Chapter 31: Farewell Beginning Island — First Part

Sila used the Invitation Card to the Bamboo Hut to add his teacher's name into his NPC list and to tell his teacher that he was about to leave Beginning Island.

The old man smiled happily and allowed Sila to do so, thinking that it would make Sila come to this place less often. He also told Sila that if it wasn’t something urgent, Sila should contact him by calling instead of coming here.

Afterward, Sila came back to town. Everything seemed normal. Sila walked slowly towards the harbor at north. In the morning like this, there were not many players around the port. Players usually don’t hang out around the port if it isn’t a departure day. Well, today was a departure day so there were few.

Sila went to buy a ticket amounting to 2,000 silver before walking around, trying to shop through the stalls set up by the players.

One female merchant noticed Sila. “Bro, Bro, do you want to buy something?”

Sila went over and looked at her products. Her shop displayed miscellaneous items ranging from potions to armor. There were not many products though. They might all have dropped from monsters.

Sila didn’t know what to buy so he asked for female merchant’s advice.

“You’re playing qi type, right? Are you interested in this steel sword? It’s quite good.” She suggested.

“I’m planning to play using barehand though.”

“Aww, using barehand is hard, you know? Only Lone Wolf, the Qi Emperor, is decent playing this way. The rest all use swords. Are you really not into swords?” She was still trying to sell her goods.

Sila would like to tell her that the Right Arm of the Sealed One had prevented him from using weapons. Sure, he could snatch a weapon from enemies and use it temporarily, but he wouldn’t get a supportive skill like Sword Mastery so he chose not to use it.

“Is your arm hurt? Or is it poisoned? Do you want an antidote?” She was looking at his right arm that was wrapped by bandages.

“It isn’t poisoned. By the way, do you sell bandages?” Sila noticed that his bandages on his right arm started to look old and dirty.

The female merchant nodded and took a new roll of bandages out. Sila picked it up and handed 200 silver to her.

“Oh, do you have an accessory that can be used to seal a pet inside?” Sila said when Lookhin landed on his shoulder.

The female merchant opened her system window and took one small golden ring out.

“I have only this one, Bro. I don’t know whether it has that ability or not though. It was dropped from an elf in Illusion Forest but still hasn’t been unsealed yet so no one knows its ability. I bought it at 3,000 silver so I will sell to you at 3,500 silver since I don’t know whether it’s what you want.”

Sila thought that its price wasn’t expensive so he paid for it. Then, he went to a corner and used the Unseal skill. The ring turned into a golden ring trimmed with a white jewel in a triangular shape.

Sila opened his system window to inspect its ability.

[(B) Three World Ring]

[Increases magical defense by 300 points.]

[Can be used to keep three pets inside.]

[Pet that was kept inside will have 20% more recovery rate.]

[Provided user the item skill: Light of Forest (This skill will be lost if this item is no longer equipped.)]

[Item Skill: Light of Forest]

[Generates light. The light’s intensity depends on magic point used.]

Sila was glad that it was the ring he was looking for. It even provided him a skill that consumed magic point which previously was a useless stat to him.

There were four types of rings that could be dropped form elves in Illusion Forest. First are E-grade Light Rings which had a very high chance of dropping. The second was C-grade Rings of Illusion Forest that could be used to keep one pet inside; its drop rate was decent. The third was the one that Sila had gotten, B-grade Three World Ring that could be used to keep three pets inside and provide the player with an artificial skill; its drop rate was quite low. The last and rarest one was the Ring of Elven; its ability far surpassed the three previous rings.

All these rings had the same appearance when unsealed. Due to the fact that the cost of unsealing process was 100 silver and they mostly turned out to be low-value Light Rings, merchants often sold them in an unsealed state and let the buyers test their luck. Thus, Sila was considered lucky. But it was a chance that could happen to anybody anyway.

Sila wore his newly acquired ring on the middle finger of his left hand, next to the Couple Ring of Commitment. It shrunk and fit into his finger. Sila looked at Lookhin that was flying happily in the sky and didn’t feel like keeping it into the ring yet. There was one hour left before the ship departed so he let it enjoy the wide space for now.

Sila planned to log out inside the ship, which is a norm for everybody. Since the ship took three days to arrive at the Main Continent, most people used that time to log out and will log in again when the ship arrived. Doing so, players will appear at the harbor in the Main Continent without having to spend time inside the ship.

Then, there was clamor coming from the path to Beginner Town. Sila, who was playing around with Lookhin, took a look at that way. He saw a group of players walking towards the harbor. He looked at them for a while before becoming disinterested.

‘Maybe they’re famous, I guess?’ thought Sila.

However, while Sila was feeding bird food to Lookhin, that group of players stopped in front of him.

“Are you Mister Sila?” said one guy from that group.

Sila looked up at the person who had asked this seemingly popular question. Maybe he should put on a nameplate next time to prevent others from asking him.

In front of him was a silver-haired handsome man. Even without being able to adjust 30% of his look, this guy would still be quite handsome in real life. (Sila also thought that even with being able to adjust looks to 30%; there are still many players with savage faces. This world was truly unfair.) This man wore a silver set of armors. There was also a saber hanging at his left waist. In conclusion, his style was a silver knight from a western kingdom.

Sila nodded to answer the guy’s question while secretly using God's Cathedral to count the number of his enemies.

’seventeen… no it’s eighteen people. Those guys in the back don’t seem strong. But this man is special.’

“My name is Shueria, one of the vice-leaders of the Royal Armament Guild. I have heard that my subordinates have troubled you last night.” The silver-haired man said, causing a ruckus from the sides.

“I don’t mind. You subordinates didn’t cause me any trouble,” replied Sila.

Those guys who had come at Sila last night become furious. Sila’s sentence clearly meant that they were not worth mentioning.

“You bastard…” One of those guys tightly grabbed his weapon, but Shueria gestured his hand to stop him.

“If they didn’t cause you any trouble, that’s good. By the way, can I ask Mister Sila something?” said Shueria.

“That’s fine. However, before that, can I ask you one question first?” proposed Sila.

Shueria smiled, making Sila become wary. He wasn’t good at dealing with this kind of person – the kind of person who able to keep their composure at any given situation. He was more proficient at dealing with hot-headed types.

“You’re welcomed to ask any question, Mister Sila.”

“Have I done something to your guild? Why are you guys targeting me?” Sila asked directly.

“If it’s about last night behavior, it’s my subordinates’ fault. They were targeting you arbitrarily since your bounty tempted them. Do not worry, I will personally punish them later.” Shueria answered. “The actual reason why we’re putting a bounty on you is due to Miss Varee.”

“Varee?” Sila had guessed wrong. He had thought that he might have accidentally killed someone related to this guild since he had killed many players during the event for couples. “How does Varee relate to this matter?”

“About that, my leader has been interested in recruiting Miss Varee to enter our guild for a long time. And the fact that you came to this game has made things more difficult for us.” Shueria didn’t directly tell Sila that his leader was head over heels for Varee but did tell Sila that he was in the way.

“I still can’t see why this is related to me,” wondered Sila. Whatever guild Varee decides to enter clearly didn’t relate to him.

“Normally, Miss Varee is guildless, so we can wait for her to make her decision to enter our guild. But now, your existence might affect her decision. My leader doesn’t want things to become troublesome so he personally sent me to handle this.”

“And may I ask how are you planning to ‘handle’ this?” asked Sila. His hand was still moving naturally to feed Lookhin.

“It’s nothing much. I just want to invite you into our guild. With you in our guild, the chance of Miss Varee entering our guild will increase. But, if you refuse, I might need to make you quit playing this game.”

“That didn’t sound like an invitation to me.”

“That depends on your decision.”

At the end of his line, Shueria’s Mental Oppression started to focus on Sila.

Now, many players who listened to Sila and Shueria conversation realized what was about to happen. Merchants started to pack their items since they didn’t want them to be ruined by the battle. However, the scene of Shueria fighting an opponent was rare. So, they kept their distance but still took a look at Sila’s way. They were also contacting their friends about this story. Soon, this situation became a hot topic in the game’s forum.

Sila was circulating Intermediate Qi constantly to defend against Mental Oppression. That was why he hadn’t been affected by it. However, once he tried to lower his qi, the pressure made him very uncomfortable. Thus, it was like he was forced to keep circulating Intermediate Qi all the time.

Meanwhile, Shueria was surprised but didn’t let it show onto his face. Based on the information, Sila had just started playing this game for a fortnight. There was no way his Mental Oppression didn’t work but Sila was able to endure it. Sila was even a qi-type player. Shouldn’t his progress be slow?

“What method are you going to use to prevent me from playing this game?” asked Sila.

“I will kill you here and wait for you at the revive spot. Then, I will kill you again and again until you quit playing.” Shueria said with a smile, although he didn’t feel great about doing so inwardly.

“Are you able to do that? Or will you take my bird as a hostage to force me again?”

Shueria looked at the tiny sparrow. His system window indicated that it was just a level 1 Brown Sparrow.

“I won’t do that, of course. If someone in my guild takes that shameful action, dirtying the guild’s name, I will personally punish him severely.”

At the end of his sentence, one man who was behind him started to tremble. It seemed like ‘severely punish’ was indeed severely.

“That’s good to hear. However, your plan has two flaws, you know?” said Sila.

“Flaws?” Shueria wondered at Sila being able to keep his composure. A new player couldn’t possibly stand up against him. Why does this man still seem confident?

“The first is; I’m an acquaintance of Varee in real life. If I just tell her about this action of yours, she will no doubt never enter your guild.”

Though, Sila didn’t intend to do what he had just said. Nevertheless, he was aiming to buy some time so he had to keep talking. He knew his situation didn’t contain much value in Varee’s perspective.

Shueria had already predicted this problem. It could be easy to guess that Sila was acquainted with Varee in real life since Sila seemed to enter this game by Varee’s invitation. However, there was no way a guy like him didn’t prepare a solution.

Anyway, he now began to feel that Sila was trying to buy time. But he didn’t know why. In fact, Sila would be in a more disadvantageous position if their conversation was prolonged; since Shueria would have more time to gather guildmates.

“Mister Sila, there are problems a man has to handle by himself. There’ll be no such man who takes this kind of problem to tell a girl just because he can’t handle it alone, won’t you agree?”

The meaning behind Shueria’s sentence was that if Sila had to escape this situation by depending on a woman, he shouldn’t call himself a man anymore.

Sila nodded, “I thought so too. This is a problem between us. Others shouldn’t interfere.”

“Then, what about the other flaw you mentioned?” asked Shueria since he could guess the first one; but he couldn’t anticipate another flaw in his action.

“The other is; your plan revolves around you being able to kill me here. However, what if I can kill you instead?” said Sila in cold voice.

Shueria’s eyebrow was twitched by anger. He usually was a calm person but the thought of him, a predator, being insulted by a prey caused him to feel greatly agitated. Well, he was agitated from the start by Cross’s order to take care of this new player. However, he had to obey Cross’s order.

‘Just a little bit more,’ thought Sila.

“Do you really believe you can win against me, Silver Knight Shueria, who fought alongside the Sword Emperor in the last war event?” Shueria said slowly with a tone that everyone could easily realize he was repressing his anger.

Sila stood up and said; “Seal Lookhin,” then the brown bird turned into a light and went into his ring. He stared at Shueria for the first time.

‘Time to push,’ thought Sila.

“I just realized that people from the Royal Armament Guild use words to fight. You guys all say you have this or that oh-so-great nickname but your guys fighting ability aren’t even half of what you bragged about.” He looked at Shueria arrogantly.

“You…”

“You all can come at me at once. I want to end this quickly. The ship is about to come.” Sila further provoked Shueria.

“Don’t you guys dare interfere. I’ll kill him by myself.” Shueria ordered his subordinates. Afterward, he turned his head to confront Sila. His face distorted by rage. “And you, just draw out your weapon so that you won’t have any excuse when you die.”

Shueria’s aura completely changed from a gentle knight as he had been. He had lost his previous composure that Sila had been wary of.

“Fufu. Don’t be conceited; I don’t need a weapon for a guy like you.”

This sentence of Sila was a signal for the battle to begin. Shueria drew out his saber from its sheath and rushed at Sila. Meanwhile, Sila circulated qi throughout his body. His body stood firmly.

The kind of opponent that he most excelled at dealing with was coming now.