After cashing in his points, Kael didn't log off immediately. Instead, he headed to the eastern forest of Starlight Village to find Isilwen.
"Lady Isilwen, The WarChief's forces at Village 9139 have been completely wiped out. You can plant the World Tree whenever you're ready."
Her eyes lit up. "Lord Dawnbreaker, a man of his word. I'll head over tonight."
Finally getting his own World Tree made Kael even more eager. "Is there anything else you need from me to prepare?"
Isilwen, clearly expecting the question, handed him a piece of parchment. "Everything I need is listed right here."
Kael blanched at the dozens of items crammed onto the page. Was the system throwing a last-minute curveball at him? He scanned the list: lavender, sunbloom, mugwort... A massive pile of herbs, but none of them were rare or expensive.
Confused, he looked up. "What is all this for?"
Isilwen's pointed ears twitched, a sly grin forming on her face. "Room decorations. I refuse to let my new home look as dreary as this one." She stuck her tongue out playfully.
Kael let out a breath. Just a prank. He tucked the list away to hand off to Isolde later.
"But there is one real favor I need," Isilwen said, her tone shifting to business. "The World Tree needs a massive amount of essence to grow. With Village 9139 reduced to rubble, I doubt any adventurers will venture out there to hunt..."
Kael nodded. "Easy enough. I'll set up a temporary teleport nexus to route traffic there."
Isilwen offered a slight bow. "I leave it in your capable hands, Lord Dawnbreaker."
Kael returned the gesture. "I'm the one who should be thanking you."
Bidding her farewell, he headed back into town to find Isolde.
Isolde was in her office, grinning like an idiot. The smile didn't fade even when Kael walked in. He pinched her cheek. "What's got you in such a good mood?"
Unfazed by the pinch, she kept beaming. "You actually did something right for once, Kael. The resources we looted from Village 9139 cover an entire month's worth of town taxes!"
Kael flicked her forehead. "Think bigger."
"Ow!" Isolde rubbed her head, glaring at him. "Jerk! What do you want?"
"Here." Kael dropped the parchment on her desk.
"What's this?" Isolde asked, eyeing the list suspiciously.
"Gather that stuff and give it to Isilwen. Then, go out to the ruins of 9139 and build a teleport nexus."
"A teleport nexus? Do you know how much gold that costs?!"
"We just looted a mountain of resources from them. Put it to use."
Isolde huffed. "Fine. Anything else?"
"Once Isilwen shows up at the ruins, issue a town-wide alert for players to head over for quests."
"What quests?"
"No idea. Just get them over there."
"Got it."
Orders given, Kael logged out. Isolde immediately got to work, slipping out of the office right after him.
Kael didn't log back into the game that night. He had planned to take Lila and Hazel out to the mall, but Lila shot the idea down. She needed to grind souls to unseal her Warlord's Crimson Armor. With Lila out, Hazel bailed too, opting to tag along on her dungeon runs. That left Kael alone, wandering the riverside boardwalk in the evening breeze.
Meanwhile, in a clandestine underground laboratory far from the city center, Lucien Mordant slammed a report onto a desk, screaming at his staff.
"Useless! You're all useless!" he roared. "The data is right there! How can you not crack it?! Twenty years! I gave you twenty years! The cryptographers have nothing, and the research teams have completely failed!"
The lead researcher stood before him, head bowed. He waited for Lucien's rage to subside before carefully responding.
"Sir, Dr. Becky's breakthroughs were simply unprecedented. She reached a frontier that no one else has even approached. Global scientific communities are still struggling to comprehend her published papers from decades ago."
The researcher tapped a tablet. "As for the encryption... our analysis shows the key is a sequence buried within a combination space of ten to the sixty-fourth power. Without the exact cypher, brute-forcing it would take until the heat death of the universe. However, based on our years of attempted decryption, we hypothesize the password is a deep human genetic sequence—something far beyond the current understanding of modern medicine."
Lucien scowled. Twenty years ago, he had acquired all of Dr. Becky's research, only to hit an impenetrable encrypted wall. For two decades, he had funded teams to crack the code while simultaneously trying to replicate her old experiments. Both efforts had yielded absolutely nothing.
Sighing heavily, he slumped back into his leather chair. He picked up a framed, yellowing newspaper clipping from twenty years ago.
“Recently, a mysterious beast appeared in New Avalon, possessing terrifying destructive capabilities. Within half a day, half the metropolitan sector was reduced to rubble. The government deployed a military force of 5,000, finally subduing the entity with classified heavy ordnance. Casualties stand at 348 dead and 1,023 injured. Curiously, a local citizen claimed the colossal beast bore a striking resemblance to his lost pet cat…”
Lucien set the clipping down and pinched the bridge of his nose, a wave of exhaustion washing over him. The foreign backers were breathing down his neck. His time was running out.
The next morning, Kael logged back in, fully refreshed. The moment he materialized, greetings flooded in.
"Morning, Mayor."
"Good morning, Sir Dawnbreaker!"
He offered polite nods to the passing players. Glancing around, he noticed the town's atmosphere felt different today. The central teleport nexus was practically a strobe light, flashing non-stop. The nexus was usually busy, but players typically arrived and dispersed into the streets. Today, players were arriving and immediately interacting with the nexus to warp out again. They were treating Starlight Town as a transit hub.
Transit? Realizing what must be happening, Kael stepped up to the nexus and pulled up the interface. Sure enough, a new destination had been added to the directory: [Lost Grom'kar Outpost - East].
It wasn't what he expected. He thought Isolde would place the nexus inside the forest, but it was positioned just outside it.
"Teleport."
The world blurred and reformed. Kael instantly froze.
He was trapped in a suffocating sea of players. He couldn't move an inch. Worse, this wasn't a safe zone; player collision was fully active. If you were blocked here, you were genuinely stuck.
The last time he had felt this claustrophobic was during the double-bounty hunt for Cole. A massive mob had surrounded his target, forcing Kael into a bloody massacre that kickstarted his endless journey as a red-named PKer.
Was history about to repeat itself?
Narrowing his eyes, Kael slowly reached over his shoulder, his fingers brushing the grip of Galeharrow...