Soul Art Online

- Arthas -

The Entertainment District of Llyne was like a whole other place, especially at night.

The entire place was cheerful, with colourful lights and some occasional music giving the entire place a festive mood.

This was the area which had the more….adult aspects of the game.

Brothels and Bars were common.

Women sat behind the glass windows and made signals for us to come in.

"They didn't say anything about the R18 Rating." I commented.

"Ufufufufu these girls are trying too hard. Just goes to show these are not good places."

"Huh?" I looked at the woman puzzled.

"Truly good places would never place their escorts outside like this." She replied as if I was supposed to understand everything with just that.

I am not an expert on these things, lady.

Seeing my confused look, which according to me was no different than my normal look, she explained. "Which cars do you have at home, Arthas?"

I was taken aback at her sudden question.

"A Rolls Royce for my father and a Porsche for my mother." I replied.

We were from a pretty rich family.

"Oh yes. Those are quite good. I have a few of those myself." She agreed. "Have you ever seen any advertisements for Rolls?" She asked.

A few of those?

Seriously, who is this woman?

I shook my head.

"Exactly. It's because the people who can afford a Rolls, don't go around selecting things by advertisements. In the same way, the truly high class places don't need to put their products out on a show like... this."

"Ah….I see." I said….because that was the only thing I could think of.

What else was I supposed to say? I was with a woman, talking about brothels and escorts. This is a bit new for me.

"Still, this place is modelled after mediaeval Europe so this is quite apt. Back then these kinds of places were for rich merchants and landowners while the higher up nobles and royalty generally kept maids." She smiled.

While discussing these things, we reached the place Shiroe told us about.

We needed two things to enter the place.

One a particular outfit and second, a specific password, both of those would have needed us buttering some NPC for over a month to get it out of them.

Thankfully for us, Shiroe did that job for us.

And so, dressed in a black hooded cloaks, we walked on the streets of the Llyne Entertainment district. It was strangely not out of place as several other people were also using the same to hide their identities.

"I feel like some sort of cult member planning to summon a demon or something." I joked looking at my attire, trying to change the awkward topic.

"Even they have upgraded their fashion sense nowadays, dear." She smiled, returning my joke….although I somehow felt weird with the level of seriousness in her voice.

"There, that looks like the place." She pointed towards a door.

And indeed the place stuck out like a sore thumb.

A red door with a totally black building.

Anyone would think there was something wrong with it and they would be totally wrong. 

The Game devs were not idiots.

"Nine houses left from the house with the red door, excluding the red door itself." We found a completely unassuming door and knocked eight times. One knock with my hand, four with the iron ring and finally three again with my hand.

A small slot opened at the side of the door and Veena put two gold coins on the hand which came out of it.

The slot closed and the door opened.

On the other side was a man in similar clothes. He moved to the side and we walked inside.

The door was actually connected to a bar. The bartender saw us and moved aside, opening a door behind him without a word.

Behind the door were stairs.

It was when we reached down the stairs that we finally reached the place.

"Wow." I couldn't help but say.

The entire place was built below the Entertainment District.

"No way the higher ups of the city don't know of this place." I said.

"They obviously do. It might even be one of the biggest sources of their income." My partner replied.

On walking forward, it looked like the place was supposed to be a collection of tunnels and rooms made inside were actually designed to be prisons but were now changed into makeshift shops.

Shiroe's directions were quite precise so we found the place we were looking for.

Night's Whisper.

The shop in front of us was the place where Shiroe said we could find the information about Classes.

The shop in the Black Market was different from the normal ones in more than one way. Even the shopkeeper, or at least the one I was assuming was sharp and only spoke what was necessary.

"What are you searching for?" The woman in black veil asked.

"We are searching for information about T3, T4 and T5 Jobs." I asked, getting straight to the point.

"Which class do you want the information on?" She asked.

"We are looking for anything other than the normal ones found in the guild. Maybe for Hunter, Knight and Herbalist Advancements."

She looked at us calculatingly for a few moments before stating.

"Five hundred Gold Coins for the T3 Jobs, two thousand for T4 and twenty thousand for the T5 ones. No haggling."

"Twenty thousand!" I asked, stunned.

Our whole month's rent with all expenses was around three thousand and she was asking for twenty thousands.

"Be grateful you are even getting this information. Twenty thousand is cheap considering the classes you named. Had it been the advancements for the Mage Class or some of the rarer ones, it would have been far higher." She scoffed.

I looked at Veena who stepped forward. "We will only take the information T4 advancements for Hunter, Squire and Herbalist and possible ways to get the Mage Class other than the one circulated outside." She asked.

"Six Thousand Five Hundreds." The woman extended her hand.

I took a breath and handed out the money.

Six thousand five hundred was almost seventy percent of our savings, enough for us to live off for two months in luxury.

The woman checked the folders she had and placed a few sheets of papers in front of us.

"Check and return."

The two of us sat down and quickly took a look at the hunter advancements.

Manhunter. It was as the name suggested. A class which specialised in killing people.

I don't need anyone to explain why this class was deemed illegal.

The condition for unlocking this class was killing five humans with headshots in a single fight.

The information also explained their basic skills for the job as well as the ways to obtain it.

As for the other Mage classes, she needed to get a new T2 Job either way so we decided to get her the Scribe Job later.

Squire could get a few other jobs. Apart from the usual Knight Job, there were also the Swordsman and Warrior Job Classes and a few other illegal ones.

We did get some potential Classes for Veena though.

"Poison Master sounds good." She said after taking a look at the papers.

Hmm. It was.

To be honest, this was the way she fought till now and she was getting quite good with it.

We took a look at the requirements and then memorised everything we could.

Six thousand five hundred gold coins for these….sigh.

We left the place after checking everything.

"Look at it as spending the money to buy the time which we would have lost trying to search for all this information. Moreover, this information can later be sold as well." Veena cheered me.

Yes.

We could totally sell the info later.

With my pain of losing our hard earned money subsided, we toured the place.

There were several things which couldn't be found outside. Hell, this place even sold monster eggs and slaves.

We just walked around, taking a look at everything before returning back.

- Venelana -

She put another mix of herbs aside and started preparing the next batch.

It has been two months since she was stuck in this place.

There was no information about rescue arriving from anywhere.

Even by the time difference the Game Master had given them, if that was true, it would be three days in the outside world.

Her body was discovered without a doubt but it seems they are not having any breakthroughs.

Then again, for someone to pull something of this scale, they must be equally if not even stronger and more resourceful.

At this rate this holiday of hers was going to last for a year.

She wondered how the children were?

Did Rias even enter the game or were they able to escape this by some chance?

Oh who was she kidding?

She knew her daughter and how much she was looking forward to this game.

There was no way she missed this.

Were her peerage members inside too?

And what of Grayfia?

She had dragged her along into this mess.

Grayfia was strong but this world didn't let them bring along their strengths. She could be stubborn at times and an unbending attitude wouldn't work in this place where they were reduced to the same level as others.

She just hopes they learn to adapt and all remain safe.

At this thought, her eyes went outside the window towards the backyard towards her partner.

The young boy was practising some kind of Martial Arts katas which she didn't recognise.

While the game did give an increased damage with weapons if the player were to select specific classes, it didn't teach them how to wield those weapons efficiently.

Knowing and not knowing Martial Arts could make a huge difference in how efficiently one could use their skills and Arthas seemed to be quite good at handling all his abilities.

In the last month, she had learned a lot about the boy, while living with him and all that had only served to make her opinion of him even better.

The boy was actually opening up more about himself and was slowly but surely showing more emotions. Although her favourite parts are still trying to tease him.

It had been two weeks since the day she had gained the Herbalist Class and their visit to the Black Market. Several things had changed in these weeks.

Dozens of players had reached the town in these last two weeks.

The areas outside the town are starting to get crowded now with the easier prey taking longer to spawn.

She could see why Arthas was always so in such a hurry to push deeper for stronger enemies to level up.

She hadn't realised just far ahead of others she was when she had reached this place but she was starting to understand just how ridiculously insane their ways of hunting truly were.

Arthas was already at Level 30 for his Squire Class and could get promoted to the Knight Class tomorrow easily after taking a test while others were still struggling to get a T3 Class of their own.

The boy was talented, so much so that she would have recruited him into her peerage if she could.

He was a perfect knight, starting from his strength to his manners.

She was sure he alone could take down at least a dozen or so T2 players in a straight fight.

Match it with her assistance and Shiroe's support and their team was practically invincible in this town.

She didn't like being in a supporting role in a fight but her long life had taught her the importance of every position on a battlefield.

She was not against being the support for the sake of the best performance of the team and it showed.

Their levelling speed hadn't slowed down as much as they were expecting even with the addition of one more member.

Shiroe has been a very welcome addition to the team.

Arthas was not kidding when he said the boy had experience. But even beyond that, the boy was a born strategist.

People like them were rare.

Warriors can be trained far more easily than strategists. It was one of the main reasons behind starting the Rating Games, to train more people who could lead in times of wars.

Someone like him could easily make a name for himself if they participated in the Rating Games.

The boy himself was very humble and friendly and had become an irreplaceable part of their team.

Her thoughts were broken by the sound of the door opening and she turned around to see Arthas walking in, all sweaty from his practice.

"Still working?" He asked.

"Almost done. Just completing the last batch of goods. A few minutes more."

"I will take a bath first then." He excused himself before entering his room and returned a minute later only to enter the bath in his towel.

She smiled at this.

He had come a long way. A month ago, doing the same thing would have made the poor boy blush.

Seems like she would have to raise her game if she wanted to get reactions out of him.