Monster Soul Online Chapter 8

Chapter 8: A Bet in a Restaurant
 
After walking out for a moment, Sila then just realized that he had forgotten to state his name out. Needless to say, as time had passed, he didn't want to go back and tell the crowd his name, since that would be lame.
 
Sila decided to leave thing like this. There would be another chance later.
 
He was more interested in system sound in his System Log.
 
Player Sila has defeated Player Blood Face, Squire Rank, Level 165. Player has received 8,000 experience points. The defeated player is Wanted Player, so Player Sila can claim your reward at Bounty Hunter Association later.
 
Player Sila has defeated Player Soul Slayer, Squire Rank, Level 141. Player has received 7,000 experience points. The defeated player is Wanted Player, so Player Sila can claim your reward at Bounty Hunter Association later.
 
Player Sila has defeated Player Cruel Executioner, Squire Rank, Level 150. Player has received 7,500 experience points. The defeated player is Wanted Player, so Player Sila can claim your reward at Bounty Hunter Association later.
 
Level of Player Sila has been risen to 18.
 
Sila wasn't astonished by the fact that he'd got experience points. Since he'd known from Lucy that, in this game, players were like monsters; they could be killed for experience point, although they wouldn't drop money or items (except for dying by some special abilities.)
 
In Monster Soul, there was no such thing as chaotic status or penalty for killing another player, so people could freely kill others. However, system had a service for player to put other's name into bounty hunter's list, with the fee amounted to 10% of the bounty. To put it simply, your name can be on a bounty hunter's list even if you did nothing wrong but just being hated by someone, whereas even the most evil player's name might be not on the list if no one dare to do so. Anyway, if you stayed online actively for one month in-game time while on a bounty hunter's list, the bounty on you would gone, and you would receive 50% of your bounty yourself, while the rest would be transferred to game system. Then, if your enemy still bared hatred toward you, he would have to submit your name again.
 
The thing that made Sila surprised was rather a noticeable low amount of experience points he got. Normally, if players killed creature that had higher level than them, they would receive a bonus experience point. But even with that bonus, the experience points Sila had received was very low due to penalty from Greed Card.
 
Sila went straight to a restaurant. The restaurant in Beginning Town was decorated in Chinese style. The chairs and tables were all made of wood. The restaurant was crowd with people. But it didn't take too long for one waiter to come forward and welcome Sila.
 
"Welcome, big bro, what would you like to eat for today?"
 
The waiter in silk Chinese clothes greeted Sila.
 
"I have an appointment with someone on second floor."
 
"Then please come this way."
 
The waiter led Sila to second floor. During their short trip, Sila noticed that there're many people glancing at him.
 
'Weird. Why are they glancing at me? Are they Heaven Dragon guild members who come to revenge me? No, that shouldn't be. That event was just only 5 minutes ago. They shouldn't be this quick.'
 
When he arrived at second floor, there was only one person here, contrary to the floor below. Sila turned his head to waiter.
 
"That lady over there reserved all seats in this floor for three days, telling she would be waiting for her friend. This is the second day that she has been waiting."
 
The waiter gestured his hand to one table that one woman sitting behind it.
 
Then, that young woman turned her head to Sila and bowed.
 
"Please come and sit here. Mister Sila." She started greeting.
 
"Yes."
 
Sila walked and then sat on the chair in opposite of her. Now they were separated by just one table. Meanwhile, the waiter excused himself off.
 
It was then that Sila had the opportunity to look at this young woman closely.
 
She was a very pretty woman. Her face was fresh and bright. Her beautiful black hair was put up into a bun and pinned with a barrette. She was wearing a white kimono with blue wave pattern, which was matching with a short Japanese sword leaning beside her chair.
 
"Please have a cup of tea first." She slowly poured tea into Sila's cup.
 
"Thank you." Sila drank it, but it was hot, making Sila showed a bit of troubled expression.
 
The young woman revealed a faint smile and said, "you don't have to hurry."
 
"Umm ... I'm sorry, but I'm pretty sure that I haven't known you before," Sila immediately brought a conversation into main topic.
 
"Sila might not know me, but I heard about you from my dad."
 
"Your dad?"
 
"Rashane is my dad."
 
Sila now started to understand. He remembered Mister Rashane had told him that Rashane's daughter was also playing this game as well. She even had played for a long time.
 
"I see, so perhaps you have some business with me?"
 
She was smiling slightly, "I personally don't, but my dad asked me to tell you something."
 
"Yes?"
 
"He tried to contact you. He previously planned to let you play briefly so he didn't set the timer on brain scanner you are using. However, you have played for over one day and still haven't logged off, so he was starting to worry and sent me to search for you."
 
Sila began to feel guilty that he had made his uncle concerned about him. Rashane is really very nice to him.
 
"My dad told me you might use 'Sila' as your in-game name so I tried contacting you using that clue. But since we aren't on each other friend list, I used the massaging system to send you a letter. Well, the system told me that you were in a special area that forbade communication, so I decided to wait here."
 
It seemed, for Sila, that Mansion of Seven Deadly Sins was a special area that he couldn't contact nor be contacted to anyone outside.
 
"I won't log out until I achieve my objective here," Sila told her simply.
 
"Do you mean ... fighting against Montra?"
 
Sila was surprised that she knew his objective.
 
"I heard about it from my dad. Never mind that, just when do you think you can achieve that goal? A day, a month, or a year?"
 
Sila didn't answer her question. He's fully aware of the meaning behind her words. It's only his stubbornness that kept him from logging out. He just felt that he still hadn't done anything worthy since he'd entered the game. At the very least, he wanted to know Montra's current whereabout.
 
The young woman sat quietly, giving more time for Sila to think.
 
"By the way, what's your name?"
 
Sila asked her to brighten the mood. But before she could respond, there was a loud voice shouting up, answering Sila's question on her behalf.
 
"Goddess of Purified Water is visiting my territory. How rude of me to greet you this late?"
 
Sila turned back to see the group of around fifty men dressed in warrior's, mage's, and archer's clothes. The one who had shouted was the man wearing flame red armor. If it's not because of those who were staying behind him that seemed ready to assault, that previous sentence of him could be considered very polite.
 
"I wondered for a bit, but in the end, it's just you, a weak bandit that I has killed before. Well, I'm sorry that I couldn't remember your name," answered the young woman with polite tone.
 
Despite the courteous tone, Sila who didn't know the situation at all still comprehended that she was insulting that the other side was not worth remembering.
 
The man in flame red armor knew the meaning of those words as well. His face showed a distorted expression, "you bitch ..."
 
The woman saw Sila sitting still without a sign of panic or fear expression. She felt little curious. With her father telling her that Sila had just started playing this game; Sila's avatar wouldn't be high in level. Well, she somehow knew that Sila had been practicing martial arts since childhood, and that would be a reason for his calm expression.
 
However, no matter how excel he was in real world, it would take time for him to adjust himself to accustom with in-game skills, magic, and weapons. Moreover, it would also take a long time to move his avatar as freely as his own actual body.
 
Witnessing Sila's overconfidence and his stubbornness nature like this, she concluded that Sila was 'childish.' She then smiled unconsciously.
 
Her opponents saw that smile and misunderstood that she was looking down on them. So, they unsheathed their weapon.
 
The woman unsheathed her short sword too; amazingly, the sword changed its form and turned to be a two-metered long katana, causing Sila to stare at it in astonishment.
 
The woman saw Sila interested in her sword, so she explained.
 
"This is my Spiritual Sword named Shadow Moon. It's a sword that combines characteristics of Japanese and Western Sword."
 
"Spiritual Sword?"
 
"Yes. Spiritual Sword can only be obtained upon inserting card of monster in magical being's race into Card Window when player is human race." (Magical being means lifeless creature with soul, mostly created or enhanced by magic, such as Golem or Cursed Sword.)
 
"Oh, you mean selecting a race, right?" asked Sila.
 
"That's it. For this race, upon race changing, you will get one Spiritual Equipment as a bonus. It can be selected as a sword, axe, or even armor. But you cannot change it nor remove it from your Equipment Window."
 
"Hmm … then, what's it good for?"
 
"It has a soul, so although it absorbs your experience point, it can be evolved and gained a skill like player and monster."
 
"That sounds much better than my race."
 
The woman was a little surprised by the fact that Sila had already selected a race.
 
'So this is why he seems so confident. Well, in this case…'
 
She came up with of a plan.
 
Now, her opponents were very furious. Not only the other side didn't care them, she and he also kept talking together about game's matter as if they were nothing but thin air.
 
Two underlings from the group couldn't stand this humiliation anymore. They rushed to Sila, as they saw he's in Beginner Clothes.
 
Weirdly enough, despite the fact that these guys had been originally picking a fight against the woman, they were instead attacking Sila.
 
Sila looked at the woman, but she didn't seem to do anything. She was just calmly looking back at Sila, which made Sila felt as if he was insulted whether he could win against these two guys or not.
 
Sila's expression changed into a cold one as he's now somehow upset. Then, he activated a skill that he'd recently acquired, which he'd read its description before entering the restaurant.
 
"Electromagnetic Field."
 
Special skill: Electromagnetic Field
Creates a circular electromagnetic field around user. The length of radius will be depended on charged electric energy.
*Do not require magic point. But require lightning-element energy for activation.
 
Every objects within three meters radius around Sila were transfixed in their current location. The woman was affected by this skill as well. Her face showed a slight surprised expression before quickly turned back to normal.
 
But for two charging people, their expression showed extreme panic. Both of them felt numb all over. Their body was stopped and transfixed in midair.
 
Sila stood up. He circulated "Qi of Little Tiger" into his both hands and stroke at two stationary targets. Their body flew back to the rest of their group, collided, and then disappeared.
 
All people in the other side were dumbfounded. They heard that Goddess of Purified Water had come alone so they even gathered fifty level 300's players to teach her a lesson for killing them 3 times.  But now in front of them was a man in Beginner Clothes who possessed powerful qi and remarkable skill, despite his level being 18.
 
Sila sat down again while listening to system sound telling him that his level rose to 22, before picked up a cup of tea without looking at anyone.
 
The woman smiled and started speaking, "now I know the reason you seemed confident. It must come from the ability to use qi. But isn't a qi-related quest only accessible when avatar's level reach 50 first?"
 
"Someone transmitted it to me."
 
"So you didn't learn it yourself, huh?" She said that without even looking at Sila
 
Sila's eyes changed slightly, which she could notice. Sila comprehended that she was insulting him that no matter how skillful he was, his ability still was derived from other.
 
She gave Sila a smile; it was her attempt to provoke Sila further.
 
"Would you like to have a bet with me?"
 
"What kind of bet?" Sila asked back without changing his expression.
 
"We will bet on whoever can kill those thieves more. If I win, you have to accept 3 of my requests, but if you win-"
 
She hadn't finished talking yet, but Sila interfered, "why do I have to bet with you?"
 
She smiled and turned to look at Sila, "it's just for fun. Yeah, actually, you don't have to if you don't dare. Just leisurely watch me killing these thieves, then." She said that while standing up.
 
Sila drank all his tea in one go and bumped the cup to the table, making a loud noise.
 
"Fine. If I win, don't show your face to me ever again," said Sila.
 
"Deal."
 
Sila stood up alongside her, sending off his anger toward those thieves, and then started circulating his qi.
 
This was a fight with his pride on the line.

Chapter end