As Hydra’s group entered the forest the canopy completed off the sky.  The light barely flickered through the forest leaves.  A light breeze changes the shadows causing Rina to jump with fright.  It was a high level area even for the rest of Hydra’s group.  Goliath who was the highest was only level 38.  A difference of 12 levels was clearly not a small amount.  The difference in health alone was over 500 which could total a few dozen hits depending on the gear users had.  It was clear that fighting enemies with like levels was a main point for Phoenix, when creating [Second Saga].  That wasn’t to say that people couldn’t and it was in fact because of the difference that users we group up to face higher level enemies.  The higher the level the higher the experience gained, better loot which leads to rarer quests.  This was definitely the case for boss monsters.  An extra bonus in experience when a boss was enough to give a complete level was a great amount.  Double leveling then was a common thing just as dying was a common thing and losing levels, this allow the burden to be lessened when dying.

“Hey, don’t you think we should have met up with a scout party by now?”

“I agree.  It’s definitely strange.”

Goliath and Lockon started to question how deadly quiet the forest was.  Because the game was made to be balanced it tried to allow the users to fight small groups at a time to avoid being ganged up on.  If the users chose to gather them up together that was their choice.

“Is it an event?”

“Umm… Doesn’t Hydra have a quest about the location of the Liza clan?  Could that be related?”

“Now that you mention it.  I didn’t tell you guys.  I’m suppose to find a kidnapped father of a little boy and I only have the next 12 hours to finish it or something is going to happen to him.”

“Hydra, this might be rude to ask as it’s your quest but what’s the difficulty?”

“‘C’ why?”

“I knew it.”

Lila face palmed.  After finding out the answer to her question.  Where she didn’t feel like explaining for Hydra thus Lockon stepped up and pushed his gla.s.ses up before explaining.

“Actually Hydra the ‘C’ rating might not look difficult.  But the way difficulty is divided can be said to be like the Richter scale.  With each rating being 10 times more difficult than the previous.  The level has nothing to do with the quests.  A level 300 would still normally get ‘G’ rating quests.  The scale split up like this:

G- Minor quests with no difficulty simple tasks.
F- Kill a monster or gather material
E-Hunt a mob or monsters or group of bandits.
D- Hunt a large mob of monsters.
C- A quest that can affect the entire town.
B- Affects the entire region.
A- Affects the entire kingdom.
S- Affects the entire continent.”

As Lockon finished explained Hydra started to tremble as her heard in progression the repercussions for each rating.  His own quest while not as serious as the top three it could still affect the entire beginner’s city.  Something that would cause a lot of problems if he messed up.  At the same time he began to think about it more clearly.

‘This is why the restriction is to have stealth….  If i get caught I could start a war and if i succeed it would be easy from there on.’

“Are you sure you want to grow through with this?  If you fail then it’s possible all the users will come for revenge.”

Lila asked in a worried tone. But Hydra just shook his head and responded with a voice full of determination.

“No… I have to do this.  I can’t just leave a crying boy to be fatherless.  I won’t allow that to happen to him NPC or not in this world they are living.”

Hydra felt a surge of emotions filling him up.  He never had a father to grow up with, and that is why he didn’t think of it as a big deal but seeing the little boy cry, he knew that his life would be changed forever if he lost his father.  As someone raised without a father he would do his best to prevent that on someone else.

“Well, regardless of the result we will still be your friends!”

Goliath stepped up with a face full of pride.  It didn’t seem like making enemies with the users bothered one bit.  In fact Hydra noticed that Goliath seemingly wanted him to fail the quest in order for exactly that to happen.  Though his reasoning might be different everyone else nodded in agreement before Lila suddenly shrugged her shoulders.

“That is after you deal with the raging users.  I’ll be leaving the area the moment something goes wrong.”

“L–Lila!”

As Rina reprimanded her Lila only winked, running away while giggling.  Naturally, Rina was chasing her while scolding her.  As Lockon was about to say something Hydra quickly nodded his head and put his hands on his shoulders.

“I know how you feel.”

“As expected of Shadow.”

‘No matter what I do that sentence is unbelievably going to turn up at every corner.”

“Anyways, it shouldn’t be as bad as everyone is making it out to be.  The quest requires me to use stealth so as long as I don’t get caught I don’t believe this quest will be all that bad.”

“Well let’s hope luck’s on your side!”

“That was definitely a jinx….”

All of a sudden Hydra felt that if he looked at his Luck stat at this moment he could see a certain chance in the letters and that was what bothered him most.

———————————

As they walked deeper in the forest the trees appeared less.  Although it could be still called a forest the shrubs and bushes were now the lively part of the forest.  It contained many different types of flowers of all different shapes and sizes.  Surprisingly a window popped up.

“Huh?  What does that mean?”

Confused by the sudden turn of events only Goliath voiced his opinion while the rest walked around the garden separately in order to find out more clues.  It didn’t take long for Lockon to speak in stutters.

“Oh.. my… G.o.d… This is… Guys immediately look for any small animals!  This is the could be the chance we might never get again!”

While every was even more bewildered no one voiced their complaints.  They were all close enough to know Lockon had her reasoning and they could just ask him after when everything cleared up.  While the sun was going down and almost dark they didn’t dawdle and quickly searched for any small animals.  Although no one could find anything.  In the meantime Hydra had already walked off and while he was able to hear Lockon say something, he was at a distance already too far to make out what it clearly was.  Then at that moment when he was pondering what Lockon could have said, he saw the bush in front of him move.  With a careful movement Hydra stepped into the bush and as small object was about to run away Hydra quickly grabbed onto it.  The moment he did a surprising window popped up

Hydra stared at the panda in bewilderment.  He was not expecting in the least to have found such a thing in such a place at such a time.  Hydra was staring at the Red Panda while it too was staring curiously back at him.  Hydra was holding it under the arms while its body was dangling freely.  The panda didn’t seem displeased and cutely look at Hydra with its big black eyes.  The panda had was coloured with a beautiful scarlet red and its nose and cheeks were completely white.  The fur was soft to the touch and Hydra almost instinctively started to pet it.  Although when Hydra caught himself while prevented from acting on impulse the Red Panda cutely called out.

“Aroo!”

Hydra could only give a soft warm smile while he started to pet its head softly.  In response the panda folded its white ears while closing its eyes and gave a soft cry.

“Aroo…”

It happily nudged into Hydra’s chest.  It was no bigger than a foot fitting perfectly into Hydra’s warm chest it fell asleep. When Hydra noticed this sight he was once again surprised.  It was an animal he had just met but it was obviously already so trusting of him.  It was then that the rest appeared as Goliath called out to him.

“Hey, you didn’t….”

Before Goliath could finish he was knocked back by the two rushing girls while quickly screaming.

“”It’s soooooo cute!””

“Shhh he’s sleeping right now.”

Hydra quickly tried to calm them down but their excitement was clearly too high to be able to calm down.  Although they didn’t speak their faces were right up and close to the Panda and if it was awak it would probably be terrified with them being so close.

“I can’t believe you found a pet Hydra!  I’ll pay you 1000 dollars for it… No name a price I’ll do whatever I can too buy it!”

Lila called out she clearly fell in love with the panda at first sight and Hydra hearing that amount of money he almost dropped the poor thing.  But while money was important to him he wasn’t the type to sell his friends , or new pet for that matter in order to make a profit.  Besides even though the time was incredibly short Hydra had already felt a connection with the small guy.  He chuckled as the panda curled its three tails around his arms.

“Sorry I can’t sell him.  Although I might have met him just now I have grown to like the little guy.”

“Che!”

Lila puffed her cheeks out in disapproval. Meanwhile Rina was still happily staring in delight at the panda.  To calm Hydra suddenly spoke up.

“But once it wakes up and gets familiar with you.  You hug it all you want!”

“Me too!”

Lila was ecstatic she no longer cared if she owned it and while Rina was also trying to get in on the deal.  The two men stared dumbfounded.  They didn’t care about whether it was cute or not.  But Hydra had definitely just acquired a pet.  A pet!  If others didn’t keep theirs a secret it would definitely be the first pet owned.  Lockon had only figured it out because he heard in the beta they allowed users to go into the garden to find out how the pets reacted to them in order for nothing to go wrong.  It later was found out that pets could grow similarly to players and rare ones could even become incredibly strong if not stronger than the user himself!

“As expected of shadow.”

Hydra who heard Lockon chose to ignore it.  He felt tired trying to figure out how Lockon’s expectations of him were so high. But how could anyone blame him?  After all he had been playing for one day!  All these amazing lucky things were happening one after another and while Lockon had heard about the misfortune and risk involved the rewards definitely justified it!  Goliath on the other hand just wanted to know about the stats and quickly asked Hydra to explain what it could do.  Hydra read out loud the information.

“…….It’s a Zigzagoon.”