End Online: Volume 4 (9 page)

“The video of rescuing the
elves. I had about a hundred hours of footage recorded and obviously I can’t
just put it up as is.”

“So you have spent this
entire time doing that?”

“Well, apart from
sleeping, yes. Setting the right angles in each scene to be used and choosing
ambient background music for the battles takes a really long time! Especially
when the video is two hours long!”

I can hear the excitement
brimming in Mason’s voice, so he must be incredibly proud of the final product.
Just at that moment, Prince Charming twists his head around and joins the
conversation.

“Elves? What are you
talking about?”

“Oh, right,” I say as I
realize his confusion. “After Verde disappeared and you left, we got mixed up
with an elven community and ended up travelling to liberate their capital city
from bandits.”

I condense the entire
adventure into a single sentence, causing the prince to scowl and shake his
head while turning away.

“Sorry, after I
disappeared?” This time Verde expresses confusion. “How long ago was that?”

A vague sense of
uneasiness comes over me. I recall that furious middle-aged man mention
something about his daughter’s condition and accuse me of causing it.

‘Is it memory loss?
She definitely seems different, but she still remembers us. Wait, does she?’

“It would have been about
three weeks to a month ago. Don’t you remember? You said that you had some
other business to take care of for a while, but you didn’t come back after.”

I don’t know why I just
lied about what happened. The time she disappeared is true, but I made up the
rest to test her.

“Oh, yes! I remember that.
My father required my assistance with his work for a while. Sorry, it took
longer than I expected.”

The words roll off her
tongue as if they are the truth and I almost believe her, but my stomach still
sinks as I realize that her memory has indeed been affected. I feel
particularly dejected about the situation, but I decide to go along with the
charade.

‘I don’t know why she
is hiding it, but I probably shouldn’t be prying.’

“Mason,” I call out to the
elder brother of the party, “two hours is unprecedented from what I have seen
before. How many views has your video gotten so far?”

“Sorry, it isn’t live just
yet. Due to the size of the file, it is going to be uploading all night.”

“I see…”

I had wanted to talk more
about the response to the video; I am quite interested on the viewership of
videos and the money that they bring in. I don’t have the skills do it properly
myself, but that doesn’t mean I’m not interested.

“Now that we are all
together, let’s head off to Swordbreak!” I call out to the gathered party.

With the change of
subject, everyone drops what they were doing and comes over to me. We form our
party of six and quickly head out of the acacia grove. Travelling downhill and
away from the mountain range behind us, the brothers comment on the excessively
long path of flattened grass. No one pays it much attention, but the reminder
causes me to feel awkward.

Fen hadn’t cared that I
saw her underwear. If anything, she had genuinely wanted to know my opinion of
them, even going as far as to ask if they were not good enough and if she
should remove them.

I don’t know if this game
censors genitals or not, but I am not particularly interested in finding out.

Even now, the wolf girl is
walking a little too close for comfort. Ever since the incident I have been
trying to create distance between us to alleviate my awkwardness, except she
always manages to be right there when I look over my shoulder. I keep trying to
create distance and she keeps trying to get closer. The result is a strange
kind of stalemate.

Eventually, I give up and
she takes the opportunity to hook her arm around one of mine and stick to me
like glue.

Dry, yellow grass, as high
as my knees, cracks and falls to the ground underneath my boots. I feel small
thorns from the grass attach to me and pierce through my clothes. I lead the
whole party as we calmly walk through the wide open savannah.

It is a shame that there
are so many players around, but at the same time it is a blessing that we don’t
have to deal with every enemy in our path. A few lions are within the effective
area of my intimidating aura, suddenly sprinting towards me with a bunch of
angry players trailing close behind. Although when I easily finish off the
enemy in a single attack, the players finally back off.

It takes three hours to
pass through the savannah, and not one section of the area is less crowded than
the rest.

Past the savannah is an
area of small hills covered in red ash and paperbark trees. The hills also have
large rocks jutting from the ground, making some areas difficult to pass
directly through.

There seem to be fewer
players in this area, though that may be due to the lack of enemies and
wildlife. While we stop for lunch, Matrix expresses great fascination with the
paperbark trees, pulling off large sheets of bark and then peeling that into
even thinner layers.

I feel a vaguely familiar
feeling, similar to a spark of inspiration. It is the feeling I get when I am
looking at an area where there are herbs available. Focusing on my supernatural
sense to locate herbs, I get the impression that I should be looking to the top
of one of the nearby hills. The location I need to go is not on top of the
hill, but directly after.

Dinner consists of some
wild animal meat freshly caught mixed with a few herbs. The lack of extra
flavoring causes the meal to taste rather average, but I have gone too long
without replenishing my stock and can’t afford to waste what little I have
left.

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

The next morning, I walk
towards the spot where I feel some herbs should be growing. As soon as I reach
the top of the hill, I spot a pocket of trees hidden from view by surrounding
hills.

The grove is full of
paperbark trees and the ground is littered by fallen bark. Grass still grows
here, but there is clearly more bark than grass. I walk into the grove and hear
the sound of bugs clicking and buzzing around me. The canopy of the grove is
quite thick, preventing most sunlight from entering except for the occasional
ray of light penetrating the foliage to shine onto the ground. The golden rays
create a soothing atmosphere in the grove.

I have been in enough
areas with herbs growing to know where to look. Brushing all the loose bark on
the ground aside, I begin inspecting the ground for something to harvest. Just
like beneath the snow in Iceridge, here there are herbs hidden under the
paperbark.

Fen joins me in searching
for herbs but only leaves them exposed for me to take. She has long since
learned I get mad when she harvests the herbs. She doesn’t have a harvesting
skill and ruins most of the herbs she comes in contact with.

Two hours later, I have
covered half of the area of the grove and replenished a large quantity of a few
types of my herbs. Perhaps it is due to the different climate, but I can’t find
the majority of the herbs that I am running low on.

I do, however, find a few
new types of herbs. There are small, orange, berry-like herbs called ‘Simmering
Hip’, small yellow flowers known as ‘Gilded Meadow’, and a few thorny, grey,
four leaf clovers named ‘Despair Clover’. The latter of which I am disinclined
to test.

I would like to continue
foraging the area and stock up on more herbs, but the rest of the party is
beginning to get restless. I doubt they will wait around for me for much
longer.

With a needle of regret in
my chest, I put the small paperbark grove behind me and lead the party further
west.

The amount of players in
the surrounding areas doesn’t change much from the savanna. Sometimes it
appears that there are a few hunting spots available, but they quickly fill up.
Over the next three hours, we finally leave the surrounding player-infested
areas and arrive in a small village not large enough to be registered on the
world map.

There are a quite a few
villages and towns other than the capital cities registered on the world map,
but there are also ten times as many that are not registered. The world map
isn’t something viewable from inside the game, but is an image of the entire
continent released online by an unknown player who travelled the entire
continent, mapping it as he went. No one has any clue as to who this player is,
but from what I gather, they are from a different server than mine.

The village is situated on
the top of a hill, but with a semi-broken wooden wall for defense and
ramshackle buildings.  I cannot say as to whether the terrain advantage
will save them if an invasion comes.

After camping outside for
such a long time, my body desperately craves a real bed. Of course, I can just
log out and sleep in my real bed, but that leaves me at the risk of
oversleeping and holding everyone else back.

“Excuse me,” I say to a
passing resident, “I am looking for someone to sell my goods to, and an inn.”

“A t-traveller?” The NPC
responds fearfully. “O-of course. If you continue up this street and turn right
at the top of the rise, an inn is down that road. As for a trader, a local
peddler comes to this town every Saturday. If you wish to sell goods,
please wait until then.”

‘Tch, that’s still
four days away. I suppose I do have a high enough strength stat that I could
carry more items.’

I ignore the NPCs reaction
to my intimidating aura and the extra ten points of infamy. My mood is too good
after hearing from my two precious little sisters to be brought down by that.

Following his directions,
we walk down the hard packed dirt road and quickly arrive at a two story
building with a sign hanging over the door indicating this is the inn. Given
how quickly we got here, I decide that walking from one end of this small town
to the other will only take about ten minutes.

“This place…” I frown upon
looking at the inn.

The ‘Joy Inn’ sign is
hanging diagonally by a single chain. The building has multiple broken windows
and a lot of the timber posts supporting the walls and roof have begun to rot.
The paint has faded and the atmosphere exuded by the building is the complete
opposite of ‘Joy’.

There is also the low
moaning sound coming from the building that should only be the wind, but send a
cold shiver up my spine nonetheless.

“I-I saw it! There was
d-definitely a ghost in that window over there!” Verde suddenly shouts.

“Well, it’s important to
try new things at least once, right?” I cheerily try to persuade the others.

Fen, at the very least,
appears to be on my side.

“Actually, I have been
running rather short on gold lately,” Mason turns away from me. “It will be
better if I save my money and, as much as I don’t want to, sleep outside
tonight.”

“This town is f-f of
men that keep staring at me,” says Verde, biting her bottom lip. “I can’t
possibly sleep in a place full of people like this. But I promise, it has
absolutely nothing to do with this inn…” Her voice trails off as she hurries
off in the direction Mason went.

“My lady! I will protect
you! Allow me to be your shield.” Before I even have the chance to respond or
register what is happening, the prince goes charging after Verde.

“…” Matrix simply says
nothing, running his hardest to catch up with everyone else.

‘Unbelievable! What
kind of team are you!?’ 
I feel a
twitch of irritation rise and cause me to release a small amount of dragon’s
bloodlust.

The sudden change in
atmosphere causes the few NPC’s in the surrounding to quickly flee, leaving
behind only two players with confused looks on their faces.

“Well Fen, looks like it
is just you and me.”

The wolf girl nods her
head slightly and pulls herself slightly closer to me. I walk into the inn with
determination, telling myself that the others are missing out. Looking over my
shoulder in the hopes of being able to give a smug glance at the rest of the
party, the only players in my line of sight are strangers. They look surprised
as I walk into the inn, but I pay them no mind.

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

“Lost,” Mason says
timidly, “How was your night in the inn?”

“It was great!” I respond
sarcastically.

Despite saying how good it
was, the red rings around my eyes speak otherwise. I did not get a single wink
of sleep and the entire night is a memory I wish I didn’t have. It also made me
realize how fully lifelike this game can be.

The only positive side is
that after three hours of being in that haunted place, I did manage to receive
a new skill.