Hearing from Zahir the facts about the Ironstones opened Kaizen’s eyes to what he should really do.

Obviously, if he had decided to work for Zahir, he would probably make money a little faster, except that even a person obsessed with money, like Kaizen, knew it was wrong to skip too many steps. A path must be built, even if it is tortuous, but there must be a path. So if he thought the righteous thing to do was to set up his own forge and blacksmith store to honor the master blacksmith who taught her techniques to him, Kaizen would do this.

However, for now, this was only the main goal for his financial life. At the moment, he had other things to focus on, like going to the Royal Capital.

Before leaving for the nearest map store, Kaizen showed another item to Zahir, a component he gained when he killed the Centaur Druid and the Guardian’s Elm and Chiron the Beast Mount.

This strange item was called the Peacemaker Orb and was a fully spherical orb about the size of a billiard ball. Its color was navy blue, and although it had the smooth texture of glass, inside, there seemed to be some kind of gel, as the liquid took its time to move but did not stay totally still as if it were a crystal.

When asked about this, Zahir regretfully said that he didn’t know what it was; however, it was definitely not an ore. He then advised Kaizen to ask the same person who would eventually evaluate the Guardian’s Elm because since the two items were drops from the same monster, they could be related.

Kaizen agreed with the dwarf, thanked him for the repairs to his armor and the information granted, and then left the store.

‘If only I had taken Theus’ Spear before I escaped from that hell, I could have asked him to try to fix it. Although, if the mythical creature was left in that state when struck by lightning, there must not have been anything left of my old spear.’

Facing the crowded and warm streets of Holinda’s commercial center again, Kaizen felt that the day was still far from over. Although he was excited to keep playing, just as it was late at night in Holinda, it was probably dawn in New York. Even though this was his job, he needed to eat too, so he walked to a nearby alley and logged out.

Waking up in his bed, in his almost empty room, Klaus Park removed his NeuroGear and slid his fingers lazily across the sheet until he reached for his cell phone. It was almost two o’clock in the morning.

“Has it really been that long?” He wondered, got up, and walked to the bathroom.

All his toiletries were now together in a small basket, but the towels were still in the cabinet under the sink. He turned on the shower and then turned around to get a towel.

At that moment, he was surprised by the sudden ringing of his cell phone.

*Tururu! Tururu!*

The cell phone screen lit up, displaying a picture of a blond boy with piercings on his ears and eyebrows who was grimacing. The contact name on the screen was: Jaya – Work Colleague.

Klaus found this a little strange. Jayaa called him sometimes, but only during working hours, never this late. Naturally, he answered the same moment he heard his cell phone ring.

“Hello, Jayaa? Did something happen?”

“Man, why don’t you answer my messages? I’ve sent you a few dozen!” Jayaa’s voice sounded elated but not desperate.

“I don’t leave notifications active, and I was also playing games. I can’t hear anything when I’m connected to the NeuroGear.”

“Wait, you don’t use notifications on your phone? And what do you mean your NeuroGear has no support for external devices?”

“Forget about it, Jayaa. What happened?” Klaus had to warn him so that the main subject didn’t become distant

“Okay, you’re right…your nickname in Rise Online is Kaizen, isn’t it? Enter the link I sent you.”

“Okay, hold on a second.”

Klaus took his cell phone out of his right ear, left the call on the speakerphone, and logged into the messaging app. He was startled when he saw that Jayaa had sent no less than 35 messages, flooding their chat. As soon as he scrolled up the chat, he read the first four messages.

[Jayaa: Hey, Brooo! You’re awake????

Jayaa: Look what I found in a forum about Rise Online…

Jayaa: (Link).

Jayaa: That’s you, isn’t it??????]

Immediately, Klaus clicked on the link in the third message, which took him to a forum post.

For the following seconds, he watched the same video shown at the heads of Hónghé Holdings meeting, which was now also circulating around the entire Webnet.

Klaus was shocked by the video because he didn’t realize that it was being recorded at any point in the Howling Cliff, despite knowing of the feature’s existence to record videos and make live broadcasts in the game interface.

𝒐𝑣𝑙xt.𝔠𝑶𝑚

After the video was over, Klaus said:

“Okay, that’s bad. However, the video is cut off, it doesn’t show anything here that indicates my nickname, and I’m sure I didn’t reveal my identity to the guy I insulted. Not even my face appears in the video.”

“Dude, read the post description.” Jayaa asked.

As requested, Klaus swiped up the screen and saw some lines that gave context to the video.

Whoever posted the video had explained in its description that some large guilds in the Kingdom of Tretidian had gathered for a raid against a Mythic Ranked Boss, and that they were regrettably surprised by an invader in the raid, who stole not only all the drops but also all the XP. At the end of the post, it said that one of the people from the guilds managed to see the masked man when he was still without a mask, running to attack the creature.

[… The nickname of the stupid player is Kaizen. Anyone who has anything relevant about this guy can visit the Desert Lions Guild and will be rewarded].

In the post’s comments, people were divided between which side was right and which was wrong in this story.

[Sidoxa: Garbage! Stupid troll! Garbage!

69Ponos: Is it a dirty tactic? Yeah, but nobody can deny that the guy at least has style! LOL!

Water7: Why does everybody hate this guy? Everyone knows that to steal a raid, it’s necessary to apply more than half damage, and if the guy did that, it’s totally to his credit.

Souzones: LMAO! How the fuck were these guys able to lose the rewards to this troll and even let him get away?!

DaiKi: HAHAHA! How do you people have the guts to share your own shame?

…]

The post already had tens of thousands of likes and many more views. The hundreds of comments were eagerly discussing Kaizen.

“Holy fuck.” Klaus uttered.