End Online: Volume 4 (10 page)

At the first skill level,
I can only manage to get out one syllable in that half second, but the duration
should increase as I raise my skill level. I vowed to use this skill on the
rest of the party members who ditched me, but I need to strengthen the skill
first.

We leave the village and
continue west. Some of the lower-level areas surrounding us have fewer players,
but still a lot in my opinion. I pass by several entrances that appear to be
dungeons, but I don’t stop to inspect them.

‘If there are this
many players outside the dungeon, I hate to think about how many players are
inside. There must be lines similar to those of amusement parks!’

It isn’t all bad news
though, I use my newly formed haunting skill on as many players I pass as
possible. I glance in their direction and focus the origin of my voice to be
directly behind the player’s head. I start off with single syllable words such
as ‘die’, ‘move’, ‘fall’, and ‘run’. I practically shout the words out, causing
more than one player to jump in fright or make a mistake and suffer an attack
by the enemy.

It is a remarkable skill,
because apparently, only the target can hear my voice. I also make sure to
cover my mouth or turn my head away to prevent the rest of the party from
seeing my mouth moving. I intend that my new skill will be quite the surprise
for them.

I repeat this for three
full days in real life, eventually leveling up my new skill to a point where I
am ready to set my plan in motion.

Around sunset, we enter an
area that is quite arid and dry. We have been drinking a much larger amount of
water thanks to the temperature, and with the lack of water sources, we are
finding the thirst attribute in our satiety levels is dangerously low.

“Please… water.” Mason
moans while scanning the surroundings.

Just a few hours ago, I
had tried to have Fen create some ice and then melt it into drinkable water. I
almost cried when the ice melted directly into steam.

My cloak has some weather
correction abilities, but it is not omnipotent so even my throat is feeling
parched. We steadily climb the hill in front of us, desperately hoping to find
some water on the other side.

Stumbling up to the top of
the hill, the only thing here is a large, ancient tree. But the view from here
brings us new strength and steadies our legs. The daylight is rapidly failing, but
we can clearly see large town barely half an hour’s travel away.

***************************************************

“So… much… better.” Mason
speaks in between swallowing large mouthfuls of water.

“It is. But where are we?
This place is quite large.” I ask curiously.

Verde answers my question
while Mason is kneeling over and coughing from drinking water too fast.

“I think this is the town
of Firz. It is much too large to be a small village.”

“We are finally near our
destination then!”

“It is still a full day’s
walk away. We should get there tomorrow.”

I have already seen two of
the capital cities so I am excited to see what the last one looks like.

“Well, why don’t we spend
the night here at an inn?” Mason asks with watery eyes.

Everyone quickly nods their
head in agreement, overjoyed at the thought of spending the night in a
comfortable bed.

‘It’s only been three
days and not one of you has a guilty conscience about leaving me to go into
that inn alone! Just you wait…” 
A cunning
smile appears on my face to mirror my thoughts as I nod my assent as well.

We walk through the town
and I take note of where I can sell all the useless items I collected from
killing mobs in the ‘Lords’ Cathedral’.

After ten minutes of
wandering, the flames of the street lanterns flicker to life one by one.
Slowly, other players begin to filter away to unknown locations. Following a
group of three players with poor equipment, we finally find a three story inn
called ‘The Wayfarer’.

Inside the inn are a lot
of drab looking players huddling around low wooden tables sharing quiet
conversations. There isn’t a single spare seat in the whole common room so it
is lucky we are not looking to drink. We weave our way through the room,
squeezing between a few players to reach the bar.

The innkeeper is a man
with the shape of a barrel. Only, not a single ounce of his weight is muscle.
He is dressed is lavish blue clothes with gold trim that shows he makes quite
the living. I don’t see how he would not make a lot of money with this number
of players filling up his business.

“Excuse me!” I call out to
the overweight innkeeper, “I would like a room for four.”

I only ask for a room for
four because Fen can log out if need be and Verde is a girl so she will get a
room to herself. We may all be adults, but it is a matter of etiquette. Four is
generally the maximum number of beds in a room anyway. I think it has something
to do with the influence of the old role-playing games where a party of four
was common.

The man pauses for a
moment when he notices me, but quickly moves over to attend to me.

“Sure, that’ll be 32
gold.” He responds indifferently while holding his hand out.

I nearly cough up blood at
the exorbitant price. I hesitate for a moment that only rewards me with the
innkeeper giving me a grumpy expression.

“If you can’t afford it,
then don’t ask for it!”

“Sorry! No, the price is
fine. Here is the gold.”

I hastily hand over the
gold and notice that his hand is shaking slightly. In the blink of an eye the
money disappears and a bronze key is placed in my hand. I barely have time to
curse before a message appears in front of me.

‘Damn it! I never
asked for a cheaper price! Wait, how much is it usually?!’

I hear the whispers of
other players questioning why I get a better price than all of them, but my
mood is already ruined so I don’t bother listening to them.

“You all owe me eight gold
each,” I extend my open palm to the other men of the party.

Seeing my grouchy mood,
they silently hand over the coins. Just as I am putting the coins in my pouch I
hear Verde raise her voice next to me.

“What do you mean you have
no more rooms?!”

“Sorry miss, all the rooms
are currently booked out. The last one was only moments ago.”

“…”

“My apologies, truly.
There are several other inns in the town that you are welcome to try, but they
usually fill up faster than I do.”

Verde turns around and
gives us a stubborn look. She bites her bottom lip and her cheeks flush a light
red. There are a few players around us that notice her and they suddenly go
silent as they stare at her. They begin to notice Fen at about the same time
and give her more than one lusty look.

“I-I will be staying in
your r-room tonight.” She stammers out, staring intently at me in particular
while speaking.

The entire common room
turns silent this time and I feel the hateful glares of every single male in
the vicinity. It also does not help that at Verde’s declaration, Fen
practically attaches herself to me.

I am used to a lot of
angry players from when my intimidating aura causes enemies to become aggro’d
toward me, but that is barely a whisper in the wind compared to this hatred.

I stand there like a
statue, unsure as to what to say. I don’t know whether to say I should be
thankful or not, but Verde moves first. She moves past me and hastily walks up
the stairs leading to the rooms.

“Was she, umm… saying that
directly toward you?” Matrix asks innocently, yet his voice echoes through the
soundless room.

‘Don’t say that! This
situation is already bad enough as it is!’

Just as I feel like
crying, an acute pain shoots up my arm as Fen digs her fingers in. Her face is
void of all emotion, but I can feel an intensity coming from her that is even
more frightening than everyone else combined.

“S-she was just saying
that because I was the one to book the room!”

“Of course, that has to be
it.” Some of the hatred lessens as a few people come to the same conclusion.

Taking this as an
opportunity to escape, I hastily move through the room and up the stairs. Our
room turns out to be on the top floor; a sturdy pair of gilded bronze doors for
the entrance.

Inside the room are four
single beds lined up in a row. I ponder over the sleeping problem about who
will be forced to sleep on the floor when Mason answers my thoughts.

“This is quite the
situation… But, you know, this game has quite a lot of investment in being able
to interact with the world.”

We all look at him
curiously, wondering exactly what it is he is inclining.

“Sir Laurence,” Mason
continues, “would you be so kind as to give me a hand?”

“I am willing.”

Together under Mason’s
instructions, they tip all the beds over and move the frames into one corner of
the room while lining up all the mattresses on the floor in a line.

“Technically, a single bed
can hold a person and a half. This way, we can have up to six people sleep
here.” Mason says proudly.

“Then why not just butt
each bed up against each other?” I ask, thinking that would surely have been
easier.

“The bed frames will cause
a slight gap in between the mattresses. It doesn’t appear to be much, but it
can be incredibly uncomfortable for anyone trying to sleep over it.”

“I see…”

We all shuffle in and
choose our spots along the long line of mattresses. It isn’t overly awkward as
this is only a game, yet we are all nervous. Surprisingly, no one decides to
give up and log out. I feel a little warm at how close our party is to each
other.

I ask Fen to log out, but
she refuses with a cold glare at Verde. I also feel the chill and concede,
simply telling her not to cause any trouble.

Going from left to right,
the order in which we lay is as follows: Verde, Prince Charming, Matrix, Mason,
Fen, and then me.

I had wanted to use my new
skill to seek my revenge on everyone by speaking curses into their ears to
cause them to get no sleep at all. With Verde in the same room, it is almost
like destiny is working in my favour by lining them up. But after the recent
events down in the common room, I have lost my urge for vengeance and decide to
forget about it.

With the knee of a certain
wolf girl resting on my thigh and her cool forehead against my shoulder, my
consciousness gradually enters oblivion.

-Lost-

Fen follows me as I walk into the ‘Joy Inn'
with already lowered expectations, but the interior is even more decrepit than
I expected. While the exterior is covered in broken windows, rotting timber and
an aura of a building possessed, the interior even more downcast.

Everything is covered in years of dust and
cobwebs. The furniture looks like it could crumble at the slightest touch. Half
the lanterns are extinguished while the other half constantly flicker, and the
walls look like they are screaming in agony. A voice deep inside me tells me to
turn around and leave before it is too late but through sheer stubbornness I
walk further into the common area.

There is not a single player in here. Only a
single, unattractive old female NPC standing behind the bar off in one corner
of the room. She is hunchbacked and wears a faded red gown that looks like it
was probably quite nice in her youth. Her eyes are also a milky white,
indicating that she is completely blind.

Strangely enough, when we walk over to her, she
turns to face me with those eyes that should not be able to see anything.

"Umm, good evening!" I call out
louder than necessary.

"I'm blind! Not deaf!" She yells back
at me with a voice that cracks on every second word.

"I wasn't... I wasn't thinking that at
all."

The innkeeper harrumphs and looks at me coldly.

"Can I get a room, one with two beds,
please?"

"What do you know, a room just became
available. That will be four silver," she says sarcastically while
pretending to look through the inn's log book, despite being blind.

"Umm, sure."

I hand over the money and the old lady hands me
a rusty bronze key. She points to the staircase and tells me it is room 24 on
the second floor. Fen and I follow her instructions and head toward our room.
Every step on the staircase causes the boards to sink and creak, and every step
makes me think
this
one will surely break.

Almost as if my thoughts had jinxed me, the
very next step breaks and my foot goes straight through it, causing me to
tumble forward. I don't suffer any damage, but I am quite embarrassed.

After straightening back up, I turn around
expecting the old innkeeper to be furious about damaging the inn, but she has
completely vanished.

'Has she gone back into the kitchen or
somewhere?'

Realizing that she mustn't know about the step
breaking just now, I quickly ascend to the second floor and walk down a long
corridor lined with rooms. Beside each door is a brass room number as old and
rusted as the key in my hand is.

It isn't long before we reach a room labelled
“24”. The sliding doors to the room are held together by a large padlock. I
place the key in the lock and after a bit of fiddling, it finally opens. My
heart starts beating faster as I open the door, not knowing what to expect on
the other side.

The doors rattle as they slide open and reveal
the room. I’m dumbfounded as the room is perfectly normal and exactly what I
would expect from a third-rate inn. There is a window at the back of the room,
showing the moon rise as night has just begun. All the walls are in good
repair, so my only issue is that this room has just a single bed, and a
relatively small one at that.

"Fen, wait here!" I say to the wolf
before angrily stomping down to the common room to complain about being given
the incorrect room.

When I arrive at the bar downstairs, the old
lady still isn't there. I try knocking on the bench and even calling out to
her, but she doesn't respond. Frustrated, I return to the room, tripping on
another broken step along the way.

Fen is standing by the window with one hand
against the glass and staring outside as if she is looking for something.

"Fen, looks like we will have to share
this single bed tonight."

My words cause the wolf girl to instantly turn
around and smile in delight. I climb into the bed first, and Fen silently
climbs in and pulls herself close to me shortly after. I feel her nose tickle
my ear and hear the short sounds of her breathing, but try to clear my head and
focus on sleeping.

Her breathing slows down and I realize she has
just fallen asleep. I lie there and try focus on falling asleep, but the system
assist doesn't seem to take hold of me. I furrow my brow with my eyes still
closed, a little annoyed.

A loud crash sounds against the door and my
eyes fling wide open as my heart beats erratically at the sudden fright. Any
thoughts of sleep are instantly dispelled along with whatever fatigue I was
feeling.

I climb out of the bed and carefully approach
the door to the room. I open the door an inch, hoping to see who would make
such a racket at this hour, but don't see anyone there. Opening the door wider,
I quickly poke my head out and glance up and down the corridor before pulling
it back in.

'Strange! There is no one there.'

I close the door and move to return to the bed.
As soon as I take two steps, the crashing against the door sounds again,
causing me to physically jump in fright. I don't try looking behind the door
again, but instead dash to the bed.

"Fen! Wake up! We are leaving this damned
place, right now!" I shake the wolf girl while calling out to her, but she
remains sound asleep despite my efforts.

"Damn it!" I mutter a few more curses
as I pick her up from the bed and tie her arms around my neck as I carry her on
my back.

I leave the room in a rush and hurry toward the
front door of the inn. As I am walking in the corridor, the distance between me
and the staircase begins to lengthen to a seemingly impossible distance. At the
same time, a strong wind whistles down the hallway opposing me and the sound of
a hundred cackling voices fills the corridor.

By this point, I am completely spooked and want
to get out of here as soon as possible. Seeing the distance to the stairwell
continue to increase, I dash forward as fast as I possibly can. My speed is
much slower while carrying Fen, but I am still able to gain ground on the
staircase.

When I get halfway to the stairwell, dozens of
hands start protruding from the floor and try to latch onto my ankles.
Muttering curses, I try kicking the ones in my path away. Just as I would
suspect from a ghost like hand, my foot passes straight through it.

I dismiss the message and do my best to avoid
the hands coming out of the ground and walls.

'I can't touch them, but they can touch me, how
is that fair?!'

With my heartbeat triple its usual speed, my
sense of danger is heightened to a new level. I almost feel the grip of the
hand on my body just before it goes to grab me. This allows me to accurately
dodge some of the ghost hands that get close.

Three hands manage to grab me in quick
succession, each sending deep chills through my body and leaving an incredibly
hollow feeling in my heart, yet dealing only a small amount of damage. I shake
my body violently to loosen their grip, nearly losing Fen in the process,
before running toward the fleeing stairwell once again.

The moans of the dead sound from everywhere in
the corridor, including directly behind me. More chills run up my spine from
the sounds coming from over my shoulder and I can't help but imagine what is
chasing me.

After much effort, I finally make it to the
staircase and nearly fly down to the first floor.

In the common room, the noises around me seem
to quiet down. I look around and find no trace of the innkeeper but I ignore
that and head straight for the door. I try to open the door and leave, but the
handle feels like it has become welded shut and won't budge an inch. Despite
how frail it appears, the door is surprisingly sturdy.

Fen still hasn’t awakened and I am left with no
other option than to try escaping through one of the broken windows.
Inconceivably, as I approach the nearest window, the air around it vibrates
like a mirage and the window transforms into a wall. I curse at the
window-turned-wall and try another, yet they are all the same. It isn't just an
illusion either, I can physically feel the wall as if the window was never
there.

I gently place Fen on the ground, propping her
against the wall in a sitting position. As soon as she is off my back, a deep
cackling sounds from the common room and four ethereal, banshee like figures
rise from the floorboards. Each is about a meter and a half tall, and wields a
large scythe made of the same smoke as their bodies.

“Creature Analysis!”

I look back at Fen, and leave her sitting
against the wall while I attack these ghosts. My shortswords leave a thin line
through the air as they trace paths through the nearest two ghosts. The swords
pass straight through the ghosts with no resistance, leaving me speechless and
frustrated.

The second two ghosts swing their large scythes
at me with an astonishing speed. Both attacks land; one on my chest, and one on
my shoulder. The damage isn't too severe, only about three percent of my total
health, but each strike feels like it is sucking out a small piece of my soul,
leaving me lifeless inside.

'My emotions! Its attacks drain my emotions!'
The realization leaves
me in shock.

I back away from the ghosts and cast a 'Minor
Dire Flame'. As powerful of an attack the dire flame is, it still passes
directly through the ‘Ethereal Ghost’ without doing any damage and hits the
common room wall. I feel like crying inside; not a single one of my attacks can
harm these ghosts, and I am trapped here with them!

Not wanting to bring the whole inn down while I
am trapped inside, I extinguish the flame before it can spread.

Seeing victory to be impossible, I attempt to
escape instead. Fen is still propped against one of the walls, so I run at top
speed to her first. I don't have time to properly wrap her arms and legs around
me and carry her on my back, so I pick her up princess-style before dashing to
the staircase and up to the second floor. In the corridor, the ‘Ethereal
Ghosts’ don't follow but the ghost hands and howling wind return.

I frantically dodge the hands while running
back toward room 24. Just before reaching my room, one particular hand latches
onto my ankle and causes me to stumble. Due to Fen being carried in front
rather than on my back, I’m off-balance and tumble forward with the wolf girl
still in my arms. It is a tragic sight, me dropping her and practically falling
on top. It is nothing like on T.V. where the man ends up on top of the woman in
an intimate posture.

Freeing myself from the ghost hands, I pick Fen
up again and flee into our room. Inside, all seems peaceful at last but my
heart still pounds frantically and I keep nervously checking around for signs
of more ghosts. I place Fen on the bed and sincerely hope she isn't overly sore
in the morning from me dropping her and falling on top of her afterwards.

'But why won't she awaken? Is something
forcefully keeping her asleep? Is it a spell?'

I stare down at the white haired wolf girl with
genuine concern in my heart. I try to figure out why she cannot wake up,
thinking about the fairy tales of the princesses in comas, or other unfavorable
circumstances, awaiting a kiss from their prince charming.

"No, stop! What are you thinking
about!?" I say aloud and even slap myself to clear my head.

I try everything I possibly can to wake Fen up,
including splashing water on her face and violently shaking her, yet she remains
in this lifeless state. After trying everything, my mind returns to my earlier
thoughts. I stare at her rosy lips and gentle, sleeping face. Everything in my
body tells me not to do it, yet I am still drawn toward her.

I lean down and with only inches between us, my
breathing starts to become erratic. I did this once with Verde, but I did not
feel anything like this. I place my hands on Fen's shoulders, feeling the
perfectness of her pristine skin. I catch her scent, which is sweet like apples
and causes my cheeks to flush with color.

Forcing my eyes shut to try and make this
easier, I lower my head slowly. My hands tighten on her shoulders as my lips
press against a yielding softness. It starts as a tingle on my lips at first,
but then I press myself down, feeling the full shape of her own and mine
mingling together. Her lips gain a certain firmness to them, and I vaguely
sense them parting slightly as they come into contact with mine.