Epoch: A Berserker's Rise

Chapter 21: Geppo Pass

Once King Slayer's golden tongue successfully brought Adam in, the two added each other as friends and separated. Then, Adam went to talk to the members of [Night Wolves] and [Dragon Temple]. As expected, the two extended invitations to him, but he refused them politely, although he did add Arin and 69420 as friends.

It was a little hard for him to refuse their invitation, but King Slayer was right, what was he expecting. Even the richest guild wouldn't give him 100 000 dollars in the first month of the game.

After talking to them, Adam readied himself to depart for Ember city, the capital of the Azure Sky Kingdom, when he saw the surrounding players disconnect in groups. In less than a minute more than a third of the players had left.

Adam was curious about why they did that until his felt it too. Opening the options, he saw that it was already noon. Adam hesitated a little, should he go eat or first go to Ember city?

A moment later he disconnected himself. He had 24 hours, or 12 hours in the real world to finish his quest, meaning the game expected players to enter the palace in 24 hours without having a pass like Adam's, so he figured he would be fine. Although he had the nutriments in his cabin, it was still better to fight with a filled stomach rather than an empty one.

As Adam disconnected from the game, he consciousness came back to his real body. The cabin was already opening itself as Adam opened his eyes. Adam took off the various captors he had to put on his head before sitting up.

Adam thought about the last 2 hours, or rather the last hour in the real world, he never thought he would go through so many things in barely a couple of hours. He now understood why so many people were obsessed with video games, it was even better than a second life for many.

Adam felt like he had gone though more excitement in those two hours than in his entire life. The feeling of battling monsters was just divine.

The young man got out of the cabin with a smile on his lips, and stretched a little before heading out of his room. It was currently the middle of the week, so his parents were both working, so no one was home as his brother was at the hospital.

Once in the kitchen, Adam began cooking himself some spaghetti meatballs while browsing the internet on his phone. Unfortunately, with the time dilation in game, streaming had become impossible, and even if it were not many would do it to protect their secrets.

However, that did not stop people from making videos. And currently, the trending ones were all about Rosewatch, and Valiant Heart.

That made Adam smile, the more attention was drawn to him, the better. Even if his goal wasn't the same anymore, fame was still a useful tool to him.

Once he finished eating, Adam went for some exercise before diving back into the game. He appeared in the same spot he left, except that now there were way less people in the village. Looking around, Adam noticed that the average level hadn't changed, after all he was only gone for an hour in game.

Adam didn't waste any time, he opened his map, and saw that his map wasn't limited to the village anymore. His map had enlarged to show the entire kingdom, and it was huge!

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In comparison to the map of Rosewatch and its surroundings, the kingdom was hundreds of times bigger, if not more!

Moreover, that wasn't even the biggest map, there was even the world map! However, as Adam tried to look at it, all he saw was a clouded map with a tiny rocky area, which was the Azure Sky Kingdom.

If he wanted to remove the clouds from his map then he would either need to discover personally those areas, or get a map from the game. The thing was, as the map featured an entire world, maps were very expensive.

Adam went back to the kingdom's map, and searched for the capital. Thankfully, it wasn't far from Rosewatch. Actually, it was the closest city, like Frank said.

Between Rosewatch and Ember, there was only one map, a level 10-15 map. It looked like most players wouldn't get to leave the village as soon as they get level 10. After all, for most people fighting monsters above their levels was too hard.

Anyway, Adam closed his map and set off. Adam had to walked for 20 minutes before he reached the new area.

[Geppo Pass]

As he entered this new area, all Adam could see was a mountain. It was that tall, but it was very large and extended on a great area.

The tricky thing was, it was impossible to get on the mountain, there was only one path, and that was the dark tunnel going through the mountain. It looked quite long as every ten or so meters was a torch, and he couldn't see the end.

Despite the torches, the tunnel was very dark, and looked quite scary. Even if there weren't any monsters in the mountain, there would probably be some players who wouldn't dare enter here and would rather go around the mountain and take more time.

But Adam wasn't one such player, and so he entered the dark tunnel leisurely. Even though the atmosphere was ominous, Adam couldn't see any danger.

The path in the tunnel wasn't just a straight line through the mountain though, Adam had to take many turns before meeting the first living being. It wasn't a monster though, but astonishingly a soldier sitting below a torch.

[Geppo Pass Guardian] (Level 15, Iron)

HP: 1200/1200

The soldier looked at Adam with a bored face and said "What are you doing here? Don't you know it's dangerous in here?"

Adam looked at the NPC surprised and said "I want to reach the capital, I come from Rosewatch Is it really dangerous? I haven't met a single monster yet."

The NPC raised an eyebrow and asked "Not a single one?" Adam shook his head and the NPC suddenly got up and approached Adam, looking at him up and down before saying "Follow me."

Without even waiting for his answer the guardian turned around and began walking away. Adam decided to follow him but still asked "What are you doing here, sitting under a torch? And are you the only one protecting this pass?"

The soldier shrugged and said "It wasn't really by choice, I was chased by the monsters here." Adam asked "What kind of monsters?"

The soldier turned around, and for the first time he had a scary gaze as he replied "The kind of monsters that wipe out an entire unit."

Adam was stunned by the sudden change of the NPC, but the latter didn't care and continued walking. Adam asked "Then why are we going there? Do you want to die?"

The NPC replied "You said you didn't see a single monster, so now is the best moment to try to get through this tunnel. If we are lucky we won't encounter any monster, or maybe we will stumble upon the ones who killed my unit who knows these days."

Adam felt this NPC was very weird, and for several reasons. "You seem quite indifferent to the death of your unit."

The NPC said "Well, there is a reason for that, but I don't think you want to know why. A great adventurer like you don't care about those stories"

Adam smiled and said "Of course I am interested, tell me. Or should I ask one of your friends around?"

As he said that, the NPC in front of him made a weird sound, a strange cackle that didn't sound human at all. However, he was cut short when Adam slammed his sword on his legs, making it trip.

-356 HP! Cripple!

As its legs was broken, Adam had the time to strike to more times, both times aiming for the neck.

Critical Hit! -712 HP!

Critical Hit! -712 HP!

The NPC's health bar was emptied out and as it did he shrieked loudly, its body trembling and his bones and muscles shifting around.

At the same time, the presences Adam had felt surrounding them all jumped toward him at the same time, revealing seven big lizards. With a quick look, Adam saw that the NPC he had killed had transformed into one of those lizards, except that its head wasn't on its body anymore. Along with the physical transformation, its status changed too.

[Geppo Lizard] (Common, Level 15)

HP: 0/1080