Chapter 10 - Traitors of Humanity

---[???'s POV]---

Hm... this group I've been invited to is pretty good, but their demands are slightly annoying...

Firstly, they force everyone to have one JobClass path, so that everyone is completely focused on their functions, with the excuse of not spending MP on skills that are not necessary. It was really stupid, in my opinion.

The second reason was that it wasn't allowed to ask about what missions were happening, unless we were doing that said mission. In this case, we could ask the actual goal and the like. The excuse they gave for this was that it would be something more real, because in magical and medieval story quests, normally the situation changes with the middle of the climax. I even managed to understand... But leaving the real knowledge of the mission to just the leader and its main helper was stupid, especially considering that it could end things that others had planned out of the game.

But the third and fourth requirements to be in the group delighted me. Everyone should act as if they were roleplaying, with the theme being a group of heroes who ultimately want to defeat the demon king. And on top of that, everyone had to spend 90% of their free time, outside of work, on gaming-related stuff.

I love doing roleplays like crazy! Even if the ones I do are more erotic due to my work, normal roleplays are also welcome... And speaking of my irl job, the third requirement would make everyone here be weebs addicted to games, if they only knew what I do for living irl, they would drool over me for sure! But that would take the fun out of it, after all I'm playing YGGDRASIL, to be not recognized and not have any fans giving me hell.

At the time, I had split with others in our group, in addition to a non-human character player. It looked more like a robot or something, but I have to be honest, it's an interesting style and charm. But wow, this guy won't shut up for anything, or at least that's what I thought, when strange monsters with flaming bodies appeared.

He completely changed his stance, being much more serious and observant. Helping me and the Cleric in the group stay protected. Of course, I shot several times using my [Explosive Aiming] skill, but in the end my MP was running out faster than usual, forcing me to ask for the cleric's help to replenish my mana again.

The robotic angel was attacking enemies with [Waterball] and [Earth Spike], while I fired regular bullets, without using skills. The cleric was trying to fill our MPs, but there was a moment when he started to feel extremely tired. Apparently, the amount of points in his Special attribute were quite small, so doing a lot of restoration skills repeatedly was actually depleting him more than expected.

"We need to call the others!" I exclaimed, as the Steampunk Angel started creating more [Earth Spike], this time using them as obstacles to buy us time.

"I am trying! But they are not responding!" The cleric complained, clearly with a system window in front of him, he clicked several times but nothing happened.

'Why isn't he answering?...' I thought, already being irritated with that situation. I love roleplays and adrenaline, but this was purely out of the ordinary things I was promised, these ruins are not even considered real dungeons, and they are already causing so much trouble!

"Damn it..." The metallic angel complained, walking backwards a little.

"What is it now?" I said, manually reloading my gun. These manual reloads gave a small accuracy buff until the bullets I put in myself ran out.

"It's not just those fire demons... [Goblins] are coming out of nowhere?!"

"What?!?" I exclaimed, quickly looking over the obstacles separating us from those monsters.

I could see with my own eyes, strange goblins appearing out of pure nothingness! It was as if they were sprouting from the floor and from every corner of the walls!!

"H-Help!!!" I ended up screaming in panic when I saw all that, and soon the barriers created were destroyed.

Even though this was all fake, being just a game, I could still feel the sweat of my character, running down my forehead and dripping onto my chin. I felt the icy air of those ruins lowering my hood... I felt fear, forcing me to close my eyes.

Those are the only things I hate about this type of roleplay!

[Kuwoi Unique Skill: Blood Rush Fever]

I heard a skill being activated, and when I opened my eyes to see what it was, I could also hear the sound of joy from that Mechanical Angel. "LESGO, HIKARI!!!"

A beam of reddish light appeared amidst the darkness of the night environment, hitting enemies accurately, creating equally bright red lines on parts of the bodies of [Goblins] and those creatures that reminded me of [Lesser Demons]. The monsters seemed to be paralyzed while that happened, with each new line that appeared in their bodies, the faster a new line appeared.

The intense noise of wind appeared next to me, until I saw that player who came with the robotic Angel, Hikari. He was slightly crouched in front of us, with that beautiful bloodstained sword. In one swift motion, he wiped the blood off the blade and slowly sheathed it, with that, all the monsters seemed to fall apart, their limbs and body parts sliding in those reddish lines. And along with that, an innumerable amount of pop-ups appeared among us.

[Fire Devilsh Lvl 33 was killed.]

[Fire Devilsh Lvl 27 was killed.]

[Hollow Goblin Lvl 30 was killed.]

[Fire Devilsh Lvl 32 was killed.]

[Hollow Goblin Lvl 35 was killed.]

[Fire Devilsh Lvl 27 was killed.]

[Fire Devilsh Lvl 24 was killed.]

[Fire Goblin Lvl 23 was killed.]

[Fire Goblin Lvl 39 was killed.]

......

Nothing could shock me more than that, with a single skill, he had killed a huge amount of enemies, plus he had simply appeared at the moment we most needed...

"It even looks like an anime character..." I ended up externalizing my thoughts, making that Player laugh excitedly as he got up.

"We are inside a virtual game, looking like an anime or manga character is common." He made that comment, then looked at his friend. "Luci, why didn't you use the mana potions?"

"One of the group's rules was to hand out items so the leaders could distribute things..." As he said that, Blade came up behind Hikari.

"Exactly, our plan was to first look the situation and then distribute the items according to each person's needs."

"Did you take even the simplest potions from them?" That Player exclaimed to our leader.

"Is there a problem with that? We didn't believe it would be that much of a problem after a simple reconnaissance of the place." Blade said it like it was no big deal, but Hikari caught him by the chest piece of our elf leader's armor, slamming him against the wall hard enough that some small debris from the wall fell next to us to the floor.

[Warning! Party Leader Blade lost more than 50% of its health!]

A party notification popped up in front of me, making my eyes widen. Was that simply tremendous damage in a single action? Or maybe he was already close to 50% health? Sometimes I hate the fact that I don't interpret messages like this correctly.

"Don't play with it, anyone's life can slip away if they don't have access to the basics, no matter the situation. Now, when we're all together again, you're going to hand out all the items we each need, and not only that, but you're also going to leave each of us with extra emergency items, got it?" His voice sounded extremely menacing and dominant.

Even though that was a passive effect of the [Commander] Job Class he has, for some reason I started to get a slight heat in my cheeks. His level of acting was impressive, it was like he was really mad about it, but it was clear that it was all roleplay, at least that's what I think.

Blade's face turned paler than usual, possibly scared because he was now at half his maximum health, Hikari soon let go of him and sighed deeply, looking towards one of the destroyed corridors. "Luci, was there anything interesting on your side?"

"Nothing much, there were some chests, but inside them there were only Data Crystals of equipment enhancement ingredients, but they were so random, that there is absolutely nothing to do with them now."

"I see, how much MP are you all on?" He looked back at us.

"5 MP only, I can't use my passive recovery skill due to the situation." Our cleric commented.

"You must already know my status." The angel sighed.

"I... I have 0 MP... W-why do you ask?" I said, trying to return to roleplay.

Soon Hikari took 5 Mid MP Potions from within his inventory, giving one to me and his friend, while he gave two to the Cleric and drank the rest. My eyes widened when I saw this, because I still couldn't buy enough of this type of item to be spending like this, but someone like Hikari was above that?????

Due to my level, I ended up filling almost all of my MP bar with that potion alone, so I enchanted the bullets inside my weapon with [Explosion Bullets]. While the Cleric activated the skill [Lesser Healing] to prevent and leave everyone with considerable HP.

"Hey. And me? Where is my MP Potion?" Blade complained, causing Hikari to glare at him in a way that made him freeze in place for a while.

"You spent next to nothing MP, because you are a [Paladin]." He stared at Blade until a question came out of his mouth. "Where is that Berserker?"

"Are you talking about Hammer? To tell you the truth, I don't know... the last time I saw him was when we were running here." I was going to say something about what Blade said, but I stopped myself after seeing some pop-ups that filled me with fear...

[Warning! Party Member Jac0bySin was killed!]

[Warning! Party Member KrinnyHell was killed!]

Jac0bySin was our [War-Wizard], while KrinnyHell was an [Archer] girl... What the hell was going on in the other group... if they were killed, there was only one left...

"Hey, is there a problem?" Hikari's voice reached me, and I soon looked around, seeing our Cleric afraid like me.

"I received a message! Two people from the other group were killed! Only their Archer is left!" I accidentally expressed my panic, causing Hikari to draw his sword again.

"Let's get fast on our part! They entered through a hole further to the right than us, it is possible that they are still on that side!" He commanded us, with a mighty voice.

"Who said this group is you-" Blade stopped talking when Hikari glared at him very aggressively.

"Let's go now." He soon started walking towards where we think the other group went. The monster player and I went with him, while I observed that the cleric was a little distressed about that, but he followed us right after close to Blade.

The ruins of that mansion seemed more and more bizarre, with nature contaminating everything, in addition to having some ceiling and wall debris being held by vines. It felt really bad, but I couldn't figure out what it was.

"Since we are not really in your Party, can you contact The Archer or Hammer so we can get an idea of where to go?" Hikari was still talking with very attention for his surrounds.

"Unfortunately, our Party doesn't have this config due to the way we created it." At Blade's answer, Hikari stomped down on one of the branches on the ground.

"Then I'll have to use that... Luci, you can protect me with everything." He tosses another Mid MP Potion to the angel, who simply drinks it all up.

"W-what are you talking about?" the cleric asked.

"Hikari has a unique character skill, [Stalker From Hell], allows him to find out where a player or enemy is, at least needing to know his appearance for that, unfortunately while he has this active, he cannot walk quickly." The angel answered.

"Wow, that's amazing... but it opens up a lot, especially for someone like him..." Blade commented.

"Anyway, it's the best thing to do..." Hikari said and finally activated that skill. I could see a red pulse coming out of his body and traveling up to the heavens, but I didn't feel anything, it was something much more visual than anything else.

Hikari was walking slowly, while I decided to stay closer to him so I could help guard him, with my weapon raised. I couldn't resist taking a good look at his character in that position, a young adult of healthy body, with spiky red hair, having a fringe long enough to cover a quarter of his face, along side with brown eyes, now reddish and shiny because of the Skill that he was using.

This, in with his light and simple armor, really made him look like some of the characters from the place I work. The typical classic where it's not the objects they possess that make them attractive or flashy, but the body itself.

Wait! No! I shouldn't be thinking about this! We need to rescue my br-

"AAH! You son of a bitch!!!" my thoughts were interrupted by the voice of the one we were looking for.

This made my body go on automatic, running a little ahead of the others. Upon noticing a figure attacking our last archer, I stomped to the ground so as not to be affected by the recoil and shot, trying to aim for the torso area of the big target.

"AH! FUCK!?" I had hit my target and... Wait... Did it speak?...

[Warning! You hit a member of your party! Be careful, friendly fire is active!]

Friendly fire?... Did I hit someone in the party?....

"AH!!" Another scream of pain occurred, but this time it didn't come from in front of me, but from behind me.

"You bastard!" I heard the voice of the robotic angel and when I turned around, I realized that Blade had stuck one of his swords in Hikari's back, as he ran backwards, moving away from us.

B-but what...?

Don't tell me... that... T-that...

---[3rd Person POV]---

The beginning of the new year within YGGDRASIL was supposed to be a time of friendship and fellowship. The Devs had given a new item and new races, so that people could have the chance to be more than ordinary humans, entering more the story of that magnificent game through the eyes of other beings.

Even so, such an incredibly kind and gentle act has not reached the minds of people who don't care about anything but feeling superior and better than others...

[Warning! You are losing HP at an alarming rate!]

"Damn..." Said a player who had just been stabbed in the back, literally. His companions approached him to help, while the owner of the sword that pierced him, [SaintElvBlade] hid in the midst of the darkness of the night.

"Hikari, calm down, you still have HP potions, don't you?" One of the newest members of his personal party, Luci★Fer, asked, but the only response was silence, followed by groans of pain.

"I have a plan-" Hikari tried to say something, but a louder voice drowned out his.

"Pero! Run!" The human Player with a rifle in hand exclaimed, but that only made things worse.

The other traitor, a Berserk JobClass Player called [HammerOfMidday], was about to attack the injured archer in front of him, using a huge greatsword that he held in both hands. The poor archer's HP was low, so if he didn't dodge or defend in some way, he could end up dying. Due to the situation he was in, he was forced to use his own bow as a shield, praying for the impact to be lessened, and closing his eyes in terror.

Instead of feeling a hard impact, or wanting to hear the sound of the bow breaking, he heard the sound of blades hitting each other. Opening his eyes, the archer saw that player, still with a sword stuck in his back, in front of him, managing to hold the berserk's blade with the blade of his own katana.

"Just look! Is an [Assassin] trying to show off as a hero?" Said Hammer, pressing that greatsword harder against the katana.

"Man... take that sword away from me..." Hikari spoke to the archer, but he was in a daze, trying to fully understand the situation.

"Now!!" Hikari screamed loudly, and so the archer managed to do as he was asked.

[Warning! Player Hikari is in critical condition.]

[Do you want to enable Alpha-Glass?]

"What the hell is that?" Hammer looked confused at the existence of a pop-up like that, and Hikari smiled.

"YES!" Accepting the system's proposal, a kind of explosion happened, pressing the archer against the wall behind him, and throwing the berserk a few meters back.

After that, Player Hikari was surrounded by a reddish aura, similar to the one he had when using Kuwoi-Muramasa's unique skills. Making an intense positioning of the feet against the ground, you could see cracks appearing in it, and without giving Hammer time to return to a stable fighting pose, Hikari went for it.

Meanwhile, Luci★Fer was with the other human player and their Cleric, both watching the battle from a little distance, but keeping their guard up, because of the Party Leader's disappearance. The girl with the gun aimed in Hammer's direction, while the angel had fireballs in his hands, and the cleric seemed to create a circle of protection.

"Have you found him yet?" she asked.

"I can't see him, how about you? Can you assist him?" The angel questioned.

"No... His movements are too fast and too close to Hammer for me to be confident of shooting without hitting him..."

"What about your brother?"

"He's sneaking over here, trying not to get in that bastard's range of vision... Ralph, can you help him over there?" She watched the Cleric.

"I don't think so, you know well how my agility is one of the worst attributes I have, besides, I have to stay here to protect you from the B-blade."

"Shit." the angel and the sniper said in unison.

"Anyway, we need to be careful with Blade no matter what, the way his honor was demolished by Hikari, the chances of him going up against our katana friend are low."

"Even though the guy is on low health?" The archer said finally managing to approach the three, hiding behind the debris with them. "I saw the notification that came up, he is in critical condition."

"Critical condition?" Ralph the cleric asked.

"That's what the moment when you're down to 5% HP is called, depending on the person's maximum amount of HP, this might not even be that dangerous, but since he tried to reach that state through draining HP for having a sword stuck in the back, there's a chance it's not a considerable amount." The angel commented, using [Earth Spike] again to decrease the directions in which they can be attacked.

"You say that, but you're not worried about him... Are you really that confident?" the archer asked.

"I may have a level below 30, but this guy is very special." Even though there was no mouth on his character, everyone could feel a smirk coming from the angel.

"What? Like, is it true that we all have the anonymity setting, which means we don't see our levels or names unless the person says so, so what level is he in for you to be so confident?" The sniper asked, kind of curious about that.

"Well, apparently you didn't recognize him by name...". Luci★Fer stood up a little, striking an incredibly dramatic pose, leaving everyone confused or embarrassed. "He is the unique and famous... Hikari, the official journalist of YGGDRASIL!! The person who helps newbies the most with the use of his special website and video shows on streaming platforms! Recently with the special achievement of being number 67 reaching level 50 on all YGGDRASIL servers!!"

Everyone was stunned by that, but it wasn't surprising, after all that whole group had people from level 20 to level 35 at most. Not only that, but the Cleric and Archer were finally able to recognize him because of his work, as a content creator within YGGDRASIL, he was clearly famous among newbies, but because of the vast majority of heteromorph players as his friends, a little bit of human and demi-human audience was decreasing. Even as the number of views increased more and more, non-heteromorph players didn't memorize the in-game appearance of this rising celebrity, only some of the information.

"Hm.. This is really a high level, but wow, this title is a little cring-"

"Magnificent!" The archer ended up interrupting his sister. "So he is the grand novice guide! The player who got VIP access to countless information directly with the game's Devs!!! I never thought he was right under our noses this whole time!"

"Yeah, and he's so awesome he should be tearing Hammer apart by now."

"Oh broken wing... Even though he reached the level 50 mark, do you think he survives with so little HP?" The sniper asked, still being realistic in her way, because unlike her younger brother, she had never seen Hikari's popularity.

But her logic became flawed when seeing a popup.

[Warning! Party Member HammerOfMidday was killed!]

Everyone broke out in a cold sweat, with the exception of Luci★Fer, with a big hypothetical smile on his face. And so they turned towards where the battle was taking place. There was now a large berserk kneeling and headless, while his enemy was standing, finally sheathing his katana. In addition to all that, there was a large amount of burnt grass and pieces of ice on that part of the floor, showing that it was not a simple sword fight.

But there was something strange, Hikari, instead of calling the staff, looked directly at them with a sinister and scary smile, but why is that? Only the angel realized the reason for that, forcing him to open his only wing to force everyone to the ground.

"Get down!" He at least screamed during the act.

"Eh, but wh-" An extremely high-pitched noise prevented her from speaking further, as another pop-up appeared.

[Warning! Party Leader SaintElvBlade was killed!]

"... what...?" The sniper tried to understand what the hell had happened, but when the angel undid the wing, it was all too plain to see.

Apparently the traitorous Party Leader had sneaked in and prepared to attack people by surprise, possibly out of desperation after Hammer died. But Hikari managed to notice this in time and made some kind of slashing attack with his katana, Kuwoi-Muramasa. This became more evident as the katana was again drawn as Blade's body was sliced in three in front of them, slowly turning to dust and after into Data Crystals.

"So... guys... Shall we go back to the original scheme and see which chests are left in this abandoned mansion?" Hikari said, jumping up and approaching everyone.

"Of course, but first, take the fucking Mid HP Potions! Insane brat! I knew you were lying when you said you didn't have more!" The angel complained, seeing Hikari taking one of those items out of the inventory, but he slowly gave it to everyone, so that they would have 100% HP and MP.

"Hehe, you know that the passive skill [Alpha-Glass] only appears if I'm in critical condition, and the lower my HP, the more powerful it will be."

"Wait, how much HP were you on?" The cleric asked, extremely curious.

"Only 1 HP."

"1 HP?!?" Even the angel was shocked by his friend's ideas.

"Anyway, let's remove the anonymity setting and introduce ourselves properly, you should already know that my name is [Hikari] and that my friend over there is called [Luci★Fer]... and you?"

"My name is [Ralpheinstein]" Said the high-cleric.

"My name is [Peroroncino]! Nice to meet you, Hikari-Sama!" Said the archer, giving a wide smile.

"My nickname is [Bukubukuchagama]... also nice to meet someone like you." Said the sniper, making an ultra cute and shy voice.

"Woah... what great nicknames, is it okay to call you Ralph, Pero and BB?" Hikari said with a slight laugh, but getting a little embarrassed due to the suddenly mega cute voice the sniper made, even so everyone shook their heads, not caring about those nicknames, but slowly Peroroncino made a comment that caused a more embarrassing situation.

"So watch out for my sister, she loves to tease, maybe she'll even 'cheat' on you in be-." With that comment made, the sniper simply took her gun and used it as a club, hitting the younger brother hard in the face.

"What are you thinking!?! Don't talk crazy like that!"

"Oh, what's the problem, onechan?~ I thought you were saying that because you liked him, don't lie, your character is all blushing.~" The archer never stopped making the situation worse and so they started shouting among themselves, always telling each other to shut up.

"At these times I'm lucky to be an only child..." Hikari said that, sighing, and still hyper blushing from the whole situation.

"I say the same..." Luci★Fer and Ralph spoke at the same time, equally sighing due to what happened earlier.

Unfortunately, for any animal in the environment surrounding those ruins, their night was a restless one, due to the screaming and fighting between the two brothers, which didn't stop for nothing.