“So…. How did it come to this?”
Isaiah calmly looks at the scene in front of him. As it is night in a middle of a town and foggy he can only see the bell tower of this town barely but can’t exactly see the people who are in front of him are. Two people exactly. Both of them are wary of each other’s presence and of Isaiah’s too. The three of them wears robes and masks to hide their identity and caused so much chaos, as in crates and barrels scattered and destroyed, it is a surprise nobody got out of the surrounding houses.
But from seeing how they are armed, well nobody is around to see them; one can only wonder how they did it as one carries a jackknife, the other a short sword and Isaiah is the only one without weapons at all.
How it started was 13 days ago….
----------------------------------------
Isaiah & Mythus were gone from the training hall through a variant of a teleportation. Well Mythus said it directly to Isaiah.
They arrived to their destination as a little light ball that expanded suddenly in a very quiet forest. The sphere then loses its glow and becomes see-through. Inside of it are the aforementioned pair. The sphere then breaks into some glass splitters and the splitters immediately went inside to Mythus.
“Say, why was that teleportation very flashy?” asked Isaiah.
“Hahaha!! That wasn’t your typical teleportation” puts out Mythus,”You know like I’m in direct contact with you and teleport with me to a certain place. While we were in the sphere that I made, time stopped, for me anyways. I used that “time” to take some things with us that could be useful to your test.”
Isaiah is somewhat confused taking into account that Mythus can stop “time”.
“Stopping time? Isn’t that like very convenient? Why the hell does he need a successor then? Isn’t it possible for him to have some knowledge about time and space manipulation? Is there some special reason for specifically choosing me? I mean there are others who could have the factor”.
He can only deduce that Mythus is hiding something not only to him but to somebody. But who this “somebody” is or are, he can only guess as he is, in fact, very new to this world, actually in a game world. For awhile now he has been wondering where they are, as it is full of trees. Meaning, they’re in a forest as mentioned before. It has come to his mind to ask Mythus.
“Can I ask but where are we exactly in Eumeria?”
“Where we are exactly? We are in Cress Forest, known for Cress Grasses, that grows around here. Very useful for alchemists when mixing potions as it has really good healing properties.”
“Aha…So, what does it have to do with my first test?”
“Hahaha! Patient. Be patient. I teleported us together here or else we would stand out by appearing out of nowhere in a middle of a town and that town is southeast from here.”
Isaiah looks around of his surroundings as they go southeastwards. He has been wondering as to why there are no threats like animals, beasts, monsters or however they are called. As if reading his mind, Mythus answers both of them.
“As to why there are no animals, it is because of me. I’m exuding my aura with a radius of 1 km and I’ll deactivate it now. Careful though, the bunch that will rush to us are very territorial.”
Afterwards Isaiah now notices what’s wrong of what Mythus casually said. He just unleashed something that would trouble him very much. He has nothing that could help to defend him from those. But his benefactor reminds him of what he received before teleportation. He takes out the bracers of his bag and equipped them immediately. Now he was ready what should come to them.
“Hahahaha! Well, doesn’t this excite you? They should be coming in about 2 minutes. You should be enough for them. I’ll be just standing on this particular spot and also they’ll be only focused on you”, points Mythus down while smiling to Isaiah.
“Huh? Am I strong enough for them?”, grinned Isaiah. He was waiting long enough for this kind of opportunity. He wants to test whether his prowess of martial arts in real life would be effective.
“Hah!”, snorts Mythus, ”Don’t worry in your case too much. I modified your Warrior Bracers for cases like this and also your main class grants in almost all of your attributes a +70. Hahahahaha! Don’t you feel very spoiled?”
He sees this somewhat unfortunate that he gets preferential treatment and at the same time as something good since he can get ahead of the other players and he will wring every opportunity to get as much advantage as possible in his case. His grin contorted then to a smile, that looks so evil Mythus can only chuckle.
“Hehehehe….Hey! As I said they’ll come soon in minutes. Before you fight them though touch your bag and say “hide”. It is very impractical to fight them while having it on your back and they’ll probably come from all directions.”
Isaiah then followed his instruction. The bag is suddenly gone into thin air, it surprised him and as Mythus said, they really came minutes later. But what he didn’t expect are that they would be a bunch of rabid red-eyed sharp-fanged white rabbits, with the size of dogs, showing up from surrounding trees and madly rushing at him. He finds it a little cute, very funny and at same time, exciting.
“Hahahahahaha!! Killer rabbits this early? Hopefully they’re not from Caerbannog….. Hahahahaha!”
Nevertheless he is calmly checking how combat works. Whether they will be indicator how much health and mana points his opponent has or which level they are. None of them appears but he remembered two of the skills he learned by being bestowed of his secret class. As he finds it somewhat dumb to shout the skill names just to activate it, he recites them instead in his mind, while looking at one of the rabbits.
“Identifying Eye! Analyzing Eye!”
*Ding!
White Vicious Rabbit
Level30Health2090/2090Mana100/100
*too lazy to put life/mana bars
The reason why only the name, level, health and mana appeared is because those are the only information he wanted to know right now. He recognizes through the skills that they are White Vicious Rabbits and their levels should be something he shouldn’t probably meet yet, considering he is only Level 0. Note that he doesn’t know whether the skills use mana or not.
“Wait a minute…..These guys have about thirty times the amount of my level?.... Ehehehehehe…worthy of being inspired by that rabbit”
While having these thoughts, Mythus is just ignored by the rabbits and they all concentrated their numbers on Isaiah. Isaiah took a fighting stance and is ready to confront them. Instead of being covered by fear, he was instead emitting a very wild bloodlust back to the rabbits. Even though he should be weaker than them, in terms of level, the rabbits are suddenly taken aback by this sudden outburst of savage killing intent. He bares his teeth to them. Because of the fear that envelopes them, they can only see a man baring sharp fangs instead.
*Ding!
New Passive Skill “Primal Bloodlust” acquired
Why is Isaiah confident in fighting them? It is because of the equipments that he was granted by Mythus, the secret class that gave almost in all of his attributes a 70+ and even though he never encountered them, he somewhat feels like he knows how to deal with them. While Mythus is ruffling his beard and saying: “Oho…As expected”, like there are more secrets in Isaiah.
“Hmmm…Weird. Is it possible that both eye skills are both passive and active skills?”
He doesn’t genuinely know what his skills are capable of, as he didn’t look at the details of his skills yet. Since the rabbits stayed immobile because of the intimidating feeling they got from him, he uses this to instantly attack five of the about hundred rabbits. He attacked the first rabbit, which is in front of him, on the head with a fast axe kick. The next one, which is on right side of the first, has its very long ears pulled by Isaiah. It is then used to attack the other next three, instantly killing them. Of course, the one used as a weapon was also dead.
The rabbits come back to their senses when they realized what happened to the unfortunate five in front of them. One has its head smashed and one is very unfortunate to be used as a blunt weapon to kill the other unfortunate three. Their image of the man, who killed the unfortunate five, worsened as he is brandishing a dead rabbit as a weapon and the smile, which is covered in blood splatters and the demon-like laughs he lets out will probably give them nightmares.
Isaiah realized that all of the rabbits are in a “Paralyzing Fear” state through another usage of his “Identifying Eye”.
As I mentioned before, he’ll wring every advantage he can get in any situation. Of course in pragmatic ways. He advocates three weapons that certain inquisitors adhere: fear, surprise and ruthless efficiency but in a very effective way. But don’t forget that he added diabolical laughter and diabolical acting.
Anyway continuing with his slaughter, he now left about 80 bodies in his wake in just 15 minutes. His “weapon” is already wearing out and his whole body is now covered with blood instead of the mouths of the rabbits, that should have dealt with him. Just so you know, it doesn’t clearly follow a certain fellowship that got some of their people killed by a rabbit. About 40 are now left that Isaiah counts. He considers using the “no mercy” option on them too as well.
How he dealt with the remaining 40 will be describe very bluntly: Their eyes stabbed with his fingers, ripped to shreds by his hands, using one of them as a “weapon” again, using them as punching bags and so on. Well you won’t want a very detailed description of the aforementioned facts. Afterwards Isaiah calmed himself with his “diabolical acting” and feels refreshed.
Soon he remembers that he should have leveled up tremendously since he shouldn’t have been a match against those rabbits. He also notices that there was no indicator how much damage he did to them, that he’ll soon experience fatigue or how much mana he used for the eye skills. He then checks his status plate.
“Status Plate!”
NameIsaiah WolfframLevelRace???43Main ClassSecret ChroniclerCharisma(15 +70)Number of Subclasses0Dexterity(68 +70)Number of Titles2Luck(70 +70)Fame89Infamy0Health1320/1320Mana1230/1260Vitality(55 +70)Intelligence(56 +70)Strength(80+70)Wisdom(40 +70)Attack150 +30Defense147 +20Stamina(78 +70)Charm(20 +70)Endurance(77 +70)Willpower(57 +70)Agility(85 +70)Satiety70%Number of Resistances4Attribute Points235
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“Aha….Level 43 already even though the rabbits were about level 30…ridiculously high growth but thankfully I don’t have some OCD like a certain death god…..New stat attribute points…235...Okay. That’s it. It’s official. I am a cheat. Hahahahaha!! I’m so lucky.”
Among the lying bloodied corpses of rabbits Mythus is then slowly approaching Isaiah calmly. Seeing his ecstatic face he laughs too.
“Hahaha! Well so, how was your first battle? How do you feel?”
“I feel amazing and also I leveled up tremendously. Say, is my stats growth actually normal?”, felt Isaiah to ask. He looked at his attributes that are uneven.
“Ho….Good. Curiosity is also one of the numerous requirements. So to your question, yes, they are normal. It has to do with your race characteristics. But it isn’t important right now. Look around you.”
Isaiah did as told to him. He didn’t expect how much of a bloodbath he caused. He changes his stance of
mind immediately by checking that their bodies aren’t vanishing. They don’t leave any loot at all. Only their body is remaining from the executions since they didn’t retaliate at all.
“Uhmm…So, did I made them extinct and how can I loot them?”, queried Isaiah to Mythus with a serious face. Even though he killed them without impunity he is still thinking about the profits he can gain from them. The profits! Mythus is somewhat bewildered by his attitude but not until he laughs out loud once again.
“Hahahahaha!!! Interesting. Well don’t worry. I’ll take care of them. Also the rabbits, you dealt with, were just a little brunt of their whole force. Of course your clothes will also be taken care of. They’ll make you stand out very much in our destination.”
Isaiah didn’t notice how much his clothes are covered in blood and somewhat ignored that the whole bunch of rabbits that he met was only a small part of a much larger group. His clothes smelled but he stays undeterred from it. Mythus then points the palm of his right hand to the rabbits and mutters “Otherworld Dimension Storage”. Afterwards on the palm of his right hand a sigil appeared and then the bodies of the rabbits, along with the bloodstains, are absorbed by the sigil as if it is a vacuum.
“How can I gain the skill that you did just now?”, wants Isaiah to inquire. He guessed that it was some skill that won’t require something like where he needs to store his items.
“Hahahaha! Don’t be greedy. Actually I purposely whispered it so you would get curious and you should have this skill already but you are not ready yet. And also your clothes aren’t dealt with yet.”
Instead of the palm of his right hand Mythus points his left hand palm to Isaiah. The dried blood spots are glowing with yellow color till they disappeared. Following the process, his whole clothes are also shining and seemed to have been changed by Mythus.
“Uhmm…Was there actually any need to change my clothes to something armor-like?”
He looked at his armor-like clothes closely. He guesses that his clothes probably have leather material of very high quality. He recognizes that it is very probable to be a high class equipment set as it has designs that seems very slick, a shoulder pad on the left side, sturdy kneepads, long-armed, scale patterns on the leather pants and it has boots and gloves to offer as well. It’s somewhat similar to a certain cleric-hating hyena’s equipment just that it has the color pattern of pure black on the major parts and crystal-like white at the rims of the clothes.
“Hmm…”, while stroking his beard Mythus continues, „Well, I revaluated the difficulty of your mission. I thought it would kill you very fast with your current equipment so I changed it.”
Just now Isaiah realizes that there is a danger of dying in his first current mission. He thought it would be some festival or something that he needs to check out but not something that would celebrate his death.
“Mythus, can you inquire about the content of the mission clearly?” asks Isaiah with a tranquil expression. Even though he hasn’t died once in the game, he doesn’t want to experience it yet as he hasn’t seen everything yet this world has to offer. Correction: Control and exploit everything he can! Don’t worry people Isaiah isn’t evil. He is just selfish when it comes to challenges.
“Hahahaha!! Come on. We wasted enough time already in this forest. Lets go running already”, ignores Mythus Isaiah.
Isaiah is a bit frustrated but he can accept it. Amalgam said that only those who takes risks and has skill and ability will be rewarded so he can only comply. He follows Mythus, who seems to run a little bit too fast for a human but he can take it since he can keep up. He marvels at the advancement of his own game body. It became stronger by his fight with the rabbits. After awhile they got out of the forest and finally arrived to their destination after 40 minutes.
“This is our destination. The origin of Eumeria, Old Noon Town.”
He looked around the town. Saying that it is the origin of Eumeria would not be a lie as the most buildings he sees looks much more ancient than Elestus. He compares it to Elestus City, that is in the sky faraway east-southeastwards.
Even though his time was a little bit short there he memorized a bit its size, population and architecture. Even though it is called Old Noon Town the place’s size is almost comparable to the half of Elestus and also the buildings from Elestus were somewhat English and Greek-like while Old Noon’s are only Greek-like. What stood out amongst the buildings is the bell tower near the center of the town and great library-like building from the west.
People of the town have about the same amount people as Elestus and he also sees grey apparitions, other drifters, present. He notices that when they, drifters, goes out of the town to the wilds they become invisible to him. He deduced that it’s probably not the same to Mythus and other NPCs.
“Anyway, I’ll state first the 3 conditions of your mission”, breaks Mythus in the trance of Isaiah. Isaiah notices that the time of his surroundings completely stopped. For instance a man and a woman holding their child stopped moving, a flying bird floating mid-air isn’t flapping its wings and so on.
“First, I sealed your “Identifying Eye” and “Analyzing Eye”. Second, the time limit is about 2 weeks. Two weeks is the same as in your world and Third, deal however you like with this. Collect facts surrounding the fugitive.”
Mythus then gives Isaiah a parchment. Isaiah checks the content. It seems to be a head bounty but identity of the wanted person is unknown.
Wanted
"The Ripper"
Crime: Serial Murder (19 victims, none alive)
Characteristics: Victims’ bodies show signs of being lobotomized
Victims’ wounds caused by a sharp tool
Appears when it's foggy in the evening/night
Fought with 4 red and gold-stripe rankers, 1 incapacitated
Difficulty Rank: City level S~
Reward/s:
Captured dead: A city level -S grade weapon forged with a -C grade white metal
Captured alive: A city level S grade weapon forged with a C grade black metal
P.S. : Please don't rip this off. Meet me at the town smithy of Old Noon Town. - Metalsmith Ferrari
“Huh? Difficulty Rank S~? Are you sure about that?”
“Hahahahaha! Don’t worry! You still have enough time. Use your time well in this town. I chose this place particularly. You can pretty much learn things here which will be pretty useful in the future travels. Well then take this chance to learn everything you can. See you then.”
And so is Isaiah left, on his own devices, for two weeks.
<--Chapter 3
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Author notes:
- Guys, this is my first time writing a story. First time trying this and doing this for fun so don't expect some daily, weekly or monthly. Please point out things that need to be corrected and please rate it if possible. Please point the plot holes as well.
-Also I don’t know if fighting against dog-sized rabbits is a fight, so please comment what I could do better.
- Distracted by many things:
Reading: Yuusha Gojo, Tokyo Ghoul, Kingdom, Rakuin no Monshou, Eye of Adventure etc.
Video Games: DQIX, FFXII, KOFXIII, Grandia II, FF Tactics A2, Ace Attorney Apollo etc.
Music: Diamond Head, Raven, Riot, Sodom, Slayer, Yes, King Crimson, Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin etc.