Martial Online.

Jesse woke up after the sunlight fell on his face.

He immediately did his mourning routine in the bathroom, then went to the kitchen with his wheelchair. The house was empty as his parents went to work and his little sister to school.

As he munched on the bread, he thought about checking the news while eating. He didn't have anything else to do other than eat and stare at the emptiness.

'I am curious whether Martial Online has made any comments about upcoming updates.' Jesse thought while rolling towards the living room. He grabbed the TV remote and returned to the kitchen table.

After he got seated, he pressed the TV remote start button.

The TV immediately showed a channel with running TV shows. His father often watched his favorite shows on this channel. However, during the morning, there wasn't anything interesting to watch.

Therefore, he changed channels until he found something interesting. Soon, he found a channel where news was about to start.

Jesse put the TV remote down and continued eating while watching the news.

The news started with beautiful and handsome news anchors stating their names.

"My name is Sara, and this is Nocklund's Morning News." A beautiful woman with long blonde hair was sitting behind a crescent-shaped desk. She held a stack of papers, and there were glasses on her nosebridge, making her look intellectual.

"And my name is Aaron." A handsome middle-aged man spoke with a deep voice. His voice was very pleasant to listen to. His face had a brownish hue, meaning that he was from Southern Nocklund. He also wore a black suit with a blue tie and black trousers.

Sara arranged the papers in her hands and started talking. "Last night, a few minutes after midnight, a strange phenomenon occurred in Martial Online."

'Martial Online?' Jesse almost spat out the bread. "I didn't expect the game to be this big; even the news is talking about it. But strange phenomena? I wonder what happened."

Aaron continued, "Murder of Crows appeared from the nearby Crow Forest and entered a city called Amaterasu. It is one of the starting areas for players. It seemed harmless at first, but then the Murder of Crows started attacking everything that moved.

"Then, an event called "World Quest" commenced, and every player was able to take part in it. The goal is simple: kill all the crows and rescue as many Non-Player Characters as possible.

"At the end of the event, the players would be rewarded. However, since the event started late at night, players were greatly at a disadvantage, and a lot of casualties happened on both the players' and NPCs' sides.

"If you wish to take part in the event, hop on Martial Online. Unfortunately, the event is closed for players from Yatagarasu and Tsukuyomi."

Jesse dropped the bread, and it fell to the floor.

"What the hell!" He quickly climbed on his wheelchair and rolled towards upstairs as quickly as he could. He waited for the one-seater machine to take him to the second floor.

'Murder of Crows... from Crow Forest... Could it be from Crow Cave?' Jesse exclaimed and quickly hopped on the one-seater machine, folded the wheelchair, and put it on his lap.

'So, if even one player failed the trial, World Quest would happen?' Jesse looked upstairs impatiently. He wanted to hop off the seat and run to his room, but he felt sharp pain in his leg bones and didn't dare take the risk.

'One of Prince's friends must have failed... So, in a sense, I am responsible for the start of this World Quest?'

Jesse gritted his teeth, and soon the one-seater reached the top floor. He unfolded the wheelchair, hopped on it, and went straight to his room.

In there, he hopped on his bed, grabbed the VR headset, and put it around his head.

'A single decision can have such crazy consequences.' Jesse thought and closed his eyes.

...

Ambrose opened his eyes, and immediately ear-splitting screams entered his ears. He looked around the street, and there were black feathers everywhere, falling from the ground and corrupting the streets.

The NPCs panicked in the streets, rushing to their homes and indoors.

Black-feathered crows flew across the sky, looking for their target, and when they found one, they dove down and sunk their claws into the skin of their target.

[Welcome to World Quest: Attack of Disease Crows!]

[Your current rank is 37,495!]

[Kill crows and protect NPCs to receive rewards at the end of the World Quest!]

[Good luck, Ambrose!]

"Simple enough." Ambrose thought out loud and pulled out both his shortswords from his inventory. He then looked around for crows to kill.

"Ah!" A middle-aged man ran from a dark alleyway and tripped on the sidewalk. Without even a second's delay, three crows chased after him and began clawing at his scalp.

The middle-aged NPC screamed in horror as he tried to shake off the crows.

"Dual Basic Slash!" Ambrose lunged forward, brought the swords above his head, and hacked them down. The two swords slashed through two of the crows, separating them in half.

The last remaining crow was frightened and returned airborne, but before it could escape, Ambrose caught it in mid-air with a powerful sword strike to its neck.

The crow fell to the ground and died instantly.

[You killed 3x Disease Crows!]

[3 XP Earned!]

[XP: 12/175]

"Ah." The middle-aged man shakily raised his head and saw the three dead crows. Then he turned to look at his savior and whispered. "T-Thank you."

"Go inside." Ambrose said and pointed to a nearby store, where many NPCs were already hiding and peeking from the windows.

The middle-aged man nodded his head and ran to the store while almost tripping several times.

Ambrose looked to the end of the street and saw some wooden and steel arrows flying across the sky, trying to hit any of the flying crows.

With two swords in hand, he began rushing towards the source of the fighting.

...

"Argh!" Barbarian stomped down feather-filled streets while smashing his axe into a crow's head. His arms and face were filled with bloody scratches.

His health bar was also blinking red, and he didn't have any more food to eat to regain his HP. There also weren't any street vendors selling them, as they would get attacked by the crows.

He was in a very bad situation, but he had no choice but to keep going forward.

At that moment, a messy, blond-haired young man jumped from a rooftop with seven crows munching on his skin. He crashed into the building's side and fell to the ground.

He rolled on the sidewalk, trying to get rid of the crows. However, their claws were like sticky glue, impossible to get rid of.

Barbarian grabbed his axe with both hands and lunged towards the crows with a mighty scream. With one slash, he got rid of four of the seven crows.

That gave the blond-haired young man enough time to pick up his sword and swing it at the remaining three crows.

After the three crows got their bodies split in half, the blond-haired young man rose to his feet with an exhausted expression.

"Haha, you are not looking too well... Prince." Barbarian smirked, but his arms were shaking. He also wasn't looking too well.

Prince combed his messy hair with his hand and sat on the ground next to the dead crows.

"Neither are you." Prince said in exhaustion.

Barbarian scoffed and leaned on the wall while trying to catch his breath.

However, both of them heard sounds of screaming and flapping wings. They both rolled their eyes.

Prince climbed to his feet and slowly walked towards the sound of the screams.

"He sure wants the top spot in the rankings..." Barbarian chuckled and breathed rapidly before slamming his fist on the wall and continuing to slaughter the crows.