After some bickering and back and forth, Azadeus and Kaelsu made a quick stop at a nearby town to replenish the pet's hunger. The entire way there, no words were exchanged. Junwoo, known recently as Azadeus as his pet name, trailed alongside him in defeat.
His legs felt too weak and his resource bar refused to regenerate. Kaelsu knew that tamed monsters in this game didn't need to eat to survive and regain strength, but only as a way to build trust. In his eyes, this was either an attempt by Azadeus to allow Kaelsu to earn his trust, or as a way of being disobedient.
Kaelsu kept a close eye on the fox spirit that trailed behind him. He wasn't sure what to believe with this pet. It's just a game after all, but the way he talked and responded to him felt too real. It started to feel real when he watched Azadeus hitting the magical barrier earlier, trying to leave the summoner territory, and almost broke down crying.
Azadeus kept his head hung low and he shuffled his feet as he walked. When Kaelsu brought him back earlier, he took his sandals off so he could sleep more comfortably, but it looks like Azadeus didn't find his footwear before leaving the house earlier. He hoped the cobbled pathing wasn't too horrible for his feet.
"We're here," Kaelsu finally broke the silence. He watched as Azaedus explored the tavern with his eyes. It was a quaint little building on the outskirts of Keeju, one of the beginner towns. Kaelsu didn't have a lot of gold left as he spent most of it on equipment to trap the Jiuweihu that became his pet.
They sat down at a table in a quiet corner, Kaelsu didn't want to attract the attention of other players. If they decided to fight him, he only has Azadeus plus one weaker monster in his party right now and they'd surely lose.
Kaelsu sat down and looked at Azadeus who followed and reluctantly sat down. Kaelsu picked up the tablet on the table to place their order. Despite it being a tavern, it was still a game and there weren't very many options. Thankfully, ordering food in games meant that it came almost instantly and there was no waiting.
"Are you happy with beef stew?" He asked. Come to think of it, he wasn't even sure what pets could eat.
"Beef stew is fine." He looked depressed. Hands were in his lap and his feet could almost touch the floor.
The food arrived almost instantly. He didn't need to order for himself, since food would only give him buffs which he already had. Kaelsu checked his gold, he's down to 243g left after this meal. If this is to be a regular thing, then they're going to need to get more gold soon.
He scoffed down the food as quick as he could, it was all gone within 30 seconds. At one point, he ditched the cutlery and started digging into it with his hands. He set the bowl down aggressively, so hard that it cracked, and he exhaled.
"Thank you…" Kaelsu grinned at Azadeus' gratitude as gasped as a smiley face with a +5 appeared next to the pet.
He was relieved. Seeing the system recognise their bond growth made him believe that Azadeus really was a pet, and not something far more sinister.
The taller man's arms were crossed and leaned on the table. Azadeus looked stronger and much more full of energy. Perhaps he wasn't lying? "Now there's the matter of our gold situation."
Azadeus was listening intently.
"We get gold from hunting monsters and selling materials, so you're going to have to co-operate with me if you want to keep eating in the future."
"Don't you also need to eat?" Azadeus felt hurt, was Kaelsu blaming him for this? "Maybe if you didn't spend everything on trying to catch me-"
Kaelsu's deep red eyes sharpened like daggers. "And I'd do it again," he interrupted. "Now that our bond has grown, are you willing to finally obey me?"
Azadeus' expression soured. "What the hell are you talking about? Bond?" He stood up from the table to leave. "I don't know what sort of scam you're running, but nobody asked you to tame me. If I'm that much of a waste then free me. Otherwise, shut up! We're not friends, or partners."
He'd been sitting on that line for a while. The tavern was suspiciously silent after the outburst and his cheeks turned red. The look of shock on his master's face made him feel somewhat guilty.
Azadeus, or Junwoo, perked up. What was he doing here? He wasn't ready to resign to a life of being some idiot's pet. His body no longer hurt after the meal, it was strangely healing. Kaelsu looked like he was caught off guard with that last light.
With his newfound strength, Azadeus bolted off before Kaelsu could restrict his movements. He didn't get very far as an event started in town: a goblin raid.
A stampede of goblins, easily hundreds, possibly thousands, poured into the town like a burst dam. The chorus of disgruntled goblins destroying buildings, attacking NPCs and other players made the ground vibrate. They were easily outnumbered.
"Ah fuck." He was stopped for a moment, but escaped out of Kaelsu's eyesight.
It took Kaelsu a moment to recover from the emotional outburst of his alleged in-game pet before he quickly whipped out his menu to press on his pet.
"What?" He was taken aback when he was unable to press on the status or actions menus. Scrambling to his feet quickly, Kaelsu's staff appeared out of thin air and his eyes gleamed with a pissed look. Just when he thought he finally broke through to him.
He took off in the same direction of Azadeus and was pleasantly surprised to see him standing in the middle of the street, until he realised what opposed him.
And even more surprised when more enemies were about to hit him from behind.
"AZADEUS, DODGE," his voice commanded, earning a gasp from the fox who clocked onto what was about to happen. Within seconds, he rolled backwards, underneath and further behind the group of enemies about to ambush him. As if it were a cinematic masterpiece, the axe slid right in front of his face barely a millimeter away.
He finished his roll crouched on the ground with a hand steadying himself on the road.
'That was close,' he thought to himself and glanced over at the annoyance of a summoner. He didn't know how to fight and it was obvious to Kaelsu who sat looking at a menu.
"A little help?" He aimed his question directly at the summoner.
Only one skill appeared in the menu, everything else still either blank or question marks.
Kaelsu pressed the skill Flare - both his staff and the collar started to glow red and a familiar pain passed through Azadeus' body. His eyes matched the red glare and a wind closed the gap between the monsters before their entire bodies trembled, turned red and (just like before) burst into flames.
Some of them dropped weapons, dropped to the ground and turned to ash. The rest of them recovered quickly and grew larger. The pair flinched watching the goblins morph into larger, threatening beasts. Their weapons, a multitude of various axes, clubs and swords, morphed with them.
From small, disgusting and green forms, they transformed into more humanoid creatures with long faces and black hair spiking out the back of their heads. Fangs from their bottom jaw grew exponentially to meet just under their drooping eyes.
Orcs. They've evolved.
"What now?" Azadeus asked. His voice held an inkling of trust for the summoner.
"We need to run," was the response. He wasn't equipped to deal with this. But they needed to create a gap.
Kaelsu summoned the other monster in the party, a large snake with azure scales and wings the length of its body. It was one of his weaker additions to the party that he intended on using to train the fox spirit. So, it wasn't very strong.
He pressed a few more buttons, and the newly summoned basilisk-creature sank its fangs into the enemies, buying them some time to escape. Kaelsu took this moment to grab the hand of Azadeus, who firmly stood in place and tried to push Kaelsu away.
With a false confidence, Azadeus turned to the summoner and gave him a silent look before running in the direction of the enemies. His legs carried him faster than he'd gone, so fast dust flicked behind him and air rippled in his wake. He was a streak of motion that turned into a bullet - a flaming bullet - when a trail of flames lagged behind him.
"Haaaaaah!" His arm lunged forward and sliced through the orcs at menacing speeds, over and over again, zig-zagging and creating a star with his paths. He'd taken a few hits during this time, but was unable to stop while in motion.
After the onslaught finally finished, hacking and slashing at enemies in a fiery blaze of lunges, he landed at the other side of the horde of enemies. At once, all of the enemies collapsed and exploded into a wave of EXP.
His arms were on his legs and he hunched over to breathe. The sound of heavy, pounding steps caught up to him.
"What the hell was that?" Kaelsu scolded. "You could've died, how did you use any skills without me commanding you?" When Azadeus refused to answer he yelled out his name, "Azadeus?!"
He opened his mouth to speak, but faltered. "Don't call me that, that's not my name." He tried to walk off but was grabbed again and quick presses of buttons and pinging noises followed. Before he realised, they'd both been teleported back to Kaelsu's summoner territory. He was quickly removed from the party, probably in an attempt to stop him from trying to escape.
Kaelsu briefly looked at his pet's skill menu, with Flare still being the only skill to show up.
"I'm logging off. I'll be back later."
A blur of gold attempted to jump at Kaelsu, yelling for him to stop but Kaelsu vanished in a white light.
…
A game returned to the title screen showing Eterna on the glowing computer screen. A man with hazel hair stood up, and twisted the blinds to allow an inch of light to bleed through. It was about time for him to go to work, he's exhausted since he'd been playing games all night, but it was worth it to play the new patch.
His mind wandered to his new pet. When he logged on, he wanted to see the new dungeon and new monsters but he never actually expected to see the ultra rare Jiuweihu, least of all catch one.
But something wasn't right.
He equipped his ID tag which read 'Kang Min' and walked out of his building. He lived alone in his own house, in a pleasant area, with a garden that's professionally maintained. Kang Min had a car and his own stable life. He had it made, so why did he care so much about something as silly as a game?
He could just reset his character and buy everything back with his credit card.
It didn't take him long to arrive at work, greet his team and start working on his assigned tasks, but his gaming session lingered in his mind. How is his new pet using these unknown, unseen skills and acting on its own. He discreetly checked the forums on his phone, but nothing interesting popped up. Nobody else is having issues with disobedient pets.
The day was purely uneventful for Kang Min, but he had issues focusing on his work today. As soon as he got home, he skipped dinner and logged straight back onto Eterna. After working a ten hour shift today, he was relieved that he could finally relax and play games for most of the night again.
Logging on… and his house was trashed.
Ashes and burn marks in the garden, scratches all over the doors and walls and even his plants had been strangled to death. He knew exactly who was responsible for this.
"Are you serious?" He slammed open every door with righteous fury until he found a small form bundled under a pile of blankets trembling and sniffling in its sleep.
His anger quickly subsided at the view.