Chapter 0 - New World

Nobody didn’t know about that game. The game which made fantasy, a reality. The game had a simple name; it was called World, just World. It was very simple to play as well. The game gives you an avatar fitting your personality and your gender. You simply lived a life in it and died, before starting over again.

Of course, the life was full of action for every second of your life. It was kill or be killed. There was no sense of humanity either. The game coded for the loss of attachment to a specific race, which meant that people were killing each other without any guilt. The only friends to be trusted were the ones in your guild.

However, as long as you could fight others and win, you would become more and more powerful. The strongest would be titled the overlord of the World. The current overlord is…

“Aii, you guys, I found somethin’ to do!” Kindred yelled at the top of his lungs. That was unnecessary for hearing, since it was just a sign of excitement. As the overlord, very few missions were worthy of attention. As such, when one was found, it was a cause for happiness.

The first person to respond was Pandora, though it was on a totally different topic. “Sora-kun! It’s an emergency!”

“Hmm? What is it, Hika-chan?” Kindred only allowed his girlfriend to use his real name.

“Seth saw my pantsu~! I can’t believe it! Punish him. Do something.”

Kindred remained stone-faced, refusing to say anything.

“Ahh, shut it! You flashed it right in front of me. What am I supposed to do? If anything, you’re the problem here.” A black-haired man stepped into view with his hands stretched out in irritation.

“Why don’t you shut it. Captain’s got something. Just chill for a sec. I’m trying to hear over here.” A bulky man with flamy-red hair jumped down from the third floor since the middle of the tower-like base was hollow. “Yeah, Captain, go on…”

“Just wait a second Diabolos, where’s your sister, Seth?”

“Coming! I’m here!” Hecate hopped over the sidebars on the fifth floor and landed next to Kindred before giving an exaggerated bow. “Hehe, and a ten out of ten on the landing.”

“Okay, you guys, today, I just received the overlord mission! Yup, the one where no overlord has ever accomplished. All of our guild’s previous overlord-squad members did it before. They’ve all gone missing, but we can assume they died and restarted a new life. We should definitely do it. The guild assigned it to us five!”

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

“It’s a 90% chance of death. We’ll be if we go.” Seth calmly stated.

“That’s what makes it fun, no? If it’s 100% of the time that we win, what’s the point?”

“Ufufu, lez do it!” Pandora cheered.

“Aighty-aight, here, just take all of these storage crystals. Anyway, the cave is just a few thousand miles away.” Kindred put it at that and left. The others followed.

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“Are they coming?”

“Yes, Creator.”

“Good, good. We shall wait then. What do you councilors think about test team #5? Fun. That’s what I’m thinking.”

A chorus of laughter rang out soon after.

“I sure hope you enjoy my little show.” A cloaked man grandiosely exclaimed before bowing in an exaggerated manner.

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“Okay! Absolute Vision on, everyone.” Kindred reminded everyone at the entrance of the cave. They all nodded before entering one by one.

There was one thing that Kindred had already noted. Such a skinny cave was horrible. Mobility was useless, which was a specialty of Mordekor. All members of Mordekor were required to max out mobility and another area of expertise to join the guild. This resulted in very few people being able to join it. However, it did bring results to the guild. They had killed armies of dragons without getting touched by a single lick of flame. Not even Diabolos, who one would assume otherwise as he was incredibly bulky.

Back to the situation at hand, if an enemy found them, they’d be screwed. For example, just a dragon, that they could easily destroy, could defeat them by breathing fire and completely fill the cave with it. There would be nowhere to go.

Kindred was incredibly uneasy for a different reason as well. Something felt wrong. Something with the calmness perhaps. Or the absolute silence except for the muffled footsteps of his friends. Vampires had a special sense. It sensed emotions, ranging from jealousy, hate to love, trustworthiness, to lust and violence. He did not sense any battle intent with his fifty mile radius sense. The cave itself was just a few hundred miles long.

Suddenly, he felt it. A miniscule amount of danger. Anyone else would’ve passed it off as an angry bug. It was that small. However, Kindred knew it was an incredibly tame being that was able suppress itself. He made a cricket-like sound. The fact that he felt battle intent meant that his opponent had already noticed them. Sound didn’t mean anything but communication at this point. They all nodded lightly and began to bring out their specialized weapon. Kindred moved his arm straight in the air, seemingly grabbing a staff out of nowhere. Of course, his arm was taking from his storage crystal which could be accessed from anywhere. Perhaps, it was just his sense of style and impulse to role-play.

Meanwhile, the others also brought out weapons. Seth, as an assassin, took out a simple-looking dagger. This was obviously not the case as it was an incredibly well-crafted blade full of enchantments, including an illusion. The others also grabbed various simple-looking weapons. Only Kindred took an incredibly fancy-looking item. Various crystals and protruding attachments decorated the staff, making it look pretty and deadly. The staff itself was a physical weapon, but all the crystals made it into a magic staff of some sort.

Quickly, they saw their target. It was a man. A shaolin monk look-alike. They attacked immediately without any hesitation. What if he was innocent? Oopsies. Safety first.

Hecate, as the support, flew to the back and worked from there. [Cast [Absolute Strengthen] ]

Feeling a boost in rank, Kindred jumped in the air with Pandora. [Cast [Obliterate Level 10] ] Seth immediately followed up with a combo spell. [Cast [Shadow Clone] ] The result: Four fireballs aimed straight at the still-sitting man. Right after the fireballs passed Diabolos, he set up the best possible defense. [Cast [Wall Level 10] ] Immediately, a dirt wall rose from the ground. Of course, though it was “dirt”, it was practically impenetrable.

The reasoning for the wall? It was for the fireball. Kindred’s fireball was the most potent fire-based spell in the game and could only be blocked by a defense of the same scale. They all moved back, prepared for another round.

They waited for an explosion. No...it should’ve happened immediately. The fireballs should’ve taken almost no time to explode. Yet, there was nothing.

“Che. Hahaha. Weak! Just weak.”