“Its’ gone! It’s gone!”
Everyone was startled awake by the loud shouts coming from Hoggy, and they all went out of their tents in a hurry.
“What is it?” a player asked.
“Where’s the fire?” another questioned, yawning as she did so.
While another rubbed his eyes and rapidly blinked them before he wore his glasses. “What’s all the commotion about?”
Judging from the time, it was just two in the morning, and it was freezing in the desert.
“My Hogs food are gone!” Hoggy said, still screaming while clutching down his two little ears in despair.
Ren rubbed his neck and groaned. Now he remembered . . . the Smiling Caravan’s quest.
It had something to do about the Hogs’ food and . . . blank.
It was an entire ball of nothingness in his brain.
Ren couldn’t remember every little quest in the past. Even for him, that would be too much. What he remembered were the important ones.
However, there was this information in Ren’s head that he couldn’t grasp. It felt like there was this light shrouded in fog, and it was getting father away no matter how hard he tried to chase and grab it.
“What do you mean the Hogs’ foods are gone?”
Hoggy’s face twisted in anguish before he stomped his feet in anger. “It’s those Tieflings! Those brigands! Those thieves! They’re the ones who took my precious Hogs’ food! Without those [Kangkong Balls], my Hogs would not obey my commands, and we are stuck in here if we don’t get it back!”
Agh . . . when Hoggy finished talking, Ren suddenly recalled and grasped that elusive light that almost slipped from his hands.
Now he remembered.
The Smiling Caravan’s Quest was just a simple defeat and retrieved kind of quest.
. . . I think. Ren mused to himself.
“Huh? What do you mean stuck?!”
“What’s going on?”
“Couldn’t we just log out?”
“Wait . . . I think this is a quest!”
“How did he lose it in the first place when his two bodyguards were like Bosses?”
Hoggy’s small ears picked up even the tiniest sounds from the players, and he explained, “Unfortunately, there’s a powerful Shaman among those Tieflings. He put Harris and Salud to sleep before they stole all my [KangKong Balls]!”
“Shaman?”
“Like a witch?”
“What are Tieflings anyway?”
Hoggy’s nose wrinkled like he smelled something rotten. “Those boogers! They’re evil spawns of the devil! They looked human, but their infernal heritage left a clear imprint on their appearance.”
Hoggy’s squinty eyes opened slightly, piercing the hearts of many and the seriousness in his voice jolted everyone who heard. “They have large horns on their head. Some are curly like a ram, others have straight and tall like a gazelle’s, and some spiral upward like an antelopes’ horns.
They have thick tails like a lizard, four to five feet long, which lash or coil around their legs when they get upset or nervous. Their canine teeth are pointy, and their eyes are solid colors, most in black or red with no visible sclera or pupil.”
While Ren listened to Hoggy’s description, his mind drifted to the Tieflings. They were another race that would be accessible later. Their race was small minorities found primarily in human cities or towns, often in the roughest quarters of those areas, where they grew up to be swindlers, thieves, or crime lords.
Due to their appearance and devious characters, they were often cast out and scorned. Some even built their cities somewhere far, and the most popular were the Old Arch and the Casa Belldevil.
Tieflings were troublesome only if they were many of them. They could see in the dark and were immune to fire; most had magical resistance. So Ren would have a hard time against them if he had INT like the rest.
However, since his INT was high, he didn’t have any problem against those Tieflings.
And based on his knowledge, the Caravan’s Quest’s difficulty adjusted to the player who had the lowest ATP who were on that Caravan, so Ren was confident that the Tieflings they were about to face were low level.
“Please bring back as many [KangKong Balls] as possible.” Hoggy then snatched something inside his bag and showed it to everyone.
“This is a [KangKong Ball],” he told the players while holding a clump of wet grass wrapped together to form a ball.
“These are my Hog’s favorite food,” he said, and the players’ faces couldn’t be painted. There was nothing appetizing about that ball of grass. They didn’t even know why the Tieflings even stole it in the first place.
“I need at least a hundred to reach our destination,” Hoggy added, “Those Tieflings haven’t run far. They still might be around. You can form groups to better your chances of defeating them if you like. They are troublesome if encountered alone, especially if you’re a Mage. They have resistance to magical attacks.”
After Hoggy said that, a notification popped on every player’s screen, asking each one of them to retrieve as many as [KangKong Balls] as they could.
“We will depart as soon as I get one hundred of my [KangKong Balls] back. Of course, rewards are waiting for you if you ever accept the quest! And whoever brings back the most [KangKong Balls] will get special rewards from me!”
At the mention of rewards, all the players’ faces brightened until they were jolted awake by Hoggy’s next words.
“However, be warned. If you encounter that Shaman Tiefling, run away and don’t engage!”
“I told you it’s a quest.”
“Lucky. I never thought that we would get one.”
“But . . . where do we start?”
The desert was vast, and it was still somewhat dark. There were dead trees scattered around as well as ruined stones or structures. It was rather scary if you ventured alone.
“I’ll be waiting here,” Hoggy told the players, “This Oasis is your mark so that you won’t get lost in the vast desert.”
He then snatched an Ox Horn inside his bag and blew it upwards. The sound was enough to knock everyone’s soul out from their body at the first blow.
“I’ll blow this Horn like so after I receive a hundred of my [KangKong Balls], and exactly thirty minutes after that, we’ll leave with or without you. M’kay? *snort.”
The players shook their heads while some twirled their ears with their finger, hoping to get rid of the ringing sounds inside their heads.
Afterward, they immediately set out, contending on who would get the most [KangKong balls]. And among these groups was Lily’s group.
Josh and Zach were silently competing with one another. At the same time, Ray was worried about the upcoming notification that would pop on his screen anytime soon, saying that he had to log out because his time at the café was over.
Kylie was worried about Lily, who kept eying Ren nonstop. She held Lily’s hand tight because it seemed that the latter would zoom towards Ren at any chance she got and demand for Pii once more.
Ren was the only one who wasn’t glad at the turn of events. He was in a hurry to get to Kartacol and mine lots of precious stones to exchange for gil before the game’s schedule update. Time was money at this point. He didn’t have any second to waste here.
But what could he do if Smiling Caravan wouldn’t move without those [KanKong Balls]? Walking was out of the question and certainly going back to Igor Village and wait for hours or possibly days for another Caravan wasn’t ideal either. He would waste more time by doing either one.
The fastest and most efficient solution was to eliminate those Tieflings and collect those [KangKong Balls] ASAP.