Chapter 31: First Mission

"What the—" Venn was confused by the sudden change of Lilith's attitude. But despite so, his hands didn't idle.

Storing both the elemental monster core and the sword in his inventory with quick succession, his hands untied the pouch and retrieved the items inside at an amazing speed.

Inside the pouch, there was a piece of small brown paper with instruction and two other scrolls as well.

Without any time for him to carefully look through the items, he quickly grabbed one of the scrolls in his hands and stored the other items in his inventory space.

At the last possible second, Venn swiftly tore the scroll into half and very quickly a distortion of space occurred in front of him along with a loud booming noise. 

Within a few seconds, a dark blue portal made up of swirling energy appeared from where the distortion occurs and without any hesitation in his action, Venn headed into it without regard.

That was because he knew that there was no roundabout way to reject going into the portal as the quest log notification appeared in his vision giving him no other choices.

[Ding]

[You have received your first Blood Serpents' mission.]

[Elite quest received: Open the pouch that Lilith had given to you and complete the task as stated.]

[Quest reward: +20 Recognition in Blood Serpent.]

[Quest penalty: Failure in completing the mission as stated would result in permanent death of in-game character. Blood Serpent never forgives and Blood Serpent never forgets.]

"Fuck!" When Venn saw the quest penalty that he would incur if he failed a Blood Serpents' mission, he almost coughed out a mouthful of old blood.

Never did he once think that this kind of exciting experience would land onto his lap. 

Although he had heard multiple stories in the forum in his previous life, asking others about their unique circumstances of getting their characters permanently deleted from the game if they ever died in the game, he didn't think that it would happen to him as well. 

Mostly because many of the cases were the consequences of the affected players getting cursed by the others or accidentally equipped themselves with cursed equipment.

The debuff of permanent death was something every player actively tries to avoid, thus Venn was frustrated that he would one day have the honor of suffering under the threat of permanent death as well.

Furthermore, his circumstance that he had landed himself into, was infinitely worse than the others. Unlike curses that could be cleansed by paying money to the churches, he had it even tougher.

Even if he successfully completed the mission this time, he would have to keep on surviving and be successful in completing the Blood Serpents' missions every single time. A single failure would spell his doom and would push him over the edge of the abyss!

Venn sighed.

Just when he thought he was free from the threat of the Ivy League with his renewed strength, he stepped into a bigger pitfall.

While still contemplating his future decisions in the darkness that had enveloped him for a full minute after charging into the portal, his focus was dragged back to reality when rays of bright lights filled his entire vision.

"Argh!"

It took awhile for the sudden brightness to subside and for Venn to recover his eyesights from the intense lights that blinded his eyes. Once he found himself able to see again, he immediately surveyed his surroundings with his dagger out to orientate himself and deal with any unexpected situation that might occur.

What he saw shocked him.

He found himself in the middle of a battlefield or at least that was what he thought his location was with the clashing of two different races until he observed the situation more.

A horde of hideous looking goblins that were well-equipped with standard steel swords and kite shields were on the offensive, attacking another humanoid race with great discipline and order. 

Many of their opponents had fallen under the blades of the goblins who outnumbered them greatly with little to no resistance.

Their eyes were filled with regrets and fury when they realised their inevitable death. And as they slipped into a state of despair and anger of being captured, the two horns that grew from their forehead turned scorching red until it turned into the color of crimson.

Along with the transformation of their horns, their body sizes doubled with their muscles bulging everywhere.

If ordinary humans got confronted with such a sight, they might run away with tails behind their back. 

However, that was what the goblins had wanted right from the start as all of the goblins' eyes shone with immense greed before proceeding to beheading them.

Blood curdling screams and chaos filled the air.

Individuals of the weaker race were wearing outfits that were unfamiliar to Venn, and the weapons that they used to defend themselves were merely some poorly graded farming tools like hoes and shovels. Some of them there were even wielding made-shift weapons made out of simple and fragile wooden sticks.

Venn had no idea what to call them as he had never seen them in the game before.

"Another unknown race…" Venn mumbled to himself. Ever since he joined the Blood Serpents, he was honestly surprised by the vastness of the game. 

It seemed that he had chosen a high risk high reward path in the game, and hence was the reason why he was able to uncover these wildly unknown game content that no one was able to access in his previous past life.

Venn felt sorry for them despite knowing that it was just a game.

He originally thought that it was a clash between the two vastly different races but upon further observation, he found that it was instead a slaughter.

Surrounding him were huts made of simple dry grasses and timber bundled in a simple fashion, however, they were being set on fire by the goblin race.

It was a sight of carnage and despair!

As Venn took in the situation happening in front of him, he immediately opened the pouch that Lilith gave him.

Opening the small piece of paper of instructions, he prayed to the Heavens the hardest he had ever done as he started to read the paper with anxiety.

"Please! Please! Please! Let my allies be the goblins! Please!"