Sam nudged me and pointed excitedly towards a different direction. I saw from our place of vantage a group of players trying to bring down a two headed green monster in the valley between some hills.

The players were well armored and armed. They were hitting the monster with flashy spells and injuring it with their swords. Even from the distance, the heavy bleeding on one side of the monster’s body was visible. The monster was dressed in rags for the most part. It bared teeth aggressively in two mouths, and hit and kicked with fists and legs. Its limbs were very stretchable, like rubber, and it could deliver quick blows to the players. But the monster was in a state of lassitude, having lost a bucketful of blood.

“That looks like an easy kill,” Sam said. “The players are a team of noobs. I can probably kill that thing single handedly with my sword. Ah, look! It’s gotten out of their circle!”

The monster had made a very high leap, a final desperate attempt at escape, flinging itself over the heads of the players. The monster took to a trot and the players pursued. The monster’s will to survive was greater than the will of the players to kill. The monster ran into the cover of trees, the players tailing. We could no longer see clearly, and only occasionally could we glimpse them in gaps between the trees.

Sam laughed, catching his stomach.

“Well, that’s stupid,” he said. “Pathetic game play!”

My brother and I began to descend the hill. There were birds chirping in the trees, much like in the forests of the real world. Spiders wove their traps, and small insects zoomed about. Hardworking ants toiled in the ground, carrying food many times their size.

The game developers had taken a lot of pains in mimicking the real world to minute detail. My thoughts drifted to the NPCs dwelling in Dharti. Did they also have the same human-like emotions? Did they become happy; get angry or sad like humans in the real world?

We had just reached the bottom of the hill, when we heard a rush of movement. My brother signaled me to be still, pulling out a sword, becoming very alert.

A green being with two heads burst out from the dense wall of plants in front of us.

“Ha! It’s that green thing!” my brother said, far relaxed now, not considering the weakened monster a big threat. “Here take my sword, kill it and let’s see if you get any loot!”

My brother threw me the sword. I barely succeeded in catching it by the hilt and not the blade, which would have easily cleaved my hand. The monster’s attention was fixed on its pursuers and it had not even seen us till then, its twin heads locked backwards as it bounded towards us.

“I-I don’t think I can do this,” I said to my brother.

This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author's work.

“Shut up, and do it!” my brother admonished me. “It’s just a game world monster!”

The monster turned its heads forward, saw us, and skidded to an uneasy halt. Failing to maintain its balance from the inertia, the monster tumbled to the ground.

Sam gave a strong push on my shoulder.

“Go!” he said, “Kill it! There won’t be a better chance!”

I approached the monster, even as it struggled to get back up. It had lost too much blood, and the fall had debilitated it further. As I went closer, sword in hand, I saw that one of the monster’s heads was masculine with traces of a beard, while the other was feminine with longer braided hair. The monster's body was peculiarly like two bodies of opposite sexes had melded into one, a flat chest on one side, a boob on the other.

“Come on, you can swing a sword!” Sam egged me from behind.

I raised my blade, aiming to decapitate first the male head and then the female one. I was sweating bullets. My hemophobia wasn’t particularly ecstatic about the prospect of hacking someone’s neck, especially the splash of gore such a deed would inevitably make. The monster looked up at me, squinting from pain, its two faces imploring me not to kill. My determination fizzled out. I couldn’t behead an innocent for the sake of entertainment.

“I don’t want to kill it,” I said to Sam.

“What?” Sam said, aghast, like a garbage truck had dumped a pile of trash on him.

“What you heard.” I threw the sword away in refusal. Sam hastened to pick it up.

“Come on! It’s just a virtual monster!” Sam said. “Why are you pitying it?”

“Is there any way we can help it?” I asked instead.

Sam slapped his forehead, exasperated.

“I should have never brought you into the game world,” he said.

“Is there any way we can help it?” I repeated my question. Sam grimaced. Reluctantly, he took out a small vial from his pocket with a smiling nurse kawaii along the length of the small tube, containing a green solution.

“Feed this to the monster,” Sam said, tossing the vial to me. “It’s a health vial.” I caught it in mid air, removed the cork and hunkered down next to the monster. I made the male head drink half of the green solution and fed the other half to the female head.

“I can’t believe we are helping an Evilun,” Sam said miserably.

A few moments passed. The monster’s wounds ceased to bleed. I had to stand back as the monster pushed itself up.

“You would want to be away from that thing,” Sam cautioned. I heeded his advice this time and took some steps back.

The green monster stood up. I could hear the shouts of the players fast approaching. The monster held a steady gaze at me with its four eyes. It nodded in thanks and then with a rush of energy broke into a run. In a few heartbeats the monster disappeared from sight.

Sam put his arm around my shoulder.

“See?” he said, “There was no point in helping that monster. You didn’t even get any reward for that. Eviluns aren't innocent wretches. They slaughter players in cold blood. When monsters kill players they receive evilese.”

“Evilese?” I asked.

“Yes, it’s a reward the game world grants the monsters. It’s some kind of an element that multiplies within the monsters when they slay players. The monsters require it for their sustenance. If they go long without killing they would die.”

After a while the players chasing the monster arrived.

“Where did it go?” asked a gruff wizard who wore black robes and had arcane symbols tattooed on one side of his neck.

“That way,” Sam said, indicating the direction in which the monster had fled. Once the small troop of players were gone, Sam winked at me.

“Don’t worry, your monster could outpace the lame players when it was injured,” he said, “I am sure it has already reached the safety of its clan.”