Unkown circumstances

"He is what? What is it, David?" Morell asked upon hearing Bao's perplexed stuttering.

"I... If this p...pe... person is what I think it is... we'll probably need a lot more p... people to... to stop him." From the few words he could hear through the window, Bao had a vague idea of what that person could be.

"What do you mean by that?" Both of his companions stared at him with doubt in their eyes. "Are you saying you know the person who is responsible for the deaths of hundreds of innocent people?" Morell asked, his mouth wide open.

"I'm not completely sure yet, and as I said, I don't necessarily know who the person is but rather what he is."

"And that would be...?"

"I... I think the person behind our current misery is nothing other than a Player," - Bao scratched his head thinking about what to say next- "and what we thought was the item that attracted monsters could instead be his special skill. Emphasizing the could since it's just a theory of mine."

"Did you say a Player!" Morell couldn't believe what he just heard, his eyes looked like they were about to pop out.

"Yes."

"But... but why do you think that's the case?"

"I just know okay!?" There was no way he could explain to them that it was because of the word 'electronic', a concept that probably didn't exist in this game world. Probably. "I need to confirm something to make sure that we are really up against a Player... Say Morell do you know what electricity is?" He wanted to make sure that his theory was correct.

"Erekutrisch... what? No, I don't know what you are talking about but what does it have to do with our current situation?"

"Everything with that I..."

"But I don't understand, how do you know it?" Morell interrupted him.

"We should just believe in our Beansprout Morell." Nathan grabbed the shoulder of his friend to interrupt his interrogation

"Good. Now that we clarified this I'll change my statement; he for sure is a Player." Bao sighed, would it be possible for this weak avatar to win against a high-level one? "What should we do next? Do we go back to the guild and ask for reinforcements?"

"No, I don't think we have the time for that. He could change locations while we are not here and leaving someone behind is too risky, since he might have already noticed our presence, in which case we would need all three of us to at least have a chance to survive." Nathan seemed to have come to a dead-end with his ideas. "If only we would know if it is his skill or an item."

"If it is his ability we'll need to kill him but if it's an item we could avoid confronting him directly and focus on finding and destroying the said item. Is that what you were thinking?" Morell asked.

Bao was once again reminded of the big experience gap between him and the two veteran adventurers in front of him.

"Yep, that was the only plan I could come up with but without that information it's pointless."

"Then why don't I go there and just ask him directly?" A grin showed on Bao's face as he proposed it.

"Are you crazy?! You can't do that?"

"Yes I can, and I already know how to achieve it, but I need you to be prepared to intervene at any moment." Bao took his sword and started to draw his plan into the stoped down dirt. "I'll enter the house and elicit the information we need from our suspect, depending on his response I'll either lure him away from the house so that you can search through his house to find the item or, if you hear me sneeze excessively loud, we'll have to kill him." Bao sighed "In the latter case I suggest that we stay as close to him as possible, given that he probably is a mage and therefore extremely static. He won't be able to move around while casting spells and all of them will probably be mid to long-range. So even you Nathan should stick to hand to hand combat if you don't want to be blasted away."

"Why are we assuming that he is a mage?" Morell asked.

Both Bao and Nathan pointed towards the smoking something resting in front of the window.

"Ah... That's why."

"Do you really think that it will work? I don't want to drag around your body again and I especially don't want to explain why and how you died to the holy maiden, who apparently is really close to you." Morell stared at him with a serious look on his face.

"Don't worry about it, I'll handle it somehow."

With these last words, Bao stepped directly towards the house passing by the still smoking carcass of the rat. He put up his arm, formed a fist and knocked three times on the wodden door