After picking up a new weapon to fight with, Nico was back on the path to the 'Adventurers Guild'.
'I only spent a little bit of time at Manny's place, so I should still be early.' He thought as he rounded the corner going to the guild.
Thankfully he saw no line in front of the guild. Entering the guild, Nico took a second to look around. To his left was a giant board with what looked to be commissions on it and to his right was a pub.
'I guess, this place is both a pub and a guild?' He thought.
Focusing his thoughts, Nico walked forward to the front desk and was greeted by a middle-aged woman wearing a receptionist uniform. Overall, she gave off a welcoming vibe.
"Hello, my name is Clara, how can I help you today?" She said in a professional tone.
"Hello, my name is Nico and I was looking to sign up as an adventurer, please." Responded Nico, quickly getting to the point.
The receptionist understood that Nico didn't feel like talking, so she progressed the conversation quickly.
"Of course, all we need is your full name and I can get you registered."
"My full name is Nico Brager."
"Alright, give me one second and I'll get your I.D. for you."
After Nico nodded his head in response, Clara went and put Nico's full name into some type of gadget. Shortly after she put his name in, a card which was beneath it, started showing up letters.
Picking up the finished card, Clara walked back over to Nico, sat down the card and started explaining some things about the guild.
"Everyone starts at rank F, so please don't take offense. You can rise a rank by completing ten commissions of your rank. You can also take commissions which are one rank above yours but if you fail them there will be a penalty fee." She spoke in a way that told people that she had been doing this for a while.
The ranking system wasn't confusing so Nico understood it immediately.
"Okay, thank you. Is that board over there where I can pick up commissions?" He asked, pointing at the boar that he saw when he first entered.
"Yep, each commission will show what rank you have to be to accept it, at the moment you can do F rank and E rank commissions." She explained.
Receiving the receptionist's words, Nico grabbed his card from the counter and walked over to the commission board. Looking through the commission he saw that most of them that were available to him were just chores or hunting things like slimes. Finally he found one which he was satisfied with.
{Exterminate a group of goblins in the nearby 'Twilbury Woodland' Rank:E}
Taking the commission, Nico headed back to the receptionist and asked to take it on. But her response was not what he expected.
"Sir, are you sure you want to take on this quest? People have been disappearing in the 'Twilbury Woodland' the past few days." She said in a worried tone.
'Disappearing? Hmm…' he thought.
"This just happened in the past few days?" While saying this, Nico couldn't help but think that maybe his coming to this world made something change.
"Yes, sir. So, you want to cha…."
"I'll take it…"
"Are you sure?"
"Yes."
Clara took a quick look into Nico's eyes and saw that he wouldn't be giving up on the mission, so she was forced to relent.
"Fine…"
After gaining the right to take on the mission, Nico immediately left towards the woodland. While he was walking, he thought back to the receptionist's words about people disappearing.
'This could just be a coincidence, but for some reason I doubt it…' He thought.
He already decided to investigate the cause of the disappearances, so he just put off his thoughts until he could do something about them.
Walking past the front gate of the city, Nico pulled out his map, which he had gotten from the guild, and proceeded down the road towards the 'now' mysterious 'Twilbury Woodland'.
*
The walk only took about an hour before reaching the edge of the woodland. Just by looking, Nico couldn't notice anything strange about it, the trees looked normal and everything felt fine. But, Nico had this gut feeling that this place, which was supposed to be the 'Twilbury Woodland', wasn't.
Nico then walked into the forest and continued walking for about 5 minutes before a notification showed up in his eyesight. This notification proved that Nico's previous gut feeling was true.
[You have now entered "The Illusionary Forest"]
These words shook Nico to his core.
'"The Illusionary Forest", this is a place in the Obelisk!" He shouted aloud, out of surprise.
As he shouted a fog rolled in, covering the ground. Nico remembered this, 'The Illusionary Forest" was a dangerous place for new players. The reason for this was because when you entered the forest, it sent you into an illusion, in this illusion you would keep walking forever, never reaching the end of the seemingly endless forest.
Luckily, Nico knew that he was in the illusion because the fog always rolled in when the illusion started. Nico also knew how to break out of the illusion but instead took a second to sit down and think.
'Assuming that I can get the same stuff here that I can get in the game, what benefits can I receive here?' He thought.
Nico was the only player to have ever completed the Obelisk, so he was naturally the most knowledgeable about it. Sitting there for about 10 minutes and following all of the trails in his mind, he remembered that this was the starting point of gaining one of the best skills in the game, The Eye of Providence].
[The Eye of Providence] was a skill that the player could get early on the Obelisk, but it was classified as a unique skill, meaning only one player could ever get it. Naturally that player was Nico. He was about half way through the Obelisk before he noticed the way to get the skill. Fortunately, no one had already gotten the skill before he did.
And the way to get the skill all started here, in the illusion of "The Illusionary Forest".
Finding a new determination to get [The Eye of Providence], Nico stood up and started solving the puzzle of the illusion.
To get out of the illusion, the player had to find one tree which was slightly different from all of the surrounding trees in the illusion and stab it. Do this three times in a row and then you are released from the illusion.
After closely inspecting all of the surrounding trees, Nico found the one that was slightly different.
"Here it is!" He said, standing in front of a tree which had a slightly different shade of brown on the bark.
He then proceeded to stab it, causing the fog which was on the ground to engulf him and bring him to the next illusion.
After the fog faded away, Nico found himself in an illusion which looked exactly like the last one, if he didn't know any better then he would have thought it was the same one as the last.
Same as the last time, Nico closely inspected the trees and found the one that differentiated from the others. But, instead of stabbing it, he stabbed the one next to it. He then moved on to stab all of the surrounding trees, except the one he was supposed to.
When there was only the tree he was supposed to stab left not stabbed, a notification showed up.
[The 'Illusionary Key Tree' was awakened by your persistent failures.]
'There we go!'
Seeing the notification, Nico's heart jumped in glee. This is what he wanted, or to be exact, he wanted what was inside of the 'Illusionary Key Tree'.
"GGGRRAAA!" The Key tree released a strange sound which sounded like a grumble mix with a roar.
Knowing what happens next, Nico jumped back to a safe distance to spectate. Shortly after he jumped back the ground where he was previously standing started to crack, the crack started to spread and finally covered over half of the entire illusion before the Key tree's roots bursted out from them.
The same moment the roots bursted out of the crack, Nico unraveled his spear and prepared himself for what's to come.
"RAAAGGAA!" The Key tree yelled, seemingly mad that someone awoke it from its slumber and shot its roots towards the culprit, Nico.
Nico knew that he was far too weak to take even one hit from these roots and that he didn't have the strength to block them so he was left with only one choice, something that he was forced to perfect in the Obelisk, Dodge and Deflect.
There were many weapons and abilities that monsters in the Obelisk used that could cause fatal damage with only one strike regardless of the players abilities, these skills which monsters used were called wipeout attacks by the community. And although this attack from the 'Illusionary Key Tree' wasn't one of those wipeout attacks, Nico still treated it as such because he was so weak at the moment.
Seeing the first of the many roots coming his way, Nico lowered his legs and did something the key tree didn't expect, he dashed at it.
'I have dodged and deflected things much more difficult to track than this, if this wasn't easy to me then my pride would take too much of a hit to keep moving on!' He thought, as he dodged the first root and was now approaching the second.
This root was positioned in a way to where Nico couldn't dodge it, so instead he swung his spear to meet it and forced the root to change its course.
He had to dodge and deflect a few more roots before finally reaching the body of the Key Tree. Nico then stabbed his spear into the bark of the tree in a precise location and stood on it, waiting for the roots to be shot at him once again.
It didn't take long before the roots began their pursuit towards Nico again, but this time they were going almost double the speed they previously were. It seemed like 'Illusionary Key Tree' was embarrassed that Nico had avoided all of its attacks and was looking for redemption.
The 'Illusionary Key Tree' wasn't an intelligent creature so it failed to notice the twisted smile appearing on Nico's face.
Waiting until the roots got close enough to where the Key tree wouldn't have time to stop its attack if it wanted, Nico then jumped off of his spear and landed on the ground, while looking up.
'Gotcha!' he thought.
Looking up Nico saw the roots that were chasing him plunging into the Key tree, breaking off some of its bark causing it to reveal a ruby-like sphere.
"RAAAA!" The key tree howled in rage and pain.
Seeing his target, Nico pounced towards the sphere and gripped it as hard as he could. He then started to pull, but it wouldn't budge.
Seeing the roots of the key tree starting to become active again, he panicked, brought out his spear and proceeded to cut the root like structures attached to the ruby sphere.
Cutting away the last root attached to the sphere, all that was left was the thick stem in the middle. Nico knew he couldn't cut it so he switched back to his hands and started pulling again. At the same time, the key tree sent its roots towards Nico for one last attack.
"Come ONNN!" Yelled Nico, pulling with all his strength as the key tree's roots were only inches away from him.