Eli had a small smile on her face as we stood in silence. I realized what had to be done and wondered if I really wanted to, if I truly had to. This was the person who had defended me for the longest time. I smiled back at her. The forest seemed eerily quiet, with only the flowers swaying gently in the wind. Eli wore a shy expression, and neither of us broke the silence until I spoke.
"Shouldn't we warp to Floor 8?" I asked.
Eli, being kicked out of her trance, replied, "There's no point." She pulled out a pamphlet from her inventory. Like all the others, it had a logo at the bottom with the mark of the Crusaders Guild, making it official.
======================
Floor 8: Skeleton Graveyard
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—--------------
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Near the bottom of the pamphlet, it read, "This boss doesn't spawn for a week after the floor has been unlocked." We walked back towards the others as Eli held onto my arm. Her blueberry-like eyes seemed to glow in the light of the floor. We passed groves of flowers and trees that looked to be hundreds of years old.
CRUNCH.
The sound of a branch breaking shattered the silence of our walk. Looking up, we saw an orc towering above us. Red dripped down its side, and one of its eyes was missing. It must have survived some previous battle. The orc wielded an axe, and like the orc warlord, it had a potion strapped to its belt, glowing yellow.
The orc seemed reluctant to fight. Eli's smile was unreadable, a mix of excitement or fear. She looked over at me and cowered behind me, trembling.
I checked my inventory—nothing. No weapons, no mana bombs, just my small dagger. I had nothing to protect her. Neither side made a move. The orc soldier seemed scared as it sized us up. It charged at us. I pushed Eli back into the surrounding forest.
"Run!" I yelled.
Eli's face turned bright red. She struggled to get up for a few seconds, and I noticed a small scrape on her knees. It seemed like she wanted to say something but didn't, as she ran away. The orc tried to slice at her, but I intercepted, slashing at its arm to draw its attention.
The orc roared as it charged towards me. I jumped back, dodging its attack and slicing it again and again. None of my attacks seemed to penetrate its skin. Using Dash, I teleported backwards to stay out of its range.
"Backstab!" I yelled.
I teleported behind the boss, lodging my dagger into its back repeatedly. The attacks still didn't seem effective. I thought about what I could do but didn't want to resort to that.
"Dash stab!" I cried, activating Dash and stabbing at the same time.
I quickly ran next to the boss, slashing into its side. Red gushed out, but the orc didn't go down easily. I continued my assault, slashing and striking. The orc stumbled and winced from the pain. I went in for another attack, but the orc used its ax. I blocked it with my armor, which shattered on impact.
The orc shoved me aside like I was a piece of paper, slamming me into the ground. My leather clothes were torn and ripped against the small rocks. Despite being only level 12, a crippling pain shot through my entire body. How did Reyna survive this? I thought to myself.
The pain was unbearable as red poured from my mouth. Lying on my back, I felt the red filled my mouth as I lay there motionlessly. The orc, knowing I was on the brink of death, walked deeper into the forest, perhaps fleeing from something.
"Why am I doing this?" I wondered.
I lay on the ground, motionless, reflecting on the distance I had traveled up to this point. All I ever wanted was to be secure on Earth, and even now, my life had been far from easy. I just wanted to have a home and be able to support myself. Maybe that was the greed talking; with one platinum, you could buy a secure life in this tower. It seemed easy to make money here, and I thought it would be better. But it was far from that. I chose a useless and insignificant class and joined this guild for what? For what?
I should have stayed. I should have stayed on the first floor where I had a good life, selling slime drops. I could have remained level 1 and not worried about death. Most likely, we would never make it out of this tower if all future boss fights were like the Spider Queen's. This was not a life I wanted to live. I cried to myself as my surroundings blurred. The sound of running could be heard as people approached, drawing the orc's attention away from me. To my left, Tenshi, Seraphina, and Eli were running towards me. Seraphina was the fastest, followed by Tenshi, with Eli struggling to keep up, whether from exhaustion or pain in her knee.
I thought about how, besides Reyna, the guild leader, Eli was the second highest rank in the guild. Yet she supposedly only had paralysis skills. The orc turned around.
POP.
The sound of a bullet whizzed through the wind and struck the orc. It collapsed, and the area where the bullet hit quickly turned into a wave of ice, spreading until nothing was left. The orc didn't disintegrate into pixels; its life was preserved inside the ice. When they finally reached me, I could barely make out their figures through my blurry, red-tinted vision.
Seraphina stabbed her dagger into the ice, and the orc turned into pixels. They must have been fighting the surviving orcs. I laughed weakly to myself.
Tenshi rushed over and healed me. As the pain subsided and my vision cleared, I looked at Eli, who had a nervous expression on her face. She had a pistol in one hand, and once she saw that I noticed it, she put it back into its holster on her hip.
Eli ran over and hugged me. "Thanks for saving me," she said.
The scrape on her knees was still evident, but a wide smile covered her face. She seemed exhausted, and I could see her breathing sporadically.
"Can you stand?" Tenshi asked, her voice tinged with desperation.
"Yes," I said, pushing myself off the ground. "Thanks to you," I continued.
We continued walking through the forest until we reached the wall of the orc fortress. This time, we were at the entrance. The door was a massive iron structure with bars that seemed to be rusting, and the surrounding city was eerily silent. Inside the city, Reyna and Viri were talking to Risto.
Channeling mana into my ears, I managed to overhear their conversation.
"Your guild needs to be the one to challenge the boss first, otherwise you stand no chance," Reyna said.
"I would say we stand no chance…" Viri replied.
"No chance," Reyna continued. "Either way, we made a deal, and we won. That's what happens."
"Good luck with your fight," Reyna added.
"What do you think our chances are?" Viri asked Risto.
"If you get help from another top guild, your chances will skyrocket," Risto said.
"Which one should we try?" Reyna asked.
"Black Cats or the Crusaders are your best options," Risto replied.
"Why not Sovereign?" Viri interrupted. "They have a lot of members."
"Didn't you hear? Sovereign lost its challenge," Risto said.
"To who?" Reyna asked.
"A player-killing guild known as the Reapers," Risto replied. Reyna looked concerned upon hearing this.
"Has Sho done anything about it?" Viri asked.
"Sho said that although their names are red, she can't prove that their guild is killing players. They claim the red players are there in self-defense," Risto explained.
"That's a smart decision," Viri added. "Sho doesn't want to start a war with them for no reason. Their guild does have a lot of players."
"How many?" Viri asked.
"150 members, but only 10 are red," Risto replied.
"How about orange?" Reyna interjected.
"That's the weird thing—they have no orange players."
As we drew closer, Reyna and Viri seemed to notice us, and Risto teleported away. Viri looked at me with an evil smile, noticing my broken armor and tattered clothes. I blushed with embarrassment.
Reyna fumbled around in her system before passing me some new armor that wasn't tattered. I equipped it through my system. One of the useful features of this system is that you can instantly equip and unequip armor without manually changing it, making it easy to switch between different builds and armor sets.
While we waited outside the city, Valen and his guild left. They were each carrying items like plates, weapons, armor, artifacts, maps, and trophies such as teeth necklaces. Valen wore a brown cape that seemed to be made of bear fur and looked quite comfortable. I wondered why they weren't showcasing their inventories but realized that their inventories were likely already full.
As they walked past us, trying to flaunt the loot they had gathered, Valen had a smug smile on his face. Viri seemed visibly annoyed by Valen, and Risto, standing with Valen, was holding maps and gave Viri the same sly look Valen had.
Ascend's party grouped up slightly outside the city, then were engulfed in a red light and warped away. Reyna seemed relieved and let out a tired sigh.
"Why don't we explore the city?" Reyna suggested.
"Wasn't the city locked?" I asked.
Tenshi interrupted, "They might have left something behind."
"We can also kill any remaining orcs," Viri added with a smile.
We split into groups as before: Eli and I, Reyna and Viri, and Tenshi and Seraphina. Eli and I headed towards the fortress, a massive structure that seemed to span dozens of floors. The bottom floor had a throne, which must have been where the boss was seated. The floor was covered in burn marks and debris.
"This must be where they held important meetings," I speculated.
"Yeah," Eli agreed. "This would be a good place for whatever guild rebuilds it."
"Holding an entire floor to yourself would be nice," Eli smiled. "But this place will most likely become a city of just players."
"You're right," I said. "Since there's no teleport rune on this floor, NPCs can't come here."
We walked around the broken fortress. The floors seemed completely destroyed, mostly due to Ascend taking whatever they needed. There were paintings of areas that had been left behind, along with pots, Roman-style flower pots, and libraries that were completely torn apart. Books were scattered around—some with only covers, others with just pages.
On the top floor of the fortress, there was a room with a mattress and a cabinet. We checked the cabinet, but found nothing—no hidden compartments or anything under the bed.
On top of the cabinet was a pamphlet for Floor 7, ripped down the middle, but the seal was completely unbroken.
We decided to move the rubble to see if anything was left inside. As we moved stones and planks of wood, we uncovered a small teddy bear dressed in a suit, which looked important.
"Mana Scan," I said to myself.
========================
Heart's Teddy bear
This teddy bear belonged to the daughter of the Orc Warlord. The princess had gone missing years before what players refer to as "the Merge." The Warlord had kept this teddy bear as a keepsake, a memento of his lost daughter.
========================
"Did you find anything?" Eli asked, still pushing through the rubble.
I slipped the item into my inventory, deciding not to show it to her. "No," I replied with a smile.
We left the room, closing the door behind us and making our way down the steps of the fortress. By the time we stopped searching for items, it had grown dark, and we hadn't heard from G2. Eli informed me via text chat that they were instructing us to meet back at the entrance.
Not wanting to leave her alone, I walked with her to the entrance. The city was eerily dark, and the sounds of birds seemed to drown out my thoughts as Eli clung to my arm while we navigated through the city.
CRUNCH
Someone was following us. The sound of a plank of wood or sticks crunching reached my ears. I quickly whipped my head around. Following behind us were two players. One had an orange name floating above his head: "LV7 (10 Slayers) Initiator."
Eli jumped behind me, saying, "I'm scared, Arden."
I drew my dagger, ready to protect us. Initiator had a build similar to a bodybuilder, towering over us with a helmet that glowed through its purple lenses. The other player was a female, draped in a purple cape with a purple and red mask obscuring her face. Brown hair peeked through, and she exuded a mysterious aura. Her eyes were hidden behind the mask, but Eli seemed to recognize her.
"Scan," I said.
==========================
With a confirmed IQ on Earth of 900, she is the smartest person in the tower.
==========================
It didn't provide her name. I thought to myself, trying to process the information.
They walked past us, and I kept my dagger ready in case they tried anything. As they were next to us, the woman spoke in an ethereal voice.
"Tell Rei I said hi, Eleanor Icard." Her words carried a malice that seemed to seep into the very air. A terrifying aura filled the darkness, choking me with its oppressive presence.
Once they were out of sight, Eli let out a huge sigh.
"The 10 Slayers," Eli said, trembling.
"Who are the 10 Slayers?" I asked, trying to comfort her.
"They're a group of 10 players whose only goal is to cause chaos in the tower."
"Why doesn't Sho do something?"
"She can't, as long as they don't kill anyone," she continued. "They have hundreds of candidates for their guild, and once they get strong enough, they plan to fight against Sho."
"Do they have bounties?" I asked, hoping someone might try to deal with them.
"Out of everyone in the tower, these players have the highest bounties—5 platinum each."
I trembled, realizing what kind of monsters we had just encountered.
We walked through the desolate city. The only sounds were the occasional chirping of birds and the crunch of debris beneath our feet. Eli gripped my hand tightly, causing me some discomfort.
When we reached the entrance, Viri ran up to us.
"What happened?" she asked, her voice filled with concern.
Eli didn't answer; she just shook more violently. Reyna came over to see what was going on, and Eli's voice, barely audible, spoke.
"I saw Pendant," she said, her voice trembling.
Reyna looked surprised, but her expression soon turned to rage.
"How do you know her?" I asked Reyna.
Reyna paused, trying to find the right words. "On Earth … we used to be friends."
Viri took Eli in her arms as a red light enveloped them, followed by the familiar crack of a warp.
"Warp," I said softly.
We warped to Floor 1 and arrived back in the red guild room where Reyna had interviewed me. It was clear they didn't want me there, so I left the room and stepped out of the guild building. I searched for a nearby inn where I could stay.
The innkeeper was a young woman with a warm smile but tired eyes. After getting settled into my room, I fell asleep, reflecting on the events of the previous day.