Rise Online: Return of the Legendary Player

Her gaze was cold and terrifying. She was powerful. Kaizen knew this just from the pressure in the environment caused by her gaze. This was something he had never felt before, not even when he faced the Mythic Rank Boss head-on.

\'No wonder she is considered the most promising player.\' Kaizen concluded.

\'N-no! Of course he didn\'t do it! I was helping him kill a witch that was here." To avoid too big a fight, Klank quickly explained.

"Huh? Really? The witch was powerful?" At that moment, the overwhelming aura of the Bloody Lily was calmed and stopped weighing on the Psyker\'s shoulders.

"Very! I think she was responsible for summoning the zombies and maybe even the Emperor Bats."

"The Emperor Bats were being controlled by a man named Zilgath, The Perpetual Fire. He was strong, but he didn\'t stand a chance against our guild." She said, looking at Kaizen over her shoulder. Suddenly, she turned to Kaizen and stated, "You know, I think I know you from somewhere."

Just as Kaizen was about to answer her, Klank stepped in between the two of them. "D-must be because you\'ve seen him in the Copper Sturgeon? He lives there!" He tried to explain, but the sweat running down his forehead and his nervous voice were clear signs that he didn\'t know how to lie very well.

"No... I\'m sure I\'ve seen him somewhere else. Um... Now I remembered, you\'re the guy I saw yesterday while leaving the tavern."

"Yeah!" Klank exclaimed. "He really was there and talked to me!"

"And you\'re also the guy I saw in Holinda City last week, aren\'t you? I remember the Training Center event, his fight."

"Huh? Training Center?" Klank asked her.

"Haven\'t you seen that video of a rookie fighting a noble NPC?" She asked Klank. "It was that guy in that video that got millions of hits last week."

The green-haired boy rubbed his forehead to try to remember, and when he did, he looked at Kaizen in amazement. "Was that really you?"

"Yes, it was me. Is there a video of that fight rolling around on the internet? I didn\'t even know that."

Klank\'s forehead almost went rigid from how much he wrinkled it with his expression of surprise. It was absolutely amazing to think that a week ago Kaizen was a rookie who couldn\'t beat a level 15 NPC, and that in that amount of time he had already evolved to the point of killing Goblins, Steel Claw Mantis, and even a mythical creature. Not to mention that when he first met him, Klank thought Kaizen had a higher level even than his for the Goblin slaughter he did.

"Anyway, that\'s in the past. We\'re in a horde event and the best thing about it is working as a team. If you are alone, join us. You\'ll get the XP and drops from the creatures you kill... By the way, what\'s your name?" Bloody Lily questioned as sheathed her red-bladed sword.

"Kaizen." Psyker replied simply.

Bleeding Lily\'s sword sheathing was halted at the same instant she heard the answer and looking down at the ground, her and Klank\'s eyes went wide.

"What did you say?" she inquired again to make sure she didn\'t hear wrong, as she raised her head.

"My name is Kaizen, well, my nickname is that actually."

The Bleeding Lily stared Psyker in the eye for a few seconds, which to Klank seemed like hours. The tension with which she looked at him and he looked at her was almost suffocating. Yet suddenly the red-haired woman sketched a smile and exasperated.

"I cannot deny that you are very brave, Kaizen." She said, without blinking. "You come to my town after giving me a big loss and still have the audacity to say to my face the name I would most like to hear someone say. For a change, you are without your mask today, finally revealing your face. It seems you are not afraid of me or anyone else, right?"

"The mask I wear actually works as a feature for people not to fill my patience and get in my way, not to hide who I am. Also, it\'s not that I don\'t respect your strength, but something tells me that you won\'t hate me as much if I tell you how to defeat the Centaur Druid in the easiest way possible. Also, if you think like I do, you\'ll see that it\'s better for us to be partners than enemies." Kaizen said, looking into his eyes without flinching.

Having Taznaar as an enemy was tolerable, but if Bleeding Lily hated him as much as Taznaar did, eventually the two would team up to get in Kaizen\'s way and with the weight of a million-dollar debt on his back, Kaizen couldn\'t afford to have two powerful people hating him. So he found this an opportune moment to try to win over the Bleeding Lily, who seemed to be more rational than Taznaar.

For several seconds, the Bleeding Lily stared at him, trying to read if what Kaizen was saying was true or just a bluff to avoid being immediately killed.

Analyzing the scenario widely, the Blood Lily knew that Kaizen was a rookie, because she saw him fighting, she saw him wearing the clothes that only rookies who have never worn any other clothes can wear, because once you take the rookie clothes off, the game doesn\'t allow you to put them on again. This is the basics, and so everyone always knew how to identify a novice.

However, if Kaizen was really a rookie last Friday, it would be impossible for him to have enough levels to defeat the Centaur Druid at the beginning of the week, even if he was the best player in the world.

To single-handedly defeat a Mythic Rank monster required at least level 120, which was a level that was mathematically impossible for Kaizen to obtain in less than a week of playing, even if he was the best player in the world and played 24 hours a day, and a Boss with that same Rank, like the Centaur Druid had, was almost impossible for a single player to defeat.

All this meant that, if Kaizen really was a newbie a week ago, the fact that he defeated the Centaur Druid so quickly that he didn\'t even give the high-level players a chance to act, was not pure brute force from some player about to become Evolved, as they theorized, but a genuinely genius tactic.

"So, are you going to want to hear what I have to say or not?" Kaizen asked as he stretched his right hand forward.

Bleeding Lily looked at his hand, then at his serious countenance and finally returned the handshake. "Fine, you can go to my guild headquarters after this event is over, but..." She squeezed Kaizen\'s hand tighter. "... I still don\'t trust you. If you betray me, I will make your life a living hell."

...

Edited by: DrHitsuji

If you want to see original illustrations of Rise Online characters, consider helping me on pa treon: Pa /NandoFalske

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