Rise Online: Return of the Legendary Player

"It's been 1 hour since the hordes' event in the Tretidian Kingdom concluded. I don't know about you, Barbara, but I still can't believe it."

"Yes, I was hoping it would take at least 1 whole day to defeat all 3 hordes. It's hard to believe that the Royal City players were able to do it in less time, protect 80% of the city and also that all this with the announcement of the summoning of The Guardian of the Gates of Nielfheim actually happened."

"Incidentally, we apparently witnessed a potential new player who can reach the level we call S-Class."

"You are right, Dino, the way Kaizen played this event was truly spectacular. Out of every 1 million players, only one player is considered someone with the talent worthy of an S-Class. At the beginning of the event, we thought that Bleeding Lily would prove that she deserves to receive such a title, but what we saw was Kaizen being the big star of the event."

'S-Class?' Kaizen thought as he watched the news on the back seat of a cab, 'Is there such a classification? Well, if they are thinking of giving it to me, I guess I should be proud.' He said to himself with a light blush on his face. That was the first time he knew that Kaizen was already famous.

"The question is... who is the player Kaizen? And why is he still hiding his identity?" One of the reporters inquired. "We all know that he is already a star to millions of people, so why remain hidden?"

"I don't know. Maybe, he has a plan in mind or just wants to live away from the spotlight of fame."

"Who wouldn't want to be famous, Dino?"

"I don't know! I love my job! Hahaha!"

In the modern human world, there are three things that are basically the pillars of society that most people long to achieve and those things are: fame, money and love.

Klaus Park was not someone different from the rest, he would also like to be able to obtain all three. However, in this new chance to rise in his career, he wanted to do differently than he did when he was a child, which was not knowing how to balance exactly these three things. At this time, he was so focused on becoming the best at Myth2, that he didn't know that he needed to balance all areas of his life. In reality, doing this is practically impossible.

Since Klaus was practically a child at that time, all this was even worse. He didn't think about anything other than strategies, tactics, compositions and goals, and by the time he realized that he had neglected his own family, it was almost too late.

So now Klaus was determined to reveal his secret identity only when everything was in place. He knew that he was only just beginning his journey, there was no reason to rush into anything.

*Knock, knock

Klaus knocked on the door of Jayaa's apartment, which would now also be his apartment. He was exhausted and carrying three heavy boxes that were over his head.

As soon as he opened the door, Jayaa exclaimed:

"You're finally here, man! I'm starving to death!"

Klaus smiled sympathetically. "Hi, how are you? May I come in?"

"Of course you can. This is also your home now." The blond man stepped out of the way of the door as he opened it for Klaus to pass smoothly through with the boxes.

The moment Klaus entered the apartment, he noticed that there was a smell of burning coming from the kitchen. "Sniff... Sniff... Were you trying to cook or something? Didn't you say you're terrible at it?"

Jayaa closed the front door, turned and looked nervously at Klaus. "Dude, actually, it's my girlfriend who's trying. Come, I'll introduce her to you, but don't be scared, please."

Klaus left his cardboard boxes at the entrance and accompanied Jayaa to the kitchen, where there was a woman of short stature who had brown hair, green eyes and tanned skin.

"Klaus, I'd like you to meet Isabella." said Jayaa as she pointed with both hands at this woman, who had a piece of tomato stuck in her hair.

Isabella smiled awkwardly and, extending a hand to Klaus, greeted him:

"You must be the friend that Jayaa has commented so much on these months. It's a pleasure to finally meet you."

"The pleasure is mine...I don't mean to be rude, but you seem to be in trouble."

Klaus gazed at the completely dirty kitchen, full of dishes in the sink, pans on the stove, and finger marks on the refrigerator.

"Hehe!" Embarrassed, Isabella smiled nervously. "Jayaa told me that you would be the one making dinner, and I thought it would be inconvenient for you to make dinner on your moving day, so I thought making a surprise with good food would be nice."

"Lucky for you you were a little late, because the kitchen situation was worse when she was mixing the ingredients while watching three different recipe videos." Jayaa whispered to Klaus, crossing her arms.

"I thought he deserved a feast!" Isabella exclaimed and took off her apron. "All right, I give up. Klaus, the kitchen can be yours."

'Why the hell did you make a mess of all this if you can't cook? Now I'm the one who will take care of all this? If I pick up a spoon and this girl walks into this kitchen, I will make her swallow the spoon.' Klaus thought, but since his thoughts could not be repeated aloud, he just smiled and said, "Okay."

That way, Klaus picked up his apron, which looked like a child's apron on him, picked up one of the knives from the knife rack and checked to see if the cutting edge was sharp. He was surprised to see that the knife was practically new. Next Klaus spun the knife in the air to get used to its weight, picked up a pot of potatoes, and began peeling them at an impressive speed. With his skilled hands he could peel each potato in less than ten seconds, not at the same speed as a professional, but close to it.

Then he took some carrots, washed them, peeled them, and sliced each one into uniform slices.

Jayaa and Isabella watched all this from the kitchen counter and were completely dumbfounded. Even Jayaa didn't expect such skill coming from Klaus, so he decided to inquire:

"How the hell are you so good at this?"

Klaus doesn't need to be so focused to cook, so he decided to answer.

"Before I turned sixteen, I couldn't formally work, so the one who took care of my younger brother for my parents to work was me. Thanks to that, I had to learn to cook a little."

"A little? You are simply sensational." Isabella stated. "Is that when you learned to make this curry?"

"Curry was all I knew how to make in the beginning. My brother was too young to eat instant noodles and I never liked the taste of those processed foods, so we ate curry every night for a few months."

Isabella looked at Jayaa and said to him:

"You're going to have to be like that with our children. This addiction of yours to cheap food has to stop."

"Ch-children?! Hello?" Jayaa was startled.

"Yes, we will have them someday, won't we?"

Jayaa was a born womanizer, so hearing about children so suddenly surprised him so much as to make him stop thinking straight. He also realized at that moment that he really was in a very serious relationship.

How perceptive Klaus was, he realized this and changed the subject to help his friend. "So, how did you two meet? Show? Bar? Ballad?"

Isabella leaned over the countertop and completely forgot about the other subject. "That's a funny story. We used to see each other every day at a cafe near here because I work in an office nearby, but I never had the courage to approach him even though we exchanged glances, so I started giving signals."

"Is it serious that she had to give signals to approach him?" Klaus inquired to Jayaa, emphasizing his surprise with his look of disbelief.

Jayaa turned red and looked away. "I didn't know if she had a boyfriend or not." He said while pouting.

Smiling, Isabella continued. "And the fact that he took the time to approach me made me think that I was deluding myself. I also started to think too that maybe he was engaged or something, but on a certain day, I arrived at the coffee shop and there he was, standing near the counter. As I did daily, before I ordered my coffee, I sat down near the window, connected my laptop to the internet, and watched Jayaa leave the cafe earlier than usual, only to suddenly hear one of the attendants call my name."

"Your name?"

"Yes. You know, to deliver the coffee. However, I hadn't ordered my coffee yet, so when I went to let the attendant know there was some mistake, the attendant firmly said it wasn't a mistake and showed me the purchase note. I remember to this day what was written on the note: 'light cappuccino for the pretty woman near the window, signed by the pretty boy at the counter'."

"The next day, she was the one who came up to me and asked if it was me. After that, we started talking." Jayaa finished the story.

Klaus looked at Jayaa, who this time had a proud look on her face. "You are a god."

"I know, I know." The blond boy nodded confidently.

*Grrrr*

Jayaa's stomach rumbled at that very moment, making him lose all credibility. "Will that take long, Klaus? The smell alone is enough to make me salivate."

"Relax, just fifteen more minutes and it will be ready. By the way, man, wasn't your sister going to come home from a trip today? Where is she?"

"She's already here, but she's locked in her room all day. She must be tired or working." Jayaa replied.

"Emma is just like that. I've been coming here every weekend for the past few months, and if I've seen her more than five times it's a lot. She's very busy."

"I see..." Kaizen said, looking at the first door to the second floor through the kitchen pantry.

...

Edited by: DrHitsuji

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