“I’m going to create my own empire.”

Oh ho ho, not bad Nate, not bad.

Legin nods, he is clearly disappointed by what I said, “I see.”

A couple people around the table raise an eyebrow to this, specifically the kid, the woman with red hair, and the man with black hair.

The rest of the meeting goes about as I would expect. In total, of the 9 present, including Legin and Lucarios, 4 people joined him, and 5 didn’t.

Those 5 were me, Lucarios, the red hair woman, the kid, and the guy with the black hair. About who I expected.

On the way out the woman with red hair speaks to me and the others who didn’t accept Legins invitation, “Meet me outside, I want to talk.” Her voice is smooth, she sounds almost like Lucarios in the way that it is sly.

I nod. The rest of us file out of the pub, we didn’t even eat, what a shame.

I follow the red haired woman around a corner, the others do the same. She stops and we all circle around, the 5 of us.

She faces all of us, “I really just want to know what you all plan on doing.”

I speak first, “I think you already heard what I want to do.”

She nods, “But what about the others?”

The kid speaks, he is around 13 years old, “I plan on doing the same as Gotomel and start my own guild.”

I interrupt him, “You can just call me Nate.”

He responds, “Ok, I’m Charlie.”

The woman adds on, “And I’m Scarlet.”

The man with black hair speaks next, “I’m Holland.” His voice is cold.

Charlie responds, “Holland, what do you plan on doing?”

His voice sounds distant, “I’ll probably join someone else, I didn’t like the feel of that Legin guy.”

I nod in agreement, then I look at Scarlett, “What about you?”

“Ah well, I was planning on joining someone, so what about you?”

My jaw drops, “Huh?”

She continues, “You heard me, I was planning on joining someone, and you seemed confident at that meeting.”

Lucarios snickers.

Scarlett continues, “By the way, what’s the deal with that guy behind you?”

I look back at Lucarios, “Oh, he’s with me.”

Lucarios smiles at everybody, “Happy to greet you all.”

Scarlett is intrigued by Lucarios but continues, “Ok, well now that we all know each other, I wish you good luck.”

The others can simply nod with her abrupt end to the conversation. Charlie waves at me before leaving, Holland simply turns and leaves.

Now it is just me, Lucarios, and Scarlett. I turn to her, “You don’t happen to have any money, do you?”

She smiles, “Oh, I got lots.”

“Really? How much?”

“2000 Gold.”

My jaw slams to the ground, even Lucarios is amazed, I ask her, “What? How could you possibly have that much?”

She shrugs, “Money is everything, so I just prioritized it and did the quests that paid the best.”

I nod, “I see, me and Lucarios haven’t really been doing many quests.”

She starts clicking random places, “Well, I got to get off, I don’t know about you, but it’s about 10pm for me. You gonna log off too?”

I shake my head, “It’s 10pm for me too, but I still got some fight in me.”

“Whatever, I’m out.” And with that Scarlett logs off.

“Alright Lucarios, let’s get going.”

“Going where Nate? To the dungeon?”

I shake my head, “Nah, we can do that with Scarlett tomorrow.” Then I smile, “I want to get some demons under my control.”

Lucarios smiles, “Alright! I like the sound of that!”

And with that, we sprint towards the mob area.

We started exploring. Because it was almost pitch black out, we wanted to see if there was any monsters that only spawned at night.

Eventually, we reached the barrier that Legin was talking, "Wow Lucarios, it really is just a straight up wall." It wasn't even see through, just a pure black barrier that was sure to confuse new players who didn't know any context.

Lucarios nods, "This thing should open in a day or two, we need to be ready."

I nod, "Yup."

Just then I hear some voices to the right of us. Lucarios vanishes and I try to sneakily walk up to them.

It seems to be a group of 4.

Nate, is that who I think it is?

Yeah. I grit my teeth. Legin

They seem to be preoccupied with whatever they are doing, so I get to walk up closer. But sadly, I can't get close enough to hear what they are saying.

Lucarios, stay invisible and go see what they are saying.

Okay.

Lucarios walks up to them, or at least I think he does, I can't actually see him. I see them talking for a bit, and then, just like that they walk straight through the barrier.

Guess he wasn't bluffing about being able to get through early. Let's see what Lucarios says when he comes back, maybe we can repeat what they did.

A couple seconds later, Lucarios appears in front of me, "How did it go."

He shakes his head, "I don't think we can get through, it seems like Legin was just talking with someone who wasn't there, based on how the voice seemed to be speaking from nowhere, I can assume it was his developer friend."

Figured as much. "Wait a minute, did the guy he was talking to not mention you?"

Lucarios shakes his head, "No he didn't."

That's weird. If the dev did see him, he definitely would have mentioned it to Legin, I wouldn't want my friend to be spied on without him knowing.

So this means, either the dev couldn't see invisible people, or, Lucarios was created by someone with more power than a dev. I'm guessing the latter because if the former was true, the dev would have at least mentioned me.

So that begs the question, what exactly is Lucarios? I'll try to figure out more. I then turn back to Lucarios, "Alright, doesn't seem like there's anything we can do about it now. Let's get back to trying to get more demons!"

But then, we heard a growl behind us!