At this moment, the door beside him opened once again, and he heard a set of footsteps walking in.
Zanarc said with a wide smile, "Well, well, you better make it 6-10."
He instantly understood another player was coming.
Soon, he saw a deep, dark-haired girl walking into the room in a skin-tight black suit that enhanced her curves.
It was too bad she wore a thick jacket, but her overall style suggested she was an assassin.
As for her looks, he had learned earlier in his past life not to trust the appearance of a girl in the game.
After all, they abused the 15% cosmetic bonus the most.
Heck, out of all of them, only she spent money on her clothes.
Though it was interesting to find a female assassin in the game.
Most female players currently prefer magic, healing, and summoning classes.
The moment she walked in, he felt the tension in the room.
Both Zanar and Kos just stared at her with wide eyes. This did not look like the effect of her beauty.
At that moment, Zanarc got up in an animated manner and pointed to her, "You blood-drinking bitch! What are you doing here?"
Kos also screamed, but in excitement. "Oh, even the Blood Queen is with us!"
Forsyx glanced at the three people.
It suddenly became the combination of idol, fans, and enemy in the same room.
Kind of an interesting development, but too bad he saw the old butcher walking in behind her.
This killed all chances of commotion.
He just gazed at her for a moment and then focused on the old man.
The old man walked to the center of the room while the female player stood beside Kos, on the opposite end of Zanarc, who looked ready to jump on her.
He stopped caring about them and focused on the old butcher.
The old man looked at everyone with that silly grin on his face and said, "Warriors, due to some recent developments, I have a special task for all of you."
Forsyx placed a hand to cover his mouth as he frowned at this revelation.
The moment he heard the words "recent development," he remembered the stuff about hidden tasks.
In Apex Ascension, all the beginner villages had these hidden quests that required the player to do something out of the box to trigger them.
The biggest thing about these quests was that they were completely random, and each village had its own set of trigger events.
In his past life, there were a couple of instances where players succeeded in triggering these quests, but it never came to the public who and how they did it.
Now, someone actually triggers this hidden event. This special task was one of those hidden tasks. He was sure of it.
This made things a bit complicated.
After all, hidden tasks didn't trigger randomly.
As he thought of the absurdity, the third quest notification flashed through his head.
That 30/500 liter popped into his mind.
He felt that somehow or another, those guys were behind the hidden task trigger. But the big question was, did they do that knowingly or unknowingly?
He didn't have to think more, as the old man said, "Before you decide, let me warn you, warriors, this task will come with big risk. Here, you can see the risk for yourselves."
The next moment, a notification popped up in front of him.
Ding!
[Failure penalty of special task: Removal of 15 stats randomly across the 6 stats.]
"What?!"
The moment he saw the failure condition, he shouted.
He was not the only one, as a few of them even cursed aloud.
This was the worst possible penalty he had heard of—even in his last life.
Fck, 15 stats equaled 3 levels of a common class.
This would cripple his character to the point that he might have to say goodbye to becoming a pro.
The old man didn't stop there and said, "I know the failure condition is bad, but let me promise you—the reward will be worth the risk. Here, you can see the extra reward that each of you will get upon completing the task."
Another notification popped up in front of them.
Ding!
[Special class-based extra reward: Unique-grade Dire Wolf Card.]
'What the hell?' The moment he saw the red card with a big black wolf on it, he screamed internally.
He had actually taken this chain quest to get something like this, and that wasn't even an elite-grade template—but this was unique-grade.
He just kept looking at the failure and reward conditions.
Just what kind of task would give them such a reward? Wait, and this was just the extra reward, right?
He once again looked at the notification and nodded.
So there must be a main reward that should be of more value—or at least equal—to the extra reward.
Shit, this task would not be simple at all.
He glanced at the others and saw them having the same reaction.
Only Rodium was able to pull himself out, and both of them looked at each other.
He could see that Rodium was also very suspicious about this task.
The old man clapped his hands to gather everyone's attention. "Now that you warriors have seen the reward and the risk, you have to vote."
Zanarc tilted his head. "Vote? What kind of vote?"
The old man smiled and pointed to the right. "In the room next to you, there are the other half of the warriors. I gave them the same choice and had them vote. Now you have to do the same."
Forsyx squinted his eyes, and the old man said, "Yeah, I forgot the important thing. In case the first group votes in favor and you vote against, then you won't be able to get any more tasks."
"Only if both teams reject it will you be able to continue the chain quest like nothing happened."
Forsyx clicked his tongue.
There was the manipulation he had been waiting for—and this really trapped them.
It left them with no choice but to accept the task or abandon the chain quest altogether.
He didn't have to wait, because before he could say anything,
Zanarc and Kos said, "We will do the task."
Rodium looked up at him. Before he could say anything, the last female player said, "I will also do the task."
The old man started clapping. "Hahaha! As expected of young warriors. So it's decided that everyone in both groups will take on the task."
Forsyx sighed.
This old coot really trapped them.
The old man opened the gate and said, "Young warriors, come follow me and meet the other team that you'll be working with. I will give all of you this task together."
Forsyx took a deep breath—it was time to see who was responsible for this task.
The five of them started following the old man.