The Young Master in the Shadows

Tom was sitting with his back to the cold cave wall. He was watching the sleeping Aria and Lily. Both of them had sleeping bags, while Peter and he had to sleep on the ground.

It was a shame because he could not get a good look at their bodies.

If he were still the guy he was two years ago, he would never get the chance to stay with such girls in a lifetime.

He still remembers the day he became a player when his grandmother asked him to clean the attic where he accidentally broke that strange vase. A red light flew from it and entered his body, giving him the chance to become a player.

At first, he did not understand what it meant, but it only took him a few days to get to know his powers. So he headed to a nearby mountain, where he camped for a few days and started to unleash and train his skills while planning what to do next. He asked himself many questions there.

Was he the only one?

Are there others?

Should he reveal his powers?

What can I do with this?

How can I make some money?

There were not many jobs requiring superpowers in modern society. Not clean ones anyway.

He stayed perplexed for a while until he met her. When he saw her, she was running away in the woods, and some men in black were perusing her. At first, he didn’t want to intervene as those men looked dangerous. But when he saw her face clearly, he stepped forward to save her life. She was beautiful, the most beautiful girl he had ever seen. That was until he met Lily though.

He was able to defeat the three offenders easily. He took them by surprise. The first one was killed quickly. Then he activated his berserker skill and finished the other two. this was the first time he killed someone, and he should have felt something, but he didn't have the time to do that.

The girl who clung to him was poisoned by a strong aphrodisiac, and she was barely conscious. He didn’t know what to do. But the girl did not give him a chance to think, and he wasn’t really against it. So that night, she made him a real man.

The next day, when he woke up, the girl was still there looking at him with an inspecting look. After some hesitation, she introduced herself as Nova Von Astrom. According to her, her family was one of the world's five ruling families. They wanted to marry her to some young master as a political maneuver. Although she knew that this was her destiny a long time ago, she did not want to be married off to some pervert. So she took refuge with a close friend. But as it turned out, that friend was only using her. He wanted to rape her, ruining the prospect of a political marriage for her family and angering the forces behind her fiancé. She was able to escape thanks to a talisman she had, but she was already poisoned by then and that guy’s men were able to find her quickly. That was when she met Tom.

Tom was surprised by her story. He didn’t fully believe her, how can the world be ruled by five families?

He decided to ask her if she heard the term 'Player', and To his astonishment, she turned out to be a Player too, much weaker than him, but still a player. So he told her his story.

She was very pleased with him and decided to teach him all about the players and their rules and how the world and system worked.

She didn’t dare return to her family after losing her virginity, as that would put them in a tight spot with her fiancé’s family. So they stayed together on that mountain for a week. She didn’t let him touch her again though, as she was very shy. But he knew that she didn’t hate him. He was taking his time with her.

Their happy days ended when her family found them. She called the man who came to get her ‘brother’. He was smiling at first, but when he learned from her that she was no longer a virgin. His face became as cold as ice. He immediately restrained her with some kind of a magical tool, then turned to Tom, he was going to kill him. But when his fist burning with blue flame was next to Tom’s face, Nova, despite her shackles, stood in the way and took that hit for him.

He could still remember how she hugged him with blood coming out of her mouth, and how she put that tattered talisman in his pocket and activated it for him. Her last words were, “Don’t look for me.”

When he regained consciousness, he was in a valley a little far away from the mountain, so he returned there quickly to find it empty. Just a patch of blood on the ground remained where she saved him.

After that, he decided that he will grow to be stronger and save her someday, so after he returned to the city, he used the Internet and quickly found the 'PlayersBook' website Nova told him about, this was one of the ways rogue players connected and shared information, he began to investigate about the player’s world, and was surprised to find that many of them had many wives, this seemed to be a common practice. They have the power and money anyway.

There was an online market there too where all kinds of artifacts and gems were being traded.

He didn't have any COINs so he had to find a way to earn some. and one of those ways was raiding a dungeon.

He was able to participate in two public dungeon raids and one he secretly discovered after that. There he was able to level up and gain some experience and treasures. And by selling some of them, he was able to amass a substantial amount of money.

By the time he returned to school, he was no longer that poor boy. He is a rich man now. And his worldview has broadened.

He will no longer allow any girl he likes to escape from his grasp. And when he becomes strong and saves Nova, she will have a lot of younger sisters to help her serve him. He already has three lovers. And five other potential future wives in the oven.

“Now how do I proceed,” He thought as he looked at the two pretty sleeping girls in front of him,

Aria had already started liking him, but she was a little older, and he had to take his time with her as she was not naive.

As for Lily, She didn’t treat him as coldly anymore. That was progress. But he can’t touch her yet as she belonged to one of the families. He had to make her abandon them herself.

Too bad he didn’t meet the twins here, this was the perfect situation for picking up girls. He thought.

As for Margret and Anna, he didn’t see those too as targets, they were just friends. Anna was not pretty enough, while Margret was a slut.

When Lily returned here he was still asleep. She must have left the guarding duty to Peter. But that guy was unreliable so Tom stood up and went to check on him.

Peter and George were his childhood friends. And were people he trusted.

When Tom saw Peter, he was standing there playing with his phone, there seemed to be no goblins around.

“Do you still have power in it?” Asked Tom they have already been here for a day.

“Of course, this is the zx5200 model. It has enough energy to power a house. Do you know how much I paid for it, It is ………………….” Peter began to brag like usual.

“I shouldn’t have asked,” thought Tom.

It was one hour later when Lily and Aria joined them. They seemed to have rested well.

“We need to proceed. I have already confirmed our path, as the goblins have left signs of the walls to guide them if they got lost. We can use those,” He said as he pointed to a strange symbol on the wall, then he stepped forward letting the others follow.

The path was dim-lit as usual, and they didn’t see any goblins for half an hour. Suddenly, Tom had a weird feeling, as if he was being watched.

He stopped and started to look around.

“Is there a problem?” Asked Peter.

“I can’t tell, just a feeling. Be on your guard” replied Tom as he advance slowly with his trusted steel dagger in his hand. He was more of a sword guy, but he can't carry one all the time. He needs to buy one of those expensive cosmos bags. He thought as he approached a dark patch in the tunnel. If there was an ambush it would be here.

Sure enough, the next moment, eight goblins sprung from behind the rocks around them. They were well hidden and camouflaged with the terrain. Their heads and bodies were full of dirt and mud.

“Keep to the formation and Fight,” shouted Tom as he slashed at the first goblin which seemed to have gained him a lot of hate from the others as five of them focused on him, leaving the rest of his team with one each.

He attacked swiftly and managed to kill three of them when he felt a freezing chill in his back. This was his intuition.

He made a mistake, there was a ninth goblin still in hiding. He wanted to turn and avoid its attack but the other goblins suddenly threw themselves at him ignoring their lives. So he had to defend on both sides.

He was barely able to avoid that fatal attack, but that sneaky goblin was able to stab him in his thigh.

Tom quickly killed him, but another one in the front was about to pierce him when Lily sprung out of nowhere and helped him fend the attack and kill the goblin.

With her help, he was able to finish all the goblins quickly.

“Sorry for the delay. I had to protect Aria.” She said.

Tom nodded his head and smiled as he felt that Lily was getting slightly warmer around him.

“It’s okay, I understand,” He said, “I just got a little careless and was injured, so….., Ahhhhhhh,” He yelled suddenly, startling his team.

“What happened?” Asked Aria in concern as she watched Tom sit on the ground in pain,

Tom didn’t respond but just tore a part of his pants to look at his injury. It was a superficial wound. That stone dagger was not that sharp and didn't do much damage. His thigh did not hurt, it was his balls. The pain was as if someone was hitting him there with a brick.

He was poisoned probably. But who would create such an evil poison?

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