The Earth Online

53 The Fourth Akkadian Commandment

Thaleos could barely see the creature as it was swiftly moving around the location, blending into the light shadows and shifting into different shapes.

“It’s a shadow monster.” Kedrick growled under his breath. Ygritte closed her eyes and tried focusing on the sounds surrounding them.

She was trying to track where the beast was, when she heard the rustling of the leaves on her left she aimed a couple of feet away and successfully grazed the beast.

They heard a quick yelp and the beast’s movement considerably slowed down.

There was a black rabbit that seemed to look like a shadow, save for some of its dimensions and red eyes. 

It glared at them and continued running around the location until it got brave enough to attack them directly.

It managed to scratch them all on the side before hiding back into the shadows.

Before they could even attack back, it was already hiding in their own shadow and was still grazing them from side to side.

Although the attacks weren’t that painful, the cut count was steadily increasing. Kedrick closed his eyes and activated his Ward Off Evil skill.

After a couple of seconds of just meditating, he successfully activated the light spell.

Compared to how they thought the shadow rabbit would initially react to the spell, it just ran away as fast it could.

They were all expecting for its shadow-like body to dissipate because of the light spell, but they figured that the beasts here were way stronger than their initial assumption.

“Damn, that little critter be hella strong.” Kedrick muttered as he tried maintaining the Ward Off Evil skill.

Since they were tethering near the white line and outside the safe space, there were a higher number of creatures.

Aside from their regular sources of strength, their attacks become stronger as they gradually get nearer the dark space. As much as their group wanted to stay in the safe space, they needed to go out there to level up or else they’ll be left behind in this stage.

“If my memory serves me right, I think the shadow rabbits are the weakest creature in the whole second stage.” Thaleos explained, breaking the daydreams of their little team.

“Damn, we gotta sharpen up our senses then.” Haya knotted his eyebrows, as he realized that their training barely made up for their survival.

Compared to earth, they had little to no rest here. They had to constantly stay on alert as they had no Melam Military Base in the second stage.

“I gotta be honest, bro. I f*****g miss sleeping on an actual bed. I am dying.” Kedrick complained as he massaged his back and shoulders.

The other three team members agreed as they could feel their whole body just aching from the month of sleeping on forest and cave floors.

“I swear, I don’t know if this whole thing is every going to end but the only prize I want is a king size bed and all the junk food I could have.” Ygritte grumbled as she remembered her Sundays filled with binge watching and a large bag of chips and tub of ice cream.

Haya could recall all the times he would just spend his days in the university campus, slaving away to get his doctorate degree.

Thankfully, after walking around, they spotted a cabin house a couple of feet away from them.

Although it was surrounded by trees and flowers, it still looked well-kept and clean.

“You think it’s safe to go in there?” Kedrick asked as he warily stared at the cozy looking cabin in the middle of the woods.

“Kind of suspicious if you ask me.” Ygritte crossed her arms while warily staring at the structure.

“Wait, I think I remember you mentioning something about this!” Haya exclaimed in excitement. The other three just chuckled as the young man looked like a student being over excited since he was the only one who knew the answer.

“Based on the game’s principle, all houses and structures from the onset are empty until claimed by a player or team. So generally, there are safe houses scattered around the location, but we also get the option to buy them in case we come across kingdoms.” Thaleos nodded his head like a proud professor.

The other two were impressed by the berserker’s memory. It was adorable to see the tan muscular man getting excited about any form of knowledge.

“But, and here’s another cookie crumble of information; we’re not sure if there’s a kingdom in this stage yet, as James always forgot about the location.” Haya said the last part in an anticlimactic tone.

“Yep, that’s pretty much the gist of it. Amazingly enough, even with James’ ability to astral project through different timelines, he can’t seem to remember about this part.” The beast tamer explained as he steadily walked to the cabin.

He signaled them to ready their weapons, just in case, but the whole place was empty save for some basic furniture.

The bearded man decided to go ahead and just open the door wide open, causing a creaky sound.

The place smelt like old books and maple syrup; it looked and felt like an old retirement home of sorts.

“Wow, I don’t know why but this place just seems so comfortable. Ugh, makes me just want to stay here forever.” Ygritte jokingly said, making Thaleos roll his eyes with a warm smile.

“Yeah, didn’t you mention that it was Innana who made the house-rule or something?” Kedrick commented offhandedly, to which Thaleos responded with a nod.

It seemed like Innana was one of the relatively kinder gods, but they knew better than to just blindly trust the gods.

“Well, at least we know that we could rest at least for the whole night and just take ownership of this cabin. We can only own up to ten cabins or houses around the whole location.” The beast tamer explained as he decided to drop his utility belt on the bed, near where Ygritte was.

“Anyways, I’m just going to take a quick shower.” The bearded man stated, and soon after, all of them were finished showering and were just ready to sleep.

But before they could lay down, they felt their tummies rumbling loudly from the hunger.

“f**k, right, food.” Haya explained and he proceeded to take out some ingredients from the Akkadian cube and decided to cook up a mighty dinner.

Luckily enough, when you place something inside the Akkadian cube, things don’t rot easily. It was just a blackhole that had comparatively low vacuum capabilities than other blackholes, making it easier to store and get items in it.

It did not follow the basic concept of time, so they could store some ingredients in there. But they made sure to only pack light as they knew they would be looting a lot of objects from this world.

The man managed to cook up some tuna pesto pasta, fried mojos, and garlic bread. Since there were large servings, everyone made sure to eat up as much as they could.

The three men had plates and plates of food, but Ygritte wasn’t left behind as she made sure to attack the mojos with such deep passion.

They rarely ate such fancy food, and mostly stuck to canned food, but since they knew that it was their first night in the real second world, they decided to celebrate a bit.

After devouring everything on their plate, they cleaned up again for a tad bit and proceeded to get in their own beds.

In the second floor of the cabin, there were six single beds, so they all had their own beds to sleep on.

Within a minute, everyone was peacefully snoring away. They could all feel the fatigue from the last month taking over their system.

A couple of hours later, Thaleos felt in his gut feeling that there was something wrong.

He didn’t know what was it that was bothering him, but he knew it was related to the fact that he couldn’t wake up at will.

For the past year or so, he has trained himself and even his team to make sure that they could wake from the smallest sound or whenever they felt like there was something wrong in their environment.

This was one of the reasons why they’ve managed to survive in the novice adaptation stage.

The beast tamer tried to forcibly open his eyes at will, but he just felt like this irresistible urge to just keep them shut forever.

He thought to himself that something must’ve went inside the house while they were sleeping.

As he was fighting with his physical body, he could feel his mind getting colder and darker.

A couple of minutes later, he was shaking in the freezing cold. He looked around in the astral space and noticed a person’s silhouette.

He tried walking, and even running, towards the figure but it seemed like it was just getting further and further away.

“What’s this? What’s happening?” The bearded man shouted in confusion. The dark figure divided into three silhouettes, two men and one woman, and they all spoke in unison,

“You forgot about the fourth commandment, Thaleos. Stay alert at all times!” The voices finished its sentence in a deep growling voice.