The Latest Game Is Too Amazing

In fantasy RPGs, kobolds are demihumans with dog heads that are about as short as human children, and in most cases are treated as mook monsters. By the way, they were originally fairies from German folklore that like pranks. Just a little bit of trivia. It probably won’t be useful, though.

Similarly to other fantasy RPGs, in Another World, they’re humanoid monsters with dog heads. They’re ugly, with what looks like drool dripping from their mouths, reminiscent of rabid dogs. …If they were cute puppies, I probably wouldn’t be able to hurt them.

Right now, I’m in the middle of chasing after one of them.

When I happened to find a kobold and tried to fight it, Emilia said, “It’s probably a scout. Let’s take this opportunity to chase after it and look for its pack.” So, following her suggestion, we’re in pursuit.

The monsters in this world have a wide movement range, so we’ve been pursuing it for 20 minutes. Though, thankfully, since I spotted the kobold on the way back from the meadows as it was heading into the forest and towards the mountain, there are a lot of places to hide, which makes it easy to follow it. As we hide in the shadows of trees and boulders, it reaches its destination, a broken-down shack and a cave.

“It seems like it’s an old mine. The kobolds probably moved in because it was abandoned and people stopped showing up,” Emilia says, holding a lantern in one hand.

“We’ll have to go inside, then,” Liam says as he takes the lead.

The inside of the mine is surprisingly wide, and there are no branching paths yet. Occasionally, I can hear the dripping of water or sounds that are probably made by kobolds, and I can see the scattered bones of animals that may have been eaten by the kobolds lying around at my feet. The smell of decay coming from it is unpleasant. They really didn’t have to make it this realistic.

We walk for a while and reach a cavern. When the light of the lantern illuminates it, we can see ten kobolds. It seems like the light alerted them to our presence, and they’re already in fighting stances. We’re also prepared for battle, so we immediately initiate combat.

As it turns out, the giant moles we encountered earlier were probably stronger.

There were a lot of them, but the kobolds’ levels were 5-8. On top of that, they only used simple attacks like swinging clubs at us. In addition to those ten, there were twice as many further in, but they were cut down by Liam’s sword, pierced by Cornelia’s arrows, beaten with Emilia’s mace, and turned into corpses (though I fought too, of course). By the way, everyone’s levels went up by one. It went up after we fought the first group, so maybe that’s why we were able to defeat the next one so easily despite the fact that there were twice as many. I guess even a single level is a huge benefit.

Even so, they didn’t really need me for this, did they…? I wonder why they even bothered inviting me. I was so sure that it was because they weren’t as strong without Havoc since he can’t be in the party due to level restrictions, but…

Could that have been an excuse? If so, then why…?

…A- are they PKers?!

PKers, player killers, are basically players that hunt other players rather than monsters. It’s possible to kill players and steal their belongings, so some games avoid it, but PK could be a possibility even in this game if it’s set up that way. There are even classes like Assassin that are recommended for PKers because they have status effect skills that are powerful in PVP or because they have skills that become more powerful when you PK. There are disadvantages to it, but PKing is allowed, and there are always people that enjoy doing it.

Basically, it goes like this. They invite a beginner to their party that they’re sure they can take down. They make it look like it’s to make progress in a quest and then lead me to an isolated location. Just when I think the quest is complete and let my guard down, that’s when they bare their teeth.

This place is nowhere near the city, and there’s practically nobody around here at all. Even if I was attacked, I doubt anyone would come to my aid. Th- this is bad. They’re stronger than me, and on top of that, they have three people, so I have no chance of winning.

“What’s the matter? You look really scared,” Liam says, and as he looks over his shoulder at me in the dim lighting, he looks like something eerie, rather than the nice guy he’s seemed like until now. I can picture him swinging his sword at me as it’s dripping with kobold blood. I almost let out a small shriek, but I desperately hold it in.

“What? What is it?” Cornelia asks with a questioning look.

If anything, I’d like to ask her if they’re PKers. Though I won’t say it, since she seems like she’d respond with an arrow. It seemed like she was in a bad mood, so I haven’t looked at her that much, but she has long, silky blonde hair, and the braid on the left really suits her. But despite her beauty, she only looks terrifying to me right now. Dang it, why’d you have to be such a beautiful elf?

“What’s wrong? Is there some sort of problem?” Emilia asks. She was already scary when she fought the giant moles earlier, but will that be directed towards me now? If so, then I do have a problem, a big one.

Wh- what do I do? I don’t have any proof that they’re PKers other than my suspicions. It would be humiliating if I was wrong, and it would make things awkward. Which means I can’t make a move unless they pick a fight with me.

Would it be better to run away? No, there’s three of them, and archers have strong long-distance attacks, so I can’t run away with no plan. Even if I logged out, that would leave me defenseless for ten seconds, and if I’m attacked within that time, it’ll cancel the logout. Using Spider Net to escape would also be impossible. Spider Net only decreases movement speed, not attack speed, so it wouldn’t have any effect on an Archer’s arrows.

I can’t run away from them. If my prediction turns out to be right, I’d like to at least fight back, even if I can’t win. I’ll prepare for battle so that whenever they strike, I’ll be ready for it. I grip my staff so I’ll be able to react to an attack at any time and I keep an eye on the situation so that I can use my newly acquired skills I got from levelling up whenever I need them.

Then, maybe because of that feeling, the atmosphere changes somehow. I reflexively gulp due to the tension.

And then, out of the gloomy darkness, something humanoid suddenly appears. Is it one of them?! I look closely at it to determine what it is exactly. It’s standing behind Liam, glaring as it raises something overhead that reflects a dull light.

…I was wrong, it isn’t with them!

“Fire Arrow!”

I send an arrow made of fire flying towards Liam.

“Chaos! What are you–?!” Cornelia shouts.

The fire arrow passes by Liam, shining brighter than the lantern. Then, it strikes the thing behind him.

“Whoa! What are you doi– …Huh?!” Liam protests, but seems to notice something strange happening behind him.

Fire Arrow is a fire element magic attack that causes flames to spread out in a small area around the point it makes contact with. The thing is surrounded by flames, and the fire spreads to something else, lighting up the surroundings so that I can see things clearly. It’s a humanoid monster that looks like a skeleton!

“A skeleton…! There were more enemies?!” Liam says.

“That makes sense. No matter how you look at it, those kobolds were too weak. They were probably weakened because they were in the middle of fighting the skeleton that was here before them,” Emilia reasons.

“So the reason you were on guard and showing murderous intent earlier wasn’t because you were planning on attacking us,” Cornelia says.

“You noticed its presence, huh? Nice work,” Liam says.

…No, they’re reading way too much into it. I only saw the monster because I was scared that I might get PKed. But I can’t tell them that.

…

“…It was just a fluke.”

Liam says, “If you’re too humble, it’ll sound like sarcasm,” but it really was just a fluke! So stop looking at me with so much respect! It feels incredibly uncomfortable!

This is so embarrassing! There’s no way I can tell them that I was just on guard and jumping at shadows because I thought I was going to get PKed! My face is probably bright red right now, but they haven’t noticed, have they? It seems like things turned out alright, but what would have happened if it weren’t for that skeleton? Thank you for being there, skeleton. You sort of saved me.

Now that I think about it more, they wouldn’t benefit from PKing me. The money I have is an amount that they could earn in no time, and I don’t have any rare items. If they party up with someone and then PK them, it’ll soon be traced back to them, so they wouldn’t have invited me in a place full of people in the first place. Even without going to that much trouble, if they wanted to PK someone, it would be way more efficient to ambush them in a hunting zone.

Man, this was a horrible misunderstanding. I haven’t misunderstood anything else, have I? …I’m the worst. They genuinely just wanted to invite me, but I went and started doubting them even though they’re such good people, I can’t face them now. So after this quest is over, I’ll keep my distance from them for a while.

With the quest completed, we distribute the items and the reward after returning to Maeldia, and I log out for the day soon after.

The door to the Adventurer’s Guild of Maeldia opens, and Havoc enters. The other party members, Emilia, Cornelia, and Liam, have already returned to the guild and are relaxing at a table.

“So, how was Chaos?” Carlo asks them. He gave them a certain request: to observe and investigate the suspicious rookie, Chaos.

“I followed him after he left, but he might have noticed me, because he got away from me and I lost sight of him. I also investigated at the inn, but there’s no evidence that he’s been staying there. The guards at the city gate haven’t seen him either. Where the heck did he go…?” Havoc sighs. He should be used to erasing his presence and shadowing people. He was observing Chaos from outside the party the whole time.

“That’s probably inevitable. Earlier, we let our guards down after defeating the kobolds, but he was on guard, so he sensed the skeleton’s presence before we did. His detection ability is probably extremely high,” Emilia says, backing him up.

“Yeah, that was dangerous. If Chaos hadn’t noticed it, it probably would have gotten me,” Liam says.

“He purposely showed murderous intent towards us to make us more alert, didn’t he? He could have at least said something,” Cornelia grumbles. But she has a faint smile, so she isn’t saying it to criticize Chaos.

“Maybe he wanted to act first instead of using words. He probably didn’t mind being suspected, even temporarily,” Havoc says.

“Normally, if you show murderous intent towards your allies, it’d be normal for them to be confused and suspect you of trying to kill them. When that fire arrow was coming at me, I seriously thought I was done for,” Liam says.

“Honestly, how clumsy…” Cornelia says.

“But he’s very skilled at fighting. His magical accuracy is high, and as soon as he realized that his spell wasn’t working, he made good use of Nel” (Cornelia’s nickname) “and switched his fighting style. And with the skeleton, he must have chosen fire magic because he predicted it would be an undead and took advantage of its weakness to fire,” Emilia comments.

“I predicted as much, but he seems to be highly trained in combat. By the way, the materials he harvested this time were amazing, but how was it seeing it in person?” Carlo asks, and everyone looks bewildered.

“How do I put this…? He made the monsters disappear like a magic trick,” Liam says.

“And the next time he took them out, there were only beautifully harvested materials… Where in the world could the corpse have disappeared to?” Emilia says.

“It was like a scene from out of a dream,” Havoc says.

“What, you can’t even understand the basics of it?” Carlo asks in amazement.

“If you saw it, you’d know how absurd it is!” Cornelia shouts with rage like a blazing fire. “I couldn’t imagine that anyone would be able to carry that much, but he made them disappear into a mysterious space one after another! And then, when he took them out again, they were already broken up into pieces. And when I asked him, ‘What in the world is all this?’ he said, ‘If you want, you can check it yourself.’ It gave me the creeps!”

Everyone nods in agreement. That’s something that can’t be made public. Therefore, recognizing that it’s that sort of magic is better for their mental health. All the witnesses came to that conclusion.

“Alright, I get it, so calm down already! So, what about his background?” Carlo changes the topic, giving them an extremely angry look.

“Apparently, he’s a student from a foreign country called Oosaka. It didn’t look like he came to this kingdom as a spy, so I thought he must be a traveler who came here for magic training,” Emilia says.

“He doesn’t know much about the local rumors, so I think he came to this kingdom really recently. Apparently, the job title of his father’s profession is called a salaryman,” Liam says.

“Since his son is a student and a mage, I think we can infer that it’s a high ranking position like a royal court mage,” Cornelia adds.

“But for a noble, his equipment was all mediocre, and he wasn’t wearing anything expensive. It feels odd that he didn’t have anything like that at all. Although, if he was hiding it with his storage magic, that would be different,” Emilia says.

“I was hoping to get a bit more information out of him, but then Nel…” Liam trails off.

“I, uh… Sorry about that,” Cornelia says.

“Well, that’s alright. It seems like Chaos was on guard from the start. He was intentionally playing along with our expectations. He probably only gave us information that he doesn’t mind being revealed,” Havoc says.

“Then he figured out my request too, huh. That would mean he has incredible insight,” Carlo says. Chaos probably even guessed who made the request to observe him. That’s probably why he deliberately played along with this farce without making a single mention of it. That isn’t something a rookie would be able to think of.

Carlo continues, “He’s excellent at combat and harvesting, he puts himself at risk to save his allies, and on top of all that, he has brilliant insight. There are no problems with his behavior either. …Though there’s even more mysteries surrounding him. What a promising adventurer.”

“At the very least, he’s not the type of guy you’d be suspicious of, Carlo. If anything, I want him in our party,” Havoc says.

“Hm? He’s an excellent adventurer, so I’d like to keep him where I can reach him, and if he’s with you, there’d be no problems, but… You really want him?”

“…Wait just a moment! I’m fine with inviting him, but I’d rather do it after we get a better idea of just how powerful he is. At this rate, we’d only be holding him back, which I have no interest in doing.”

“I agree with Nel. I’d like to at least be at the same skill level as Chaos,” Liam says.

And so, the rookie group is in high spirits. It seems that Chaos’s existence has produced good results. Havoc couldn’t hide his joy at the unexpected impact on the young adventurers.

“Come to think of it, in the middle of fighting those kobolds, my sword suddenly started feeling lighter and I feel like I got more powerful.”

“You too, Liam? My bow also became more powerful… I wonder what that was.”