Tanaka opens her eye slowly, she stares at the blue cloudless sky and blinks a few times. She holds up her hand toward her face, wondering if it was all just a dream as she pinches her cheek.

T-"Ouch..."

The pain from her cheek has cleared her doubt, she stares at her hand while remembering the pain from the violent death. Tears form around her eye uncontrollably as she sobs silently, she covers her eyes with one hand and rests the other hand on her stomach, she just wanted to rest and forget about her awful death. When she decided to just sleep and ignore everything, Vanguard roll toward her and nudge her hand, she glances at Vanguard and then proceeds to grab it. She hugs Vanguard as she whispers to it.

T-"Thanks vanguard.."

She holds vanguard in her embrace as she stares blankly at the blue skies, she would stroke its head and hum her favorite song as a child. When she is enjoying the peaceful environment, a figure walks into her sight view, she stares at the figure's face and realizes it's Goddess Cintra.

C-"Had a rough time?"

T-"Mhmm...a painful one."

Cintra crouch down next to her as a golden slime jumps up on Cintra's head, the slime makes a wobbly noise, and Vanguard responds with its wobbly noise. Cintra lightly stroke Tanaka's head to soothe her, Tanaka stares at Cintra's face as she gives a smile.

T-"Thanks, I think I am fine, just a little tired..."

Cintra smiles and nods her head, she then caresses Tanaka's face.

C-"There's a lot of things I could not explain to you now, you will slowly understand them as you get stronger while discovering what fate lies ahead of you."

Cintra gets up and grabs the golden slime on her head, she hugs it and glances at blue skies.

C-"Just take it slowly Tanaka-Kun, do not rush and always be wary of the unknown, some things have changed and a countless new story is happening everywhere."

Tanaka gets up and places Vanguard on the ground, she walks in front of Cintra and stares at her.

T-"I will, but, can I ask you a question?"

Cintra nods her head lightly as she strokes the golden slimes.

T-"So...you know I am no longer a human being right?"

C-"That's correct Tanaka-Kun."

T-"I was just wondering, why did I earn your favor upon the transformation? Did you anticipate the transformation?"

Cintra gets closer toward Tanaka and holds her hands, she tilts her head slightly as she gives a smile.

C-"That's one of the things I could not explain to you, for now, all I can tell you is that Baal is not as bad as you think."

Tanaka blushed when Cintra got too close to her face, she then shyly stares at Cintra's face as she responds.

T-"Well umm...I mean...I never really thought that Baal is bad or anything, I have always just treated him as a mob, so I don't really under-"

Before she can finish her sentences, Cintra places a finger on her lips to make her stop talking, Tanaka's face got even redder and she tries to back away. Cintra then giggles as she let go of Tanaka's hand, she then walks toward the canopy and sits down on a chair. Tanaka stares at Cintra and then proceed to give a small bow, she then picks up Vanguard and walks out of the southern hallway, once again as she steps onto the cloud, her vision begins to blur and darken.

She opens her eyes once again, this time she is staring at a wooden ceiling, she glances around and realizes she is back in a private room at the inn. As she gets up from the bed, Kumo pounce toward her and stabs her hand angrily. 

T-"Ouch! Hey! Stop Kumo, ah!"

Kumo then hisses at her angrily and taps its leg repeatedly, Tanaka thinks that Kumo is probably angry about the painful death. She pat Kumo body lightly in an attempt to calm it down, Kumo brush off her hand and jump up to her shoulder, it would constantly hiss and tap its leg as if it's ranting at Tanaka. Tanaka looks out of the window and stares at the street, she notices that she has been respawned back at Capital Nozumo.

She walks out of her room and heads downstairs to the lobby, as she arrives at the lobby, she sees that there's a crowd of player chatting and staring at the notice board. Tanaka walks toward the crowd and touch a player's shoulder.

T-"Hey, what's going on?"

The player stares at her and notices her mark, he shrieks loudly and runs away.

T-"Sigh...guess I will just check the board."

She squeezes herself into the crowd and slowly moves forward to the board, as she manages to reach in front of the board, she takes a glance at exactly what is getting the attention of so many players.

[Recruiting to repel a kobold invasion!]

Level recommend: 15 ~ 90

[Description]

A massive army of kobold is advancing toward Capital Nozumo from the east, scout has reported that this kobold emerges from the forest of Indra, the reason for their invasion is yet unknown as the scout that venture into the forest has failed to return and report back their finding.

[Main Objective]

Join the frontline of the Nozumo army and repel the kobold invasion.

[Secondary Objective]

Venture deep into the forest of Indra and find out what's causing the kobold to boldly launch a large scale invasion.

Reward:

??? G

??? Item

[Reward will be distributed based on contribution]

[Accept event quest? Y / N]

As Tanaka presses on the Y icon, she can hear that few of the player is discussing on whenever to join the event or not, she understands why most of the player will hesitate to accept this event as kobold is not easy to deal with. The kobold in Gaia Life is as strong as a player, if a player of level 20 fight against a kobold of level 20, they would be evenly matched in terms of combat attributes and stats wise. Now imagine fighting against an army of kobold level ranging from 15 to 90, there's no duel in a warzone, the kobold could gang on you anytime if you have no friend or ally to back you up. Kobold also uses weaponry similar to what human uses and each of them also uses skill unique to their classes, an army of kobold will contain warrior, archer,mage, priest and more classes that are comparable to player classes.

Tanaka squeeze out of the crowd and head toward the eastern gate, as she arrives outside of the gate, she can see that a lot of players is already on the spot preparing their buff and equipment for the war. A massive army of human NPC is also lined up and marching toward the checkpoint connecting the forest of Indra and Inja Village, as Tanaka gets closer to the army, a notification appears to confirm that she has joined the army.

[Sucessfully joined the army!]

[Advance toward checkpoint along with the marching NPC when the timer ends.]

[Time until event start: 10 minutes...]

She summons out Vanguard and sits down on the ground, she then glances around to check on the status of other players. After a few inspections, she has determined that most players are around level 20 to 40 as the highest level is around 120.

T-"Seems okay for now..."

She then looks at a few of the soldier's status.

[NPC Halberd warrior]

Level: 60

HP: ████████████████████

[NPC Spear warrior]

Level: 45

HP: ████████████████████

[NPC 1-H sword warrior]

Level: 45

HP: ████████████████████

[NPC 2-H sword warrior]

Level: 60

HP: ████████████████████

[NPC Archer]

Level: 40

HP: ████████████████████

[NPC Marksman]

Level: 60

HP: ████████████████████

[NPC priest]

Level: 30

HP: ████████████████████

T-"Hmm?"

Tanaka looks around to check properly, she realized that there's no mage in the NPC army.

T-"No mage in an army... magic...high magic resistance! Wait, but that means..."

Tanaka crosses her arm as she thinks about why the army has no mage, she then remembers that there's a variant of a kobold with high magic resistance.

T-"Arcana Kobold."

As she mentions the name, an NPC looks at her and respond.

M-"Correct, the scout has reported that there's Arcana Kobold mixed within the army of the kobold."

She stares at the NPC and checks his status.

[* NPC - Makoto Shimura]

Level: 150

HP: ████████████████████

MP:████████████████████

Tanaka realizes that this NPC must be the commander as she noticed the star icon next to his name, unique NPC all has a star icon next to their name. As she thinks about the Arcana Kobold, she has finally understood why there's no mage in the army. Arcana Kobold has two passive skills call "Magic Retaliate" and "Magic Enhance", this makes it extremely dangerous to any mage as it can return any magic cast by a mage but even stronger. She then bites her finger as she looks at the player that dresses like a mage, she wonders if they will listen to her. She walks toward a group of players and tells them about the Arcana kobold.

T-"Umm hey guys, I just want to let you guys know that there's a variant of kobold calls Arcana Kobold in the kobold army, so I am wondering if you guys know what it looks like so you can avoid using magic on it."

The players stop chatting and stare at her, then one of them raises his hand.

P1-"I do, I can brief them on its appearance, thanks for the information."

Tanaka nods her head and walks away, then the player begins to explain to the other guys what is an Arcana kobold, as he explained to his friend, his friend slowly pass on the information to other groups, and eventually all of them has learned of the Arcana kobold. Few of the mage looks nervous as they wonder if they can properly identify an Arcana Kobold, Tanaka doesn't blame them as it's hard for even high-level player to identify a kobold class properly from far away.

After few minutes of preparing, the timer has finally hit 0 and a warhorn is sounded, the NPC begins to march toward the checkpoint and the player follows them. Tanaka follows along while Vanguard bounces behind her closely, as the army marches the priest begins to cast the defensive buff on them in preparation for the impending battle.