16 Chapter 16.) Everlasting Death

•Shing•

Hearing this noise causes Inorin to shut his eyes in fear that Koeda had been killed.

He was forced to remember one of the most important elements of this game, something that the exam phase made him forget...

'PERMA- DEATH'

Permanent death is a core mechanic in the game that was explored pretty deeply before the game was released.

If a player's HP remains at zero for a full 5 real world minutes, they will die and all their data will be deleted from the game's servers.

It isn't something as serious as dying in real life, but having your entire account wiped and even deleted from your friend's friends list will still hurt your soul; especially after grinding hours into said account.

It's also the reason why this game was only hyped up by players who are already familiar with VRMMO games. Ender's Playgrounds, even before release, was already said to not be very 'beginner friendly' but that really boosted the popularity of it around the pro scene.

Inorin abruptly remembered this game element and with his eyes closed, immediately started blaming himself for the death of another one his newfound friends.

He knew that Yuri would be able to come back since he only died in the exams but the death still stuck with him.

"Not so fast!"

Everyone's gaze shifted to the unknown voice in shock.

"Sneak attacks aren't very nice."

Inorin opened his eyes to glance upon the familiar voice.

"Souei!?" He shouted.

"Huh... S-Souei?" Koeda says while still paralyzed.

"Who are you?"

"Who? Me? I'm your new opponent!" Souei replies

"Is that so? Well you can die along with them!"

"Come on Inorin, lets do this together." Souei said sticking his hand out to help him up.

Standing up Inorin said; "alright, I'll take the lead!"

The duo stepped in front of Koeda and got ready to fight.

"Sysco protect Payne, he still can't move yet from using that spell."

The Rogue Sysco stepped back to guard the Illusionist; while their leader jumped in front of both of them.

"Come on, I can take both of you at once!" He said signaling them to attack him.

Inorin laughed, whispered to Souei, then reassumed his fighting stance.

The three remained at a stand still for several minutes to see who would make the first move.

Finally Inorin broke the stare down by lounging forward with his small double sided dagger held forward and his other arm behind his back.

At the same time, Souei also charged in with his spear in hand.

It was anyone's guess as to what class the leader was, but Inorin had ruled out him being a illusionist or a mage.

The leader provoked a 2v1, something that would be pretty hard for a single Mage class and plus he already had an Illusionist teammate, so that was also ruled out.

Inorin attempts to strike him with his dagger to force his opponent's hand in battle.

This fails and is easily side stepped with no effort causing Inorin to fly by him, which is expected.

Inorin pulls one of the axes off of his back,

then he quickly rotates his body and swings it towards him.

The enemy Rogue sees this and quickly moves in the way to block the strike.

"What are you doing, I thought I told you to-"

Souei, almost forgotten, places himself in the center of attention by unexpectedly attacking the Illusionist while he was unattended.

He severed the arm that was carrying his staff and proceeded to hold the spear to his neck.

"I'll do it, I will kill him!"

"What are you saying, do it, that was the whole plan from the start!" Inorin screamed

Before they started their attack, Inorin whispered to Souei to wait for an opening then kill the Illusionist; in turn freeing Koeda.

"Wait, wait, calm down no one needs to die today. It was all but a friendly test, and you all passed, well except for that assassin girl."

"What do you mean test?" Souei asked hysterically

"Well we didn't really expect you to help them fight, but we needed players to join us for a raid."

"So why didn't you guys just ask us instead of trying to kill us?" Koeda asked exposing that she was now free from her binding."

"We had to make sure you wouldn't just be deadweight." Sysco replied

"Why us though?" Inorin questioned

"Don't overthink it, you guys aren't special, you just came to us so we considered you potential party members."

"Okay and how many party members do you guys already have?"

"Well the maximum is 15 people and we have 11 currently, if you guys join, we'll have 14."

"Payne, get over here!" The leader said signaling the Illusionist

Payne, the newly named Illusionist, just stood there still frozen from his own spell, but you could see him shift his eyes to everyone on his left.

"YOU'RE STILL FROZEN!? Well then assassin girl, I guess you aren't completely useless."

"My name is-"

"She has a name, it's Koeda!" Souei yells

"Don't speak for me, I have a mouth."

"Ok, Koeda, my name is Vaush, my two partners are Payne and Sysco... and you two are?" The leader pointed out

"I'm Souei and my friend is-"

"Aether!" Inorin once again lies about his name even while knowing they'll eventually find out his actual name.

"Good, now your leader will add me." Ordered Vaush

He walked to Koeda and sent a proximity friend request.

"Oh I'm not the leader-"

"It's fine just accept it." Inorin interrupts

Koeda nods then proceeds to accept the friend request.

"Good now, we will meet two days from now on floor 4, I'll contact you with more details."

"You guys may want to rent a room at the hostel for the time being, at least until you get some more funds." Sysco suggested

Inorin and Koeda then turned around and began heading back to the hostel.

"Dude, your friends are leaving you know." Vaush said while pointing in their direction.

"What? Oh wait for me!" Souei said as he started running to catch up.

The trio walked for a short while before finally making it back to the hostel.

"Alright, let's get our rooms and relax until we have to leave."

"Rin, we still have to meet up with that guy Vinni when he gets off of work." Koeda explains

"Oh that's right! Alright he's still working so ask him to meet up tomorrow instead. I need to log out for a little bit."

"What do I do?" Souei asked

"Do whatever you want, we have two days, I'm going to go to my room so I can log out."

"Alright then, I'll see you guys tomorrow game time."