Chapter 4 : Trouble In Fortune

*Achoo*

*Sniffs*

'Cold ?, it can't be.

' It's been a little bit above an hour since I've been here and Fudo hasn't called, I wonder what happened.'

While heading deeper into the Stone Creek Forest, Sato recounted his battles and winnings so far.

"I've defeated 3 monsters of which two were level 2 monsters, levelled up once, got 5 free attribute points, 7 copper coins, gained 2 potions, 5 random materials and a new blade. So far my journey has been good, at least I've gained a little."

In Infinite Realm, for each level up, a player gets 5 attribute points. Attribute points allow a player to increase their main attributes directly. Apart from attribute points, players can also receive skill points (SP) and potential points. Skill points allow a player to increase the effects of a skill thereby making it stronger, while potential points are used to learn new skills and increase weapon mastery. Skill points are gained from the continuous use of a skill whereas potential points are gained each 3 levels.

After adding 3 points to his [[Strength]] attribute and 1 point each to both [[Agility]] and [[Dexterity]], Sato thought 'it's about time I contact Fudo, hmm, what's that?'.

From the peripheral of his eyes about 10m away, Sato noticed a dull brown glow in a cave.

'Lemme check it out first…'

'This is !! '. Heading into the cave, Sato noticed that the source of the glow was a little chest.

[[Mortal Rank Chest, Status : Locked]]

"It's a treasure chest !" Moving closer to the source of the glow, Sato noticed it was a treasure chest. Treasure chests are classified into 6 main kinds, Mortal rank treasure, with a dull brown colour, Rare steel with a silver colour, Dark silver with a black silver, Legendary with an orange colour, Saint rank chests with a myriad of colours and lastly Divine rank treasure chests which has no specific colour.

"With this, I can finally offset my earlier expenses."

Approaching the chest, Sato clicked on the [[unlock]] icon and a loading bar with 20 seconds appeared.

"At least it's a simple lock, otherwise I wouldn't have known what to do."

Some treasure chests tend to be locked needing the assistance of one who possesses the thief or fraudster subclass to break. Magic locks however need both thief subclass and a scribe's abilities to unlock.

"Hey guys, over there."

"This is bad, come on hurry up"

Hearing approaching footsteps, Sato got nervous at the countdown which still had 14 seconds left and tried to rush the countdown with his words which were pointless, knowing he couldn't move from his position to face his adversaries.

"Hahaha, it's a freaking treasure chest, we're rich"

"Dumb ass, we aren't the only ones here."

"Huh? Who are you and what are you doing with my treasure chest?"

Standing at the mouth of the cave was a party of 4 players, with the Berserker who looked like their leader speaking with an arrogant tone.

"Hmph ! Your treasure chest, you say !"

"You…"

"What an arrogant brat. Leader, let me have a go at him" licking his lips the assassin suggested.

Meanwhile, Sato who was scanning the group noticed the orange markers on their heads.

"PKers ?" (AN : PlayerKillers)

"What about it, you scared ?" With a smile full of derision, the assassin responded.

Frowning at the reply, Sato took a look at the timer,(AN : since he's the one unlocking the Mortal Rank Chest only Sato can see the timer), noticing it had 5 seconds left.

"Enough, Fiko take him down"

"Got it", taking a step forward, the Paladin who had the biggest frame of them all lifted the shield in his left hand and took a stance.

"Tsk, a paladin who's a killer, oh! how nice."

"Keep being sarcastic all you want, just know you're gonna die before you know it. At least I would have played with you a little."

Pouting over the fact that he wasn't chosen to do the job, the assassin responded with a slightly murky tone.

*Inhales*

"Hah !!" pushing his right foot against the floor, the paladin used [[Charge]]

*Ting*

"Hmm ?"

'Finally, it's done'. Storing all 4 items in his beginner storage pack, Sato took to his feet and dodged the paladin's [[Charge]] at the last moment. As if expecting that, the paladin smashed his shield over to his left, which happened to be where Sato dodged over to.

"Hmph." Landing on his left foot, Sato spun counter-clockwise dodging the shield and arrived right behind the paladin.

As his blade was about to land, he noticed a shadow on his right side inching closer towards him. Taking 2 steps back, Sato dodged a dagger that struck right at his former position.

"Tch, seems like you've got some skills", the assassin who had earlier stepped out of stealth said, " A little more and Fiko over here might have been a goner."

While he was talking, the paladin wiped off the cold sweat on his forehead while being impressed at his foe's footwork and then took a stance, while the remaining two, the berserker and the cursemancer, took their positions sealing off Sato's escape route.

"Just give up and hand over the goodies and we might consider letting you off." Seeing the frown on Sato's face the cursemancer smirked.

*Exhales*

'There are 4 opponents, and the cave's mouth is blocked by both cursemancers and berserker. Logically, I should attack the cursemancer's post since cursemancers tend to have weaker attack power. However, if I make a little error or get distracted, that berserker would attack me and I would end up with a really shitty curse from that cursemancer and that would make things harder.

*Sighs*

"Finally ready to give up ?" noticing Sato's mode going down, the assassin asked with a wide grin that makes one really want to smack him.

"Hahaha" while keeping his head low, Sato chuckled.

"Is he going crazy ?"

"Watch out !"

Taking a step forward, Sato dashed towards the cursemancer, with the paladin yelling out.

'He took the bait.' Smiling, the berserker who was already in position dashed towards the cursemancer.

'And here, I was thinking he wasn't a noob' smirking, the assassin used [[Fade]], entering stealth while dashing over the cursemancer.

When Sato was just 3 meters away from the cursemancer, he lifted up his sword as if to slash at the cursemancer. Meanwhile, the player in question was in the process of casting a spell. A meter and half away from the cursemancer, Sato threw a vial at him while lunging towards his right where the berserker was with a heavy left stomp, with his sword slashing down. Due to the berserker being in close proximity to Sato, and the instant change in direction by Sato, the berserker couldn't dodge, hence, he tried to block the attack with an attack of his own. As if he had expected that, Sato bent forward and slashed at the berserker's abdomen with full force.

[[Horizontal slash]] -30

Not expecting that, the berserker was struck and got hinged 4 meters away. As a result of the bottle earlier thrown at the cursemancer, his spell -which was originally aimed at Sato- broke the bottle, releasing its contents, which was a dark green gas. The assassin who originally tried attacking Sato from behind lost him, when Sato abruptly charged at the berserker, hence when the gas was released, he also got caught in it.

*Coughs*

"What the heck is this ?" Holding his throat while coughing loudly, the cursemancer questioned.

*Cough*

[[System : you have been poisoned by [Green Scaled Python Venom(Weak)] -10% Basic attributes, +5% in stamina consumption, lose 5HP each second for 5 seconds]]. Ignoring them, Sato charged forward to the berserker who was getting up to his feet.

"You bastard !" Enraged over the stunt Sato pulled, the berserker lifted up his great sword and slashed forward towards Sato.

[[Cleave]]

"Hmph" Bringing himself to a stop, Sato took a side step towards his right dodging the greatsword after which he slashed his sword towards the berserker.

"Blood, duck!", hearing the call, the berserker, Blood Sword ducked whereas Sato turned around to face the voice which happened to be close by.

*Clang*

Narrowly making it in time, Sato blocked the surprise attack from the paladin, Fiko who finally made his move, but had to take two steps backward with his HP 5 points less.

'His strength is higher than mine.' With a frown, Sato deducted while retreating backwards.

In Infinite Realm, once the strength of an attack on a player is greater than that of said player, he/she would receive damage. The logic is the same as when an average adult clashes fist with a body builder, he/she would receive damage and experience pain.

"How about we all settle down and let bygones be bygones eh?" Seeing that his attackers had given him space, Sato suggested with a smile.

"Hmph, still trying to walk away after all you've done. You had the chance before but you tried to kill me just now and you think I'll let you go?" Blood Sword responded with an angered tone clearly showing his hatred.

"Same here." With a weird smile, Sato suddenly dashed towards the assassin and cursemancer duo, who stood close together and happened to have the lowest HP in the group.

"Shit you bastard !!" Enraged, the cursemancer cast a [[Slow]] at Sato, while the assassin stood guard with the berserker and the paladin heading over.

Tossing another vial containing a red liquid over while dashing over, Sato said "If you think you can stop me, dream on ."

"Shit this trick again" Incensed, the assassin placed his left hand over the lower part of his face, while the cursemancer did the same. As for the paladin and the berserker, they both slowed down their steps. Exactly as before, the spell clashed with the vial slowing it down. However, due to the dark mana bombarding it, it shattered leaving behind fragments of broken glasses together with a red liquid bursting forth.

"Huh, this is…" Noticing the familiarity of the liquid, the assassin was shocked and was about to alert the others, however, it was too late as the last thing he saw was Sato swinging his blade at him.

[[Chop]] Critical -25

-12

-13…

When his HP remained just 15%, the assassin retreated and tried to flee, using [[Silent Steps]] to increase his speed, however, Sato wouldn't let him go that easily, activating [[Sprint]]. Counting that with the fact the assassin was poisoned with his main attributes down by 10%, Sato easily caught up before he could move 2 meters away, delivering the finishing blow.

Saying it might sound slow, however, everything occurred within the time of fewer than 5 seconds. By the time his other teammates realized what happened, the assassin was already dead. Seeing this, the cursemancer moved further away from Sato in fear of death. However, rather than chasing after him, Sato ran towards the cave's entrance and escaped, shocking the other players who thought he would fight to the last man.

"Shit, that bastard's been toying with us ever since. He could have easily escaped but he had to kill one of us." Blood Sword, the berserker responded with clear hatred and anger written all over his face.

"That vial, it was actually a [[Simple Health Potion]]. He tricked us with it and got Crimson." Recalling what took place and what the red liquid in the vial was, Fiko, the bear-sized paladin stated with both a mixture of shock and fear written on his face. 'Someone with such crafty mind is really the worst.' (AN : Might be too late but double quotation marks are for speech and conversations while single quotation marks are for thoughts :) )

"Captain, are we really going to chase after him ?" with hesitation and apprehension written all over his face, the cursemancer stared at Blood sword.

"...*sigh* even if we want to, we have to wait for Crimson Scar to revive. He's killed quite a lot so I doubt he was so dumb as to set his resurrection point in the town. Let's wait for him."

In Infinite Realm, some players tend to follow the dark path, killing players for equipment and goods or just for fun, as a result, they are termed as PKers (Player Killers), or Dark players (AN : LOL this is so me) . These players, if seen by most NPC 's, are shamed and will be arrested by the City guards or Town guards. Being jailed in a town or city results in quite some serious penalties with 30% deduction in main attributes, 20% reduction in experience points gained for a week, together with all equipment, weapons and goods in storage or sack confiscated by the NPC local authorities and also 2 levels deducted. So yeah, it's really serious. The penalties however, vary depending on the player's status. A dark player's status varies from light orange, deep orange, light red, blood red, blood red with aura and black.

Due to the penalties gotten from being jailed, Dark players tend to set their resurrection points either in Devil towns or cities or elsewhere.

"When we get back, mobilize the entire group to hunt that asshole down. Place a bounty if you must, 1 Silver coin, Dead or Alive."

"Got it captain." The cursemancer nodded.

'He's really angry now, I kinda pity that swordsman.'

…

"This should be enough, now time to call Fudo."