Chapter 48: The State of Things

Chapter 48: The State of Things

“Hey! Hey Aegis!” Galanis waved Aegis down only moments after he’d logged into Orm and turned on his livestream. Aegis turned to see Galanis walking alongside Eccen, both were wearing much better equipment than when he’d last seen them.

“How’d that boss fight go? Sorry about bailing...”

“No problem man, it was tough but we managed to take him out. He dropped some crazy good equipment too.” Galanis showed off the blackened mail armor he was wearing.

“Congrats, and thanks for saving me down there.” Aegis smiled.

“Well that’s actually what I wanted to talk about. Seeing as how your party was the one that completed all the quests, I figured it wouldn’t be fair if we at least didn’t share some of the loot with you.” Galanis replied.

“Oh, don’t worry about that.” Aegis replied as he opened his inventory, not having touched much of the items he’d gotten from the Keep. He had been so focused on clearing his bags of his basic crafting materials, he’d forgotten to properly inspect it all. In his bags he still had the crafting materials from the Boar King, the Longsword from the wolf, An Acid Fang and some silk from the Broodmother, the broken shards of the suffering orb, and the now depleted and and very non-magical manacles. In addition he had plenty of weapon and cloth scraps and a few white quality armor pieces and jewelry that had dropped off of all the elite enemies. But the main loot he’d been excited about, he’d already registered.

“I feel like the land deed was the best item I could’ve gotten.” Aegis bragged with a wide grin as he closed out his inventory.

“Oh, you got the land deed to the Keep?” Galanis replied with a nervous look, not the response Aegis was expecting.

“Yeah... I already registered for it too. Was a bit expensive, but...” Aegis stopped as he watched Galanis and Eccen exchange looks of guilt.

“We should probably warn you, the Keep, well...” Galanis began.

“When that last boss became enraged, he grew a bit larger, and started swinging his spiked maul all over the place...” Eccen continued.

“Larger? He was already huge!” Aegis replied in disbelief.

“Y-yeah... and then, there was the void magic.” Galanis added.

“And when he died, there was the quaking...” Eccen said as the two of them watched the disappointment fill up Aegis’ face.

“H-how bad is it?”

“It’s basically just a pile of rocks...” Galanis replied guiltily.

“Sorry man, if we’d known you got the deed, we would’ve tried to lure the boss away or something...” Eccen shrugged apologetically. Aegis just looked down at his feet for a moment, his daydreams of rebuilding the keep into his own castle quickly disintegrated in his mind.

“H-here, at least take this, it’s a pretty good ring for our level.” Galanis pulled a silver ring with a black gem engraved in it out of his inventory and held it out to him. Aegis took the ring without looking at it, still contemplating what they’d just told him.

“Thanks...” He said dejectedly.

“We’ll... we’ll come by and visit your land, you know, once you get things running. It’s still a nice piece of land. A river, some fields of grass...” Galanis replied.

“I bet it's great farmland!” Eccen added, trying to cheer him up.

“The only way to be better is to kill them.” Rakkan replied.

“What good does that do, what point do you prove? They’ll just respawn.”

“Then I’ll do it again. I’ll kill him over, and over, and over, until he never enters this game and hurts people ever again!” Rakkan shouted - Aegis picked up on the pronoun switch as Rakkan tightened his grip on his axe and clenched the fist weapon shut, preparing to lunge forward again. Lina lifted her daggers in front of her face in anticipation.

“W-wait Rakkan, stop it!” Amlie shouted out, but it seemed futile. Just as Rakkan was about to charge forward at Lina, however, a flash of pink ears flew through the air along with a large ball of trailing light, exploding on the point Rakkan had been standing.

When the explosion of light had cleared, Aegis saw the high level Night Hunter, Sapphire, standing on top of a disintegrating Rakkan who was being forcefully logged out, his health having hit 0.

“What is up with Orm lately? So much crime and PvP.” Sapphire shook her head in disbelief as she watched Rakkan disintegrate. “Hey, you!” She pointed at Amlie. “This is still considered a part of Orm, so don’t start fights here. You were partying with the initiator, so learn from his mistakes or you’ll be next.” Sapphire snapped at her. She turned and briefly looked at Lina, then Aegis, then back to Lina.

“Lower level thief takes on a higher level fighter.” Sapphire started rubbing her chin and pacing around Lina as Lina stood upright staring back at her. “Are you looking for a guild?” Sapphire asked Lina.

“Nope.” Lina replied without hesitation, to which Sapphire sighed.

“Ok, stay out of trouble!” She shouted, then with a burst of light magic, leapt into the air as a bunny would, with incredible height, back in the direction of Orm. The three watched Sapphire fade in the distance with several more hops before Lina and Aegis turned to look at an anxious Amlie.

“Sorry about Rakkan. I told him to start over here in Orm to play with me but he's still angry about the past...” Amlie tried to defend him.

“You two are friends?” Aegis asked.

“Yes.” She nodded eagerly. “We go to school together.”

“So you know why he’s so pissed off at me?” Aegis asked as Lina resheathed her daggers, listening in silence while moving to stand beside Aegis.

“Uhm, well, I think he’s mad at himself. He swore he wouldn’t ever play with a streamer again, get strong, and hunt someone down... then the other day, he was having fun playing with you guys, only to find out you were a livestreamer.”

“If he was having fun, why would it matter if it's a livestream or not? Who is it that he’s hunting? Makaroth?” Aegis asked which caused Lina to glance at him briefly, seeing Aegis with an emotionless expression.

“No, not Makaroth. Someone else... it’s a bit of a long story...” Amlie began to mumble as she looked between the two. “I think... maybe you guys could help him though. You’re the first people he’s had fun playing with since it happened.” She looked at them with hopeful eyes.

Aegis looked to Lina after hearing Amlie speak and was surprised to see her indifferent expression. For all the rage she had just shown towards Rakkan, she looked just as emotionless as Aegis about the situation and instead was waiting for his reaction.

“How old exactly are you two?” Aegis relented as he looked back at Amlie.

“I’m 13... but I turn 14 this month. Rakkan’s already 14.” Amlie replied defensively. Aegis saw Lina let out a light puffing sound after hearing this, looking as if ashamed of herself before looking to Aegis again for his reaction. The two did their best to communicate their thoughts just through stares, with an eventual shrug and raised brow from Aegis.

“Alright. Fine. Just a kid... We're waiting for someone anyway, so, go for it. What's his deal?” Aegis asked Amlie.

“I-it started a few months ago...” Amlie began, and as she did, Aegis turned off his stream recording. This chapter was first shared on the Ñøv€lß1n platform.