"This is not good. This is not good." Kaden grit his teeth, his mind spinning to think of something. He then suddenly remembered something. There was a bandit camp somewhere here. If he could just run fast enough, then he might be able to find it and lead the two relentless assholes straight into the trap. However, the next second, as if they had read his mind, the two guards took action. The city guards were not paupers like Kaden, so seeing that he was planning to flee, they immediately took action and gulped down a bottle of potion.
Kaden saw this, and his heart dropped. "Shit! Shit! Shit!" He ran as fast as he could, no longer having the luxury of looking back. But the situation was not getting any better. Without looking, he could still hear their movements speeding up. They were quickly catching up to him. The guards were already seven levels above him, and on top of that, they were geared up decently.
Kaden was only managing to outrun them thanks to his fine-grade items, but now with the effect of the potion, that also seemed to be a pipe dream. Without hesitation, he quickly dismissed the abyss imp and then added his 20 free stat points into agility. He simply had no other choice. If caught, he could get imprisoned, and then his entire gameplay and his grand plans would be completely screwed. It would be a shame for everything to end right here and now when he did not even know why he was being chased like this in the first place! How did he become an enemy of the city so fast?! Damn it! It was still the first day of the game launch!
Kaden heaved and panted as the effect of the stat points quickly came into effect. With all his other gear supporting him, he was now able to outrun the two guards marginally. He also took out the cookies from the tutorial gift box and started munching on them while still running. He had adjusted his speed, but there was a matter of stamina! At this point, Kaden did not even know if he was actually just running around the forest in circles. He had no idea what was happening, and he was close to losing his mind in frustration.
The next second, a system notification popped out.
"Motherfucker!" Kaden cursed his damned luck. He was running so much that he ended up learning his first skill! Kaden immediately activated the skill, and this instantly gave him a solid lead, but not without consuming whatever was left of his stamina. Thankfully, his luck seemed to be taking a turn for the better as he finally spotted a bandit!
Kaden heaved a sigh of relief and started waving at the black-robed guy madly as if he had seen his long-lost best friend. The bandit turned to face Kaden, surprise evident on his face. That too, Kaden was very eye-catching, wearing a lot of coveted gear on his person. Naturally, the bandit aggroed onto him and charged forward with daggers in both his hands. A fat sheep had appeared! This was his lucky day!
But as the bandit closed in, the two guards came into his view. And just like that, the aggro shifted. The bandit made some movements with his hand, and soon two more bandits appeared out of the shadows, surrounding the guards. "Finally!" Kaden did not dare hang back as this was just the beginning. Aggroing a guard was the same as aggroing a bandit. Both were extremely troublesome and difficult to get rid of!
He took a complete 180 turn and ran ahead, putting both groups in his rearview mirror. After continuing to run for five more minutes, he finally stopped. He plopped onto the ground coughing his lungs out and holding his stomach. His stamina had also bottomed out. The game was way too realistic for its own good. He emptied the water canteen, stuffed more biscuits and bread into his mouth, and after a couple of minutes, he was finally able to settle down somewhat.
As he caught his breath and refilled his stamina, Kaden once again assessed his surroundings to make sure that he was indeed alone. He was now in a dense part of the forest, far away from the bandit camp and the pursuing guards. The tension in his body slowly eased as he realized he had successfully escaped their immediate grasp. With a mixture of relief and frustration, Kaden reflected on the events that had transpired. He then opened his status screen and checked his info.
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And confirming his suspicions, there was indeed no damned red status! Kaden already had a feeling that this was the case. He was not an expert on the game, but surely he knew how to check the time, and he entered the city well after the penalty hour. "Hmmm…" He clutched his head. What could have gone wrong? He stared at his status screen as his gaze casually landed on his newly acquired title, "Mark of the Abyss."
Kaden did not pay much attention to the title as there wasn't any special benefit or even description of the title, but now he knew that this new development was because of this damned title. It was either this or the quest itself or perhaps the new skill. The lack of information only fueled Kaden's frustration. The skill was good, but it was not good enough to warrant all of this trouble. If he couldn't enter the cities and was chased by just the gate guards, this meant that he couldn't enter any of the kingdom establishments. Then how was he supposed to do his quests, and how was he supposed to become stronger?
"No. No. No." Kaden shook his head. He needed to asap unlearn this skill or erase the title or give up on the quest. He needed to do whatever it took to get back to his normal status and return back to the path he had planned for. He had no doubt. This was the right decision. While the new mysterious quest and skill might be intriguing, it was too risky. Kaden was not an idiot. Obviously, this was the starting point for some unique hidden class. But hidden classes were not all the same. Some were good, some were very good, and some were exceptional.
Kaden already had his eyes on a particular hidden class that belonged to one of the top ten players in his last life. For that, he needed to do several quests in the city and spend a considerable amount of time there. He even knew exactly what he had to do because the person who obtained the class had conducted a special stream recording the whole endeavor. There was no need for him to unnecessarily risk everything by gambling everything on this unknown path.
As Kaden mulled over how exactly to erase all of this nonsense, all of a sudden, something fell on his head. "What the heck?" Rubbing his head, he turned to look when he noticed a simian staring right back at him.
"Oh shit!" He immediately summoned his abyss imp and got up on his feet. It looked like, without realizing it, he had entered into the stone monkey territory. There were several beasts in the forests surrounding Willowbrook city, but if one were to ask what was the most troublesome beast to deal with, it was this stone monkey. Why? Because the damned beasts always traveled in huge packs!
While the wolf packs were mostly smaller in size, every single stone monkey pack was enormous. They also fought unfairly, fully focusing on the offense because they had thick rocky skin, which gave them an amazing physical barrier. As soon as Kaden saw the first monkey, he knew that he was in deep shit. After that, it only took him another glance to see that he was fully surrounded. There were at least a dozen or more stone monkeys peeking out from the tall trees surrounding him. They glared at him with their big round eyes, and every single one fixated on him.
But he knew that this was deceptive. There had to be at least another dozen waiting to come out and surprise him when he was knee-deep in the fight. The only consolation was that he had somewhat recovered from the last disaster. The moment he summoned the imp, without giving him any time to get it together, the first stone monkey directly jumped onto Kaden, thereby closing any door to him escaping from this entrapment.
Shing! He swung the dagger around, trying to stab the damn beast in the weak spot between two rocky patches on its skin. The rocky patches were like dandruff with softer skin underneath, so this was his best bet to decent damage. The first swing missed its mark, but the subsequent swings got the monkey good. Blood seeped out of its wound, which made the monkey screech loudly. Following its example, the other stone monkeys started screeching loudly, and the entire place filled with a cacophony of noises in an instant.
The horrendous noise completely drowned Kaden and made him want to bang his head against the nearby tree and commit suicide and respawn somewhere else peacefully. However, even that proved to be difficult as the monkeys all jumped on him at the same time, one after the other. Just like expected, there wasn't only a dozen. There were so much more.
Kaden only caught a glimpse before he was completely surrounded. There had to be at least 30 to 35 monkeys present in total! 'Yup. I am definitely dead.' He sighed as he swung his dagger wildly, trying to aim for the soft patches. There were so many monkeys that he had no idea which among them he was aiming for, but before they could all pummel him to death, he wanted to take out one or two at least to make up for the lost experience points when dying. Even if he were going down, he would go down swinging!
"Arrrghhhh! Come at me, you little bitches!" Kaden laughed maniacally and stabbed and punched, and kicked wildly without any restraint, fully prepared to accept the outcome. But to his surprise, the 'you are dead' notification never arrived. Instead, another series of notifications arrived.
Ding!
Ding!
Ding!
Ding!
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