“Sigh, this game is too hard. What the hell is wrong with the developers?” A young man sat down next to a tree heaving up and down.
“It’s… tough. We are at the beginner area and we’re already struggling to even do anything. I didn’t think that it would be this realistic and this hard.” His friend said as he lay on the grass, unable to move.
“You two are so useless! We could’ve easily killed at least one more wolf had you not backed away like cowards!” A girl stood in the middle with an angry look on her face.
“Shut up! Try playing offense and see what happens! Standing in the back line and being a useless support role.”
“Useless?! How am I supposed to do anything when I have two useless fighters who can’t deal damage if their life depended on it? Multiplying any number by zero is still zero, dumbass!” The girl retorted with a loud scoff.
“You!!”
*ROAR*
At that moment, the trio heard a loud roar echoing through the forest. The noise made them immediately turn their heads in one particular direction.
“What?! They’re still following us?!” One of them muttered with a terrified look on their face.
“Didn’t we lose them like 15 minutes ago? We have no health left to fight and no potions!”
As the bushes started rustling, the group panicked and tried to stand up. However, their stamina was already depleted and they could barely move. Even if they could move, they definitely cannot run.
“You need to protect us till we recover some stamina! We can’t afford to lose our items again!”
“How am I supposed to do that?! I don’t have any offensive spells to use!” The girl replied with a frown. She was a support healer so she can’t really do much when it comes to fighting or even holding back enemies.
At that moment, four silhouettes jumped out of the bushes. The monsters that had been chasing them for the past 20 minutes were white wolves. They had come across a group of them and tried to kill them.
They successfully eliminated three, but the other four were able to easily overpower them.
“What is this nonsense?! Just leave us alone, bastards!”
*ROAR*
One growl from the wolves made the trio cower back in fear. The two exhausted fighters felt like they were completely stuck while the girl was now contemplating to escape with her own life.
At that moment, something suddenly appeared behind them like a shadow before it moved past them rapidly. The silhouette approached the wolves and with a swift move, it slashed through them like a whirlwind of blades.
Their speed and precision were terrifying, to say the least. Before the trio or even the wolves could react, two wolves were already down on the ground dead. The other two finally snapped out of it and realized what just happened before they quickly tried to jump back.
However, three red projectiles were already chasing after them and before they knew it, their heads were pierced ruthlessly. The last two fell to the ground dead.
“…”
A comically long silence took over the trio as they looked at the dead wolves with pure shock. Their eyes couldn’t believe that they had just died in a few seconds. These were the same wolves that almost killed the three of them.
“What? Only some fangs?! Tsk, so stingy! Give me something better goddammit!” Arthur grumbled as he looked at what he had received. ‘I have killed almost two dozen of these things and yet they didn’t give me anything good yet. Are they just casual enemies with no actual good loot?!
Tsk, it’s a waste of time. The problem is that they’re the most common enemy around here so I can only kill them for experience and items unless I find another cave or dungeon.’ Arthur clicked his tongue before he closed the window and turned around to leave.
At that moment, he noticed that there were three players staring directly at him. The two sides made eye contact for a few moments before Arthur asked. “Were these wolves… Your targets?”
The trio looked quite shocked before the girl finally snapped out of it first and shook her head vigorously. “Thanks for saving us! We would’ve been screwed!”
“Hm? Oh, I wasn’t intending to save you. But, well, you’re welcome.” Arthur shrugged as he turned around to continue his hunt.
“Hey, wait!” The girl called for him.
“What?”
“Do you… How did you kill those wolves so fast? Who are you?”
Arthur looked at her for a moment before he shrugged. “Eh, none of your business, miss. Bye.”
Then, without waiting a moment, Arthur vanished from sight as quickly as possible. He didn’t want to prolong the conversation any longer.
‘I should’ve not killed those wolves in front of them. I don’t want them to suspect my identity. But, eh, I doubt those idiots would really link me with ‘Persona’.’ He thought to himself. ‘Actually, now that I think about it, I should definitely start looking for a mask. Things might get out of control when I least them expect them and I don’t want to get in trouble.’
So far, Arthur’s popularity was only increasing with each passing second. It had been almost two hours since he started hunting and his pace was only increasing with each passing second. He had gained almost 150 points purely from killing low-level enemies.
He had gained one level and a few stats because of that which wasn’t a huge improvement, but he was certainly making the gap between rank one and two bigger and bigger with each day.
‘This is terrifyingly easy once you’re over-leveled for the area. I don’t even need to know how to use a sword to actually know how to kill these small fries.’ He mused.
So far, his leveling progress has been smooth sailing. He was almost like a killing machine, cutting its way through enemies with no hesitation.
Moving through the forest, he targeted every single enemy he could find. Most of them were level 1 to 3 with very rare level 4 monsters. However, since Arthur was heading deeper and deeper into the forest, the enemies were becoming harder and harder compared to the ones near the outskirts of the village.
He knew that if he went deep enough, he would come across stronger enemies and potentially better rewards.
“Come on, let me find a stronger enemy.”
As he was passing through the thick greenery, all Arthur wanted was to find a monster worth killing. He wasn’t aware that at that very moment, his wish was about to be fulfilled. Except, he was given far more than he wanted.
***
Meanwhile, on the plane. The place was very quiet as everyone had returned to their rooms to sleep or play, leaving the sound of the engine and the air cutting through the metal to be the only noise there.
In one particular room near the front of the plane, Mr. X sat on his chair sipping on a cup of wine. At that moment, the phone on his table started ringing, causing him to put his cup down and pick up the phone.
His serious face couldn’t be read, nor could anyone hear the voice that was speaking to him through the phone. However, what one could hear was one single response.
“The 47th batch is on its way. No problems so far. Everything is going according to plan.” He said before he slowly put the phone back down and started sipping on his cup again, aware that nobody had heard him speaking.
A//N: Hand me all your PS!