End Online: Volume 2 (20 page)

"Well,
why don't you leave him a message and we will meet him in Grenton? I see
no point in sitting here for that lowlife. Don't you see how superior he acts,
expecting us to wait for him. He doesn't even show his face to us."

"Don't
you dare say tha- Who's there!?"

The woman
breaks off from the argument and looks in my direction, almost as if she could
see me through the trees. It is my fault for not hiding better, how
embarrassing.

Masking
my killing intent as much as possible, I stroll out of the bushes with my hands
up. I ensure to gently keep my eyes closed, the violet slitted irises are more
than enough to give away that I am not human.

"Ah,
I'm sorry I wasn't sure how to approach. You seemed to be rather busy."

The woman
maintained her silence at my words. She is right to be cautious, except she is
not my target. If I recall, I do believe she was with the hooded man though.

"Is
it just the two of you travelling together? Surely that must be
dangerous."

With my
eyes closed, I try to give a gently smile. I can't see anything, but the rest
of my senses are strong enough to be able to judge things accurately. She still
has the scent of suspicion.

"There
are two others, but they are not here right now. Why are you keeping your eyes
closed?"

"Oh,
this?" I let out a short, cold chuckle, "It is merely a form of training
I have been trying. I take it these other two will be back?"

"I
think they may have already left without us actually. So who knows."

"Oh
no. I doubt that."

"You
doubt that? Why is that?"

"Oh,
just a feeling I have. Nothing more."

"Well,
we are going to be leaving now, it’s been a pleasure to meet you...?"

She
trailed off with a questioning voice, I can only assume she means to ask who I
am.

"Oh,
just call me Learg. That will do."

'More
like you should prostrate before my and call me your highness! Filthy human!'

Oops, I
let out my killing intent again. I don't sense anything different from them, so
maybe they didn't notice.

"Although,
I happen to not be much of a fighter. Would you happen to mind if I followed
behind you for my safety?"

"Umm...
Let me discuss it with this guy for a bit."

She drags
him off and whispers to him about whether they should let me follow. I don't
particularly want to waste my time with them. But they have some connection
with my target. Following them around is possibly the best way to find him now
that I have lost his scent.

They
don't actually make any noise as they talk. But I sense a link between the two,
and I can hear them when I focus on it. They speak about me being a suspicious
individual, but the foolish man in the armour seems to believe he can protect
her if need be.

With the
mid-day sun shining down, the shadow of the canopy is projected down onto the
ground.

The two
humans come back and agree to let me follow them. Apparently their names are
Verde and Sir Laurence, neither of which I will remember for long.

***************************************************
***************************************************

-Lost-

When I
log back on finally, the area around me has slightly changed. Almost as if last
night’s storm had occurred in the game as well, there are between ten and
twenty of the nearby trees knocked to the ground.

The
leaves had scattered all over the ground from the destruction, giving me a
sense of unease at what could have caused it. Fen is also here with me,
although with a bored look on her face she ignores the damage.

A small
notification shows I have a voice message in my inbox. Opening it, Verde's
enchanting voice plays through.

"Lost,
Sir Laurence and I are going to Grenton ahead of you. We don't know how long it
will be till you're back and we can't wait until you do. There is also a person
following behind us who is incredibly suspicious, I hope to get into town where
it is safe before he does anything."

"P.s
I'm going to miss your cooking. I will look forward to seeing you again. We
will meet you at the Gold Run Inn, the one specified in the letter of
introduction."

Mmm, some
suspicious guy is following them? I wonder what they could want. Also, is it
just my cooking what you look forward to? You can really get directly to the
point can't you.

I hear a
rustling in the bushes and raise my guard immediately. A beast sneaking up on
you usually leads to suffering a critical hit.

***************************************************
***************************************************

-Mason-

My name
is Maver Marx, but my character in End Online is just called Mason. I am
nineteen years old and a full time gamer.

I make my
money by recording my gameplay footage, editing the camera angles, then placing
it on the forums for people to watch. My brother, with the character Matrix,
helps me with this and we split the profit made.

Living in
the slums with my brother and father, it is the only place our meagre income
can allow us to live.

With the
entire area is stricken by poverty, we are lucky to have our VL's. Our father
had worked at Virtue years ago and lost his job when the public opinion for the
technology turned negative.

At least
he got to keep some of the devices for his kids at the end, even if the loss of
job had forced us to move out into the slums.

There
really isn't much profit in the videos I make. I am not like any of the famous
players. On a lucky day a thousand views on any of my videos is about the best
I get. Even my most recent one in the large scale battle against the army of
stone kobolds and boulder ogres only managed to get eight hundred.

I really
need to do something to get the views up. I get paid on the advertisements on
my video. All I have to do is put up a video of at least an hour long and any
advertisers who wish to put their advertisement on my video, place their bids
with the highest one getting the spot. It is also a video lifetime spot. All
they have to do is buy it.

They can
pre purchase spots if they contact me before I post the video, but I am also
not popular enough to garner that kind of interest from any media investors.

I usually
set an hour video to have three advertisement spots at every twenty minutes.
They usually sell, but only for meagre amounts. One video will tend to only get
me about a hundred or so dollars if I am lucky. But lately that has been going
down.

Matrix
and I are currently on our way to a dungeon in between Leaz and Grenton.
I discovered clues about it by reading some books in Grenton last month.
Only, I got distracted thanks to the large scale battle that was going on.

Checking
my status, I notice I gained about twelve levels from that battle in a
single day.

I really
want a class skill. I have been trying to get one related to archery, but I
have had no luck so far. Matrix is in the same situation, trying to get a class
skill related to being a 'Magic Swordsman' but still yet to discover one.

I wear
hard leather armour and shin guards specially crafted from the pelt of a
Mountain King Lion. Its status showed it was something called a 'Knight Class',
and it was incredibly more powerful than a normal creature. If I was to put it
in terms that I grew to understand it, I would probably call it a 'Mini Boss
Class'.

Matrix
would have gotten first say on the good due to his death and effort put in, but
he wears medium armour so it was better if I have it.

I travel
up through the trees while my brother follows along the ground. We do this to
prevent ambushes, or if one of us still gets ambushed, to allow the other one
to come to the rescue. It may not seem it, but it is quite effective if the
enemy only thinks there is just one of us.

We come
to a small clearing with two people in it. A man wearing a snow white
fur cloak. And a girl in a red halter dress, her hair the same colour as the
man’s cloak. Using 'Hunter's Eyes' my vision zooms onto the man's right hand,
spotting that he is from Glace.

Something
seems off about the two, so the thought of attacking simply doesn't seem like a
good choice. Despite how popular player verses player combat is in the videos.

"Hoh,
friends! What brings you out here?" I announce myself from the trees,
letting the man know where I am. The girl doesn't even look up, almost as if
she already knew I was there.

He looks
up at me but maintains his silence.

"We
happen to be going to a new dungeon. I suspect it may be quite tough though.
Would you two care to join us?"

"I
suppose I can do that."

The man
in the hood let out a friendly laugh, but somewhere behind it I could feel an
icy tone. I would like to know more about this mysterious individual.

"Great!
But, we won't be forming a party. Surely you can live with that?"

"Yes,
yes. That is perfectly fine." He raises his hands as if he is harmless.
But raising his hands reveals the two short swords under his cloak state, warning
me that he is most definitely armed.

"It's
a pleasure, I am Mason. And my brother down there is Matrix."

"Brothers?
That's definitely interesting. I am Lost, and this is Fen. Well, shall we be
off?”

“Yes, I
will let you lead the way."

I jump
out in front and start walking towards this hidden dungeon I read about. The
book could be wrong, but my 'Literature' skill revealed that the information
has more than an eighty percent chance of being true.

Passing
through the trees with our two companions for this trip, I get excited about
the video. Having guests and such for video's usually boosted views, having
such a pretty girl in the video too is bound to make the popularity reach
higher than it ever has before!.

We break
out of the trees into low rolling hills covered in flowers of ever colour. The
sky had a few clouds around, but nothing that should affect the weather. As we
continue north, I ask about these two people.

"You
agreed to come rather readily Lost. Surely you must know how easily it would be
for us to betray you. What are your reasons?" I question the hooded
figure, the moment I invited him he suddenly turned friendly.

"You
offered for me to join rather readily, it could have easily gone the opposite.
I could ask the exact same thing."

"Indeed!"
I let out a bellow of a laugh at his response, "Indeed it could."

"Well
truth be told. I need to get stronger as fast as I can. If I join you in a
hidden dungeon, I can do that. There are other reasons too, but I would rather
not talk about them."

"I
guess this will benefit us both then! I make videos for the End Forums. Having
extra people, especially a stunning beauty as one of them, would be great at
increasing our viewers."