Afterlife Dream

"Woah," I heard a player next to me whisper. "Look at all those shiny equipment..."

"I don't know..." his friend spoke in a low voice. "Is it worth it to sacrifice our hard-earned Life Points for in-game only equipment? I would rather get the life benefits."

"Yes, but without these equipment, you won't be strong enough to do the other raids!"

"I mean... I would rather get my Life Points, get my life benefits, and just get the hell out of this game as soon as I get an opportunity to join any raid, ya know? I don't need to be strong here at all."

"Guys, don't speak too soon. Check the list to the end," another player cut in.

"What else?"

The list slowly moved up and our eyes landed on the last item.

This item, dubbed the "Lucky Star", had the appearance of a multi-point star that emitted soft rainbow hues. It looked beautiful, but that was not the enticing part of it.

The item description of Lucky Star went like this :

"Lucky Star will accompany you in your life and ensure that you can pass the struggles and tribulations in life with passing colors. One Lucky Star will be used to change the course of your life every time."

One Lucky Star cost 5 Life Points.

Freaking cheap. But just how many Lucky Stars does one person need to be constantly lucky in life until death? 100? 1000?

"A Lucky Star..." Aurendiria whispered in disbelief.

"I don't know... Is it worth it?" Livina wondered.

"It is," a firm voice answered behind us.

When we turned around, we came face-to-face with HellWitch and Lazarus.

"Think about it. Even if you are born with all the life benefits on the list, your life still can go wrong. The Lucky Stars are simply genial. It is more important than the benefits, to be honest. This is the best item that this game can come up with," HellWitch explained.

I knew that HellWitch spoke from her past life experience. She and Laz were born into a good family. If not for the divorce and the irresponsible parents, they might still be alive. HellWitch had been questioning the benefit of the so-called life benefits all along.

HellWitch wanted something to prevent course-changing mishaps to happen in her life. Something that prevented her father from cheating and the divorce and the abandonment. Benefits by birth could disappear within an instant if the person was not lucky enough. Lucky Stars on the other side would help one along as the life went on.

"Have you traded your Life Points for Lucky Stars, HellWitch?" Ingenious asked.

HellWitch nodded. "All Life Points in my inventory."

We all could not help but gasp.

She also pointed at her brother.

"Both of us did it. This is a golden opportunity, you guys should make the best of it."

HellWitch was one to take action, indeed...

And what about me?

I glanced at the Life Point NPC's trade list. An eerie feeling spread through my heart when I saw the Ice Dragon Cloak.

400 Life Points.

Were they kidding us?

That was a lot.

I opened my user interface screen to check the number of Life Points that I had. I had exactly 401 Life Points to date. Buying the Ice Dragon Cloak would practically bring me back to zero. Or one Life Point if you insisted.

The question was, was it worth it?

I was born weak. I wanted the Health life benefit for 1000 Life Points, and then I planned to trade my remaining Life Points for Lucky Stars.

The carnival was only for fifteen days. Would it be enough to get the Health life benefit?

I didn't know. I only knew that I was unable to let the Ice Dragon Cloak go. Although I was certain that I would come to regret it later, I still ended up clicking on the Ice Dragon Cloak and bought it.

The Ice Dragon Cloak felt heavy around my shoulders. That was the weight of 400 Life Points that already disappeared from my inventory.

In a way, the carnival event became a kind of party quest on its own. It also allowed players who could not join raids to collect some Life Points to trade against whichever item on the list. This was naturally very exciting for those who had never once joined any raid.

"I just want to suggest to pay attention to levels when you are recruiting for parties, guys. The bosses get harder and harder from stage to stage. You don't know what kind of boss you will meet. Best be prepared from the start," Ingenious wrote in the guild chat.

I got to start with the third stage, the Undead Tree Stump. Unfortunately for me, no one else in the guild had the same card. Unless I decided to go alone, I had to go with random people.

The world chat was full of party recruitments for players of various levels and boss stages. Everyone was spamming like insane, wanting to get Life Points as soon as possible. Unfortunately, all those spams failed to achieve their initial objectives.

Instead of garnering players' attention, the spams were simply hurtful to the eyes.

Until finally HinoKun shot a megaphone into the sky with the message : "PLEASE GO TO GLOBAL MARKET TO FIND PARTIES! DO NOT SPAM THE WORLD CHAT!"

The spams stopped abruptly.

I thus went into the Global Market. As soon as I came through the portal, I was greeted by a female mage who took it upon herself to organize the event.

"Hi, excuse me, what is your card?" she asked cheerfully.

I flashed her my card. "The High Priestess."

"Wonderful, wonderful. Please head to that group over there."

Over at the heightened platforms where players used to sell items in their shops, players were huddled together in 22 groups.

I found my group soon enough. And PrecisionShot was there.

On one hand, there was no bad blood between us. On the other hand, this was DragonTalon's lifelong nemesis. After DragonTalon's disappearance, I could not help but feel disinclined to be friendly to his enemies. I trust that ArrowRain felt the same way, which was why she looked quite uncomfortable when she saw me.

"Hey, Antares," she greeted me.

"Hey," I returned the greeting.

"A High Priest!" a player in the group screeched. "Oh my God, enter my party please!!!"

"No, no, mine please!!!"

...

There were around 30 people in the High Priestess group already. It seemed that they were in the process of finalizing their recruitment. I immediately got spammed with a lot of party requests.

Always this type of people who saw High Priests as nothing but Heal and Resurrection slaves...

A sharp tone cut through the screeches of the noisy players.

"Cut it out, you guys. Stop spamming him. You are all being so rude."

PrecisionShot stood there with her arms crossed in front of her chest and her brows furrowed in displeasure.

The other players quickly quieted down. They threw her resentful looks in secret. It seemed that PrecisionShot was not all that popular when she was not surrounded by her guildmates.

I looked at the many party requests and went through them one by one. None of them were good. The attackers were either too weak or low-leveled or both.

In the end, I chose to stand next to PrecisionShot and waited until the right people came along.

Now, it took us a while before we realized that "the right people" were not coming. Why? Because they were in the other groups, set to start with different boss stages.

After an hour, exactly six players were still hanging around in the Global Market. Two of them were Aurendiria and Ninja, who were getting along even worse than me and PrecisionShot. The other two were level 95 Ice Elemental Mage and level 98 Axe Warrior who were in some nameless guilds. Their IDs were Alcyone and Kratos respectively.

PrecisionShot and I were set to start at the third stage, while Aurendiria and Ninja were supposed to start at the seventh stage. The other two had an even higher boss stage, the tenth stage, the Snow Wolf.

Lacking better options, we ended up going together in a party. After everyone gathered on Paradise Island where most of us were at, we headed to the NPC.

The NPC greeted us with a grin.

"Welcome, Adventurers. Ready to join the carnival?"

Next to me, Aurendiria was clutching at my sleeve.

Ready or not, here we come...

The map and the NPC dissolved into a slurry of colors before a new map formed around us.

We found ourselves in a vast snowfield. A blizzard was happening, and snowflakes were hitting us in the faces. We could barely keep our eyes open.

"What's this?" Alcyone asked, shielding her eyes.

"Seems like the Snow Wolf's old spawning map," Ninja answered.

"I think it is," Aurendiria confirmed.

PrecisionShot readied her bow and looked around. Kratos also raised his axe and searched for the wolf.

"Okay, I see no wolf," PrecisionShot said after a while. "I thought we are supposed to kill one?"

"Not so sure anymore..."

Instead of a snow wolf, we saw two figures approaching.