YOU ARE NOW [THE MASTER]

There was no way Suho could level up his rank this quick. His player level was still within the range of his previous rank. There were many skillset he had to train and tournaments he had to join to gain the top ranking. 

The words disappeared in the thin air and Suho stood up to find a place to collect himself. He flicked his hand to open his player statistics and again, he was shocked that every skill has been maxed. His player rank wasn't The Scavenger anymore and instead of 'Zone Guardian', his player title was 'Guardian'. 

He never heard of such title before except once. It was an NPC, only to appear few times a year, usually during events which the character will give tasks for the players to finish and they would be given rewards.

'What is happening!' he almost shouted to himself. His eyes widen and his hands shaking. His hand crawled into his leather pack and took out the phone he supposed to open. 

On the screen there was a notification similar to what he had seen just now. He swiped his finger on the screen to unlock the phone. The only thing appeared on it was the quest notification and details related to it. 

HIDDEN QUEST
Locate Master Sehun
Eradicate threats in The Pit 
Eliminate bugs

From his knowledge, the Lens never incorporated a real world device, let alone a phone because the gameplay was set in a fantasy medieval period. All items and weaponry were suited to the era. There were no major updates scheduled today either. So when did usage of modern devices was added? Let alone a device linked quest. He stared on the phone with disbelief. He checked every clickable texts and icons and there were so many new and confusing things inside it, which he never encountered any of them before. 

'Wait,is it because I'm in the Master ranking right now? Is it a normal thing within those players that maxed their levels?', he asked himself. 

While Suho began to accept his situation, in the corner of his eyes, he saw a silhouette was creeping behind a wall, looking at him intently. He saw it and ran towards the shadow but the moment he arrived at the wall, it wasn't there anymore. 

He then realized that the Marketplace was eerily quiet. The place was one of the busiest spots in the theme park. Middle ranking players flocked there to do gather, exchanging transactions and also a place to have a rest, like the café he was working at. He looked around the building, not a single player appeared and the café was vacant too. He felt goosebumps all over his body. The situation was really hard for him to comprehend.

He then opened the players' guild to contact his in-game friends but none of them were online. Out of sudden, a call came to the phone. He was contemplating to pick up the phone, afraid he would listen to private information again. He let the phone stopped ringing without answering the call. 

A notification showed that a message came in. He unlocked the phone and opened the message. 

From: (unknown) 
To: Player ID Suho
Message: Answer the call. 

And the phone started to ring again. Suho quickly pick up the phone to answer the call. 

Without hesitation, he talked to the caller first. 'How did you know my name? What is this all about?!' Suho said out of anger. 

'Patience is a virtue, Mr Kim Junmyeon,' a raspy voice heard from the other side. 

Suho almost dropped the phone when he heard his real name. Players were identified by their player ID, not by their real name. Personal information was strictly confidential and leakage should never happened. 'Is the server compromised?' Suho asked himself.

'Yes. The server is now compromised,' the voice answered. 'All of players' data is in our hands'

Upon hearing the sentence, Suho sped off, exiting the building without turning back. There was no way the unknown caller could hear that. He was not even mouthing it. He kept running north towards the main entrance. He thought he was lucky that the Marketplace was not far from the exit. 

After a while, he arrived at the main entrance to make his way out of the theme park. Suddenly a screen flashed in front of his eyes. 

YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO EXIT THE GAME UNTIL YOU HAVE FINISHED ALL TASKS. 

'No, no, no,' Suho said, denying the words that appeared in front of him. He did not believe that he could not go out from the place. He tried to make another step past the screen, only to have his body jolted by some kind of electric shock. He fell down on his back and saw a troop of soldiers, clad in black outfits, complete with machine guns, circled him. 

Everything about the soldiers were impossible to begin with, unless the game developers decided to add them. But again, no major updates were announced, upcoming event was still months away.

Two of them took his arms and lifted him up on his feet, forcing him to stand. Another person pulled his hands behind his back and cuffed them. 

'What did I do? I didn't do anything wrong!' He resisted but the soldiers' grip was too strong. 

'You're not allowed to exit this place. Follow us', one of them said. 

Having no choice, Suho followed them, limping from the previous attack. He was brought into a van like a criminal. The van started moving after all of the soldiers sat on the benches inside it. One of them held the phone that he used just now.

-

After awhile, the van came to a stop. The back door opened and the soldiers dragged him into a cave. He looked at his surroundings. It was pitch dark and the only light source was from the torches the soldiers were holding. They brought him all the way inside until they reached a place with a chair and a table. They left him there, sitting on the chair alone. Suho could also see many electronic machines with flickering lights and wires around them.

A man wearing black hoodie approached him. Despite hiding his face behind the hood on his head, Suho still could feel a piercing stare directed towards him.

'Hello, who is this person we have here?,' said the man while holding his face. He inspected and pushed Suho's face back, 'This is not Sehun!,' he suddenly angered.

'You! Why didn't you bring me Sehun?,' He shouted at one of the soldiers that brought Suho to the cave. 'What happened to the tracker?'

'The tracker was with him when we arrived,' The soldier, looked like the troop leader, answered while handing out the phone to the hooded man.

'BUT HE IS NOT SEHUN, FOOLS!' He pulled out a machine gun out of the thin air, like how Lens players did to wield a weapon and shot the soldier in the head. Blood spluttered everywhere and the dead body fell on the ground. None of the other soldiers flinched. Moments later, all of the bloody mess disappeared without any trace. 

'It was an NPC,' A part of him relieved that it was not a real person when Suho saw the scene. But it did not mean the man could not kill him in game. There was something more sinister about the murder. He remembered the call that he unintentionally answered before. It was the same voice and the person threatened to kill Sehun for real. Was it possible to actually make players dead? He recalled that the life bar would not decrease until 0%, instead it will stop at 5% and and the player will be considered lost and respawned at nearest spawn spot. Depending on the type of fight, players could lose all of their belongings if they involved in PvP fight or lose a few of them if it was a fight with NPC. Would players actually dead if the life bar decreased to 0%? Sweats trickled down his face, knowing the severity of the situation in front of him. 

Click!

The hooded man put the gun on his head. 'What shall we do with this person? Now tell me, why this phone was in your possession?'

Suho was really scared. Never in his life he was caught in this life and death situation. But he was still logged in the game, would the gun kill him? 

'Yes. This gun will kill you. Why? Because I said so,' He suddenly punched Suho's face and the latter fell on the dusty dirt floor, hit his head hard on the ground. Blood trickled down from the corner of his mouth. Suho felt the instant pain from taking the blow. It felt so real, it was different from the slight pain he normally felt when he was attacked in the game. He saw his life bar decreased too. 

'The game won't be the same now. I hacked the server and sent a virus. This is the result. The virus modified the in game fight code, changing the limitations of the effects of weaponry. Every fights are real from now on,' The man bragged. He sounded so satisfied with his actions. 'But that foolish kid knew it before it spread to the actual gameplay. He notified every players about it. Guess the phone was with you at the time huh? Since you dumbly stayed there,'

Wait, weren't there people inside the café? He tried to recall the workers who attended during his shift and customers who went into the café. The worker who attended the service counter was absent, so did some of the attendants. He saw someone who's had the same shift with him bid goodbye and when he came back into the café to wait for Sehun, only NPC  workers appeared. The customers who were there after Sehun came were also NPC. None of them were actual players. How did he miss those details? 

'Tell me Suho or should I say Kim Junmyeon, why this phone is with you? Do you know what is this?,' He swung the phone in the air. 

'Nope! You don't!' His boots met with Suho's stomach. He grunted in pain. 

'This!' He shoved the phone in front of Suho's face. Suho saw the unknown man had long and slender fingers, with a mole on his thumb. 

'This is a new tracking device, used only between selected members and developers,' He walked back and forth, taking his sweet time explaining things. Dust spread everywhere while he did that. 'That fool was so dumb to make a deal to introduce an outside device to put in the game, giving access for a third party service to collect data when he could just trust his own employees to do some simple user experience data collection.'

The man stopped his steps. 'Yes, trust made my grandfather died in his hands.' Suho caught him whispered to himself. 

'It's no use to ask you anyway. That cowardly Sehun must left the phone at your café, trying to escape from me. Useless. Maybe I should use you instead. Let me see what Sehun did with this phone,' His face finally shown when it was illuminated by the phone screen. Suho saw there was a long vertical scar on his right eye and a skinny face. His eyesight was blurred with the dust so he could not see the face under the hood properly. 

'No! NO! NO! WHAT DID THEY DO WITH THIS!' He shouted and threw the phone on the cave wall. Surprisingly the phone survived the harsh treatment, only to suffer few cracks on the screen. Suho thought that the phone was really well built and able to withstand the players movements. This might be one of the factor for the developer to seal the deal. 

'WHY THE PHONE SETTING CHANGED! WHY I CAN'T OPEN THE PHONE?' He continuously shrieked. He stomped angrily to Suho, 'WHAT DID YOU DO TO THIS PHONE? ANSWER ME!' The man grabbed Suho's collar. 

'I.. didn't do any thing,' Suho said, wrinching his face. He still felt the pain from the injuries he sustained before. 'I just answered your call,'

'LIES!' The man slapped Suho's face. The latter nearly fainted. He was exhausted mentally and physically.

'I... swear... I don't know. Sehun left the phone at my café like you've said. I even answered your call after he left it at the café,'

'So he didn't listen to me at that time? Did you read my messages after that?,' the man questioned. 

'No, he wasn't. He already left. I even waited for him to collect this phone back and I don't read them either. I thought it was to keep his privacy,' He explained. He was not sure if he should explain about quest details appearing on the phone too. It might aggravate this unknown person more.

Another blow of punch went to Suho's face, another kick to his abdomen and the man kept doing it. His life bar went down really fast despite only receiving physical blows. This what he meant by the fights were real from the moment he sent the virus. It will really hurt the players and give real life effects on the receiver too. Suho lied down in pain, he could not retaliate because his hands were cuffed behind him.

The person walked away after he was content with his acts. He walked deeper inside the cave and disappeared. Suho heard one of the black soldiers answered a walkie talkie. 

'Finish him,' he heard one of the reply. He quickly tried to release himself but the injuries prevented him to do so. Pain felt all over his body when he moved. He wriggled away from the soldiers, hoping his actions could prolong his life but all he did was moving closer to the wall. His heart sank.

The soldier walked nearer to him while holding his gun, ready to shoot. Suho felt the cold wall behind him, but the sweat trickling down his neck was colder. 

Bang!

Suho felt a searing pain on his chest and blood vomited from his mouth. So this is how gunshot feels like. He saw his life bar went down to 40%, it was 70% when the hooded man left him. 

Bang!

Another bullet went through his body. His eyes saw his life bar went to 10% in blinking red. This is it. This is the end of me, he thought. His sight went black and Suho lost his consciousness.