“Now, towards the Auction House!” Kaizen exclaimed, stretching his fist up high with excitement.

He immediately began walking down the avenue connected to the exit of the town he was in, looking for the place where he would finally find out how much he sold the Mutant Ranked Swift Arrows for. He was looking forward to it, but he had no idea what an auction house would look like. In fact, even in real life, he wouldn’t know what that kind of place looked like. Would there be a flashy outdoor, or would it be a hidden place where only restricted people could enter?

Kaizen spent the next 30 minutes walking down the long avenue and found nothing that looked anything similar to a place where people gathered to bid on items. Everywhere there were only clothing stores, jewelry stores, tailors, and flower stores, everything that one would expect to find easily on this side of Holinda.

‘Isn’t an auction house usually a place where only rich people go? Then this should be right here.’ Kaizen thought, standing out negatively in the noble look of that frumpy neighborhood. ‘Huf… There’s no point in looking any further around here. I’m going to the real commercial area of the city.’𝓞𝒱𝐞𝔩xt.𝗇𝓔t

That area where there were only strange establishments was just a social mask for the local nobles to escape from reality. The real face of Holinda was near the players’ initial spawn, a neighborhood full of traveling merchants and players.

‘Yes! How could I don’t think of this before? If the starting square is the point that gathers the most amount of players, of course, the Auction House must be near there!’

Kaizen slapped his own face, feeling like an idiot, and, following the path on the map, he started walking back to the area he had little explored on the first day.

Besides also visiting the Auction House, he planned to buy some leather armor and, at least, sell some of the items that crowded his inventory. Maybe even start looking for the Shaman mentioned in his guidance about the Class Mission.

However, as Kaizen approached the neighborhood with more users than NPCs, he noticed that he had begun to be watched.

At first, he ignored this, thinking that the people looking at him were recognizing him from the situation with the nobles at the Training Center. Perhaps, they might even be judging him for wearing the clothes of a level 1, as happened when he first logged on. After a few minutes, the constant feeling of being watched did not lower, and it became impossible not to suspect that there was something wrong going on. No matter which street he passed through that neighborhood, all the players stared at him.

Kaizen would usually not mind being watched, but not knowing why this special attention was tiresome.

The whole situation became truly unbearable when he entered an empty alley to cut his way to the Spawn Square, and three hooded figures followed him into the alley.

“Ah, that sucks… What do you guys want?” Kaizen asked, turning to face the group.

When the rookie turned around, it only took a second for him to realize that the people following him were not normal players.

The person to Kaizen’s left was a boy, who appeared to be about the same age as him, called Jeewok, someone from the Swordsman Class.

Jeewok had thin face lines and straight, medium-length brown hair. In addition, he carried a long sword in a metal sheath at his waist. From his waist down, he wore steel-gray armor filled with captivating ornaments, while from the waist up, he wore black clothing under a red vest.

To Kaizen’s right, the person at the other end was even more intimidating than Jeewok.

This one was also a man, but he did not have as virtuous a posture as Jeewok. He carried a bottle of alcohol in his left hand and took a sip. Under his eyes were deep dark circles, and just one direct look into those eyes was enough to understand how experienced he was. His name was Salles, and his class was the Berserker, so he carried a big sword on his back that was bigger than himself. In addition, Salles also had a red gauntlet that completely covered his right arm.

Finally, the person between Jeewok and Salles was the most mysterious, as he wore a black, metallic mask to hide his face. The glowing eyes in the mask were white and looked even creepier due to the hood that covered this person’s face. His black clothes were long in some spots and tight in others, yet there was elegance in how he dressed.

Usually, Kaizen would not be intimidated by being followed, yet when he looked at these people with the <Analyzing Eye>, he could see nothing but their names and classes.

This indicated that these mystery players were at least 30 levels above Kaizen, and the masked figure must have been even stronger than the other two because Kaizen couldn’t find out even his name.

“You guys know that a city is a place where there can’t be PVP, right?” Kaizen said, even as the tips of his hands trembled, wanting to use his Inherent Skill.

“We’re not after trouble. We just came to talk, Mister Kaizen.” said the person in the center, removing his hands from his back. The voice was modified and impossible to distinguish or recognize. “My name is Korgrak. Have you ever heard of me?”

“You just called me by my nickname and expect me to start answering your questions already. If you want answers from me, you have to pay at least 1 gold coin, what do you think?”

The rookie was planning to stagger off until the weirdos got sick and left, but hearing the word Kaizen made him realize that the matter was serious. After all, he never said his name to anyone other than the members of Magma’s group.

Salles suddenly cast an angry glance at Kaizen, dropped the glass bottle, letting it crash, and said:

“Boy, you killed four members of our guild yesterday in the newly discovered Den of Spiders in the Misty Woods, and you know how it is… when members of a guild die, the guild needs to replace their lost major items. They said that someone killed them and described that he looked like you. We asked about you to the big guilds, but we couldn’t find out anything, nobody knows you, no affiliation. So we had to come looking for you ourselves.”

“Ah! So, that’s what this is about? Whew! For a moment, I thought people found out what I did in the Misty Woods with other players… He! You guys have no idea how relieved I am.” Kaizen spoke as he crossed his arms. “Well, yes, you are right. It was me the one who killed those guys.”

…

Edited by: DrHitsuji

If you want to see original illustrations of Rise Online characters, consider helping me on pa treon: Pa treon.com/NandoFalske

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