RETURN OF THE SHADOW - Chapter 164

Merlin had been waiting to buy a shop for using it as the rally point for his team in the city for quite some time now. With the reputation, he got from the recent first clear, he had cleared the amount required to be a second-class citizen.

He had long since put back the matter of buying a shop, but with the recent investment and the sale of the items he had got from the dungeon, he managed to rent a shop and decided to use it both as the adventurer teams quarters in the city before he gets the chance to buy a better one. He could only buy a residential complex after he became a first-class citizen. He had the recruitment venue shift to the new place.

“How is it going?” asked Shadow as soon as he reached her. She was sitting at a temporary counter setup in the shop with a small queue of players before her, and another player beside her taking interviews along with her. He seemed to be a new addition and apparently being held in high esteem as he was also interview players like Blinding White. The both of them were checking the players skills, attributes, contact details and other stuff for admittance into the group. Though most players joined such teams through friendsh.i.p.s, the starting members usually are recruited in this fashion.

“Hi,” said Blinding White as she saw Shadow and Tetsujin approaching. Shadow had already had a disguise on as he didn’t want other players to disturb him, but she recognized him by his voice and Tetsujin had left a few minutes ago telling them that he was going to meet Shadow. The crowd was a bit unsettled as they approached Blinding White directly instead of joining in the queue.

“Who are these two guys?”

“Ya. The idiots are trying to chat up the girl and get in? Don’t they know of Mad Merlin?”

“Yeah. Like that would work.”

“Dude, the martial artist previously came out of the shop. They might be members,” said one of the players recognizing Tetsujin.

“So, who is the new guy?” asked Shadow as he looked at the new player beside Blinding White.

“That is Griff. He is Mob’s acquaintance, a berserker. They are considering him for the main team,” said Blinding White. “Get in. They are waiting for you. There are a few more players inside. Merlin is just making up the rules.”

“Oh! Is he any good?”

“Did they calm down yet?” asked Tetsujin.

“I got no idea, but they stopped shouting,” said Blinding.

The both of them went and found that Merlin was just discussing the dungeon which they had completed an hour ago. Dungeon guides and such methods are usually shared with each other in adventurer teams. This is so that there isn’t much disparity in levels among the players.

Usually adventurer teams don’t keep constantly recruiting players like guilds. They have a very little disparity in the levels of the different members so that that the strength of most players is in a similar range. So, basic dungeon guides and the like are shared openly.

“Ah! The guys I was waiting for,” said Merlin as he saw Tetsujin and him walk inside. Shadow immediately let go of his disguise as Merlin was probably going to introduce him.

“This guy is Shadow. He is also a part of this adventurer team. He is the reason for our partnership with Crimson Realm. He is one of the best assassin players. I guess you already have heard of him defeating someone,” said Merlin as he pulled Shadow beside him.

“You have made a guide, right? I got basic instructions but still don’t have directions to the mini-boss,” he whispered in Shadow’s ear.

“I made two guides. Change as you want and add any suggestion you like,” said Shadow as he mailed them to him.

“This guy is an excellent scout and we would have failed miserably if not for him leading the way,” said Merlin. After all, he had already heard from quite a few of his friends about the difficulty of travelling through the first floor of the dungeon.

The traps were enough to slowly grind down their health to zero, if they didn’t know the path, even if more than half of the team consisted of tanks. Until now, he could count the number of players who reached the boss in decent health before dying to the traps in the first floor.

He quickly introduced the other players that he had recruited into the adventurer team. Apparently, Blinding had sorted about 50 names, but Merlin only allowed 8 of them to be admitted into the guild.

Half of them were unknown to him in his previous life. He recognized a couple of them as they ended up forming their own guilds in his past life. They were called Thousand Miles and Smiling Moon. Though they were second-rate guilds at the end, he remembered them as they were players who managed to slowly bring up their guilds from the ground in this game.

“I need to get out early. How much time is this going to take,” he asked Merlin.

“Dude. You are the only one who is late,” said Merlin. “By the way, from next time, we shall teleport to the dungeon from a town. We didn’t even get reputation for a town and got only two announcements the last time,” said Merlin.

“Shit! How did I forget that?” thought Balthazar. In his hurry, he had forgot something very important and trivial. The reputation points received depends on the place which they represent as they enter the dungeon. Elite dungeon usually provided town, city and kingdom/empire reputation while hell mode dungeon provided city, kingdom/empire and race reputation. But, if they chose to represent themselves from a city in elite mode, they would fail to receive the town reputation.

This caused a lot of controversy and complaints were sent to the game, but they answered informing that this was intentional so that players could chose to attempt for specific town, city, kingdom or race reputation rather than the place and the race in which they were spawned initially in the game. It would also enable teams from different places to get an advantage. Since, they it was common for guilds to attempt new elite instances of dungeons from towns rather than cities except for some special cases.

“OK. Let us get to the Blackrock Town first before we teleport to the dungeon from there,” said Shadow.

Suddenly, Sultan shouted in happiness in the midst of the group. He was yelling in his mother tongue of Urdu in extreme glee before he realized that he was being looked at oddly by the others.

“Guys, I got great news from my brother,” said Sultan. “Oh! Wait. I can’t participate in the hell mode dungeon run. I got to go. Sorry, it is a family emergency.”

Both Merlin and Shadow who know the identity of Sultan were surprised. Something that could be construed an emergency for the Malik family is usually something that they wouldn’t let others know. But he seemed to be quite happy like it was some kind of celebration, so they both thought it must be some major event for him to have such a reaction.

“What happened? Do you need much time?” asked Merlin. He had got Sultan after a lot of deliberation and risked the anger of a super guild for him. So, he wanted to make sure that Sultan would be in the game for some time. Shadow also inquired the same.

“No. It is nothing bad. It is actually great news for our family,” said Sultan.

“You would also get the information soon, but don’t spread it out. You know that explosion of military base and the ape attack that made us aware of other types of apes. It is said that the Nirbaadh Pirates were involved in that,” said Sultan. Merlin was calm and didn’t have much of a response to this as he wasn’t much concerned of it, but Balthazar was extremely surprised as this information was meant to be kept secret.

“How the hell did he know?” thought Balthazar. “Did the price family leak it out to the Malik family due to political pressure. Even if it did, is Sultan in a position of authority in his family to have the clearance to know it?”

A bunch of doubts sprang up in Balthazar’s mind as he heard Sultan tell about the Nirbaadh pirates. He went on explaining how these thugs had killed a couple of his uncles and then, he told about the event that happened a couple of hours ago which would be released to the world soon.

“Apparently, the joint military operation had their entire ship surrounded. The main culprit who was responsible for my uncles’ deaths, Asuragana Shouryaprasad was killed and his body found. It is one of the greatest achievements of the military. These thugs have evaded the military for a few decades,” said Sultan.

“Wow! Congratulations,” said Merlin. It was clear to him that this would be an event of celebration for the Malik family and Sultan as the culprits behind the deaths of his uncles were brought to justice.

“Did they manage to completely route them up?” asked Shadow from the side surprising them both. Balthazar had immediately realized that this was the event that had put the members of his family into action. So, he intended to get more information about it as his family was refusing him that.

“Huh! No. Some of them escaped, but that was apparently 10% or much lower. Only the youngest member of the Asuragana family survived apparently. The rest were all captured or killed. Even the legendary ship, the Unhindered was blown up from within and is in tatters,” continued Sultan.

“I need to go too. I have to check some things,” said Shadow. Merlin and Sultan already had their doubts that Shadow was a member of armed forces of the military or worked for the Blyth family. So, they didn’t ask much.

“Merlin, you have the entire guide for the dungeon and you honestly don’t need me. You can replace us with Crimson Power and Slain, if you want to go for first clear of hell mode. Here, this is another one of the gold weapons,” said Shadow exchanging the other piece of connective twin swords that he had with Merlin.

“I am suggesting them as they have unique weapons and it is best to go prepared,” said Shadow.

“Ya. Let that guy, Crimson Power use the weapon for now. It will be useful to clear hell mode. I might also take some time to return,” said Sultan. His brother had already asked him to get ready in his family’s tradition wear as a family meeting and party was announced to be held shortly.

“Yes. I might also not be back for the rest of the day,” said Shadow as he logged out of the game. He quickly selected to stop using the somnium tech and was awake in the ship.

“The Nirbaadh Pirates were attacked by the alliance?” he asked looking at Lucius and Richard who were eating some crackers as they were enjoying a movie. “Is Walter really safe?”

“You heard something from a friend?” asked Lucius. Lucius was already told by Winston about Walter’s condition and that he was after the remaining members of the pirates and Godspeed family’s return. So, he also expected that the military would be informed at least of a cover up story of the attack. Balthazar was a military colonel and was sure to have connections. So, he had already been prepared to calm him down, once he came to know of it.

“I heard of the attack. The Malik family is already celebrating the death of the pirate captain and Asuragan ShouryaPrasad,” said Balthazar.

“That’s right. I have already told you before. Walter is safe. There seems to have been an incident with the Nirbaadh Pirates and due to some unexpected situation, those guys were killed, but we are still after the a few remaining pirates who would have information about the knights. Now, you know all that I do,” said Lucius making up a story based on what Balthazar told him while keeping mum about the information of the Godspeed family. He was already informed that both Balthazar and Robert were heirs of the Godspeed family and was forbidden to inform them of it by Arthur.

“Nothing else?” asked Balthazar.

“Nothing more. There might be some things that I don’t know, but those are being kept a secret for a reason. Even your grandfather doesn’t know,” said Richard. “I hope you will keep mum about this and not let Robert know of it.”

“Huh! Why?”

“He would also be concerned for Walter, once he comes to know of it. He wouldn’t be able to concentrate on his trial. You understand the importance of that. Don’t you?” asked Richard.

“Just keep quiet, until the end of the trial. We will inform you ourselves after that. We are also not allowing any communication of this development from being displayed in any medium in the ship,” said Lucius.

“You forgot about the somnium tech. He could check on the news through it,” said Balthazar.

“The boy is fixed on practicing fights in the new software provided by Elias. He isn’t even interested in that game, right now. He is completely engrossed in it and I doubt that he would get out of the simulation especially with the trial right ahead,” said Richard.

“If he goes ahead to check on new or the game through the site, we can just hope that he somehow misses the new about Walter,” said Lucius.

“Ya. That is out of our hands,” agreed Balthazar as he sat down beside Lucius.

“Can you tell me at least one thing? It is clear that the military were not actually involved in the attack on the Nirbaadh pirates. Walter went with a small team and I doubt even he would be able to kill such a large number of pirates. It requires a large force. So, who helped us?” asked Balthazar.

“No clue,” said Lucius amazed by the manner in which Balthazar had guessed that someone else were involved in the attack.

“You wouldn’t tell me even if you knew, right?”

Lucius just responded with a smile and continued to watch the movie being played on the screen in front of him.

“Are Asuragana ShouryaPrasad and RanaPratap really dead?” asked Balthazar.

“That is one of the few things that we have confirmed with certainty.”

“It isn’t the knights. Else the results would have been completely opposite. We certainly weren’t expecting their interference. They were also not related to Price or anyone in cooperation with us. If it was, Walter wouldn’t have allowed the death of the captain and Asuragana ShouryaPrasad,” said Balthazar thinking about it.

“He is really dead, right?” Balthazar asked Lucius again as he thought about the situation and realized that Walter would never allow them to die. He would have captured them alive as that was the main reason he had risked his life to tail them closely.

“Yes. Walter himself confirmed it,” said Lucius. “I don’t know much about the other things, but the deaths are real. Else, the talk wouldn’t have reached the military. If you managed to know it, the Maliks and Khans would also have learned about it and they would ask for the bodies as proof.”

“Can’t deny that,” said Balthazar. He had known of the issue due to the Maliks. So, he realized that there is a high chance that those two were actually dead or captured and would be dead by the time they asked the alliance military for proof.

“I actually know that the Maliks are already celebrating their death,” continued Balthazar.