27: Meeting the first protagonist

It was quite a normal day for the people of the alliance. Their Grandmaster had gone to rest after his extraordinary feat and left everyone in awe.

Those who could only hear about his deeds could do nothing but sigh in jealousy as they cleared the town of any demons in the way. And they found, they mercilessly killed off and saved humans.

The whole town was being dyed in demon blood now and it was scaring the humans as well. And truthfully, many of the younger guild members felt sorry for the local people since they had to see all this killing.

But it all disappeared when they noticed that their Grandmaster had issued this order of a purge. They could not go against him and let the skinner demons live.

One such person was the young guard who was about to kill the begging demoness in front of him. It was such a beautiful person dressed as a dancer but she was a skinner demon.

"P-Please spare me. I never killed anyone. A-Anyone, please save me."

The demoness begged as she tried to do her best to live. Her sweet voice caused the young guild member to hesitate for just a second and it was enough for the skinner demoness to attack back.

Life flashed before the young guild member's eyes and he anticipated feeling pain.

But before he could die, he was saved by soft hands and a sword in front of his torso. It was a big and buff man who came to his rescue, his breath smelling of alcohol he had recently consumed and his steps unsteady.

But despite having this many disadvantages, he swung his heavy sword and cleaved the torso of the demoness in front of him. He did not even flinch then the beautiful face faded away into ugly darkness.

"Shit, these demonesses are getting prettier by the day. But a dirty soul will remain dirty, no matter how much they ornament themselves. Won't you agree with me, my friend?"

The guild member was left in awe after he was saved. It was also the time when other guild authorities began to show up.

In a single sweep of his sword, Master Shinzou had that man up by his throat and dangling into the air.

"Who are you and how did you get into this town? We made sure to warn this town off properly. Are you some kind of demon as well?"

Master Shinzou attacked the unknown man with quick steps. That should have been the end for that man but he managed to dodge Master Shinzou's attacks. And not only dodge but also retaliate to some degree.

He seemed to be some kind of master when it came to martial arts and it caused the unknown guild member to take a step back.

"You! You are no ordinary person to have blocked my blade like this. Speak, what is your name?"

Master Shinzou asked with suspicion in his eyes. He seemed interested in taking this man under his wing and to mould him into a perfect specimen, but he doubted this man's innocence and intentions.

Even if he got a good and honest feeling from this man, it was not right to take anyone at the face value alone.

"Me? My name is Horas and I am a travelling guard. And from your attire, you seem like someone from the guild's alliance, right? And a high-ranking person at that."

Horas was a strong speaker and his words were clear. Despite his being drunk, it seemed like he had not lost any of his motor skills.

This small conflict was about to take a big shape when everyone turned toward one to look at the new entry. It was none other than the Grand Master who had entered the clearing. His strong features cut through the tension that was rising in the air.

Everyone turned toward the Grand Master to give him the respect he deserved. So no one noticed the 'traveller's' expression darkening as he watched the 'so-called' Grandmaster enter the scene.

"What is going on here? This is too much commotion for a small task, don't you think so?"

Grandmaster was standing strong and straight when he spoke but a flash of recognition flashed past his eyes as he looked at Horas.

'Oh, now this is a familiar face in front of me. It seems that this man had not managed to completely forget about me even after everything that happened. Good, it will make things easier for me.'

Horas had a plan to follow and he would take everything away from this evil man in front of him. It would be the least he should do after what he had been made to go through in this life.

And the first thing to do was to get into the Grandmaster's good grace. It would not be difficult now that the man had shown signs of knowing him.

"Ya, it's been a while man. How have you been since you left the village and me behind to start your journey?"

Yes, this would be the start of Horas's revenge against the person known as 'GrandMaster' and the one responsible for all this misery.

////////////////////////////////

Keith's mind blanked as soon as he realized that the buff man in front of him was the protagonist of this MMO.

Well, one of the four possible choices at least. And he was also the least interesting of the bunch as far as Keith could remember.

But if you ask Keith for this man's story, he would not be able to tell you. Mainly because he had not played his route and he had also not been interested enough to go out of his way to search for it.

Keith had been staring at the man for almost a minute when he felt someone jab him in the ribs. It had been Clair, the person he had asked to be accompanied by.

"You've been staring into space for a while. You should reply to the man if you know him."

Clair's words were soft and likely not heard by anyone else. The buffoon in front of Keith was also not paying attention to Clair at the moment which assured Keith somewhat.

"Ah, yes. I am not interested in uncultured and untalented people like you. So stop wasting my time and leave if you do not have anything to say."

Keith had gotten pretty adept at speaking like the Grandmaster at this point. It had come to a point that he did not even have to think about the nonsense he was sprouting out.

The man in front of him got quite red in the face as soon as he was ridiculed by Keith but it seemed to not have deterred him in the least.

Instead of walking away to preserve his dignity and running away with his tail tucked between his legs, the man decided to get angry instead.

"Hey man, it is not funny that you are behaving like this. We used to be so close when we were kids. Don't you remember?"

Horas tried once again to show how close he was with the Grandmaster. But he was wasting his effort right now. Keith had no recollection of this man at all.

So he refused to reply to this man again which finally triggered Horas enough to react to him and Horas decided to attack him. It was a swift attack that left Keith unable to respond due to its swiftness.

But that did not stop both Clair and Master Shinzou from reacting. Clair blocked the attack meant for Keith from the front while Master Shinzou stopped Horas from moving.

Meanwhile, Keith looked back at his attacker with calm and daring eyes. He was not even able to show any reaction due to the swiftness of everything that happened.

"You! You are still a coward. You achieved the position of the Grandmaster because you are a cheater and we all knew it. Isn't that why you abandoned your hometown and never came back to visit us? It's all your fault everything ended up being the way it is."

Horas was yelling now and his voice was too loud. It would cause a lot of problems if he kept on being like this.

Keith also had no idea what this man was yelping about since he was sure none of the protagonists of this MMO had anything to do with the grandmaster before their first meeting way later in the story.

'God, my head is spinning. I cannot believe I had to deal with something like this as soon as I came out.'

The timing of his entry could not have been worse but Keith knew he had to thank his poker face for saving him from any humiliation. He somehow managed to get past the protagonist without dying.

Everyone looked anxious to see what happened and Keith was too awkward to care and tell them what happened. One glare of his was enough to send everyone else running away.