[VRMMO] Dead One

The next day.

After we returned back to the Blue Sand city, we sold the caravans we bought before and instead bough a third sand running lizard.

The plan was to have 3 sand running lizards carry us, but now that we kind of striked the fortune after getting both the bandits treasure and the chests filled with gold coins from the lamias, we decided to buy 3 more sand running lizards, making it total of 6 sand running lizards.

It may seem like wasting money, but in reality, it isn't, since the sand running lizards would end up spending less stamina since they would now only carry 1 person instead of 2.

Now that we have a solid and good transport we can use, the time we would spend on traveling would way much shorter.

Anyway, now that we have proper means transport, we decided to immediately headed straight to Green Sand city where our second target is located.

The harpies.

We do not know the extract location of the harpies hideout, but we do know where we can meet some of them. The harpies are often spotted hunting around the Green Sand city, so finding them shouldn't take too much time.

We also got our hands on the sigil of the Sand Cobra tribe, so maybe we will have some good chances that they would allow us to speak to their leader.

Anyway, thanks to the sand running lizards, we manage to quickly get from the Blue Sand city to the Green Sand city with ease and without spending too much time traveling.

I can definitely say that buying those sand running lizards was worth it, considering how fast we traveled from one city to another.

After we arrived to the Green Sand city, we headed straight to the adventure guild, since we wanted to see if something going on with harpies, there was a chance that the guild would also post the quest regarding the harpies, just like it was with lamias.

But…... Em… There was a quest like we expected, but…The situation may or may not be quite bad?

[Harpies Extermination Squad Notice]

[A threat of the harpies has been plaguing the Green Sand city and people living in it for too long.]

[It was decided that an extermination squad will be formed that will aim to get rid of the harpies and put the stop to their madness!]

[Everybody who is willing to join, go to the city garrison for more information.]

"Oh shit." – said Rampage.

(Okay… This is bad. This is very freaking bad!) – though ClownFrog.

(Before the ones involved would be the players and all we had to do was to relocate the lamias before other players would arrive to the dessert, but now?)

(The NPCs themselves are going to hunt the harpies?!)

"… What do you think?"

"I don't know. It depends if they know the harpies hideout location or not." – said Oron.

"Still, the situation seem pretty bad. We need to gather more info, right in this instant! We are heading straight to that garrison mentioned in the notice and hope we will find anything regarding the extermination squad." – said ClownFrog.

We didn't expected that. We did realized that there would be quest involving in hunting the tribes, but we completely forgot about the NPCs!

The situation catched us completely by surprise and we needed to act fast.

After finding out about the extermination squad, we headed straight to the city garrison to find out what the heck is going on.

"Hm? Hey, who are you people?" – asked the guard on duty near the gate.

"Greetings. We are the group of adventures and we saw the harpies extermination squad notice in the adventurer guild." – said ClownFrog.

"The notice said to come here if we want to ask any question regarding the extermination squad."

"Oh? By any chance do you want to join the extermination squad?" – asked the guard.

"Depends on the situation."

"…"

"Okay. I understand. Do you see the building over there? Head to it and people inside will answer to any questions you have regarding the extermination squad."

"Thank you."

The party headed to the building pointed by the guard and as soon as they entered, they found themselves in the lobby.

"Welcome. How may I help you?" – asked the woman behind the desk.

"Hi. We are kind of interested in the extermination squad and want to find out what is going on." – asked ClownFrog.

"Oh. Do you want to apply to the extermination squad?"

"No. Not yet. We first want to find out what the heck is going on before then deciding to join in or not."

"I see. Well then, allow me to explain."

"The area around the Green Sand city was recently plagued with harpies and many merchants as well as merceries who were unlucky enough to enter their hunting grounds, ended up being killed by the harpies and we are not talking here about death of few people, but of many people to the point where the situation could not be ignored at all."

"The city realized the danger of the situation and decided to organize a subjection squad to deal with the harpies."

"Do they know where harpies live?" – asked GreyHunt.

"Not yet. But one of the goals of the extermination squads is to locate where they hide and completely eradicate them."

"…"

(Oh, for fuck's sake. Do we have to now to rescue harpies?! Things obviously were going too smoothly.) -though GreyHunt.

"What about the subjection squad? Is there any date when they will move out or something?" – asked ClownFrog.

"Well, the squad will move out the next Thursday. They are still gathering some people and all."

"Huh. Quick question. How strong are the harpies? Are they weak or strong?" – asked Shri.

"Well, they are fairly strong and not only that, they are both fast and can fly."

"And to make matters worse, they hunt in the dessert, so there is no cover what so ever, so the harpies will have huge advantage in the battle."

"?"

"Wait, then isn't the extermination squad screwed then?" – said Shri.

"Oh, don't worry."

"The city managed to hire the legendary mercenary called "Twin Swords Of The Journey" O'a."

"?"

"Is he somebody famous?" – asked Oron.

"Of course! He is one of the best if not the best mercenary in the whole country!"

"He is famous through the entire kingdom to the point the king himself as well as many high ranking nobles tried scouting him to their side, but he declined them all, saying he wanted to be free and enjoyed his life as mercenary."

"This guy is a living legend!"

"He manage to find the group of the notorious sobeks and completely subjected them all, just by himself without suffering any mayor injuries!"

"?!"

"Wait, sobeks?! From what I know, they are extremely powerful race! Are you saying he got rid of them all?!" – asked ClownFrog.

"Em… No. There are still sobeks in this country and the group he destroyed wasn't very big, however it did consisted of the elite sobeks warriors that managed to destroyed the heavily defended towns left and right just by themselves!"

"Oh."

(Thank fuking god!) – though relived ClownFrog.

(Sobeks are still okay. I think.)

(But what she just said worries me a lot.)

"Anyway, are you saying that guy O'a is able to take care of all the harpies just by himself?"

"Pretty much."

"Once the world got out that the O'a will be participating, a lot of people decided to give up, since they knew that he would be able to take all the credits."

"But honestly, I doubt any mercenaries will decide to join in. Some may try, thinking that they will take some glory or something, but it will be probably not the case."

"However, we do kind of need people beside O'a, since we need people to scout around and try to find the harpies hideout and all. O'a alone won't be able to find the harpies hideout without a support."

(…)

(She doesn't seem to be lying. She really believes that guy can by himself deal with all the harpies.)

(I'm worried.)

(That O'a guy manage to defeat the group of the elite sobeks that manage to destroy towns with ease that were heavily defended?)

(It may not seem like a grand story at first, with taking out the sobeks, but in reality its opposite.)

(Each settlement in the dessert is heavily defended because of the monsters living in this place, so it's not like simple fortification, but a heavy one with a walls and soldiers present in each place. We even went past some towns and we saw how heavily defend each one was.)

(These sobeks must really have been powerful if they managed to completely destroy the towns by themselves, each one of them may even be powerful like field boss if they really manage to destroy this towns by themselves.)

(HOWEVER! The more unbelievable thing is the part where that O'a guy who manage to deal with them just by himself.)

(A group of the elites monsters who could easily destroy heavily defended towns and the guy who beat them all without suffering any mayor injuries in the process?)

(Honestly, I don't think this story is made up or anything.)

(I know that some tales about heroes and some other popular people may be extravagating a bit here and there.)

(But there is no way they lied about towns being destroyed.)

(If they would, then people would obviously go check those "Destroyed Towns" and confirm if the stories were really real.)

(However, considering that she told us the story and with some important details like a "Small group of the elite sobeks". I can pretty much guess the story wasn't a lie and the towns were really destroyed by these sobeks since it was probably confirmed or there was eye witnesses beside the O'a AND that would obviously confirm the part of the story about him defeating them.)

(Then this is bad.)

(The situation is grim. AND I MEAN VERY GRIM.)

(If that guy goes after the harpies, then they may not survive the encounter with him and even worse, if the extermination squad finds the harpies hideout, then its harpies are good as dead.)

(This is far worse than compare to the lamias situation many times over.)

(On top of that, they are planning on doing that the next Thursday. Meaning we have 6 days left until the extermination squad will move out.)

"Hm…."

"Okay."

"Thank you for explaining the situation to us. However, now me and my friend need to now discuss the situation and decide If it would be really worth joining the extermination squad, considering that entire O'a guy deal. If we decide to join, then we will come back." – said ClownFrog.

The party left the city garrison and began wondering through the streets of the Green Sand city.

After a while, the party finally mange to find an desolated alleyway where they could hold their private conversation.

"…"

"Okay. So, this O'a guy, do you really think he can take down the harpies by himself?" – asked Rampage.

"Probably." - replied Oron.

"?!"

"Wait! How can you be so sure?" – asked Rampage.

"You saw the towns we came across and you saw yourself how heavily defend the settlements are." – said GreyHunt.

"However, she said that group of sobeks manage to destroy multiple towns by themselves, so obviously they must have been extremely powerful."

"But that guy manage to defeat them without taking any mayor injuries and he beat them by himself?"

"She didn't seem to be lying at all either, nor do I think the story she told us was made up or anything. I think the entire story she just told us was 100% real." – said ClownFrog.

"The situation is bad. And I mean like very bad."

"This guy O'a is probably the real deal if the king and nobles both tried recruiting him at all cost."

"We need to be extremely wary of this guy at all cost."

"However, this isn't the end of the bad news."

"If we were to try to reach out to the harpies, we don't know how long it would take to for us to have a chance to talk with their leader and convince them to run away."

"We do have the sigil from the Sand Cobra tribe, but will it be enough? What if they decide to give us a quest or something so that we can "Earn Their Trust" or something?"

"However, let's say we somehow manage to convince the harpies to run away before the extermination squad will move out and they have a different hiding spot they can use."

"But then what about O'a?"

"He is dangerous, too dangerous to be kept alive."

"As long as he lives, each tribe would be in the danger, even the lamias we just rescued may end up running into him by some chance and end up being exterminated by him."

"We need to get rid of him before it's too late and we cannot let him kill to many harpies nor let the extermination squad find out about their hideout."

"We need to kill them all. All the members of the extermination squad as well as O'a"

"I agree." – said GreyHunt.

"Then should we then join the extermination squad?"

"Yea. That is the plan. If we join them, we can somewhat try to ambush them when they would not expect it." – replied ClownFrog.

"We will go back to the barracks and inform them that we will be joining them."

"However, after we join the extermination squad, we will be going hunting. We need to level up as many times as possible since not only we will probably end up fighting the extermination squad but also will have to deal with O'a. And we still don't know how strong this bastard really is."

"So, 6 days of nonstop monster hunting?" – asked Oron.

"Pretty much." – said GreyHunt.

"However, will leveling up alone do the trick?"

"…"

"Honestly, I don't know." – said ClownFrog.

"Blueberry. I have a question for you."

"Is it possible for you to create even better equipment for all of us than the current stuff we are using?"

"…"

"I…."

"I don't know really."

"I still need more time researching about crafting and all other different stuff and I also have to improve my crafting skills as well as level up my blacksmith skills."

"However, to do the research and other stuff I require need a lot of materials and money and above else, time."

"Recently all we were doing were traveling and hunting monsters, so my research has not progressed at all."

"…"

"I can probably guess that 6 days won't be enough, but I will still ask. How many days would you need?" – asked GreyHunt.

"Hm… Don't know. It depends on what I discover but I say I need at least 2 weeks if you want to see any proper improvements." – said Blueberry.

"And two weeks is the thing we don't have right now. Shit." – said GreyHunt.

"Well, since ALL of us need to level up, you probably won't have time doing any research. So sorry Blueberry." – said ClownFrog.

"After all this is over, we will make sure you have enough time to do any research you want without having being bothered by us. I'm sorry once again, but you will have to endure it for now."

"N-no worries! I do know how important our current situation is right now, so I was kind of prepared already about not being able to do any research at all. I'm well aware that we need to help out the tribes and resurrect the queen as fast as possible." – said Blueberry.

"…"

"So, is there any other ideas we can use or anything?" – asked Shri.

"Well, Rampage did discover an area boss, but we probably won't be able to take it down on the first or second try and if we were to try beating it, we would waste too much time and we don't even know if we can even beat it with just us 6." – said ClownFrog.

"The third idea is to have lamias assist us, but this idea is just straight up stupid, since they need to stay low as much as possible right now."

"The fourth idea is try and have harpies help us during the fight, but obviously we don't know how long it will take to convince them to join us, so this idea is also out."

"And that is all."

"…"

"So, we have to level up like crazy and pray it will somehow work?" – said Shri.

"Unfortunately, yes. Leveling up is our only option available." – said ClownFrog.

"…"

"Well shit." – said Rampage.