World Online

Walking along the realistic streets in this city, Diffast, it would seem like anyone was just walking through an ordinary street. But this was anything but.

Jake looked around the place. He already had an idea of where he should start looking, and he walked toward that one street.

The control that the empire had over its cities was terrifying, and it only meant that the NPC nobles were equivalent to kings and masters. The players had to do what the noble ranked NPCs wanted if they wanted to stay in the empire.

And one of these nobles was powerful enough that he had control over an entire street in the busiest part of the third most powerful city in the entire empire.

This NPC was a Duke, at least according to what Jake remembered. If things had changed again, then he couldn\'t help it.

And to enter this street was not easy. Only lucky ones would be able to get through, and as for finding a simple surefire way to get in would not be found until two years later after a lot of trial and error.

But the surefire way was pretty simple, even though it took a lot of time for everyone to understand it. It was to get karma.

Jake already had two hundred karma, and this meant that he was always going to have easy relationships with NPCs. It would be easier for him to obtain missions, quests, and in general, interact with them.

He stopped in front of the street and looked at the two mountains of men that guarded this street.

No one would be idiotic enough to dare rush through and try to battle them. For one, no one was powerful enough to go against bodyguards who were in level one hundred fifty or so. And the second was that they would offend the entire kingdom by offending a Duke.

No one wanted to leave a kingdom right after they joined. First, they did not have enough money, and even if they did, it would be a waste of it. Loviel was one of the best places to start as a beginner, and no one would want to let go of that start.

"Who are you?" the guard on the right asked with a voice that sounded like gas that was scraping on tar. If whoever made this character wanted to make him intimidating, then that person succeeded.

"I am here to enter Flying Pavilion," Jake said.

"Flying Pavilion? Do you have anything to offer for trade there?" the guard asked.

The moment that the guard said anything other than \'Who are you?\', everyone who was walking around Jake stopped at that point and stared at him with surprise.

Until now, the guards only gave two responses after they asked the simple question. One was allowing entry, while the other was denying it.

And the number of people who had been allowed inside this mysterious place was less than ten! The fact that a conversation was taking place was shocking, to say the least.

"I don\'t have anything to trade, but I do have enough to buy," Jake said.

"I like you. You are nicer than all the others. Fine, I\'ll let you in." the guard on the right smiled and stepped aside, letting Jake enter.

The latter part was because of Jake\'s good karma. No one in the entire game probably had as good karma as he had right now, because he did all those extra quests.

"Thank you." Jake nodded and he walked right in, leaving all those bystanders looking at him flabbergasted.

The guards immediately moved to close the gap, and looked at the players menacingly.

One person finally got the courage to walk forward.

"I saw you yesterday. I don\'t like you. You are not allowed in." the guard on the left said.

"I am here to enter the Flying Pavilion." the man said, trying to copy exactly what Jake did. If some nobody could do it, then why couldn\'t he?

"Fine. Do you know what Flying Pavilion is?" the guard on the right said.

"It is... some place where you can trade things?" the person guessed.

"Get out."

"I was right!" the player protested, and the guard on the left stepped forward.

The player looked up to meet the eyes of the guard. Standing at a staggering height of Seven feet and eight inches, this guard was a mammoth. And that mammoth grabbed the player by the collar and threw him back.

Blast!

The player hit one of the shops around, and the player groaned with pain.

"If you disturb us again, then the city guards will take you away." the guard looked at the player menacingly. With this one show of strength, no one dared to try what Jake did.

Although they did not know what was inside the street, they did know what would happen if someone was taken away by the city guards. They would lose three levels, and they would be stuck in the same prison for three days, without even being able to log out.

If that happened a few years ago, it would raise a few human rights litigations, but now, everything was different.

Now, spending time in a prison here was equal to spending time in prison anywhere else, and it was martial law to spend time in the game itself.

Meanwhile, Jake was happily strolling along the street that was completely empty, which was a stark difference from the other streets in the city.

He did know the commotion that he indirectly caused was eventually going to whip into a storm though. He had severely underestimated the jealous and curious nature of humans.

Already, there were posts on multiple in-game forums about someone who was able to enter the \'forbidden street\' without any need for luck.

Jake walked to one of the shops, seeing one other person talking to the merchant behind the counter.

And looking at his user name hovering with a translucent light, he sighed with relief.

"Thank god this part didn\'t change."

Myriad Arrow was still in the forbidden street.

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