End Online: Volume 2

by D Wolfin

  Sir Laurence only shrugs when I mention Lost, but he show some concern when I inquire about Fen. This guy must be the shallowest guy I have ever known.

  It is most definitely odd, with her speed she should have been running ahead of us. But she is not there when I look behind us. I also only just notice through the party information that Lost’s health has been reduced down to thirty percent!

  Something inside of me aches when I see that. I don’t want him to die! The thought alone makes me feel queasy. I only came on this journey for him. I even risk somebody who has previously met me in real life seeing me. A single word to my father about me playing an online game is enough to ensure my VL is permanently taken away from me.

  At this moment, an enormous roar reverberates through the tunnel. I feel a little insecure as dust rattles loose from the ceiling, but it passes quickly

  As for that wolf girl, don’t tell me she… No, of course she would.

  ***************************************************

  ***************************************************

  -Lost-

  Facing the oncoming wave of fire, I allow my tired muscles to rest and sink to my knees. With the tunnel around me slowly glowing brighter shades of red, all the doubts in my heart start to surface.

  ‘Can I even do this? Once again, I am going to die. I keep losing more and more money, my bank less than a quarter of what I had. The apple sales helped a little, but they barely covered half of my expenses. I am only left with four thousand dollars and that number keeps shrinking.’

  ‘I lost my legs, I lost my two sisters to my Aunt. How long until I have lost everything. Hah, Lost, such a befitting name for me.’

  ‘For four months I have clung to this game, I even feel like there is nothing else I can do. I want to see my sisters, but I don’t want them to see me. I need to be able to make them proud. I realize that right now I am a failure of a brother, but what can I do!’

  “What should I do!?”

  I scream into the oncoming fire, closing my eyes as the roaring of the inferno slowly grows louder.

  “…LIVE!..”

  A pure, crystal clear voice rings throughout the cavern. Opening my eyes wide, I see a silhouette in front of the fire.

  Fen is dashing towards me at an alarming speed, much faster than I have ever seen her move before. Leaning forward with her centre of gravity close to the ground, she almost appears to be flying across the ground.

  Behind her, blockades of ice are constantly being formed. Only, they do not hinder the blaze at all, turning to steam before the fire even reaches them.

  I notice that’s her magic is also running low, only twenty percent left.

  Upon reaching me, she does not stop running. Grabbing me by my cloak, she shows her astonishing strength as she picks me up with a single hand. While being dragged through the air by Fen, I feel powerful gusts of hot air coming from behind us, propelling us forward with each burst.

  Oh, I see. The barriers of ice are not meant to stop the flames, but the instant evaporation causing the air to expand behind us, keeping us in front of the flames. What incredible intelligence, how did she come up with such an idea?

  We flee down the winding path, barely able to keep in front of the rolling waves of fire behind. Not even the corners slowed it down one bit.

  We get to a point where Fen suddenly stops, slamming me into a crevice in the wall. The space is easily large enough for one person, but slightly too small for two.

  With a smile on her face, tears welling up in the bottom of her eyes. She speaks four words.

  “…Don’t… Be sad… Live…”

  My entire chest constricts.

  This artificially intelligent girl, the same one that invaded my VL. For her to speak such words as a red death approached closer. For her, who left me to die by goblins, tried to kill me countless times. To all of a sudden want me to live.

  All she is, is somebody else’s creation. Yet, the way she acts, it is as if she is alive? She does not have a body in the real world, but she has everything anybody else has. When she was a wolf, she respawned. But once she became my companion, I received a message that death was the end for her. Surely she must know this.

  Why would she give up her permanent life for me, someone who will respawn after death?

  It can’t be, she saw my despair in the face of death and wanted to help me? Why go so far?

  Torrents of questions run through my mind, but they all start with one word.

  ‘Why!?’

  I don’t want her to go. I don’t want to lose even more!

  Reaching out, surprise shows on her face as I pull her into the crevice with me. Holding her as tight to me as possible, I get nearly her entire body into the slit in the wall.

  Using one hand I open my menu as fast as possible and unequip my leather chest piece. It is not much, but it allows me to pull her against me tighter and bring the last bit of her body out of the inferno’s path.

  Not a moment too soon, all of a sudden everything outside is enveloped in swirls of red. The red light blinding me as soon as it enters my vision.

  Even without being able to see, I can feel Fen’s body against mine now that the armour is gone.

  The soft tenderness of her body.

  Her face buried into my shoulder.

  Arms tightly wrapped around my waist.

  A few minutes pass and the flames gradually decrease, returning everything to darkness. Finally, everything is over.

  Fen lets go of me, sinking down to her knees.

  “It… hurts…” The strain in her voice expresses that she is actually feeling real pain.

  The party window shows that she is down to twenty percent health, a flashing icon of a flame next to her status. Panicking, I look down at her. A small fire is on her back, not burning through her clothes but still burning.

  I try to pat the flame out, but it only ends up hurting me as it refuses to go out.

  ‘Not good, her health is dropping even further!’

  I can’t let her die! Jumping out of the crevice, I quickly remove all the herbs I have from my inventory and start rapidly creating terrible healing potions. Pouring the contents into her mouth, her health climbs slightly but the fire does not seem to want to go out.

  All around me the tunnel is scorched and various flames litter the ground. There is no fuel to keep them going but they seem to continue burning regardless. This must be the same fire that the uncle mentioned burned for six days.

  She must have gotten hit by a few wisps of flames entering the slit in the wall! She is currently lying down in some kind of fever.

  “Lost! Are you okay?? I saw your and Fen’s health drop a lot! What’s going on?”

  Verde’s frantic voice enters my head.

  “Verde! It’s not good, Fen was touched by the dragon’s fire and now she’s dying!!”

  “W-What?? I can see the burning icon in the party window! Do you have anything to heal burns?”

  “No, I don’t! I don’t know what to- hang on! I think I know what to do!

  “What are you going to do??”

  I don’t reply to her, I have a strange idea that may work. Throwing a ‘Fire Flower’ and a ‘Green Medicinal Herb’ into the mortar and pestle I grind them together, thinking about how I once created the paralysis cure by doing so.

  Scraping the paste into a vial of water, a window appears in front of me.

  You have discovered a new potion!

  The recipe will be saved in your recipes menu.

  Burn Remedy

  An intermediate potion created with above average ingredients.

  It is capable of curing any burns, restoring tissue from the inside out. However, the potion takes some time to come into effect.

  Requirements:

  - Level 28

  Item Type: Potion

  Burn Recovery: Moderate

  Recovery Time: 10 minutes

  Weight: 0.1 lbs

  Success!


  The liquid is a mild orange, possibly the best looking potion I have ever made!

  Pouring it into Fen’s mouth, the sweating on her face lessens and her pain also seems to subside.

  I keep feeding Fen health potions, keeping her alive as the flame burns on her back. Over the ten minutes, the fire gradually shrinks until it is completely extinguished.

  Colour returns to her face as she finally recovers her strength. Looking at me with teary eyes, she speaks.

  “If you… Leave… I will be… Lonely… Again.”

  It is true that in my despair, I had considered throwing virtual reality away, forcing myself to wake from the dream that it had been. However, she could not have possibly known that. Could she?

  “I got it,” Even if she can’t see it. I give her a smile that I had forgotten I had. I need to work harder, I need to be able to make more money. If a top class item only sells for a hundred dollars, then I need to get even more of them. There is no more halfway, I must go all the way.

  “Verde, we need to find an exit to this dungeon. Is there any stairs or anything where you are? I suspect we entered through the back door to the dungeon and encountered the final boss.”

  “What’s up? you sound different than normal. Oh, there is only dead ends here, no kind of stairs leading down. There is also no monsters, it is strange.”

  “It is quite strange, there are also no monsters over here. I will follow this path and see what I can find.”

  “Yes, but how are we going to meet up, we will have to pass the dragon again.”

  “Don’t worry. We will definitely do it! No matter what!”

  “Oh, umm, if you say so I will trust you…”

  There is no question about it, we must do this. Failure is not an option anymore.

  I offer a hand and help Fen to her feet, but before we head off. I position a karate chop on top of her head, making a nice sound as it connected. Am I being mean to her or is this actually me being nice, I’m not entirely sure anymore.

  “Don’t do that again!”

  I command her to not act rashly anymore, and she slowly nods her head.

  Walking deeper into the tunnel we search for another exit.

  The pathways are well lit now thanks to the flames that refuse to go out. Not even Fen’s ice could extinguish them.

  I see numerous veins of ore in the wall, but after taking down half the durability of my pick in an attempt of harvesting one, I simply gave up on them. Clearly neither my ‘Mining’ nor my pick were high enough levelled for this ore. Well, I do have a beginners iron pick, and my ‘Mining’ skill is still at level one after all.

  Occasionally, a wall of flames blocks our path completely. When it comes to the unavoidable ones, I pour a ‘Burn Remedy’ onto the location and wait ten minutes for the flames to disappear.

  This tunnel is incredibly eerie, the only noise is created by the small fires as they crackle and throw shadows across the walls. Even if it is a red glow, it is pleasant to have some kind of light eradicate the bleak grey scale environment I had been walking through previously.

  The tunnel is incredibly linear. There has not been even a single fork in the path.

  Before long Fen and I reach the end of the tunnel. In front of us a burning room is lit up, fire raging wherever the eye looks.

  However, the most interesting thing is the items littered throughout the room. Metals, gold, scorched black ceramics. It is a treasure horde, albeit the fact everything is melted.

  It appears that the dragons fire reached the deepest depths of the tunnel and with nowhere else to go incinerated the entire room. I can see large piles of melted gold and steel. Some dust from gems is also scattered about.

  The dragon is going to be furious when it sees what it has done to this room. All the weapons are destroyed, and all the valuables are either cracked or completely incinerated, leaving scorch marks where they used to be.

  I cry a little at seeing all the melted gold, the coins that they surely used to be must have amounted to an enormous sum. The piles of solid gold that are left over still had value, but they are too large to be carried out. Everything of any value has been completely destroyed.

  I walk into the room and weave around the flames to inspect all the goods, for a dragons treasure I had definitely expected a lot more, but the walls seem to be dug out relatively recently so perhaps it is only one of many stashes.

  A red light shines in the corner of my eye from inside of the flames. Panicking that I may have been spotted by an enemy, I jump back and nearly land in one of the infernos.

  Fen also becomes alert at my sudden movement, searching for any enemies.

  Noticing that whatever caught my eye hasn’t moved, I cautiously approach where it was. I spot a small red stone, about the size of my fist, inside the fire. Throwing a ‘Burn Remedy’ over the fire I patiently wait for it to stop while looking at the object inside of it.

  The stone is in the shape of a perfectly smooth orb. It also reflects the lights thrown around by the flames, which is what I must have seen at first. The object appears to be completely solid, but somehow deep inside it, there appears to be a small red light glowing.

  Soon enough the fire goes out and the orb is directly in front of me. Slowly reaching out, I touch it with one of my fingers. It is strange, for something that was sitting in the fire for quite some time, it is completely stone cold.

  Placing my hand around it I go to pick it up and inspect it.

  ‘Heavy!’

  The object weighs a massive amount, so much that I nearly dropped it as soon as picking it up.

  ??

  Requirements:

  ??

  Item Type: ??

  Weight: 135lbs

  For some reason I cannot identify a single thing about this object. The border around the object may be white, but I sincerely doubt it is some ordinary item.

  “Lost, we have finished exploring our area. There are no monsters, no stairs, and no exits. We did find a bunch of empty rooms however.”

  “Strange, I found a room full of treasure. Unfortunately it is all destroyed already though.”

  Now that I think about it. The dragon is massive so why would all its treasure be in a room it can’t possibly get to.

  Wait, if it can’t get to it, then how did it put all the treasure here?

  “… We should… Leave…”

  “You have a fair point. If another fire breath comes down, we are both dead.”

  Placing the orb in my inventory, I briskly walk out of the treasure room with Fen right behind me.

  “Verde, we are leaving now. But I don’t know how we are going to get past the dragon.”

  “Ah, do you think we could possibly run past it again?”

  “Not without it chasing me to the end of the earth.”

  “Huh, what?”

  “It’s a joke. I can joke you know.”

  Maybe it would have been better if I had laughed while saying it. Oh well, too late now.

  The trip back to the main grotto where the dragon is seems to take hours, but that is due to my fear of how powerful it is. Soon the dim red lights from the flames are overpowered by natural light.

  Creeping closer to it, careful not to notify the dragon, I try to get a good look at the big black mass.

  Except, it was not there!

  Moving faster, I arrive at the exit to the tunnel I am in. I poke my head up at the sky shining through the open ceiling. The sky is red from the setting sun, yet there is no sign of the dragon.

  “Verde! Quick! The dragon seems to be gone for now, this is our chance to escape!”

  “What!? We will be there shortly, don’t leave without us!”

  “I will wait for you at the exit!”

  “Okay!”

  I don’t know why we are shouting at each other, but it is crucial we get out while we can.

  I sprint over to the exit tunnel, not willing to stay out in the open any longer than necessary. Verde
and Prince Charming catch up while I wait at the exit.

  “Sorry for being late, we were quite far in the tunnel.” Verde looks exhausted, but that may be partially due to hunger. I know my current satiety levels are rather low.

  “It’s fine, but we need to get out of this mountain range as soon as possible. The downhill should be much easier that going uphill.”

  “Well,” the prince finally speaks, “Let us be gone from this place. Now that the dragon has fled, we no longer have a reason to be here.”

  I sigh inwardly. This guy appears to be back to normal.

  Taking the front, I lead everyone out, sharing some small talk.

  “Now that I think of it, I don’t think that was a dungeon.”

  “What?” Verde seems puzzled, “What do you mean?”

  “No monsters, a great big dragon at the start. Isn’t it just like a dragon’s lair like the ones told in all the fantasy books?”

  She lets out a giggle at hearing my thoughts.

  “I think that may just be it.”

  Thanks to it being a game, we all just assumed it was another dungeon, but it appears that that may not be the case. It is simply the dragon Grael’s lair, a place other monsters didn’t dare enter.

  With me at the lead we quickly leave the mountain range, constantly checking behind us in case any more monsters find us.

  All of a sudden, a notification appears in front of me.

  Quest: Rescue the citizens of Leaz

  A group of people have freed the villagers and successfully returned them to Leaz.

  Due to your lack of contribution, you will receive no rewards.

  If you return to Rouze he will be grateful that you had done your best to help.

  We failed. But I had promised myself in the dragon’s lair that I would do better, one set back is not enough to bring me down!

  “Come on guys, let’s go back to Leaz!”

  Like a declaration of war, I march onwards

  ***************************************************

  ***************************************************

  -Grael-

  I flew over from a continent further East in the ocean. It was just simply far too boring over there. There was nobody that could challenge him, even the mightiest of the dragons feared my power.