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“You look like an adventurer?” Toddy asked looking at Ken’s clothes. Ken wore a long black overcoat with a red-shirt on the inside. He had long white hair which extended upto his neck. Contrasting his attire were fingerless gloves which were brownish-black in color and perfectly fitted into Ken’s fingers.
But the most striking thing about his attire was the big huge skull which was attached to the side of his shoulders, on either side and glowed with red light from the inside. Further it had long spider legs like extension and went beautifully with Ken’s look. At the side of his waist, extending from trouser was a brownish-golden scabbard which hung majestically to his side and it had a long silver sword in it which had a golden handle and a long grip.
“Yes! Sir. I’m new to this place and an adventurer.”
“So, where are you heading to?”
“Wherever fate takes me! ”
The elf burst into laughter as Ken opened the map attached to the player’s info tab on the left top corner of the screen.
The map opened with black color all over and hills and forests all around. Ken moved the holographic map left, right, up and down to explore what actually was given on the map. Far away, somewhere in the corner was a dot marked in green color. It was the marker of the finishing point of the game as on the top of the dot was attached a dialog box which read as Foothold.
Although the exact location and the structure of the foothold wasn’t visible as the map was completely blacked out and only showed places which were near Ken.
Closing the map, Ken began exploring the player’s tab, the spell tab and the other things to get some information about how things work in this game.
The sky changed from black to orange as dawn approached. Getting the maximum information and checking the player’s tab once again <looking for any player’s around> Ken closed his eyes and in no time he slept off as the cart went on up and down the uneven muddy roads.
“Let us go!”
“No there is a player in that cart!”
Faint voices began to itch in Ken’s ears as he wakes off from his sleep and to peeked outside from the back of Toddy.
A young, blonde player was standing in front of the bullock cart with a sword in his hand. He wore blue denim styled shirt with fingerless gloves and black trousers. He seemed to be a rookie but his stance and posture were telling a different story.
“What’s the ruckus about?” Ken asked as he jumps off the back of the bullock and moves at the front of the cart.
“There you are. I knew that there was a player here.”
“What do you want?” Ken shouted towards the player.
“I’m Ammy and what I seek is your death! Now get ready to go back home” without any warning or indication, the player rushed towards Ken as Ken quickly took his blade out and defended himself from the attack that came head-on.
Moving back, Ken replied “Hey! Hey! Hey! hold your horse’s man. I don’t want to fight with you”
“Then why are you here?”
“To win this game!”’
The player looked at Ken with absolute disappointment in his eyes. He knew that he had just encountered a noob whom he wondered how come he existed in a game of such strong competition.
“Are you an idiot? How are you supposed to win this if you don’t even want to kill player’s?”
“Why should we kill, if we can talk and settle. Let’s make a team together.”
“A team??????” with a big fat question mark in his voice.
“Ya! You and me. Let’s play this game together.”
“A team…..and too with a noob like you” <Keeping his hands to his waist as he continued>
“I’m trying to win here not to lose, Mr. idiot.”
“Idiot is kind o offensive you know!”
“Dude! You seriously should open the player’s profile tab and click on the exit button. You don’t deserve to be here.”
“if we have the peaceful way out? Why to fight.”
“I don’t care. Get ready to die” the player fired a firebolt towards Ken as Ken jumped off the ground and avoided the hit. But the firebolt hit the ground and created a medium-sized black colored hole in the ground.
“watch your attacks.”
Without any reply, the player again fired a water cannon towards Ken and this time the cannon got a hit on Ken as Ken fell down on the ground and with this, his ‘health’ bar which appeared on the top of his head also decreased by a small fraction.
“ok! you want to fight. fine”
Quickly getting onto his feet, Ken firebolted towards the player as he got three clean strikes from his blade on the player as the player fell on the ground and surprisingly his health bar dropped to half in an instant.
The player, surprised by Ken’s agility was helpless against the sword strike by him. Amazed and astonished he crawled away from Ken and started to look at his health bar and stats.
“How is this possible?” he murmured to himself as he scrolled left and right to find something as Ken looked on to him.
“Shall we fight Mr.?”
“How are you strong and powerful?. You are hiding something behind your back, aren’t you?”
“No! I’m not ”
“Liar!” shouting towards Ken, the player fired a series of firebolts followed by a lightning strike and water cannon as Ken barely managed to stay onto his feet despite getting hit a few times.
“Damn it!” angry and raged, the player stopped his attacks as he opened his spell list and chanted, “Stop! the wind, pause the river and burn the skies! Dear God, show the power of Jealousy and eat this person alive”.
As the player finished his spell, a huge clock appeared on the ground and surrounded Ken. Confused, Ken tried running here and there but the clock followed him and didn’t let him to run through.
Suddenly, the clock struck 10 as a loud sound of ringing clock distorted the morning silence and from three sides, on the diameter of the clock appeared three skeletons with swords in their hand.
All the three skeletons surrounded Ken and in an instant, they attacked Ken together.
“Clang!” metals met as Ken stopped the blades on his knee with the blades coming on top of his head. Sweat dripped from Ken’s head as he pushed away the skeletons and opened up some distance between them and him.
“Think! Ken, think!”
Giving no time or space, the three skeletons attacked Ken one by one as Ken jumped back and forth and somehow defended himself by taking minor cuts and wounds.
Panting heavily, Ken rushed towards the trio once again but this time he had a plan in mind. Stretching one hand out and holding the sword by the other hand, Ken inched closer step and when he was about to clash with the skeletons, he used ‘water cannon’ on the ground and fired himself up in the sky.
Then firing a firebolt towards the skeletons, he knocked one skeleton down while the other two fell down on the ground while Ken landed safely and maintaining his stance, Ken launched a series of hand attacks on one skeleton while the other still recovered from the previous attack.
“Clang!” with a solid hit, Ken eliminated a skeleton as the other ran towards Ken and “Clang!”.
Sounds of flesh meeting the metal surrounded the area as Ken stopped the skeletons attack by his left hand and slid the blade past through the skull, thus eliminating the last one too.
“………..” <sounds of heavy breaths> “Hey! player” turning towards the player to find him lying down on the floor with blood coming out of his mouth.
“Hey! What happened?” Ken rushed towards him to pick himself up from the ground. Taking his hands in his arm,
“Hey! What’s the scene dude?”
“I didn’t realize that I ran out my NIXp and overused it while attacking you with the previous spell.” [blood again came out of the mouth]
“How can I help you? What should I do?”
“Nothing. Just keep your head cool and don’t overuse your powers. They are like an untamed lion in a cage.”
“No, wait! there has to be some way out here”
“No! there isn’t a way out.” With this, the player disappeared into thin air as Ken punched the ground with frustration.
“It’s okay boy. Sometimes life throws such things infront of us”
“You are right sir. You are right!”
Sitting back in the cart Ken noticed that his health bar began to refill slowly. Further, new spells were added in his tab and his level went up from one to eight.
The cart moved ahead as Ken began to think of all the events that happened at that time and how helpless a person can be, sometimes.