Chapter 10 : A hole and a sculpture

Sinland, a high ranking adventurer team for dark players, rivalling even 2nd tier guilds. Rumors have it that most of their members are real-life criminals and delinquents who are on parole or have recently been released from jail. Despite having such a line-up, Sinland has quite a track record in past VR games.

One such record was their attack on the pinnacle 2nd tier guild Halo's Dawn, where they successfully assassinated one of their branch guild leaders. Even though they were eventually tracked and trapped by Halo's Dawn, they successfully escaped, making VR gaming history.

Another of their achievements was the elimination of a pinnacle 3rd tier guild in their VR game Conquest. Even though it's a known fact that 3rd tier guilds are far weaker than 2nd tier guilds, pinnacle 3rd tier guilds are slightly different story. Most of them are capable of rivalling average 2nd tier guilds having real life sponsors, as such, it is quite difficult to totally eliminate and cripple them in a VR game unless the gap in power is huge. However, Sinland had achieved this with their little numbers and succeeded. Ever since then, most 2nnd tier guilds steer clear away form them, avoiding confrontations of any sorts unless when imperative.

Meanwhile…

"Sato, get over here. I've found something."

"Don't tell me it's another chest. I know your luck is great but this is absurd."

"Haha, I wish. Just head over here."

This time, Fudo was behind the mansion close to were it bordered the mountain range behind it. From a top view, the ghost mansion was featured on a rectangular plot of land, mirroring a Victorian styled architecture. Right in front of it was a garden with an open courtyard in between them. Diagonally beside the mansion was a blue colored lake and behind it was a mountain range; Kiro Mountains to be specific.

"So what did you find this time?"

"Look over there." Fudo squatted down and pointed his finger at a spot on the ground.

"Footprints. Monster footprints."

Squatting down while studying and stroking the footprints, Sato found it familiar.

"They look familiar, kinda like that of the [Cursed servant]."

"Exactly, that's why I called you over."

Picking himself up, Sato inquired "Did you find where it leads to?"

"Hehe. Bro do you love me?"

"..." Sato was taken aback by such a strange question.

"I'll take that as a yes. So if you really do, you won't let me meet a monster like that previous creep, would you?"

"..."

"Well I don't know where it leads. I'd rather die in your arms than die a loner." Fudo stated with an amiable smile like that of Buddha.

Exasperated, Sato followed the trail while saying "Fine, let's go."

Even though Fudo had given a stupid reason he did have a point. If a player were to die, they would lose 15% of their experience together with a random amount of weapon or equipment. Such a loss if possible to be avoided would be avoided by all means.

After two minutes of walking, Sato and Fudo discovered a hole barely wide enough to fit 2 people at once.

Fudo then chuckled evilly "Hehe, you can take the first step, I'll be right behind you."

Ignoring Fudo's silly remarks, Sato stared at the hole in thought.

"Hey Fudo, are you by any chance with a match stick on you?"

"..."

"We need to make your fire, hand it over."

"Aiya, you really do know me. Here take." Grabbing a matchbox from his pouch, Fudo then gave it to Sato.

"Of course only a fat pig like you would buy a matchbox to roast monsters." Fudo always had the thought that the greatest VRMMORPG would be one that allows certain features for example eating monsters. As such, he always buys a box of matchsticks or lighters to try and roast and monster he finds.

Taking the matchbox, Sato gathered some dry branches and tied them together making a torch. Once he lit it, Sato dived into the hole and saw a passage way heading forward.

Unlike the opening on the surface, the passage way was much wider, about 3 metres in breadth. Due to poor lighting, Sato didn't know how long the tunnel went. Squatting down to inspect the floor, he discovered that the previous footprints above were nowhere to be seen. However, there were tons of other footprints mixed up. Some resembling human boot-prints and others having only 4 toes.

"Sato, are you there?"

Sato replied "Where else would I be? Hurry up and get down here."

Once he came down, Fudo curiously walked over to a squatting Sato.

"What did you find?"

"Look. If I'm right, these boot-prints belong to the mercenaries. So this proves that this tunnel should be the hole the mission introduction mentioned, but this is weird. The original prints we were tracking are gone and replaced with these creepy 4-toed footprints. From the number here, I guess there were a lot of them."

"You're right, but from the looks of things there was no battle here. So that leaves us with three options; either these footprints were made at different time intervals or whatever creature that's here is harmless and finally, the mercenaries surrendered without a battle. But I'm more inclined to believe the first one. As for a much stronger creature, the Kingdom's defenses aren't so lax to let that be."

Normally, a kingdom's military divisions go on a yearly or so clean-up operation round the kingdom, reducing the population of monsters and eliminating any dangerous entities they might encounter. ( AN : Apparently, it seems Fudo might have read this in the library.)

Nodding, Sato acquiesced " Indeed. There are no blood trails or battle marks here and even if the monsters are harmless, I doubt the mercenaries won't attack."

Monsters in Infinite Realm are actually the evolution of certain species with the interaction of mana involved. As such, almost every monster has a use. Be it monster fangs, teeth, fur or even blood, they are all quite valuable and useful. Coupled that with a mercenary's greedy personality, even a harmless monster would be captured or killed for profit. As such, most monsters dwell away from human settlements.

"Let's move on." standing up, Sato moved towards the passage way, trailing the boot-prints earlier sited.

"Hmm?, What's that?" Fudo walked curiously at the passage walls. Surprisingly, there were scribbles on the wall looking quite like hieroglyphics and more like a 3 year old's artwork.

"Hehe, it's at times like this I recall how good of an artist Hayami is." Fudo chuckled.

"One more word and we might find out whether you could go tongue-less in the game." Sato stared grimly at Fudo.

Lifting his hands in capitulation, Fudo acquiesced "Alright, alright. I give up, you know I was just joking. Geez!"

'What a siscon'

"I doubt we'd find any clues with these doodle works. We might as well move forward, right?" Fudo asked.

Sato nodded "You're right."

As they were moving forward, Fudo opened up the forums through the system panel. After scrolling through for a while, he sighed "It's been 4 hours since the game started and we're still level 3 while most players are closing in on level 4 with the experts aiming for level 5."

"What are you worrying for?" Sato said "After we're done here, it isn't too late to go levelling up and I have a feeling we're gonna see a lot of monsters very soon."

"Yeah, you might be right. Hmm, light?!" Fudo was initially nodding but ended up surprised by what he saw. A stone-throw away from their position was a hall brightened up by a light source.

"Looks like we've finally made it to the end. We have to be careful as from here on."

Walking steadily and quietly, Sato and Fudo made it to the light source.

"Hmm, this is..."

Rather than the blue sky and lush green forestry one would expect, what stood in front of them was actually a huge wall with many openings looking quite like a bee hive.

The source of the light was a white huge hexagonal gem centered on the wall and held in place at it's vertices by a clay like substance.

"Uwaa!! Another tunnel?!" Looking at the beehive wall, Fudo cried in a low voice.

"If I'm correct then that should be the monster the mercenaries encountered." Sato pointed over to the side.

"Huh?" Tracing his finger, Fudo saw a 5 metre tall statue close to the beehive wall.

The statue pictured the image of a weird looking creature with two 4-toed feet. With an angular head, wrinkled face, a grotesque physique and a barbarian styled skirt, the statue really couldn't be described as 'pretty'. However, a notable fact was that the sculptmanship used on the statue was quite impressive though it was still rigid at certain places making it look like a being in a PS2. (AN : ...)

"Is that a green goblin?"