End Online: Volume 3 (15 page)

“Darling, Please don’t be
alarmed. We are going to take you to someone who can help.”

A small part of me tells
me to trust them. With a short nod of my head, I extend one of my slender arms
towards the woman who grabs and embraces me. I feel a strange comforting
feeling inside my chest. A feeling of safety.

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

“It is completely
abnormal. I don’t know what could have caused this.” The family doctor,
Petroni, said while shaking his head.

During my trip to the
hospital, I learnt that the woman, Honya Lee, is my mother while the man, Lucas
Lee, is my father. At first I thought they were speaking nonsense when the lady
introduced herself and the man. I only began to come to terms with it and
understand after I tried to think about who my parents were. I knew I have parents,
but when I try focus on who they are, the knowledge is just on the tip of my
tongue, yet just out of reach.

I met a middle aged man at
the hospital who was well dressed and absolutely handsome.

He gave me a few quick
general checkups before having me lie down on a bed which slowly moved into a
humming machine.

“I am having a hard time
understanding it.” My father says, extremely stern with the doctor, “Please
explain it to me again.”

“Memories are stored in
the brain as clusters of neurons,” The doctor starts explaining the problem
once again. “For some reason, those clusters have been scrambled. They appear
to be only slightly damaged, but right now they not only out of place, but
incomplete as well. This is what’s causing her amnesia.”

“If her memories are still
there then why exactly can’t she seem to recall any of them at all?!”

“It is because they are
all out of place and damaged. Right now, I assume her brain is analysing them
and trying to restore them to their original condition. You can think of the
memories right now as data that while still being there, is unreadable.
Everything from here is entirely up to your daughter and her mental ability.”

“So there is nothing that
we can do!?”

“Nothing that can give a
definite cure, so to speak. You could put her in situations that are related to
her damaged memories. The familiarity should help her mind jolt some of these
memories.”

“Fine, I will do that.”

“Thank you for allowing me
to be of assistance today, Mr. Lee. I will now be off for the night, I also
have a wife and daughter to attend to. Please sign yourself out when you are
leaving.”

My father nods to the
doctor who then hurriedly walks off.

“I have been speaking with
your mother. I hear you have been playing some online game?” Father gives me a
stern reprimanding stare.

I’m not exactly sure what
he means when he says this. Why would my mother know about me playing some game
that my father doesn’t. Even more so, he appears to have a sore dislike about
it.

Unable to recall anything
about an online game, I can only give him a blank stare with a tinge of fear
around the sides.

“Tch, I will be in contact
with the game company in the next few days to sort this out. I don’t
necessarily need you to go back and waste your time with the filth that play it.
I will organize video footage of your entire gametime to try and trigger your
memories.”

I can’t seem to find any
words to say back to him. Consciously, I have no problem with what he wants me
to do. Yet, a hint of sadness appears from a dark corner inside of me.

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

-Lost-

Mason, Matrix, Fen and I
arrive in front of Grenton’s beginner forest, located only a five minute walk
from the city’s eastern gate. There are a few parties of newbies around hunting
wild boars and other low level creatures.

A lot of eyes seem to
follow us after seeing what appear to be high level players coming through.
There are some angry glares whenever a nearby monster falls victim to my
auto-taunt. I don’t know if it is because Grenton is different from Iceridge,
but a few angry looks is all I get. People seem to get over it and quickly move
on to the next enemy.

With lush green grasslands
to our rear, the trees in the forest in front of us all look exceptionally
similar, with branches twisting up to where the canopy from all the trees
produced a solid shield against the world, barely letting any sun shine through
and completely blocking off the view of the sky.

Strangely enough, the
small rays off the sun that broke through to the ceiling of the trees came
directly down, removing all indications of where the sun is in the sky.

“There is no point in
delaying any further. There is apparently some kind of illusion in this forest
that causes all invaders to return back to where they entered from. From what
folklore I know in regards to ancient magic, it could be anything from a
natural misleading ensnarement to a full blown glamour.”

I speak to the others
about my suspicions. They aren’t necessarily correct and some of the others may
have thought the same thing anyway. But it is my position as the leader of this
party that requires me to take this role.

“Do you all have the
‘Clearsight’ scrolls I bought for us earlier?”

“Yep.” “Sure do.” The two
brother respond immediately.

Fen doesn’t have to hold
onto one of the scrolls as I will cast one on her myself. She is a companion
and not a player, so she doesn’t have a personal inventory like the rest of us.

Taking the first step
forward, we all enter the forest.

I pass on the thought
considering the area is likely to be for new players who have graduated from
hunting those odd green boars and are ready to move onto the next type of
enemy. Being a low level hunting grounds means it will probably have low level
rewards.

There is definitely no
shortage of monsters out here. I used my creature analysis on some of the local
wolves, revealing them to be level 15. They are different from the wolves I
remember from outside Iceridge. I spent a long time battling the light grey
wolves and despite them being of a lower level, I can clearly tell the
difference compared to these black ‘Forest Wolves’.

When these wolves attack,
their movement speed is only slightly faster than that of the snow wolf. Yet,
they are multitudes more agile. Every single wolf that fell under my passive
aggravation weaved in and out of the trees in such a fashion they were incomparably
hard to follow with the eyes, and before you knew it, they were right in front
of you.

For a level fifteen player
to hunt these wolves. They would need an incomparable natural talent or
considerable prior knowledge in martial arts. The experience they provided was
naturally much less than the difficulty warranted.

‘No wonder this
forest seems so empty of people. Nobody would go to this much effort for so
little experience.’

I continue to casually
walk through the ankle high grass with everyone else following closely behind
me.

“This forest is
inconceivable.” Mason speaks up after a twenty minute period of silence, “I
have lost all sense of bearing. Everything looks the same no matter where I
am.”

“I understand what you
mean.” I sigh while agreeing with him, “But we have been walking in one
constant direction this entire time. We must be making some sort of progress.”

Fen gives me a strange
look, but continues to stroll along side me without so much as a word. She
isn’t attached to my arm, but neither is she particularly far away from me.

I have seen plenty of
wildlife in the forest, especially elk with large antlers of ivory. I broke off
from the party at one stage to kill one of these creatures. While I managed to
kill it and harvest a few meals worth of meat from it, I was surprised to find
that their antlers were classified as shields under the game system. I could
not use my speed to nullify their defences, just like with the ‘Thèr Deer’.

I also got the innate
feeling of when an area of herbs was nearby a few times. But I refrained from
traversing to them in fear I would completely lose my bearing and end up
walking back the way I came.

Another half hour passes
with absolutely no change to the surroundings. Occasionally we walk up slight
hill and other times down them, yet the ground and the forest around us refuse
to show any signs of changing.

Suddenly, I notice a
bright yellow light shining through the trees in the distance. revealing a
clearing to the trees.

“Finally, we can look at
the sun to discover our orientation.” I breath out slowly, relief spreading
through my chest.

It only takes us five
minutes to reach where that light was shining through the trees. As soon as I
enter it. Not just me, but everyone else as well must be as shocked as I am right
now.

We have exited the forest
from exactly where we entered it from.

Turning around stupefied,
everyone except for Fen is staring back at the forest in confusion.

“I think I understand why
everyone assumed there was some spell on the forest.” I speak to the others
about my thoughts. “It isn’t just that the forest is misleading and causes you
to get lost. To exit out of the forest exactly where we entered from is simply
inconceivable.”

“I agree,” Mason talks
while staring into the trees, “There is definitely something amiss here. But I
don’t know what we should do. I doubt that these scrolls we have will work
considering how we couldn’t even tell when the illusion began. It must be a top
tier illusion to be able to do that.”

“Hmm.” I think about what
he said for a moment. At the very least, there must be some way to get past it.
The issue is that with a million players in the game and three hundred thousand
of those in the kingdom of Forste, anything we try has more than likely been
attempted before. And that is only on my server. There are also another sixty
three servers out throughout the country as well.

“We may as well try what
we can. This forest is our best lead for finding that boy so we have to
discover its secrets somehow.”

“Umm. How do we do that?”
Matrix shyly asks in confusion.

“We will mark the trees
with a knife as we pass by them, marking our way.” Mason answers his brother
moments before I respond as well.

“We will also use our
‘Scrolls of Clearsight’ halfway through the trip. This time it took us about an
hour to end up back here, so we will use the scrolls at thirty minutes in.
There must be some way to succeed after all.”

“Pretty sure everyone
thought that way at some point.”

I don’t respond to him. I
know that this is probably a vain attempt.

Unfortunately, it is all
that I have to go on right now with no alternatives.

Drawing both my
‘Reinforced Steel Kodachi’ and ‘Fire Imbued Meridium Scramasax’ I lead the way
back into the forest cutting into the trees as I pass by them. When I stop and
look behind me, I can see all the cuts lined up in a straight line.

I continue doing this for
another half an hour, continuously looking back to ensure I am travelling in a
straight line. If I am heading in a straight line, there is no possible way I can
end up back where I started.

I turn around once more to
check on the cuts, but to my astonishment, they are gone. Frantically looking
all around me, they have completely disappeared.

“That’s strange. Maybe, if
the illusion confused my senses and made me unconsciously change directions, I
would understand. But this is almost like a teleportation disguised as an
illusion.” I mumble to myself trying to find reasoning behind the tree cuts
suddenly vanishing.

“Could it be the illusion
is masking the cuts as well as confusing us?” Mason asks.

“It’s possible. At least,
we now know we are under its effects and it is definitely here. I personally
feel reassured to know that we were simply not getting lost ourselves in this
forest where everything looks the same.”

“I guess we should use our
scrolls now then.”

The three of us players
each pull out a ‘Scroll of Clearsight’. Calling out the incantation, we all
cast the spell that is to dissolve the effects of visual illusions on us.
However, looking around me, I still can’t see the sword cuts I made on the
trees.