บท 28: Betrayal

(A/N: Hay peeps. Did you miss me? Anyways, I'm back, a lot of nice things happened to me during my break so I've been fighting my urge to stay on break even longer. Hmm...maybe I've become lazy. Regardless, if you are reading this then that means that I have returned. As I stated in the last 'Official' chapter, starting this chapter will be the start of the Ainz Ooal Gown Arc, but don't take that as in this chapter alone I will be forming the guild. This is merely a chapter that starts the Arc. I know that not everyone will think like this but knowing webnovel readers, I have to clarify everything. Now that my introduction is out of the way, I hope you guys enjoy.)

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*3 months later*

[ Narrator's POV ]

*Shhwishh!*

The crunching sound of the autumn colored leaves could be heard as a group of three ran through the woods of abnormally tall trees. The trees were so tall that if a player was not flying, they wouldn't be able to see the where the trees stopped in the sky. It would seem as if they were endless.

As the group of three ran, they continuously looked back as if something was chasing them. The magic caster, who played the leader role for this group, turned around once more to get a better view of what they were running from, but he couldn't see anything.

"Looks like we lost them, I don't see them anymore." said the archer. He was of the elf race, dressed in green leathers that protected him from spells up to tier 6.

"That might be the case but let me make sure. I'd rather be safe than sorry." stated the magic caster as he stopped and began casting a spell.

"[ Mass Compass ]!" he screamed. This spell, unlike its inferior counterpart, would locate multiple players as long as they were within a certain distance. As the magic caster chanted the spell, a wave of light stretched far and wide searching for any players within its vicinity.

After a couple of seconds, the other player that was with them spoke. "So....? Do you see him? Did we lose him?".

This player was a human woman who didn't hold any weapons. Instead, she had golden gauntlets on her hands, she was a monk. The magic caster ignored the woman and focused more on his surroundings looking for anything that moved. However he couldn't find anything, no matter how far hard he looked, he couldn't pick up on anything.

'This is strange. The guy was right behind us a couple of seconds ago, it makes no sense how we could have lost him. This is has to be a trap of some sort' he thought.

The magic caster then finally spoke his mind. "Somethings wrong. We need to keep moving."

"You see him?" Asked the archer with a bit of nervousness.

"No. That's the reason I'm saying we need to keep moving, it makes no sense why he isn't being picked up by the spell at all." He stated.

"Are you sure he didn't just give up on chasing us?" Asked the monk.

The magic caster looked at her then shook his head. "Even if that's the case we should continue. At least until we reach the city mainland, if we encounter him or anyone who is as strong as him again we're done for. Staying inside of these woods, were basically sitting ducks."

"Well, are you still unable to teleport? Since the guy is gone, then you should be able to teleport now right?" The monk asked curiously.

"You're right. Let me try it now...". The magic caster then chanted the spell [ Greater Teleportation ], however as soon as the magic circle appeared it suddenly broke and disappeared.

"Looks like I still can't use the spell... We have to continue on foot." the magic caster grumbled.

Although the facial expressions could not be seen it was obvious by the low groans of the elf and monk that they were bothered by this. They had been running for 20 minutes without break and were tired.

They are all apart of a guild called World Searcher, and as the name suggests they are a guild who specializes in searching and exploring the nine worlds for the unknown. Their group had been put in charge of searching a dungeon that one of the higher ups had learned about and clear it. Before it had been more of them in this group but after challenging a dungeon and beating it, they received a item. This item was not just any item, though, they had been lucky enough to find a world item called { Graeae }.

Right after exiting the dungeon tons of players were waiting on them outside, it was an ambush. This meant that someone had leaked some information about their mission. During the fight against the ambushers, they lost over 7 other teammates, and in the end they had to run away in order to stay alive without losing the World Item.

Now back to the present, with no other choice the group of three resumed running towards the mainland city of Jotunheim. Every one of them was at least level 70, it was one of the reasons they were tasked with clearing the dungeon, so while running they were moving quite fast.

As they passed a couple more trees some bushes on the right and left of them shook which made each of them stop and jump in a defensive position. Suddenly two assassins rushed in front of them. The assassins moved so fast that they appeared to be teleporting.

"Damn! Looks like they were in front of us waiting for us to come in this direction the whole time." said the magic caster in a grim tone.

'I can't allow them to get the World Item-'. Before he could even finish his thought a notification appeared in his line of sight.

[ You have been critically injured! You have lost -70 HP ]

[ Warning! You are poisoned! ]

He looked down at his body and realized that a purple dagger was stabbed into his chest area. He quickly swung his arm casting the spell [ Lucifer's Touch ] however he missed as the elf that was on his side jumped back.

"How could you do this?!" screamed the monk in anger. She knew that there was a traitor that leaked their mission however she believed that it was one of the higher-ups instead, not one of her own teammates.

"I should have known... You goddamn snake!" screamed the magic caster.

The elf began to laugh loudly as he walked over to the assassin's side. "Hahahahahaha! Man, it's been fun running with you idiots, however since that item has been found we're are gonna need it~ Sorry~" he said giggling.

The magic caster quickly drank one of the antidotes that he had in his inventory and then tried to drink a potion however as soon as he pulled it out...

"Ah, now we can't have that can we? [ Water Lance ]!". A voice that came from behind them shouted.

Before the magic caster could drink the potion he was attacked from behind losing even more HP.

[ You have lost -20 HP ]

The monk and magic caster duo turned around to see three more enemies however the player towards the front was someone who was now pretty popular. He was a player named Zechariah, one of the founding members of another guild called Mercenary Magicians Guild.

This guild was one of the guilds that was up on the rise in the rankings along with World Searcher. It consisted of only magic casters, with almost 1/4 of their guild having the class World Disaster. Although this guild wasn't a player-killing guild, just as their name suggests they would take on mercenary work for other players for certain compensation. And the man in front of him was one of the more powerful among them.

"Zechariah! You don't know what you are doing, we are part of the World Searcher Guild! Do you seriously want to start a war?!" screamed the monk.

Zechariah stared at them quietly for a couple of seconds before giggling slightly. "Pfft- Ahem excuse me but why would I be afraid of the World Searcher guild? You guys wouldn't even be a challenge in a guild war."

The other two magicians on the side of him began to laugh, agreeing with him. As much as the monk wanted to refute she couldn't. She knew that he was right, although their guild had a lot of members and was even reaching the top 20 on the leaderboards, they were considered weak in terms of strength. The guild leaderboards took a lot into effect when ranking the guilds so it wasn't safe to determine who was stronger based on their rank alone.

The monk and her companion grew silent. They couldn't figure out anything to stop these two guilds from attacking them. They knew that they couldn't win if it came down to a fight yet they also could run or teleport away.

The elf who was with the Assassins walked closer with his hand out and said "Hand over the World Item. If you do that we won't spawn kill you for any of your own items. Just tell the higher-ups that a mistake happened- what the?"

Before he could finish his sentence, he along with everyone else noticed that the tree surroundings was changing, the environment began to morph into a pitch black color.

Zechariah was quick to notice what was happening.

"Is this a illusion....?"