Afterlife Dream

The girls started to scream. The mage was bleeding profusely from the stab wound.

"You..." the mage looked up from the wound in his stomach to the warrior, who was no less shaken than the person he just stabbed. He dropped his sword and shook his head repeatedly in denial.

"No... I... I didn't mean it. I was only mad. I..."

The mage toppled forward and dropped on the brick-layered ground. Blood kept coming out from the wound in his stomach and pooled under his body. He wriggled in discomfort while breathing heavily a few times, and then he disappeared. The ground was wiped clean in an instant, leaving no trace of the murder.

Players couldn't kill each other in the original Afterlife Dream game unless it happened in an agreed-upon duel. Duels were carried out in a special space. Whatever happened inside the duel arena did not carry over to the real space. It was different this time.

Everyone was staring at the murderer, the low-level warrior with fright in their eyes.

"Murderer," someone spat with a low voice.

The warrior looked around in panic.

"I did not mean to! It was an accident!!!"

He was reprimanded by the mage, after which he lost his cool and attacked him.

The players did not accept his words of defense. After one person spoke up and called the warrior a murderer, many more chimed in. Their fear disappeared because there were many of them against the lone warrior.

"Murderer."

"Trash."

"Scum."

The warrior fell to his knees and started to tremble violently. He had both hands covering his ears, determined to shut out all the accusations.
"I am not... Don't call me that. Stop it. STOP IT!!!"

The other players started to surround the warrior while chanting all sorts of abusive words. Eventually, it became too much for me as well. I approached the group of people to say something, but it was Kitty who shouted first.

"WAIT FOR A SECOND! HE ALREADY SAID THAT HE DID NOT MEAN IT! DO YOU ALL HAVE TO BULLY HIM LIKE THAT???"

733TRogue raised an eyebrow at Kitty.

"Are you in cahoots with him? Do you agree with murders?"

"I do not! But what you guys are doing is comparable to murder! Stop bullying him!"

The players exchanged mocking smiles.

"A life for a life, don't you think? He killed someone. Maybe we should kill him too."

"What makes you think that a murder justifies another?" I criticized the speaker sharply. "We all died relatively young. Should we not cherish life even more?"

A young female mage piped up, "It's because we cherish life that we must make sure to punish everyone who commits atrocities such as murder!"

"Right!"

"Exactly!"

"AAHHHHHHH...!!!"

The warrior jumped to his feet and bolted away.

"Hey, WAIT!!!" Kitty quickly followed him. "HEY!!! WOLFHOUND! STOP!"

Wolfhound was the ID of the warrior, by the way. He ignored Kitty's shouting and ran into a deserted construction site. He ran up the floors and Kitty persistently went after him. I had a bad feeling about this so I also ran after them.

Wolfhound stopped when he reached the rooftop. He slowly walked to the edge of the floor with tears streaming down from his eyes.

Kitty caught up after a while and she quickly approached him.

"WAIT! WAIT! DON'T BE RASH! LET'S TALK OK???"

Wolfhound threw her a miserable glance.

"What is there to talk about? You all saw it back there, didn't you? I am a horrible person. I should just die, wuuuh..."

Kitty stretched her hand out at Wolfhound.

"Don't do anything that you will regret. Come on, take my hand and come down from there first..."

Everyone in the party quest area condemned him. Kitty was the only one who did not. Wolfhound started to sob and cry. Seeing the opportunity, Kitty pulled at Wolfhound and dragged him away from the roof edge.

For the first time and not the last, I was glad that Kitty was nimbler than I was. And that Wolfhound had her chasing after him. When we were still chasing after Wolfhound on the street, I managed to maintain a one to two-meter distance from Kitty. By the time we got to the construction site and had to climb floors, I lacked behind greatly. By the time I got to the rooftop, I was wheezing just like when I still had my pneumonia. Kitty and Wolfhound were sitting together on the roof floor, with Kitty whispering comforting words to the dejected Wolfhound.

When Kitty spotted me, she furrowed her brows.

"Anty, you are so late. Where have you been?"

Where had I been? I had been climbing the floors with my unathletic body, you fool! Look at the amount of sacrifice I had made, and I didn't even get a single gold coin out of it! NPC Sena, you should have paid me more for scrubbing the graffiti off the walls!


Instead of answering Kitty, I decided to save my breath and plopped down in front of them. Speaking, logically, also required energy. I sense Wolfhound went stiff in front of me. There was fear in his eyes. He stole glances at me and quickly looked away as soon as I caught him at it. It almost seemed as if I were one of the people who condemned him and he expected me to throw him off the roof that very moment. I gave him as warm a smile as possible.

"Relax, Wolfhound. I gain nothing from bullying you. Don't take their words to heart. Just play the game well and exit when you have enough life points."

By that time I had finished reading the game guide. I finally got an inkling of understanding about the main purpose of being reincarnated into Afterlife Dream. We were supposed to collect Life Points to trade with NPCs for life perks. I had no idea yet about the said life perks because the NPCs were not available at low-level hunting grounds.

"What are Life Points?" Kitty asked, tilting her head to the side in confusion.

By the look at Wolfhound's face, he clearly also did not understand. Was I the only low-level character to read the game guide? Look into your game menu, people!!

Never mind.

I took a deep breath and started to explain what I knew to them.