Download App
2.19% The Author's POV / Chapter 17: Virtual reality [5]

Chapter 17: Virtual reality [5]

[Teammate Park Jinho has died - Team points: 4]

"Trash"

"khhhkk...plea..se"

-Crack!

Swiping away the notification, Arnold clenched his hand and the sound of a neck-breaking spread across the surroundings.

-Thud!

"Useless garbage"

Throwing away the lifeless body, which soon turned into light particles, Arnold's mood couldn't be any gloomier.

"What happened?"

Sitting comfortably on top of a large rock a pale black-haired youth with yellow pupils spoke to Arnold with an amused smile.

"None of your business!"

Irritated by the youth's presence, Arnold grumbled and walked away.

"Hey don't be so mean! Just because we are on top of a mountain and Jin isn't here doesn't mean you can ignore me like that!"

Jumping off the rock, the black-haired youth happily followed Arnold, further irritating him.

If Ren was here he would've immediately been able to recognize the identity of the man following Arnold. There was only one man in the whole academy who had yellow pupils.

Rank 18 Troy Derekz

A borderline psychopathic student who in the middle stages of the novel becomes an infamous villain.

He like Arnold was one of the three lackeys that followed Jin, but unlike Arnold who voluntarily chose to be his lackey, he had no choice but to become one.

In reality, his father was a direct subordinate of Jin's father. Knowing that his son was approximately the same age as his boss's son, Troy's father—William Derekz, forced Troy to get along with Jin even though he absolutely despised the man.

Born with a golden spoon without needing to be forced to prostrate towards someone just because of their father's influence, or having a happy family that isn't on the verge of a breakdown because of an abusive father who only thinks about work. Jin had everything.

He had what Troy didn't. Money, influence, power, and most of all a loving family.

Consumed by his jealousy and hatred towards Jin, Troy got approached by Professor Thibaut and was tempted into forming a contract with a demon.

The Demon clans were split into 7 clans, each according to the 7 heavenly sins.

This may seem like some cliche story writing, but for Ren, who at the time was thinking of different ways to approach the concept of demons and villains, the 7 heavenly sins sounded like the most well-matched concept he could come up with. It was the perfect scenario that helped him portray the relationship between villains and demons.

A villain was someone who made a pact with a demon when their desire overcome their rationality.

For example, if you found yourself in despair towards a person who was far more talented than you, an emotion called 'Jelousy' would begin sprouting inside of you. Or when you see a really beautiful girl you want to make yours, what you experience is both 'greed and lust'.

Once you experience such emotion, it either subsides over a period of time or becomes stronger as the distance between you and the said 'target' increases.

And in this case, as your desire/negative emotion increases, the demon clan that is most compatible with you makes their appearance in the form of an agent and tempts you into making a deal with you in exchange for power.

Jealousy(Envy), hatred(Wrath), possessiveness(Greed), obsession(Lust), all negative emotions fall into the 7 heavenly sins.

Once a person experiences such emotions and lets it takes over their rationality, only then will the demon tribe with the respective compatibility step in and present you with a deal.

In Troy's case, who was in his own right incredibly talented, falls into an immense state of jealousy clouding all his judgments, resulting in the demon clan of 'envy' to personally make a move.

Because of Troy's immense talent, the 'envy' clan directly approached him instead of contacting him through a clan sub-branch.

A sub-branch, also known as a collection of minor tribes, was a collective of demons whose bloodline was more diluted compared to the main clans.

A demon's rank was determined by their bloodline purity—ranked from, King, Prince/Princess, Duke, Marquis, Earl, Viscount, and lastly Baron.

The higher the title, the stronger they were. with the Demon King being the strongest.

The consequence of having a more diluted bloodline resulted in the contractee being given a lower amount of power as compared to a cantractee who had made a pact with a pure-blooded demon.

Hence why Troy who signed a pact with a pure-blooded demon of the clan of 'envy' becomes an extremely tricky opponent to face in the middle of the story.

The reason why sub-branches existed was because a demon could only make one pact per human. Unless the human died or became stronger than the demon they made a pact with, the contract will never break.

Because of the limited number of pure-blooded demons, only a select amount of humans could make a pact with them. Only the best, and most talented humans could make a contract with them.

If the human was not very talented, then the sub-branch would step in and offer them a contract.

It has to be noted that a demon could never break a contract once it was made, as their soul was directly linked to the contract.

If they forcefully tried to break the contract, they may be at risk of having their soul pulverized.

In the end, only someone of Troy's level of talent could tempt one of the main clans to make a move.

"Stop following me"

"Oh come on! Why do you want to get rid of me so badly?"

"You know why!"

"I told you many times already, it's not my fault she likes me better!"

-Crack!

Suddenly, Arnold stopped and the ground beneath his feet started cracking. Below his feet, countless minute crevices started extending from where he stood.

With blue veins bulging out from the top of his head, Arnold turned around and glared in Troy's direction, who was leisurely walking behind him and coldly said

"Just because you are ranked higher than me, doesn't mean I won't hesitate to attack you here!"

"Oh, chill out man! I was only stating the truth!"

Raising his hands in a sign of surrender, Troy took a couple of steps back.

"Hmph!"

Clenching his teeth, Arnold turned around and ignored Troy.

"It's not my fault I was born this handsome"

"I'll Ki—khhh"

-Roar!

Suddenly just as Arnold was about to lash out against Troy due to his stupid remarks, a large shadow emerged from behind a couple of rocks and pounced him.

Raising his shield, which was his main weapon, Arnold barely managed to take the full grunt of the attack not before being pushed back five steps.

"Guukhh!"

A split second after he managed to stabilize his body, Arnold stared at the ferocious creature whose features started becoming discernable.

Orange fur, muscular upper body, fangs that extended from its mouth to the upper end of its arms, and blood-red eyes. A beast that resembled the long-extinct 'saber-tooth tiger'

"fuuuuu, didn't expect the famous D-ranked 'Metal-fanged Smilodon' to make its presence here today...this test sure is harder than I expected"

Reading his stance, Arnold raised his shield and roared.

"Huuuu!!!"

Provoked by Arnold's spirit, the metal-fanged Smilodon similarly roared and dashed towards him.

-Roar!

-Klang!

The sound of a collision could be heard from the distance, as a flock of birds escaped from the nearby trees.

As soon as the dust settled three large claw marks appeared on Arnold's shield. However, if one looked carefully, Arnold remained rooted in the same spot he was before the clash.

"Gaaaah!"

-Bam!

As the Metal-fanged Smilodon tried to assault Arnold once again, Arnold dipped his body and shoulder tackled the incoming beast.

"Graah!"

Being tackled by Arnold, the Metal-fanged Smilodon lost its previous momentum and felt its body being raised a couple of centimeters in the air.

-Boom!

Taking advantage of the opening, Arnold swung his shield, in a punching motion, towards the beast's stomach sending it flying towards a nearby tree.

-Thud!

Back first, the Metal-fanged Smilodon wailed in pain as its back crashed against a nearby tree.

"huu..huu.huuu"

With heavy breaths, Arnold stared in the direction where he sent the beast flying.

-Roar!

Before Arnold had the chance to rest, he saw the Metal-fanged smilodon appear from the side of his view.

-Klang!

Skilfully switching the shield to his left hand, Arnold felt a tremendous momentum being transmitted to his body sending him staggering backward a couple of meters.

-Klang!

"Grruuu!"

Before Arnold could have a chance to catch his breath, the beast relentlessly attacked him from every direction.

"Basta..khh..rd help me d.ammit!"

Turning his head towards where Troy was leisurely standing, Arnold cursed as he kept on withstanding the continuous onslaught of attacks coming from the beast.

"Oh? So you can't hold it any longer?"

-Klang!

-Klang!

-Klang!

"Qui..khh... I might ac..khaa..tually huff...huff.. die!"

"Say please?"

"QUICK!"

"Ah fine jeezzz"

Extending his right hand forwards, a bow suddenly appeared in Troy's hand.

Pulling the string back, a translucent blue arrow suddenly materialized on the bow.

"Let's make this quick"

Licking his lips, Troy closed his left eye and aimed at the Tiger's head.

Just as he was about to release the bowstring, suddenly a notification appeared in Arnold's view, completely stunning him.

[Your teammate Rank 1750 Rank Dover succeeded in completing the hidden task (Lake trial), awarded +1 point. Team points: 5]

That one split moment of time where Arnold was stunned was enough for the beast to seize the opportunity and break through his defense.

"Wha..khuu!"

"AAAGHHH!"

[You have died]

[Rank 75 Arnold Kane has died, team points: 4]

Those were the last words Arnold saw before his view suddenly became dark.

-Swooosh!

-Splat!

-Roooar!

Soon after Arnold died and his body turned into light particles, a blue arrow dug its way into the tired beast's eye.

-Swoosh!

-Swoosh!

-Thump!

Before the beast could recover, two more arrows quickly dug their way towards where the first arrow hit, killing the beast completely.

"Fuuu.."

Seeing the beast turn into light particles, Troy bitterly laughed.

"Oops!"

...

"How are you guys holding up?"

Standing on top of a large boulder, Kevin looked behind him where a small group of people had gathered.

"Could've been better"

-Thud!

Grumbling, Emma jumped off from the top of a tree.

"We should be safe for now so let's get moving"

Walking ahead of Kevin, Emma turned her attention to Amanda who was a few meters ahead, quietly observing the area.

"What are you doing?"

"...Observing"

"Observing what?"

"Everything"

Letting out a sigh, Emma walked up to Amanda whose face was expressionless, and hooked her arm around her fair slender neck

"What am I gonna do with you?"

Startled by Emma's sudden action, Amanda looked at Emma in confusion.

Finally, after noticing Emma's cheeky grin, Amanda realized she was messing with her and tried to free herself from Emma's arm.

"Let go"

"hehe, let's see how strong the almighty Amanda is"

Gripping even harder, Emma laughed as she enjoyed seeing Amanda's expressionless face slowly turn red due to what seemed to be either oxygen deprivation or anger.

While Emma was busy annoying Amanda, some of the male students around them couldn't help but fix their sight on them.

"Seen enough?"

Leaning against a tree, Jin glared at the students who were mesmerized by the two girls playing around. He seemed to be in an especially bad mood today.

Flinching, the students who were busy admiring the girls, looked at Jin in fear. Overwhelmed by his glare they hurriedly backed off.

Kevin, who saw this scene from afar, couldn't help but lightly grin as he walked up to Jin.

"Still salty about your loss?"

"Tch...you were just lucky"

Clicking his tongue, Jin clenched his fists and looked away.

Previously, Kevin and Jin were fighting to get the extra point from the hidden task.

Their hidden task consisted of finding a certain flower that was located in the mountain region they had spawned.

Because the task relied on pure luck, once he lost, Jin couldn't help but feel his mood plummet to the ground.

If Kevin had managed to win based on his skills then Jin wouldn't have made a big deal out of it, but since this win purely came from luck, Jin felt as if he was robbed.

Unfortunately, rules were rules, and no matter how salty he was, he could do nothing about it.

"Ehm...excuse me"

A slightly timid voice disrupted their conversation, prompting Kevin to turn around.

Following his line of sight, a small timid young girl with adorably large eyes looked at both Kevin and Jin with a red face.

Holding the edge of her shirt, her eyes drifted left and right as she struggled to find the right words to say.

Looking at the adorable girl in front of him, Kevin couldn't help but chuckle.

"Yes?"

"Ehm..ehm..."

"Quick say what you need to say!"

"Eeek!"

Jin, who wasn't as patient as Kevin, immediately raised his voice causing the young girl to lightly flinch.

"Ohi, what was that for?"

"Hmph"

Slightly glaring towards Jin's direction, Kevin looked back at the young girl and spoke in a kind tone.

"How can I help you?"

In a voice that was almost inaudible, the young girl looked at Kevin and said.

"Ehm...I am in your team"

"...Eh?"

Freezing for a split second, Kevin's smile momentarily faltered as he tried his best to remember the faces of his team members.

Previously when Kevin spawned in the waiting room, everyone kept their distance from him. Several factors may have caused his team members to avoid him. Most likely, due to their inflated ego, they couldn't help but become jealous of him who displayed an astonishing level of talent despite coming from a poor background. Of course, this may not be the only reason as to why they ignored him, but Kevin wasn't too keen to find out.

He was simply used to being alone.


Chapter 18: Virtual reality [6]

"pfff, you can't even remember the faces of your own teammates?"

Smirking, Jin mockingly looked at Kevin.

"Oh? so you're telling me that you remember the face of all your teammates?"

Raising his brow, Kevin turned around and skeptically looked at Jin.

"..."

Turning around, Jin pretended to have not heard Kevin and walked away.

Dumbfounded, Kevin helplessly looked in Emma and Amanda's direction, only to be left even more speechless.

Swiftly moving around the trees, Emma was currently being chased by Amanda whose face remained expressionless.

-Swish!

-Swish!

-Swish

Taking out her bow. At an inhuman speed, Amanda's fingers danced between the bow and the quiver. Soon, three arrows flew in Emma's direction at a speed that couldn't be seen by the naked eye.

-Thud! -Thud! -Thud!

"Stop! Stop! Stop! I give up!"

Taking cover behind a tree, Emma raised her hands in defeat as she fearfully looked at the arrows that were imbued on the tree she was hiding. Each arrow perfectly penetrated the hard outer shell of the tree. Looking closely, the tip of each arrow was only a few centimeters from Emma's face, sending cold shivers down her spine. If it weren't for the fact that Amanda restrained herself, Emma might've actually died.

Shaking his head, Kevin turned his attention back to the young girl, not before letting out a long sigh. He was starting to doubt whether grouping with them was the right thing to do.

'Maybe if Melissa was here things wouldn't have been as bad...'

Thought Kevin for a moment before shaking his head.

Knowing Melissa's personality, things might've actually turned out for the worse.

Sighing once again, and ignoring the commotion that Amanda and Emma were causing, Kevin squinted his eyes and took a good look at the girl before him.

She was a beautiful, light-skinned young girl with a petite yet curvaceous frame and below-average height. She had long, slightly curly black hair that reached all the way to her back. Her large crystal eyes were slightly covered by short square bangs. She had plump rosy cheeks which accompanied by her short figure made one want to tightly squeeze them.

"Did you come to me to ask me to protect you?"

"N-no!"

Quickly shaking her head, the young girl timidly pointed towards another group of people in the distance.

"They sa-id that they know where the hidden task was..."

"...oh?"

Taking one good look at the members in the distance, Kevin was reminded of the people he had previously seen in the waiting room.

Although he did not remember the young girl, he did remember two out of the four individuals gathered.

They were the most arrogant and prideful of the bunch, so of course, he knew about them.

If he didn't remember wrong, they should've been ranked around the hundreds and were extremely prideful of their ranking. They were so proud and arrogant that they thought that they could fight Kevin on equal terms.

Like they all say...

Powerful people often grew confident, and confident people were often conceited.

Power gets in the head of everyone. Kevin was no better, but because he had a clear goal, he managed to suppress his inner desires.

Shaking his head, he walked towards them

Although he had no interest in interacting with them, since they knew where the location of the hidden task was, it was only natural that his interest was piqued.

"...Oh, by the way what's your name?"

"Ehm.."

Timidly looking down, the young girl avoided Kevin's eyes and swiped her hand right.

Soon a screen appeared in front of Kevin.

=======

User ID : Ava leafz

Age : 16

Picture : (Holographic image)

Program : Hero program Year 1

School Rank : 1078/2055

Potential : Unranked

Profession : Monster tamer

======

"..Ava? Monster tamer?"

Touching his chin, Kevin looked at the information that was presented in front of him.

Looking at the shy young girl once again, Kevin couldn't help but be slightly moved.

If one asked Kevin which profession he thought was the strongest in the world, Kevin would without a doubt say the monster tamer class.

Usually, most people would regard things such as swordsmanship, or fancy professions that were flashy and pleasing to the eye as the strongest professions.

However, Kevin begged to differ.

In his opinion, the most fearsome out of all the professions was the monster tamer profession.

Each person was born with a certain level of talent.

This level was a set limit that could never be changed no matter what someone did.

...well that was unless you were Ren or Kevin who were both cheats.

If your talent was ranked D, then the best you could achieve throughout your whole life was becoming a D-rank hero.

Once you reached your talent limit, no matter how much extra time you spent training, you would never be able to improve.

Kevin was all too familiar with the despair that stemmed from knowing their talent was too low.

Originally, Kevin's talent was terrible. It was so bad that throughout his whole childhood he was bullied for it. While everyone around him showed incredible talent that made them stand above their peers, Kevin was born with a mediocre E-rank talent. The worst possible talent that anyone could get.

At the time, his parents who also had low talents blamed themselves for his poor aptitude.

Fortunately, Kevin's mentality was strong and he was never saddened by his low level of talent.

Well, that was until that fateful 'day' arrived...

It was the day that demons managed to infiltrate his hometown, and killed everyone without remorse.

Because his hometown was far away from any major city, no rescue came until dawn, five hours after the massacre began.

His parents had sacrificed their lives in order to hide him from the demons...

'Even though we couldn't give you a good talent, sacrificing ourselves to let you live should be enough to atone for letting you be born with a low talent that made you suffer throughout your whole childhood'

With the most beautiful smile on their faces, those were the last words his parents had said to him before closing the trapdoor that led to the basement and disappearing from his life forever...

To this day, he had still not gotten over that day as it still haunts him in his dreams, like a plague that never ceases to attack the immune system. It was almost like a seed had been implanted inside of him, slowly eroding his state of mind. Kevin couldn't remember how many times he had woken up because of the nightmares, only to find his bedsheets soaked in his sweat.

If not for a strange system suddenly appearing before him when he was in his most dire state, he would've never been able to survive, grow strong enough to rank first in the school ranking, and let alone enroll in the lock.

He owed everything to the system.

Thanks to the system he managed to completely change himself, his body, his talent, his mentality.

Everything about him changed.

He went from an E-ranked talent to an SSS-rank talent over the course of a few months due to some strange elixir the system provided him.

But, what determined talent?

Talent was a measure of natural aptitude.

In this case, talent was assed in regards to the profession one had.

A profession, like talent caps, was something that could not be chosen nor changed.

Around the time of the second cataclysm and humans were able to access mana, strange status windows similar to the ones that appear in games appeared in front of everyone.

From then, the age of the 'awakened' happened. Slowly people started familiarizing themselves with mana through which they gained access to supernatural powers. Powers that enabled them to do things that they could've never have hoped to achieve in the past.

If someone paid closely to their status window they would notice that, right below their status, there was a small section called profession.

That was your natural talent.

If your status window showed 'Spearmanship' then it meant that your aptitude towards spearmanship was amplified naturally by the status window.

Meaning that if a person talented in spear arts trained in sword arts, their comprehension would be nowhere near as fast as their spear arts comprehension which was amplified by the status window.

Of course, everyone had different levels of talent in regards to their natural talent. Meaning that even if someone was talented in spear arts, their talent cap was still there. So if your talent cap was D-rank, then in your lifetime you could only be a D-rank Hero who specialized in spear arts.

In the case of Ava, the reason why Kevin believed her talent was the best, was because she did not have a talent cap.

Monster tamers don't have a level cap because they don't need to have one.

What mattered was the monsters, not the tamer themselves.

Yes, a certain amount of control was required by the tamer to control the beasts, but even then, what mattered most was the monsters.

A monster tamer could tame an unlimited number of beasts regardless of their potential. Making monster tamers some of the scariest opponents to face.

Unfortunately, in modern society monster tamers weren't highly regarded. This was simply due to how difficult it was for them to tame a monster, as a lot of complicated steps were required. Moreover, the financial burden one would incur just to raise a monster could even cause some of the wealthiest people in the world to feel the sting.

Especially if an S-rank pet was raised. They fed on monster cores.

By the time they were fully grown, their daily food consumption alone could sustain a whole city for years.

It was just inefficient.

But to Kevin, this didn't matter because...

He had the system!

With the system, gaining monster cores or manuals wasn't hard. All he had to do was complete a quest and he could easily earn some low-ranked cores.

If his talent had been monster tamer instead of swordsmanship, he could've raised an army of S-ranked monsters with which he could have used to fight against the demon king.

"We're here..."

Stopping in front of four people from his group, Kevin ignored their looks of disdain and lightly smiled at them.

"So where's the hidden task?"

...

"four more minutes"

Checking the time that was left, I quickly dashed away from the place I was hiding.

Right now my plan was, find a safe spot, rest for 3 minutes, and continue to the next spot.

This was the strategy that Kevin had used when he was doing this trial, and it worked.

By continuously changing my location, it made it harder for the 'hunter' to find my exact location.

Although the 'hunter' tracked through scent, it didn't mean that it will only focus its attention on me.

No, It will obviously go for the easiest prey.

With around 90 students inside the map, accompanied by the limited number of 'hunters' present in the map, the hunters who were programmed through the computer system will only go for what the computer deems to be the easiest target to hunt.

If it was presented with two choices, prey A and prey B, the hunter will go towards the easiest target to hunt by default. If prey A who was constantly changing location was harder to hunt compared to prey B, who was hiding in the same spot without moving, then it will undoubtedly go for prey B.

Therefore. for the past 19 minutes or so, I have been constantly changing my location.

The 'hunters' were not something I could take on.

Each 'hunter' was a precise replica of famous beasts that could be found after the second cataclysm.

Each beast present ranged from Rank G to Rank D, which only a handful of students could fight or escape from.

A G+ rank student like me cannot possibly hope to defeat a D ranked beast with my current strength. Although the sword art I practiced was extremely strong, at the end of the day my rank was only G+. Moreover, considering the fact that I had only been practicing the art for about a week, asking me to fight the beast was like asking me to kill myself.

There was no way I could last longer than a couple of seconds against a D rank beast.

The only option I had from the start was this one.

Roaming confidently without being scared of encountering dangerous beasts was only a thing the protagonists could do.

I was not on that level yet.

Though I had always said that I didn't want to interact with the protagonists, it didn't mean that I didn't aspire to be like them.

I do long for a peaceful life, but could you really achieve that without power? In a world where power reigns above all else?

I wonder when I changed?

I wasn't like this before.

I used to think everything was troublesome and had no goal to strive for.

I remember everything being bleak. Everything apart from my computer and the comments I got from my readers were things that I found boring and troublesome.

Maybe I really was just waiting to die and rid myself of that boring life.

...And once I thought my life reached the end, I found myself inside my own novel.

Since then my world had suddenly gone bright.

I had a family, access to magic which was only something I saw in movies, and a goal to strive for.

And who would've ever imagined being inside of a real virtual machine?

Right...I had already decided once I discovered that I still hadn't finished the novel that I will try my best to be as strong as the protagonist or at least close to his level.

Smiling to myself, I looked at the azure clear sky and the softly rustling trees.

"Life is good..."


Load failed, please RETRY

Gifts

Gift -- Gift received

    Weekly Power Status

    Batch unlock chapters

    Table of Contents

    Display Options

    Background

    Font

    Size

    Chapter comments

    Write a review Reading Status: C17
    Fail to post. Please try again
    • Writing Quality
    • Stability of Updates
    • Story Development
    • Character Design
    • World Background

    The total score 0.0

    Review posted successfully! Read more reviews
    Vote with Power Stone
    Rank 200+ Power Ranking
    Stone 71 Power Stone
    Report inappropriate content
    error Tip

    Report abuse

    Paragraph comments

    Login

    tip Paragraph comment

    Paragraph comment feature is now on the Web! Move mouse over any paragraph and click the icon to add your comment.

    Also, you can always turn it off/on in Settings.

    GOT IT