[EVENT: Wave Tutorial (2/5)]

  00:33:01 Remaining

  77/50 Monsters Killed

  “What? What did you see?” I asked her to explain, keeping my own

  voice just as hushed. Even when I strained my ears as much as I could, I

  couldn’t hear anything besides the faint, distant howls of wolves

  somewhere outside the building. There were no footsteps, no breathing,

  no movement to suggest anyone else was here. The only signs of life were

  the meticulously arranged books lining the shelves and the fact that

  nothing inside this library looked ruined or abandoned. It gave me the

  same unsettling feeling as the bakery from earlier—places that looked

  inhabited, yet not by the people currently fighting to survive.

  Yuna kept her voice low. “There’s a man on the second floor. He’s in one of the rooms looking out the window.”

  “Does he look like a threat?” I asked.

  “Well,” she paused. “He has a double-headed axe strapped to his back,

  wearing complete set of leather armor. Complete with gloves, vest,

  kneeguards… You know what I’m talking about. A standard adventurer’s

  outfit.”

  “Is he alone?”

  “I think so. I had my puppets scout the area the moment we got inside

  the building. I’m keeping a puppet for each floor to act as scouts, and

  he’s the only person I’ve seen so far.”

  I took a second to consider that. “If he hasn’t noticed us yet, maybe we should try talking to him.”

  “How could be so sure he isn’t a player-killer?”

  I narrowed my eyes at her. “How do you know he is?”

  She groaned in frustration. “This is no—! Time—! To argue!” She

  jabbed a finger against my chest and looked up at me with eyes that were

  completely serious, stripped of any usual sarcasm. “Don’t you see it?

  It’s only the second wave. There wasn’t that much loot back then, so how

  did he get all that gear? Pop-up Quests? Or killing other players?

  Which sounds more likely?”

  I sighed, “What do you want me to do, then?”

  “Kill him while he’s off-guard. I’ll monitor with my puppets. You sneak in and finish it.”

  I raised a brow, immediately shaking my head in defiance of her plan. “No way. You do realize you’re telling me to kill a man, right?”

  “It’s easy! And I’m sure you’re stronger than him, since you beat the

  wave boss in the first place. Just think of it as karma for the people

  he killed.”

  “If it’s so easy for you, why don’t you do it, then?” I exclaimed quietly. “You’re the one who’s already—”

  I stopped talking when the lights immediately died down. Not like

  suddenly turned it off, no—but that someone had turned off the circuit

  breaker for this building. I grabbed the Crude Multi–shifting Blade that

  Yuna handed to me and changed its form from a spear to a sword. It

  quickly shifted to that form, but not without a faint glow of white

  light that might’ve already given up our position.

  “Shit,” Yuna hushed. “It’s too dark upstairs. My puppets can’t see anything.”

  “Did you see him move?”

  “I’d tell you if he did so much as sneeze—so no, of course I fucking didn’t!”

  The front lobby still caught orange light filtering through the

  windows, but the deeper aisles of the library were swallowed in shadow.

  The tall bookshelves formed corridors of darkness that could conceal

  anyone. It gave us cover, but it also gave him the same advantage.

  I took a deep breath. “Stay here, Yuna. Use one of your puppets to watch my back. I’ll try to engage him.”

  She looked like she wanted to argue, but didn’t, and simply nodded.

  I wasn’t particularly comfortable with leaving Yuna defenseless, but

  she was right. There were a lot of probable causes as to what had just

  happened, but I could only pinpoint two at the top of my head.

  Either the power outage was a coincidence, or he wasn’t alone.

  Armed with my sword, I made my way upstairs, slowly. The red carpeted

  floor was insulating the sound of my sandaled footsteps, the light

  becoming dimmer as I approached the second floor. One of Yuna’s puppets

  was hanging by a suspended light attached to the wall. It was pointing

  at the nearest door, guiding me there.

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  I pushed it open with my foot.

  The room was empty.

  I could only see the window blinds were closed, where the man was

  overlooking. One of Yuna’s puppets hopped beside my shoulder startling

  me. And with a sword on my hand, I quickly ran to the other end of the

  room and cut the blinds open with

  my sword. As soon as the outside orange ambient light poured into the

  room, I turned around… only to see that there was nothing inside the

  room. It was only a simple room with the seats of the chairs placed over

  the tables, with a clean blackboard on one end of the room where the

  door was.

  This was a classroom inside the library, from the looks of it. As I

  started walk back into the corridor, I complained in a still-hushed

  voice,

  “What the hell, Yuna? There’s no one here.” But as I walked, the

  puppet suddenly fell from my shoulder. It had gone limp—no, the more

  accurate term was that it had gone inanimate.

  Sensing a danger was approaching Yuna, I broke out into a sprint and

  out into the door. I caught a faint glint of a blade just at the edge of

  the doorway, reflected by the light coming from the room. I managed to

  react fast enough to slide down the floor to judge the blade that was

  about to come from my neck.

  And with me lying on the ground and hitting the wall in the process

  of my swift slide, there he was. A man in full, brown leather armor with

  a silver two-headed battle axe in his hands, just as Yuna described. He

  had natural blonde hair and blue eyes, with an expression so sharp and

  focused that he was, quite literally, aiming for the kill had I not

  dodged it.

  Yuna was right, I thought. He’s a PKer.

  He didn’t speak. He stepped forward and brought the axe down in a

  vertical arc. I rolled to the side and felt the impact reverberate

  through the floor as metal bit into carpet and wood beneath it. He

  yanked it free immediately and swung horizontally. I leaned back, the

  blade cutting through the air inches from my chest. He adjusted his

  stance between swings with short steps. His attacks had weight and I

  knew even letting a single one hit me would be painful as hell.

  So, I began observing him. His footwork was solid but heavy. His

  strength was good, but he wasn’t quick enough to utilize that battle

  axe.

  After all… Baekhel’s attacks were faster.

  He attacked again by swinging the axe overhead. I stepped to side,

  but that overhead swing turned out to be a feint. He quickly pivoted his

  leg to turn his swing into a diagonal cut. Once again, I stepped inside

  closing the distance between us. He stopped himself before letting the

  axe embed itself into the wall again, but I could sense that the

  frustration was already getting to him. He tried to punch me away, but I

  simply took a step back to avoid it.

  He gritted his jaw.

  “Why the fuck are you so fast?” he hissed. “You’ll regret not attacking me sooner.”

  I kicked my leg to the ground and dashed at him with my sword at the

  ready. Instead of targeting him directly, I struck the wooden shaft near

  the head of his axe. The impact sent a shock up my arms—it seemed like

  it wasn’t that easy to break. Before he could recover, I twisted my

  wrist and struck again at the handle’s lower portion. The force tore the

  weapon from his grasp. It spun through the air and embedded itself into

  the wall with a violent crack, breaking one of the framed paintings.

  And with his arms weakened and his body unguarded, I had the chance

  to go for an unobstructed kill. All I had to do was to deliver the final

  slash.

  …

  I gripped my sword tight.

  AHHHH, FUCK THIS! I screamed

  inside me, then I pulled the sword away from him, slashing the the

  leather armor and making a huge cut in it. If I hadn’t done that, my

  sword would’ve gone straight for his neck. I looked at the man with

  frustration aimed at myself. Goddamn it! It’s not that easy!

  He stumbled backward with his eyes wide. He fell into his rear, but

  he didn’t stand back up. Instead of retaliating, he looked at me with a

  surprised expression in his face.. He said, “Why did you—” but was cut

  off by a woman’s wild voice demanding from downstairs.

  “If you don’t want her to die, drop your sword and back the FUCK off!”

  The woman had curly orange hair tied into a ponytail, and restrained

  between her arms was Yuna. She had a curved dagger aimed at her throat,

  but she seemed too calm for a situation like this. “Yuna!” I shouted,

  but she didn’t react. The puppet on the light was still there, but like

  the one from earlier, it became inanimate. A puppet no different than a

  lifeless toy.

  I dropped the sword on ground and tried to plead with her. “We’re not player-killers.”

  “You were about to kill him had I not intervened, asshole. So drop everything you have and I won’t kill your girlfriend over here.”

  Suddenly, Yuna spoke between us. “Is he with you?” Yuna asked quietly, her voice steady despite the blade at her throat.

  “What?” The girl’s tone suddenly changed.

  “If he’s not,” Yuna continued, eyes half-lidded but focused, “then you won’t mind if he suddenly explodes, then?”

  Her grip tightened around her neck instinctively. “You bitch.” The

  girl was about to drive the dagger into her neck when a door opened

  behind me.

  “Please let her go, Miss Luah. She’s telling the truth.” A child’s

  voice—a boy—spoke behind me. My heart skipped. If Yuna didn’t see him,

  he must’ve come from one of the closed doors where her puppets couldn’t

  access. The lights flickered back on with a hum, bathing the hallway in

  harsh brightness. For a moment, the scene felt frozen in place. The

  blonde man near the wall. The woman holding Yuna hostage. My sword lying

  useless on the floor between us.

  I looked at the boy in front of me.

  “They’ll explode. She just hasn’t decided to.” he repeated quietly.

  “So please let them go. I don’t want to die again.” Two of Yuna’s

  explosive sack puppets clung to his small head with their little limbs

  wrapped around his messy and unkempt black hair.

  This wasn’t just any random child.

  I immediately recognized the long-sleeved shirt he was wearing. I

  recognized same blank eyes that once stared at the ground while his

  mother screamed at him. The same expressionless face that had stood in

  the middle of the road while death rushed toward him.

  It was him. The same boy I had thrown myself in front of a car for.