421 Dracula’s Castle 13
When Ren and Evie went to school the next day, the halls were empty. Only a few students came to school, and the rest were probably busy with the Halloween Event.
It wasn't just the school — the outside world also seemed to be at a standstill. Most of the population were inside their home, either playing the game or continuing their daily life as they waited for their daily time limit to be over.
The smaller portion of the population who filled the spaces of the city were the non-players.
All sorts of information about different servers were already circulating on the net. World Conqueror's internal operations were already dissecting the other servers, pulling out details and piecing them together to report them to Ren and the others.
While in lectures, Ren was occupied with his next move, but Sleeping Dragon kept slipping into his brain, disrupting his thoughts.
Not to mention that their old teacher's voice sounded like a broken radio on repeat, gasping for a signal.
"You kids shouldn't be too hung up in that game! You won't know until you get there, but let me tell you—your future is more important! How can you get work if you don't have a degree? How can you graduate if you're all absent in class and play games all day?
"Kids these days," she added with a disappointed shake of her head. "So lazy, but has a lot of complaints, like an entitled brat."
'They shouldn't have attended class and, instead, directly went back to Dracula's Castle,' Ren thought.
However, Sumeri and Nikolai had things to do, and Ragnar still had meetings to attend to while Roz had to take care of his mother and had a lot of housework to do.
Their log-in time was settled to be at eight in the evening, after dinner where everybody could logged in.
Ren massaged his temple when they pounded hard. He couldn't stop thinking about Sleeping Dragon since last night. Not to mention Black Lion's recent feats, which added to his lack of sleep and headache.
Ren felt a sudden slight tug on his sleeve and found Evie, whose eyes simply pointed to the note in her hand.
[Are you okay?]
A smile naturally made its way to his lips, and his troubles dissolved into nothingness at the sight of his girlfriend.
He scribbled on his notes and showed them to her.
[I'm fine. Let's eat dinner later at that Sushi house you said you wanted to try]
A small smile tickled Evie's lips, and she was about to scribbled on her notes when the teacher called her name.
"Miss Evie!"
Evie shot to her feet.
"Stop exchanging sweet nothings with your boyfriend, and read to us your assignment."
This was the language class, and their assignment was to pick a word considered globally hard to pronounce and correctly use it repeatedly in a sentence.
With a poker face, Evie picked up her paper and read it in a monotone voice.
"I was hungry and wanted to eat a krwa·san (Croissant). So I went to town and went to a krwa·san shop. I bought the krwa·san and started eating the krwa·san. I was happy and satisfied with the krwa·san. The end."
. . .
. . .
Silence lingered in the classroom for a while, broken by the few students present as they burst into laughter. Their teacher wasn't amused, though, and the chalk in her hand broke.
"D. MINUS." the teacher said, making the others laugh even harder.
Ren hid his laughter behind his clenching fist. Not before long, he felt Evie's shoes stomping against his in rapid succession.
Like always, Evie's face was the epitome of calmness — eyes on the board, like she didn't know what was happening.
Her cheeks were flushed, and there was a small pout on her lips, which added to Ren's laughter.
And when the teacher called for Ren to read his assignment next, he simply answered.
"I didn't do it."
This caused their teacher to explode and start another rant with a lesson about life.
----
Later that night, after dinner, the group logged into the game.
Leonel and Isolde remained dead while Ren, Evie, Ragnar, Roz, Sumeri, and Nikolai went into the game.
Ragnar, Roz, Sumeri, and Nikolai all logged in to the upper floors of the castle while Ren and Evie continued their way toward the Chaos Realm from the basement.
Ren and Evie didn't wait for Ragnar and the others since they were already too far into the upper floors and proceeded to meet Dracula with just the two of them.
It was better that way. At least the others could loot the upper floors while the two of them finished Dracula's quest.
Proceeding according to the map, Ren and Evie found themselves inside another large hall where the sewer waters ran in a zigzag maze.
At the center was the magic teleportation device that would transport them to Chaos Realm, while at the side was an odd-looking and out-of-place skeleton in a suit and pants.
Inspecting with his [Probe] to check if it was a threat, Ren found that it was a Bone Merchant.
ǁ The Bone Merchant ǁ
Some believed that the skeletal bone merchant was an accursed remnant of a greedy merchant who broke a pact it had with an archdevil. Its inventory is full of whatever the players need most.
ǁ E N D ǁ
"A bone merchant?" Evie was curious and went to take a closer look.
"Hello there."
Evie almost jumped on her toes when she heard a voice in her head.
"Do you need something? I have plenty of items in my jacket for you to buy," said the voice in her head.
And curiously so, the Bone Merchant moved in line with the voice in her head.
"Telepathy?" Evie muttered.
"That's right. I can only speak to players in their mind, for I don't have the necessary organ to squeak out a sound."
The Bone Merchant's teeth rattled like it was laughing.
At least, it had a sense of humor.
"Come. Come. And look at my wares."
Evie did so, and upon inspecting, there were a lot of awesome items in the Bone Merchant's Inventory, including a harp, [The String of Death].
But it cost a staggering ten thousand candy points.
"Found something you want?" Ren asked from behind her.
"Yeah. There's a harp here, but it costs ten thousand candy points."
"Harp?" Ren took a look at the Bone Merchant's display but found only potions and all kinds of staff. Though they were of good qualities, nothing could beat the current scepters he had right now.
"I think the items here change based on whoever looks at them," said Ren. "I only saw staff and potions here."
( . . . continuation on NOTES)
