Kidnapped

Shade slowly opened his eyes. His face was bent with stress wrinkles for his body was bound with pain. He looked up just at the top right of his field of vision to see that his health bar was dangerously within the red zone.

"Arora..!" He groaned. He remembered that they had both fallen off the edge of a cliff due to the massive bear that had attacked them.

"S-Shade..?" She responded with a soft voice.

Shade then came to notice that Arora was lying atop him. Unlike him, her health bar was however only halfway in the yellow zone. This made sense given that he had cushioned her fall.

Painfully, Shade then called upon his menu before taking two healing potions from his inventory. Following this, he then administered the potions to both himself and Arora.

Shade breathed with relief as his pain quickly dissipated into nothingness.

"Shade, are you okay?!" Quickly asked Arora who was now coming back to her senses.

"I am now... But damn it..! Where are we?"

"I think we got split up from Celia and Tristan. We're the only ones that fell..."

"I see..."

Shade was slightly worried about Celia and Tristan. Though they had been the ones to fall, Tristan and Celia were left atop the cliff with that dangerous bear. There was no telling what could have happened to them.

Quickly, Shade then entered his friend's list and tried contacting them. However, for some reason, they wouldn't respond.

"No luck contacting them?" Asked Arora.

"Yeah... We need to hurry and find a way back to them. I can't have them dying on me."

Arora then took a shaky breath. Her thoughts were now running wild on the various things that could have happened to them. Was it possible that the bear had killed and eaten them?

"You don't think that something happened to them, right..?" She asked unsettlingly.

"It's possible but I doubt it. According to our friend's list, we're still a part of Team Shadow Liege. If the captain were to die then I believe the Team would automatically be disbanded."

Arora then calmed herself. She knew that Shade had a point. Not to mention that worrying about the situation wouldn't make it any better. It was best to remain calm and find a way to get back to them.

"So what do we do now then?" She asked.

Shade then took another moment to look around. The cliff that they had fallen from was much too steep to climb. Their only option was to find a new path through all the thick bushes and trees before them. The only good news was that the rain had stopped— though they were now covered in mud.

"Our only option is to find a new path that takes us back up to the others. I can't say how long it will take given that none of us has a proper sense of direction."

"Doesn't the game give some kind of map? It has to, right?"

"That's not the case. If you haven't realized, this game is solely built around survival. 80% of the things we do in this game challenge our intellect and personal skills. Very few things are ready-made."

"I guess you're right..."

Shade then proceeded to walk through the thick bushes before them. As Arora followed, she became quite doubtful of herself. She worried if she would be of any help in locating the others. She still hadn't contributed much whenever Shade needed help and she was the one who had been with him the longest. She felt like a massive burden.

Just then, Shade came to a sudden stop. It was as if he had detected something in the distance. Arora too came to a halt upon realizing Shade's reaction.

"Is something wrong..?" Queried Arora.

"Yes, stay quiet."

Arora immediately did as Shade instructed. She was unaware of what was wrong but she knew better than to doubt him.

Suddenly, an arrow came whistling towards Arora's head. However, almost as quickly, Shade withdrew his sword before deflecting the arrow. This startled Arora tremendously as she quickly withdrew her knives.

"I'm in a very sour mood as of late," began Shade. "If you walk away now then none of you will have to die."

Responding to Shade was an ensemble of laughter from the bushes around them. A second later, four players who were all armed with different weapons revealed themselves. They were highly confident that they could defeat Shade and Arora given the numbers advantage that they had.

"We've got more players than you!" Began one of the players. "Can you still threaten that all of us will die after seeing the disadvantage you're at?"

Shade frowned as he tightened his grip around his sword. He was becoming quite agitated given the misfortune that had struck his team.

"I'll say it again. Leave now and none of you will have to die," he warned intimidatingly.

Unfortunately, the enemy players continued to laugh. They were not about to do as Shade said. Instead, one of them charged towards him with a powerful thrust from a rapier.

"You're the one that's going to die!" Shouted the attacking player.

However, Shade easily dodged the attack before countering with a powerful kick to his temple.

The enemy player screamed in pain as he was sent spiraling into the arms of his comrade. Even his health bar had decreased significantly. It was almost unbelievable how much damage Shade had done with a single kick.

"What the hell are those moves?!" Cursed the player.

"Damn, I see why he's so confident..! This guy's rank is Expert!" Exclaimed another.

Shade narrowed his eyebrows curiously. How were they able to tell his rank? Not even Tristan had figured out how to read another player's rank as yet.

"It's fine!" Continued one of the enemy players. "His rank isn't much higher than ours anyway! If we all take him, I'm sure we can take him down!"

"Shade! What are we going to do? Can we really fight so many of them all at once?" Questioned Arora.

"It's fine. Just stay behind me and provide support if I request it. Besides, getting rid of them now would mean less competition at the next stage. It works for us," replied Shade calmly.

The enemy players then hurriedly initiated their attack. One of them fired off an arrow but Shade easily deflected it with the blunt of his sword. Another then came down with a vertical swing of their dagger towards Shade's face. However, Shade also dodged this attack before countering with a swing of his blade.

To everyone's astonishment, Shade had beheaded one of the attacking players with a single swing of his blade. It was even more frightening knowing that he had done this while under pressure from more than one attacker.

"Michael!!!" Screamed one of the enemy players to their dead teammate.

"I warned you, didn't I? I gave you more than one chance to escape. Just know that you all died because of your ignorance," proclaimed Shade calmly.

The enemy players were now cowering in fear. If they didn't find a way to defeat Shade then they would surely die. However, little did Shade know that they were already cooking up a plan.

As soon as Shade charged in towards them, he noticed that one of the players had a small grey ball within their grasp. The player then quickly threw down the ball before it exploded into a sea of smoke. It was a smoke bomb.

"Tsk!" Hissed Shade. The smoke was affecting his vision but it was sure to do the same for them. He didn't understand what they had to gain from using a smoke bomb unless they meant to flee. However, just then, a terrifying scream pierced the ears of Shade.

"Shade, help me!!!" Screamed Arora.

Shade then quickly came to the horrific realization that the scream was from Arora. The enemy players had gone for her instead of trying to attack him. It was a cowardly move.

As the smoke began to clear, Shade guarded himself expecting the enemy players to have Arora as their hostage. However, to his astonishment, Arora alongside all the other enemy players were gone. Arora had been kidnapped.