Rise Online: Return of the Legendary Player

[You lost 98 HP points].

"Ouch, ouch... That hurt a little." Kaizen uttered with his right hand on his head after getting up from the ground. "Yokoso... That bastard. I didn't imagine he would throw me out of the moving carriage."

A vein was jumping in anger from the forehead of Psyker, who was now alone in the middle of the deserted road.

Since the carriage was being pulled by two horses full of energy, it was very fast and quickly disappeared from Kaizen's sight within the thick fog.

"The old man and Klank are inside the interior of the carriage, so all I need to do is find them and beat the crap out of that idiot butler. Luckily I formed a Klank group before the mission started, so I can always tell how much HP and MP he is with."

Looking at the top left corner of his screen, where his life bar was, Kaizen saw another life bar just below it. This second life bar was that of his group partner, Klank. Unlike Psyker's life bar, this second life bar was intact, which made Kaizen feel relieved.

"It looks like everything is okay with him still. Since I don't have Klank added as a friend, I can't send him a direct message, but I think he'll realize that my life bar has gone down a bit."

~ Inside the Chariot a few hundred meters away ~

"Hey, Yokoso, what was that noise just now? And why was Klaus screaming?" asked Rismar Ferris, the old scientist.

"Noise?" Klank asked, not understanding. He was so focused while analyzing some items in his inventory that he didn't even hear what was going on around him.

"It was nothing, Grandpa. A deer had appeared in the middle of the road, but Klaus scared it away. The noise you heard must have been the deer as it jumped back into the forest."

"Oh, was that it? All right. Thanks, Klaus!" Rismar Ferris said.

...

The old man found Psyker's lack of response strange. "He won't even answer me, will he? How rude..." He grumbled, but internally thought, 'He's quiet and focused on work.... That's too cool!'

Klank was not new to Rise Online and was used to playing in groups, especially doing quests. Still, even he could not imagine that the butler and grandson of the astronomical scientist, Yokoso Ferris, would betray them and push Kaizen out of the carriage. For this reason, Klank was unable to notice the minute movement that the loss of 98 HP points made on Kaizen's total life bar.

Turning our attention to the Psyker, he was still completely alone in the middle of the forest. The mist around him was cold and everything was silent. Regardless, he seemed unconcerned as he analyzed the map with the interface open.

"Hm, I think I should cut through the left side of the road. That should get me to the carriage meeting faster. Even if I ran at full speed, I would never catch up with that carriage in time normally, and if they get to Galilei University City before me, it will be harder to meet them there." Kaizen talked to himself as usual, then looked at the direction he had chosen.

Just like the right side of the forest, the left side was dark and there was dense vegetation, but Kaizen didn't even hesitate. He tapped his own shoulders a little to get rid of the dirt that was left when he fell backwards onto the road and finally started on his way.

When he took the first step into the forest, he received an unexpected warning.

[Caution! You are entering a Level 60 area].

"Level 60? Does that mean that the creatures that live here have this level on average? Ah, I'm still far from it, but there's no problem."

At that moment, Kaizen used an ability to not walk through complete pitch without at least seeing what was before him.

[Activating the Skill <Free Manipulation of Flames>.]

A small flame appeared in the palm of his right hand, which grew large enough just so that Kaizen could see a few meters around him.

'This will make it easier for me to walk in the middle of this darkness. This amount of flame requires very little mana to maintain, so I won't have any problems.' Kaizen thought.

After the warning from the system there was no doubt for Kaizen, in the shadows of that forest many dangers awaited him. Among them there would probably be thieves' camps, monsters' burrows, nocturnal predators, not to mention the possibility of there being giant carnivorous plants, however, Kaizen was a Psyker and it was not so easy to scare him.

Despite all this, the small flame that the Psyker kept burning to light his way would be enough to scare off a few smaller predators, except for the real monsters.

Even though he was alone, Kaizen was prepared for any eventuality. He possessed a good amount of equipment for different combats and also for defending himself. When he saw a small orange flame in the middle of the woods, he summoned the sword Næġling Falske, the replica of a legendary sword.

'I cannot delay any longer, I will not take it lightly with thieves or looters. There is only one road in the region that is shown on my map, so if they take that road, as I hope they will, the carriage must climb the small hill that detours this forest and will only come down in 2 kilometers...'

At that moment, Kaizen smiled with animation, holding Næġling Falske's handle firmly with his left hand.

'In other words, there is something so dangerous inside these woods that it has made people for years choose to climb a hill instead of cutting their way through the middle... Let's see if I find that thing first or this thing that will find me.'

Kaizen started walking towards the other fire he could see in the middle of the forest and when he got close enough, finally his presence was also noticed.

"Hey, brothers! I think there's someone approaching?" The thief who was keeping watch stated after seeing a fireball, accompanied by a human silhouette, moving in the pitch of the forest.

"What are you talking about, Thamuz? No person would be foolish to wander around this forest after dusk." One of the men who were sitting around the campfire stated and took another sip from his beer bottle. "Phaaah! How delicious!"

Thamuz, the watchman, smiled bitterly at his companion's comment and looked back in the direction where the silhouette was, already thinking:

'Then it's probably an undead, isn't it? If that's what it is, even I can handle it.'

However, when he looked in the direction of the orange fireball and saw that this was much closer, he took a few steps back unconsciously, because he had no more doubts, it was not a skeleton undead or a zombie, it was definitely an ordinary man who was approaching. A man with black hair, oriental eyes and broad shoulders.

"Brothers, it's definitely a human! I'm not going crazy!"

The other men around the campfire quickly stood up at the watchman's second alert and looked in the direction of where Kaizen was standing.

"Shit! It really is a human!" One of them shouted.

"What's a guy doing here? Is he by any chance crazy to be walking into this forest at this hour?"

"Whether he's crazy or not we have no way of knowing, but he's definitely an enemy."

"I warned you that we were camping too close to the road and that sooner or later this would happen!

"All of you, shut up and get your weapons ready. We don't know who this person is, so let's wait and see what he wants." A man who had square glasses and wet hair thrown back ordered, looking like the leader.

So the men prepared for the attack, drawing their swords, spears and crossbows, but Kaizen was already approaching and his presence was already more than noticeable.

He stopped just in front of the group, just before breaking into the camp territory, and looked at them with a certain calmness.

All the thieves were already in position to attack, and when they saw the Næġling Falske in Kaizen's left hand and the fire in his right, they didn't even hesitate to exclaim:

"He is carrying a weapon, so he is not a human negotiator. Attack the enemy!"

Kaizen was surprised for a second because as he analyzed the statistics of these eight men, he realized that they all had one race in common that was not the human race, elf, nor dwarf or giant. All of these men in the camp were of the Descendragons race, an original race from Rise Online that represented in the game world the descendants of dragons.

...

Edited by: DrHitsuji

If you want to see original illustrations of Rise Online characters, consider helping me on pa treon: Pa treon.com/NandoFalske

More character images in:

https://discord.gg/bpqq9u4gS8

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