Chapter 2- The Starting

"Chie, who do you think you are!"

"Letting him retire was for his own sake. What else can he do?"

"Right, your right. As tactful as he is, he wouldn't even think to blame the club for making him retire".

After Silver and Irene left. Everyone in the conference room suddenly recovered and began mocking him again. But Gajeel's expression was sort of mixed. He did not participate and moved closer to the manager instead: "I don't understand. How could he have accepted these conditions so easily?"

"He had no other choice but to accept" the manager said.

"But Why?"

"Because he can't pay the penalty fee". The manager said.

"How..... How can that be?" Gajeel was stunned. Silver had worked really hard as a professional gamer these past seven years and was at the peak. Even if he had refused all business related matters, his salary shouldn't have been so low that he was unable to pay the penalty fee.

"You weren't in that generation, so you wouldn't know. In the Alliance's starting stages, the Alliance pro-players were nowhere near as impressive as they are now. At that time, the pro-players that had been fired ended up in difficult situations, most of their youth had been used up on gaming. But none of them were skilled enough and most of them fell into difficult and dire financial situations. Silver was that era's gaming genius and we relied on his achievements to get to where we are now today. But he had a lot of friends like that".

"So what you're saying is that most of his assets were given to those friends of his?" Gajeel's eyes widened.

"Right".

"Then if he needed the money, why would he refuse to accept any business activities?" Gajeel asked.

"No one knows the reasons for this" the manager said.

"You don't even have any guesses for this?" Gajeel asked.

"It might have something to do with his family" the manager said.

"Eh?"

"No one knows anything about his family. And he also never talks about them. It's very strange though, which is why I suspect it" the manager said.

"This single person..... has a ton of stories" Gajeel lifted up the One Spring Leaf account card that Silver just gave him moments ago. He knew that Silver had created this account long before Professional Alliance had been created. Used all the way from the beginning of the game until now, this card was one of Fairy Trail's oldest accounts.

"Okay, let's not talk about him anymore. The boss is busy and cannot come. But he gave me this bottle of aged red wine from his own personal collection just for your own welcoming" the manager said.

"Ha ha ha, thank you very much! With me, Brilliant Build will shine once more like the past in it's glory days!"

Silver left.

Irene stood in front of the club's entrance crying. She stood crying like this until Silver disappeared into the distance. He repeatedly turned around to wave his hand. Tears started streaming down Irene's cheek's more and more the farther he got from her.

Without saying too much, Silver said a total of eleven words: "I'll rest for a year and come back with a bang".

Irene did not even say another word. She only nodded her head slightly again and again. She was no longer that cute and innocent young lady and started gaining a lot of responsibilities left behind by Silver all alone.

Raindrops started falling from the sky. As the rain grew stronger it also became colder.

Raining?

When silver left the club, he hadn't thought of what to do next. Having grown so accustomed to that lifestyle for so many years, he had not adapted to the sudden changes yet. He wanted to walk along like this until his thoughts became clear and figured out what to do next.

Who knew that the weather wouldn't give him this opportunity? At this moment, rain began to fall and became stronger and stronger as time went on. Falling raindrops quickly hit him wetting his shoulders. Puddles started forming on the streets. If he didn't take shelter quickly, he would get sick.

Silver looked left and right, and quickly saw a open Internet Cafe along the street. The lights were still brightly lit this late and quickly ran towards it.

The Internet Cafe was nice and warm. Silver burst in and shook the raindrops off of his hair and body then went to the reception area.

"Area 4 Number 37" The young lady at the reception area informed him of an open computer. She soon handed over an ID card to boot up the computer only to see he had already left. The young lady didn't make a fuss over it. This type of matter frequently happened quite often. She silently put away the ID card knowing that he would have to come back and retrieve it.

Area 4 Number 37, Silver followed the signs searching. This Internet Cafe wasn't small. There were many computers and there even was a second and third floor. Area 4..... Silver saw the Area Number on the ceiling. It looked like he didn't need to go up the second or third floors.

Once he counted to Number 37, Silver became a bit startled. This station had already been taken over by a woman. Moreover, she was playing Fairy Trail, she was currently in the Arena having a duel. Her fierce movements caused her ponytail that was tied to the top of her head to aggressively sway left and right.

Facing towards her, he saw her controlling a Launcher. Silver suddenly blanked for a bit. And almost thought that Irene was sitting there.

But he quickly realized that it wasn't her. Irene was always so gentle and serene. Even during an intense PK confrontation, she always held a smile. Speaking about her, Silver sometimes watched as she smiled while causing her opponents to explode into pieces. When she then politely said sorry, he would always inexplicably tremble a bit.

As for this girl, her appearance was also beautiful, gentle and serene. But she fumed with rage and devastated the keyboard in an all-out effort making feel that her appearance from top to bottom a huge trap.

"Her murderous spirit was too scary. What a pity..." Silver saw the screen clearly. He saw that this girl was about to be in a terrible situation. As expected, her opponent capitalized on this opportunity and as soon as she made a mistake. It took two hits, what little life remaining was drained all at once.

"DAMN IT!" Silver heard this girl roar in anger. She slammed the keyboard directly exiting and shutting down the game.

Silver hesitated on whether he still wanted to play on this station or not. The girl already turned her head glancing at the hesitant Silver. Furiously getting up, she asked: "Computer?"

Silver nodded his head slightly.

"Then sit down!" The girl had already left.

Silver shook his head at the impatience of the ordinary gamers and finally sat down.

Cana Clive was depressed, extremely depressed. She just had 62 Duels in the Arena, but she hadn't won a single battle. She didn't want to believe that this was really real and just happened to her.

Cana just rubbed the "Grazing Haze" account card and put it in her pocket. Her account wasn't bad. Among ordinary players, her account would be considered quite strong and her skill level wasn't low it was also quite high. She played Fairy Trail for a full five years. Her opponent's account wasn't as good as hers, but she still couldn't win over him a single time during the 62 duels they had.

"He's a powerful expert" Cana concluded.

"Boss you haven't logged out yet, why is that person playing you account?" Cana was thinking as she walked farther from the station, when a voice suddenly interrupted. Cana tilted her head and looked at the neighboring computer, a frequent customer at the internet cafe was stretching out his neck and arms looking at the computer she had sat at.

This is not good! Cana's heart suddenly dropped as she rushed back running towards the station. Due to Fairy Trail's intense popularity, the Fairy Trail log-in device became a standard computer accessory that was indispensable for internet cafe's. Account card only needed to be inserted into the device so in these sort of public places, everyone put away their account cards after using them.

Every card only had one account. Lost cards could be reported, so stealing of accounts did not exist. But in these sort of public places, frequently, people would carelessly forget to log-out and end up having their money and equipment looted. Cana was extremely frustrated after 62 straight defeats and wasn't paying any attention. She forgot to log-out and instead switched to the desktop.

Cana quickly ran up and sure enough, that guy was really playing her account. Only it didn't look like he was stealing money or equipment, it looked like he was having an eager duel in the Arena.

Cana didn't have any time to bellow in rage, when a single large word popped up on the screen...