End Online: Volume 3 (5 page)

“I guess it’s time for us
to finally go to Grenton.” I spoke up to the others behind me.

Fen doesn’t say anything
back as usual, but the two brothers smile and silently follow behind us.

Turning north west, head
for the capital of Forste.

During the first day, I
use the intuition I discovered to locate herb reserves. Harvesting each of
these locales, I restock up on my herbs and even discover a few new ones.
Meanwhile, Mason seems to be picking up small sticks, stones, and shooting down
birds for feathers. It is not hard to discern he plans on restocking his
arrows.

Opening my main menu, I do
a refined search on my herbs to find out exactly what I have and how much.

I’m surprise myself as I
notice that the animal fat is technically a herb. Although it appears to have
been in my inventory for too long and gone rotten. It may be such a lovely landscape
around me, but there is nothing else to do other than to dump it. At least I am
nice and place the putrid pile of animal fat behind a tree, out of harm’s way.

During the evening I
managed to hunt a few ‘Spring Horned Deer’ which weren’t called ‘Spring’
because of the season they live in but because each horn was coiled like a
spring. They were also slightly soft, causing their charging attack to spring
me away and leave everyone else laughing like hyenas.

Later that night, I
decided that I would finally cook a proper meal. Up until now, in the dungeon I
have just been eating bread and other long life items you can get in game. But
nothing compares to a freshly cooked meal.

Mason and Matrix show a
considerable interest as I start bringing out all the equipment. Fen, on the
other hand, is literally drooling in anticipation.

For dinner I began to cook
large slabs of venison on a large pan simmering in fresh animal fat, ‘Solar
Stems’ are also rubbed into both sides of the meat. ‘Solar Stems’ are a strange
herb, they leave your mouth burning and provide some resistance to the cold,
albeit not as strong as the ‘Fire Flowers’. But they also grant a limited night
vision.

In this scenario, I am
trying to rub the slightly bitter yet burning taste of the stems into the meat
as I grill it.

While that slowly cooks
through, I chop up some potatoes and carrots I managed to locate near where I
harvested some herbs. They aren’t like normal vegetables though, the potatoes
are strangely pear shaped with black spots on them, while the carrot’s are
yellow and perfectly round. They are called the ‘Bulb Potato’ and ‘Sun Carrot’.

They tasted a little
strange, but I assumed they are at least still vegetables. I left the
vegetables in a pot of boiling water to cook.

While all the food was
cooking, I decided to try experimenting with some potions. After all, I now
have a bunch of new ingredients.

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

Opening my inventory, I
choose two random ingredients to try mixing together. the ‘Yellow Medicinal
Herb’ and the ‘Solar Stem’, two new ingredients of mine.

Grinding one of each in
the mortar and pestle, I feel that the quantities of each item are off. It is
not like I know a recipe or anything, it just doesn’t feel quite right. Placing
another ‘Solar Stem’ in the mix however alleviates this feeling.

The mix takes on a gentle
orange hue, and maintains the gentle colour even when mixed with the water in a
vial.

‘Success! I have
created my first normal potion!’

I almost cry in joy, pride
welling up in my chest. I open up the item information to see what I have
created.

That’s strange, I can’t
seem to discern what it is. Is it because it is a higher class potion? Do I
need to drink it to find out its effects.

Noticing Fen still fixated
on the food, I decide to test the unknown potion on someone else before
drinking it myself. No matter how bad it is, it isn’t going to do any serious
harm anyway.

“Fen, since I am cooking
all this meat for you.” I put on my best smile, despite the fact that she
probably can’t see it underneath my hood, “Will you please try this for me and
tell me what you think?”

“…Okay…”

She doesn’t have any
hesitation in her mind at all. So content on her dinner that she would probably
jump through hoops of fire if I asked her to.

Handing her the pleasant
looking potion, she drinks it all in one mouthful.

She stares off into space
for a few seconds, before contorting her face in a gruesome look. Without any
moment she runs off into the trees at top speed.

“Wait… What?” I breathe
out the words quiet enough that even I barely hear them.

From the trees come the
sounds of someone violently vomiting.

Fen’s strolls back into
camp a few moments later, her face as pale as a ghost.

“…Why… Why… That liquid… I
couldn’t get it out… Of my mouth…” Tears are in the corner of her eyes, whether
from being upset or being sick, I’m not sure.

“I’m sorry! I didn’t know
what it tasted like. But it looked all right!”

“…You’re… Horrible!…”

She turns her head away
from me, but doesn’t leave the cooking food. Looks like I am going to have to
make it up to her with meat.

I inwardly laugh to myself
at how predictable she acts around food, meat in particular

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

-Mason-

Once we left the ‘Vexl
Underground Prison’ I almost kissed the ground at finally being outside that
stuffy, mist obscured, infuriating labyrinth. Well, actually, I did kiss the
ground for a bit.

Lost cut his way through
the regenerated bushes and vines for us to get back out. Following behind him,
he declared that it was time to move on to Grenton.

“Hey Matrix,” 
I call out to my brother over private chat, 
“this guy is
an interesting person. Why don’t we join him for a while and see how things
go?”

“You make the calls
brother. I will, umm… Follow you.”

“Okay! Let’s do it!
I’m sure I will get plenty more good videos if I follow him too. So are you
liking your new sword?”

“Oh, Yes!… Umm… It’s
amazing, but I can’t equip it until I am level 143 anyway.”

I laugh back to him, he is
as shy as ever. He will shamelessly chant ridiculous and unnecessary chants
when casting low level spells, yet he turns red in embarrassment when holding a
normal conversation.

The sword he got was the
better of the two items that the boss dropped. But to make up for it, the
‘half’ of the gold dropped by the boss that was given to Lost was twice as big
as the ‘half’ that we kept.

So silently, we decided
that we will follow and join him..

During the day he somehow
managed to locate reserves of herbs, almost as if he could see them from a mile
away. They were also good for me though, as I was able to gather all the
materials I require for crafting arrows there.

The issue with archers is
arrows are usually limited in number, you have a high percentage of being able
to retrieve arrows from fallen monsters, but you are still at a disadvantage
when you run out.

This is why I used up
three skill slots to get all the skills required to craft arrows. This way no
matter where I am, I can always make more with easy to get materials.

Later that night, Lost
began to bring out a large range of cooking tools. Even I put down the sticks I
was shaving into arrow shafts in order to inspect it. He cut up large slabs of
meat and even what appeared to be some strange kind of vegetables.

Going back to my crafting,
I was once again interrupted when I had just started carving out arrowheads
from stones. The girl came back with tears in her eyes and cried that she
couldn’t get ‘that’ liquid out of her mouth.

‘Wait, what liquid?
What did you do to her!?’

I felt morbidly disturbed,
possibly misunderstanding the situation, but something inside my stomach still
turned over. Especially when he told her he was sorry, and that he didn’t think
it would taste so bad. By this point I figure, they are consenting adults, what
they do is between them.

Lost shortly served up
dinner and whatever animosity his girl companion held for him was instantly
dismissed.

He even passed plates out
to us, thick slabs of venison with seasoned vegetables tickled our noses with
their enticing scents.

Matrix, the man who will
fall to poison one day, dug into his meal without a moments notice. But given
our time spent together, I trust this mysterious man well enough that I doubt
he would ever poison his food. Even the thought seems crazy.

Placing a piece of the
venison in my mouth and chewing, it not only tasted like the tenderest of
meats, but the herbs danced around my mouth like a hot summer day. For the next
five minutes, I was blissfully dreaming of the midday sun blazing down during
the hottest season of the year.

Before I even realized, my
entire plate was empty. Even the vegetables disappeared without me knowing. I
was so caught up in the taste of the meat I didn’t even register anything else.
What incredible food!

Looking over at Lost and
Fen. He was for some reason prostrating himself on the ground in front of her,
who was eating an enormous amount of meat while tears streamed out of her eyes.
I could almost hear her in hysterics.

“…I-it all… Taste like…
T-that stuff!..”

What the hell happened,
what stuff?!

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

-Lost-

What an eventful night,
who would have known that the new potion I created would destroy Fen’s
mentality. This has to be by far the scariest potion I have ever created. I
even ended up prostrating in front of her with apologies. I really don’t want
to lose my companion.

Thus, ending my night.

The next morning I’m not
even surprised to feel a lump inside the sleeping bag. The individual who was
supposed to be guarding us for the three hours of night has once again shirked
her duties.

I can hear a faint sobbing
coming from under the blanket too, a nose sniffling in sync with the sobs.

“The meat… Why… The meat…”

I don’t have the heart to
move her. I actually do feel bad for ruining her long awaited dinner by feeding
her something maliciously disgusting. I wish I can describe the taste, but I
have too much fear of trying it.

Strange enough, despite
all the complaints, she still ate every last piece of meat.

I eventually drag her out
from inside, waking her up in the process. But, it is time for us to pack up
and start heading towards Grenton.

While putting all our
stuff away a pair of male players wander directly into the camp. Seeing me with
my mark of Glace on my wrist, a cruel grin creeps onto their faces. Out of
curiousity, I glance at Fen’s hand, which unsurprisingly does not contain a
mark. They surely must think she is a weak, new player.

The first one readies a
dark brown longsword and kite shield, while the second player raises his staff
and begins to chant.

Mason and Matrix wander
over and the glint in the eyes of the two suddenly disappears, almost as if
realizing there are more than two people here. The man at the rear stops his
chant, the light from the gem at the tip fading. Both of them turn tail and run
into the dense trees behind them as fast as they prepared to attack.

I don’t know about Fen but
for some reason I didn’t feel afraid of the two at all. The two of them gave
off an atmosphere that almost said they were… Weak and naive. Looking at the
girl next to me, she didn’t even register they were there at all. She was still
busy sulking.

“What was that about?”
Mason looks puzzled as he asks me.

“I honestly don’t know.
Seemed like they saw two players from a different kingdom and decided to try
their luck.”

“And they just gave up
like that?”

“Well, our forces did just
double in number.”

He looks even more
confused by my words. But, all I do is laugh at him.

We spent the next five
days in game walking to Grenton, each step closer leading us to cross paths
with more and more players. There were a few threats at first, but we were
lucky they weren’t all that strong. Fen took care of them all by herself. I
only feel fortunate that she followed my instructions and didn’t kill a single
one. Her having a player killer’s skull on her back is the last thing I need.