Furball

The thick, green leaves shivered as a white furball shot of the bushes and charged straight at the guarded Wilbert.

'A Jante wolf cub?'

With a snarl, that very furball jumped up at Wilbert, its fangs bared. Although the wolves were brown as adults, as young cubs, they had white, snow-like fur, which would darken as they grew up.

Faced with a vicious monster that meant him harm, Wilbert instinctively activated [Basic Shield Bash] to stun it.

[You have killed a Jante Vicious Brown Wolf cub (Level 0).]

[You have gained 0 XP.]

'Eh?' Shocked by the system announcement, Wilbert looked at the dead cub on the floor.

On the tip of its dark, wet nose was a coating of blood, which had splattered onto the short fur nearby. Clearly, it had been tracking the blood of its pack, searching for the killer.

Wilbert glanced down at the wolf blood that had seeped into his clothing. The basic, tattered garments had already become crusty from days of sweat and blood, but they were now soft again, dampened by the wolf blood.

Realising what happened, Wilbert looked back at the cub. Perhaps it was his imagination, but he could have sworn that there were tears in the cubs eyes. Those eyes that were like little marbles and dark like the night sky were glistening with sorrow. The cub's head seemed to be looked toward the direction Wilbert had run from, like it was hoping to see even the corpses of its kin one last time before it died.

…

As the last member of his party respawned in Dampstead Village, GenericName1 hammered through his keyboard, "How did some villager wipe out the whole of our guild? GenericClan is better than that!"

He followed up that outburst with an angry emoticon.

"That villager wasn't normal though. There's no way an NPC can fight like that unless they're special somehow. And even then, they should follow the normal aggro rules," one clan member, GenericName25, pointed out.

"Now that you mention it, 25, you're right," GenericName1 replied. "He ran and attacked without normal provocation. Plus, normally, an NPC will either run or fight; they don't do both."

After sending a thinking emoticon, GenericName1 asked, "What happened after I died exactly?"

"He dicked on us…" GenericName96 commented bitterly.

"What 96 meant was… he knocked the two of us back, then he stunned 33 before quickly killing 69, even after he used a potion. After than, he finished off 33, and then he killed me and 96," GenericName25 explained.

"It's curious," GenericName69 could not help but add, "before he used his magic attack, he stabbed the sword into the ground as if he would need to use it quickly after, but then he materialised his staff from thin air.

"So, putting aside the unique mechanic of placing the sword in the ground, does that mean he only make some weapons appear instantly? Isn't that a weird feature for the devs to have added?"

"What are you saying, 69?" GenericName1 asked.

"I'm saying… the devs clearly put a lot of work into this NPC." He had his avatar perform the [Drumroll] emote. "I think we may have stumbled upon a hidden boss."

Behind his screen, GenericName1 leaned back in his chair in thought before sitting forward. He pushed his glasses firmly to his face, the lenses becoming two small mirrors reflecting the little light in the room.

"That makes sense. Unique mechanics, too powerful for that area, unassuming appearance—all features of a hidden boss."

"What should we do, 1? Our fledgling guild can't handle this; we're the strongest so far. We our classmates play a bit more, we might be able to defeat the boss, but what if someone else defeats it before us?"

"We can't risk someone else defeating the boss. We checked the wikia before, and I've checked since—this are no articles about a hidden boss in the Jante Rainforest. This could very well be the first sighting of the boss."

Coming to a decision, GenericName1 typed, "We'll go back and look for the hidden boss. If we find it again, I'll contact one of my brother's friends. He's in a big guild. I'm sure he'll be able to help us defeat it."

…

While the GenericClan's members were discussing Wilbert, the boy in question was wandering aimlessly through the rainforest.

After killing the cub, the guilt that had washed over him had removed any thought of hunting down the players.

'I keep wanting to kill them all, but then… how would I be any different from them?'

With such a thought in mind, Wilbert had turned around and left the scene. Naturally, the death of one wolf cub would not stop him wanting to avenge his parents, but it once more reminded him of the pain and finality that came with death. He would kill when he needed to but on no other occasion.

As he passed through the undergrowth, a drop of dew landed on his head. He went to wipe it off his hair, but the feeling of grease and coagulated blood was too disgusting.

'I need to clean, sleep in a bed, eat a proper meal…' thought Wilbert as he glanced at his surroundings. 'But where am I going to find all that in the middle of the rainforest? Plus, after two chases, I have no idea which way I should be going. I can't get a good enough view of the sun's position to gauge a direction, so I can only walk in one direction and hope I'm heading north.'

With a sigh, Wilbert kicked a stone on the ground. However, he seemed to put more force into it than he realised. The stone flew into a tree and then bounced back into him.

"Ouch!" The force of the stone was surprisingly strong, and it hurt more than he expected.

With a mirthless chuckle, he muttered. "That's just great! First this, then that… What a great day. Simply class!"

[Did you mean: Simple Class Introduction?]