A/N:

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9!

8!

8!

...

"Squee..." The Quill cried regretfully from its pointy snout while walking staggeringly. Any animal lover would have had their hearts broken seeing that state of the creature. It had a few holes by it's side, and multiple cuts around its body caused by a sharp weapon.

With it's final death throe, the last quill Elm was hunting finally fell. It disintegrated and left behind another patch of fur, adding to which Elm now had ten of. It took Elm slightly more than half an hour to kill ten Quills. It took longer than he had expected, but killing ten of those hedgehogs helped him raise a level. He was now level two!

"Character Info!" he called out, and the familiar window appeared. By leveling up, he now had five points he could use to distribute to any of his chosen stats.

Character InfoName:ElmAllignmentNeutralLevel:2Class:NoneRace:HumanGender:MaleFame-TitlesA New DawnCurrent Unallocated Points: 5Health:100/100Mana100/100Strength15Dexterity15Intelligence10Wisdom10Vitality10Luck10Equipment InfoAttack7-9Defence3

Elm temptingly looked at his unallocated ability points. He really wanted to allocate them immediately to see what would happen but he stopped himself before his finger tapped on the menu. He pulled his hand away from the menu and closed it by waving it away and firmly put his hands on his sides.

"I'll do it later, when I'm more certain of my chosen class." he reasoned with himself. From his past experiences from gaming, he knew he was indecisive when it came to choosing his class. Especially more so with Horizon, since you could only have one character and one account.

He firmly decided to wait for later, despite the drawbacks that one could have from not allocating their stats early on. Firstly, the only cost-effective way for beginners to increase their damage was to add their status points. It was pointless to spend money on equipment early on because not only were equipment expensive, good 'beginner' equipments were even more so as there were no shortage of new players into Horizon.

Secondly, one other way to increase your damage was of course, unlocking skills and training them. But skills were kept closely in secret, only the most basic of skills were released to the public. If you unlocked a skill, it was yours, and it was up to you whether to share the methods of acquiring it. The current top players in Horizon all had their own special skills that kept them ahead of other players.

"Let's see.. I guess I could go turn in my quest now." he thought to himself. He was planning to go get some sleep and continue again with Milly and Cory the next day. He started walking slowly towards the exit of the field when all of a sudden, a new group of players walked in to the field. Elm couldn't help but feel that their faces felt familiar somehow.

"Aren't they..?" He remembered the faces of the group of players who asked him to join their party earlier, though they now had someone new with them.

"What is she doing with them?" He curiously wondered. The new addition to their party was a girl, an Elf. She had striking blonde hair and had one thing in common with most Elf female players. Well defined features and voluptuous proportions. Her most outstanding feature however, were her eyes which were as blue as the seas. The three guys in the party were jostling her, teasing and praising her good looks. The Elf girl didn't seem to care, rather, she seemed to enjoy the attention she was getting from the trio who were dropping an excess of compliments on her.

Elm paid the group no heed and decided to just walk past them towards the exit of the field. He actually didn't want to care if the girl was PKed. It wasn't his problem, and it would be a pain really. However, even as he walked past their lively figures, not one person from the trio recognized him.

Elm gritted his teeth and stopped in his tracks. He couldn't intentionally let something happen in front of him and not intervene. "Hey, Elf-blondie." he said through his teeth while facing his back against them. The trio and the Elf stopped laughing and turned towards him. The three male players had an ugly look on their faces when they saw Elm.

"Who the heck is this guy?" One of the players from the trio immediately started. The player who had immediately spoken up was using a Halfling character, infact, there were two players amongst the trio who were Halflings.

"Yeah, who the heck are you?" The other Halfling threatened Elm menacingly. The remaining player from the trio, who looked to be a Human, only kept quiet, looking back and forth between the Elf and Elm.

Raising his hands up and turning around with an apologetic face, "I'm sorry misters, but I had something I needed to tell this Elf-blondie." Elm said while maintaining his calm, trying to be as polite as he could be.

"Well, I don't think she wants to talk to you, do you, Leica?" Halfling number-one said.

"Yeah, Leica, you don't want to talk to this guy right?" Halfling number-two chipped in.

Both of them looked at the Elf-blondie, expecting her to deny the seemingly familiar stranger who had barged in on their wonderful conversation with 'Leica'. Meanwhile, Elm noticed the player from the trio who had been quiet from the beginning staring hard at him, he tried to shy away from his stare.

"Well.. I really don't know you. Have we met somewhere?" the female Elf player named Leica said while biting her lip. "And I also don't appreciate you calling me Elf-blondie." she added with a humph while putting her hands on her hips.

Elm gave a slight laugh, and shifted his feet nervously. He was still trying to avoid the gaze of that Human player, something about his eyes unsettled him. It was also the same man who had asked him to join their party earlier. "Sorry.. Leica? Can I call you that?" Elm apologized and asked while smiling as gentle as he could.

Leica seemed taken aback by Elm's smile and blushed a little. Giving a shy nod of consent, Leica gave Elm the go ahead. The Halfling duo however, weren't pleased and it was apparent on their faces. Their displeasure contorted their noses and mouths and it made them exceedingly ugly to behold. Only the Human from the trio kept his cool, maintaining his stone gaze on Elm, examining him.

"Well.. for starters.." Elm started saying while scratching his head. He made a few movements with his hand and pulled out ten of his Quill's fur. "I'd like to give you these and I want you to go turn in the quest immediately." He shoved the fur into Leica's hands and she took it while shocked. The jaws of the Halflings dropped, immediately realizing what Elm had just given her. Suddenly, Halfling number-one grabbed the fur from Leica and threw it on the ground. Elm's eyes became wide open and immediately tried to grab for the falling Quill's fur, however, he was too slow and the fur hit the ground, detonating into shards and slowly disappeared. Leica stood there in a daze, still trying processing what had just happened.

"WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT?!" Elm shouted angrily. It took him quite some time to gather up all those furs.. naturally, he was infuriated. An action of dropping an item to the ground from your hand was equivalent to destroying it, most players would try to be careful whenever they were holding something, however, the Halfling deliberately destroyed the Quill furs.

Halfling number-two high fived his companion and suddenly, the Human player who was quiet earlier suddenly spoke up. "Aren't you that person we tried to invite into our party earlier?" A look of understanding appeared on the Halflings faces, they understood what the Human player was saying.

"What are you trying to do by giving one of our party members the quest items?" he menacingly asked, there was a glint of wildness in his eyes. Elm shuddered when he met his gaze. Hearing what the Human player had just said, Leica suddenly came to her senses, walking by to his side.

"It's okay Blaze, I would've refused the Quill fur anyway!" she said while holding on to his arm with a pleading expression on her face.

"Besides, I already promised that I would hunt with your party wouldn't I?"

Blaze was the name of the Human player, and much like his name, he had fiery red spiky hair. His eyes were the color of a flame, with red as its base, and a tinge of yellow along a little bit of orange shading it. It was one of those custom eyes that Sakkaku, the corporation that created Horizon, had sold as a cosmetics item to the players. It was probably worth about a hundred dollars. Someone like Elm definitely couldn't afford it. Blaze turned his head to look at Leica affectionately, and lightly brushed her hands off.

"I appreciate that Leica, but I have to teach this guy a lesson." he replied simply while looking at her, making sure that Elm heared his voice as well. Elm gritted his teeth and clenched his fists, he had probably wanted to do that since the beginning when he asked him to join their party, he thought. With this, his suspicions were affirmed that these three were probably the PKers that had been targeting newbies.

"Yeah, teach him a lesson!" Halfling-number-one shouted.

"Yeah Blaze, teach him a lesson!" Halfling number-two chipped in.

"Be quiet Wes and Trev!" Blaze shouted at the Halflings. Immediately, a sullen look appeared on their faces and they stopped cheering. Blaze stared at Elm, and gave a hand signal towards the Halflings. Leica bit her lip, suddenly realizing what was going to happen to Elm. How did this even happen? She thought to herself. She had just joined Horizon not more than half an hour ago, and upon reaching Viajecamino earlier, the trio had taken it upon themselves to guide her to Lacus where the tutorial NPC was. Even though the trio were especially graceful towards her, she paid it no mind and chalked it up as a treatment most female Elves would get. Leica knew she was attractive in real life as well, and there were many times she used it to get what she wanted, be it friends or material things.

"Hey baby, could you get me that necklace?"

"I don't really know how to complete this assignment, could you help me with it?"

"I don't think I'm cute at all."

Those were what she usually had to do to get by, though now, she was caught in some argument between these people she had never even met before. She shrugged, and just stood silently, waiting to see what would happen.

Elm stood frozen in his original spot, staring at the trio. He knew they wanted to kill him, and he was nervous from top to toe. He could feel sweat gathering in the folds of his body as well as his forehead. "You're dead meat, newbie." Blaze said while grinning. He equipped his beginner's dagger, pulling it out from it's holster that was strapped with garb's belt. Brandishing it towards Elm, Blaze motioned for his two Halflings to do the same. Wes and Trev both grinned and both also equipped their daggers. "Leica, you can stay back. We'll handle this." Blaze said to her.

Suddenly, Elm opened his Character Info window with a shout and immediately began to allocate his ability points. "If I'm gonna stand any chance against these three.. I have to add all my points into Strength." He painstakingly thought. "I guess I can't really be a Mage now."

Realizing what he was doing, Blaze immediately roared, "GET HIM! He's adding his stats!" The Halfling duo immediately charged at Elm, with daggers raised up to their chests. They were going to ram their daggers straight into his chest. However, this movement was similar to the hedgehogs Elm had just fought earlier. He instinctively sidestepped the duo and let them pass him. He then equipped his dagger, and suddenly found himself standing in between the duo and Blaze.

Blaze gave a loud laugh looking at Elm's pointless struggle. "Not bad, you dodged the first strike. But now that you're stuck between us, how are you going to dodge now?" he sneered at him.

Elm laughed nervously. He knew he was in a sticky situation, going up against three people.

"I'm an Adventurer, I'll manage somehow."

Main PageChapter 7 - Attitude