Muspelheim[16]

The couple arrived inside in the inn of which the A.I Chiha recommended, the two scanned the place and found that aside from several non-player characters, there was only two player aside from them who talked towards the bartender NPC.

"Hello." Khan politely spoke according to the beginner's manual that the system gave them, one should be polite when asking questions to the NPCs.

"Hello, there young man, would you like to drink something." The bartender who looked like he was in his mid-twenties gave a small smile

"I just want to ask a question." Khan continued.

"A question it is? then feel free to ask." The bartender spoke in a gentle tone like a mother speaking to his young.

"Do you happen to know where can I get one of those missions?"

"Missions? Oh, you're talking about quests? I can give you one." The bartender stared in confusion for a moment before smiling.

[Bartender of the Virtuous Inn has a request to ask. Do you want to accept? Y/N]

Khan tapped on the Y button and a system prompt notifying him of the successful quest acceptance appeared, Lily also did the same and accepted the quest.

Khan looked at the quest details and frowned.

[Quest: The Head Bartender of the Virtuous Inn has a need for Rainbow Mushrooms that can be found in the Forest of Seclusion, take a few mushrooms with you and offer it to him.]

[Quest Reward: EXP +150, Amity + 50 Silver Coins + 1200]

The two who were about to leave was stopped by a sudden voice. They turned their heads and found the two young players who conversed with the bartender earlier.

"What's the matter?" Khan asked in an indifferent tone.

"Uh... We just want to ask if you received a quest for the Forest of Seclusion..." The young man who looked like he was in his late teens with jet-black hair timidly said.

"Yeah, we received a quest regarding mushrooms." Khan frowned, apparently something about these young men bugged him.

"Really? That's great! Can we party with you and gather those mushrooms together?" The young man exclaimed in joy, the other man who stood with him has his face hidden with a hood, noticing Khan's gaze, he hurriedly explains.

"Ermmm, this is my friend, Brandio, sorry about him, he's really shy to other people so he hides his face all the time. Also, my name is Bartholomeo, nice to meet you." Bartholomeo gave a mirthful smile, while his friend merely nodded upon being introduced.

Lily who was about to introduce herself was stopped by Khan who interrupted.

"Ah, I see, I don't really care though, thanks anyways..." Khan walked away without any hesitation, leaving the two dumbfounded.

Lily caught up with him and asked.

"What's wrong? Why did you just shut them down like that?"

Khan sighed and explained.

"Do you really expect that I should readily trust a person who acts like that?" Lily stiffened for a moment, although she felt something strange about the two, she didn't really think much about it at that time, now that Khan mentioned it, she couldn't help but have doubts.

The quest that the bartender gave shouldn't be that hard since the quests were intended for beginners, yet why would they deliberately ask for a party which would divide the experienced and silvers gained?

Bartholomeo stared at the distant silhouette of Khan, his partner, Brandio spoke in a cold tone.

"Did they perhaps, noticed it?"

"Maybe, or maybe not, I don't really care, they're just a bunch of beginners anyways..." Bartholomeo's gentle smile disappeared, replaced by a bloodthirsty smile that could cause anyone who looked at it to tremble in fear.

His silhouette flickered and disappeared, his destination, unknown.

The couple finally arrived at the northern gates of the gigantic wall called the Aegis of Humanity, upon seeing that Khan had received some quest for the outside world, the guards didn't stop them and just let them past.

[You have arrived in a combat zone]

A system prompt appeared telling them that they arrived in a combat zone. Khan looked at the watch like minimap on his left wrist and found that they were in the outer area of the Forest of Seclusion.

Khan's eyes frowned, he beckoned for Lily to stay silent as he heard a weird panting sound coming from the forest. Khan moved with Lily in tow towards the source, but the scene that they expected to see didn't arrive, instead, they saw two figures intertwined with each other, the figure on the top moved rhythmically and the figure on the ground would pant in each movement.

Khan facepalmed, he hurriedly walked away followed by the embarrassed Lily.

'How shameless, they can't wait until they arrive in the real world? Wait... Since they could do that, does that mean...' Khan threw a meaningful gaze towards Lily.

Lily, of course, noticed the hidden intentions behind Khan's gaze, but apart from hiding her face from Khan's gaze, she couldn't do anything. Khan quickly tapped on his User Interface and found on a special option.

[Lover's Option]

Khan tapped on it and several prompts materialized.

[Lover's Skill]

[Lover's Perk]

[Lover's Special Settings]

Khan tapped on the most ambiguous prompt and it displayed.

[Lover's Special Settings: Settings can only be used once a week, do you want to continue? Y/N]

Khan wore a victorious smile and was about to tap on the Y button when he felt Lily tackling his arm.

"No! Don't tap on that." Lily said with reddened cheeks.

"Wait, you can see it?" Khan frowned, he thought that only the player himself could see his own User Interface.

"Yeah, it seems to be a special perk for lovers." Lily took a deep breath to calm herself down and opened her own interface. She then tapped on the Lover's Option then the Lover's Perk.

[Lover's Perk: Enables the user to see the designated partner's User Interface, can also see through the partner's skills, stats, and equipment.]

"Hmmm, I don't really know if that's good or not, but well, it's a perk so I can't really complain there." Khan nodded with a smile.

"Hmm, what about the Lover's Skill?" Khan asked Lily and the latter tapped on the Lover's Skill prompt.

[Lover's Skill: Till Death Do Us Part: When a partner's HP falls to the red zone, the partner and the user receives +20 All AP +50% Attack Speed and +30 Evasion for thirty seconds.]

[Lover's Skill: Love Is in the Air: You and your partner are connected in heart and soul, enabling you to contact him/her wherever she/he is.]

[Lover's Skill: Sacrifice: Sacrifices your own life, restores your partner's HP and MP values, and gives him/her +50 All AP +80% Attack Speed and CC Immunity for fifteen seconds; Sacrifice Penalty: 1 level loss.]

"What about the Lover's Special Settings?" Khan asked in a curious tone, Lily looked reluctant to answer, but thanks to Khan's expecting gaze, she was unable to refuse and spoke in a hushed tone.

"It's doing that..."

"That? Hmm, there's that, there, there's also that, over there, what, that is my little wife talking about? Can you specify...?" Khan teasingly said, prompting Lily's cheeks to become as red as a tomato.

Under Khan's cheeky smile, she reluctantly spoke into Khan's ear. Khan's eyes widened in shock upon hearing Lily's words, the previous teasing light from his eyes dissipated in an instant.

His cheeky expression became solemn, his mind had only one goal to accomplish.

'Gather those mushrooms!'

Inside the virtual world, daylight lasted for about four hours while night time lasts for about forty minutes, the couple already scavenged for about an hour but aside from several stray beasts going towards them, they didn't see a speck of mushrooms.

Khan looked at the orange light emanated by the sun. 'It seems like it's going to be nighttime soon, and the forest feels quite off as if something is observing us somewhere.' Khan's intuition told him this, Khan felt uncomfortable, back at those times where he struggled for supremacy, Khan had always trusted his intuition, and now he has no plans to doubt it.

"Lily, it's going to be night time soon, we should hurry back." Khan moved towards Lily and the latter nodded in return, although she doesn't really mind searching for a little bit more, the silence of the forest and the occasional roars of the beasts gave her the creeps.

But before they could run, Khan's eyes constricted, he leaped towards Lily as a whistling sound passed by, an explosion detonated at the place where Lily stood, if Khan was a second late, Lily would've instantly died.

Khan's face distorted in rage, he looked towards the dimmed forest and roared.

"Show your face, you coward!" Drawing the Diffusal Blade from his virtual inventory, he took a defensive stance as his senses processed the information around him.

Lily also took her Karabiner98k from her inventory and crouched down, she looked towards Khan, their gazes met and nodded at the same time.

Khan's enhanced perception allowed him to process the faint rustling of the branches, the incessant chirping of the birds and the vibration of the ground, his ears twitched as he heard an abnormal movement at the side.

"Northeast, sixty!" Khan shouted the directions and a deafening sound roared, followed by a huge amount of dust being thrown in the air, the once noiseless forest became filled with angry roars.

"Shit!" Khan cursed, as he expected, the aim of those guys was to lure the surrounding beasts over and have them kill the couple. But Khan only smiled in the face of their plans.

Lily's countenance became pale as she rechambered her rifle and shot at the incoming beast, but due to their huge count, it was evident that her rifle's rate of fire wasn't enough to stop this beast stampede.

Khan turned towards Lily and the latter stared at him in return. Khan gave a small smile and said to her.

"Protect my back, I'll show you how strong your husband is!" Khan confidently spoke, Lily stared at him in a dumbfounded state, but soon, she regained her calm and returned a smile towards Khan before nodding.

Towards her man, at the day where Khan sacrificed his own well-being for her, Lily understood about what kind of a man, Khan was, he was someone who would do anything for the woman that he loved and this sincerity of his may be the reason why she also fell for him.

Having this kind of thought, Lily gave a carefree smile, for she knew that for as long as Khan was beside her, no harm shall come her way.

Khan stared at the incoming beasts, his smile became filled with anticipation and his eyes lit up with excitement. He didn't even wait for the horde to arrive before leaping towards it.

Khan's sudden actions stumbled over the entire horde. For the human who was supposed to be running upon seeing their great might had instead leaped towards them.

But their confusion quickly became their deaths, for Khan had already swung his sword and turned them into innumerable motes of light. Blood sprayed everywhere, drenching the soil into a crimson hue and filling the air with the smell of rust.

But instead of feeling disgusted, Khan felt a refreshing feeling of being alive. Yes- it was this feeling of euphoria that he longed for, aside from doing it with Lily, slaughtering without care seems to give him the same feeling, and it was quickly making him addicted.

On Lily's side, thanks to Khan's intervention, the number of beasts rushing over from behind was manageable since the bolt-action rifle only needed two seconds to rechamber, and in every two seconds, a body would fall down, Lily displayed an accuracy that betrayed her results back at the training grounds.

Two hooded figures stood near a tree branch their gazes flickered with complex emotions as they looked towards the two, particularly Bartholomeo who looked pale and sickly.

"Are they supposed to be beginners?" Brandio looked towards Bartholomeo his cold tone became replaced with uncertainty.

"Tcch, abort the mission, their movement doesn't look like a beginner at all, they may be veterans from other virtual games!" Bartholomeo cursed and leaped towards the direction of the gigantic wall.

Khan's ears twitched, their rushed movements created quite a disturbance in the tree branches which didn't escape Khan's senses, slashing a beast apart, he switched to his firearm and fired towards the source of the disturbance.

"Lily, can you hold on for about half a minute?" Lily wasn't even able to reply as Khan's figure had already vanished into the distant forest.

Lily returned her Karabiner98k back towards her virtual inventory and withdrew a beginner's jungle knife, a knife given to every player at the early phase of the game.

"Leaving me behind, you better come back safe, you jerk." Lily's sweet smile betrayed the words that she spoke, her gaze became solemn as she looked at the remaining beasts.

"Now... Shall we play?" Lily's figure flickered as she leaped towards the horde sending the horde into a disarray.

Khan chased at the two hooded figures, earlier when he shot with his firearm, he received a notification that he damaged a fellow player, that was enough evidence that someone tailed them.

Khan frowned, even though he increased his speed, he still was unable to keep up, his gaze focused on their feet and indeed, saw a faint aura enveloping it.

"Damn, an item? That's really annoying." Khan decided to at least unload all of his bullets towards the two. Consecutive gunshots echoed in the air, showering the retreating figures with bullets.

Although Khan's sidearm didn't deal that much damage, it would still damage the durability of their equipment, thinking about this, Bartholomeo felt incensed, the other party profited from the beast horde, yet they swallowed a loss, Bartholomeo felt like his face was slapped by a huge palm he couldn't help but clench his fist in anger especially when Khan even thanked them for the effort.

"Thanks for the free exp!" Khan even waved towards them as they retreated.

Returning to where Lily was, Khan was shocked to find out that the entirety of the horde had vanished, leaving only a bloodstained Lily standing there, looking fidgety.

Khan frowned towards Lily's actions and asked.

"What's wrong?" Khan asked her, but she avoided his gaze in a hurry.

"Just tell me what's wrong, don't worry I won't be mad, you're my wife, after all." Khan consoled his little wife and patted her head.

"It's not just... It's just... I'm afraid that, you may... hate... me..." Lily's tone became uncertain in the end.

"Why? I don't understand, Why would I hate you?" Towards this strangeness, Khan could only press her own for more details.

"It's just, you see, I killed all the beasts, and I once read that... men hated violent women so I thought..." Lily hung her head low, Khan gave a gentle smile and consoled her.

"Silly girl, I won't hate you for that, although it's true that you're vi-" Khan groaned in pain as she felt Lily pinching his waist. Lily raised her head to stare at him, her mouth slightly opened.

Khan cheekily smiled for a moment before enjoying those luscious lips once more. Back at the inn, the two rented a room, and Khan could be seen seating on a wooden chair, peacefully waiting for the beauty to finish her shower.

"I'm done..." A small hushed tone echoed from inside the bathroom, Lily protested for a moment before going outside.

"..." Khan stared in shock, for Lily only wore a towel as a cover for her drenched body, her aquamarine hair strangely shone under the moonlight and her eyes emanated a hint of desire.

The towel tightly wrapped around her body enunciated her features which were perfectly simulated from the real world. Although Khan had expected this to happen, seeing it occur before his eyes still made him stagger in shock.

"Ermmm, do I look weird..." Lily asked, she didn't notice but her tone became filled with slight indecency, Khan approached her as she subconsciously walked backward.

Khan immediately opened his User Interface and activated the Lover's Special Settings under Lily's embarrassed gaze, he didn't even look at the system prompt and just embraced the beauty in his arms.

Under the gentle moonlight veiled by the clouds that drifted in the sky, a suppressed pair of symphony composition started to play ever so slightly, not until the time ticked for three hours did the night returned to its previous calm.