Before they could finish the job, three small black balls rolled right next to me. Before I could even try to process what it was, they all emitted smoke that encompassed the battlefield that we were fighting on.
"Ambush-" As one of the rogues tried to warn his comrades, he was quickly cut down.
The more I looked around, the more of my attackers were being dispatched. Keyword is dispatched. They weren't being killed, but they were somehow being rendered immobilized as soon as this mystery person's blade cut them.
"Ranged heroes, let loose! If we can't obtain Potenshia, then it'll have to go down along with its user!"
A saw various lights and arrows make their way towards me but were blocked by another force.
"Theory Craft: Dome!"
As the smoke cleared I got a clearer idea of who my savior was. The long blue hair that swayed in front of me made me assume that the person was a woman. She had her hands extended in different directions. probably to keep the barrier up. Moments after, she snapped the fingers of one of her hands and said "Times Two."
The ranged heroes' attack was returned to them twice-fold. Hundreds of arrows, bolts of lighting, and fireballs went flying in all different directions out of the dome. As I watched the spectacle in front of me, a priestess ran up to me and hovered her hands above my chest.
"Healing! Safe travel!" The priestess spoke two skills into existence and my extremely low HP began to increase at a significant rate. Not only that, but I was put on a stretcher that floated slightly above the ground.
"We're good to go, Lucia!" The priestess said.
"Perfect!" The blue haired Repeller said.
The Repeller led the escape followed by the priest and me in a floating stretcher. As we ran through the forest, a dark-cloaked figure dashed right next to us and started speaking to Lucia. I couldn't understand their conversation due to me fading in and out of consciousness. I only remember seeing bits and pieces as I was rushed to the guild hall and set on a bed in a separate room.
The priestess used healing skills on me over and over until my vision started to return to me and I could move. As my vision completely returned to me, I looked around to see the priestess and Repeller give off sighs of relief.
"Thank goodness! He's out of FYL." The priestess laid back in her chair.
"FYL?" I questioned.
"Fight for your life. When you're under ten percent HP, you begin to have this hazy feeling. It's to warn you that you're about to die." The priestess filled me in.
"It's a good thing we made it in time. If not, you would've been a goner! Nice to meet you. My name is Lucia." The Repeller's smile was warm and inviting as she extended her hand to me. I couldn't help but shake it.
"This lady that just saved your life is my wonderful priestess Deltalock." Lucia presented Deltalock to me and she gave me a standard greeting.
Deltalock was a petite girl with blonde hair and green eyes. She was slightly more armored than most of my attackers, so it's safe to assume that she's leveled higher.
In that moment, the dark-cloaked figure that I just barely saw during that fight stepped into the room holding a bowl of soup. He wore red leather armor with brown accents and had a black cloak with a hood to cover the entire thing.
"It's a shame that we let those PK bastards get away. By the way, I'm Draco. Nice to meet you." He walked in and handed me the bowl of soup as he complained. There's no way that these two had parents that gave them these names. Lucia is normal, Draco is a bit out there, but Deltalock is just outrageous!
"We had no choice. We didn't know if there were more members of Anarchy on the way. I didn't want this small scuffle over a random encounter to turn into a war between us and them."
"But you swooped in and saved the day, honey!" Deltalock wrapped her arms around him and gave him a hug. Draco returned the hug and asked Lucia if she needed them for anything else. Lucia dismissed them and the couple left the room.
"Who's Anarchy?" I asked while sipping the soup that was brought to me.
"It's a dangerous PK guild that'll do anything for money. From stealing to killing other players. Members of the guild took the same quest that we took. However, it looked like both parties failed since you beat us to the random encounter and got the armor."
It wasn't that I beat both parties to it. It's more like I stole Anarchy's kill.
"I'm assuming that you're gonna want this armor then?" I asked her.
"Nah it's finders keepers! If you found it before us, it was meant for you!" Lucia threw her hands up as if surrendering the armor to me. She then crossed her arms and put one of her legs over the other in a very lady-like manner.
"But I have to ask: You're level three. What are you doing in the forest? Didn't your fairy suggest doing quests inside the city to level up? It's for your safety." Lucia questioned me.
"It's because I want to die. I've done something terrible and I need to repent for that." I was blunt with Lucia.
After all this time, I finally figured out what has been bothering me. It's these dirtied hands of mine. I killed my own parents that were so good to me and I deserve the axe for it. She's probably gonna try to talk me out of it. She's gonna try to lead me onto the path of the living, but I've already made up my mind. I'm not going back no matter what anyone says.
But as I looked at her, she didn't have a look of pity or sadness on her face. She wore a look of inquiry with a mix of fascination. As if she was trying to understand why a friend didn't like the same movie that she enjoyed.
"Do you think that the only way to repent is to throw away your life?"
"What do you mean by that?" I asked.
Lucia then asked that if there were two people that committed a crime, one that got the death sentence immediately and one that continued living and worked themselves to death, who would've had more value to society?
"The one that worked themselves to death, I guess…"
"Exactly! I'm not gonna tell you some sentimental BS like 'oh please keep on living!' There are suicidal people that run into the forest all the time. But I just think that their potential for helping society is being cut short. It just seems like a waste to me. There's no value in a death like that. So to wrap this all up, I think that you should help in humanity's effort to take Faramos back. You may never be able to repent for the sin that you've committed, but you'll at least be able to contribute to this and its people. We always need as many people as we can get. Which leads me to this..."
Lucia opened a menu and clicked a couple of buttons. That is when a window popped up right in front of me and said:
You have been invited to the guild "Diligence"
Would you like to join?
"Yes" "No"
"You know...I don't like taking orders" I told Lucia.
"Don't worry about it! The guild doesn't really ask for anything from low-ranking players. Besides, almost all players join a guild because going adventuring alone would be dangerous. Someone's more likely to attack you if you don't have affiliation with anyone. Wouldn't it seem less annoying on your part in that case?"
This girl is an interesting case...repenting in a different way? A valuable death? This is so out there, it's crazy…
But I'm interested nonetheless…
I pressed the yes option of the invite and Lucia rose from her seat.
"Perfect! I'll get you in touch with a paladin that'll teach you the basics of tanking! He's basically a no-life at the game, so you can contact him whenever you want. I'll message you his username. Also…"
Lucia would like to add you as a friend
"Accept" "Decline"
I looked over to her once I finished reading the message and she was giving me another warm smile.
"Is this important at all?" I asked.
"Not really. I like you and I'm looking forward to working with you. You can decline if you want."
W-wait. What did I just hear? She likes me? Certainly not in that way, right? Yeah there's no way. Nonetheless, I'll accept. It couldn't hurt to have a strong ally like her. I'm just a novice and I already know that she's a skilled player by what I've seen today. As if right on queue, once I accepted, the couple came back into the room.
"Yo, Lucia. Aren't we going for drinks tonight IRL?" Draco asked.
"Oh, right! Well, it was nice meeting you, Matthew." Lucia waved goodbye.
"It was nice meeting you guys too. By the way, you all have some...interesting names."
"If that's some kind of stab at us, they're way cooler names than Matthew. What is that? Your real name?" Draco rebutted at me.
"Wait, are we not supposed to put our real names?" I asked.
…
The room's silence spoke volumes. Everyone then started to burst into laughter. Draco was rolling on the floor with tears in his eyes and Deltalock held her stomach as if she was laughing so hard it pained her. The only person that had any sort of decency for my idiocy was Lucia, who was covering her mouth and looking the other way to hide her laughter. However, through all of her efforts, it was blatantly obvious that she was laughing at me.
"G-goodnightI'mloggingout! OPEN MENU!" I blurted out my salutation to the three and brought up the menu to log out of the game and logged out.
Once I was logged out, I almost instantly opened my eyes and found myself in the real world looking at the ceiling of my house. I let out a heavy sigh and took the headset off. As I set it aside, I rang Walter up and asked him to make dinner.
This game is something I've never experienced before. It made me realize how I really felt about myself. And that girl Lucia...she helped me choose a more productive path. From this point forward, I'm going to keep fighting in the world of Faramos. I'll fight until I'm presented with a death that brings value to everyone.
But first I have to change my name…