“Hold on, so you actually knew JohnWillStab in-game?” Chaz questioned.

Somehow the idea of JohnWillStab and the other just being losers wasting their lives playing MMOs didn’t cross Chaz’s mind.

The group of seven together with the mysterious stranger travelled through the swamp.

“Yeah, he kind of crash-landed in my house, I came to see how he’s doing,”

The stranger breathed a long sigh.

“But it looks like he wasn’t taking very good care of my gift…” he remarked.

Abutron and Chaz walked in the front of the group, the healers were in the middle and the DPSs were in the back.

The stranger found this formation quite funny, after all, they wouldn’t stance a chance against the enemy if or rather when they appeared.

It was like a child grabbing a toy gun to fight off real burglars.

“Crash-landed?” Heike questioned; he was keeping his mind off the soul-monsters that surely lurked in these woods.

“Yup, I’m not sure why… but he was an undead and I decided he would be a good candidate!” the man continued.

Chaz turned to face the stranger.

“A candidate for what?” he asked.

“For my auxiliary class of course!” he replied, he pulled back his hood revealing black hair, a curly moustache and light-yellow eyes.

His skill was deathly pale.

“Allow me to introduce myself!”

“My name is Ribberman, third-generation tenecirus user!”

“…”

“…”

The group continued walking awkwardly, they looked at the man and back at each other, hoping one of them knew what a tenecirus was.

“Y-you guys heard of me, right?” Ribberman asked anxiously, stopping and turning to look at them with a pitiful look.

“Ah yes, the tenecirus… of course!” Alistard exclaimed confidently.

Ribberman didn’t need mind-reading tentacles to tell he was lying.

“R-right! The tentacle virus!” WeabooMike nodded.

“I-it’s ok… you guys can stop…” Ribberman sighed.

“Ah, of course, tenacious vista!” Dun announced.

“THAT’S NOT EVEN CLOSE!” Ribberman cried turning away from the group.

The group continued their game of Chinese whispers until they reached their target location, Ribberman felt so underappreciated he remained silent for the rest of the journey.

Eventually, the group made it to the camp where the group stayed until recently.

“Now then…” Ribberman wiped the tears from his eyes.

“I need to find something either owned or cherished by JohnWillStab…” Ribberman explained.

Chaz breathed a sigh as he marched over to the bag of salt and handed him a handful.

“There…” Chaz said waiting for Ribberman to do something.

“…” the two looked at each other.

“A-are you sure this… salt… is an item dear to JohnWillStab’s heart?” he questioned.

Everyone in the group nodded in unison.

“O-k…” he relented.

Ribberman focused on the pile of salt as from his hand came tentacles, they coiled and buried through the salt.

Suddenly, his tentacles jolted up, pointing into the forest.

“…I’m a little disturbed by the fact it worked…” Ribberman admitted.

He turned to face the group, unbeknownst to them he was feeling them up with his tentacles this whole time.

“Low levels…” he thought.

“Well, you guys can head on back, I’ll go help JohnWillStab and all that, in the meantime, you’re free to ask around about who Ribberman is!” he shot them finger-pistols before heading towards the old fort the tentacles pointed towards.

“Hold on,” Alistard reached for his gun.

“I’m coming with you.”

Ribberman turned to face him.

“I appreciate the sentiment, but you’re all low levels,” he scratched his hair awkwardly.

They continued to look at him, their eyes filled with determination, partially to save their allis and partially to show off to them.

Ribberman breathed a sigh.

“Fine, I don’t really care…” he shrugged.

“If I don’t let them come with me, they’ll go alone, get killed and JohnWillStab is going to be all pissy about it…” Ribberman thought.

He turned to face the group.

“But before we go, there is one thing you absolutely must know!” he explained.

“W-what is it?” Alistard asked, he felt a chill run down his spine, nevertheless, he tried to look calm.

“My name is Ribberman! I’m a very important person, ok!?” he sounded desperate.

“…sure…” Alistard replied.

Chaz pinched the bridge of his nose.

“I thought you were actually going to give us a tip…” Chaz admitted.

“Nah, you’re all going to die anyway,” Ribberman replied still hoping they’d back out.

A mix of doubt and anger overcame everyone in the group after hearing that.

“The ‘white monsters’ as you call them are pseudo-tulpas,” Ribberman explained.

Nobody in the group remembered ever referring to the monsters as ‘white monsters’ while Ribberman was around.

“A tulpa is a mind-form, a soulless creation that exists as an extension of an existing soul…”

“A pseudo-tulpa is blank soul given form and thought by a different soul…” he explained.

“As inhabitants of this world-bubble, they’re stuck playing by the local rules, so powerful magic will work on them, though I doubt anybody under level sixty could do any real damage,” he explained.

“T-then what level are you, mister Ribberman?” Dun asked.

He spun around looking extremely smug.

“Eight!” he announced.

“…”

“…”

“…”

“We’re so dead, dudes…” Abutron remarked.

“Yeah…” Heike and Chaz said in unison.

Alistard crossed his arms.

“Hold on, all this talk about souls and shit, how the hell do you know that?!” he was looking at Ribberman with an analysing stare.

“Back on earth, I was something of an… alternative science specialist!” he announced with a thumbs up.

“Oh, you’re a conspiracy theorist?” Chaz asked, feeling a lot less intimidated as he dawned a mocking expression.

“W-what?! No!” Ribberman replied.

“You believe in a flat earth, eh?” Chaz continued.

“No, of course not!”

“Woah, look out for evil radio waves or they’ll melt your soul!” Chaz continued to bully Ribberman.

Ribberman clenched his fists, stomping on the ground like a child throwing a tantrum.

“S-stop! No, it’s not like that!”

For the second time in the last thirty fifteen minutes, Ribberman was brought to tears.

“S-stop making fun of me! I’m a specialist on the occult, not a conspiracy theorist!” he finally exclained.

“Oh, why didn’t you say that from the start?” Alistard asked.

“W-well, back on earth calling yourself an ‘alternative science specialist’ makes people judge you less than saying you experiment with souls and shit!” Ribberman crossed his arms and began heading towards the fort, no longer concerned with the safety of the others.

“I go out of my way to inform them about the enemy and they make fun of me!” Ribberman thought angrily.

“…”

“My god I do sound like a conspiracy theorist…” he realised.

Suddenly, from the corner of his vision he saw it, a solid white creature with disproportionally long arms and legs, it had no facial features whatsoever.

“There’s one!” he exclaimed; he extended his hand towards the soul monster.

It charged at Ribberman, its hand turning into a blade.

“Materialization!” Ribberman thought as the tentacles around him solidified, they became visible to the group as they tightened around the monster, melting it in the process.

Its limbs fell down and melted away as the tentacles tightened until from its core a ball of light popped out.

Ribberman grabbed it with another tentacle.

“Be free to respawn…” he said as he popped the white orb open causing it to disappear, leaving the white monster finally dead.

Ribberman looked at the soul fly into the sky before suddenly zipping away, on its way to inhabit a plant, child or whatever else needed a soul.

Ribberman turned back to face the group.

“See, I told you I had the tenecirus class!” he said smugly.

That’s when he realised Alistard was pointing his gun at him, before he could react, a loud bang rang out.