Chapter 21: Unexpected encounter

Traveling through the uneven terrain, a lone player was grumbling unhappily. Recently, Eric had joined a small group of independant players wanting to develop technologically advanced stuff without much disturbance.

They certainly were not the first to have this idea, but they did travel over several dozen miles by foot over the past couple of week since they started on their journey. The man in his thirties, along with his new friends, were looking around for a peaceful place to settle onto.

Obviously, being only a few miles away from a guild's territory would result in a lot of troubles for them in the near future, and that was why they decided to go over a few dozen of miles away from the World Spawnpoint.

As for Eric, he was tasked to explore around an area with a lot of potential, not too far away from a forest and some mountains.

'Why does it have to be me, of all people? While I'm wandering around, I'm pretty sure they are enjoying themselves and crafting some interesting tools...' Eric thought. Though, he could not complain yet because their group had just formed and they were not sure about the way they would be organizing things among themselves. That was why, for the time being, the small group of player decided to take turns on the most obvious tasks that would help them develop in an unfamiliar landscape.

Actually, Eric's job was one of the most important ones because he could easily pinpoint the best places to search for resources and build their base onto. After quite some time, the man decided to climb up a nearby hill and see what was behind it before going back home.

Only, it seemed like fate had other plans for him and he fell into a trap meticulously hidden. Before he knew it, a well too familar window popped up before his eyes and his frustration became apparent.

[You are dead]

Chose your favored respawn method :

- Reappear in your bed (1 minutes remaining)

- Reappear at spawn (5 seconds remaining)

'What the hell?! What was that?!' He raged in his mind. Fortunately, he had not died in a long while so the cooldown before he could respawn in his bed was not that long. However, he did gather a few materials along the way and this was really frustrating for him to lose all of his progress in an instant. He could not even get a good look at the landscape beyond that hill so there was not much informations he could share with his friends.

After waiting for a few minutes, he reappeared at his bed where he slept before leaving for exploration purposes. Just as he opened his eyes, the members of their group who were affected to the organization of their camp noticed he had died and rushed towards him to get some explanation :

- "What happened? Were you get killed by another player?" One of them hurriedly asked.

Eric could not simply state that he had been killed by one of the most simplistic traps in the world so he replied : "I don't really know. I think I got hit by another player from behind but I could not turn in time to see them."

The eyes of its comrades opened wide after this declaration. If he had been killed by a player, it meant that this place was not that peaceful anymore.

- "You mean that a group of player attacked you out of the blue?"

Eric shook his head and explained : "I think they were alone, but they may have tried to defend their territory. I just went up a hill after all."

All of his friends were astonished and questions busted for a while before they realized he had no real answers to give.

Eric was even more stunned than them since he knew about the real reason he died. In fact, he did not 'simply' died from a player's hand, he got kill by a trap they set up on their territory. In fact, he was pretty certain a group of players had installed their base behind that hill and he did not know how technologically advanced they were. The trap did have several steel pikes by the bottom of it so they certainly were not your average player, struggling with the most rudimentary tools in existence.

And those were the only hints he had about them.

_______________

Keith activated his furnace and set its temperature to several thousands degrees Fahrenheit. He then approached a workbench and started preparing for the incoming load of molten metal. Since he finished the foundations of his base, Keith had made quite a lot of progress regarding the defenses of his territory.

Not only did he improved his rifle design, to the point where he could load several bullets at once inside a small compartment to cycle between the shots, he also installed several traps here and there serving two purposes. One of them was to hunt for animals.

He had set up several hanged collars in the nearby forest to get his hand on some bunnies and other small mammals. For larger prey, he also dug up some holes near the edges of the hill surrounding his place where animals would fall to their death in a carpet of steel pikes.

This second type of traps also served the purpose of surprising unwanted visitors and defending his place more easily. In fact, Keith set those traps up in area where player would most commonly wander around thanks to the way the rough terrain was preventing movement in the area.

Other than that, the young man had also made a lot of progress regarding the production of energy. He now had two generator, including a larger ones he just finished working on, that were producing enough electricity to power several of his machines at once. After designing and building a stone cutter, Keith quickly finished up working on a furnace with a primitive handle to control the amount of fuel that went into it. That way, he could easily make sure his furnace would as precisely to the temperature he needed as possible.

It now was a whole lot easier to work with metal and he did not deprive himself of it. The steel pikes he installed at the bottom of his traps seemed a large expense for the small amount of resources he had access up until now but the young man had also been drilling a cave system under his base to search for metal ores. It was a lot faster than going to a nearby mountain while searching for a natural cave to explore.

Those natural cave systems sometimes were lackluster in terms of size and resources so the young man found this new method quite helpful.

Wandering around his base, Keith noticed one of his traps had been activated. The leaf carpet had disappeared, revealing a large hole in the distance. Getting closer to it, Keith started wondering : 'What type of game did I get my hands on this time around? A deer or one of those horned monsters, the boar?'

However, the young man fell in confusion after witnessing what waited for him by the bottom of it.

'That's not an animal...? Isn't that a player?' Keith slowly realized that the shape of the body was quite a lot different than the game he usually chased after. To make sure of it, the young man carefully climbed the hole down to check on the state of the body.

'What the hell happened down there?! That's definitively a player's body!'

Keith instantly became tense. Since this body had not disappeared yet, it must have died under an hour ago. In fact, the prevent a bit of lag on their client's computers, the game stopped rendering a player's body after five minutes if it did not have any equipement inside its inventory or one hour if it did.

Those precautions had been programmed after the mess that had been the launch of this game where players punched each other for several hours straight. This led to quite the mess after bodies stacked up within the World Spawnpoint's area.

In any case, Keith's situation worsened in only a few minutes. In fact, if a player died down there, this also meant that he could be coming back with a few allies.

'Well, looks like I'm about the engage in my own personal warfare. That project of building a trolley chain to transport resources suddenly feels a whole lot more attractive than it did up until now. Anyways, let's show those punks whose territory this is for the time being!' Keith's thoughts led him to the realization he would have to fight to prepare for his own espace.

And thankfully, the young man did have a lot of firepower at his disposal.