The young and elegant looking man sighed. His body couldn't take this anymore. He was getting too old. At the moment he was currently walking through an endless looking desert. His long dark hair whipped around in the wind and his eyes burned with overwhelming annoyance.
"Uh...um...sir...can't...can't we stop for a moment?" A weary looking teen bent over his knees and gulped in harsh breaths. Behind him there was a group of other similarly tired youngsters. They all glanced at the elegant man leading the way for them with a mix of trepidation and hopefulness.
"Didn't you all say you would do anything so as not to die?" One of the elegant man's eyebrows quirked upward. His mood couldn't be discerned but somehow the group of teens were frightened by his look.
"We did, we did!" The youngster who had previously spoken hurried to respond. "It's just that we have been walking for so long, we really can't stand going any farther. I'm afraid we won't be able to guard ourselves if anything dangerous occurs."
Xiao Fei was smart. He had just recently gotten accepted into one of the top universities in his home country. Unfortunately, as he excitedly ran home from school to tell his parents, he had been hit by a drunk driver. Before he could mourn the loss of his bright future, he found himself participating in a horror survival game alongside many other randomly selected individuals. After managing to survive his first instance and learning more about the rules of the game, he was pulled into his second instance.
This instance was harder and more dangerous than that of the first, and most of the participants were still newcomers like himself. In order to survive, they formed a group. But their original number of one hundred had already fallen to twenty in the past forty-eight hours. The instance was set in a desert region. The only set goal they had was to survive, but it was seemingly impossible. They were constantly chased by monsters. The last wave had pushed them away from any remaining city or oasis, and they had been running out of food and water. Their energy was almost spent and they had all gathered in a small cave to sleep for the night.
That's when they met him. The elegant man currently leading the way to the town closest to them. When Xiao Fei had first seen him, he thought a ghost was residing in the cave and immediately tried to pull the others to the exit. However, he stopped trying to run away when he heard the man speak.
"I can help, but only for a price." He had grinned at all of them sharply. They had all reached their limit, and while they were suspicious of his offer, they reluctantly agreed. So, at dawn, the group set out and had been walking for most of the day.
Xiao Fei was still looking at the man after trying his best to persuade him. The other raised an elegant hand and propped his chin on it, regarding the group following him for a moment.
Xiao Fei's heart beat rapidly. He didn't know why, but this NPC didn't seem like a regular NPC. Most NPC's could hurt the players, but generally speaking, unless it was a monster NPC or the instance was storyline based, the NPC's didn't hurt the players as they had no reason to. But the man in front of him put Xiao Fei on edge. He was an NPC and was even actively helping them. Furthermore, there was no plot in this instance, so besides the mindless monsters set to follow them, other NPC's wouldn't feel any malice towards the players. But the one leading them now gave Xiao Fei the inexplicable feeling that he was just an ant that could be crushed at any given moment.
The elegant man nodded and his eyes showed a hint of happiness at the fact that he didn't need to walk anymore. He thought that these youngsters really didn't know how to appreciate their sprightly bodies. Why were they even more tired than him? He took the group to a cluster of large boulders ahead so that they could have a barrier from the wind.
This instance was still considered the beginners' trial period. The shopkeeper had opened his shop after a year-long break (which he really wanted to extend) due to one of his regular customers, an NPC monster from this game, requesting an item of "utmost importance." The shopkeeper was still angry at the fact that such a low level monster had requested something in a beginners instance and needed it so urgently that he had to actually go back to work. However, the monster had been a customer for a long time. Actually, in the shopkeepers memory, he couldn't not remember a time in which this monster was not a customer.
The shopkeepers memory wasn't the best, and for one reason or another, he couldn't even remember how he became the shopkeeper. However, what he did remember is that this particular customer had a highly rated blog on the Infinite Flow NPC web and he couldn't get any more bad reviews. Especially from a well-known blogger. He reluctantly agreed and now he was stuck baby-sitting newcomers in an instance while trying to find out where his idiotic customer had disappeared off to.
He wanted to go back to his shop and continue polishing the items that were already in pristine condition. It had become an obsession of his that came from years of sitting in his shop aimlessly. The items he stocked could be considered his pride and joy.
"When I find that stupid blogger he better have a good explanation for not meeting me in the cave." The shopkeep muttered and his eyes had an evil glint. Then, he turned towards Xiao Fei that had been trying and failing not to look at the elegant man sitting next to him.
Xiao Fei's heart trembled at the look he was given.