Clarifications :
1. Adalwolf’s height : I wrote 2metres at one place and 3metres at another, sorry for the mistake. It’s 3 metres.
2. Range of concentration skill : Here also, I wrote 20metres at one place and 30 metres at another. It’s 30 metres.
Even if I try to not make such mistakes, they do happen. Thank you for pointing out these 2 critical mistakes.
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Note : Statements enclosed within '#' like '# statement #' are system messages or similar type of messages
Proodread by Compass96
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#
Congratulations! The White Wolf Alliance is the first alliance to clear the first wave of monsters in the southern zone.
No. of members in the party who took part in the fight : 7 (All the members of the alliance)
No. of monsters defeated : 26
Extra experience earned : 1,000,000.
Reward : An old wooden tablet.
#
Defeating all those goblins and the snakes had given them an experience of more than 1.15 million each; Worm received an experience of more than 1.5 million because of his very low level, but that wasn’t all. They were the first party to successfully clear the first wave of monster and that earned them an extra experience of 1 million each.
This kind of experience wasn’t normal. Blake and others used to hunt wolves for weeks before they could earn an experience that could level them up by just 1. But now, they got a million experience in just reward and another million by defeating these goblins.
Perhaps it was because of the large number of the goblins as well as the strategy used by them - fighting in coordination with the snakes and using three waves of attack following each other in quick succession- that fighting these goblins and snake made them earn 1.15 million+ experience. Blake levelled up by 2. The others in the party had the same type of shocked reaction when they saw how quickly they levelled up but not Worm.
Worm levelled up 11 times but he didn’t pay any attention to it, as if it was normal for him. Blake and others saw that he wasn’t surprised by the experience and thought it was weird. Eva finally decided to ask him.
“Umm.. Worm, the experience is... pretty great, right?”
“Ahh, yes. I think so too. I levelled up 11 times, but I think that earlier when I had levelled up to 51 was much better.”
Blake tried to clear his doubts.
“Worm, we don’t get this kind of experience everyday. For us, it took weeks to level up 11 times when we were level 50. Now, it takes people a month to gain a level once they cross level 100. But I gained two levels even though I’m 113.”
“I understand. Well, my health is improving thanks to this. I think we should check the tablet now.”
Everyone looked at Joey who was holding the tablet and they all walked towards him. Sana asked him.
“So, what does it say?”
“I don’t know. It’s some ancient writing. Can’t read it.”
Worm had a look at the tablet.
“Let me. My master taught me a language that he said was apparently used in this game . However, only scholars use it and that was a long time ago. No one uses it anymore. He taught me it just to raise my intelligence a little.”
Sure enough, it was the same language. He didn’t know how to speak it, but translation wasn’t that hard.
“It says come find me, oh reader of the tablet. Bring your friends, the more the better. Jakhaniya village chief - Somnac.”
*Ting Ting*
#
Talk to Somnac
Find the Jakhaniya village southeast of here and talk to him.
Beware of monsters.
Difficulty : 31
Reward : 500 gold to every member of the current party.
#
Joey was surprised.
“Difficulty is 31?! Just to talk to a villager, shouldn’t it be more like 1? And what’s with the 500 gold reward per person, makes it seem like the quest is to kill a boss level enemy or something.”
Blake had read the quest description carefully.
“It’s not about just talking to him, it’s about reaching there first. It said beware of monsters. I am guessing there will be more attacks like the one we just had.”
Even Eva swallowed her own spit when she heard about more waves of these goblins or even some other monsters that they not know of yet. She couldn’t help sighing. Her sigh reflected what the other members of the alliance were also afraid of, a little. Worm now knew that Adalwolf was totally at a different level than theirs.
“I think we should wait here for a while and form a strategy before moving forward. There is no time limit on the quest and I am pretty sure that this is a chained quest. Somnac will definitely give us a quest when we talk to him. If only talking to him is at a difficulty of 31, then the chained quest will have even higher difficulty, if there is one and there is also the possibility of multiple chain quests.
“What I’m trying to say is that we aren’t at a level to handle higher level monsters than these goblins if they come at us in large numbers and in successive waves like they did just now. Don’t you guys agree?”
Sana thought about it for a while.
“I don’t. We were only caught by surprise this time and we weren’t prepared for three successive waves. It took some time to bring my instrument out and hence we were cornered. Besides, I’m pretty sure that Adalwolf is hiding a lot of his strength and if you keep him summoned, he can take care of those monsters on his own, probably.”
“Yeah, I know about him. I had no idea that he was this strong until now. He was hiding his strength from me as well and I’m pretty sure that I still don’t know the extent of his power though I am sure that he struggled for real when we were up against my master and it seemed like he was at a level where I am. So, I think that I won’t be summoning him to fight for us until we reach Jakhaniya village.”
Anya was pissed by this.
“Why so?”
“Simply because I want us to be strong enough to beat these monsters by ourselves instead of using Adalwolf. I want us to cooperate more than we do and cover our weakness by using other members. I want us to get more stronger. I am not saying that we stop and train here, almost all of us did that already and we don’t need to do that now, but we should be able to move forward on our own a little, especially because we are a very very small alliance and we need to be strong in order to minimize the differences of numbers between us and larger alliances.”
Dylan was convinced, he himself thought that he was weak after meeting Worm ever since his dual strike was stopped by Worm’s toe sprint in backward direction.
“Yeah, we can all move at a slow pace and hunt monsters. We shouldn’t summon our pets in this fight until we reach there. Agreed?”
Others were a bit hesitant, but they all agreed. Joey didn’t have a pet in the first place and he was told that he would be protected by them but he felt that he was too weak. He wanted to help his new friends, but at this time he couldn’t do anything other than nod when Dylan looked at him.
They all had forgotten to accept the quest until now but Blake suddenly accepted the quest when he realized that they hadn’t accepted the quest until then. This was to be accepted by each and every individual in the alliance and thus when the screen showed 1/7 accepted, the others quickly accepted the quest. Joey was the last one to hit the accept button and when he did, another system message, visible to all of them, appeared.
#
Notice :
1. Talk to Somnac quest has been accepted by everyone in the alliance. Please note that this quest is an alliance quest and not a party quest. Had even one of the members not accepted the quest, the quest wouldn’t have been updated. However, since everyone accepted the quest, the quest has been successfully updated.
2. This quest is only available to White Wolf Alliance because of the black magician present in the alliance. There is only one user black magician in this world and hence no other alliance would have received the quest.
3. Had the black magician chosen to not accept the quest, the quest would have been removed.
4. In short, these were the requirements to trigger the quest :
a. Travel south of Nahur city with all the members of the alliance.
b. Successfully clear the first three waves of monsters that attack successively.
c. Alliance must have a black magician with them.
d. The black magician must accept the quest for the quest to not get removed by the system.
e. Everyone else in the alliance must also accept the quest to update it.
#
Everyone was dumbfounded by this message. They all had only one thing in mind.
’What’s up with the requirements to trigger this quest? And a black magician is a must?’
They all turned their heads towards Worm at almost the same time. This made Worm feel like he is some kind of criminal and his friends are looking at him with eyes that are pointing a finger towards him.
Worm sighed.
“Well, we shall take a look at the quest first, shan’t we? Quest description, visible to everyone here.”
#
Talk to Somnac.
He is the chief of Jakhaniya village that is 31 kilometres southeast of here. This village is believed to be the birthplace of great black magician Sanderp and is the first step of proving the innocence of black magician Worm.
The village is currently under attack by some bandits.
You’ll have to rescue the chief before he is killed by the bandits. Rescuing some villagers might improve your intimacy with the village folks and the chief himself.
The higher the intimacy, the more the information you’ll get from the village.
Somnac will get killed in 30 minutes from now. You can only talk to him about black magicians when all the members of the alliance are there, however rescuing them doesn’t need everyone to be present there at the same time. Starting now, a villager will be killed every 30 seconds. Kill the bandit head as soon as possible to stop the execution of the villagers.
Reward : 500 gold per villager saved to every member of the alliance, ‘?’ when you complete the Talk to Somnac quest.
Time Limit : None for Talk to Somnac quest. 30 minutes for rescuing the villagers quest.
Difficulty : 40.
Note : If you cannot rescue anyone, the Talk to Somnac quest will also get failed.
You won’t find any monster that will attack you on your way.
#
Before Worm could say anything, Blake shouted.
“Don’t even think about moving together. Yes, we will all be there but we don’t need to move together. Go everyone, we will meet you there shortly. And Worm, use Adalwolf. Hurry up and go. Sana follow him with your cheetah. Dylan, take Joey with you and ride on your Taurus. Anya, your black mare will be fast here. Me and Eva will probably reach there first since we have flying pets. Sana and Anya will reach next, and then Worm and Dylan. However, start killing bandits the minute you people reach there.”
Everyone had summoned their pets by the time Blake had finished talking. Adalwolf was summoned in time to hear that he will be slower than 4 of the pets out of 6 present there. He let out a howl that told everyone how pissed he was for being underestimated. Worm quickly jumped on his back and Adalwolf showed impossible acceleration from the very first step. That surprised everyone, he was out of sight in the next few seconds.
Sana thought she had the fastest pet on the ground.
’Is he faster than my pet? I will probably reach there in 15 minutes, let’s see how long does it take him to reach there.’
Without saying anything, they started moving southeast with the fastest speed that they could. It would take 10 minutes for both Eva and Blake to get there as both of their pets had a nearly similar flying speed.
Worm was almost knocked off when Adalwolf started due to the unbelievable acceleration. He knew that Adalwolf was fast, but this was beyond what Worm had imagined. It seemed like Adalwolf was going full speed and not hiding his true running speed at the moment. He hadn’t told Adalwolf to move southeast but that was the very direction that Adalwolf was heading towards.
’How does he know where to head and how does he know the urgency of the situation?’
Despite all these questions popping up inside Worm’s head, there wasn’t any time to think about it then as the speed didn’t allow him to even think. It took all his energy to just hang on to Adalwolf. The speed increased even more. Adalwolf’s legs were on fire. It wasn’t due to friction between his legs and the ground but because Adalwolf was using fire to cover his legs to keep them safe from the opposing air pressure and wind cuts that will affect his legs the most.
It was his natural intelligence that told him his legs need to be protected when he was running over 150 kmph. The fire consumed the air from the wind cutter formed due to air pressure and his high speed. It was because of his natural intelligence that he formed a cover of fire around his legs to protect them from getting hurt. Adalwolf could speed up much more but his whole body would need to be protected then, including Worm’s. Adalwolf thought about it for a moment.
’How did I generate fire around my legs? I know it’s for protecting my legs but I never learned anything about fire. I need to speed up more, so...’
Adalwolf concentrated on the fire on his legs even though he was running at that speed. The fire rose until his whole body was covered by the dark red fire. The fire started engulfing Worm. Worm had closed his eyes before so as to protect them from dust particles but he felt something on his legs. He opened his eyes to see that Adalwolf was completely on fire but he was still running and the speed was still increasing gradually.
’What the hell….’
“Adalwolf stop! You’re on fire. The higher speed is probably the reason, stop...”
But Adalwolf didn’t stop. Instead he let the fire cover Worm. Worm was scared at first but soon realized that the fire around his legs weren’t burning him. They weren’t even hot.
’Is this the power of Adalwolf? Is he protecting me?’
The moment the fire had covered him totally, Worm felt the changes. He no longer felt the opposing air pressure even though the speed was higher than it was 10 seconds ago. He didn’t need to close his eyes as no particle made it through the fire cover.
“This is awesome Adalwolf. Can you use fire now?”
Adalwolf nodded while running. Now that Worm was fully protected over his back, Adalwolf didn’t need to hold back. With a deep force that gave his acceleration a new level, Adalwolf burst forward.
They were moving through the jungle and hence there were many trees, but Adalwolf was dodging them perfectly. At this speed, the concentration skill worked wonders. Adalwolf trained that skill as well so dodging the trees weren’t that hard once they knew that there was one in their path.
Suddenly, it got dark as if it was night time. Worm looked up and saw the reason. Black smoke was rising in the sky and the smoke was now big enough to cover the sun. The black smoke was rising from a spot that was around 2-3 kilometres away from them.
’That must be the village. I hope I can save enough villagers.’
The moment he said that, Adalwolf sped up even more. Worm sensed the increase in the speed and was stupefied.
’How is this even possible?’
Within seconds, they saw the burning village and also saw people standing in a queue that was there because of the bandits. The place where the line started, there was a wooden stand where a person was kneeling down and his neck was placed on the stand. Worm didn’t like the sight that he was seeing but he was still far away to interfere. There were four persons standing next to the stand.
Two bandits were holding an old man with his hands and were making him watch the thing that was going on. The old man was sobbing and it felt like he would go crazy. He was struggling the best he could, but he wasn’t able to free himself.
The fourth person standing there held a sword in his hand but at this moment, his sword was above his head and in a swift, quick motion, he brought it down at the neck of the villager who had his head over the stand.
The sword already had blood on its steel but a few more spots were added after the recent butchery. The old man yelled ‘NOOOOOOO!’ at the top of his lungs, the butcher kicked the headless body away from the stand and gestured for the next villager to come forward.
The ugly sight sickened Worm, there were more than 10 heads near the stand. Adalwolf came out of the trees and everyone turned their heads to look in their direction.
A wolf that was fast enough to look as if it was teleporting from one place to another came into their view. The butcher saw the fire covered wolf and its rider and took position to fight the rider. For the villagers, this was a sight that told them the devil has arrived, a worse evil than the current bandits.
Adalwolf stopped and immediately five firebolts were shot at 5 bandits that were guarding the line. The firebolts hit their heart, killing them instantly. Adalwolf jumped over the line and killed 5 more bandits on the other side. He dashed in front to kill the remaining two with his paws, the strike separated their heads from their bodies; jumped to the front side again to kill two more that he had left earlier. Within 20 seconds, he had killed 14 bandits who were guarding the line.
Adalwolf was still covered with fire when he finally stopped his slaughter. The villagers finally saw him clearly, a white wolf covered in fire. They all knew that white wolves were super strong and they all knew the history of white wolves. This was the first time they were seeing one and they immediately knelt to honor the white wolf.
Only after they stood up again, did they notice that the rider wasn’t there on its back. They looked towards the stand and saw the two bandits who were holding their chief on the ground, unconscious, and the bandits leader, the butcher, pierced by a spear right through his heart.
Worm had jumped from Adalwolf’s back after telling him to take care of the bandits guarding the line and used Toe Sprint to reach there as soon as possible. He had used two black bolts to knock the bandits unconscious who were holding the chief and converted his wooden stick to the basic Spear form to force it down the heart of the bandit leader.
The leader didn’t stand a chance against the speed of Worm’s Toe Sprint. He was dead before he could even see Worm’s face. His body was still protected by fire even though he was not on Adalwolf’s back anymore. He looked at chief who was still crying and was oblivious of the things happening near him. The chief was on the ground now, crying. Worm went over to him and killed the two bandits that were knocked unconscious with his bolts earlier. He asked the chief.
“Are you okay?”
No reply. Worm understood that the man needed some time and lifted him up. The chief didn’t struggle and to Worm, it felt like he was lifting a dead man. He brought him towards the villagers where Adalwolf was.
Two villagers came forward and took the chief from Worm’s hands. Worm looked at them apologetically. Adalwolf released the fire cover and now that the villagers could see the white wolf more clearly, the shiny white fur told the villagers that they were in presence of a divine creature.
Worm addressed the villagers.
“I am sorry I couldn’t come any sooner. However, this was the fastest that I could come over. I am afraid I couldn’t save your fellow villagers.”
He looked at the heads of the dead villagers when he said so. The villagers couldn’t believe what they just heard.
’The white wolf rider is apologising to us?’ ’Didn’t he just save all of us, why is he apologising?’ ’He is the white wolf rider? I have heard so many things about the white wolf, weren’t they extinct?’ ’He is just a kid, how can he be the rider and master of the legendary white wolf.’ ’Why were they covered in fire? I have never heard of white wolf using magic, though this is the first time I am seeing one, our ancestors never told us about white wolf using magic.’ ’Does this mean that the kid is a magician?’
An old woman came forward and knelt before Adalwolf and Worm.
“You don’t need to apologize to us. You saved us. You came here as fast as you could but where exactly did you hear about us?”
“ You see, it was a quest that the system gave us.”
“Ohh, so you are one of the adventurers that have come here. You said ‘us’ just now, did you mean you and the white wolf?”
“No, my friends, they are on their way here. They will be here shortly….”
He looked at the sky and saw a white horse and a black eagle flying towards them but they were still quite far away.
“Two of them are here. The one with the white horse will heal anyone who’s hurt so please, all the ones who are hurt, gather here.”
The old woman looked at Worm.
“You have helped us a lot, my husband is the chief of this village and he will gratefully thank you once he gets over his sorrow. This was quite a shock to us and he took the damage mentally as he cares a lot about this village. I am sure he’ll be alright within a week. Till then, you and your friends are welcome to stay in our village. We will like that as well . For now, we have to stop the fire and build our village once again.”
“Once again, what do you..”
“All in good time, young saviour of Jakhaniya. All in good time. Please accept our hospitality and stay here for a week at least. If the chief doesn’t recover by that time, you can leave but we would like you to stay.”
“Okay, no problem.”
The villagers bowed to him and Adalwolf once again and left to rebuild the village. The fire had almost consumed the village entirely and hence there was no need to stop it since it was out of firewood already. Worm stayed there with Adalwolf and waited for Eva and Blake to land.
“So, you can use fire magic as well now. What else have you been hiding?”
Adalwolf did his 45 degrees head routine after a long time which made Worm laugh, and even Adalwolf enjoyed the moment. Something told Worm that Adalwolf also just discovered that he can use fire magic.
“Ok, you can go back now.”
Adalwolf nodded and vanished in thin air.
The moment he vanished, Worm got a system message.
#
Fire Rider of the White Wolf.
The white wolf is a legendary animal that is believed to have never been tamed. Its mysterious nature remains mysterious because of lack of information about it. People say that the power of this white wolf is yet to be known and some people even believed that it would gain new powers if its master gets stronger.However, since no one knew of a tamed white wolf, that theory remained a theory without proof.
You rode with the white wolf and its desire to protect its master while riding at high speeds gave it the power to learn fire magic and with its high intelligence, it used the magic to cover you and itself for protection.
You get the title - “Fire Rider of the White Wolf”.
When using this title, all your stats increase by 10. Even without using this title, you can now ride with Adalwolf up to 200 kmph without hurting yourself. However, for higher speeds, Adalwolf will have to use the Fire Cover again.
The limit of the speed can be increased as the Fire Cover skill of Adalwolf levels up.
#
’Wow, this is awesome.’
*
A Little While Ago
Eva and Blake were flying at full speed towards the village. Since they were airborne, they could see the black smoke from quite a distance away.
Eva didn’t feel good after seeing the smoke.
“That doesn’t look good. Will we be too late? The bandits must be strong too so defeating them will take some time no?”
Blake was composed.
“We won’t know until we fight them, however I think that they will be weak.”
“Why so?”
“Think about it, the whole difficulty of the quest is based on time. Travelling 31 kilometres in 30 minutes is almost impossible by foot. I don’t think that anyone beside Worm can do it and even he will have to use that ridiculous speed skill of his to do that. And who knows for how long can he keep using that skill continuously.”
“But we have our pets.”
“You and I have flying pets, but others aren’t that fortunate. I don’t think that involvement of pets affects the difficulty level and even if it does, it’s all about the time. We need to have high intimacy so that they can tell us more about black magicians and we need to help Worm so that he can be free from the kingdom soldiers ASAP.”
“So, yeah..”
“I am pretty sure that they will be weak, but the question is how much intimacy points can we gather by reaching there as quickly as possible. If we don’t get enough, we won’t get to know about black magicians and the chained quest might become unavailable.”
“Let’s hope we aren’t too late by the time we reach there.”
At that exact moment, all the alliance members got a system message that kept updating almost every second.
#
5 bandits eliminated.
12 bandits left.
5 more bandits eliminated.
7 bandits left.
2 more bandits eliminated.
5 bandits left.
2 more bandits eliminated.
3 bandits left.
Bandit leader eliminated.
2 bandits left.
All the bandits have been eliminated.
48 villagers rescued.
24000 gold has been awarded to every member of the alliance.
#
Eva was just as surprised as the rest of the members of the alliance were.
“What?... But, how… it’s hardly been 6 minutes… who covered 31 kilometres in just 6 minutes?”
Blake was seriously amazed. He didn’t know whether he should be proud or be afraid of this message.
“I think now we know why Adalwolf let out that pissed howl back there.”
“But that means.. that Adalwolf’s speed averaged 310 kmph. How could Worm even hold on?”
*
Sana was going full speed on her cheetah when the series of the messages were shown to her.
’Damn, he is more than two times faster than me. This ain’t good.’
She looked at her pet.
’We need to improve.’
Cheetah nodded and burst into an acceleration that moved its speed from 113 kmph to 160 kmph. Sana held on, hardly.
’Good, we need to train more it seems.’
*
Her black steed was her pride. It’s high speed was good but she loved that her steed could move so swiftly. Swift movement was perfect for her because she was an archer. That helped a lot to aim.
After she received the messages, she knew that it was Worm and not Eva and Blake. As per her calculations, it would take at least 4 more minutes for them to reach to that place.
’It seems that the 100,000 gold bounty is correct. It would be impossible to catch him if he runs away at that speed.’
*
Dylan and Joey were travelling on Dylan’s Taurus and it was slower than it really was. Carrying two persons, it reached the maximum speed of 70 kmph, though it could travel at 80 kmph when only Dylan was riding it. He knew that he would hardly make it within the time frame. He hoped that the bandits wouldn’t be at high level too.
After they received the messages, Dylan yelled.
“Damn, I feel so useless ever since that Worm showed up and I am gonna train much much harder.”
Joey whispered softly.
“I was already useless but I am gonna become useful too for this alliance. Just being a merchant ain’t cutting it anymore.”
Joey had whispered that but Dylan heard it loud and clear. He couldn’t help smiling.
’I wonder why we are so desperate to get stronger? Is it because our alliance is too small to compete in the games or is it ‘cause we all feel that Worm does all the work and we want to protect him, especially because of that huge bounty on him that he doesn’t deserve. I wish it was the former but even in this small alliance which was formed recently, we care for each other, don’t we?’
*
Present
Everyone had gathered at the village now. They were all quiet after witnessing the severed heads of villagers. Eva was still crying softly ever since she saw the severed heads. Luckily, that was after she had healed the injured villagers.
She hadn’t looked anyone in the eyes ever since she saw the heads and while killing is done in presence of NPCs, the bodies don’t disappear automatically.
It was Sana who spoke first.
“So, it was you who reached here first?”
Worm saw that she had asked the question to him.
“Yeah, the bandits were surprisingly weak...”
Eva suddenly looked up with tears in her eyes suddenly and grabbed Worm’s collar. Continuous crying had swollen her eyes.
“What do you mean by.. they were weak.. Then why couldn’t you save those... 12 people?”
What she was doing was childish, Worm knew that but he could see the care that she has even for unknown strangers. The severed heads were brutal. But he couldn’t do anything about it. Had Adalwolf not shown his true running speed, there would have been a lot more heads than just the 12.
Eva was hitting Worm continuously on his chest while crying and demanding the answer why he couldn’t save those 12 of them, while everyone was silent. They didn’t know what to say to her. How to explain that if Worm hadn’t been there, more would have died.
Eva knew that herself but her emotions got the better of her.
Worm caught her hand, pulled her close and hugged her. He whispered slowly in her ear.
“I am sorry for not being fast enough to save them. I am sorry that you had to see such a horrible sight because of me but I promise you that next time I will do my best to avoid such situations. I will be faster than I am currently, I will be more powerful than I am currently.
I will be all that so as to not make you see such a sad sight again. Please forgive me. I know that you are saddened by this sight but also know that the sight of seeing you cry saddens me a great deal. So, can you please stop crying for me?”
Eva listened to him softly. Her tears were making his cloth wet near his chest area but she couldn’t stop the tears. When he said that it saddens him to see her cry, she tried to stop her tears as much as she could.
She knew that what she did was stupid - blaming him for not been able to save the villagers but Worm didn’t get pissed and said that he did all he could. But instead promised her that he would try his best in the future to not make her sad again.
After she had calm down a bit, she wrapped her around his waist and spoke softly.
“Does it really.. umm.. saddens you when I cry?”
Worm moved his lips near her ears and spoke as softly as he could.
“Yes, it does. I don’t like it.”
“Then don’t.. umm.. make me cry.”
“I will try not to.”
“Then Eva will stop crying for you. Thank you for consoling me.”
“My pleasure.”
She let him go and everyone was surprised that she had stopped crying. She becomes sad even when they hunt monsters but she never sees their dead bodies as they disappear but this time was different. Anya looked at Worm from the corner of her eyes.
’Just what did he tell her to make her stop crying almost completely? And did he just kiss her or did he whisper to her in her ear?’
When he looked at others, they were all eyeing him, especially Sana. He tried to avoid making an eye contact with her and addressed all of them.
“Well, the chief isn’t feeling very well because of all that happened in front of him. He was made to watch everything from near the neck stand. His wife told me that he should be doing fine within a week, so we can talk to him that day then.”
Blake was relieved when he heard this.
“Thank God, I need to head to Boston and do a shoot so I was wondering how to break this to you guys and luckily, we have at least 2 days in real life. I should be done by that time.”
Eva had stopped crying totally by now although her eyes were still looking bigger than lemons.
“My PA has arranged for an interview with a director as well, so I need to get that off my list as well. I won’t be online for the next two days too.”
Sana was next to speak.
“Well, I also have to do an advertisement shoot of Garnier Fructis, so this gives me the opportunity to ask them to prepone the shoot. Even though it’s shown only in Mumbai, where I stay, it’s better to get it done now rather than later since the chained quest might have time limits too.”
Worm couldn’t believe this. They all had real life jobs.
“Wait, each of you just got 24,000 gold, that’s $600,000. That’s the salary a good computer engineer working for Google, Facebook or Microsoft makes in 3 years. Isn’t that enough? Why do you need to work?”
Blake thought that he was right but..
“Well, we are all actors and it’s quite tough for people like us. Whenever we are presented an opportunity, we must grab it. We have money for now but what happens when we go to purchase a land? We might need more money and you are already against us using our real life money so isn’t it better to save this money? Besides, if we are out of news for too long, we might not get any offers.”
Sana offered her explanation as well.
“Exactly, I am only 18 and my whole life is just starting. How will I earn money if this game gets completed or if we keep running in losses in the game itself.”
Worm understood what they were saying.
“Well, if that’s the case, I will go and fulfill my 10% attendance quota in college.”
Sana wanted to know where he went to college.
“Which college do you go to?”
“Hmm, SIES, Nerul.”
“Seriously?! I go to Fr. Agnel, Vashi. That’s hardly 10 minutes away from SIES, right? You wanna meet me? We can hang out if you want.”
The moment Sana said that, Eva looked at her with cunning eyes. It was too bad that she wasn’t in India with him but Sana’s college was hardly 10 minutes away from him? This was a disaster for her.
’Wait a second, why do I care so much about him? I am an actress and there are more than 400k likes on my FB page and more than 300k followers on twitter, many boys would kill to have a single date with me.’
The more she thought about it, the more depressed she got.
’Then why doesn’t he care for me? Didn’t he just say that he won’t make me sad? Then what’s this?’
Worm looked at Sana.
“Hang out? With you? No, thanks. I don’t wanna get in the eyes of everyone. I am pretty sure that people will notice me if I am with you, a model and I don’t want that. I am fine the way I am.”
Eva felt relaxed after that but Sana’s voice cut through her relaxed mind.
“Hahaha, a loser, are you?”
“No, I just don’t wanna be seen with famous people.”
This hurt Eva as well, but Sana wasn’t going to give up so easily. When she saw Worm hug Eva, she was furious inside but didn’t let it show on her face.
“Ok, your wish, loser.”
“Why do you keep calling me a loser?”
“Because you are afraid to be seen with me. Only a loser does that.”
“Alright, I will come with you once but after that you’re gonna have to stop calling me that, okay?”
“Tell me that after you have hung out with me, even once.”
“Fine, tell me how to find you!”
“Give me your number, I’ll call you.”
Worm thought about it.
“I think we should all share our numbers just so we are in touch and can come online together. I promise I won’t share with anybody even if you guys are famous.”
Joey wasn’t famous, he was just a real estate agent in real life.
“I promise that as well too then.”
They all agreed and Worm spoke again.
“Real life notepad to be seen from the book. Filename : Contacts. To be seen by all.”
A white window floated in front of them and the cursor was blinking.
“There, please share your number here.”
Joey was confused.
“Wait a second, what’s this?”
“Aah, when you connect your book to the computer, you’ll see a notepad file with the contents that you write here.”
“Ohh, that’s possible too?”
“Yeah, and it’s pretty handy to be honest. I will share it with everyone so that the file is available to everyone when they connect their book to a computer.”
They shared their numbers, bid each other goodbye and decided that they would meet here again in The Sphere after two days.
*
Nahur city was getting more attention than usual in the game. The users who come to relax there after a good hunt, usually spend their time in the Pub but there was quite a crowd gathered outside the Fierce Warriors Alliance headquarters. The crowd was talking amongst themselves.
“Did you see? They are calling all their high level players here.”
“Yeah looks like something big is gonna happen.”
“Linxx was already here, wasn’t he?”
“I saw Igotashiner head into the building.”
“Isn’t he the 21st ranked best warrior of this alliance?”
“Wow, I heard that Azureknuckle is also here, the combat master of this alliance.”
“Isn’t his rank 32?”
“Wait a second, is that…?”
“Yes, that’s Imanerf, the best magician of this alliance, his rank is 9.”
“What’s going on here? I’m pretty sure that all the high level players of the alliance are being called here. Something huge is gonna happen soon. Is it a high level quest?”
“No, I think that this is a strategy meeting because the game is going to begin soon.”
“They can do that while video calling each other. The game allows that. No reason to call everyone here.”
“Yeah, you are right… I never thought to see all these high levelled players gather at one place. They are the best of the best. Damn, I wish I knew what was going on here.”
*
Inside, Linxx took the center stage in the amphitheatre room inside the alliance’s headquarters.
“Welcome my friends, You are the top 200 of this alliance and I am here to discuss two important things with you. I am sure that you must be wondering what it is that cannot be told through video chat but trust me, this is pretty important.
We will discuss two things here.
First, Our alliance was threatened. The guy threatening us said this to Dishita and I quote, ‘Go tell that bastard leader of yours to mind his own business and tell him that I will come for him. And my alliance, yes, I am in an alliance now, my alliance is gonna rape that sorry ass of The Fierce Warriors alliance that you are in. This kingdom game, this is gonna last years, but we’ll make sure that we take everything from your alliance.’”
Imanerf got up.
“Who the fuck said that? I will make sure to teach him and his alliance a lesson.”
Linxx remained calm.
“I am glad to know that there are people like you in this alliance. But remember that weak dogs bark but don’t bite someone stronger than them, however they must be taught a lesson in case they bark at stronger monsters than them but we will do that along with something more important. That’s why I called you out here, to discuss this second thing. Before I move forward with this, the guy who threatened us is none other than Worm.”
Everyone in the room muttered almost the same thing under their breath.
‘That bastard.’