End Online: Volume 3 (13 page)

As I get my final bonus
from wearing it, I also get another nice surprise.

I most certainly can’t
complain about those benefits! I get a little curious about exactly what stats
I currently do have, and while rummaging through my game option, I find a way
to make it visible at the bottom of my player stats along with my skills.

‘This should
hopefully help me keep track of them!’ 
I
thought to myself,  not being able to remember too many skills and such
was the reason why I never made a good mage in the older role playing games.

My player stats window
does feel a little packed all of a sudden, but I try not to be too bothered by
it.

Setting my thoughts aside,
I head off to the Gold Run Inn.

***************************************************

I arrive at the inn and
greet everyone inside. Within moments, I also form a party with all of us in
it.

“Now that we have all seen
what this boy looks like, we need to go find him,” I state to everyone in front
of me.

“We don’t know where we
should be looking though.” Strange as it is, it is Prince Charming who speaks
up while furrowing his brow.

Everyone else also looks
as shocked as I am right now. For this man to actually input something into the
group as a whole is completely out of his character.

“W-well,” I continue on,
“that is why we will split up, just like when following Rix’s daughter.
Although this time it will be in teams of two, I will go with Fen and explore
the smaller second floor and even the third floor. Verde and the prince can
search the east side of Grenton, where the meeting actually took place. Lastly,
Mason and Matrix will look around the west side of town.”

“Surely, there are plenty
of places that this boy would definitely not be. Why not localize the search to
the most likely places?” Mason lifts one finger up while raising the idea.

“It’s not a bad thought,”
I sigh before pointing out the flaw, “except we know nothing about who this boy
is. For all we know, he could be a rich kid dressed up poorly to sneak around
and see the girl he likes without his parents knowing he is friends with
someone from the lower class.”

“How very cliché,” Verde
giggles while commenting, with Mason speaking up again next.

“I understand. There is no
point debating this further. Let us spread out the net and find this boy!”

Almost like a declaration
of war, we all stand up and start to head off.

“Umm, Lost?” Verde speaks
quietly into my ear when she is near me. “Is it possible to have a few words
later. After all of this… There is just something I want to talk to you about.”

She whispers it quietly
enough that nobody else near me should hear, even Fen who is standing on my
other side.

“Ok?” My heartbeat is
certainly accelerated and I feel nervous, but I don’t know exactly what it is
she wants to talk with me in private about.

Verde almost skips away to
catch up with the prince and start looking in their designated area.

Meanwhile, I take Fen and
head towards the second floor.

There are a few rope
ladders that head up to the second story of Grenton, but what I want is one of
the ramps that climb up.

About five minutes of
searching, I finally find one hiding in between two buildings.

The light brown wooden
path up is wide enough for four people to walk abreast. The railing of the ramp
is made of the same dark wood as the buildings of Grenton.

Once Fen and I reach the
second floor, we both stop. I know at least I’m dumbstruck. The entire area is
completely upper class from the ground floor. Each and every building is
immensely larger than the ones below.

Even the wood itself seems
to be intricately carved, seamlessly flowing from one piece to the next. This
area must definitely be where the upper echelon reside.

I spot a few guild
buildings here. Each and every one of them must have invested a fortune to have
their base here.

With me leading the way,
Fen and I start exploring the area in a search for the mysterious boy. I walk
past a few high level players and some people that could either be players
dressed in fancy clothes or NPC aristocrats. I would not be surprised to find
them here.

‘Now that I think
about it, didn’t Icebreak have a castle? The place where the king of the
country resides.  Shouldn’t Grenton have something similar?’

I look across the city and
the other platforms only to have something catch my interest. It is not the
sight of the stunning city, with its patches of greenery showing through.
instead, the sight of one of the few third tier platforms on one of the many
enormous tree trunks stretching up into the sky.

It is around the world
tree in the center of the city, the biggest tree of them all. On the third
story is an enormous palace of wood and stone seven stories tall. The structure
was built directly onto the world tree, stretching around and behind it.

‘Of course I never
noticed it before. When I arrived here, the building would have been behind the
world tree. Now that I have moved around a bit, I can see it!’

Bringing my attention back
to the platform I am currently on, I realize this is not going to be an easy
task. I have about forty platforms throughout the city that I need to search,
and the other teams each have an enormous area of approximately three square
miles.

“Unfortunately,” I look
down at Fen next to me, “you don’t know what this boy looks like. So you just
look for any suspicious children.”

She nods to me as we head
off in a manhunt for one person in a population of a hundred thousand players
and NPCs.

As I finish searching my
third platform, I see a familiar face looking back at me. The person
immediately runs up to me upon recognizing me. Not that I would be hard to miss
with the large white fur hood that I wear.

“Lost! Funny running into
you here! What are you doing here? I still see you have that lady with you, are
you two dating?” The man gives me a sly wink.

“Haha, no, we are not,
Mouse. But I could ask you the same thing. Should you not be minding your
stall? It is still day after all.”

“I need a day off
sometimes too you know.” He shrugs his shoulders, “I am level one hundred and
fifty, remember? I didn’t get to it by standing around at my stall all the
time.”

“True enough. Are you just
out to explore the city then?”

“Something like that.”
Mouse puts on a smile that I couldn’t label as anything other than sly.

‘Well, he is a
businessman after all. Being sly would only be natural.’

“Say, Lost. You are doing
a quest right now, am I right?”

“That I am. Speaking of
which, I should possibly get back to.”

“May I join you?”

“Wait, what? Why do you
ask that?”

“Just being a merchant is
somewhat boring. I do get to go out and procure goods to make half of my goods
that I sell, but I still miss out on all the adventure. I thought if I join
you, then maybe I would get to have that for a bit.”

“Mmm… Unfortunately, I
don’t think this quest is exactly what you want though. We are basically
searching all of Grenton in hopes of finding this one particular child. It doesn’t
have much in regards to adventure.”

“I’m sure there is some
there. I would have fun being a part of it regardless.”

I can’t quite put my
finger on it, but this guy seems rather earnest to join me.

“Well, look up ‘The
Mysterious Boy’ on the End Forums. There is a post under that name with an
image of the boy I am looking for.”

“That sounds great. Add me
to your contact list so I can contact you if I happen to find him.”

With that our conversation
comes to an end, and I gain one more person in my friends list. I only worry a
little bit about how I would split the reward. If there is a reward, that is.

For two full hours, I
searched. Not only did I not find any children that even remotely looked like
the boy in question, but I noticed there is a surprising lack of kids in
Grenton. There are still kids, but they only number about one in every hundred
people.

Throughout my search, I
covered seven platforms, and neither of the other teams covered even a quarter
of their areas as well. As soon as the sun started to fall below the horizon,
we all decided to meet back at the inn.

“This is going to take far
too long!” Prince Charming complains to everyone. “There is no way we are going
to be able to do this. By tomorrow the boy could be in an area we have already
searched!”

“I hate to admit it, but
he is right. Even if we split into six I’m not entirely sure we would be able
to cover the entire area. He could also be spending the time in a residence as
well.” Mason frowns while Matrix nods his head next to him.

“I understand.” A long
sigh escapes me. “But there has to be some method to finish this quest. Is it
simply reliant on luck?”

“I’m sorry. If only I
wasn’t caught back then. That way we would know where the boy would be at any
morning.” Verde hangs her head.

“It’s not your fault my
lady. That innkeeper is simply being unreasonable.”

A short pause comes over
our group, no one knowing what to say next. The first person to speak up,
strangely, was the quietest of the group, Matrix.

“Umm. I kind of thought it
was the obvious answer… But, umm, could he perhaps live outside the city walls?
I mean, could he live in that forest where he would meet the i-innkeeper’s
daughter?”

“Sorry, brother, but there
are no NPCs that live anywhere near the city that are not already in it. There
are a few small communities around, but none close enough that a small boy
would be able to walk here alone.” Mason instantly rejects it.

“Could they, umm, perhaps
just be a group of bandits or something living in the forest… Like, Robin Hood or
something?”

Matrix has a childish
gleam in his eyes, clearly infatuated with the fictional character. But his
idea does give me a thought.

“You could actually be
onto something Matrix! There are people that usually tend to live outside city
walls. Like various hunters, farmers, or even just recluses.”

“I suppose that could be
it, if you put it that way.” Mason gives in to the new thought.

“After all,” I continue
on, “they were meeting outside of the city. It could be that for some reason he
can’t come inside.”

“Why not just ask the
girl. She would surely know something,” the prince interjects, bringing up the
most obvious point. Except he isn’t the only one who thought of it.