculated what was going on.
Alex stood in front of the army of players and spoke in a loud and sincere tone, “I apologise for waking you all at such a time. The truth is, my friend got himself in deep trouble and we need to go and save him. Of course, it's unfair of me to ask this of you and this will probably be even more dangerous than the minotaur he fought so you all must steel yourselves!”
A lot of people in the crowd were displeased, they were woken up just to save some nobody.
But they realised afterwards who it was as they heard the mention of a minotaur. There was only one person in the game that has fought and killed a minotaur this early in the game, he was also the highest level player in the game yet and had a title on top of that.
“What’s in it for us!” A woman shouted from the crowd.
Alex swiped his fingers on his quest menu and above the crowd appeared the quest that was shared in his party. At this time Arthur probably didn’t know that Alex got the quest as well.
[Witch of the bogs]
Rescue the children the witch has taken and slay her.
[The Bog Witch slayed 0/1]
[Reward:1500 Exp, rare item]
[Accept/Deny]
Everyone in the crowd was surprised, the amount of Exp rewarded by this quest was insane for how early it was in the game and it would surely level them up 10 or maybe 12 times.
But what caught their eyes the most was the rare item, so far no one has found anything above common grade except for Arthur.
Some with rational minds realised that the reward would be just as great as the risk, so they hesitated.
“It’s going to be dangerous, that I will admit. But, if we succeed in this then we’ll be far above the rest of the players and don’t forget what comes from being the first to complete this quest either.”
Those words resounded in the minds of the crowd and they immediately realised what he spoke of. ‘Frontrunner’, He was hinting at the title they would get by clearing a raid for the first time.
There was an awkward silence in the crowd as they looked at each other before one voice shouted with excitement, “Raid! It's a raid!”
The crowd’s awkward mood vanished in an instant and they all got excited and shouted the same words. Now everyone gathered had the same goal, to be the first to clear the raid.
Alex shouted so that everyone in the village could hear, “Take up arms! Let’s go and kill that witch!”
With that, a small army of players marched through the gates, the ground shook as their boots hit the ground, and the clanking of metal as the people brandished their weapons.
The first raid has now begun!