Chapter 48 - 49: Quest Of Salem

"Where's aunt?" He asked.

"Aunt is at home, making yummy food for me." Mark smiled foolishly.

"I'm talking about my aunt, you idiot!" Bastian finally couldn't bear the stupidity.

Mark just looked at Bastian with confusion.

"You're drunk, man. I'm only wasting my time talking to you." He said with a wry smile on his face as he stood up.

He walked towards his aunt's office.

He pushed the door, but the door was locked.

"Aunt Esmi, are you inside?" He called out as he knocked on the door.

There was no reply for quite some time, but he could hear some noises. It sounded like a chair was being moved from its position.

"Aunt?" He called out again.

After 5 minutes, the door was opened.

Bastian found Esmi standing on the other side of the door. She looked like she was a little tired. Her breathing was quite uneven.

"Bastian, Come on inside," She said with a smile as she walked back to sit on her chair.

"Ryder? What're you doing here?" 

Bastian was surprised to see Ryder inside. He was sitting on the other chair.

"Hey," Ryder greeted him.

"Don't hey me! What are you doing here? You came up to party here, and you didn't even invite me?" Bastian punched Ryder's shoulders lightly.

"It's not that. I had some important business to discuss with your aunt," Ryder replied with a wry smile on his face.

"What business? Are you joining the club? Do you need money? I can give you some if you need, man." Bastian said with a smile.

"It's not that. He had a business proposal and needed an investor. He was just here explaining that to me." Esmi helped out Ryder, as she said.

"Oh, What business?" Bastian asked.

"Sorry, man, But that's a secret for the moment. I'll tell you after I'm done setting things up." Ryder replied.

"Whatever, man. Are you done here? Let's go drink," Bastian placed his hands on Ryder's shoulders as he asked.

"I'm done here, but I'll have to take a rain check from the drinking. I have something important to do at home. I'll call you soon, and we can set things up. How about that?" Ryder let out as he stood up.

"Alright. If you say so." Bastian agreed to the suggestion. He didn't feel like forcing Ryder.

Ryder left that place, leaving Bastian and Esmi behind.

______________________________

He got back to his home and entered his room. Since the system was going through an upgrade, there would be no missions for quite some time. He was free for the moment.

He wore his glasses and again went inside Divinity.

After an hour or so, Alice came from outside.

"Brother, are you back?" She called out as she noticed that the door was unlocked.

She opened Ryder's room and entered inside.

"Geez, Again with those glasses! Is that game really so awesome?" She muttered as she noticed Ryder wearing the glasses.

'Should I get one as well?' She thought as she left the room.

____________________________

Ryder had entered the world of Divinity and appeared at his original spot where he left.

He checked the Fame Rankings, and just as he heard, there was Lucifer's name there.

Lucifer was ranked 1 with 300 fame points at the moment, while he was ranked 2 with 200 fame points.

"That man never gives up, does he?" He sighed as he saw the ranking.

"I can't fall behind. Even if I have no class at the moment, I won't give up either." Ryder said in full confidence.

He walked through the city and noticed that there were posters on the wall everywhere.

The poster was of the princess that had gone missing. It was said that whoever found the princess and brought her back to the king safely, will be given 100 gold coins as a reward.

"Strange. This event is different, as well. Why are there so many different things in the game compared to last time?" He thought out loud as he read the poster.

He took one and kept that in his storage. This was something new, but it could be good if he managed to find the princess. He would earn the King's favor, after all.

He was walking through the streets when he heard the strange announcement. It wasn't the voice of Janus, nor was it the voice of Maya.

[The Quest of Salem begins now. You shall be teleported to the underworld.]

The announcement said.

"What's that?" Ryder said, but before he could do anything, everything turned white.

He disappeared from where he was standing and appeared in a different place.

There was no plantation. No human could be seen anywhere. The sky was also covered in dark clouds, and the sun couldn't be seen.

"Where the hell am I?" Ryder let out as he looked around.

He tried opening the map, but surprisingly, there were no options on the game's screen. Quite a lot of options had been restricted. One of them was a map.

The only options available were the notification, the status screen, and the logout option.

He tried clicking the 'log out' option just to be sure.

A confirmation screen opened up.

He breathed in relief as he realized that he could log out at least.

Now the only thing to be concerned about was his location.

It was completely unknown and, most probably, an undiscovered region.

He was quite surprised as he didn't get any fame points for discovering the place, but that was probably because he was here for some quest.

Now what he needed was to see what he needed to do.

He opened the quest screen and checked the details.

"Become the demon general?" Ryder let out with a surprised look on his face as he read the quest information.

'I need to become the Demon General to get his class?' He thought as he looked around.

'Why was there no mention of demons before?' He thought as he started walking on the empty land.

"In the higher stages of the game, I did hear about the undead army, but never about the demons? Are they the same as undead?" He thought out loud.

He walked for an hour before he finally saw a person.

There was a person that seemed like a human.

He was sitting on a carpet with a few objects in front of him.

Ryder walked up to the man while he kept his eyes on the objects in front of him.