Chapter 54 - Level 15, and IRL Stalk

The elf following them slowly moved out from behind one of the trees. He had been quite far from them, yet Arthur had sensed him, which left the elf rather intrigued.

He had a pale face and blond hair, similar to the other elves, but this one had shorter hair. He wore medium armor made of a special cloth the elves produced, with a few metal parts, all green so he would stay well camouflaged inside the forest.

Two daggers on his waist, and a bow on his back. The elf could use more than one type of weapon, not having the restrictions some players had.

"How did you sense me?" the elf said once he was close enough. "Not even my fellow elves sense me when I sneak up on them."

The reason was pretty simple: Arthur’s dragon bloodline helped him out, plus the +8% perception from his helmet. Perception was key to sensing stealthed enemies and even traps.

He just shrugged and said, "Just luck, I guess. You can call it a hunch."

The elf didn’t seem to buy it, but he didn’t say another word. They continued walking back to the elven settlement, this time with the elf going alongside them.

Once they were back, Imra spotted them from one of her house windows.

"Did Cinder sense he was being followed? No way," she murmured, shock written all over her face.

She couldn’t believe it. The elf she’d sent was known for being one of the best at stalking without ever being found.

They knocked on Imra’s door, and the moment they stepped inside, she immediately apologized, doing her best to keep things from turning sour between them.

"I’m just doing my job as their leader," she said. "Making sure you aren’t a threat. Being as smart as you are, I know you’ll understand my side."

Imra was good with words. She complimented Arthur’s intelligence just to lighten the mood so that he would forgive her for sending someone to follow them.

Well, he would forgive her, but not for that reason.

’I need access to the dungeon in this area, so I can’t afford to make an enemy of her.’

With that in mind, Arthur simply smiled and said, "No problem, Imra. And about your monster problem, we killed some crocodiles in the swamp, but you know they’ll come back, right?"

Everyone knew monsters spawned, all thanks to some mysterious force. That’s what the NPCs believed. The players knew the monsters respawned because it was a game.

"You did? That’s already something," Imra said, seeming like she wanted to ask something else.

Arthur had killed those crocodiles without receiving a quest. He knew it was necessary to unlock the level 15-20 dungeon in the elven forest!

One had to first help Imra by killing some monsters without expecting anything special in return, no quest with extra rewards. And then, she would ask for something else, and share information about the dungeon.

"I don’t think you’re quite strong enough to help me with something else," Imra said.

She was saying that because Arthur wasn’t level 15 yet, which was when the quest about the dungeon would unlock. He tried to push it further, asking her more about this thing she wanted his help with, but she wouldn’t give him the quest.

Imra only said, "If you get strong enough, then come looking for me. In the meantime, you can keep helping us with the monsters around the settlement."

They left her house. Point Blank was quite confused about it.

"She didn’t give us a quest," she complained. "I thought she would reward us after we killed those crocodiles."

Sometimes, even without an active quest, one could still complete some objectives and get some rewards when speaking with certain NPCs. Point Blank thought that would happen to them.

In fact, Arthur thought so too, as his memory of the questline wasn’t that fresh in his mind.

"We need to reach level 15 first to get the special quest from her," Arthur said. "Let’s get back to leveling. We can keep killing those crocodiles. They’ll be enough for us to level up."

"How do you know all of this? And don’t come at me with the whole ’my master’ crap. Are you a beta tester or what? I know the game had quite a few."

She had a point. Some beta testers did play the game, some even up to level 30, uncovering a lot about it. Those players had a huge advantage when the game launched because of that.

But the number of beta testers was really low. The company stated there were only 50 beta testers across the globe.

"I can’t say," he said. "Just trust me on this, alright? I have my own ways of knowing about these things."

It was all just a bunch of crap, of course. Point Blank just went along with it and said nothing else.

They returned to the swamp and continued their killing spree. Arthur still didn’t have a skinning tool to get the crocodile hide, but he was more focused on hitting level 15 than anything else. His mind was set only on that.

It took them a few hours of killing monsters to reach level 15. By the end of it, Arthur had to log off from the game. Point Blank still had 2 more hours of play time left, but she logged out too.

"Let’s camp here and log out," he said. "Tomorrow we can get the quest and explore the dungeon. I think we’ll be the first to enter a dungeon."

"Do we need to get more people to come along? Isn’t dungeon content that requires a party of 4?"

"Usually yes," he said, "but I think we can try just the two of us. If things go south, we could ask Suzy and Tower to come meet us here."

Point Blank nodded. They both logged out, disappearing from the game.

Arthur was back in his apartment. He took his game helmet off, feeling a slight headache. Playing non-stop was quite tiring, especially when killing monsters and doing physical things that required a lot of brain power.

"I need to get back to some chill stuff, like fishing, farming..." Arthur murmured, slowly getting up from his bed and putting on some flip flops to walk around his apartment.

He opened the fridge. There was nothing inside. Being too lazy to go out, Arthur ordered a pizza. For the first time, he had some money in his bank account, all thanks to the ads on his posts about the game. It was starting to pay off, though the money he needed to save his family was way higher...

Speaking of his family, Arthur decided to go visit them the following morning. There were too many people at the hospital during the night, and it wasn’t like his family was going anywhere.

He chilled on the couch until his cheese pizza arrived. A large one, as his stomach was aching, begging for food.

"Maybe I should eat healthier next time," Arthur said aloud, talking to himself while going down to pick up his pizza.

Arthur paid the delivery guy, picked up his pizza, and turned around to go back up. But then he noticed something weird.

Someone on the street was staring at him. A man, judging by the height and wide shoulders. The man wore a hat to cover his face and an overcoat.

’Not good.’

Arthur’s hands started shaking, and he almost dropped his pizza. The man noticed Arthur staring at him and left through one of the alleys.

Being stalked like that, Arthur’s mind took him back to the night he got stabbed. The trauma still haunted him to this day. Sometimes nightmares about that night troubled his sleep.

He rushed back up to his apartment and locked the door, taking a deep breath.

’What should I do? Move out? But what if they follow me?’

If it was someone powerful stalking him, then moving out wouldn’t be so easy. They would have eyes on him at all times, making things much harder for him.

Arthur sat down and gathered his thoughts, trying to calm himself. His pizza was getting cold, but he didn’t care. Only after relaxing a bit did he pick up a slice and wash it down with some Coke Zero.

"I can’t live like this, but I can’t go too far either..."

He wanted to stay close to his family. If the person knew where he lived, then it certainly knew a lot more about him.

There was only one thing he could do, and that was to start using the money he made from the game.

"I should hire a bodyguard to watch my apartment while I play, and a few more to protect my family at the hospital."

That was the only thing he could think of. It would cost him quite a bit of money that he still didn’t have, but Arthur was counting on getting some good drops from the level 15 dungeon inside the elven forest.

"I need to make this work!"

Arthur ate the rest of his pizza and chilled for the rest of the night. That night, though, he could barely sleep, still thinking about that man stalking him.