The Earth Online

37 Preparations for the Next World Part 7

“Over our dead bodies.” As soon as Thaleos muttered the last word with a cheeky grin, suddenly, all hell broke loose. Everyone got out their weapons and started wreaking havoc in the scene.

Thaleos quickly acted by order his wolf-eagle to pick them both up. After floating a couple of meters above the scene, they threw some shekels around the crowd.

Their eyes widened in shock at the movement, and most of them rapidly zeroed in on the falling shekels.

“Greed will be the death of those who want more than they need.” The beast tamer muttered under his breath, as he watched the crowd attempting to kill each other over the shining gems.

Kedrick stared at them and saw ants fighting over the remains of dead dung bugs. It disgusted him to the core.

While watching everyone basically stabbing each other to death, they spotted Garrett crawling his way out of the bloody crowd.

Feeling his blood boiling, Thaleos ordered his wolf-eagle to drop him off near the bar’s door. Seeing that the scar-faced man was about to run away from his own people, he sought to fight him.

The priest, on the other hand, decided to jump along the fun and tried his luck in quickly ending the lives of the people fighting over the shekels.

“I thought that you guys were a ‘gang’ and you worked together.” Thaleos crossed his arms while staring at the small-time gang leader with a blank face.

“That doesn’t mean jackshit, alright? Most of those fools are idiots, anyways. They’d lick a monkey’s ass for one shekel.” The scar-faced man callously said while giving Thaleos a glare.

The beast tamer was directly staring at the crowd behind Garrett. The gang leader felt the crowd glaring daggers at him—this time, feeling the actual killing intent.

As he slowly turned around, he could send how his gang members were ready to skewer him alive.

“Wait a minute, guys! Was joke, that’s what is was. See, this young lad here forced me to talk s**t about you.” The scar-faced man desperately pointed at the beast tamer with shaky hands.

No one looked happy with the half-hearted statement from the gang leader. The man seemed to be shaking as he saw his gang members slowly approaching him.

Kedrick suddenly appeared before him and whispered to his ear, “May the gods have mercy on your soul, lad.”

Garrett tried to look around for an escape route, and when he saw that there weren’t any, he quickly took out the axe he had behind his back.

“f**k off, I made every single one of you who you are today. You’re all here because of me, and this is how you f*****g repay me?” The scar-faced man angrily said, his eyebrows wrinkled in rage.

Some of the bloody and tattered gang members flinched, because this was one of Garrett’s intimidation tactics.

When he saw that most of the members only had expressionless faces, he faltered a bit.

“You see, Garrett, beating younger people isn’t always gonna work. You deserved to be ripped to shreds.” The beast tamer managed to say his bit before stabbing the man’s leg with a poisoned dagger.

The man slowly started losing the feeling on his left leg and was panicking as to how to escape.

The last thing Garrett saw was the beast tamer and priest riding on the back of the wolf-eagle and waving goodbye, before he got buried in the angry crowd pulling his limbs apart.

As the two men were looking at the crowd from above, Kedrick commented, “That is hella’ nasty, but also ain’t our fault that the bastard was over himself.”

Some players would take advantage of the situation and killed the whole crowd themselves, but Thaleos that he gains nothing from killing other human beings — unless they’re high-level players.

Although Thaleos initially planned to beat up other guilds with higher levels, he wanted to first eradicate this small offshoot gang that made James’ life a living hell, before fighting with the larger gangs.

The beast tamer hid his smile as he saw how everything’s going according to plan.

~ ~ ~

They flew back to the city center of Ellis Town, and out of the Rat Hole, they agreed to buy some human supplies to bring back to the Melam Military Base.

Upon entering one of the shops that sold snacks, they immediately got to work and took some of their favorite chips.

They found how their species adapted to the game because some people were still courageous enough to open their stores and act like normal.

“Get whatever you want, 10 bags of chips and candies are just worth two shekels.” The stingy store vendor commented while watching the two giant men towering over a candy stand.

“Yeah, we’ll be getting about 50 bags, I think. You think that’s good for Abheek, Haya, and Ygritte?” Kedrick asked Thaleos in a serious tone while intently looking at the weight of each bag of chip and candy.

Before the beast tamer could even say a word, they heard someone noisily entering the store, and the potent smell of cigars dominating the room.

“Are you the men responsible for my lad’s death?” An old man with short white hair and a long white beard asked them in an expressionless face.

~ ~ ~

“Ygritte, for f**k’s sake, I told you that we were gonna get lost.” Haya huffed out as they were walking around the farmlands on the other side of Ellis Town.

The young druid merely rolled her eyes and smiled as a response to the tan man’s complaint. The islander just let out a big sigh and replied, “It is impossible to argue with you.”

Although the berserker sounded annoyed, he was actually smiling as well. They always treated each other as siblings with Ygritte treating Haya like a younger brother — although the man is obviously older than her.

“Haya, I’m telling you to trust me. I know this part of Ellis Town, my middle school’s from around here.” The young woman was currently cutting off some of the grass using her sharp dagger.

“In this backward area? The whole population’s just tumbleweed! It’s highly improbable that there’s a school here.” Haya argued while looking at the village near the farmland.

“It’s because it’s exclusive.” Ygritte jokingly said as they continued traversing through the abandoned farm.

“Exclusive my ass. Alright, ‘fess up, where the hell is that small group of bandits?” Haya prodded as they finally approached the small village.

“We’ve been talking about it for the past five minutes. They’re in the school, or that’s what my source have told me.”  Ygritte responded while directly gazing at the tan man.

“Ugh, okay, you’re a master tale weaver, young druid. Enki better watch out because of how wise you are.” The berserker jokingly said while giving a warm smile to his sister-figure.

Upon arriving at the school’s back door, they were currently crouching near the brick-filled structure and boring baby blue walls.

The school’s hallways were quite dark as most of the windows were blocked by nailed down wood. The area seemed almost eerie.

“What’s your info about them again?” Haya quietly asked as his eyes darted around the area. Both of the berserker and druid now had goosebumps all over their bodies from the unnerving silence of the school.

Ygritte knew the school like the back of her hand, so the eerie silence deeply disturbed her. She found out about these small group of bandits from her old principal, Madame Antoinette.

The old and warm woman did her best to keep teaching the children privately, but recently the location has been ransacked by these bandits.

“Well, Principal Antoinette did say that most of them were necromancers and assassins.” Ygritted reported with a straight face.

They were a couple of rooms away from the teacher’s lounge room. According to her old principal, the bandits made that area their home.

“You have got to be f*****g kidding me, actual necromancers, Ygritte? Like the ones that summon dead bodies and reanimate corpses? I’m so f*****g over this shit.” The druid was slightly aware of the tan man’s fear for dead spirits, but she wasn’t aware that it was this bad.

“I am so sorry! Thaleos just vaguely mentioned about your fear of ghosts, but I didn’t know that it was to this extent.” The young druid apologized sincerely with a hint of frown in her eyes.

“Ugh, s**t, don’t worry about it. We’re already here anyways, so I might as well activate my berserker side. Hopefully, my lust for blood overtakes my fear for the undead.

Ygritte nodded her head in gratitude and told him that she’d cover for him, in case he couldn’t handle the images.

Haya just nodded his head in gratefulness.

The first thing that they heard from the lounge was the whistling of the wind and the faint sound of crying.

The berserker slightly paused as he felt the room temperature dropping a couple of degrees.

“This doesn’t feel right, Ygritte.” He whispered to the druid in a hushed and scared tone.

When he didn’t hear a response, he looked around and saw that Ygritte disappeared.

“Ygritte? Ygritte! Where are you?” Haya frantically whispered around as he looked around the area. He let out a big sigh of relief when he heard her voice whispering from behind him.

When he felt someone’s hand on his arm, he suddenly froze.

Because the hand was deadly cold.