Chapter One

Wizard in Train

[2929 words]

The sheep had a very fluffy looking white fur, just like the cumulus in the blue sky. There were more than a dozen of them, look so cute and completely harmless chewed on the grass in that small green hill, until a boy in white long cloak walked closer to one of the sheep, to the one that stood far enough from its herd. That sheep didn’t pay any attention on the boy at first until the boy suddenly poked it with a stick, on the side of its head. That sheep stopped in the middle of his chew, turned his head slowly toward the boy that made a step backed away from the fluffy creature, seemed thinking that his action might be considered as not a good one, anyone would get angry if their lunch disturbed.

“Uuhm… So-sorry, j-just continue with your meal. P-please eat that delicious looking grass again, I-I’ll just back away if it’s okay with you,” the boy had his open palm in front of his chest and made another timid steps, away from the sheep that started growled lowly, clearly not bought the poor excuse that boy offered.

The growl got louder and the sheep stormed forward to the boy, lowering its head to the ground so the horn on its head pointed to the boy. The sheep was so fat, its feet was so short, its run was so slow, but the boy was too stunned and couldn’t move any single of his muscle to run away or prepared himself either to defend or to attack the sheep.

“Yah, your wand! Use your wand!” Another boy that stood not so far finally couldn’t refrain himself for not shouting an instruction to the dumbstruck boy. Thanks to him, the boy eventually regained his composure and stretched out his wand holder hand, but he’s a millisecond late, the sheep already bumped to him.

“Ouch, ouch.” The boy rolled on the ground, the impact of being struck out by a fluffy fatty sheep. Grasses stuck to his cloak, soil tainted the white of it.

“Quick, get up now before it attack you again,” the other boy yelled once again, his hand gripped the sword that hang on his hip tightly, ready to give his friend backed up if needed.

The boy obeyed and pulled his body up –almost fell again as he stepped on his own cloak– right at the moment the sheep made another mad dash at him, but this time managed to dodge it. He stretched out his wand again and when the sheep turned and ran to him again, he made an awful crazy swing of wand in his panic state and somehow poked the sheep in between its eyes. The sheep jumped back a little and bleated in pain as a figure shaped in number one popped above it for a mere seconds before disappear again.

The boy once again dumbstruck and looked at the wand in his hand –clearly disbelieved that he just land a hit on the sheep. “Do you see that? I hit it!” He screamed at his friend, face beamed in happiness. He hopped a little on his feet, waved his wand around.

“Yah, yah! The fight is not finish yet, don’t turn your back away from your enemy,” his friend shouted back.

The boy with wand could hear that his friend’s voice was full of worry. “W-what?” He turned backs to face the sheep again, but got another hit on his stomach. He tumbled over to the ground again as his friend face palmed himself.

“Should I go down there and help you?” His friend asked.

“No, this is my battle, my pride is at stake here,” the boy gritted his teeth, face contorted in pain and got ready with his wand once more –the sheep also looked about to attack again.

His friend sighed and shouted his last advice. “Okay, try to put a will to your wand before use it.”

Minutes later, the last blood of the sheep finally spent, its body shined a little in bright white before shattered into thousands colorful glass-like shreds and vanished to the thin air, leaving a plume of wool on the ground.

“Uuh, what is it?” The boy mumbled while picked up the fluffy white wool, it’s almost as heavy as air in his hand.

“Gyu-Hyung, are you okay?” The other boy who watched the whole battle ran to his side and he got a pat on his back. “Congrats for winning your first battle.”

“What is it?” The boy that called Gyu showed the wool in his hand.

“That’s your award, for killing that sheep. You can either sell it or keep it, may be useful in the future.” Then, suddenly that boy’s face grew serious, “now, why didn’t you do as I taught you earlier? The battle will end earlier and your blood will not only left so little like this, and also you shouldn’t turn away from you enemy before…”

Gyu put his palm on his friend chest to stop his ramble. “Woah, woah, easy, you game freak. It’s just my brain can’t functioning properly when the sheep that initially look so cute suddenly go berserk and attack me. It looks so real, you know, it’s so scary. It’s just, I forgot, okay, I even forgot how to breathe normally, everything just went blank at the moment and… Yah!” Gyu pouted and stopped blabber when his friend giggles abruptly, and on the next second rolled on the grass, hand on his tummy.

“Oh My Gyu, you are so cute, and I remember you even apologize to the sheep and ask it to back to its meal, no one I know ever do it, hahaha… Talking to the sheep, hahha…” The boy uttered in between his laugh.

Annoyed that his friend mocked him, Gyu raised his wand and poked his friend’s side, made a figure shaped in number one popped out for a second. “Woah, woah, are you going to kill me, now? After your first kill to the poor sheep now you think you can kill anything?” His friend rolled away to escape Gyu’s next poke, still laughed his heart out.

“I don’t know. Can I kill a player? Not only the monsters?” Gyu landed his bottom on the grass, not really interested anymore on poking/killing his friend. His eyes trailed off to enjoy the scenery in front of him, the hills were so green with its lush grass, the other sheep still chewed on it, looked so peaceful like before, as if didn’t care or didn’t know that one of their kind had just been killed. Gyu wondered, when was the last time he sat and enjoyed the view around him just like this in his real world?

“Yes and no.” His friend straightened his back into sit position beside him. “Yes, a player can kill another player but only outside the city. Behind the city wall you are completely save. But for you, Hyung, you can’t kill another player, what will you do, poke someone until he die? You at least need a hundred pokes, way to torture your victim,” his friend fell into another giggling fit.

“Yah, not my fault that this stupid wand only effective for poking. I should choose a sword like the one you have, I think that’s more useful than this short and blunt wand,” Gyu pouted his lips again, sadly eyed the wand in his hand. It’s short, not longer than when he stretched out the fingers of his two palms, the diameter was not bigger than his thumb but slightly bigger on the grip. Made of wood and still in its natural reddish brown color, the wand was perfectly straight, it’s so plain, everyone would mistaken it as a normal twig.

When his friend still too busy with his laugh, Gyu conscious that the annoyed feel rushed back to him, he held his wand and concentrated on it until the tip radiated a bright bluish light. He swayed his wand, sent the ball of light straight to his friend who jumped a little as if stung by electricity. This time the popped figure shaped in number three. Gyu grinned, slightly contented with himself and his wand.

His friend blinked his eyes, clearly surprised with the sudden hit. “Woah, much better. See, if you put your will and wait a little your attack will be more powerful, and you can kill your enemy faster. Magic user had to have patience.”

“If only that stupid sheep also wait a little and stay on its place,” Gyu mumbled.

“Hahha, do you think your enemy will stood like a statue and wait for you to kill it? Never. You are lucky, the sheep is slow enough, next time, the monster will be more powerful and much faster,” His friend reminded.

“No more next time, Howon. I told you I just want to try this game to know why are you so addicted to it, doesn’t mean I want to play again. One time is enough, no more next time,” Gyu huffed and shook his head.

Howon snorted a short laugh again. “Okay, okay, whatever you say, Gyu-Hyung. Now, ready to kill another innocent lamb? Your bars almost full again, maybe this time you won’t loss as much blood as your first kill.”

“Bars? What bars?”

Hoya groaned, “God, Gyu, the bar that indicated your blood. It’s on your upper left corner vision if you forgot.”

Gyu cocked his head, and his eyes glanced toward the direction told by Hoya. It’s clearer than something stuck up to the corner lenses of your glasses, it’s there and you could see it, but you could also decided to ignore it. “Oh, right, that blood indicator. It’s yellow and one-third empty… oh, wait, now it’s green. Is it me or the bar really slowly filled up?”

“We can drink potion to heal and fill our blood again in instant, and magic user like you can also help the heal process. But actually after a moment our body will heal itself and the bar will be full again, but it consume much time. The higher your level then the faster the process, you can see your level beside the bar.” Howon explained patiently to his friend.

Gyu nodded his head, tried to digest the information. “And you can see mine? Can I see yours? Oh, I can, it’s floating right above your head, why didn’t I realize it before.” Gyu glanced again at the bar, checked beside it and found his username and his level, level 1. He also saw another bars below it.

“Because you’re too focused in my handsome face and didn’t see another thing?” Howon smiled teasingly.

“Yah, I’m not!” Gyu barked, but then continued in smaller voice. “O-okay, maybe a little, but just because you look different without thick glass covering half of your face.” He coughed a little to clear his throat before kept on talking. “And, uhm… it’s just so many things I had to see at the same time, in the end so many things also missed out. B-but, I can’t see your level, only the green bar.” The now red-faced Gyu tried to get the topic back.

“You can’t see other’s level, just your own.” Grin still plastered in Howon’s lips.

Gyu decided to just ignore the grin and asked another thing, just to distract himself from the face in front of him. “How about the monster? I can’t see theirs too? How if I accidently meet a high-level monster but didn’t know and attack it? I can get killed instead. And what’s about the other two bars?”

“And you said that you won’t play this game again?” The grin just grew wider.

“Yah, just answer me,” Gyu barked once again, restrained himself not to poke his friend with his wand again, because it just useless, his friend wouldn’t feel the pain, it would not kill him, just wasted of energy. Not that he used much energy in poking, it was just Gyu being lazy.

“Well, the monsters around this area are in low-level, the high-level monster are hang around the other cities, and basically the higher their level the uglier their appearance.” Howon shrugged his shoulder. “The other bars also indicator, for your strength and your magic, since you are magic user. I don’t have that magic indicator bar. Need further explanation with it?”

“Nope, enough with the bars. And that’s explained why the sheep look so fluffy, because they’re low-level monsters, right? Oh, by the way, what’s with the wool?” Once again Gyu waved the light-weighted wool in his hand.

“Oh, that. After you kill a monster, sometimes it will leave a treat for you. The sheep may leave you wools, meats or milks. You can sell them and use the money to pay for your meal or hostel or clothes and weapon. Or you can eat the meats and the drink the milk, and if you save a batch of the wools, you can pay the spinner in the town to make a garment to be selling in higher price than the wool itself or you can have a blanket for your self. Different monsters will leave different traits.” Howon poked his finger to the fluffy material, and two buttons in hexagon green appeared above it –keep and leave. He ordered Gyu to pick the keep option and the wool vanished from their view. “It stored in your bag.”

Gyu jutted out his lower lip, thinking and trying to process all the information he just got. “Uummm, so in short, we need money and the more monster I kill, the more thing I could collect and the more money I could get?”

Howon nodded, “yeah, like that. Other ways to collect money are run any errand from the townsman, or join any events that offer money as it reward. But our main focuses are to save the cities and defeat the Demon King.”

Gyu widened his eyes in amazed. “Woah, this game is more real than I thought, we also need money just like in the real world. And it is not only about brutal thingy killing the monster around, but you had to also manage your income to stay survive.”

“Are you fascinated to keep playing this game, Hyung? There’s still so many interesting thing for you to know. Come on, Hyung, we can keep play together.” Howon coaxed and tried to make Gyu play with him again another time.

But Gyu didn’t want to change his sentences. “Nope, thanks. I’ve told you no more next time. Uuuh, by the way, about the time, is it really already this late?” Gyu pointed out at the sky that changed into orange color as the sun started to set. He jumped up from his sit position and grumbled. “God, I know playing game will waste your time, see it’s almost night and we haven’t done our homework at all.”

“It’s okay, Hyung.” Howon followed his friend to stand, but slower, “the time here move faster than in the real world, it feels like hours but we might actually only played around half an hour. You know about relativity, right? Whether the time fly very fast or very slow can be depended on which side of bathroom-door you are,” Howon shut his mouth when he realized that Gyu stared at him wide eyes. He turned his head away and whispered in embarrassment, “oh of course our first-rank student understands about it. Why did I try to explain it to you.”

Quickly Gyu shook his head, “no, no, your exemplification about the bathroom side is very unique and simple, I’ll try it when I tutoring other student, maybe they’ll understand better. I took almost an hour to explain about relativity, but they still as blank as white paper. Or is it just that I am a bad tutor?”

Gyu muttered the last sentences more to himself, but apparently Howon still could hear him clearly as he gave his praise. “No, you are a good tutor, Hyung. Ever since you tutoring me, my grade get better.”

Gyu smiled and rubbed the back of his neck in shy manner. “Uhm… thanks Howon. Now, come on, I want to finish my homework.”

“Okay, let’s out,” Howon nodded in agreement.

“Uhm, how?”

Instead of answering Gyu’s question with words, Howon swiped his hand on the empty air in front of him, and a faint and blurred screen with green letters appeared in front of him. Gyu followed his motion and his own screen came to his view. Not bigger than his laptop screen, the left part showed his personal information data, and some buttons took place on the right.

“You see the button on the very bottom, that’s the log out button. Click on it and then click yes,” Howon instructed.

Gyu skimmed at the armor button, store button and other buttons he didn’t know their function to the very bottom, but, “uhm, Howon, there’s no button reads log out here.”

“What? It should be there.”

Gyu glanced at Howon’s screen and saw the green Log Out button glinted at him on the very bottom. Gyu breathed in to ease his heart that started to beat faster, he tried to keep calm, but failed as when he stared back to his screen, still the Log Out button was not there.

“Howon, how is it? I can’t log out. I can’t get out from this game and back to our world.”