196 It Begins

...… When everyone were done preparing with their things, Shin brought Lawless' team and Simba towards a certain coordinate that S.Tigris had gave to Lawless, using Hanzo's teleportation gate. And that place was quite near to the Corrupted Nest that they were targeting. This was one of Shin's arrangements actually. The moment he heard that there were some internal conflicts in the ranks of the Wing's Alliance, he immediately rejected the idea of letting the members of both S.Tigris group and Eternal Hope adventurer team know about their collaboration, especially that those two groups were already announced to their members that they were teaming up with each other. This was one of the habits the he picked up after being trained in one of the training camps of the Black Serpent Mafia; and after being raised by a Military Family such as the Springfield Family. 'Never trust someone that you didn't completely know'. If even the people that you were most familiar with could be a spy from the opposing side, then what's more the people that you just had met? Given that, Shin would never let others to know all about his arrangements, especially it was someone that didn't trust. As for the players inside the VIP room earlier? Well, he completely trusted Simba so no need to question this guy; the same for the duo of Lawless and Faker. S.Tigris and Black Hand, on the other hand was not an issue either. Well, unless these two were a pair of complete idi*ts, then they were more than welcome to ruin their own High-Ranking Quest with a difficulty of Hell(SSS+). And since Simba reassured him that the duo of Gino and Audrey were pretty much loyal people, Shin didn't concern about them anymore. The same goes for the group of Kazuki and his teammates as all of the previous members of the Brutal Team had an old beef with Immortal that couldn't be erase easily. They rather sell their lives to a Demon than to forgive Immortal to what he have done to them before. Given that, Shin and the others would be meeting with S.Tigris and the Eternal Hope a little members later. Then same goes for the group of Kazuki, Xychz, Sunny and Shizio. And after walking out the Teleportation Gate, the group immediately assumed their positions as they became on high alert to check out the surroundings. And when they confirmed that there were no other monsters in the vicinity, they regrouped once again to finalized their next moves that they were going to do. "So, what's next now? Should we wait for the others or should we proceed moving forward?" asked Ravier as he walked towards the others. And naturally, his question was directed to Shin as this guy was the one that formulated their current plans. The others nodded their heads and about to move out, they were a group of experts after all, so they didn't to receive some more orders to realize what was needed to be done. What's more, S.Tigris's group and the members of the Eternal Hope Adventurer Team, still needed some time to arrive at the place; the same went for Kazuki and his teammates. Given those, they still had a lot of time to do their plans. But before the entire team managed to separate into some pairings, Simba suddenly walked towards Morgan and gave him an item that looked like a card. "Hey, John. Use this card first before moving out. This is a Pardon Card, it will help you remove your weakened state immediately after being used," said Simba as he passed that card-like item on Morgan. "Eh!?" Morgan was taken aback at first at the sudden event. Then he hesitated for a moment as he was not sure whether he was going to take the item or not. And while Morgan was caught in a dilemma, Shin suddenly chimed in and said to him. "Take it, John. Don't tell me that you are going to treat Leo as someone that you didn't know." Of course, Morgan was aware of that, the problem here was Leonard's identity inside the game. Even if they had undergone some quite risky missions before; those were given to Shin and Arthur as their special assignments, he was still not comfortable receiving some help from Simba. The in-game status of this guy in front of him was quite high for him to take this kind of help. Simba suddenly released some chuckles when he saw the word hesitation practically written on Morgan's face. Then he said immediately after that. "Come on, Brother John. You should take this card and use it. Don't tell me that you wanted to fight along with us with that kind of weakened strength? You are just going to become a dead-weight and burden us further instead of giving us some help, you know." This time Simba was stating facts that couldn't be argued with. So, when Morgan heard what Simba had said, he didn't hesitate anymore and took the card item from the latter's hand and immediately used it. And the moment he crushed the item card, a dazzling radiance was suddenly released from the card and enfolded his body. Immediately after that, he felt there was an invisible waterfall that was washing away some stains on his body with an incredible speed. But everything didn't just end there, as the dazzling radiance enfolding Morgan suddenly intensified and turned into warm blinding light. And that was when Morgan suddenly felt that the lost strength that was gone before, was currently returning to him with an unimaginable degree.  "What!?" Morgan was taken aback at what was currently happening. He even opened his Status Window almost instantly to make sure that he was not imagining things. And sure enough, the moment he saw what was written on his Status Window, he couldn't help himself but did a double take on it as he saw that his level had gone up with five more levels. "This! This! This!..." Morgan kept repeating the same words as he was pointing his right-hand index finger at the virtual screen in front of him that was unseen for the others. Aside from Simba who was clear about what was happening, Shin and the others in the group were staring at Morgan with a face that was full of confusion and questioning looks. Naturally, Morgan was aware of their questions but he was too shocked at what had happened. Even if he was able to recover himself a little, he still couldn't talk properly because of what he saw, so he just shared his basic information to the others. And the others were taken aback when they saw the Level on Morgan's status window. Shin and the others knew that he lost some levels when he sacrificed himself to let Lawless, Faker and Charlotte escaped from Immortal's grasp; five levels to be exact. Fortunately, he managed to recover those levels when they won the battle. So, his level was supposedly at 105 currently. But now, his level was clearly shown as level-110, meaning he gained an additional 5 levels somewhere; or to be more precise, he gained it after using the item card that Simba had given him. After that, all of them simultaneously turned their heads at Simba and looked at him with a face that was full of questions. It was as if they were literally saying. – "What did you do, man? Mind if you share it to us?" –  Lawless, Faker and the others naturally heard about the Pardon Cards before since they were a group of expert players after all. But at the same time, this was their first time hearing a Pardon Card that had this kind of effects. Much less, seeing it for the first time and witnessing it firsthand. Simba smiled bitterly when he saw the expressions on their face. Then he explained about it a little. "It was a Superior Pardon Card. I brought it from the 'God of War Temple' a long time ago but I don't have an opportunity to use it, so it is better for me to give it to John now, given our current circumstances. " – "That was not what we meant." – Is what the expression of the faces of the group after hearing that. Unfortunately for them, Simba just ignored their questioning looks and took another batch of item-cards from his inventory bag before distributing it to every member of the group one by one. Shin and the others were currently looking at Simba with blank faces as they unconsciously received the cards that the latter had given them. And when they were still at their dazed state, Simba started explaining the uses of the cards on their hands. "These cards are 'Mercy Cards'. They were specially use to avoid some death penalty caused by some curses or a usage of some forbidden skill. Use it so that you guys can negate the curses of the Undead Monsters if they manage to kill you. They will not able to turn you into a high-ranking undead monster either even if you die. And don't worry, the contribution points that I need to buy these things is quite a drop of my total contribution points." And that was when the others managed to recover themselves. But before anything else, they checked the details of the cards on their hands. ---------------------- Item Name: [God of War's Blessing] Item Type: Etc. (Mercy Card: Superior) Item Rank: Special Details: An item made by the God of War Temple to repel the curses casted to the faithful followers of the Church, especially during a battle. Anyone who will activate this card will receive a Blessing from the God of War that will protect their souls even if they died. Duration: 3 days(In-game time) after being activated or unless the user dies. Note: After activating this card, the user will not be able to use another one until one day had passed after being revived. ---------------------- Whistle~ Shin couldn't help but whistle after seeing the details of the card. Then he muttered to himself a little after. "Talking about perfect things on a perfect time. These little thing here perfectly fits our current situation." And then Shin activated the Mercy Card, enfolding himself with a brilliant white light immediately after activating. The same did for the others. After that, the team started grouping up with each other. Shin was paired with Simba, Lawless would go with Stephanie and Morgan while Ravier and Ember will naturally be together, and Hayden would be teaming up with Faker. And immediately after that, the scattered at different directions to checked out the surrounding terrains and scout the Corrupted Nest from a distance. A whole hour had passed when the group met on their meeting place once again. Then they shared the detailed maps that each group had drew to Shin and Morgan to do the final detailed map. And when they were done with that, Shin made some final adjustments for their team for the upcoming battle and explained it to his teammates. Then they waited for another hour for the other groups arrived at their destination. And without further ado, they immediately went to the coordinates that Shin had sent to them. Naturally, S.Tigris and his group were together with the Eternal Hope Adventurer Team members; these guy would be the so-called 'main force' to lure the corrupted monsters on outside the walls of the fallen outpost. In short, they were going to be the decoys. Meanwhile, Kazuki and his group would be hiding in the vicinity near this group, as they were going to be a look out for them. They would only appear when something unexpected happened. At the same time, Shin and the others were on the other side of the Corrupted Nest which was completely on the opposite end of the previous group. They were here because they were planning to sneak inside the Nest. Shin didn't dare to risk entering the enemies' core using Hanzo's teleportation gate either, since there might be some traps waiting for them in that place. What's more, their opponents might be also aware about the teleportation ability of his Void Reaper, so it was better to take things step by step with a little slow manner. This seemed to be unfair to Shin and the others, since the other guys were not going to do some risky moves as they only needed to lure as much as many corrupted monsters that they could. But no one questioned it since, this current group of Shin and the others were group of high-class experts. Well, that was aside from Shin, but that was not a big deal either especially since Simba was with them. And given all of those, another battle was about to start as Shin and the others would now be going to face some corrupted 'people' and monsters at this upcoming siege for the Thirteenth Outpost. ...…