Chapter 8: A Bet in a Restaurant

After walking out for a moment, Sila belatedly realized that he had forgotten to state his name. Needless to say, as the right moment had already passed, he wouldn’t go back and tell the crowd his name since it would be lame.

Sila decided to leave things like this. There would be another chance later.

He was more interested in the system notification within his system log.

[You have defeated Player Bloody Face, Level 165 Squire Rank. You have received 8,000 experience points. The defeated player is a Wanted Player. You can claim your reward at the Bounty Hunter Association later.]

[You have defeated Player Soul Slayer, Level 141 Squire Rank. You have received 7,000 experience points. The defeated player is a Wanted Player. You can claim your reward at the Bounty Hunter Association later.]

[You have defeated Player Cruel Executioner, Level 150 Squire Rank. You have received 7,500 experience points. The defeated player is a Wanted Player. You can claim your reward at the Bounty Hunter Association later.]

[Your level has risen to 18.]

Sila wasn’t astonished by the fact that he got experience points. Since he had known from Lucy that in this game, players were like monsters in the way that they could be killed for experience points. They just wouldn’t drop money or items (except from dying to some special abilities).

In Monster Soul, there was no such thing as chaotic status or a penalty for killing another player, so people could freely kill others. However, the system had a service for players to put another player’s name into the Bounty Hunter List with a fee amounting to 10% of the bounty. To put it simply, your name can be on a bounty hunter’s list even if you did nothing wrong other than being hated by someone, whereas even the most evil player’s name might not be on the list if no one dares to place a bounty on them. Anyway, if you stayed online actively for one month in-game time while on the Bounty Hunter List, the bounty on you would be gone, and you would receive 50% of your bounty for yourself, while the rest would be transferred to game system. Then, if your enemy still bore hatred toward you, they would have to submit your name to the list again.

The thing that surprised Sila was the noticeably low amount of experience points he received. Normally, if players killed creature that had higher level than them, they would receive bonus experience points. But even with that bonus, the experience points Sila had received was very low due to the effect of the Greed Card.

Sila went straight to a restaurant. The restaurant in the Town of Beginnings was decorated in a Chinese style. The chairs and tables were all made of wood and the restaurant was crowded with people. However, it didn’t take too long for a waiter to come forward and welcome Sila.

“Welcome Big Brother, what would you like to eat for today?”

The waiter in silk Chinese clothing greeted Sila.

“I have an appointment with someone on the second floor.”

“Then please come this way.”

The waiter led Sila to the second floor. During their short trip, Sila noticed that there were many people glancing at him.

‘Weird. Why are they glancing at me? Are they the Heavenly Dragon Guild’s members who came to claim revenge on me? No, that shouldn’t be it. That event was only five minutes ago. They shouldn’t be this quick.’

When he arrived at the second floor, there was only one person here, contrary to the floor below. Sila turned his head to waiter.

“That lady over there reserved all the seats in this floor for three days, telling us that she would be waiting for her friend. This is the second day that she has been waiting.”

The waiter gestured a table that had a woman sitting on a chair near it.

Then, that young woman turned her head to Sila and bowed.

“Please come and sit here. Mister Sila.” She greeted him.

“Yes.”

Sila walked and then sat on the chair opposite of her. Now they were separated by the table. Meanwhile, the waiter excused himself.

It was then that Sila had the opportunity to look at this young woman closely.

She was a very pretty woman. She looked cheerful and bright. Her beautiful black hair was put up into a bun and pinned with a barrette. She wore a white kimono with a blue wave pattern, which was matching the short Japanese sword leaning beside her chair.

“Please have a cup of tea first.” She slowly poured tea into Sila’s cup.

“Thank you.” Sila drank it, but it was hot, making Sila show a bit of a troubled expression.

The young woman smiled faintly and said, “You don’t have to hurry.”

“Umm ... I’m sorry, but I’m pretty sure that I don’t know you,” Sila immediately brought a conversation to the main topic.

“Sila, you might not know me, but I heard about you from my dad.”

“Your dad?”

“Rashane is my dad.”

Sila now started to understand. He remembered Uncle Rashane had told him that Rashane’s daughter was also playing the game. She even had played for a longer time than he did.

“I see, so perhaps you have some business with me?”

She was smiling slightly, “I personally don’t, but my dad wants me to tell you something.”

“Yes?”

“He tried to contact you. He previously planned to let you play briefly so he didn’t set the timer on the brain scanner that you are using. However, you have played for over one day and still haven’t logged off, so he was starting to worry and sent me to search for you.”

Sila began to feel guilty that he had made his uncle concerned about him. Rashane was really nice to him.

“My dad told me you might use ‘Sila’ as your in-game name so I tried contacting you using that clue. But since we aren’t on each other friend list, I used the messaging system to send you a letter. But then the system told me that you were in a special area that forbade communication so I decided to wait here.”

It seemed that the Mansion of the Seven Deadly Sins was a special area that wouldn’t allow him to contact nor be contacted by anyone outside.

“I won’t log out until I achieve my objective here,” Sila told her simply.

“Do you mean ... fighting against Montra?”

Sila was surprised that she knew his objective.

“I heard about it from my dad. Never mind that, just when do you think you can achieve that goal? A day, a month, or a year?”

Sila didn’t answer her question. He was fully aware of the meaning behind her words. It was only his stubbornness that kept him from logging out. He just felt that he still hadn’t done anything worthy since he had entered the game. At the very least, he wanted to know Montra's current location.

The young woman sat quietly, giving more time for Sila to think.

“By the way, what’s your name?”

Sila asked her to brighten the mood. But before she could respond, there was a loud voice shouting up, answering Sila’s question on her behalf.

“The Goddess of Purified Water is visiting my territory. How rude of me to greet you this late?”

Sila turned back to see the group of around fifty men dressed in warrior’s, mage’s, and archer’s clothes. The one who had shouted was the man wearing flame red armor. If it wasn’t because of the people who were staying behind seemingly ready to commit an assault the previous sentence of his could be considered very polite.

“I wondered for a bit, but in the end, it’s just you, a weak bandit that I had killed before. Well, I’m sorry but I can’t remember your name,” the young woman answered politely.

Despite the courteous tone, Sila thought that she was insulting the other side of being not worthy to remember.

The man in flame red armor knew the meaning of the words as well. His face showed a distorted expression, “You bitch—”

The woman saw Sila sitting still without a sign of panic or fear expression. She felt a little curious. With her father telling her that Sila had just started playing this game; Sila’s avatar wouldn’t be high in level. Nevertheless, she knew that Sila had been practicing martial arts since childhood and that would be a reason for his calm expression.

However, no matter how excellent he was in the real world, it would take time for him to adjust himself to accustom with in-game skills, magic, and weapons. Moreover, it would also take a long time to move his avatar as freely as his own actual body.

Witnessing Sila’s overconfidence and his stubborn nature like this, she concluded that Sila was childish. She smiled unconsciously.

Her opponents saw that smile and misunderstood that she was looking down on them. So they unsheathed their weapons.

The woman unsheathed her short sword too. Amazingly, the sword changed its form and turned out to be a two-meter-long katana, causing Sila to stare at it in astonishment.

The woman saw Sila interested in her sword, so she explained.

“This is my Spiritual Sword named Shadow Moon. It’s a sword that combines characteristics of Japanese and Western swords.”

“Spiritual Sword?”

“Yes. A Spiritual Sword can only be obtained upon inserting a card of the monster or magical being’s race into the card window when a player is of the human race.” (Magical being means a lifeless creature with a soul, mostly created or enhanced by magic, such as a Golem or a Cursed Sword.)

“Oh, you mean selecting a race, right?” asked Sila.

“That’s it. For this race, upon race changing, you will get one Spiritual Equipment as a bonus. It can be selected as a sword, axe, or even armor. But you cannot change it nor remove it from your equipment window.”

“Hmm … then, what’s it good for?”

“It has a soul, so although it absorbs your experience points, it can be evolved and gain skills like players and monsters.”

“That sounds much better than my race.”

The woman was a little surprised by the fact that Sila had already selected a race.

‘So this is why he seems so confident. Well, in this case…’

She came up with a plan.

Now, her opponents were very furious. Not only did the other side not care about them, they also kept talking together about the game’s matter as if they were nothing but thin air.

Two underlings from the group couldn’t stand the humiliation anymore. They rushed to Sila as they saw he wore the Beginner’s Clothing.

Weirdly enough, they were now attacking Sila despite originally wanting to pick a fight with the woman.

Sila looked at the woman, but she didn’t seem to do anything. She was just calmly looking back at Sila, which made Sila felt as if she was testing whether he could win against the two of those guys by himself.

Sila’s expression changed into a cold one as he felt somehow upset. Then, he activated a skill that he recently acquired, of which he read the description for prior to entering the restaurant.

“Electromagnetic Field.”

[Special skill: Electromagnetic Field]

[Creates a circular electromagnetic field around user. The length of the radius will be dependent on the charged electric energy.]

[*Does not require magic points. But requires lightning-element energy for activation.]

Every object within a three meter radius around Sila was transfixed in their current position. The woman was affected by this skill as well. Her face showed a slightly surprised expression before quickly turning back to normal.

But for the two charging people, their expression showed extreme panic. Both of them felt numb all over. Their body was stopped and became transfixed midair.

Sila stood up. He circulated Qi of Little Tiger into both of his hands and struck at the two stationary targets. Their body flew back to the rest of their group, collided, and then disappeared.

All the people on the other side were dumbfounded. They heard that the Goddess of Purified Water had come alone so they even gathered fifty level 300+ players to teach her a lesson for killing them three times. But now, in front of them was a man in Beginner’s Clothing who possessed powerful qi and remarkable skills despite only being level 18.

Sila sat down again while listening to the system notification telling him that his level rose to 22 before picking up a cup of tea without looking at anyone.

The woman smiled and started speaking, “Now I know the reason why you seemed confident. It must come from the ability to use qi. But isn’t a qi-related quest only accessible when the avatar’s level reaches 50 first?”

“Someone transmitted it to me.”

“So you didn’t learn it yourself, huh?” She said that without even looking at Sila

Sila’s eyes changed slightly, which she could notice. Sila comprehended that she was insulting him that no matter how skillful he was, his abilities were still derived from other people.

She gave Sila a smile; it was her attempt to provoke Sila further.

“Would you like to have a bet with me?”

“What kind of bet?” Sila asked back without changing his expression.

“We will bet on whoever can kill more thieves. If I win, you have to accept three of my requests, but if you win—”

She hadn’t finished talking yet, but Sila interfered, “Why do I have to bet with you?”

She smiled and turned to look at Sila, “It’s just for fun. Yeah, actually, you don’t have to if you don’t dare. Just leisurely watch me kill these thieves, then.” She said that while standing up.

Sila drank all his tea in one go and bumped the cup to the table, making a loud noise.

“Fine. If I win, don’t show your face to me ever again,” said Sila.

“Deal.”

Sila stood up alongside her, sending off his anger toward those thieves, and then started circulating his qi.

This was a fight with his pride on the line.