Story 3: Chapter 2: The Game Master (Patreon)

Story 3: Soul Art Online

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Chapter 2: The Game Master

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- Arthas -

I reached the village and sat under the nearby tree.

Veena came beside me and caressed my back, trying to comfort me.

The scenes flashed in front of me repeatedly as if I was reliving the entire event. The smell, the feel of the blade slicing through their bodies, their shouts, the resistance of their bones against my sword… everything.

It was probably the first bout of intense emotions I have had in such a long time and I… hated it.

I wanted some excitement in my life… but not like this.

“Close your eyes.” I heard Veena’s voice sounding in my ears.

I hesitated.

“You can see those scenes. I know. But the only way to drive away your fears is to face them up front. This… game will force us to do such things sooner or later. If you hesitate, it will be you who dies instead of them. So do this…”

I did.

“Take deep breaths. Calm your emotions.”

I did and calming down my emotions wasn’t exactly hard.

Meditation did help.

She brought out a pack of incense and gave them to me.

“These have a calming effect on the mind. Normally they are used to calm down enraged beasts but they don’t have any side effects on humans. You can appraise them easily. Just light one of them and leave them beside your bed when you sleep.” She looked at me and added a few more words. “You can have Martha assess them if you want.”

“Thank you.” I brought out a dagger from my inventory and the girl reflexively took a defensive stance.

I grabbed the sharp end of the dagger and passed it on to her. “Your spear broke. You can keep this for the time being. It’s….not something you can buy in the village.”

She took the dagger and thanked me.

We both had received ‘drops’ from the kills.

It was money and some items they had equipped.

The game had a rule of only having a 2% chance of dropping an item in the inventory and even this was only reserved to a maximum of three items, each having their own separate probability.

But there were skills which can be used to steal items even from someone’s inventory in High Tier Classes.

That said, we had a 50% chance of drops on the equipped items.

But according to the developers, there were many hidden conditions which we had to figure out ourselves.

And despite the characters of those people, they had the highest levels in the village apart from Veena and me.

Not much was said between us and we both left for our own residences.

The hotel rooms were secure so I could finally relax.

I did appraise the pouch given to me by Veena but didn’t use them.

I just couldn’t bring myself to.

Thankfully, I was too exhausted for everything and sleep overtook me.

I woke up a few times during the night but by the end of it, I was getting better.

Today was the day I would get my weapons and the custom ordered armour.

I took an hour to make a plan on how to face the mutated boar.

The meeting with Veena gave me an idea which I was not considering beforehand.

With the plan in mind, I got ready for the day.

My first stop was Martha’s shop.

I checked around but Veena was not there so I asked Martha and found out that she was in the back garden.

There were some talks in the village, basically people gossiping.

That’s when I realised that I didn’t know if the bodies of those people would just disappear. Or maybe someone saw them last night.

Either way, I didn’t want to think about them right now.

With Martha’s permission, I went to the back garden.

The garden was… well, bigger than I was expecting. Inside, there was a small cottage with a workbench in front.

Veena was working on something on the workbench.

She noticed me and gave me a light smile.

“Are you feeling well?”

I nodded.

“Good.”

“I wanted to ask you for something.”

“Yes?”

“I saw that you were using the pouches as weapons. I was wondering if I could commission you to make some for me. The stronger the better.”

“Those pouches were something I made from the leftovers and won’t work on the higher level monsters.”

“I can get the items you need.”

She thought for a second. “What is the level of monster you are hunting?”

I paused for a second and she noticed my hesitation and was about to say something but I stopped her. “A Peak Tier 2 or maybe even a Tier 3.”

This information was something she actually needed to make suitable items so hiding would have been counterproductive.

She looked at me in surprise for a moment and then spoke.

“Anything I make right now won’t be strong enough to affect them. I am just a Level 5 Gardener. I would need to be at least an Apprentice Herbalist for that.”

5 more levels.

“If you don’t mind me asking, how much would it take you to reach that level?”

She smiled. “I only get experience in that Class from the gardening work I do here. As you know, a Gardener isn’t really suitable for fighting so I had to use the Villager Class to level up.”

“How are the experience requirements?”

“A bit lower than the Villager Class.”

I thought for a while.

She was still Tier 1 in all her Classes, then… maybe it can work.

“I have a suggestion if you don’t mind.”

“Oh?~”

_________________________________x____________________________________

“And that’s level 8. Just how many of these did you have?” She asked, looking at me in surprise.

“I cannot use them to gain experience after gaining a Tier 2 Class or rather a total level above 10 so they are pretty useless to me.” I replied while I took the money she had gained.

What I did was give her the items required to complete the collection quests Tier 1 people could do.

I had plenty of them due to my hoarding habits.

There were five different quests of this kind and could be done multiple times.

She did give me the rewards from the Quests back and only got the experience and in return, she would make the items for me for free.

I think it was a decent trade.

“We still need to go to two other places. With that, you can get to level 9 at the very least.”

After an hour, we got her to level 9 while I had over four thousand extra Gold in my inventory.

“Okay, this much will be enough. I can help you level up the last level or you can do gardening here while I get some more materials for Quests?”

“I will go out and hunt.” She clenched her fist. “I will be able to manage with this.”

I looked at her for a second and nodded. Since she didn’t have a problem then who am I to say anything?”

I knew most of the outer forest like the back of my hand already, including the areas where the items for those quests spawn and there were still my bases at the top of the trees.

We reached one of these areas and the herbs had respawned.

I didn’t find any fresh tracks of the wild animals nearby either so we both got to collect the herbs and I set a few traps after which both of us hid in the base at the top of one of the trees.

“Is this how you hunt?”

“This is the safest method.”

“Can’t argue with that. So, what kind of animals live here?”

“Mostly boars. Sometimes there are snakes but those are rare.”

“Boars eh? Let me help then.” She brought out a pouch from her bag, lit the corner of the bag with fire and threw it on the ground.

“What’s that?”

“Bait. Boars love the scent of Wild Violet Berries. The bag contains the dried peels of these berries. Their smoke is generally used to repel insects but can also be used as bait for Boars. They get drunk from this smoke. I mixed them with Blue Lilies which increased their smell even more.”

I listened to her explanation in surprise.

The game was really detailed, to even put so much thought to these little things.

But then another thought struck me.

I was going to hunt a mutated boar.

“Can I order one of these?” I asked.

“Sure. Treat this as a thank you gift.”

Our talk was interrupted by a sound as I signalled her to be quiet.

The sound grew louder.

And a few moments later, a fucking hoard of boars came running to that area.

The craziest thing was that even though the initial bunch fell into the trap I had dug along with the burning pouch, the others… jumped into the hole themselves.

Isn’t this bait too crazy?

We waited for sometime as the smoke took effect after which I handed her a spear and brought out one myself.

After that, it was like hunting fish in a barrel… or boar in a hole.

Within half an hour, she was a Level 2 Apprentice Herbalist.

I, on the other hand, took the chance to level up another Tier 2 Job which I had gained somehow- Militia.

My personal guess was due to the thing which happened last night.

Apprentice Hunter was without a doubt the best class to level up right now and had some extremely vital skills to survive but Militia had better stat gains.

I prioritised my speed of growth first as I could always level up the rest of the Classes later, after I got a good set of Skills.

Now was such a time.

Unfortunately we didn’t have much time so I could only bring it up to level 3 and changed back to Apprentice Hunter to return back.

The harvest was great but now was the time for the real hunt.

We returned back to the village quickly and Veena went back to prepare the set of items for me while I went to get my weapons from the shop.

Everything was ready in half a day and while this was a bit later than what I originally had in mind, it was still much safer than before.

“Are you sure you don’t want my assistance? I might not be as strong as you but I wouldn’t be a burden either.” Veena asked, as she handed me the pouches.

“Thank you for offering but this is a solo quest.”

“Ah, too bad. Take care and be safe.”

With everything done, I took a leave from the village.

The next part was going to be hard.

I reached the area where the Mutated Boar was said to live.

The place itself was on one of the deeper sides of the forest.

I scouted the area and cleared some of the wild animals in the area to get the area ready for work.

Digging the place was harder as I was often interrupted by animals and had to face them and even that was hard as this area had high level animals.

With the hole dug, I placed several spikes with poisoned tips inside the hole to injure the boar when it fell. After that, I chose an old enough tree to make a base.

I had no idea how strong the mutated Boar would be but it was probably top of T2 or T3 at the very least.

A weaker tree could get knocked out and I would be fucked.

With everything done, I decided to locate the boar and bait it there.

One of the best parts about tracking such animals was that there were barely any animals around where the boar lived.

To bait it, I used the special bait Veena had prepared.

I placed several of them above the trap and lit them and placed several fruits and nuts on top of it as I waited for the effect.

The place was covered with smoke instantly and the wind blew it towards the boar’s habitat.

It was what happened next that I was not expecting.

There was a loud grunting sound from the distance and I prepared myself.

A second later, I felt tremors and they got larger and it was followed by a loud crashing sound.

From the top of the tree, I could see that small trees were being uprooted in the direction from which the boar was coming.

I nocked an arrow as I held my breath, preparing for the attack.

A figure jumped from the direction of the sound.

And finally I could see it clearly.

Black hide and large white tusks. It was almost double the size of the few T2 Boars I had hunted in the past.

The unique thing about it was probably the horn on top of its head which was red in colour and sometimes embers lit the tip.

Magic.

We still had no idea how to get a mage class here.

But I didn’t have time to let my thoughts stray much as the boar jumped directly at the fruits, crashing and falling into the pit and directly into the spikes.

A loud screech resounded in the area and a burst of fire came out from the pit.

I waited with bated breath and saw that the Boar actually got up and actually tried jumping.

Even with its hurt leg, its jump was too high for my comfort so I let go of the arrow, directly shooting its eye as it tumbled back into the spikes with a loud screech once more.

Without waiting for it to recover, I nocked another arrow and let it fly.

After a total of five arrows, the beast stopped moving and I got a notification.

You have killed a Mutated Flame Boar.

+10,000 Exp Gained.

Level Up.

Militia: 11(2200/2200)

+33 STR +33 END +22 DEX

I quickly stored the drops but the trouble hadn’t ended there.

The loud noises were going to attract other animals and I didn’t have much time to run so I got back on the tree again but not before throwing the large boar’s corpse inside my inventory.

Sure enough, within minutes, the whole area was filled with many animals.

Many of them fell into the trap in the commotion while some stood surrounding the hole in the ground.

I for one wasn’t going to let this chance go so I quickly started sniping the animals one after another.

The thing with changing Classes was that I could only equip 1 class of each Tier at a time and I got the stats of only the equipped classes, though the active skills remain even if they are 50% less powerful.

So with the Level 20 Apprentice Hunter switched out with a Level 11 Militia, my damage was reduced by a lot but even then the poison made by Veena was very useful.

It was a total massacre.

In the next few hours, I was able to level up my Militia Class to level 18 not to mention the drops and in the end, I ended up sleeping on the tree itself.

By the time I returned back to the village, it was the afternoon of the next day.

I went straight to Gunter’s Hut.

“Oh Arthas, it’s you lad. How was your hunt?” he asked.

I noticed the people around me but right now I was not in the mood to delay.

“I would like to complete the quest for the Hunter’s Examination.”

“You completed the Quest! My my, that was quite fast if I do say so myself. Well, what are you waiting for, show me your Badge.”

I passed on my Apprentice Hunter Badge to the guy and he did something to check it.

“Well….there was a talk about a secret final exam that the candidates have to find out for themselves.” He said, scratching his chin.

….

At this point, I was getting irritated.

Sleeping on a fucking tree can make people irritable. Dulled emotions or not.

And thus, a few words slipped out of my mouth.

“Oh come on, do I need to learn Nen now?!”

Congratulations!

You have unlocked a secret Achievement.

Man of Culture!

Title Gained: Traveller

Reward: Unique Skill: Shingen-Ryu.

Keep seeking more of these secrets hidden in the world of Arcana.

I stood there still….looking at the notification in front of me.

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

At this point, there wasn’t a doubt in my mind.

The Game Master….he was a transmigrator like me.

Gunter looked at my shocked look and laughed.

“Don’t worry. Those are just rumours. You have passed the exams. These are just the exams for a Hunter and you did great. Here lad, have your badge.”

He handed me a badge which I took absentmindedly.

Even the Quest completion in front of me was not enough to get over the shock.

Gunter handed me a new Badge.

Hunter’s Badge.

+5 STR +5 END +5 DEX

T3 Class: Hunter Unlocked

Congratulations on being the first one from your Region to advance to a 3rd Tier Class.

Title Gained

One Among a Thousand

+20% increased Exp Gain.

Keep doing your best, Traveller.

I looked at notifications and instantly observed the difference.

The last time I remember it was addressing me as ‘Player’ instead of a ‘Traveller’.

I quickly checked the Title I had received.

Traveller.

A Special Title given to those who complete the Hidden Quests, Man of Culture.

+1 to all stats.

+2% to Exp Gained.

Note: The Effect of the Title can be enhanced the more secrets the Traveller discovers in the world.

I couldn’t help but look up at the sky.

The Game Master.

- Sirzechs Lucifer -

He looked at the sleeping figures of his family members.

It had been a day since they had fallen unconscious and entered the Game.

When the announcement appeared in the skies of the Underworld, many of them had been taken aback.

Such a feat couldn’t be achieved by a normal man. This was someone far beyond him in power.

Most of the people in the Underworld didn’t even understand what was happening as human games were not that easily available in the Underworld and thus were not that popular.

It was almost eight hours in that he was informed about Rias and her peerage by her Knight, the only one who had been out for a contract.

While he was there to investigate her condition, he was informed that his mother and Grayfia were both in the same condition.

Apparently mother had wanted to try the game she had heard about from Rias and had dragged Grayfia into it too.

They were not moved from the place carelessly, fearing that it might stop the game and take their lives.

Ajuka himself made sure that they could be brought to the Underworld and to the Gremory Mansion without disturbing the Game.

He was still getting updates about the devils who had been in the same situation.

The game Soul Art Online was massively popular as a marvel of technology and even Ajuka had praised it.

This had resulted in several devils playing the game.

And not only Devils, several members of other pantheons had done so as well and now each and every one of them were in a similar situation.

“Can’t you do anything, Ajuka?” He asked his friend who had been checking up on them.

Ajuka got up and looked at him and shook his head. “The Magic is too strong and with the soul involved, I cannot take the risk. It would be beyond repair if something were to go awry.”

He gritted his teeth as his power leaked out a bit.

“Control yourself, Sirzechs. There are patients.” His father chided and he quickly reigned in his powers.

Taking a deep breath, he forced himself to calm down. “I am sorry. I lost my composure for a moment.”

“I know you are worried. I am too. But at such a time, losing your calm will not help anyone.” His father explained slowly.

“Yes father.”

Suddenly, the door to the room opened and a servant rushed in.

“M-my Lord. T-t-there’s a body hanging from the top of Lucifer Castle.” The man looked pale.

“What! Whose body is it?”

“I-i-it’s….Rizevim Livan Lucifer.”

….

….

….

….

Before he could get over his shock and ask more, he heard a familiar sound and rushed towards the window to see the same screen in the sky once more.

- Game Master -

He looked at the faces of the people of the Underworld, staring at the sky.

As he had expected, someone had tried to mess with his plans and it was none other than the spoiled son of Lucifer.

So he decided to show them the consequences of such actions.

“Well hello everyone. I didn’t expect to see everyone so soon….oh who am I kidding. Of course I did. I knew there would be idiots who wouldn’t pay attention to my warning. Seriously, was it so hard? I did warn you about Angry Me, didn’t I? And guess who it was?”

He paused a bit to let them digest the information as the screen changed to the top of the Lucifer Castle where the dead body of Rizevim was hanging.

“Bingo! It was the spoiled son of Lucifer. Seriously, these idiots have more pride than they are worth. Did he think he was special because his daddy was the Big Bad Devil? Or was it because he was a so-called Super Devil? The dumb moron was the weakest of all three of his kind and yet had the biggest ego among them.”

He looked at the ugly looks on the faces of the devils.

“You morons put too much weight on that silly title and in doing so you forget a very simple thing….a super ant….is still an ant. I can eat them for breakfast lunch and dinner and not even burp. So….know your fucking place. I am not like others who would bear your tantrums for the sake of world peace. I would simply erase anyone who annoys me. If that’s the whole race….then so be it. Is that understood? And this….” He pointed towards Rizevim’s body “Was just a small example.”

The entire underworld had gone silent.

“It seems that I need to show how serious I am about my Game. Then so be it. Let me repeat myself once more, for the last time. The only way the game will end is if the players win the game. If anyone tries to use any other way, well hold on a moment, let me show you what I will do.” He shifted the camera to another location .

The screen was filled with the sight of a large beast with characteristics coming from different animals like a lion, a leopard, a bear, a dragon, etc. It has seven necks, seven heads, with ten horns, as well as seven long thick tails of different shapes. It also has four stout arms and two legs that are even thicker than its arms. Its main body is that of a primate leaning forward and is covered in black fur and what appears to be scales all over its body. Its size is well over several hundred metres.

Even through the screen, anyone could feel the strength of this beast.

“This is ’The Beast of Apocalypse - 666’, the Beast that brings the end of the world and all. You must have heard about it in many of the myths, even in the Bible… Oh, especially in the Bible. After all, the being the God of the Bible had locked up even knowing that it might lead to his own end. ‘The Beast Of Apocalypse - 666’ or as it is called, Trihexa.”

“The Big Guy from the Bible was severely weakened due to sealing him after all. He was barely at 5% of his power in the Great War. What? How could you little Devils and Fallen Angels ever dream of matching him at full power? The so-called Super Devils of the current age would have been snivelling babies in front of ‘THE Big Guy’.” He laughed and none of the Devils or Fallen Angels on the screen spoke.

“Nah… the guy was dying as it was, so he decided to cull the numbers to such a degree that the leftovers didn’t battle even if it was just to save themselves from extinction. Anyways, let’s not go off topic. So, if anyone tries to stop or even interrupt the game, I will release our little pet in their houses.”

He then paused and looked at them, his lips curling up into a smirk. “Oh, and if they by some pfft divine miracle, survive that, I will,” He zoomed out to show himself and his three lovers, “take personal fucking action against them.”

With his speech done, he decided to show them a small glimpse of what he could do. “Now for the punishment for the ones who made the first offence. Don’t worry. I am not a beast. I will not take any more lives today. But something needs to be done to keep you idiots reminded of the consequences.” The screen shifted towards a familiar floating island.

Agareas.

He snapped a finger and the entire island was covered in bright light, completely vanishing.

“No more fancy chess pieces for you. I believe you have already recovered your population enough. Now think about managing them properly rather than keeping on increasing them with disposables. Alright, gotta go. I have a game to supervise. Ciao. Keep being good children or the Angry Me might come next time and go full Thanos on you.” He looked at the confused looks of the people.

“What, you all don’t know Thanos? The guy who wiped out half the life in the Universe in his over-the-top family planning scheme? The purple guy. ‘I am inevitable’ ‘Snap’ Thanos? Tch, what uncultured people.”

With that he shut the screen off.

“Seriously! No culture in this world at all.” He complained.

“I doubt they even know your definition of culture.” Tiamat rolled her eyes.

“Well, if they did, they wouldn’t have to throw all their hopes on a guy with a vocabulary of a single word, breasts.”

“I personally thought it was hilarious.” Red laughed.

Their conversation was interrupted by Ophis of all people.

“Someone….”

“Hmm?”

“Someone got the ‘Man of Culture’ achievement in the Game.”

“Huh?!” He thought he misheard.

“Someone got the ‘Man of Culture’ achievement in the Game.” She repeated again.

He shot up from the chair and went to the screen and saw the scene play in front of him.

“Oh come on, do I need to learn Nen now?!”

Nen.

This wasn’t even a reference any one could get by mistake.

His face lit up as he looked at the blue haired boy on the screen.

With a single wave of his hand, all the information about him was in front of him.

Arthur Strauss.

A super genius with slightly muted emotions.

The more he read the information about the kid, the more he was sure.

“Arthas! Is he for real? Could he be any more obvious with that username?”

“Is he someone from your world?” Red asked, peeking over his shoulder and on the screen.

“Yup. A reincarnator.”

“Hahahaha, looks like your theory might really be correct. But anyways, you got a fellow ‘Man of Culture’.” She laughed.

Oh, that he did. That he sure did.

“And it seems that this junior of mine was quite bored of his normal life.” Or else, he would have never jumped into ‘SAO’ of all things. “In that case, let’s see how he does.” At least the work he had put into all those hidden references all over the game wouldn’t go to waste.

- Arthas -

I went back to my room and closed the door.

Suddenly the safety of the room didn’t seem that comforting anymore.

My heart was beating fast.

Suddenly I recalled the advice Veena had given me and forced myself to calm down and took a deep breath.

Once I calmed down, I analysed the situation over and over and came to the conclusion that… worrying didn’t help me at all.

If the guy wanted to harm me, I would be dead no matter what I tried since I was almost surely exposed.

But if he didn’t… then I would just be wasting my time and energy worrying.

The thing I needed to do now was to concentrate on the game and find a way to clear it.

When this thought came to my mind, slowly but surely my worries settled down.

I shifted my attention to the next thing on the list.

With a T3 Job now, I couldn’t stay in this village anymore so I had to move from this place to the nearby town.

Technically I could have moved right after I had achieved a T2 Class but Hunter was a very useful Class and this place had it and I was also in a race against time to get to the T3 Class for the bonus.

20% Exp Gain boost was a lot especially considering how much exp I would need in the next tiers.

There was also the Shingen-ryu Skill.

And damn was it broken.

Shingen-ryu [Unique Skill] [Level 1] [Exp: 0/1000]

Shingen-ryu or "Style That Originates From The Heart" is a school of Martial Arts in which the practitioner learns hand-to-hand combat as well as the ability to control their aura for combat.

Passively Increases +2 STR +2 END +2 DEX +2 INT +2 WIS per level.

I didn’t even know what the max level for this Skill was. At this stage, it was like gaining another T2 Class on the side.

I remember that this was the martial arts used by Issac Netero.

And the best part about it was that it was a Passive Skill.

This actually encouraged me to search for more references.

I had sold most of my drops from today’s hunt except the ones from the Mutated Boar.

The tusks and the horn could be used to make a weapon with special attributes and the hide could be used to make armour with Fire Resistance, but Braham couldn’t make those and I needed to go to the nearest town to find out about it.

I still needed to figure out what the next Job Class would be.

Militia sounded a good bet so maybe get it to full level on the way.

I had already obtained a map to the nearest town, Llyne.

With everything decided, I took some rest since it was almost evening and went out to eat at night.

In the restaurant area, I saw Veena dining.

“Arthas.” She greeted me when she saw me coming there. “Come here, Join me.”

I did.

“How was your hunt?” She asked.

“It was successful.”

“Great. So, what are your plans now?”

“I am planning to leave for the town.”

“Already? Then again, this village doesn’t have anything more to offer you so that makes sense.”

“How is your leveling going?”

“Better than I was expecting. I put up a small stall near the village centre, offering to make medicines and items for people who could bring me raw materials and pay a small fee. They were quite excited and offered me several jobs. I levelled up by three levels today.”

Three levels just by sitting in safety and making some powders…

Production Classes could be such utter cheats.

“Are you planning to go the Production Routes all the way?” I asked. From what I had seen of her, she was trained in combat and I didn’t think she would let that talent go to waste.

And just as I had expected. “No. Production Classes can only help me so much. I decided to use this to gain some levels first as, while not comparable to combat classes, these classes still give decent stats. And having a way to earn some money safely never hurts. Although the speed of levelling is slowing down a bit in this place. I think I might move to the town too. Could I hitch a ride?”

“Hmm. Sure. The route to the town is relatively safe.”

“Then I will provide for the items we need on the way.”

“Deal.”

“So when are we leaving?”

“Tomorrow morning.”

“You don’t waste any time, do you? But then again, as the saying goes, the early bird catches the worm. Sure. I will inform Madam Martha about it.”

“At the village gates at 6 in the morning. It would be the best time to leave so that we can cover the most distance while it’s daytime.”

“Alright.”

We talked for a bit while we ate our dinner.

She left early as she needed to pack her stuff.

I didn’t mind her tagging along as making connections was essential in a VRMMORPG. I couldn’t beat the game alone.

She seemed like the social type.

As for myself, I sucked at it due to my condition.

Surprisingly, she didn’t seem bothered with it, almost as if she was used to it, and thus it felt comfortable to talk to her.

__________________________________x___________________________________

Next day, I was at the gate of the village by six in the morning.

Veena came soon after.

“I prepared some food for the way.” She showed me a basket before putting it back into her inventory.

I always carried some emergency food to last me a week or so but this helps I guess?

I nodded at her. “Let’s go.”

There was a fairly clear path from the village to Llyne.

“Do you know what you are going to do after reaching Llyne?” She asked me.

“Hmm, try to find out information about advanced Tier Classes. T3 is not enough.”

“Any ideas on what route you want to take?”

“Combat. Hunter is a good and balanced class but lacks the damaging skills necessary. I might try for other classes. Maybe a Knight or something. What about you?”

“I prefer fighting from a distance. I might search for any magic classes.”

“Oh! You know how to gain those?” I asked, surprised.

“Hehehehe I talked to Madam Martha as well as her circle of friends often and they told me a way to get started if I wanted to learn magic.”

“How?”

“Become a Scholar.” She replied.

“Huh?”

“At least for the basic Magician Classes, getting a Scholar Class is the first step. It opens up several routes. From there one can decide what kind of path they want to follow. There is an academy in the town which can give you the Scholar Class on completing a quest.”

“I see. It does sound reasonable.” I replied, while in thought.

On the way, we discussed several topics.

“Are you not going to join any groups? Hunting is going to become progressively challenging at the higher levels. It won’t be easy if you want to solo things.”

“I….might join a guild if I find a suitable one.” I said after some thought.

Right now I have too much going on in my mind.

“Yes. Getting along with your team members is the most important thing or you won’t be able to trust them with your back in live combat.” She replied, getting a faraway look in her eyes.

This girl….she was really experienced in combat.

In fact, this should have been obvious when she wasn’t shaken from killing those thugs that day.

But that also made her a reliable partner if she somehow joined me.

“I was planning to level up a bit on the way. Do you mind?”

“Oh why not? While making Herbal Mixtures is a good way to gain experience, it’s terribly boring. Do you have somewhere in mind?”

“There’s a place nearby with a pack of wolves.”

I opened the map and showed her the place and we decided on a spot to hunt from.

We were in a hurry so I didn’t have the time to dig a hole and camp there.

“We will need something to hide our scent.”

“Scent?”

“The wolves have a very sharp sense of smell. They would easily catch us if they smell us.”

“Then what do you suggest?”

“Normally, I use mud to cover myself….but even some strong smelling leaves wrapped around our bodies work.” I added, knowing that ladies would generally be averse to getting dirty.

She apparently sensed this and looked at me with a smile.

“I can see why you are so ahead of others. You don’t mind getting yourself dirty to reach your target. Something a lot of kids from my place could learn. Don’t mind me. Leaves might work but they won’t be as good.” She pointed to a pond nearby. “We can get ourselves clean here after the hunt. Anyways, I haven’t had a chance to experience this for a long time. It’s like I am starting my training all over again. Brings back some memories.”

I couldn’t help but ask. “You have experienced combat? You look very young.”

She smiled. “Oh my, asking a woman their age is a no no.”

“I am sorry.” I quickly apologised.

“Hehehehe don’t worry. It was nothing.”

She didn’t speak anything further and I didn’t probe either. We were not that close yet.

We quickly got ready, equipping our armour and covering ourselves in mud.

I saw that she didn’t hesitate even for a moment and my respect for her grew a bit.

We ventured inside the forest and I found a tree for us and quickly made ourselves comfortable.

For bait, I brought out the meat of the boars I had hunted and tied it to a nearby tree. Veena brought out a pouch of poison and smeared it on the meat.

Huh.

I wasn’t doing that before.

But then again, I used to hunt for boars whose meat could be eaten.

Wolf Meat is hard and tastes like shit so it didn’t matter.

Finally, I looked at her and decided to test something for the first time.

I opened the Party option and sent her an invite.

She looked surprised for a moment but accepted it.

And then the hunt started.

The Grey Back Wolves of this area were all T2 beasts and actually had a good sense of smell. There were sounds of growling from the nearby bushes within minutes and we waited with bated breaths.

A pack of five wolves appeared and I was about to shoot when Veena stopped me, shaking her head.

“Let them eat.”

I looked at her for a moment and agreed.

The wolves bit and tore off the bait from the tree and started eating it then and there and within minutes, they began stumbling into the ground.

“Sleeping Powder.” She smiled.

Oh!

So that wasn’t poison.

With such easy targets in front of me, I started the attack and within seconds the entire pack of wolves were down.

I went down and replaced the bait and Venna did the same but she actually gutted the wolves in the place and let the blood cover the area.

“The smell will attract more wolves.”

With this in mind, we quickly stored the body of the wolves in our inventory and got back up on the trees.

Five hours in, we had hunted twenty five wolves.

I noticed that she had changed her class to Militia.

It seems that she had received that class as well.

My Militia Class experience was full and I got a notification.

T3 Class: Squire Unlocked

T3 Class: Guard Unlocked

T3 Class: Apprentice Swordsman Unlocked

T3 Class: Apprentice Spearman Unlocked

T3 Class: Novice Archer Unlocked

Several announcements appeared in front of me.

Wow.

So many options.

After a minute of thought, I chose Squire.

Squires can become Knights which is a fairly balanced Class with offence and defence. I had it in mind for a while.

It was then that something happened that I was not expecting.

A howl sounded in the area and several others soon joined it.

The total number was almost twenty from what I could make out.

This is a bit beyond my expectations.

We hid in the branches and looked down.

What came out of the bushes this time was a wolf, almost twice as large as the normal ones and the most unique thing about it was the unique red colour of its fur.

Son of a bitch.

Was this the area where the mutated Wolf hunted?

I had not investigated its hunting grounds after I had excluded it from the list.

The wolves had red eyes and I saw the Bloodlust status on them.

They were not even paying attention to the meat in front of them.

This was bad.

We didn’t move and kept still.

I could fight and even win against the normal wolves but against the Mutated One, especially with an entire pack….that would be hard.

I never faced this situation before because of the pits I dug normally.

We kept waiting for them to leave but instead of leaving, even more appeared and by the end of the next fifteen minutes, there were around fifty of them.

Veena looked and messaged me.

“We target the boss. Currently, that’s the only wolf which can harm us by trying to break the tree. I will try to weaken it and you take it down. We will take care of the others after that.”

Sounded like a good plan so I nodded and she brought out a heap of pouches from her inventory.

“Cover your face.” She warned before she tied a scarf on her face as a mask.

I looked at her in astonishment and she gave me a smile.

Even in this dangerous situation, she was smiling so calmly.

Just who is this woman?

I, however, didn't have the time to think about these things right now.

I nocked a poisoned arrow onto my bow and took aim and made eye contact with her.

In a moment of mutual understanding, she threw a pouch directly at the red furred wolf’s eyes and it looked up immediately as the whole area was covered with a red dust.

I realised that she was using the same thing as me.

Chilli Powder.

By then I had already prepared one of my new Hunter Skills.

Aim Eyes.

And let the arrow go, straight to the wolf’s eye.

It let out a loud growl and all the wolves started growling but unable to reach us.

The red powder was burning their eyes and Veena wasn’t letting up on her assault as she rained several different pouches down on them, one after another.

I didn’t stop either as I rained arrows after arrows on the mutated wolf, using my other Skills in quick succession.

Aim Legs.

Disable.

Lethal Shot.

In just a minute, the wolf pack was full of status effects.

They were not retreating due to the Bloodlust effect which was clouding their judgement and kept on trying to jump on the tree to get to us.

The weaker ones started falling one after another.

The Mutated Wolf decided to take action on its own and opened its mouth as embers of fire formed inside.

Magic.

I didn’t give it any chance however, shooting directly inside its mouth.

The Magic was cancelled and it stumbled down.

With the combined assault, the wolf was down after five minutes.

By then, the rest of its pack had either fainted or died from the effects of the pouches.

I kept shooting them but didn’t go down.

We needed to wait for the poison to kill them all and settle down.

When we went down, it was already dark and the entire area was eerily quiet.

Did we hunt all the animals in the area?

Damn….

Herbalists were scary.

I looked at my Level.

Squire: Level 15[1000/5500]

Even her Militia Class had reached level 18.

Without a word, we collected all the bodies and left the area.

 It wasn’t until we were out of the forest area that I let out a sigh of relief.

“That was fun. I haven’t had this much fun in a long time.” She was the one who broke the silence and I looked at her dumbfounded.

I won’t lie.

My heart was still beating fast.

I was excited too.

But my case was different.

What was wrong with her?

She looked at my expression and giggled.

“Let’s get cleaned off. I am more afraid of ruining my hair than I am of those wolves, dear.”

“I….okay.”

We trekked towards the place with the pond.

I scanned the area for wild animals and found a few snakes and nothing else.

This area was still under the wolves and they hadn’t respawned yet so we had some time here.

“Alright, you can keep watch and guard me while I take a bath and I will do the same.” Surprisingly, the one to say this was not me.

Oh, she was gorgeous. There was no argument about that.

In fact, she was probably the most stunning woman I had seen in both my lives.

That said….my instincts warned me not to look at her in the wrong way.

Especially when I remembered the fight with the wolves.

So, despite the alluring scene in front of me, I kept my sight on the area around us.

- Venelana -

She walked into the clear water of the pond and splashed her face with some clean water to rinse off the mud.

This game was turning out to be more than she had expected.

It has been almost eighteen days since the Game started and there were no signs of this thing ending.

Even if what the so-called ‘Game Master’ said was true, it would still be around a day in the outside world which meant that her body would have been discovered by someone and her family informed.

Knowing her son and husband, they would have already called for the best magicians including Ajuka to take a look at her condition and they still hadn’t found a way to break it.

Then again, a soul contract, if what the Game Master said was true, would never be easy to break.

Even a week in the outside world would be five months in here so she was preparing to enjoy this while it lasted.

Staying at home had been getting boring and to be quite honest, she hadn’t had this much fun in a long time.

Despite the relatively peaceful behaviour nowadays, they were still a race which was made to combat against the forces of heaven and fallen angels.

Her current level of power reminded her of her childhood and while back then her training had been with the ongoing Great War in mind, this was like a more enjoyable game.

She could see this becoming a great hit had it not been for the whole….being trapped in the game debacle.

Suddenly she heard a swishing sound and quickly drew a dagger she had on her side only to see an arrow fly past her and hitting the ground and a hissing sound sounding from the place as a snake writhed in pain before falling dead.

She looked at the rock on the bank of the pond and saw Arthas holding a bow and arrow and checking the surrounding area.

It had been a few days since she met this kid, Arthas and he reminded her a bit of Koneko, although much better than the poor girl.

In fact, he had been a true gentleman to her every time she had met him unlike most of the other men whom she had seen in the village.

The thugs who had died that day had just been the worst among the bunch.

Conditions like these tend to bring out the worst in people and so, him, a young boy, the same age as her daughter, being able to keep himself in control and behave as he does, said a lot about his character and mental strength.

Thus, she chose to accompany him to the nearest town, to know more about him. As she had said, the game was only going to get harder and she too needed people to protect her back and a sweet boy like Arthas seemed like a good choice.

Her original plan was to find her daughter and her peerage and Grayfia and form a team with them but who knew how long that would take? And having another good team member like Arthas wouldn’t hurt.

And it looks like her choice was correct.

She had gained more levels in a few hours than she had done in the past eighteen days.

With a final splash of water, she rinsed her face and turned back, walking out of the pond.

She saw Arthas, turning the other way, giving her some privacy to change and giggled.

If she was stuck in this game for the next few months, then she was going to enjoy herself to her fullest.

__________________________________x___________________________________

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Author’s Note:

Look who’s back.

Thank Jackle(on my discord) for this one.

A lot of things happened in this chapter.

Our boy got the first T3 Job and is making friends with Mama Gremory.

In doing so, he unknowingly gained the attention of ‘The Game Master’, someone who has the whole Dxd world by the balls right now.

Rizevim tried to be evil in front of the Game Master and got his neck snapped while the entire Underworld was threatened by the Game Master, his family and their pet.

The Game Master doesn’t like interruptions in his game and now the whole world knows this.

Meanwhile, Arthas has finally left the beginner's village with a surprising companion.

We will see the reaction of the whole world in the next chapter.

Till then, have fun.

Enjoy the next chapter.

Good Day, Peace Out.