- Arthas -
"The rooms are full?"
"Yes. We were told of only two rooms." The innkeeper apologised. Arnold didn't know who would come with me and had only booked two rooms. One for himself and his attendants and the other for me and my companions.
He had already left for his room with his two attendants and that only left Rose and Veena with me.
"It's not a big problem. Just a night. We can adjust." Veena said and Rose also agreed. While we could offer some money to the innkeeper to find us some other place in the village, Rose was not the type to do such a thing.
We saw the room and it had one bed and a chair, a typical inn room.
"You two can take the bed. I have a sleeping bag in my inventory." I offered, taking out my sleeping bag and laying it on the ground.
"N-no. Let me." Rose said, but I shook my head.
"It's just a few hours. It's better this way." I looked at Veena for some support who put a hand on Rose's shoulder and convinced the girl to let go.
She still felt hesitant but due to Veena and my insistence, she finally let go.
__________________________________x___________________________________
"Did you have a nice sleep?" Arnold asked me, a smirk at the corner of his lips.
This bastard… he did that on purpose.
"Yes. In fact, I had a wonderful nap."
In fact, I wasn't even lying.
I did sleep well.
It's just that Rose didn't look like she did.
Her eyes were slightly red and she looked more tired than normal.
As a T4 she could still remain awake for two or three days without affecting her performance but it was still annoying.
Still, the girl was just too pure… it was adorable.
"Good. In that case we can set off early." He replied, probably looking at Veena and Rose who were arriving there.
We had breakfast at the inn and left early.
By the time the sun was setting, we could see the outline of large city walls in the distance. It's just that unlike Llyne's city walls, Greenfrost's walls were enormous.
Even under siege, it would take multiple hits from strong siege weapons to break any of them. Not only the strength of the wall but also the size of the city itself.
It was almost a dozen times bigger than Llyne. The streets were paved with stone and were wide enough for four carriages to pass at once.
The city was elevated towards the centre where another large wall could be seen.
"Greenfrost is divided into three parts. The outermost city, the outer city and the inner city. The inner city is where the official buildings, the Cathedral and the Lord's Castle are located. It's also where the nobles under the Lord have their mansions. The outer city is for normal citizens of Greenfrost and the outermost city is the one outside the outer walls, similar to Llyne, for farmers who stay there to take care of the crops." Arnold explained as we were led inside.
"Nobles' mansions? You have a mansion there too?" I asked while looking in the distance in the direction pointed out by Arnold. Sure enough, there was a cathedral style
building ahead.
"Well, we are just barons so the best we have is free rooms at the Inns. The guest houses would be full at this time due to every noble in the territory showing up to congratulate the Lord. You don't need to worry though. The free rooms are quite large, suitable for a noble. You could also get more rooms for your companions if you want."
We looked around and I could see plenty of T4 people in the town. In fact, T4 was quite normal here.
T5 were rarer but still plenty.
In fact, I saw several T5 Templars roaming the streets.
"This place sure has many Templars." I asked.
"Yes. The twentieth unit of Knights is a legion of Templars led by Lord Conrad Black, a Holy Knight. It's named the Order of the Silver Hand. They have a garrison in the inner city near the Cathedral. The weapons and Skill Books you received as a reward were from the same place."
Order of the Silver Hand…
Suddenly things were clicking everywhere.
Order of the Silver Hand, Paladins, Holy Knights, Undead, Elves, Barbarian Hordes… at this point I could only say one thing…
"Motherfu…"
"Hmm?"
"Nothing… it's nothing."
The realisation was like a dam had broken as one thought after another came to my mind about the scenario and the future quests.
It wasn't going to be the whole Warcraft questline, would it?
"Say Arnold, what about the strongest in the country? What about the Royal Family? How strong are they and what class do they have?"
"The Royal family?"
"The King, Terenas Menethil II is a T8 Swordmaster. His son…" He smirked at me… "Arthas Menethil is one of the brightest Holy Knights of the Kingdom."
"Oh. How old is he? Is he married?" I asked, trying to know the timeline of the world.
He looked at me oddly at the question but answered nonetheless. "I think he is twenty one years old. Married? No. But there is news about him being involved with the princess of the Kheadel Empire. She is the disciple of the Archmage of the Magic Tower, the foremost organisation of magicians in the Continent."
…
Fuck!
I had very complex thoughts about this moment but I pushed those thoughts away.
Right now, the most important part was figuring out if it was just the setting which was the same or if the future would also be the same like in Warcraft?
If it was, then I am leaving everything and going across the Reverse Mountain.
As Arnold kept on telling me about Greenfrost, I kept planning for ways to get out of this whole mess.
The first sign I hear of an undead plague or a scourge, I am getting out.
He said Arthas was twenty one years old. If my fading memory serves me right, the entire mess started when Arthas was twenty four. If things go as I remember, at least I hope the Game Master remembers it as I did, then I have three years… because there is no way he didn't use this quest line if he went through all the effort to set this up.
We passed through the outer city and reached the gates of the Inner City. Even the gates were manned by T5 Knights…
Arnold showed his Baron Badge to one of them and taking this as a signal, I did the same and we were allowed to pass through.
The inner city was a level above the outer city.
There were no random people with cheap clothes on the streets. Everyone we saw looked rich.
The class separation was quite evident in the mediaeval age… not that it's that different now but it was worse.
Our carriage stopped in front of an Inn and Arnold got down. We followed him.
The innkeeper was an acquaintance of Arnold and we got two free rooms. Apparently the Marquis had one free room for each Baron Ranked noble attending the party paid for in advance.
We decided to check the room first and see if we wanted another room although Rose didn't look like she wanted to get another room especially after hearing the price. It was twelve times higher than our previous inn's price.
Thankfully for us, the room was quite big. It had two different large beds, a big couch and attached baths and washrooms.
In fact, the area of the room was more than the house we were living in.
I now understood what Arnold said about us not needing extra rooms.
We had our dinner as it was already late by now.
Tomorrow was a day off and we could look around Greenfrost.
Arnold had told me that he would show me around the town and I needed to visit the Greenfrost Kinght Academy too so we retired early for the day.
- Akeno Himejima -
She used her Lightning Ray spell to snipe down the last one of the group, a ring of experience gain signifying the death of the scum in her ears.
"That was the third group. Six of them this time. That makes it fifteen, doesn't it?" Arthur asked, sheathing his sword.
"Hmm. Their numbers keep increasing every time. I guess even these idiots figured out that they were being hunted down and are sending out larger groups." She replied as she checked the faces of the downed ones. "That's Victor, one of their executives, isn't he?" She asked.
"Yes, that's him."
"No wonder he had so much gold on him. Hopefully, this will make them reign in their behaviour or maybe leave this town." She replied, storing the bodies in her inventory.
They dumped the bodies near the lair of a field boss so the remains were not a problem.
"There are five executives in Dark Fiends, a Vice Leader and a Leader not to mention the rapidly increasing numbers. Even with him gone, I doubt they would move away so easily. If anything, they would send more people out to hunt down anyone who targets them. What we need to do is finish off at least half of their top level." Arthur replied, storing the rest of the bodies in his inventory and walking towards the Field Boss Lair.
"Ambushing them all is getting harder even with the poisons and paralysing agents. I think we should hold on for a while. Actually, we could perhaps post a bounty on the heads of their members."
"No. The people in the Black Market belong to no one. They would sell us off for a price. I think we should just stop this for a few weeks and let them have a sense of false calm before we take down another one of their executives. If we continue this, it would just make the Knights get involved and that would be troublesome. The best course of action would be to leave this town before they can regroup themselves." Arthur replied and she agreed.
They were trying to avoid catching the attention of the Knights and the nobles especially after knowing that the leader of the Dark Fiends wanted the support of some viscount after selling her.
Normally, they wouldn't have resorted to such extreme measures but when they interrogated that member who was tracking them and got the information… they lost any mercy they had for these scumbags. Even Arthur who was always honourable and disliked ambushes agreed to use any means necessary to take them down.
Selling the female members of her group as slaves and taking control over the kids of the orphanage and their business…
Yeah, there will be no mercy for them.
On asking further, they found out that the leader of the group Raizen, was a criminal in real life too, something he often brags to his other group members.
After disposing of the bodies, they hunted for the rest of the night, to catch Arthur up with the rest of the group.
During this time, she had been accompanying him in his hunts and this had caused her to gain extra levels.
At this rate, she could get to T5 in a month and half at best.
They reached their home late at night and Marielle was waiting for them, hands on her waist, pouting.
"You two are late again. You shouldn't push yourself so hard, you know. It could be dangerous outside. Haven't you heard, several players have gone missing in the past two weeks. What will you do if you encounter some danger outside?"
"It's nothing, Marielle. We were just levelling on the outskirts. We didn't go far away." She explained with a smile. "Anyways, did all of you eat already?" She asked.
"No. Everyone was waiting for you two. Now come in quickly and get washed up. Even the kids didn't want to eat without you two."
She felt her heart warm at the words and nodded at Marielle.
They got washed up quickly and had dinner with everyone before she gathered the group together.
"I was thinking of something and had an idea today. I want your suggestions on the matter." She told Marielle.
"What idea?"
"Well, you have heard how people… other players are disappearing in this town recently?" She asked, getting a nod from everyone in the group. "I am worried about our group and most importantly the kids being targeted by them too. Today, Arthur and I went to the Black Market and heard some rumours."
"What rumours?"
"There are rumours that the players are being targeted by slavers."
"What?!"
"Yes. Now, it's a rumour but there is a high chance that it's true but there is apparently a noble in a nearby town who buys slaves. There are people in this town who wish to gain his favour by selling him slaves. In return they can do whatever they want without any interference from the Knight Academy of the town. If that's really true, then it's understandable why nothing has been found yet, what with the noble keeping the Knights away from the crime scene. At this rate, we could be targeted in the future too. That's why…"
"That's why?"
"I was thinking of taking everyone and moving away from this town. I think a bigger town would be better." She proposed.
Marielle looked in deep thought, unlike her usual cheery self, she was very serious at the moment.
"How credible is this news?"
"We paid some money and found that there is likely to be no attacks in the next few weeks as they have already captured enough players for this round and have left the town to sell them. The attacks may resume when they return. This is why we were so late today. We can use this time to relocate everyone. In fact, the best would be to put up a quest with the Knight's Academy itself. They would probably help us with Nao-kun's connections." She looked at Naotsugu who was silent at the news too.
He nodded. "I have got some friends there. I can get some help if it's just escorting us to a different town although we will need some money for that. I will ask them tomorrow and see how much it will cost."
"Let's decide on a town we wish to move to first. We can get a map of the kingdom. Nao-kun, can you ask around and find which city is safer in this kingdom? I will talk to our clients too. Since Akeno-chan and Arthur-kun have already investigated this, we can start collecting supplies in secret. It's better if no one knows about the move. Keep an eye and make sure we are not observed by anyone during this time."
Everyone nodded at her words.
"By the way, Arthur is also ready for his Knight Quest. So, Nao-kun, take him with you. We will get the job change done for him tomorrow or the day after. We should prepare as much as we can. We will move out in a week."
"Got it."
Akeno also sighed in relief as one part of her plan was successful for now.