After countless attacks and the ground looking like it was on life support, me and the kid, whose blade finally disappeared after his barrage of crazy attacks, were sitting on the ground, trying to catch our breath. I stared at the kid for a second, who glared right back

                “What do you want, trashy hacker?” Medicus huffed with a loathing tone. I scoffed at him, both at the childish quip and the fact that he was stubborn as a toddler that wanted ice scream for dinner.

                “I’m not a hacker, damn! Get that into your thick skull.” I said as I pulled out a water canteen, and after seeing Medicus patting his pockets for one as well, pulled out another one, which I chucked over to the kid.

                Medicus’ reaction time proved true, and he quickly snatched it out of the air without thinking. He stared at it in confusion, until he looked over at me guzzling down the slightly magical water down the drain. He glared at me, and without saying anything, tossed his head backwards as he quickly drank the water.

                After some time of us just drinking, I finished it off, and laid down, my arms spread wide open. Medicus just stared at me in slight disbelief as I began pulling up my stat menu.

               ‘Hmm… now I could distribute the stat points across Dexterity and Strength…’ I decided to save the points for now and pondered the possibilities of how far I could go. Medicus rudely interrupted my train of thought as I was about to go to asleep.

                “Aren’t we supposed to be fighting right now?” He spoke. I chuckled at the suggestion, which earned me a glare from him.

                “Kid, I’m trying to give you an opportunity to stop fighting. It’s pointless.” I said, as I stood back up, wincing at the cracks my poor virtual body made as I began to stretch.

                “But you’re a hack-! “

                “CAN YOU PLEASE. JUST SHUT UP. ABOUT HACKERS!?” I yelled at him, making him jump. I couldn’t help it. Do you know how many times I’ve been called a hacker in fighting games? Like seriously! There was one time I fought against a kid in an arcade game, and he cried to the manager because I beat him five to zero. Banned for a month! My teeth grinded against each other at the memory.

                “FOR FRICK’S SAKE I’M NOT A HACKER OK!?” I began ranting all over the place with renewed anger, prompting the kid, after the first shock, to pull out a bag of roasted chestnuts with a bemused expression on his face. Soon, I ran out of breath, and the kid finished his bag of chestnuts by tossing the last one into the air, which bopped him in the eye and rolled into his mouth.

                “So. Will you stop calling me a hacker already?” I said as I suddenly appeared in front of the kid, who choked on his chestnut in surprise and fell backwards. I sighed as I saw the guy rolling back and forth, with panic in his eyes as he clutched his neck. I quickly hauled him upwards and performed the Heimlich maneuver.

                Or, well, at least I tried to.

                I manage to get the chestnut out… but I forgot I was wearing the gauntlets, which made the mage almost die, knocking his HP down to only a measly three percent. I didn’t notice, however, and was about to do it again because the guy was still panicking… until I realized he was pointing at his HP bar above his head. I immediately dropped him, unfortunately, onto his head with a thump.

                For a second there was silence. Then the crumpled heap of a mage began talking, with his head between his legs.

                “… I don’t know if I should thank you for helping me or curse you for almost killing me.” He said, deadpanning at me. I didn’t know how to react to that. So, I began to chuckle, then began to laugh uncontrollably. The guy kept up his facade for a solid second, but soon fell into laughter. Soon we were laying on the ground, gasping for breath with our sides almost busted open from the laughter.

                “… You know. I don’t think you’re a hacker anymore.” He said suddenly, as he applied a self-healing spell to, well, himself. I smirked at him.

               “May I ask why you finally got the brilliant idea?” He glared at me.

               “Because you’re too friendly.”

                “And here I thought you were smart kid.” I said, as I walked over to him, stretching my hand out to him. He stared at it for a second, then with a grin of his own, he grabbed it and I pulled him up.

                “Truce?” Medicus said. I grinned back.

                “Truce.” I said as we shook hands.

                After letting go, we began trudging back to the starting zone. For a while, there was a comfortable silence between us, as if we had been friends for a long, long time. Then…

                “So, uh… how exactly did you beat that boss?” Medicus said. I stopped walking, then contemplated my options. The kid didn’t seem like the type to gloat all over the place. But you could never know. So, I decided, for now, I should keep my cards close.

                “Everyone has secrets kid.” I simply said as I started to walk towards a road that I knew was half a mile away

                “It… doesn’t have something related to this right?” I turned around with bored eyes, trying to keep the slow rising fear under control. I tried to calm myself. It was probably nothing.

               … Right? It couldn’t really be anything.

                Medicus fiddled around with his hands in the air for a second, obviously messing around with his menu, before he showed me a quest from his quest log.

                Quest Received: Prevent the End of Orb!

                Description: The destined one, chosen by the sacred Gauntlets of the Armory Master’s set, has been chosen! Now the successor of the one that killed several Gods has their potential unlocked of the mortal limits. And as they grows, the chances of Orb being annihilated also grow alongside it. Have haste heroes! And prevent the End of Orb of Worlds!

                Condition: Kill ??? before they obtain the rest of the Armory Master’s Set!

                Rewards: All the Godly items on the Destroyer of Orb, 5 random pieces of Angelic/Demonic Class Specific Items for each person that is in the party of the one that killed the Destroyer, and 1,000,000 Gold!

                Key Item: The top 100 of the Monster Hunter, Player Killer, and Overall categories now have special lanterns that glow only when the Destroyer is within 30 meters of then.

                When I first glanced at it, I thought for a second with relief that it was just an unrelated quest to me. But then I reread it after I saw the word Godly. Then again. And again. And again. After finally reading it for the third time, Medicus was getting creeped out, before jumping slightly as I suddenly went down onto my knees, and unceremoniously faceplanted into the grass, I laid there for a second, admiring how cool the grass felt as my mind tried to process what I had just read. For a few moments my brain kept running into errors, restarts, and more errors as it tried to untangle itself.

                Medicus watched me with shock as I fell. For a second, he wondered if he should leave me alone, when he noticed my whole body starting to shake. Then I began laughing like a maniac into the grass, before breaking down into tears as the whole weight of the situation of how screwed I am finally dawned on me.

                “I just wanted a pack of ramen!” I said as I stood up so fast that I scared Medicus enough to make him land onto his butt with a shocked look on his face.

                “I just wanted a freaking pack of ramen!” I screamed into the air at the gods of this world. Medicus looked at me bewildered as I began to punch the air in frustration, blasting my tears into the air as they unluckily fell onto or near my flying fists.

                After I went through my tantrum, I slammed down onto the ground hard, butt first. And promptly put my head between my gloved hands. Medicus, with a half full bag of chestnuts, slowly came over to me. Once he was assured that he wouldn’t be blasted into the air like my tears, he held out a chestnut in front of me, which I took.

                For a while, we were just sitting there, crunching on chestnuts. Finally, after a long stretch of tense silence, Medicus spoke up.

                “So… I’m judging from your reaction you’re the destroyer?” He said, as he chomped down onto another chestnut.

                I couldn’t help it. I laughed like a maniac once more. This time, I was unable to stop even as angry tears fell out of my eyes.