Fate Online: Shadow

Once Jen left the game, Solitary Tempest gave a quick glance towards the mission board before making her way towards the direction of a merchant store that sells general goods.

"Welcome! How may I help you, dear customer?"

Being the largest building aside from the barracks, Solitary Tempest was immediately greeted by an attendant the moment she walked in.

Though the place is mostly made of wood and not as grand as those in the large cities with their brick buildings and glass windows, it's interior looks decent and gives a homey feeling.

"I want to purchase some health and mana potions" replied Solitary Tempest towards the attendant with a pair of remarkable bust like hers.

"We're already out of the small and medium ones, the large positions are the only ones we have left" replied the attendant as she led her towards the other counter where there's lesser people.

"No worries, I was planning to buy large potions anyway. Please give me a hundred pieces each" said Solitary Tempest while walking a step behind her.

The attendant's eyes quickly lit up when she heard her, and it was because she's going to receive a huge amount of commission from it.

"Right away! Give me a couple of minutes dear customer!"

The attendant quickly went to the back of the store under the envious gazes of her fellow coworkers.

Only after two minutes had passed when she finally came out with two large trays stacked together and carefully placed them down on the counter.

"Here it is, one hundred health and mana potions each. All of it combined would amount to one hundred gold coins, dear customer" said the sales attendant with a huge smile on her face, already thinking of the commission she'll get from this sale.

Solitary Tempest immediately dug out precisely one hundred gold coins from her [Inventory] and paid for the merchandise before pocketing them all inside her [Inventory].

"Thank you, dear customer! Please come again!"

The sales attendant gave Solitary Tempest a slight bow while the latter slowly made her way out of the store with her hand raised slightly above her shoulders as an acknowledgement to the words of the former.

"I wonder if there's any Mithril ores around these parts? After all, this is the Forest of Despair, it should have a lot of rare things inside right?"

Solitary Tempest left the place while mumbling to herself as she walked towards the direction of the thick, gloomy oozing forest.

"Hey, isn't that her?"

"Who's her?"

"Solitary Tempest, that's her"

When the woman in question walked past a group of three players making their way towards the army camp, one of them couldn't help but stop in her tracks and turned around to look at Solitary Tempest walking further away from them.

"Meh, it's probably just someone impersonating her. We've met a lot those countless times already, they're pretty annoying"

"Yeah, but the problem is…that player's information were all question marks, while those impersonators, on the other hand, always had their levels visible. So there's a good chance that player was the real one, and let's not forget the news that some players from the major guilds are hunting boss monsters with her around these parts recently"

"Ohh, now that I think about it. It really was all question marks, that player's level must be really high"

"Hey, how about we follow her?"

"Then kill her? Though we don't kill players unless provoked"

"No, silly! If it's really her, then we'll pick up the scraps from her monster kills, then we sell them to the NPC shops. I don't believe that she'll pick up every loot she gets from the monsters she kills. Don't the other Rankers do that too? Because unlike us, every extra space in their [Inventory] is very important"

The group of three friends immediately halted in their tracks, looked at each other, then eyed their surroundings, and when they saw that no one was listening or paying attention to them, they then looked back at each other and gave each an understanding nod.

"Let's go, and maybe we'll earn a few gold following her," said one of them.

Moments later, Solitary Tempest had unknowingly gained a group of faithful clean up crew.

She was walking around the forest with no destination whatsoever, and she would mine or break any boulders she stumbled upon regardless of their size.

"I've been walking around aimlessly for about half an hour now, and I've only gotten a few Iron Ores so far. It seems like Mithril is really rare even for the Forest of Despair, and those bastards, are they seriously going to follow me all day?"

Standing before a huge lake, Solitary Tempest couldn't help but frown while looking back at the three players that's currently busy picking up the scraps from the monsters that she had just killed earlier.

"I only heard of this kind of thing from the stories of other players on the forum, but I didn't expect I'd actually get to encounter this kind of people, and of all places, in Forest of Despair".

Normally, she would have just ignored this kind of players following her around to pick up her scraps, but right now is not a good time as she's looking for Mithril Ores which could really cause some trouble if she happens to find one as she can't trust this players not to blab about it to their friends.

Since Mithril Ores are only second to Adamantium Ores in terms of rarity and expensiveness.

The former might make nations weigh the pros and cons if it's worth the trouble of making enemies, but the latter will make any nation go to war just to obtain it.

And right now, Solitary Tempest is thinking of a way to get rid of this group of buzzing flies.

'Should I try to shake them off, or should I just…kill them?'

She's troubled as she didn't want to resort to killing them as it would leave a bad taste in the mouth, especially since she's not fond of killing players unprovoked.

Glancing at the players in the distance from the corner of her eye, she's only now noticing that the three players are only wearing equipment of ordinary quality, all worn out from the constant use, and with no sign of any Rare item on any of them.

'I guess I'll just leave them be, not like they can do anything to me if I really happen to find a Mithril Ore'

In the end, and probably out of pity, Solitary Tempest just let out a sigh and decided to ignore them.