Location: Forest of Village Uri, South of Diptabhumi
Time: 11:46 PM
Day: Second of Crown Days

A roar cut Eka's pleasant conversation. Note the sarcasm on pleasant.

Eka was more than ready to kill herself. The scenario before her was impossible on the levels of survival.

The lebrout thundered down on the humans as if he was leisurely playing golf. The wooden baton swung at the unsuspecting human male. The head detached from the human's body easily and flew to slap the next roaring female. The latter met the same fate as her predecessor. Eka lost her counting after the twentieth one.

The stranger beside her just whistled at every head that flew. "Oooh, Chaya's eye, that is a goal..."

"Mmmh...ngh"

"Huh?" The stranger gave a side eye to Eka.

"Mmmnh...you-", Eka almost spat on the stranger's masked face when the stranger tucked the cloth down. She simmered in anger and she would not stop even if he was her saviour. "You...you...you...", she spluttered.

"Hmm?" The stranger raised his invisible eyebrow. "Lost words, uh? No worries. They are mere puppets. This person and my assistant here are the ones alive. They are dead bodies housing alive enchantments that give them the abilities. The one you see. There," he pointed to a female expertly chucking shrunken at the giant lebrout, "is a prototype for making a dead body as alive as possible." He whistled again as the female's head soared and landed before him. "That was a home run."

The stranger's assistant cleared his throat and picked up where his boss left off, "As the boss said this is the latest collection. They are our pride and joy. We managed to replicate the human anatomy down to every emotion. We still do not know the cons yet. They were brought here for a field test but unfortunately, it seems like they won't last this time."

The stranger slapped his assistant on his shoulder. "Ah, this person's friend, you learned to speak this person's words. Continue this and you will be this person's partner in no time."

They chatted as if Eka was never here. She cleared her throat. "Mr Whoever-you-are, please as a saviour is it not your priority to untie me first?"

The man gasped in mock horror. He turned to his assistant and in equally mock disbelief he said, "Leonar, untie the fine lady's limbs. Didn't this person teach you to take care of victims first? You are becoming lax in your learning. This person should double your training when we reach home."

The assistant, Leonar, simply rolled his eyes and muttered, "When do you teach anything properly? It is the grand mentor who oversees my learning." He swiftly untied Eka's hands and then feet using a small dagger. She groaned in the sudden influx of blood and rotated her wrists and ankles to test the injuries. Leonar provided her with a glass vial filled with a purple potion.

Eka sweated. Was this the time that she should be killed? She fell onto her knees and pleaded for her life.

"Goodness. This is not poison. We've designed it in purple colour to prevent stealing. Long story short, we've had thieves only for this potion's formula."

Eka eyed Leonar suspiciously before swallowing it in one gulp. She shut her eyes to feel the gurgling of the stomach that came the moment after ingesting bellelock. It was indeed a healing elixir. The thick bluish-black bands on her wrists and ankles vanished. The small cuts on her back mended and the small pebbles embedded in them fell off.

While Eka was still rejoicing to have not to spend her hard-earned money for a vial of healing potion from the local witch, the giant lebrout had finished his play with the dead puppets. He was advancing towards the chatting group quickly. Two more giant steps and a swing of his baton were what Eka calculated when she shouted, "Watch out!"

The Saviour conjured up a gun from thin air and aimed at the roaring lebrout. He took a deep breath and with a relaxed exhale a golden bullet shot at the centre of the lebrout's forehead. The lebrout gave out a loud dying screech before collapsing heavily, shaking the floor with him.

"Speechless again, huh? Since you have saved this person's life you have earned the right to know this person's name. This person's name is Jakal-are you even listening?"

Eka was staring at the twirling gun in Jakal's thumb and index finger. Memories not supposed to be there engulfed her mind. Memories of a life she never thought she lived became clear. And the gun was an item that was the property of that world.

"Me, an NPC?"

If not a player then I should be able to log in to my administrator account, thought Eka. "System, log into my account. Name, Eternity."

She was twenty-five years in the game and that meant she was six hours well into game time. That was long even for a beta test.

Eka was busy muttering to herself when Jakal's voice broke her musings. "Hello lady. It is rude to stop listening to someone who has graciously stopped their work to lecture you about the inner workings of the item you've been staring at for the last five minutes."

"You, third person, what did you say this item's name was?"

"This-" Jakal twirled the gun once more before palming it as if it were a precious prize,"-is a gun. A legendary item. Had it from an auction in The Amera Isles for forty thousand ameris. A fine creation right?" He proceeded to kiss the shiny metal for emphasis.

Of course, it was a fine creation. She had burnt the midnight oil to make this design to its nitty-gritty details of a gun when a player decided to dismantle it. That was the speciality of this game. You could open up an item to its core layers and watch it in great detail.

Everything was impressive except for the arrival of the gun. This was supposed to be a medieval world where bullock-cart was still the mode of transportation for the commoners. The gun wasn't decided for this era.

An intense headache mounted inside Eka-no Mohira. No access to her account meant no going back to her room. She couldn't borrow Jakal's account either. He couldn't log out then.

"Jakal-if that's your name-what do you know about this game? You are a player, right?"

Jakal nodded.

"Look, I don't know how you came into this game, but this is still in its developing stages. You should get out. The world isn't done and I don't want a bad review from the public once you decide to tell people about this."

"But-"

"Yeah, no. I need to tone down the pain level of the players. This is too much. I nearly shat my pants facing the lebrouts. Were the lebrouts always this organised? They should be like goblins but with tamer qualities."

"Lady, I know you are an NPC who is the most developed character this person has met yet but this game is certainly well-received in this market. Not that matters. What matters the most is why are you asking this person this."

Eka huffed. What NPC? Just because I chose the wrong character doesn't mean that I get sidelined. An idea popped into her head.

"Jakal, my task is to help the administrator of this game with information and feedback from the players to add to the upgrades."

Jakal's eyes widened in realization. He chuckled. "A neat trick. Develop an AI as an NPC to collect info. Well, what should this person do?"

Eka's heart leapt with joy. A chance finally. She was losing hope with every second she passed inside this damned game. She breathed in and out and tried not to blabber in excitement. She carefully chose her words. "Jakal, log out and find a person called Mohira Karmakar. She is the developer of this game. When you find her and report this she should be able to give you a special reward for completing this mission."

Just as she finished saying her sentence, a ding sounded. With wide eyes, Jakal read it out aloud, "Congratulations, Player Jakal for finding the hidden Awoken within the first try. As a reward, your Legendary Item has been upgraded to stage two."

No. No. No. This wasn't supposed to happen. Was life as an NPC always so restrictive?