“You defeated them!” Olaf, the dragonborn village chief, gushed. “You actually did it. I can’t believe it!”

  A system notification suggested two dialogue options again, which were, “Of course, I’ll help any day!” and “So where are the rewards?”

  Veyra spoke first, choosing neither option. “Yeah, we’re kinda awesome like that,” she said. “Can we see the egg now?”

  “Of course!” Olaf smiled like some servant. Now that our affinity with him was high, he would be inclined to listen to our requests. He began leading us up, toward the holy spring. “Thank you for helping our village. We've avoided yet another disaster.”

  “Won’t the Ray Dragon get mad to know if you’re hoarding the egg here?” Veyra asked.

  “What?” Olaf asked. “No, of course not. It is our duty to deal with the Ray Dragon’s offspring… Appropriately.”

  His tone sounded oddly secretive. I had a feeling I’d missed some lore again. To be honest, I wasn’t really sure why we were protecting this egg. As far as I knew, there existed two factions of NPCs. The dragonborn, who wanted to find their goddess Ray Dragon Embridge again, and another faction who just wanted to kill the dragon and the babies. But keeping up with lore wasn’t as useful as stalking top players for their playstyles, so I didn’t know much more.

  “Do you get rewarded for it?” Veyra asked. “All this baby dragon kidnapping stuff?”

  Olaf tilted his head, smile falling, as his AI figured out how to respond. “I don’t know what you’re getting at, miss. Follow me to the holy spring.”

  “Meh,” Veyra said to me. “The new NPCs are no fun. Endlich event NPCs were much more fun to mess with. Is the budget lower these days?”

  “Looks like the devs are investing in actual content,” I said.

  “Yeah, amazing content such as ‘protect egg,’” Veyra said.

  I grinned. “It’s a dragon egg, though. Knowing Wonderwind, there’s a good chance it’ll actually hatch. Whoever gets it could obtain a dragon. Either way, we’re lucky that the quest was easy.”

  Veyra shrugged, and we followed Olaf for another two minutes. We reached the tip of one of the mountains. A vast landscape of stone and mist still surrounded us with taller mountains continuing ahead. The tip of this specific mountain was flat with a spike-fence of stone enclosing it. The holy spring bubbled in the middle, appearing like any ordinary hot spring, except the water was a shiny green.

  Two Dragonkin Spearmen (Level 260) protected the entrance. They let us inside, but they remained stoic and didn’t salute, still regarding us as possible threats in their holy ground. They would still attack us if we tried anything funny.

  The egg itself floated in the holy spring, confidently defying physics, lower half in the water with the tip pointing up. It already had a small crack. Seeing it, the quest details popped up again.

  Quest: Protect the Ray Dragon’s hatching egg (S-Tier Event Quest) (Recommended Level: 240+)

  Quest Details: Ray Dragon Embridge’s Egg is about to hatch. Ensure that the process happens smoothly.

  Completion Conditions: Protect the Ray Dragon’s egg until it hatches.

  [Warning!: Quest progress has been interrupted by another player.]

  I blinked, turning to Veyra. “Someone’s here. I got a warning.”

  I scanned the area, seeing nothing. I glanced up, only to see an empty sky. Someone could have been using [Stealth] perhaps.

  I felt something cold underneath me. I glanced down. My legs were frozen by the effects of [Absolute Zero]. The frost grew rapidly. I instinctively cast [Shadow Dash], but I was already stuck.

  [You are Frozen. Movement abilities inhibited.]

  What the hell? I thought.

  “Sorry,” Veyra said, and my heart skipped a beat, realizing what was happening.

  “I lied about having only an A-ranked quest,” Veyra continued. “Mine is also S-ranked. It’s much better than yours. Someone important to me really needs money right now. Sorry.”

  If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

  A portal appeared underneath the dragon egg, which brought the item to Veyra’s hands. The dragonborn spearmen shouted, “Hey!” with their spears staring her down.

  “Thanks for saving me, and sorry for this,” Veyra said. “I’ll pay you back one day, I promise.”

  [Absolute Zero] fully enveloped my head in frost. The spearmen charged her, until purple spikes from [Chronorift] shot from the ground, blocking their path. The spearmen paused, which gave Veyra enough time to dip into a portal.

  She made a clean escape, taking the egg with her.

  And since I was frozen in her spell, I could only stare at the system notifications.

  [Quest Protect the Ray Drake’s hatching egg has failed.]

  [Quest progression has strayed from the expected path. Recalculating failure consequences…]

  [Recalculating…]

  [Conditions have been adjusted. Follow-up quests might be generated.]

  A punch hit the frost straight on. Olaf’s fist shattered the frost, and [Absolute Zero] wore off. “A betrayer!” Olaf shouted. “She stole the egg!”

  The dragonborn spearmen pointed their spears at me, but they didn’t outright kill me. A follow-up quest was available. I could already guess what the quest was.

  “Wait,” I said. “I’m not with her. I’ll retrieve the egg!”

  “It must be retrieved immediately!” Olaf shouted. “Will you slay the thief and retrieve the stolen egg?”

  New quest information popped up.

  Quest: Retrieve the Ray Drake’s hatching egg. (S+ Tier Event Quest) (Recommended Level: 260+)

  Quest Details: Ray Dragon Embridge’s egg has been stolen by player Veyra.

  Completion Conditions: Kill Veyra and retrieve the hatching egg back to Olaf.

  Quest Reward: Maximum affinity with all Dragonkin Rebel Tribes. +10000 Gold, +20 million experience. High probability of a follow-up quest.

  Quest Failure: Unknown.

  I accepted the quest and offered Olaf a quick salute. The spearmen kept frowning at me, but didn’t threaten me with spears anymore.

  “I’ll get this done,” I promised Olaf half-assedly, and exited the holy spring, back toward the village.

  A stupefied smile was glued to my face. She betrayed me.

  And she left me alive!

  I snorted, then chuckled at myself. What an absurd day. We wiped a whole guild, and the loot was all still equipped or in my inventory.

  I couldn’t even be mad. Veyra had betrayed me with such class. Not only did she apologize, she actually left me alive. Even though she betrayed me, I still earned over ten thousand dollars. Wonderwind needed more fair players like her.

  She said she’d pay me back one day, I thought. Was that a lie as well?

  I didn’t chase after her. Sure, I had an S+ ranked quest to kill her with more insane rewards, but I had no idea where Veyra had escaped. Right now, my priority was to get to an auction house safely.

  While walking to the village, I opened up the top five hundred leaderboard again. I searched for Veyra’s name. Again, she was missing. Veyra really wasn’t a top player. Nobody knew about her. I’d never once seen her on the forums.

  The top five hundred leaderboard worked automatically, ranking players using three metrics. Character level, tournament wins, and quest completions. Veyra had low level gear, and I had never seen her in tournaments. She seemed to be completing quests, but if she was underleveled, she wouldn’t show up in the leaderboard.

  She was easily the most skilled mage player I’d met in person, though. She wasn’t as omnipotent as Firebrand, the rank one mage player, and one of the five gods of the game, but her quick-casting was still insanely precise.

  She said she needed money, I thought. Was the guild wipe really not enough?

  As if I didn’t need money too…

  I entered the Highray Rogue Encampment, finally back in a Safe Zone, when I received a direct message.

  Or rather, I had received a message over an hour ago, but I only noticed it now. Not from a player, but from my game pod itself. Someone was trying to contact me from the real world.

  EndersAdmin1: “Hey, Evelyn here. Your dad is at the cafe. He’d like to see you. I can’t force you, but I thought you’d like to know.”

  Oh shit. I paused whatever I was just doing. After some hesitation, I responded to the message, asking,

  Gamepod16: “Is he still there?”

  EndersAdmin1: “He said he’d be back in a bit.”

  Fucking hell, I thought. How much easier would life be if my parents believed in me for once?

  I technically didn’t need to go see my dad. I was an adult, and it was illegal to pull people out of virtual headsets without warning. Only the cops would have the authority to pull me out of the pod, and even then they’d need a good reason.

  EndersAdmin1: “Oh, and he also called the cops.”

  I stared at the message blankly.

  “For fuck’s sake, dad…” I muttered, and I decided to log out, if only because Evelyn would have to be the one to deal with my dad’s rage otherwise.

  [Logging out… Please wait…]

  I was lucky I was in a public space. My dad would have probably murdered me otherwise. He probably still had alcohol in his system from the family meeting.

  My thoughts were cut off as I woke up in the real world.