End Online: Volume 5 (25 page)

I immediately panic and make sure to hide the symbol of Glace on
my right hand. Following the man’s unnecessarily loud declaration that I am
here, more people take notice of us.

“My goddess, Fen, is here! Fen, please look at me!”

“Fen, please be my wife! I will do anything for you, even-” The
second person is cut off by several ice spears immediately skewering him to the
ground.

Several others start gathering around us and make comments about
the various people from our party, until one person states the one thing I
feared, “Aren’t you people from the kingdom of Glace?”

Everyone’s voice trails off and is replaced by silence until,
with a smile, I utter the words, “Kill them all.”

Fen and I are the first to jump into action. I leave faint after
images behind as I move from one person to the next slashing with the ‘Twin
Nightingale’ at critical locations such as the neck and knees, even the wrists
of some people that appear to be archers. The critical hits don’t disable them,
but slow down their actions for a while.

Fen’s ice formations become a beautiful sight that mesmerize the
attackers and cause them to halt their actions. Two ice daggers materialize in
her hands and what appear to be rose petals made of ice rain down from the sky
around her. These razor sharp crystalline petals follow the movements of her
arms and flow around her with a gentle ebb. She follows my actions, using the
high speed of a high class boss monster to stab and slash as many people as
possible. The ice petals around her form a natural defense even as they attack,
damaging not only the people that get too close to her, but the people she
closes in on as well.

The players from Grenton soon overcome their shock and respond
to our attack. Several panicked shouts and death-screams from the weaker
players alert everyone that the enemy is inside the city. Some people even
shout out our names, alerting everyone who we are as well. The memory of the
bounty on my head causes me instant mental grief and I begin to regret coming
here.

I notice Verde and Sir Laurence out of the corner of my eye,
fighting the endless reinforcements coming in from behind. Verde is slashing
and stabbing the players, causing grief-stricken faces as they are disabled in
ways my character can’t manage. Sir Laurence protects her, thrusting his shield
at every attack aimed at her. Despite this, some still manage to slip through
and damage her.

Just as I am thankful that all the players fighting us are low
level and weak, karma brings stronger players to the fight.

A player dressed in heavy armor violently thrusts out a kite
shield with the image of a serpent on it. I barely have time to react before it
hits me and knocks me back with a five second stun effect. The weak players
take this opportunity to hack and slash at me with their crude weapons. A
single strike does very little damage, but a hundred of them causes my health
to plummet.

Fen reacts violently to my predicament by forming an ice wall in
front of me and dropping a dozen stalagmites as large as an elephant on the
beginners. I see her mana in my peripheral view drop sharply from the attack,
but the weak players are killed off in droves and the ground becomes covered in
gold coins. Some players even stop attacking to pick them up.

“Fen, time for you to escape!” I order as soon as the stun wears
off.

The wolf girl adamantly refuses, but her mana is down to twenty
percent and her health is starting to drop. Reinforcements keep coming as well.
She eventually agrees to leave, joining Verde and Sir Laurence to create a hole
in the encirclement and allow her to escape into a small alley. Some players
break off to chase after her, but I know they will never catch her when she is
running as fast as she is able. Despite that, I still harbor a bit of anxiety
for her.

Sir Laurence heals Verde and himself, but ignores me to save
mana. The chauvinist act is almost as disgusting as the high quality home-brew
potions I am forced to drink to stay in the fight. I even break my word and use
‘Dire Flame’, which wreaks havoc among the low level players and even spreads
to some of the nearby buildings. My belief in the religion of Grael quickly
rises as a result of all the players dying from fire damage and the scene soon
includes the carnage of flame and dead bodies.

With Fen gone, the endless tide of people swarming in overwhelms
us as our mana runs out. Despite holding out for half an hour since the
beginning of the battle, Sir Laurence is the first to die, using the last of
his mana to give one final heal to Verde.

Verde looks down at his body with contempt, picking up and
stealing the helmet and money he dropped on death.

“You must kill him. Kill Mason,” Verde says to me before she
also falls in battle.

I drink more of my potions and restore my health to almost half.
Now the players are going to attack me from every direction, which I cannot
possibly survive.

‘And she still expects me to kill Mason?’
I huff in exasperation and defeat while looking at what must be
about three hundred players filling the street and surrounding me. ‘We should
have gone with the alleys. Surely that would have had more luck than this?’

I’m not about to give up without a fight, however. Even though I
am surrounded with about five meters between me and an angry sea of players, I
once again sprint to one side, leaving afterimages behind me and slashing at
three players who turn out to be high level and suffer little damage. I think
of using ‘Back Stab’ to break out of the encirclement, but I know the skill
won’t work on a player as far away as the back of the crowd.

Just as the sword of one of the players comes swinging down
toward me, it cuts through an afterimage as I dash toward the other side of the
encirclement, which is rapidly shrinking. The players there expect me to appear
and raise their swords, axes, spears and bows. Just before I reach the players,
I jump in the air as high as possible and extend the short swords out beside me
like a pair of pitch black wings.

The players stare in amazement as I glide through the air five
meters above everyone, rapidly approaching the back of the crowd that nearly
had me trapped. Several arrows whiz through the air to narrowly miss me as
escape appears in reach. My attention shifts slightly when I notice a large
group of the city guards mixed in with the players.

As I start losing altitude, an arrow of pure wind assaults me.
The arrow has a wide area effect, preventing me from escaping by knocking me
off balance and dispelling my gliding ability. I crash onto the hard packed
dirt road and sustain heavy damage from the fall.

Just as I am wondering what in hell just happened, I hear a
familiar voice, “When I heard you were in Grenton attacking innocent citizens,
I couldn’t help but disbelieve, but I was soon convinced and rushed here as
fast as I could. I wouldn’t normally engage you one on one even when you are
exhausted, but sometimes just the right opportunity presents itself!”

Of course, it’s Mason, gloating with his head held high.
Everyone else around is now keeping some distance and not attacking due to the
dozens of city guards standing behind Mason. Just looking at them causes my
face to pale.

“You know, those are the words of someone who is going to lose.”
I laugh at Mason sinisterly, trying to buy time while I work out how to kill
him.

“Unfortunately this isn’t some fantasy novel, else I would be a
little scared. Matrix, hit him till he is nearly dead and can’t move, but don’t
kill him. Hah hah hah!”

“What’s so funny? You’re plotting something, aren’t you?”

“If I just kill you, you’ll revive in three days. That won’t be
much of a punishment for challenging me on my home turf and causing such an
uproar in the city. Had I known you guys were coming, I would have had Matrix
watch that hole in the wall I’m sure you crawled in through.”

“Well you should just kill me now then. By the way, how did you
get so many city guards to come with you? Aren’t they supposed to be holed up
in the palace for the ‘Battle of Supremacy’?”

“This is where it gets interesting. You have quite the bounty in
Grenton. The guards view you with such importance that they came out just to
arrest you. Why kill you just so you can revive and rejoin the fight when you
can be imprisoned for the next month?” Mason laughs heartily at my horrified
expression.

“That’s cruel, Mason. That’s too cruel!”

“Also, Fen is already in the cell waiting for you.”

“What!?”

“I happened to come across her and all I had to do was tell her
that you were there and she went willingly. I nearly got skewered a few times
which was frightening though. So you better just go without resistance.”

“You’ve won this time, Mason. But there’s still one thing I have
to do.”

“Hmm? What would-”

Before he can finish his sentence, I activate ‘Back Stab’ and
appear behind him. Before he can react to my dissipating afterimage, my two
shortswords have dug into his back and remove a large chunk of his health from
the critical hit.

Mason tries to turn around and I hear the guards behind me start
clamoring into motion as well. Before they can do anything though, I use both
‘Triple Thrust’ and ‘CrossX’ sacred arts one after another in rapid succession.

Mason finally has to time to counterattack, drawing the dagger
he keeps for close-quarters combat. His usual guard and brother, Matrix, is
still ten meters away and rushing toward us with his sword on fire in
preparation to attack.

Mason curses and tells Matrix not to kill me as that will count
as a failed plan, but Matrix seems to be adamant on protecting him. Mason’s
dagger glows blue as he unleashes a sacred art similar to my ‘Triple Thrust’,
creating multiple ghost images of the blade that stab me a total of nine times.
It would have dealt decent damage too, if it didn’t simply pierce my
afterimage.

“Dammit, this is why I didn’t want to fight him one on one,”
Mason curses as he notices I have used ‘Mirage’ and created at least a dozen
false images of myself. The guards are also confused by the sacred art and it
effectively holds off my arrest as I attack Mason two more times. The archer
quickly falls to critically low health, but not before he uses a strange skill
to throw a large number of arrows to dispel all my false images.

I quickly escape from Matrix’s flaming blade and the fiery sword
aura it shoots off and am about to deal the finishing blow to Mason when
several pairs of iron-like hands grab me from behind. I turn my head to see the
city guards and their stony expressions.

I look back and see Mason, lying on the ground with barely an
inch of life remaining as Matrix withdraws a healing potion from his inventory.

In this last moment I manage to free one arm from the guards and
grab three of the throwing knives attached to my thigh. With the flick of a
wrist, I throw all of them at Mason still on the ground.

My aim is poor; the first one sticks in the dirt next to his
shoulder. The other two, by chance, strike him in the chest, and even more
miraculously tip him over the borderline to death. His body turns grey moments
before Matrix attempts to give him a potion. I don’t get to see Matrix’s
reaction as I resignedly allow the guards to drag me off toward prison.

The crowd stares in shock. To them, we are team mates from the
same party but to us, this was a rivalry to see who would win. I’m going to get
locked up for the rest of the war, but this small victory has me satisfied.

‘What could one man do in a war of this scale, anyway?’
I laugh to myself while in the clutches of the guards who have
a personal vendetta against the arsonist who caused so much damage to their
forest and city several months ago.

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

The cells in Grenton are actually well appointed. A large
television display on the wall can be used to view news and various information
shows about End Online that are streamed onto the internet. There is a large
double bed and even a small kitchen. A single flame lantern hangs from the
ceiling while the ground and walls are made from solid stone.

I had not expected such opulence from a prison cell, but then
again, imprisoned players could just log off and wait for their character to be
released.

“Lost... I was... waiting,” Fen says happily and jumps on me
when I am thrown in the same cell as her.

I want to rebuke her for not logging off, but I am happy that
she is healthy. I reason that we are in the same cell due to the fact that she
is my companion according to the game system. It is also probably the same
reason why she was locked up as well.

“Must be partners in crime, huh?” I say to the room at large as
I lie on the ground with Fen sitting on top of me. Her risqué clothing and the
fact that she is straddling me would cause anyone’s eyes to pop upon seeing it.

“Please, I’m innocent! Let me out!”

The mournful shout of a player echoes down the prison corridor,
audible to every inmate. Several similar cries and the rattlings of doors sound
out after that from other players.