Obelisk

Reconstruction

Two days passed after that combat. There was much desolation and sadness. The city looked very strange, apparently the king of that place had been assassinated in the middle of that event. So Fischer was going to change in many ways. Paul only stayed a few days in his house, trying to do some repairs to the place. He had been left as the man of the house. In him was the future of that family. He had three brothers who were no older than twelve years old. All black-haired, black-eyed, and somewhat like him. Their mother had locked herself in a room, and besides that they lived in terrible living conditions.

He was somewhat depressed by what he had had to live through. He was left with many mental scars from witnessing the death of so many people. He was constantly reminded of what had happened and how he had been unable to do anything about it.

Everything he felt at that moment became his motivation to become stronger. So he decided to look at each statistic one by one.

<<Energy 70>>

<<Speed 50>>

<<Strength 45>>

<<Fatigue 20>>

<<Health 100>>>

<<Physical attractiveness 20>>>

The last statistic left him thinking a bit and made him uncomfortable. The game had something for the love life of the players, but Paul felt very annoyed. He felt it was crazy to do something like that in this place.

As he was thinking about it, someone knocked on his door. Paul hesitated, he wasn't too sure if he opened the door as he didn't know who it was.

So one of his brothers went to open it.

"Paul, you're wanted!" his younger brother shouted.

The black-haired boy went over there a little suspicious, he wasn't sure who he would meet at the door. As he went over there, he noticed that it was a royal guard, with the silver armor that those men usually had.

"Lord Paul, you are requested to the prince, since you are close to the princes of another country."

Paul, was surprised to hear that, he did not understand why he was called. The guard left after giving him the information. It left the boy quite confused. So he looked at the mission the game had assigned him.

<<TO STAND OUT IN THE SCHOOL>>.

It was not something difficult, but it seemed quite complicated for the black-haired boy, since his self-esteem was very low, and he did not have much encouragement to return, he was just waiting for good news from the young king. So he stopped making arrangements for the house and left.

[...]

Paul went to the castle of the city. He saw how little by little everything was being reorganized. The flags that used to be green and white were being changed to red and orange. The guards and people of that place ignored the presence of that boy, but one of the guards came up to him and spoke to him.

"Ah...it's you. Well, camp me, the young king wants to see you."

Paul was puzzled, he could not imagine why they were requesting his presence in that place. He just followed that man and observed each of the corridors where he passed. Until he reached the room where the prince was.

He was a young man almost her age, only that maybe he was older. He had red hair, serious blue eyes, and he had a crown on.

"Good morning, Young King" Said Paul, showing respect to the person in front of him.

"Good morning, my name is Karl Braun, I am the prince of this kingdom. As you may know, my parents and most of the royal family died, so it fell to me to run this country."

"I understand your majesty, I lost my father, and now I am the one who manages all the affairs of my family, but why was I called?"

The boy rose from his throne to answer.

"It is said that you were engaged to a princess from another country, but she died, we need to collaborate with that country, and have good relations, as they might attack this country. We were left a bit weak and there were many losses in the battle."

"I see. Don't worry, I can talk to the other prince of that city, so he can help us."

"Ok, it was just that, you may stand down."

Paul hearing that. He turned around and walked down the hallway. The same guard that led him there, started escorting him. There was a lot of movement everywhere. The place was going to be remodeled and there would probably be more security and better physical training for the people there. Since the incident with the monsters showed them that they didn't only need magic to live. When he passed by the castle garden. The black-haired boy could see one of the teachers from his school with other people. Apparently they were also called by the young king.

Paul avoided looking at them, so as not to talk to them, he wanted to avoid awkward questions and preferred to focus on leveling up.

[...]

Leaving the castle, the black-haired boy was a little calmer, no one was looking at him funny, and he felt a little more liberated, however from one moment to another his stats went up.

<<Reputation 35>>

To Paul, it surprised him, and he understood that this was part of his mission, he felt like a stupid not interacting with the teachers, maybe if he had chatted with them, he would have gone up a little more, but he stopped worrying about it. He decided to go to other places where the game and let him go. 

He had his wand with him, so he had no problem going that way, but it was dangerous, he could run into any dangerous monsters or wizards. Still, the game had not made it clear to him who were responsible for what had happened a few days ago and had complicated his situation here.

He felt that curiosity to see what could be in that place, so he decided to go to that place, even though he was not sure. 

He walked through the streets, in that atmosphere of desolation that was still lived by the death of several people by the attack of a group of monsters. I did not understand what the game wanted to do with that event. As much dark fantasy as the game had for Paul, it did not have much logic and it seemed very cruel to him.

Without knowing it he arrived at the dark place that the game did not let him pass at the beginning. So he walked there in the middle of the darkness that was in that place. It was a kind of passageway and there were people there watching what was going on. 

It was a kind of black market, Persian style. There were people there who covered their faces with hoods, or veils, and others who did not mind being seen.

The game immediately sent him several warnings.

<<Dangerous Zone>>.

<<Avoid looking people in the eyes, only look at the objects they sell>>.

Paul listened to him and only tried to look at the objects that each person was selling. Only when I passed by someone, the game showed me the objects for sale. They were things forbidden in the city. Most of them were books, cursed wands and strange potions. Although the inventory that the black-haired boy had, there were some strange things. In that market, most of the objects were worse.

Paul decided to buy a few things with the money he had inherited from Sabrina. He only selected wands and potions, but while he was looking at the different items for sale. He noticed that there was a book on how to be level 50 in less than two weeks. Paul was struck by the sight of something like that. It was a temptation. It was what he longed for so much, but the price was almost 300 million coins. Something impossible to buy. He didn't even have half of that money. 

So in a rather cold way, he decided to stop looking at the book and focused on others. One of them was quite rare, it was a kind of dark magic book that had exactly the same amount of money that Paul had at that moment, 15 million coins. The boy saw it as somewhat risky, without money he couldn't buy potions or other items he needed, he knew there were probably forbidden spells that would help him level up, but it was risky. He had no source of income to help him get the money he needed. Again he couldn't buy the book, but he was determined to find a job and at least get a million coins, so he could spend the twenty-five million. With what he had, he bought some books. 

Suddenly he felt he was running out of money, so he decided to stop buying strange objects and tried to get out of there. However, there were people watching him. Paul felt a bit intimidated and avoided making eye contact with them, he felt very uncomfortable with those people, however one of them stopped him from moving from that area.

"Let me through."

"You can't, you are in a forbidden area, you are at your fate of what the person you meet here wants. You must have a magic match with me."

Paul was a little annoyed, he knew he would most likely lose, but he had no choice.

All the vendors made a kind of magic circle to prevent their items they were selling from being affected.

Immediately, the game revealed to him the level of that strange man.

<<Unknown man level 40>>

Paul was very serious after the incident, he had gone up to level 21 and the level change wasn't much. He didn't know if that man wanted to kill him or test his power level. Without giving him time, the magic battle started.

The unknown man launched an attack with gusts of wind that dragged Paul to the walls of that market. The poor boy did not know what to do. That attack took away almost eighty points of health. He tried to use a potion and then attack it, but was surprised with an attack he had never seen before. A strange purple and black fist appeared, it almost crushed him, luckily he was thrown to another part of the market.

It left him a little confused, it was the first time Paul had seen a type of magic different from that of the elements. He wanted to learn it, but he needed to get out of this fight alive. So he cast a type of ice spell to completely immobilize him.

"Ice Trap."

The whole market was frozen. 

That moment, Paul took advantage and drank an elixir to recover his life points. However, after a few seconds the strange man recovered and got out of there, but he didn't want to fight anymore, he only said a few words to him.

"You have very basic spells, in this world that will only serve you to grow food, for battles with people of high levels they won't serve you."

Paul was surprised to hear that man and immediately realized that he was a gambler. That man took off his hood and showed his face. He was tall with black hair and green eyes, he also had a rather crooked and strange wand.

"My name is Matheus, I am a gambler as well as you. I already finished all my quests with this level. I just learned some forbidden spells and with that I finished everything."

Paul was shocked and spoke.

"Are you a hacker?"

"No, I'm just a normal player who took advantage of the few opportunities the game gave me to explore it and I stole a forbidden book. So I can't get out even if I wanted to. I don't want to be happy in this place, either. If he sees you, he would force you to have a duel with him."

The expression in that man's eyes. He was calm, as if he didn't care about anything. He had done everything to have fun, but Paul didn't like this very much.