Fate Online: Shadow

Groan!

"Oh, you're finally awake"

Alex snapped his eyes open and heard a couple of people talking around him and with the sound of people groaning and the clanging of metals clattering around him.

He looked around and saw that he was still inside the gym, behind the reception area, and in front of him is Sasha looking at him with a smirk on her face.

"What happened?" Alex asked, his memories a bit hazy from suddenly waking up.

"Ohh..that. You got knocked out in five punches from Michael" Sasha replied while handing out a form to the person who had just walked in and wanted to sign up for a membership, and the said person gave a look of curiosity towards Alex when he heard what Sasha said before walking away with a pen and the form in his hands.

"Right, f*ck! I didn't expect that kid had become so strong! A pity he didn't want to participate in the world martial arts tournament with his skills"

Alex finally remembered everything as memories of what happened earlier started replaying inside his head.

Sasha rolled her eyes at him and said with a chuckle, "Why would he join that martial arts tournament when he could just play Fate Online all day long. I'm pretty sure that someone with his abilities, he's probably having a good time inside the game and raking in the money just like those gaming celebrities"

Alex had stood up from the sofa and standing in front of the fridge beside the reception desk and took out a bottle of water, and turned towards Sasha as he opened the cap and said, "What do you know lady? Michael is still young right now and has a lot of options, but if he wins the championship or at least enters the top ten of the tournament. Then he would have a lot of future prospects when he grows old where he could get to know a lot of people with authority who would certainly want to hire someone of his caliber"

"A person would eventually grow old"

Sasha gave another argument from what he said, "But Fate Online is an undug treasure, everyone can become rich overnight. A lot of companies and even movies are turning towards the game for opportunities"

"Movies can now be shot inside the game where they can now reduce the cost of production. Of course, it would be at the expense of people losing their jobs. We're already lucky that the governments around the worlds had banned the research and invention of robots, or else they would have replaced us by now with millions of people becoming jobless"

Alex just shook his head when he realized that Sasha had started blabbering again with topics not even the least bit related to what they were talking about earlier.

So he just shrugged his shoulders and made a quick exit as he didn't want to hear any more words from her.

And Sasha didn't even notice that he had left as she just continued talking while tying something in the computer in front of her, thinking that Alex is still around her, listening to her.

"Damn you old man!"

Meanwhile.

"So, have you finally figured out a plan?"

Cereal Killer crawled towards Shadow and asked in a whisper.

Right now, Shadow and the rest of the team are currently lying down on the ground behind a thick brush as they observed the patrolling Grey Orcs walking on a path just three meters in front of them.

"Of course, but it's a risk we should take thanks to your useless Grey Orc companion that doesn't even know any secret paths we could take and bypass these stubborn race"

"And here I was thinking that passing through this place would be a breeze because a lot of Grey Orcs had left"

Shadow turned his head towards Cereal Killer and replied with a bit of an annoyed tone.

Cereal Killer gave his friend a scowl and whispered back, "Why is it my fault? Not like that dude is someone with a high position in their tribe"

Shadow almost wanted to smack him, but quickly stopped himself as he didn't want them getting discovered.

So he glared at Cereal Killer and said, "But he's the son of one of the elders, don't tell me that the dude never went through childhood and wasn't a troublemaker?"

"Dude, he's a freaking Orc, not a human. How would we even know their customs?"

"And let's just say he does know a secret path or two, but would he tell me? His loyalty is only at thirty percent, and there's still a huge risk that he would suddenly leave me and stabbed us in the back"

"That's why we didn't let him out and accompany us in the off chance that the possibility of him betraying us might happen. We didn't come here to die, but to stay ahead of the others in the game man"

Shadow just quietly clicked his tongue as he knows that Cereal Killer also has a point. After all, a pet and a companion is different as the former would treat the player with absolute loyalty even when they have quirks in their personalities, while the latter group will have their loyalties fluctuate now and then from how someone would treat them.

A good example would be treating them as meat shields, which would certainly reduce a large amount of their loyalty, and if the level of their loyalty reaches zero, then they would quickly abandon their master or lord.

In fact, the worse outcome of it is utterly betraying the player by attacking them, and events like that had already happened a lot within the game where players had treated their NPC companions as their meat shields or sacrificial pawns.

Which resulted in them getting stabbed in their backs. One player even failed an important mission because of it, while some guilds even failed in boss raids because of it.

From then on, players had learned from their mistakes and started treating their companions right.