The Elevator

I'm back in the cylindrical glass chamber of the game lobby.

"Rewards for clearing campaign stage 1-5:

- Points ×3000

- Upgrade (Iron Sword) ×1

- Small Dagger ×1

- Hp bar ×1"

The most rewards so far. Upgrades for my main weapon costs 1000 points for level 1, then double the points of the previous level every upgrade, and I got 1 in this stage, nice.

I actually already got a few upgrades from rewards of earlier stages, my Iron Sword was already level 3 when starting stage 1-5.

And I got my first secondary weapon, Small Dagger. Before that I only had my starter/main weapon Iron Sword, which was completely useless in all the stages so far.

Think this dagger will be the same, I can't think of much situations where it can prove to be useful.

Most important of all, I got the hp bar, elimination will be less of a concern now.

I stored my dagger into my inventory, stepped out of the glass cylindrical chamber and opened the door.

I was fully expecting my uncle to be outside and reprimand me for my actions in this stage immediately.

But he wasn't, in fact, he exited his room, which is right next to mine, later than I did.

He had his head hung and an apathetic face, an unprecedented look on him.

Without looking at me, he walked past me with a very weak mutter, "Let's go."

Perhaps I don't understand people enough, I cannot comprehend his reaction towards my risky plays at all.

I followed closely behind him, instead of right beside him. He was radiating an ominous aura that makes me anxious, I don't feel comfortable approaching him any further.

After just a few steps of walking, he looked up and forward then halted his movements.

Ahead of us was an elevator, which I could swear didn't exist when we first entered into the building.

We ascended the stairs to get here, there was no other way, until this elevator just appeared out of nowhere.

"Ding!"

Neither of us pressed the button beside the elevator, yet it rang anyways. The elevator opens up with two unfamiliar faces behind.

One was a woman with short silver hair in a bob cut, the other was a short, scrawny boy with a green cap.

My uncle seeing them, resumed his walk forwards and into the elevator, with me following suit.

"Thanks for letting us into your alliance." The woman spoke. She's Shockwave, the wound on her arm has apparently magically healed.

"Should be thanking you." I responded as the elevator door shuts.

We were at the eighth floor, with the button to ground floor lit, indicating our destination. Looking up, the highest floor was the 20th floor.

Doesn't feel right, this building looked far taller than just 20 stories from the outside.

"Was this elevator always here?" I asked.

"Don't think so..."

"Oh."

My uncle remained silent with his head hung, Kenneth Spears looked uncomfortable being in the elevator with us, and Shockwave just wore an indifferent expression the entire elevator ride.

I wasn't very bothered by our lack of chemistry, but I thought communication in a team is integral if we will be fighting side by side from now on.

"I haven't intro-" I wanted to introduce myself to our new members to initiate a conversation of some sorts, but was interrupted by my uncle.

"Living Cemetery will wants us dead, weapons don't work but fists does, they will be hunting us even in the shopping district now that we've totally pissed them off."

"What do you suggest?" Shockwave asked.

Straight to strategic talks huh? I don't hate that.

"If we're seperated we'll be sitting ducks, they'll send men against us and kill us one by one."

"How will they find us if we just hide in our apartments? Earpiece can't find specific players, and there's several thousands of apartments."

"There's a guy I heard that calls himself GPS. He couldn't earn points with his own strength, so he stalks every slightly eminent players, notes the location of their apartments, and sell it for points."

The elevator door opened up, but the discussion between my uncle and Shockwave continues.

"But we can't roam around the shopping district either, they have way too many members."

"Indeed, hanging in the shopping district isn't an option, they'll find us eventually. In fact we'll be lucky if we even survive more than ten seconds after walking out this door."

This door being the main entrance of the game lobby, which we are about to cross.

"But we must walk out, we broke the record and it's announced to everyone, they have one information right now and it is that we're just out of the game."

"Lay low." Uncle says as he pulls four cloaks out of thin air, or more precisely, out of his inventory.

I don't know when did he buy those, but there's no need to ponder that question, I took one and donned it before walking out the game lobby building, so did the rest of us.

The cloak has an ability, it hid our nametags that usually floats above our head.

"We'll head to Kenneth Spears' apartment, he doesn't have a very noticeable presence in this game, we'll pray that's enough to be below GPS's radar." Uncle commanded.

Luckily, it was night at that time, visibility is low. With the cloak, it'd be very difficult for anyone to identify us.

At least that's what I thought, until a strange gloved hand grabbed my wrist and stopped me.

The owner of the gloved hand was also in a cloak with his hood pulled down low, obscuring his face and his nametag just like us.

"Please learn morse code..." He said while slapping a paper on my chest.

His movements were so swift that I didn't have time to react, my anxiety and fear hadn't even kicked in and I'm now holding the paper he forced on me.

It all happened in less than a second, he grabbed my hand, said "please learn morse code", forced a paper on my hand and suddenly a powerful punch from my uncle flew towards the hooded man's face with jaw dropping speed.

The hooded man released his grasp on my wrist and leaned backwards, escaping the punch by the skin of his teeth.

"Please learn morse code..." He reiterated before backing up and disappearing into a dark alley.

"Move faster." Uncle snatches my wrist with just a bit too much force, it hurts, then pulled me along while power walking behind Shockwave and Kenneth Spears.

My other hand was holding the paper the hooded man had given me, I took a quick glance at it while we were speedwalking towards the apartments.

It was...an international morse code translator.