Chapter 8

In the game, Vergil shut the different tabs in his vision before walking to the giant mage tower near the town's center. Every player had a beginner quest introducing the mage's tower early game, but the particular quest did not allow entry into the tower. In fact, obtaining permission to enter the mage tower early game as a commoner class was extremely difficult. Vergil was only a little more than Level 1 and entry into the mage tower to complete the appraisal quest over the tailor's quest item could not be completed using conventional means.

As Vergil approached the gate of the mage tower, he found many of the players were gathered here, hoping to find an entry into the place but the guards were steadfastly blocking the area. Initially when other players spotted Vergil in his mysterious looking black outfit with the bronze hanging across his thigh, they expected a change to happen. However, the guards didn't allow him either.

Vergil nodded and walked away from the magic tower and instead made his way out of town to head to the Traveler's Woods where the Mayor's exploration quest was directed. Vergil had to find the traces of the Oswald Trading Company's caravan that had disappeared on their way to Red Leaf town. The hunting grounds weren't too far from Red Leaf's boundaries; Vergil quietly made his way through the clearly delineated caravan tracks until he reached an area where the autumnal color of leaves slowly morphed into shades of yellow and purple ones on trees.

Gripping his weapon, Vergil quietly entered the forest and could feel the sudden change in atmosphere from vibrant to cold and creepy. The sounds of insects and birds slowly died out and the sunlight was blocked out by the thick canopy towering in the skies. Vergil could feel involuntary tremors on his hair and stopped. If he were a newbie, he'd be confused, but he knew all too well that the presence of such involuntary reflexes were the game's way to warn the player that they had entered an area filled with great danger. Vergil got even more cautious and when his line of sight began to glow indicating he had discovered some clues of the carriage o the ground, he became extremely vigilant.

Whoever wanted to ambush Vergil didn't expect their plan to fail and instead fell back to a direct attack. Suddenly, five shadows emerged from behind tree trunks and surrounded Vergil. He took a careful look at the shadows with human outlines but no physical bodies and snorted. He felt like cursing the game designers for introducing such an enemy so early into the game. These were shadow hunters. Enemies who were completely immune to physical attacks and not an opponent for any player at this stage.

"Shadow Hunters? What are you doing near Red Leaf town?" Vergil muttered in confusion and part curiosity. He also thanked his stars that he didn't delay this quest for a higher level, for even if he had to die here, he wouldn't lose a whole lot of experience. However, he didn't expect that his subconscious murmurs would stun the five shadow hunters in place.

"Who are you?" An eery mechanical growl emanated from one of the shadows as it too a step back in vigilance. Vergil was also stunned by their reaction. He half expected to be slaughtered here and didn't even try to fight back, since he knew no attack of his could affect those creatures at this stage. Suddenly he had a weird notion pop up in his head that suggested that he could perhaps bluff them.

"How dare you enter human civilization? Have you forgotten the treaty?" Vergil retorted in righteous anger. "Did you think your actions would be hidden from the eyes of the tribunal?" His words frightened the shadow hunters. "Who...just who are you?" No matter how they looked at the human in front of them, the five shadow hunters could only sense an extremely weak human being. But how could a mere commoner know about such secretive things as the treaty and the wrath of the tribunal? Could this commoner be playing the pig to eat the tiger?" Without waiting for Vergil to even respond, the five shadow hunters suddenly disappeared.

Vergil was a little surprised by their behavior, but internally glad that his bluff worked. He simply used knowledge from the future to try and intimidate the shadow hunters into abandoning their ambush. "NPCs in this game are really not mechanical automatons..." He thought to himself before he walked over to the carriage tracks. The quest log informed him that he had discovered the first major clue about the missing caravan. Vergil was suspicious about the Shadow Hunters presence in the area and wondered if the attack on the caravan was performed by them.

Using the clue obtained, Vergil went deeper into the forest before he came across the caravan crashed into a giant tree trunk, with all the goods smashed to smithereens. Three individuals were desperately hiding behind the carriage's wooden stumps while a group of Carnivorous Arachnids were circling the group. Vergil didn't waste any time and immediately unleashed his skills to attack the Carnivorous Arachnids.

Carnivorous Arachnids were giant spiders who didn't weave webs. Instead they lived in underground burrows and loved eating meat, especially that of humans. While they weren't magical beasts, they had powerful bodies. Even though these twelve Carnivorous Arachnids were only level 2, together they could easily maul a level 1 player to death with their powerful stings. However, with the Night Crawler clothing set, Vergil's defense was dramatically increased as was his base agility. Combined with his expertise in last minute dodging and the augmentation of the darkness in the canopy increasing his stealth and evasiveness, he could quickly jump behind his opponent to stab them and initiate the bloodletting effect do the work for him.

Vergil quickly aggroed the spiders before slamming their legs off and leaving them crippled. The bronze axe's passive effect was just too powerful for this stage of the game and Vergil was easily able to make mincemeat of the spiders one by one. When the final spider fell, Vergil received an alert telling him that a phase of the quest had been completed.