Selfish is an emotion deep inside the genetic makeup of human beings. That as well as greed. Even love, the ‘purest’ emotion, is a result of selfishness. It is a result of our desire to have another human being to confine in, another human being to reduce our loneliness. Thus, I can safely conclude that three things drive humans: selfishness, greed and loneliness. Whoever said that selfishness is wrong does not know humans. We are selfish.
[p=right]- Unknown[/p]
x-x x-x x-x x-x
“What the hell is this,” a voice cried out in the broad afternoon. “What is up with this message.” The voice was Ring’s. His anger was understandable, after all when he was planning his ‘great escape’, he did not imagine that there would be any punishment whatsoever for leaving his domain. But there it was, the message that was the source of his misery.
Due to leaving your domain forcefully, your level has been reduced to level 20. As a result, the experience rate for levelling up will be 5 times lower. All your skills have lost 2 levels, however, you can level them up at the same experience rate as before.
Well then, just want to say Happy Adventuring. Good luck. May He approve.
[p=right]~Versailles[/p]
“Whatever the f--- have I done? Is it so wrong to want to leave that dungeon which, by the way, smells of blood and dead bodies. I mean, like any normal person, I just want to see the outside world. Dammit, I’m so stressed.”
“ I shouldn’t have killed that guy. He would have been an adequate punching bag.”
Still venting about his unfortunate situation, Ring passed a river and then by chance he looked into it. What he saw there shocked him to the extent that he jumped back and screamed, chasing away a flock of birds from their nests and rightful homes. The thief!
“What the heck is this?!” No one would have had any right to criticise Ring for his outburst.This was because when he looked down at that river, he noticed that his hair had regrown. Once again,it had become waist length. One would even question his gender because he perfectly looked like a girl. A beautiful one too.
“I thought I cut this yesterday. This is unfair. Why was I even born with this body. Whoever my mother is, I’m cursing you right now. Not only do you leave me to fend by myself, which I don’t really mind, but you didn’t even check what kind of child you gave birth to.”
“Tch,” he said, rising and kicking at the grass, “I am going to cut it again. I should have some scissors in my inventory.” He searched through his inventory but try as he could, he could not find any scissors. He had to settle with a knife that had the worrying description of:
[p=center]Rusted Blunt Knife[/p]
This is a blunt and rusted knife. It possibly contains several diseases and viruses. Takes 10 HP per second from the person it stabs. Cause excruciating pain for impaled person. Not recommended for combat as it difficult to cut flesh.
Durability9/25
Dammit. i was so certain that i had some scissors. What’s with this creepy knife. Oh well, whatever you have, right
Looking satisfied after cutting his hair, Ring bent down to see himself in the stream. Now that he had cut that annoying piece of hair close to o his scalp he was content. Then, he looked up and noticed the sky darkening. It was only then that he realised that he had been under the sun for the whole time he had been outside. He had noticed anything different and that was saying something for a guy that had probably been in a cave for the entirety of his life. I really need to check my stats understand what is going on with myself
He was about to do that, however, that was when he noticed that the forest that had been quiet- almost unnaturally so- was not quiet any longer. The noise sounded artificial and so Ring decided to keep silent and listen to the direction from which the noise came from.
It seemed that the noise was caused by a group of people who did not have the sense to keep silent in a forest as dangerous as the one he was in. Ring did not know whether they were on a quest or not but frankly he did not care. All he could get was that this was a group of stupid people who did not understand how easy it was to die. Amateurs.
When they got close enough for him to see their names, Ring began to laugh. Silently at first but later it became a full blown one. Perhaps it was stupid considering that the marks over the heads of the five members of the group showed that they were a PK group, but Ring could not help it. In fact, the thought that those five were members of a Pk guild was what did him in. He could not understand why members of a Pk guild did not understand basic stealth. Thus, he laughed at their foolishness and all his worries of that day left him at that moment. Yes, it does not matter if I am a level 20 or a level 1. I’ll just lIve my life the way I want. Still, I want to know the level of my power and these “PKers” will be test subjects. Thinking this he grinned. Rather evilly.
x-x x-x x-x x-x
“I have no idea why we have to come to this forest. Rarely anyone ever comes here. Or do you actually expect us to go on a quest”, Chen, one of the members of the guild, ranted. However, the leader for this expedition, Milch as well as the other three members, ignored him. Nevertheless, Chen ignored the condescending silence and continued his rant. “We aren’t actually going on a hunting expedition. There’s a reason why we are PKers, the horror of other players. We don’t hunt or get in danger, rather, we take all our supplies from others. So why the hell are we here?”
One of the other players could not hold his tongue any longer and muttered under his breath “Horror of the other players, my ass.”
“I am sorry, Rickz. Did you say something?”
“I said, who is the horror of the other players? You?”
“Yes, me. Is there a problem?”
“You are a chicken, a weakling and a coward. To call yourself a horror is at most laughable and at least pathetic.”
“Ha. And are you any better. At the last raid, didn’t you find it difficult to kill that chick. Aren’t I right Alex?”
Alex was a Barbarian type player and obviously the muscle of the group. Anyone would realise this due to how huge in stature he was. He looked at Chen condescendingly before turning his head away in a classic gesture of ‘who are you to talk to me’. Chen did not push Alex any further and turned to Riv, the wizard of the party.
“Riv, I am correct, right?”
“Hmph, neither of you two has any right to talk about cowardice. Who do you think covered for you too when you were too weak to make the kill shot?”
“Hey you bastard,” Rikz shouted while Chen muttered darkly, “I’m going to kill you.” Both of them pulled out a short sword and dagger respectively while Alex stood at akimbo holding his staff in front of him as he was ready to take their hits and retaliate. As the three of them were about to begin a fight, Milch held up a finger, the universal sign for silence.
“There is someone in front of us,” he whispered. The other four members became silent and looked in the direction that Milch was pointing towards. Around 400 metres from them a male went about setting up camp. He was gathering sticks for the fire that was already blazing in the cold night. In his front was a stream and on its banks was a massive amount of hair. Did that amount of hair really come from a boy, they wondered. Apparently the answer was yes because they saw the evidence on the male’s head. His hair was hacked short to his scalp showing the ink colouring around his neck. Quite rightly, his hairstyle could be considered a disgrace to fashion. Not a trap again, they thought remembering another encounter. Damn those guys who looked like girls. Was it that difficult to look like your gender.
“Let’s attack,” Chen said moving towards him as he spoke. Suddenly, Milch came in front of him and stopped him. “What..,”Chen started to say but stopped when he noticed a thread stretching from one tree to another in front of him. Looking closely, he noticed many of these threads in various places. They were obviously there to set traps of some kind.
“Smart,” he said, then stepped over the thread while making sure not to touch another one, “but naive.” Of course, he ignored the fact that he would have been caught in a trap if his leader hadn’t interfered.
Getting over this upset they moved in a well practised attack pattern with Alex in the front as their heavy hitter, Milch providing support and Rickz trying to get into his blind spot to attack. Chen and Riv were the long distance as Chen, being the archer would shoot from afar, and Riv would launch attacks and help them recover their HP.
However, it was all for naught. Although they had planned to do a synchronised attack: Milch, Alex and Rickz would hit him at the same time as Chen and Riv sent arrows and fire bolts, by the time they were ready, he wasn’t there anymore.
“Dammit, he got us. Be alert,” Milch yelled but almost as soon as he said that he heard someone scream. Chen was dead.
x-x x-x x-x x-x
Ah, finally. That guy is dead. His voice was itching my ears. He didn’t even die with dignity. I mean I just lopped his head off with a piece of my hair. As he thought this, Ring snickered. Usually when he was fighting someone he was calm almost like it was an execution but this was his first first since he left his dungeon and he was at a lower level. Apart from that, he did not have his cave as an advantage anymore. Thus he felt giddy with excitement. However, Ring had underestimated the PK group and immediately a fire bolt hit him.
Shit…
[p=center]You have lost 25 HP[/p]
.
Gotta be careful. Noting that his location had been discovered, Ring leapt like to the top of a tree like it was natural for him.
Milch looked back at Chen’s corpse and nodded at Riv. There was no need to mourn Chen’s death and by extension, loss of stats. He knew the risks. Besides, it was not as if he was dead. The nod was a signal to Riv to cast the wide area magic, Location. It was a grade B magic that allowed the caster to find the identity of anyone in a particular area irrespective of level or disguise. Only players over level 163 with grade B disguise magic could escape this magic. However, the downside to this magic was that it took a lot of MP, to the extent that the magician essentially became useless for the rest of a fight. Why Milch asked his wizard to cast this magic despite the knowledge of his disadvantage showed the extent of his confidence in his firepower.
“Got him,” Riv whispered, “He is up that tree.” Ring had stayed there because despite the assumptions to the contrary, he was not well acquainted with the location. After all, the guy had never been out of the cave before in his life.
“Ok,” Milch accepted, “Since we don’t have the ninja skills to climb up a tree and not make noise as well, i suggest that we lure him out.”
“How,” Alex asked. He just wanted to finish with this attack and leave, after all in real life, Alex was a weakling.
“Now, don’t be a stereotype,” Milch replied condescendingly, “We can burn him out.” Hearing this, Riv spoke up. “Don’t even think about it. That location spell took everything out of me. The only thing I can do now is produce a low level fire ball.”
“Then do that.”
“You don’t understand. That won’t hurt nobody.”
“I don’t really care about that. I just want him to come down.”
“If I do that, I won’t have any MP left. You know i can;t stay alive without MP for more than 10 minutes.”
“Don’t worry,” Milch said and grinned confidently, “We’ll finish it before then. We just have to attack as normal.”
“Tch. Fine,” Riv said and threw a fireball. It would barely do anything but Ring’s fine tuned instincts recognised it as a threat and he immediately and involuntary jumped down from the tree. However, it was a trap.
As soon as he came down, he got a system message.
[p=center]You have lost 50 HP[/p]
.
Momentarily shocked, Ring looked on his body to find where the attack had hit him. However, he got another message.
[p=center]You have lost 25 HP[/p]
He was still surprised when Alex’s sword came towards him however, he automatically dodged the attack albeit barely.
[p=center]You have lost 15 MP[/p]
Now that their surprise attack had worked to an extent, the PKers, sans Rickz as he was an assassin, came out. Now was the time for intimidation.
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“Ah, today is your unlucky day. It’s a pity that you met us just after signing up for Royal Road but in the long run this will benefit you. Now, the best thing for you to do would be to just stand there as we kill you. If you do so, I promise that death won’t be painful. Isn’t that better than fighting, be beaten up and hurt and then die.” After this speech, Milch smiled. It was supposed to be intimidating but on Ring. it just felt annoying. Also, it helped in getting rid of the excitement and anxiety out of his system. He reasoned that he could get excited after the fight. When he kept one person alive to learn,cough cough- torture.
Alex ran, well jumped, in his direction with his sword raised above his head. He brought it down but Ring was no where in sight. Due to some instinct of his, he looked up and saw Ring falling above with a knife towards his head.
Alex evaded Ring without much trouble and Ring fell to the ground without fulfilling anything. But that was not all that Ring had planned. Without knowing, Alex had triggered one of the strings that they had seen earlier. This led to several logs of wood falling on him.
[p=center]You have lost 115 HP[/p]
However, Alex was a barbarian with a large amount of vitality. That was not enough to take him out for the count. Still, it was enough to leave him motionless for a while, enough for Ring to dash towards him and end him. However, as Ring ran towards him, a dagger was thrown in his direction. Ring had not yet found Rickz position and thus, he was still a dangerous element to contend with. As the dagger neared his face, Ring’s hand came up and caught the dagger.
“Gotcha,” he said and ran towards the direction that the dagger came from. Ring had been in enough fights to know how dangerous assassins were after all 40% of his previous deaths had been because of assassins. So, he had theorised that since Alex seemed to be their strongest fighter they would do all they could to prevent his death. The assassin would inadvertently reveal his position.
As he ran towards Rickz, Ring invoked the skill, Theolomen. It was a skill he regularly used in his dungeon to muddle the senses of the people he was attacking. As a level 220 boss, the skill barely used any discernible MP. As a level 20, on the other hand, the skill used enough MP to drain a normal person. While it didn’t use up to a third of his current MP, the effect of Theolomen was greatly reduced. However, that short amount of time was enough for Ring to reach Rickz and stick his dagger in his heart. And then he stomped on the dagger. Then he used the blade that had always been in his shoes to slash his throat. After this, Ring smiled devilishly at Rickz.
[p=center]You have lost 103 HP[/p]
[p=center]You have lost 123 HP[/p]
Rickz received many windows of a similar fashion i.e detailing the extent of the damage, in quick succession before receiving the final inevitable message.
[p=center]You have died[/p]
You will be able to log in after four days and will revive in the last town you were in. Due to your status as a player killer, you will lose more items, valuable or otherwise, than is normal
Ah, shit. Dammit
“Bye bye,” he said innocently like an oblivious child to Rickz as he died and his body disappeared. Since Rickz was a PKer, a large amount of drops accompanied his death. Ring bent down and picked them up, conveniently avoiding the sword that Milch had thrown in his direction.
5 minutes had passed, by now, Riv was already doubting Milch. He had already begun to wonder about what he would drop if he died. Surely not his precious potions. He was already bitter about losing his most valuable one a couple fights before. He had gone through hell to get a potion that could replenish HP to be half way full and he had lost it just like that. He hoped Milch ended the match soon, he had a similar potion, although with a much lower potency,.
“Ah,” Ring said slapping his hand against his forehead, “there was another one.” Milch advanced cautiously towards Ring. He had already decided that this was a crazy player. Perhaps, he thought that if he kept silent, he would not be distracted. Ring noticed this but rather than feeling worried, he smirked.
...the time is ripe...
“You’ve got to forgive me. I have this embarrassing habit of ignoring and forgetting weak people. Hope you don’t mind.”
In indignation Milch looked up and frowned. He was not weak. He might have not being as strong as Alex but he was the second strongest in the party. Besides, physical was overrated. After all, he was the leader and not Alex. His tactical sense was enough to defeat all the players they had met before and it would be enough to defeat this one. If it was not obvious yet, Milch had a very severe inferiority complex towards Alex. Seeing Alex felled by the monster in front of him made him extremely nervous. Yet, at the same time, he was excited this was his chance to show that he was better than Alex. That, he could do something Alex couldn’t.
...the quickening is near…
In his musing, he failed to notice that something was wrong. The forest was quiet, too quiet, almost as if in anticipation like a little who hold his breath before opening a christmas present. Also, his opponent was still. Milch just saw it as an opportunity. He thought that all the hits the newbie had been taking had finally had an impact. Still, Milch wasn’t a mediocre player. He only became a PK because he had been bored of the formulaic way that RR was played. Go on a quest, level up , go on another quest. Over and over and over. He had thought to himself that since he was in a game and no one could truly die, he should have as much fun as possible.
His reasons and brain made him different
So he decided to advance cautiously, slowly towards Ring. Perhaps that was his undoing. 7 mins had passed since the beginning of the fight, Riv had already resigned himself to death.
Milch came within an arm’s length of Ring and thrust his sword at Ring. He was surprised though when he heard the clang of another sword against his own. He thought that Ring only had one sword. Apparently, he had filched a sword off Rickz. Well taken technically.
Milch jumped back. “Hmph, why didn’t you let this ‘weak’ person stab you huh.”
...let your blood boil...
Ring paid him no mind and ran towards him. ~Clang~ Sword met sword again and Milch was pushed back. “A thousand deaths,” Milch muttered and activated a skill that allowed him to literally run circles around his opponent at high speed. He had held this skill back to use on Alex but he decided that he should at least use it for a trial run. He grinned.
“I’ve got you now.”
However, try as he could, he was not able to touch Ring. Although Ring barely moved, anytime he tried to strike him, Ring was able to block his sword and so this went on for a while. Three minutes exactly and Riv died. Only two left now
...awaken...
Suddenly, Ring stretched out his hand, caught Milch and threw him to hit a tree. That was painful
[p=center]You have lost 92 HP[/p]
Dammit, a third of my HP at once. Who the hell is this guy? I thought he was just a newbie. But now… He resolved to be more cautious and decided to attack again. However, he was stopped in his tracks when he looked at Ring’s face.
[p=center]You have lost 89 HP[/p]
[p=center]You have lost 92 HP[/p]
You are under the effects of The Thrall of the Semekians
Effects: Drains 48 HP per second. Makes you incapable of movement.
More Information: Error. This spell seems to be classified under the spell group Ancient Magic Spells. More information is not available.
Ring who had bent his face towards the ground for a while had now raised his head to face him. His eyes had become totally red and they were glowing. It was as if someone had poured blood or some other red liquid in his eyes and it had spilled out. Then, Ring smirked cruelly and Milch thought shit. For a moment, Milch was terrified before he shook himself out of it. Still, his body refused to go towards Ring. Dammit. Which kind of player is this guy? This has never happened before and I’ve raided a lot of players, high, low and mid players. Ah well, this isn’t real life anyway. Despite thinking this and assuring himself of his situation, he could not convince his body to move. At all.
“Thinking of running away. I think not.”
“You. Who are you? What kind of player are you?”
“Player?! Are you saying that this is a game,” Ring replied amusedly yet menacingly. “Well if you think so. But unfortunately for you, you are too boring to play with. There is still one more person alive, isn’t that so.”
“I don’t really understand your over-reaction. I know many people become immersed in their role in this game but you know that this is a game, right. Just virtual reality. So calm down. You really look as if you think that you will really kill me.”
Game. What’s that? “I don’t understand what you are saying but thank you for standing still for me. Looks like you have accepted the inevitability of escape. What was that you said- ‘the best thing for you to do would be to just stand there as we kill you. If you do so, I promise that death won’t be painful’. I could say this same to you.” Ring walked towards Milch with the intent of killing him.
“Just you wait,” Milch shouted trying to me but to no avail, “I won’t really die you know.I’ll just respawn you know. My guild will hunt you down. You piece of sh…” But there was nothing he could do as he died.
[p=center]You have lost 159 HP.[/p]
[p=center]You have died[/p]
“Goodbye to you too,” Ring said even managing to look sad and Milch died cursing Ring in his heart. It was his first death in a very long time.
Looking at the spot Milch vanished from, Ring began to stumble back. All of a sudden the hazy feeling of power started to fade. His blood began to boil and he heard the pounding of his heart in his ears.
What…
He started to shiver and his sight began to blur. Then, he threw his head back and a bright light struck the heavens from where he stood. Lightning flashed across the sky and it began to rain.
x-x x-x x-x x-x
She had been woken by an uneasy feeling, like one of ant crawling on your skin. Confused and anxious, she looked around her. And that was when she felt it. It was a familiar energy, one that reminded her of bad memories. Really horrible memories.
“Guess the time for sleep had passed. There’s one more left, huh. Ah, it’s going to be a long day. A very long day.” Saying this, Tarin el-leadh picked up her two swords and smiled menacingly.
Spoiler :
Phew, so two months eh. Sorry for the long time to update. And the crappy fight scene. But i did give you Ring didn’t I. He’s not in his full greatness but i promise in the next chap, he will back to his expected badassery(?).
[p=right]~compass[/p]
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