NPC Code: Red Riding Hood

After our exchange with the elves, Elina, and Eve, Ryoshi and I went outside the cavern and headed towards the Dwarven Village. Thanks to our system, we had our own map that paved the roads and guided us to our destination.

But during that trip, Ryoshi cannot zip his mouth from spouting nonsense. It almost made my mind explode before we could even arrive at the dwarven village or even the nearby town.

"Are we there yet?"

"No, Ryoshi. We just started."

"How many more steps do we need to take before reaching that place!" Ryoshi grunted.

"We get there if we get there, okay? Okay. Now, keep your eyes on the road, and shut the hell up, Ryoshi." I cursed.

"Judging by the distance around fifty miles, we would need approximately one hundred five thousand six hundred steps before reaching the dwarven village, and fifty-two thousand eight hundred steps to reach the nearby village. Although I am not aware how many steps we took, I could say that we are halfway there to our destination…," Ryoshi said, mumbling to himself.

Ryoshi had a habit of murmuring everything he does. He was always like this every time we played various games. Sometimes I regret inviting him over to play, considering his intelligence ruining the fun of the game.

"For the nth time, Mr. smart pants. Please shut the fuck up! I\'m trying to concentrate here," I yelled, hoping for Ryoshi to close his mouth.

"For what?"

"There might be soldiers roaming around our vicinity. Knowing Robin, he would order a search unit for the NPCs and us. We need to peel our eyes open and watch out for any movements from behind."

"Gotcha."

We continued walking in the charted area and followed our maps on the right side of our screen. Our map did not have any markers that can search for enemies or friends in our environment. Scouts and other unique players only have those features. Since I was an assassin, the game did not give me that ability.

The sea of trees welcomed our eyes as we trod forward. We saw nothing but these towering plants nearly obstructing the light with their leaves. The two of us also heard birds chirping in the distance and some boars roaming around the vicinity.

Looking on the ground, Ryoshi and I noticed some footprints of two individuals. My best friend inspected these imprints and analyzed them.

"So, what do you think? Did these footmarks belong to Red and her companion?" I believe Red\'s comrade had a name called Match. That name came vaguely familiar in my memories on Earth. It came from something in a fairy tale.

I could not quite remember the story of Match, since that plot was not that popular in Japan. It was more popular on the Western side of the map.

"No doubt about it, Okami. This trail belongs to them. If it weren\'t, I could only guess that these belong to the soldiers who are already up ahead or the villagers travelling to their village."

As I slid my orbs to the side, more tracks led to elsewhere. Those footmarks had wider areas that sank to the ground. We could only guess that these belonged to the soldiers, since they wore boots and protective footwear for their feet. That equipment gave off that feeling.

Just as the two of us engrossed ourselves with the footprints on the ground, a rumbling sound caught my attention. I snatched Ryoshi away and hid behind the bushes. It was the safest that I could think of, considering the camouflaging features of the shrub.

"Shh… be quiet," I told Ryoshi and covered his mouth.

He tried squirming for help, struggling to breathe from my hand. But as soon as Ryoshi saw the foot soldiers armed with rifles and hand grenades, he finally stopped moving.

It was as I had expected. These soldiers knew we would escape from that hole and headed towards this path. But since these players did not know the location of the dark elves\' hideout, they had no choice but to continue searching for the NPCs up ahead.

I released Ryoshi from my grip and let him breathe for a while. The two of us needed to plan to take these people out before the situation became grim. And one way to deal with them was using the element of surprise.

"I can use my [wolf walk] and get close to those soldiers. In the meantime, I need you to shoot your arrows at that guy holding an AK-47 rifle."

"Hmm… it does look like an AK-47… or maybe not. It looks more like an AKM or RPK…"

"Will you shut up with those irrelevant statements, Ryoshi?! You\'re not helping!" I exclaimed.

Like a bird drenched by the rain, Ryoshi lowered his head and expressed his apologies to me. Now that I placed that out of the way, it was our time to deal with these soldiers.

There were eleven of the soldiers heading in our way, and there were probably more of them ahead of us. Besides the footprints of Red and Match, there were others out there that did not belong to them. Those soldiers must have gone up ahead, patrolling the area to hunt more NPCs before we could arrive in those places.

"We need to take them out before the rest of their backup arrives. Are you ready?"

"But what if I fail? I\'m still new to this game… I even killed a girl when I wanted to help them… I don\'t want to make the same mistake I did before…," Ryoshi expressed, while curving his mouth downwards.

I placed my hand on his shoulders, hoping that it would cheer him up. "You know, when I first played this game, I killed a lot of NPCs with my hands. As long as you do well right now, all those things you did in the past will get buried in no time."

"Do you think that would happen?"

"I don\'t just think about it, Ryoshi. I know it will happen."

Ryoshi gave me a nod as we both stared at the soldiers in front of us, waltzing through the forest.

Each of them had pocket-sized radios to communicate with their parties, besides the system they used to chat with other players. The downside of these chat boxes was the usage of their keyboards. It takes a lot of time to type the words you want to send to players. And it did not have any means for calling other players in a party, unlike the walkie-talkie clipped in their hands.

"We need to take out three of the guys first and destroy those hand-held devices," Ryoshi suggested.

It was time for us to make our move.

I used my [wolf walk] and went past the trees. Despite my swift movements, my body did not make a sound as I zoomed through the branches. Upon closing the distance, I dashed straight towards the out of positioned guy and grabbed him by the neck.

Although I refused to kill humans, I had no choice but to take these soldiers away before getting through to us. This world changed me into an emotionless warrior that yearned to live. And besides, the world was still a game for me… I just hope that my mind accepts that the people I killed would return to Earth and… pranked me and tell me they were still alive.

I brushed off those thoughts and carried on with our plan. After neutralising the one with the walkie-talkie, we still needed to take care of two of them from behind unnoticed.

Ryoshi did what he could and stared at his sweaty hands. He was shivering for a while before discharging the arrow, strummed by his string, hitting the soldier\'s head in one shot. However, the thumping sound of the corpse crashing on the ground alerted the nearby soldiers.

The soldier with the pocket device dialled the numbers. But I did not let him do as he pleased. I moved my body with extreme speed and knocked out the soldier holding the device and destroyed it, together with the rest of the gadgets from behind.

"Now that you lost contact with your base, I believe we got you trapped inside this forest," I said, trying to act almighty and cool in front of these soldiers.

Even with this smurf character, I can still show them my moves as Fenrir, my main account.

"We\'re not trapped with you… you\'re trapped with us!" the soldier remarked, and fired their bullets in our direction.

Even Ryoshi, who hid behind the trees, got spotted by these soldiers from miles away. He tried forcing himself out of the trees but got entangled by the creeping plants. I, who was still on the low ground, could do nothing to help him.

"RYOSHI!"

If people die here inside the game, they will die in the actual world too. And right now, my best friend was about to get hit by that damned bullet… if it weren\'t for a kid standing in front of him.