Mei hit yes. She reappeared before Alzeth and Emerr.
There were a few seconds of awkward silence where both of them did not know what to say. Finally, Alzeth broke the ice.
"So... How was it like?" Alzeth immediately realised how stupid what he said was.
"A lot of ads." said Mei.
"I see." said Alzeth. "By the way, I''ve got a new plan!"
"Huh?"
"So basically, me and Emerr will go close to the tree and attack while you hide somewhere! When the crawlers are agrroed, you go up and snatch as many fruits as you can!" Alzeth announced his plan proudly.
"Um..." Mei wasn''t sure if that was a good idea. "Okay, I guess?"
Fruits (Chapter 10)
Having neared the tree, Alzeth began to discuss his plans with Mei.
"Alright, so I''ll throw kerosene at the tree and Emerr will set the tree on fire. Then we run. You stay behind this rock for now and collect the fruits when they''re all chasing us, okay?"
"Umm..." Mei mumbled.
"Hmm?" said Alzeth.
"Won''t the fruits get burnt?"
"Oh, that!" Alzeth nodded. "We''llcross that bridge when we get there."
Mei was left speechless.
At this very moment, they were discussing behind a giantboulderthat Alzeth lugged along. It took a while to find one big enough but there weren''t many hiding spots in a desolate wasteland so it had to be done. It was a good thing that the crawlers did not identify ''giant random moving rock'' as a threat to their nest else they would have long since attacked.
"Well, if you have no more questions, we''ll be off then!" Alzeth waved as he took out one of the bottles that Emerr bought from the item shop, apparently kerosene.
Alzeth then walked off, Emerr following close behind.
There was a moment of silence. Mei tensed in anticipation. It was only after a long minute when she heard the sound of glass bottles shattering and the sound of the angry of the crawlers shrieking like they did when they spotted her earlier.
Despite being told not to peek, Mei couldn''t resist the temptation. She poked her head over her cover and saw Alzeth chucking the kerosene bottles with surprising accuracy at extremely fast speeds. Emerr was tossing fireballs at the tree, which lit up the surrounding very well, something that Mei appreciated
The base of the tree was swiftly engulfed in flames with the help of the kerosene. Dozens of crawlers hopped off in panic. Then Alzeth threw a bottle of kerosene at them followed by more fireballs from Emerr. Realising where the fire came from, they began to charge toward the aggressors.
"RUN RUN RUN!" shouted Alzeth as he waved hislantern so hardthe fuel spilt, making the whole thing go up in flames.
He then threw the lantern as far away as he could.His shouts attracted the attention of the rest of the crawlers, effectively making the agro of all of the crawlerstarget Alzeth and Emerr.If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.
As Mei watched the chaos ensue, more and more of the tree became engulfed in fire. She sighed. At this rate, she wasstarting to think none of the fruits would survive the fire.
So as Alzeth and Emerr ran further away, somehow managing to dodge the attacks of dozens of angry spinning pillbugs all the while, the shrieks of the crawlers started to die down from afar. There was only the sound of the wood crackling in the fire. There wasn''t much she could do but sit and wait. Perhaps some of the fruit would fall off?
But after a while, Mei noticed something. The tree was starting to tilt slightly! As the base of the tree was taking the brunt of the burn, it would soon be unable to support the weight of the branches above. Mei smiled in delight. Looks like she would be able to get some of the fruits if she quickly started picking once the tree fell.
It was then when a rumbling noise in the distance came out of the blue. Mei perked up nervously. It seemed to be coming right toward her direction? As the sound continued to get louder, she saw a strange silhouette in the distance growing bigger and bigger. It wasnearing her!
The creature then leapthigh into the air and landed with enough momentum to dig a shallow trench behind itas it groundto a halt before the tree. It was a giant crawlerthat was twice as big as the normal ones. But this one wasn''t grey like the others. Its exoskeleton was shiny and black, with edges of gold. It had four scythes instead of just two,the pair behind the first pair looking strangely blunt.
It was then when she heard a voice.
"System announcement to all players in Greylands! An Epic tier boss, King Crawler has just spawned! Please check your mapfor the location of the boss. Good hunting!"
An epic tier boss? Mei gasped. Those were very rare and extremely powerful! Too bad she was still too low levelled to face it... If only her dad had gotten her the gear as soon as the new full dive supporting model was out!Well, no use crying over spilt milk. Mei decided to use Scan on it.
That wasn''t unexpected. Her Scan was still at Lv1 after all. Still, it made her feel disappointed. It seems like she would need to level it up by spamming the Scan function. What a pain!
As the king crawler began to look around in confusion, Mei felt rather nervous. She would lose the chance to get the fruits if it spotted her. The crawler settled down a little, then spat globs of saliva at the tree till the fire was put out. It then began to probe around for a little until it noticed the tracks of rolling crawlers in the moss.Seemingly realised that its minions were chasing something, it began to roll as quickly as it could along the tracks too.
Mei continued to hide behind the rock till she couldn''t hear the rumbling any longer just to be safe. She then heaved a sigh of relief. As for the tree, it had collapsed anyway despite the crawler''s effort to save it. Well, Mei didn''t care about that. The fact that it fell meant that there were tons of fruits to collect!
Full of joy, Mei ran up to the fallen tree and started to pick the fruits like a kid in a candy store. Well, if the kid set the store on fire then proceeded to loot the candy.
The King Crawler (Chapter 11)
"Shit! That lantern cost a ton!" cursed Alzeth as he ran.
"I don''t think two hundred gold is that bad," said Emerr turned her head, aiming her staff at the closest rolling crawler.
A stream of blue light shot out, hitting it accurately. Thin ice swiftly encased the creature. As the moss was also in range to be frozen, the crawler was stuck to the ground. The sound ofits brethrencrashing into it was heard a second later.
Alzeth and Emerrwere making use of this strategy to stay alive despite the massive numbers of rolling crawlers.
"Says the one who spends her timebargaining with the shopkeeper," saidAlzeth with a smirk.
As if used to his teasing, Emerr ignored him and changed the topic.
"Anyway,how do you plan to distribute the fruits once she gets them?"
"Hmm." Alzeth seemed to be deep in thought as he hopped aside to evade a crawler. "I think we should let her have most of them. Well, if they survive the fire."
"Huh?!" Emerr was alarmed. "We''re the ones doing the work! Wh-"
"Ahem!" he interrupted her with a cough. "Remember when I said she was a pay-to-win player?"
"That doesn''t justify-"
"ANYWAY," Alzeth interrupted her by drowning out her voice. "She bought a four-star class right off the bat! Broken as fuck if you ask me. If she levels up to our level, she could basically singlehandedly carry our entire party."
"You don''t find it shameful to have to piggyback?" Emerr frowned. "Also, who knows if she would just leave the party afterwards? I insist we take some-"
"EHH. I''m-"
"System announcement to all players in Greylands! An Epic tier boss, King Crawler has just spawned! Please check your map for the location of the boss. Good hunting!"the system interrupted his interrupting.
The cooldown for her ice spell was over.Emerr slunganother bolt of blue light at a crawler.
"Hmm," said Alzeth after a short pause. "You think it spawning has to do with us burning the tree?"
"Let''s ask Sherlock," said Emerr sarcastically.
The two continued to banter, dodging and freezing crawlers when the spell cooled down. It wasn''t until a while later when they heard rumbling from the distance. A silhouette appeared in the distance.Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
"If that''s what I think it is-" started Alzeth.
Emerr launched a fireball towards the direction of the figure. With the help of the light emitted as the fireballflew over it, they briefly saw a giant shiny golden black crawler rolling across the ground at twice the speed of the other crawlers.
"-we''re screwed."he finished.
~~~~~
Meanwhile, Mei was stuffing her face with the fruits, unaware of the efforts of her party. Most of the fruits either didn''t survive the fire or were covered in crawler saliva (she definitely wasn''t going to eat those). Still, there was quite a number of pristine ones left.
Mei was mildly annoyed. Almost every time she ate one of the fruits, a level up prompt popped in her face with a ding.She spat a fewseeds away, then put the rest of the fruits in her inventory, including the saliva covered ones. Mei felt a little embarrassed piggybacking off her party members so she decided to leave some for them.
With nothing better to do, Mei decided open the party chat.
"I left around twenty fruits for you two. 11 of them are covered in saliva tho :C"she typed.
Seconds later, a reply came in.
"we died too XD"Alzeth typed back. "wait wtf u drooled all over the fruits?!"
"What? No! It''s crawler saliva!"Mei typed hurriedly.
"That''s even grosser"typed Emerr.
":C" Mei typed.
"lol just wash it off"typed Alzeth.
But as Mei was typing in the chat, she hearda familiar rumbling in the distance. It then struck her. After defeating Alzeth and Emerr, the logical thing for the king crawler to do was to go back to the tree to tend it. She should have hidden earlier! Cold sweatrolled downher cheeks. If she remembered correctly, items thatare in the inventory for less than two hoursare guaranteedto drop upon death unless bought from a shop!
The creature leapt into the air like before, towards the direction of Mei. She hurriedly ran to the side, narrowly dodging the scythes of it. The creature turned around slowly, looking at her with its beady eyes. Somehow, they managed to look angry despite not having any ability to contort its face.
It could smell the scent of the fruit from her mouth, cultivated from the efforts of its minions. How dare this puny human steal their efforts!
"SKREEEEEE!" it screamed at her.
Mei could feel her ears ringing. As it raised a scythe and aimed it at her, Mei hopped to the side. The scythe hit the ground with a loud bang.
Against such a big monster, her heart poundedfrantically. Her instincts screamed at her to run, despite her knowing this was just a game.
But Mei knew that if she ran, the crawler could just crush her with its roll. If she confronted it, at least she had a chance to dodge if it aimed its scythes at her. If it decided to roll at point-blank range, she could runto the side before it got any momentum. If she could survive the encounter for long enough, agroup of high levelled players would arrive to fight it for the drops!
Nervously, she took out her rusty sword, pointing it at the monster.
"Bring it on!"
Hopeless Battle (Chapter 12)
As if in response, the king crawler swung one of its scythes downwards towards her. She swung her sword toward the scythe to block, mostly out of reflex.
"Clunk!"
-0
[Your weapon has lost durability and is in critical condition! 5/100 DUR]
The scythe of the crawler had cut the entire blade of her sword off, so cleanly that Mei could barely feel any of the impact transferred to her. She could only watch helplessly as the rust covered bladeflew into the air.
The scythe paused midswing before swinging toward herhorizontally this time. She ducked down frantically as it whooshed over her head. If not for how oversized the crawler was, she wouldn''t have been able to dodge that.
"Kruhh..." it growled, annoyed.
It began to curl its body up. Seeing this, Mei hurriedly rantowards the left, attempting to circle the beast. But to her shock, the crawler uncurled, swinging a scythe towards her at incredible speed. The act of curling up was just a dud!
This time, she wasn''t prepared to dodge. The blade swung towards her, slicing her entire arm off.
-346 HP (519/865)
[You are inflicted with heavy bleeding and will lose health quickly!]
Mei almost screamed in panic. The attack did not hurt at all, as the game wasn''t designed to traumatise the player. But seeing her arm fly off and fade was not a pleasant experience. The lost sensation of an arm wasn''t funeither.
Her heart started to beat faster and faster. Panic clouded her mind. She felt like she was definitely going to die before help arrives.
As the creature turned to face her again holding up on of its scythes, Mei felt her limbs weaken as if she was made out of jelly.
-100!
Just as she was about to give up hope, an arrow struck the head of her foe. The crawler turned towards the direction the arrow flew from. Dozens of metres away stood a lone archer. The archer nocked another arrow on his bow, aiming it at the monster.
-100!
"SKREEEEE!" the crawler screeched in anger.
The arrows barely did any damage, butthey still hurt as much asa needle piercing the skin. It aimed one last attack at Meibeforeit curled up to shoot towards the archer.
She leapt to the side randomly, hitting the groundawkwardly. The scythe missed her by a large bargin.If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.
"Attack!" shouted a voice from afar.
The sound of shouts and weapons clanging could be heard soon after.
As she slowly calmed down lying face down in the moss, relief overwhelmed her. She wasn''t going to lose her fruits after all! Her joy was interrupted by red text appearing before her eyes.
-87 HP (345/865)
Crap! It struck Mei that she still had the bleeding debuff and was about to die anyway! If only there was a potion...
It was at this moment when it struck her. Didn''t Alzeth say the fruits restore a certain amount of health? She hurriedly took out one of the fruits and gobbled it up in around ten seconds, spitting out the seeds.
+500 (845/865)
She sighed in relief. She almost forgot that the fruits even restored health since sheate them while at full health. Her bonus skill levelled up too, which wasnice, but it didn''t seem that usef- Wait a second. A strange but brilliant thought came over her. If she levelled up this skill enough, wouldn''t she be able to eat food in an instant? If she got fast enough, she could pretty much treat food items like potions in battle!
-87 HP (778/865)
The red text snapped her out of her thoughts. She should leave the aggro range of the king crawlers. Lost limbs would only regrow outside of combat, even if the health bar was full. The exception was if the healing was done by a healing spell high levelled to regrow limbs, but she currently did not have anyone like that on hand.
She took off running, at a surprising speed. To think she would be so much faster after just a few levels! With her newfound speed, it didn''t take long before she exited the agro limit, a hundred metres. Her arm simply popped into existence right from the stump.
Mei stretched happily. It felt so good to have her limb back! She couldn''t help but wonder how horrible it would be for someone who loses their arm in real life. Sure, they might be able to get a prosthetic arm, but it just wasn''t the same afterwards.
But enough of that. Mei opened the party chat.
"idk what youre doing to take so long butwe''re waiting for u at the town portal rug thingy fyi"
Opening the chat, Mei was greeted by Alzeth''s message that had been sent a few minutes ago.
"Haha sorry. Out of agro now so you can summon me."typed Mei.
"nice"replied Alzeth.
|
Alzeth is summoning you.
Teleport there?
|
The box popped up seconds later. Mei clicked hit ''yes''.
She landed on a familiar pad.
"Yo," said Alzeth as he waved his hand.
"Hi," replied Mei awkwardly.
A few seconds of awkward silence passed.
"So how many fruits did you leave for us?" said Alzeth.
"Oh, um..." Mei hurriedly took out the clean ones.
She handed them to Alzeth who pocketed them swiftly.
"There''re more but they''re covered in saliva," she said.
"Just hand them over like. I''m not easily grossed out," said Alzeth as he reached his hands out.
Gingerly, Mei dropped the rest of the fruits into his hands from her inventory. The somewhat greenish saliva coated his hands but he didn''t seem to mind much. Alzeth took out a set of rags out of his inventory and wiped his hands as clean as he could before putting it back.
Mei was a little surprised to see him using the starter rags as a handkerchief too. It seems that other players found the rags as useful as she did too.
My Name Is Markkkk (Chapter 13)
"Well anyway, we''re logging out," said Alzeth.
"Eh?" Mei was dismayed.
At the same time, she was somewhat glad. After the incident with the King Crawler, she felt like she needed a break from the game.
"It''s already over eleven o''clock. I generally try not to sleep over twelve," explained Alzeth.
Mei was surprised by how late it was, as shedidn''t feel like much timehad passed. Well, all the more reason for her to log out.
"Bye," said Alzeth.
Hethen vanished into a flash of light along with Emerr.
"Bye-"
Mei stopped, realising she was too late. It reminded her of when she said ''bye'' in chat rooms aftersomeone said they were logging out. Sometimes, she wondered if the personsaw hergoodbyes at those moments.
She logged out, heading to the bathroom to take a shower. On the way, she saw that light seep out from her father''s room. He was probably using his VR gear too, but forgot to turn off the lights. As she went back to her room and laid in bed, she fell asleep with surprising ease.
~~~~~
*DING!*
"gah...." Mei grumbled as she opened her eyes sluggishly.
She forgot to turn on ''Do Not Disturb''! She looked towards the window. The sky was still mostly dark.
What time was it?Shereached for the cabinet beside her bed, fumbling for her phone, her head still on the pillow. She knocked something off in the process, resulting in a startling ''CLANG!''.
6:12 AM
Mark: Hey did your dad get you the VR gear yet btw?
Mark? Ah, she did agree to join him in the game once she got the VR gear. Still, who the heck wakes up so early in the morning to text? Grumbling, she got off herbed. She picked herthermos flaskoff the floor, drank some water and put it back on the cabinet before opening the messaging app.
Mei: You woke me up! D:<
Mark: Haha, sorry.
Mei found his apology rather insincere.
Mei: My dad got me the gear. I''ll add you to the list later when I play.
Mark had sent her his game ID a while ago back in school.
After sending her message, she put down her phone and exited her room. She saw that he was typing from the prompt, but decided it wouldn''t hurt to look at it later.Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.
Walking silently, she wandered down the corridor into the kitchen. Her eyes darted around the room. Nope, the pizza box was not placed in plain sight. Mei began opening all the cabinets as quietly as she could. Not there... not here either... Aha!
After a bit of vigorous searching, Mei found the box of pizza. To her dismay, two out of the eight pieces had been eaten. She grumbled. Her mom was such a hypocrite!
But as they say: beggars can''t be choosers. Was that how the phrase was used? Mei wasn''t sure.
She ate the cold pizza straight from the box. There was an oven that she could use, but right now, she couldn''t be bothered. The cold pizza was still pretty good.
She headed back to her room after her brief meal. Inside the kitchen, there was a pizza box stuffed messily in the bin.
She donned the VR gear again. Now that she was awake, she might as well meet Mark. She picked up her phone and went to the notes application where she wrote down his invite code. After repeating it to herself a few times, she laid down on her bed and pressed the power button.
Loading...
Cold air brushed across her face as she reappeared in the game world.
It was was still dark at the Greylands, as the clouds blocked the meagre sunlight. As it was still early, not many people were around, be it NPCs or players. Most of the buildingsstill had dark windows, with the exception of a few shops. Mei couldn''t help but shut her eyes and take a deep breath, taking in the morning serenity.
"Ahhh..."
After relaxing a little, she opened her friend list and stared blankly at the box for the invite code. She got distracted and forgot the invitation code...
Mei decided it was probably time for her to sync her phone to the VR gear. The creators of the gear had implemented a function to sync devices. This was in case people wanted to check their social media, message someone, make a phone call, etc while playing the game.
She fumbled with the system interface, logging in to her account connecting to the cloud. Her phone was swiftly synced. Instantly, a replica of a phone appeared in her hand. She openedher notes application and entered Mark''s code.
|
Friend request sent to Markkkk
|
That didn''t sound very creative to Mei. She wasn''t going to judge though.
She raised an eyebrow, surprised by how fast he responded. Seems like Mark was already in the game when he messaged her.
|
Markkkk has invited you to join his party but you are already in a party. Your party is currently offline. Leave the party?
|
She sighed. After those two had helped her level up so much, it would be very rude of her to suddenly leave without a word. But at the same time, she felt like rejecting Mark''s offer would be rude. Mei considered her options for a few seconds before coming up with a compromise. She would send a friend request to Alzeth and Emerr from the party interface, then join Mark''s party. If the two wanted to party in the future, they could always accept the friend request and send her a message.
|
You joined Markkkk''s party!
|
She opened up her party interface.
|
Party Members
Markkkk (Lv51)35,000/35,000 HP
Umuton (Lv 59) 10,200/10,200 HP
Mei (Lv12) 865/865 HP
|
Just from looking at the amount of disparity in the health they had, Mei feltembarrassed. She would just be a burden toa team like that! Power levelling seems kinda lame to her too. That wouldremove the joy of conquering the early zones. Mei couldn''t help butfeel conflicted.
Backing off after accepting his invitation be rude, but she had second thoughts now.
The Sealand Port (Chapter 14)
After a moment of indecision (that felt like more than a month for some reason), Mei decided to just be frank.
"Um... Sorry but I think power levelling would sort of kill the fun of levelling in the early areas." she typed in the party chat.
There was a minute of silence. Mei started to feel nervous. Did she say something wrong somehow? To her relief, a prompt of ''Markkkk is typing...'' finally appeared seconds later.
"Oh, that''s a relief! I wasn''t thinking of going dungeoning today anyway! I''m playing the ''BattleChef class so I was planning on cooking dishes today anyway."the message finally appeared after another minute of typing.
Chef?Immediately, thoughts of delicious food came to mind. It was all good too since there was no need to worry about calories in VR. All the joy with none of the consequence!
"That''s alright then," she replied gleefully.
"I''m at the Sealand Port. Wrap there through the portal."
To prevent peoplefrom simply using the summon function to travel extremely long distances for free, the summon function was not usable when in different areas.
Mei stepped onto the portal rug. Promptly, a box appeared before her eyes.
|
Town Portal
Where would you like to go?
|
''Sealand Port!''
|
Town Portal
The trip to theSealand Port will cost10,000G. Teleport?
|
"Oh! I forgot that you don''t have much money since you just started! I''ll gift you a small amount." messaged Mark with perfect timing.
Mei felt like her heart was bleeding. She was always out of cash and had to keep relying on loans and gifts! Was she always going to stay this way unless she actually threw her own money in for in-app purchases?
Trade
| Markkkk''s Offer ? |
Your Offer |
|
50,000 gold
|
Nothing
|
Accept?
|
Mei accepted the sum and activated the portal.
Seconds later, she arrived on another spell circled pad. Around her, there were squarish two-storied white buildings withflat tops, much like tiny apartment buildings. In the distance, one would be able to hear the sound the waves lapping if they listened closely.
But whatcaught Mei''s attention most from the skies. Instead of the sky completely being blotted out by clouds like in the Greylands, the sky here was clear and cloudless, allowing her to admire the brilliant blue hue.This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
"Om-mu!"shouted someonein a strangely refined and masculine voice.
She turned around, seeing a skeleton clad in the most ridiculousget-upshe had ever seen.
On the head of theboney creaturewas a rusty greek helmet, the plume painted rainbow messily. Earrings were stuck to the outside of the helmet with some kind of unknown glue.
He wore shiny plated armour painted gold with a pink bra over it.A huge jewelled necklace hungaround his neck, tangled in the bra.Around his pelvis, he woretattered white jeans with red underwear over it. There was a belt tied into a dead knot over both the jeans and the underwear to stop them from slipping off.
Onhis bony handswere rings of different colours over every finger. There was actually a finger without a ring, but the skeleton must have really wanted to complete the look as there was a piece of rope tied around it. Bangles were tied to the boney arms with even more rope.
And finally, he had fashionable lookingblack boots with white wings attached to them. Which would have looked nice if not for the rest of the skeleton''s attire.
The sight was so ''dazzling'' that Mei had to pause for a second to admire it, very much in the manner of how someone might stare at the site of a car accident in horror. She resisted the urge to laugh internally, looking slightly constipated in the process.
"What? Stunned by my beauty?" the skeleton posed dramatically.
That was the last straw. The voice of a gentleman coming out of something like that pushed her over the edge. Mei bit down on her lip really hard in a bid not to laugh. But asthere was no pain in VR, that had no effect. Mei began bitting her lips even harder to stop them from even opening.
-1 -1 -1 -1
"Pfftt-" Mei couldn''t hold it back any longer.
She clamped a hand over her mouth.
"I''m sorry..." she apologised.
"There''s no need for that, umu." the skeleton raised a palm, gesturing for her to stop. "My name is Umuton, umu. Mark isn''t here yet since he went to buy supplies for stuff, umu."
Mei never felt the urge to cringe and laugh at the same time. Why did he have to end every sentence of his with ''umu''? At the same time, she finally noticed the words ''Umuton'' floating above the skeleton''s head. The horrible attire of the skeleton managed to distract her enough not to notice the words.
Mei was slightly shaken. Mark partied with this weirdo? She could tell as in Limitless, only party members had names floating above their heads.
"Oh, you''re in the party? Hi..." said Mei slightly nervously.
"Mmm... Yes indeed. Umu." said Umuton. "You can call me Umu. Umu"
"Haha... why don''t I call you by your real name instead?" Mei laughed nervously.
She didn''t think she''d feel comfortable calling someone ''Umu''.
"No, no, there''s no problem, umu. I''m fine with being called my name online, umu."
"Okay..." said Mei while thinking it was not okay.
"Anyway, wait a second while I message Mark ke ke ke ke ke, umu." the skeleton began to stare blankly into space while tapping in mid-air.
Mei didn''t think the skeleton needed to sound out every k in Markkkk''s name. As the skeleton typed, several nearby NPCs glanced at him, wondering what the heck that fashion abomination was doing with his ''finger dance''.
Noticing their stares, Mei took slow steps away from the skeleton. She felt slightly annoyed. Why couldn''tthe game just read minds directly insteadforcing players to do this? It would have helped in the incident with the grey crawlers! Okay, on second thoughts, not really, she would have died anyway. ButMei noted to herself not to type when people are nearby anyway.
It was at this moment when the system decided to chime in ''helpfully''.
|
Purchase Fast Chat for $4.99?
|
Mei was appalled. Online, she had heard people complaining that game devs were making necessary features DLC or IAP because of greed, ruining the game. But this? This was next level stuff! What type of garbage was this?
Resisting the urge to fall prey to the money-grubbing schemes of the game developers, Mei told herself that she could buy 2 big packs of chips with that type of money.
|
If you buy it now, I''ll throw in 5 cans ofPotato Chips(in-game obviously)!
Each can recovers 1000 HP, 1000 MP and gives 1000 EXP!
|
Mei: ...
An Old Friend (Chapter 15)
|
Thank you for your purchase!
+5 Cans Of Potato Chips
|
Mei told herself the potato chips weren''t the last straw to getting her to buy it. She just felt like the ability to chat quickly and without embarrassing herself was worth it... yeah... that was it. And the chips were cheaper than in real life and calorie free! They were also going to be goodrestoration items with the benefit of 1000 HP and MP per can.
...
Mei immediately felt a craving for the potato chips. Gingerly, she took one can out of her inventory and took off the sealandhastily stuffed 5 whole chips into her mouth at once. Mmm... tastes like Pringals. Too bad they seemed to be original flavour. Mei liked the sour cream flavour more.
As she crunched noisily, Umuton turned toward her.
"They have potato chips in the game too, umu? Damn, I want some too now!" The skeleton sighed. "Too bad being a skeleton makes me unable to eat! I think I''ll try going for the ghoul evolution so that I can savour the food here, umu."
Mei stared at him with a slightlyexasperated look. Him repeating ''Umu'' over and over again started getting on her nerves.
"By the way, why did you choose to be a skeleton anyway?" she asked.
"To look fa-BU-lous! Umu." Umuton got into a ridiculous pose.
More like to seek attention, thought Mei. It was obvious from his outfit alone.
There was a moment of silence as Umuton did not say more after she didn''t respond to his pose. Except for the constant sound of chips being crunched and the footsteps of passersby. The can soon started getting emptier as a minutes fast. Normally, she would have eaten them faster, but she wanted to eat slower as she might have to wait for a while.
"Hey!"
Just as Mei was about to finish the last of the chips, a shout came from afar. Mei saw a short man with a beard run towards them.
"Oh, Mark ke ke ke ke ke ke is here!" said Umuton.
"Hi. Sorry for being a little late," said Mark as he wiped droplets of sweat from his face.
"Oh... don''t worry about it!" Mei smiled as she stuffed the last chip down her mouth. "You were pretty fast!"
"Fast! Fast as in-"
"Tom!" Mark interrupted Umuton. "It''s not appropriate to makedirty jokes in a place like this."
"Oh?" The skeleton somehow looked amused. "Weren''t you fine with those without her around, umu? I cannot stand for this, Markekeke! Iyearn for gender equali-"
"He likes tomake dumb jokes." said Mark.This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
"Oh... haha..." Mei got slightly uncomfortable. She put the chip can into her inventory.
She decided to change the topic before it got more awkward.
"Mark, you look so different than in real life!"
Mark still had a similar face, but he looked much older. He had a long brown beard and was somewhat short, only around 1.5 metres tall (5 ft). He wore a metal helmet witha spike on each sideand full plate armour. It was apparent that he had chosen ''dwarf'' as his race.
"It''s VR! Nothing wrong with that" grumbled Mark.
"I didn''t say there was." smiled Mei.
"You don''t look too different, except for beingskinnierand the purple hair. Didn''t you say you didn''t care about getting fat?" teased Mark.
Mei pouted, earning a grin from Mark.
"It''s different than real life!" she said after a while of being unsureof what to reply.
"Sure." Mark shrugged. "By the way, how did you get equipment this fancy so early? You''re not telling me you went the pay to win route, are you?"
"What? No, I got an in-game loan," said Mei hastily.
"You can do that? I should have done that long ago, umu!" said Umuton in surprise.
"Where did you get the loan? I can get some awesome equipment earlylike that!" Mark seemed rather excited.
"The cashier at a clothing shop loaned it to me..." answered Mei awkwardly.
"You need to take us there later!" said Mark. "But for now,we should get going. We''ve got a lot to do today!"
Markbeckoned to them as he startedwalking forward. Mei stared at him oddly. Was it just her or did he seem a bit hurried today? Perhaps he had some chores later? But regardless of the reason, shefollowed with Umuton trailing behind closely.
"Where are we going?" asked Mei.
"We''re going to the forest area here." Mark displayed his virtual map to her, something party members were able to do. "Over there, we can find specialplants and animals as food ingredients!"
Mei was slightly dismayed that they were going to a forest after her previous experience, but the thought of delicious food made her a lot more enthusiastic.
"Lots of hot elves too!" Umuton chimed in.
"Oh," said Mei.
As they walked, Mark and Mei talked to each other about various things. But despite knowing he was Mark, her good friend in real life, she still found it somewhat odd to think of the dwarf asthe same person. His voice sounded the same at the very least, which helped her associate the dwarf with Mark better.
~~~~~
A mouse-sized cockroach scurried around its terrarium excited as fingers lowered a piece of delectable steak before it. It hurried began rippingoff tiny chunks and swallowing them.
Watching the little insect, the man who had lowered the treat in smiled.
A few knocks came from the door.
"Who is it?" he shouted.
"It''s Mythia!" the voice that replied sounded slightly flustered. "I''m here to report something of interest!"
Mythia? Who the heck was that? Probably just some random member in his guild that he didn''t pay attention to. He walked away from his terrarium and took a seat on one side of the dining table in the room.
"Come in," he said.
"Yes sir!" the voice answered.
The door was opened gently as a woman with bluish hair entered the room. She stood nervously before him.
"You may sit." he gestured towards the chair on the opposite side.
"Yes sir!" she said as she moved the chair gently before sitting. She stared at his outfit carefully, not missing the words ''Atteus''engraved neatly on his silver nametag.
"Now, what is it?"Atteusasked.
"There are reports of strange people claiming to be from other worlds in the Newlands!" said Mythia.
"...That''s it?" the man sounded disappointed.
"They also revive in a new body in a different location after dying, making them basically unkillable!" Mythia added quickly.
"What? It shouldn''t be possible for a soul to get used to a new body so fast! This goes against the laws of... and the system''s interference with souls... it shouldn''t be possible..." Atteus mumbled to himself for a while before looking at Mythia once again.
"We need to head off right away! Inform them!" he shouted excitedly.
"I will inform the guild!" said Mythia as she stood up and pushed in the chair. She then rushed out and shut the door, but not before bowing to him.
"Let''s go, Hundy," said Atteus as he took the terrarium off the top of the table.
Meeting The Young Elves (Chapter 16)
The sight of neatly paved roads and shops everywhere soon faded as they neared the forest. The sound of shoes on brick was replaced by the rustling of grass as they reached the grassy lands of the forest.
Mei walked gingerly as she followed the duo. It might not have rained today and turned the ground into a muddy hell, but she didn''t want to get too much mud on her shoes. She just got them not too long ago and liked them a lot. She did eventually pick up her pace to catch up to them, however.
"Up ahead istheclearing where the elf kids play!" said Mark as he pointed ahead. "They are very cute and will help us find herbs and stuff if we give them food."
"Uh hu-"
"Don''t grow too much beard hair! They''ll mistake you for pedobear, umu!" shouted Umuton all of a sudden.
"Normally, I like to take out the deep fryer and fry up some french fries for them! They seem to like them very much." said Mark to Mei.
"There are stuff like deep fryers in this game?"asked Mei, slighty surprised.
The streamers she watched didn''t interact with dwarves much in their playthroughs, so she didn''t know much about their technology.
"Yeah! Apparently, the dwarves NPCs actually have a lot of pretty modern inventions! They just require some mana crystals to power instead of electricity." answered Mark.
The two of them had learnt to ignore Umuton''s silly jokes. The skeleton felt slightly left out. That would not deter him from making more jokes, however.
Mark suddenly stopped walking, something having caught his eye.
"A magiconion!"
Mark bentdown and punched his hands into the dirt, ripping out the plant from the ground aggressivelyas its roots dangled in the air. Mei moved a slight distance away to avoid getting hit by the dirt flying all over the place, but the skeleton didn''t seem to mind.
The onion began wriggled in the hands of the dwarf, starting to glow brightly. A second later, a ball of white light was fired from the leaves of the onion to Mark''s face.
"Dammit!" he shouted.
Black spots clouded his vision after the intense light. As the plant was about to slip out of his hands, he quickly tossed it high in the air. Hetook out his sword as quickly as he could from his inventory and swung it at the onion.This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.
"Hiyah!" shouted Mark... as he missed.
The onion hit the ground and began to dig into the earth and kicking up dirt violently. Markbought up his blade and prepared to swing downwards, only for a chunk of dirt to hit his face, some of it getting into his eyes and mouths.He spat out the dirt in disgust and swung downwards. This time, it hit the onion, slicing it into two.
+25 EXP
He rubbed the dirt off his face and eyes, then quickly put the halved plant into his inventory. There was a moment of silence as Umuton and Mei watched.
"Top ten anime battles!" cheered Umuton very suddenly. He clapped his bony hands, making sounds similar to doorknocks.
Mei couldn''t help smile slightly after hearing the joke but tried to hide it.
"Let''s go!" said Mark as he turned his face away from them, slightly embarrassed.
They reached a clearing wherethey could see groups of elven children played. There were a few young rabbit beastmen and little wolves with slightly green fur that joined in their games.
"Hey! It''s the old man and the skeleton!" shouted one of the elves as he spotted them.
Most of the kids looked over, but only a small portion ran towards them immediately.
"Geezer! When are the fries going to be ready?" demanded one of the little elves as he jumped around excitedly.
"Who''s that girl with you?" asked another one.
Mark sighed.
"Alright kids, don''t be impatient! It''ll take some time for me to set things up! And how many times have I told you to stop calling me that? I''m not even twenty!" grumbled the dwarf.
"Yeah whatever old man!" shouted one of the young bunny beastmen in a squeaky tone.
"Fries! Fries! Fries! Fries!" the childrenbegan chanting. A few of the green wolves even beganbarking as if to join the chant.
"You ignored my question!" shouted the one who asked who Mei was.
"You lot are so demanding! Give me some time to prepare!"groaned Mark.
Hebought out a giant metal box without a top and placed it on the grass carefully. Next,was a huge bottle of oil and which he dumped huge amounts into the compartment on top. He then took out a huge bowl and puta dozen large potatoes in, then poured water into it, then stirring it up violently to get rid of the dirt. The water was then poured into the grass.
As he washed the potatoes a few more times, Mei decided to offer to help.
"It''ll take some time for you to chop them up, right? I can help too!" she said.
"No no. We don''t need to chop them." Mark shook his head. "I''ll show you how I do it!"
Umuton seemed amused for some reason as he watched.
Marktook out the rectangular deep frying metal basket and put it in the oil. Next, he pressed a button on the side of the box. Suddenly Mei could feel a huge burst of heat despite not standing that close. The oil swiftly began bubbling. Mark released the button and pressed a different switch. The heat waves immediately stopped, but the oil continued to bubble gently.
"It''s some of quick heating mechanism," explained Mark to Mei.
"I think that''s pretty obvious, umu!" Umuton chimed in.
"You''re not throwing in them whole, are you?" Mei was slightly exasperated. Surely Mark would not be that lazy!
"Of course not!" Mark shook his head. "Watch!"
He reached out for one of the potatoes and held it above the bubbling oil, confusing Mei. Then his fingers clenched down with incredible strength. The potato exploded into tiny chunks that flew everywhere, most of it into the oil amazingly.
Mei: ...
Potato Trade (Chapter 17)
Umuton let out a snicker to Mei''s reaction as Mark watched over the potatoes carefully.
The potato fragments were soon cooked to crispy golden perfection.He took the deep drying baskets and shook off the excess oil before pouring the fries into the jars. Next, he sprinkled seasoning and salt into each of the jars.
Upon seeing that he was done, even the children that were busying playing came to collect their jars.
"Shake it well to spread out the flavour!" advised Mark.
"I found this weird blue carrot!" shouted one of the young rabbitmen as he waved the plant energetically.
"Ifound this giant red potato! Make this into fries next time!"
Mark took the carrot and passed a jar to him. Mei watched as the little elves and rabbits lined up in a queueto tradevarious weird plants in exchange for the jars. Shefound them quite adorable, despite their attitude. They sat down in groups to eat afterwards, giving some to the greenish wolves too.
After the last of them made the trade, Mark walked to where Mei stood at the side with jars of fries ineach hand. She was a bit shy, so she just stood at the side and watched the children instead of talking to them.
"I got quite a lot of great ingredientstoday." beamedMark as he passed one of them to Mei. "In the past, they handed me a lot of inedible or horrible tasting stuff... evenpoisonous plants and mushroomsat times!"
Mei gave the jar a quick shake before lifting it up and tipping a whole mouthful into her mouth.
"Why not just look for what you want yourself then?" she asked with her mouth full.
"It takes forever!" sighed Mark. "Before I got this deal with them, I could spend an hour and barely find any."
He took a few quick looks at theelvesas they ate. Seeing thatall of them were a distance away andengrossed in eating, he leaned towards her ear.
"Potatoes are also super cheap..." he whispered.
A few of the bunnies turned their heads towards him.
"If you call hundreds of gold cheap..." he continued, covered in cold sweat.
The rabbits stared at him with suspicion for a few seconds before resuming their meal. Mark made a mental note to himself to not forget that rabbits had exceptional hearing.Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.
Mei smiled.
"By the way, why didn''t you cut the potatoes first? Maybe they''ll like the fries more and find better plants in exchange!" she asked.
"I cut up the fries properly at first! But then they were so impatient and kept asking me to be faster!" Mark complained. "So to mess with them, I just crushed the potatoes into bits with my hands and fried them just like that! But they said there''s no difference in the taste, so they told me not to waste time in the future! Hah... these kids..."
"Heh, you sound like an old man talking like that!" teased Mei.
"That''s because I''m mature for my age," answered Mark.
"Uh huh," Mei answered with a grin. Mark had always been good at ad-libbing.
Mei didn''t talk more afterwards as she was busy stuffing her face with the fries. They were oddly shaped and kind of ugly, but Mei still liked the taste a lot. Theydidn''t taste at all like the fries she got at WacDonalds or any other fast food restaurants she ordered them at. These fries were a lot more crunchy but still soft inside, with a strong salty oniony flavour that seemed to go well with the taste of potato. Seeing that Mei was eating, Mark began slowly eating his.
Meanwhile, Umuton just watched with nothing in his hands, as he was unable to eat. One of theelves ran over to the lonely skeleton, holding out oneof the larger chunks of potatofrom the jar.
"Here, Mr skeleton! Eat up!" the little boy smiled.
Umuton stared at him for a second, unsure if he was being mocked or pitied. He took the fry after a second of hesitation and chewed it, getting potato bits and oil all over the inside of his skull and ribcage. Bits of chewed potato dropped all overthe inside and outside of his armour and jeans, getting them oily. The skeleton immediately regretted his decision to humour the little elf.
"Yay!" the elf cheered.
A few of his friends came over and began offering their fries too with bright smiles.
"Mark!"spluttered Umuton as he reluctantly chewed on a few more pieces. "I think we need to go!"
"So soon?Why not play?" whined one of them.
Mark looked speechless for a moment.
"Alright kids, something important has cropped up. We have to go, okay?" said Mark.
"Awww!" said a few of the elves.
Mark beckoned to Mei who was still munching with her mouth full. They walked off with Umuton in the lead.
"Bye!" said Mark to them.
The elves and rabbits waved goodbye to them.
After they made enough distance, Umuton began complaining.
"Gah! Those stupid kids! I don''t even know how to wash this off in the game!" he shouted.
"Jump in a river?" suggested Mark with a smirk.
Umuton seemed to think about it.
"Come to think of it, there''s a river nearby according to the map, isn''t there?" he suddenly said. "Maybe we can try fishing there. You barely even used that rod you bought a week ago!"
"Fishing?" Mei asked, interested. It had always seemed fun to fish to her, but she didn''t have any opportunities to do it in real life.
"I don''t know, the last time we did it, we barely caught any first after an hour. What do you think, Mei?" asked Mark.
"Yeah, why not?" she answered.
"I guess we''ll try again then," said Mark.
"Third person''s the charm!" Umuton commented.
"You know what, Tom?" Mark said to the skeleton. "That''s the first time I heard you not make a dirty joke in a while."
"I don''t make them that often. It''s like how peoplego for balanced diets!" answered Umuton.
Mei wasn''t sure if that was even a joke, but shedidn''t comment. It was then when something occured to her.
"I thought you always added ''Umu'' to the end of every sentence?" she asked.
"Umu umu, umu umu? Umumumu! Umu." the skeleton answered.
"Dammit Mei, you jinxed it!" shouted Mark.
Fishing Goes Wrong (Chapter 18)
Mei stared as fish streamed through the river, swimming peacefully.
All of them ignoring the bait she tossed into the water. Mark and Umuton didn''t seem to be faring better either.
"Hey Mark," she called out.
"Hmm?" Mark turned over.
"Are you sure we are even using the right bait? Maybe the fish here don''t even eat stuff like this," Mei voiced her doubts.
"It went a bit better the last time." Mark wiggled the bait in the water in a bid to attract fish. "It was boring as heck, but we still caught about ten after an hour!"
"Maybe they learnt their lesson. Ai fish?" grumbled Mei.
"I don''t think Ai fish would be designed to learn lessons. That makes no sense." retorted Mark.
"Eh."
As the two conversed, Umuton seemed to have had enough. Without someone to talk to directly, staring at fish avoiding all the lures started to get on his nerves. He stood up and tossed his fishing rod aside. He did a pose,makinga throwing spear materialise in his hand from his inventory as he stood proudly.
"Um, what are you doing, Tom?" asked Mark.
"If the fish refuse to bite, it is time to take matters into my own hand, umu!" the skeleton declared proudly.
Hewalked towards the water proudly with his spear in hand and jumped in... only to be swept away by the currents. Sadly, bones were too light to resist the flow of water.
"Shit, shit, shit!" he yelled as he tumbled downstream, his spearsweptaway.
"Oh, there he goes." saidMark.
Eventually,Umutonmanaged to grab onto one of the bigger rocks. He then climbed onto it and jumped on shore. Water gushed out of his armour and splattered all over the grass, along with a fewfish.
He stared at the fishes that flopped on the ground.
"Tom, I think you need to go tumble down a few more times," smirked Mark as he walked over to pick up the fishes.
"Yeah, yeah, whatever."grumbled the skeleton.Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.
Hetook out another throwing spear and began trying to spear one of the fish from the riverbank. The fish were slippery and quick to dodge however so he didn''t have much success. Watching him, Mei felt the urge to join in.
"Can you lend me one of your spears? I want to try too!"she asked.
That definitely looked more fun than sitting down and wait for fish to bite for someone as impatient as her.
"Sure." said the skeleton as he passed one to her.
They began stabbing at the fish from the shore. It was hard to tell if the fish were just good or dodging or if the duo were just terrible at spear fishing because no fish were hit after two minutes. Mark got bored of watching and didn''t feel like trying to fish anymore, so he walked to the side and began starting a fire with nearby branches.
But after a while, it became apparent that most of the fish were straying to the other side of the river, completely out of reach.
"I have an idea!" the skeleton shouted.
Hetook out a pair of armoured leggings, wearing it hastily over his tattered jeans. He then filled them with metal ingots and nuggets.
"That should keep me weighted down..." the skeleton slowly stepped into the waters.
This time, he wasn''t swept away. Umuton began stabbing at the fish on that swerved to the other side maniaclly. Without the protection of being able to simply stay on the other side, a few fish were skewered onto the spear in a way that reminded Mei of kababs.
He ripped them off the spear and tossed them onto the shore and began spearing a few more, gradually building up a pile. Mei started at the struggling and bleeding fish and couldn''t help but feel a little pity for them. They flopped helplessly and gasped for air, blood censored pink flowing out of their wounds.
"I think we should end them quickly... They seem to be in pain..." she said, slighty unsure.
"Who cares? It''s just a game!" answered the skeleton as he speared more fish.
Mei couldn''t help but regret blurting out what was on her mind. She couldn''t help but find what she said silly. She put down her spear and headed over towards Mark and-
Whoosh!
An arrow shot out of the blue and struck Umuton''s helmet, making him stumble. A small dent was left on it as the arrow fell into the currents of the river.
-846
"IIIII CAAREEE!"
An beautiful elf walked out of the bushes into view with a nocked wooden bow, herface clouded with rage.
"SCUMBAGS! I held back fromINTERFERING... like how he told m... nature''s survi... BUT THIS?" her expression contorted into the most agitated face Mei had ever seen. "YOU TREAT THE LIVES OF INNOCENTS AS A GAME?"
"Woah, calm down lady! That''s not what I meant!" Umuton began waving his arms frantically.
Not being used to getting targeted with so much hate, he panicked.
"DIE!"
With incredible speed, the elf somehowshotalmost a dozen arrows in less than five seconds. Umuton scrabbled frantically, but weighed down by the ingots and the current, he failed to dodge most of the arrows. Mei saw huge damage numbers rise from Umuton as his health bar dropped to less than a fourth.
The elf realised her quiver was empty as she had been using the same stock of arrows for weeks. She began taking out bundles of arrows and stuffing them into her quiver.
Taking his chance, Umuton kicked his metal filled leggings off and stuffed them into his inventory. He then leaned back and let the currents sweep him away, his body tumbling down swiftly.
The Elf stopped and prepared to charge after the tumbling skeleton but seemed to remember something. As she turned her gaze in Mei and Mark''s direction, Mei realised to her horror that they would be targets too. She had been so stunned by the burst of anger that she forgot to do the logical thing: running away.
Rejoining (Chapter 19)
The elf held up her bow and aimed it at Mark, who had snatched up all the fish on the ground. In response, Mark quickly summoned a huge shield and hid behind it.
"Adae! Stop!"
The elf retracted her bow as she heard a sudden shout.
"Agon?" she looked shocked as she turned around.
An elf wearing a green vest embroidered with leaf designs glared at her as he arrived. Mei couldn''t help but notice that he was especially handsome. Typical fantasy elves...
"How many times have I told you not to attack everyone that comes into the forest? This is the fifty-eighth time I''ve told you not to!" Agon yelled.
"Bu-but... I didn''t do anything until they said the lives of the little fishies we-were just a game! Before that... I onlycommanded the fishies to help them escape..." she mumbled timidly.
Looking at the scared face of Adae, Mei almost couldn''t believe that the elf was the ferocious ''monster'' that tried to murder all of them. Not that they were actually going to die since it was a game, but still not very pleasant.
Agonstared coldly at Mark and Mei before turning back to Adae. He leaned in close and whispered something Mei could not hear clearly. Something about ''poor relationships'' and ''tolerate''? He then walked towards them.
"My friendsfrom the land of humans!" Agonwalked to the duo with a smile. "Forgive the actions of my sister. She is a bit protective of the animals in the forest."
"Ah... It''s fine! That uhh... Tom guy did say something wrong, but it wasn''t intentional." said Mei nervously.
"Yeah, it''s all his fault," said Mark, rendering Mei somewhat speechless.
She didn''t want to call Umuton by his name, but she recalled that Mark called him Tom a few times. Was that his real name? Mei decided to ask him that later.
"So it was that skeleton... Please take this as an apology."
He handed out a palm-sized leaf to both Mark and Mei.
"Oh. Thanks," said Mei.
Of all things, a leaf? The leaves looked like any old leaf from the nearby trees and even had brown spots and a few insect bite marks on them. Mark would have complained if not for the fact that the elves could finish him off in seconds.
"I bid farewell to you." Agongripped the frightened Adae by thearm as he headed off into the depth of the woods, dragging her along.
"That was weird," said Mark as he pocketed the leaf.
"Uh huh."
Mark quickly messaged Umuton to assure him that it was fine now.
"Mei, I''m heading out later with my family at ten o'' clock. It''snine thirty-twonow, so I have to log out."
"See you later then!" wavedMei.
"Bye- Oh wait, you can have this if you want to go back fast. It lets you teleport to the nearest town portal." Mark handed a crystal to her.
"Wait, what? Isn''t this thing worth like-"
Mark disappeared with a flash.If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
"20,000 gold..." Mei finished.
The amount of gold earned later in the gamewas definitely a lot more, but Mei still felt a bit embarrassed leeching off like that. And she still had like... 40,000 gold left from what he gave her to travel here? She decided that she would pay him back once she started to earn good amounts late game. That reminded her of her debt again, which was just great.
She decided to give Mark back the crystal later. She walked all the way back, grabbing a few plants that resembled the ones Mark picked. But not before stabbing them first. She didn''t want a repeat of what happened to Mark with the onion. A few of the plants did fight back, but they weren''t strong, so she didn''t have any issue taking them down.
Along the long and boring walk, Mei decided to check her friend list to see if Alzeth and Emerr had accepted her friend requests.
Friend List
|
Alzeth (Online)
Emerr (Online)
|
|
Alzeth and Emerr had already accepted, though Mei wasn''t sure how long they had been online. She wondered why they didn''t send her a message earlier, but she was also slightly glad. She might have beem put in a spot if they messaged her to join them in a dungeon or something when she was adventuring with Mark and Umuton.
"Hi! I joined a party with some friends earlier, so I wasn''t around in the Greylands. Sorry."she messaged both Mark and Emerr.
"npirealised u joined a party ealier so i decided not 2 disturb. send uinvite again?"
"Yeah. They logged off already."
Technically, Umuton had not, but she didn''t want to party with him alone.
"k here''s the invite"
Mei exited her party and joined Alzeth''s.
~~~~~
"Took you long enough to get here, huh?" asked Alzeth.
"It''s not my fault," grumbled Mei. "They decided to go to a place so far away..."
After Mei told them she was on the way back,Alzeth and Emerr waited near the town portal. But after ten minutes, they realised Mei wasn''t arriving any time soon. So they began to look around the nearby shops for things to buy. Finally, Mei arrived and had to message them in the party chat before they came to look for her.
"What do you want to do today?" asked Mei.
"Hmm... we plan to go into a dungeon. You might be a bit lower levelled at..." Alzeth used Scan to check her level. "level 13... wait, why do you still have 850 stat points?"
"Huh?" Mei checked her stats.
Somehow, she had forgotten to manually allocate her stats. It was a good thing classes allocate some stats automatically, or she would be as weak as a Lv1. She felt slightly embarrassed. With all the distractions, she somehow forgot to use her stat points.
"Oh... I forgot." Mei smiled nervously.
Emerr looked exasperated while Alzeth just shrugged.
"We''ll wait while you use them."
Mei began using up her stats, putting 350 into STR, 350 into MAG and 150 into DEF. She was playing a melee magic fighter, so she felt like this was the best way to split her points.
| Info |
Stats |
Class |
Equipment |
| Name |
Mei |
| Level |
13 |
| Species |
Human |
| Gender |
Female |
| HP |
1,582 |
| MP |
2,022 |
| SP |
0 |
|
| Name |
Value |
| STR |
1,382 |
| MAG |
1,822 |
| DEX |
381 |
| AGI |
1145 |
| DEF |
287 |
| INT |
100 |
|
| Name |
Level |
Progress |
| SpellSword |
9 |
72% |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Name |
Level |
| Camouflage Magic Gear |
30 |
| SpellSword Shoes |
50 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Enter The Dungeon (Chapter 20)
"The dungeon is supposed to be here according to the map."
"But there''s nothing here," said Mei.
The trio had wandered for a long distance from the Greylands Town, following Alzeth as he led on with a map he bought from a shop in his hands. But like the rest of the Greylands, there was only grey moss.Savefor the trailmade bythe bamboo bundle Alzeth dragged everywhere.
"Harbert said the entrance regrows after a while. Let me try..."
Alzeth lifted up his bamboo weapon and started slamming the ground violently. Mei slowly edged away.
"What are you doing? Use your skills to help too!" Emerr tapped hershoulder.
Emerr began throwing fireballs randomly at the ground, burning the moss. It was a good thing the moss wasn''t very flammable. The ''lovely'' scent of burnt moss wafted through the air. Mei wrinkled her nose in distaste.
Mei felt slightly worried after recalling that she didn''t have any skills yet but felt a little nervous about saying it. She stood for a moment and watched the siblings destroy the lawn until Emerr turned back and stared at her again, the look on her face questioning why Mei was doing nothing.
"I don''t have skills yet..." mumbled Mei.
"Then use a weapon to hit the ground!" said Emerr with a frown.
"My sword broke..."
Emerr was speechless.
"You came here to join us on a dungeon raid, but without a weapon? What are you thinking?" Emerr approached Mei, a little too close for her comfort.
"I-I..." stuttered Mei.
"Calm down girls!" said Alzeth as he continued to wack randomly. "I have a-"
The ground finally gave way to the attacks. Alzeth fell down the hole with a shout of surprise.
Emerr gave Mei one exasperated glance. She walked toward the hole and looked down, seeing only darkness. Naturally, she tossed a fireball down. The light lit up the entrance, showing that it wasn''t that deep of a fall.
"Oi! You almost hit me! Use your lantern!" complained Alzeth.
Emerr threw another fireball down.
"Hey hey hey,stop wasting your mana!" shouted Alzeth as he dodged.
"Hmph."
Emerr took out her lantern and lit it up. Shecarefully lowered herself intothe hole, Mei following suit nervously.
|
You have entered The Heart Of The Moss (Lv50 Dungeon)
|
Wait, what?
"Um... is it just me or are we a tinyyyy bit underlevelled?" asked Mei softly after a moment of hesitation.
"No problem. I heard some enemies here are less than level 20. We just need to be careful..." whispered Alzeth. "Oh, I almost forgot to lend you a weapon. Totally not because my sister was trying to kill me."
Alzeth took out a plain looking sword and passed it to Mei.This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.
"I bought it from the shop. I tried to sell itback after I got a smith to help me make this awesome weapon," Alzeth shook his bamboo bundle. "But apparently they had a no buyback policy. What the heck? That means I can''t collect a thousand old rags and demand they buy it! Ah, the drawbacks of smart NPCs..."
His dumb joke prompted a smile from Mei. Not that it was very visible in the dark. She decided to scan the sword.
|
Metal Sword
Type: Sword
Rarity: Common
LVL: 10
183/200 DUR
Effects
+100 DMG
Creator''s Note
Made from 100% steel by expert smiths. 100 Gold.
|
Apparently, the sales tag stayed after purchase. Mei wondered if there was a way to remove it. It would be kind of weird if she got an amazing weapon and the shop''s note stayed after purchase forever.
"So... how are we going tofind those low levelled enemies?Won''t there be a lot ofmonsters that kill us in one hit in such a high levelled dungeon?" asked Mei.
"Hah! You see, my Agrro skill is very low levelled right now. That means it only works on enemies 5 levels higher than me. That means all I need to do is to spam aggro until something attacks!" explained Alzeth proudly.
"Huh, that''s actually pretty smart!" Mei was slightly impressed.
"I know right-"
"He read about that tactic from an online guide," said Emerr. "Braggart."
"Oh... I see..." mumbled Mei.
Alzeth coughed.
"Let''s not talk so much, okay? Monsters might hear us."
They walked on silently as Alzeth used Aggro from time to time. Mei found thedungeon quite unpleasant. The walls were covered in grey moss that was everywhere in the wasteland and there was the smell of stagnant air and a faint scent similar to mildew.
Alzeth chugged a mana potion and used Agrro again for the umpteenth time. This time, a silent groan echoed through the dungeon. The trio stopped walking and starred tensely towards the direction of the groan.
A corpse covered in the grey moss shambled towards them, wielding a sword in one of its hands and a shield in another. It reminded Mei of zombies she saw in movies, except that the corpse was not rotting or covered in wounds. Or was it? The moss covering the body made it unclear. It staggered forwards, its lifeless face starring at Alzeth.
She quickly used Scan.
|
Moss Zombie
Grade: Common
LVL: 20
HP: 4,020
Skill is too low levelled to excess more info.
|
Well, that was not a lot of info. Mei madea note to train Scan by scanning random objects as she travelled.
Alzeth raised his weapon and prepared to charge, but Emerr was faster. She ran up to the monster and stabbed it with the sharpened tip of her staff before it could react.Red light burst from within the corpse as a fireball exploded from the inside of the wound.
-1466!
-100 -100 -100
Flames enveloped the zombie as it caught on fire, but the fire quickly went out. As if angered, it leapt towards Emerr swinging its sword wildly. Alzeth quickly stepped forward and deflected the attack with his weapon. The zombie didn''t let up however, it continued to swing its sword like a maniac, makinggashes appear all over the bamboo.
Alzeth retreated backwards, making it stumble from the force it swung its sword. This time, Emerr threw a bolt of ice towards it.
-277!
Ice encased the zombie, but it didn''t seem too bothered. It shook off the bits of ice and threw its sword towards Emerr. Not a very smart move. She dodged the clumsy throw with ease.
Seeing that the monster wasn''t paying attention to her, Mei ran towards it and swung her sword. The zombie raised its shield and blocked her attack, then kicked her in the stomach, knocking her towards the ground.
-57 HP
Mei braced herself for the pain but felt none. Right, there was no pain in VR. The zombie lifted its shield and held it up, ready to smash ittowards her face. Mei instinctively raised up her arms to block.
-1568!
Alzeth slammed his pole against the zombie''s head violently, sending it flying. The disembowelled body of the zombie fell to the ground, not a drop of blood spilling out.
|
Moss Zombie(Lv 20)defeated!
200 EXP total.
70 EXP to Alzeth. (35%)
80 EXP to Emerr. (40%)
50 EXP gained. (25%)
Race EXP: 300/500
SpellSword EXP: 300/360
|
Then like a puppet without strings, the dead zombie''s body toppled onto Mei.
"Aieeeeee!" she shrieked.
She kicked off the disgusting corpse and quickly patted the dust off her. Gross!
Pepper And Moss (Chapter 21)
"Don''t shout so loudly. Something might hear us..." whispered Alzeth.
"Okay..." said Mei, slightly embarrassed.
Alzeth picked up the shield and stuffed it into his inventory. He also stuffed the zombie''s corpse into his inventory somethingMei found somewhat distasteful. Alzeth picked up the zombie''s sword and handed it to her.
"You can take the sword if you want," said Alzeth.
"Oh, thanks."
Mei wasn''t too keep in using a sword used by a zombie, but she accepted itanyway. She used Scan on it.
|
Greyed Sword (CURSED)
Type: Sword
Rarity: Common
LVL: 10
267/300 DUR
Effects
+200 DMG
Grey Curse
You lose 10% of your max HP every 60 seconds, slightly repairing the DUR of the weapon. Hallucinations of horrible monstrosities attackingwill appear often. The Grey Moss will try to take control of your body at random intervals, making your movements sluggish or even completely controlling you for 5 seconds
|
That... didn''t seem like a good trade-off for twice the damage ofher old sword. She quickly stuffed it into her inventory, slightly afraid that the effects might trigger at any time.
"So... all the loot from the dungeon will be cursed?"Mei asked uncertainly.
"Not exactly according to the forums, but around ninety percentof the equipment." Alzeth.
"Oh... But didn''t you say the shops don''t buy junk? Why are we keeping them?" Mei was unsure why he wanted to waste limited inventory.
"Who knows when it will come in handy?" Alzeth shrugged. "Might as well keep everything when you have inventory space.
"That attitude will make your inventory full of garbage,"said Emerr.
"Having a bit of everything comes in handy at times. Also, shhh... monsters."
They walkedquietly as they could, seeking out random zombies to kill. Several zombies went down smoothly, Alzeth pocketing all the corpses and weapons. Mei''s SpellSword class finally reached Lv10, giving her her first skill. She was very pleased.
Mana Slash
100 MP, 5 seconds cooldown
The most basic attack of the SpellSword class. Charging the blade of a weapon with mana allowsfor more powerful attacks.
Damage Formula
Physical Damage + 1.1x (Magical Damage)
Bonus magical damage ifthe sword is a good mana conductor.
Next Level:
Physical Damage + 1.2x (Magical Damage)
MP Cost -> 200
Your Skill Points: 13
| Click here to level upthe skill (1 Skill Point) |
|
Mei decided toonly use 4skill points to level up the skill to Lv5, increasing the Magical Damage to 1.5x and the MP cost to 500. She thought it was probably not good to blow toomany points on an early skill, but she still wanted to be of use in fights, not a useless teammate that hit like a... not very strong person.Mei wasn''t too good at coming with metaphors.Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
It was a while of walking later when they heardsomething abnormal. Thesound of clashing metal and shouts came from ahead.
"Inferno Blade!"
They saw a flash of fiery light from the distance.
"I think it''s one of those high levelled grinders. No zombie would be chunni enough to shout their attack name!" said Alzeth.
As they approached, they saw aman inburning redrobes pouring buckets of water on aburning moss covered golem that was sliced cleanly into half and covered in slashes. As the man tossed another bucket of water, the golem finally stopped burning. Mei used Scan on the man, revealing that his username was Green_Pepper.
Pepperstared at them cautiously, his eyes darting back to the halves golem once in a while, as if afraid the trio would steal it.
"Um... Hi." said Mei nervously.
The man squinted, something that was not needed as his burning robes lit up the place quite well. He quickly used scan on them. Seeing their level, he let down their guard.
"What are you bunch of newbs doing here?" he asked.
"We werelooking for monsters around level twenty to kill," said Alzeth.
"Hmph, there are barely any of those weaklings around," said Pepper. "See this golem thing here?"
The man turned to it and kicked it.
"These things are everywhere! They would kill newbs like you in one punch! I, however, can kill these things in one hit, haha!" he said smugly.
"Okay." said Alzeth. "Why not help us out if you are so strong then?"
Pepperwas taken aback for a second. Wasn''t this newb a bit too direct? Even if a person wanted help, they should be a bit more persuasive, right?
"What reason do I have to help you out anyway?" he asked.
"I don''t know? To be nice?" said Alzeth.
"Go find someone else to be your Mr Nice. I''m busy,"grumbled Pepper.
"Okay, that''s not nice. Also, your robe is still on fire. You should do something about that." said Alzeth.
"That''s a pyromancy spell for lighting up dark places," said Pepper.
Alzeth didn''t answer.
Hetook out a knife of sorts, then beganhacking at the head of the golem until the exterior shattered. Inside was a grey orb, the core of the golem. He quickly stuffed it into his inventory. Afterwards, he took the armguards attached to the golem''s arms and pocketed them too.
"Okay, you are not busy now." said Alzeth.
Pepper stared at Alzeth with an exasperated look. Alzeth stared back. After a short ''game'' of starring, Pepper sighed.
"Fine! I''ll help you guys out for a bit, okay? Just don''t expect me to protect you when a high levelled enemy comes in and wipes you all out."
Alzeth turned to Emerr smugly.
"See? I told you I would be able to find someone to help us."
"You are the least charismatic person I''ve ever met in my life," she answered.
Alzeth laughed.
"Thanks for helping us," Mei said to Pepper.
"No problem. Grinding alone can get a bit boring at times."
"Hmm, but why didn''t you just join a party earlier though?" asked Mei, curious.
"I logged in at 4 AM. No one was online to party with me," said Pepper.
"Oh..."
Mei felt like thatmight be atinybit early to get up and start grinding.
"You didn''t meet anyone else here while grinding?" asked Alzeth. "Also, I''m sending a party invite to you."
"Nah. Not many people come here since the loot sucks for the most part. Heck, I only came here because I needed golem cores for a quest." said Pepper as he reluctantly accepted the invite.
"Oh, that''s easy," said Alzeth. "I heard all you need to do is to attack the walls to spawn them!"
Alzeth raised his pole and swung it towards the mossy wall.
"NO! What-" shouted Pepper.
But he was too late. With a sound that sounded like cardboard being hit, a red damage number popped out from the wall.
-1068!
"-are you doing?" Pepper finished his shout.
Alzeth shrugged.
The wall began to shake as mossy fists punched out of the wall. They pressed themselves against the wall, pulling a head with asingle glowing eye and a huge torso out. The golem stared at them menacingly as it struggled to get out.
"What the heck? You actually spawned a heart golem! What type of horrible luck is this?" yelled Pepper.
"Huh? What are those?"
"They are moss golems that are like ten times stronger or something! Even I would struggle to deal with those!"
"What? Theforum post I read didn''t say anything about that!" Alzeth seemed shocked for some reason.
"It''s a really small chance, like maybefivepercent! Most people don''t know that it even happens!"Pepper continued in a panic.
The golem finally emerged, plopping onto the ground.
"Why the heck didn''t you hit the golem while it was getting out?" shouted Alzeth, suddenly realising that Pepper could have whacked it in the face several times as it struggled out.
"It can kill me in one hit!" shouted Pepper back.
Battling The Elite Moss Golem (Chapter 22)
The golem who had emerged stared carefully at the four people. It held up its arm in a guarding pose, waiting for the right moment to attack. Pepper quickly chugged down a mana potion and wiped the spilt dropletsoff his lips with his hand. He needed to refill some of the mana he lost in the previous fight.
+8,000 MP
"See those armguards?"
Pepper pointed to the arms of the golem. Mei could see that there were armguards with miniature crystal shields attached to them. They weren''t covered in grey moss like the equipment Alzeth collected, however, just slightly grey.
"If you don''t distract it, it will block almost all the attacksyou throw at it!"
Pepper turned to Emerr.
"Hey, you!"
"Me?" asked Emerr.
"You''re a mage, so aggro it with a spell!"
Emerr was about to argue back, but she stopped herself in the last second. Now wasn''t the time for that. The golem who was waiting was confused why the intruders were shouting at each other, but it decided to be patient and stay in the defensive just in case the intruders were trying to bait it.
"Fine!"
Emerr grumbled as she threw a fireball at the golem''s eye.
+78+78
The golem roared in anger, charging towards Emerr as it swung its fists. Emerr quickly ran toward the side, but the golem wasn''t like the typical bull in games thatcouldn''t change the direction of it charged towards. It slowed itself by a little, then adjusted its charge to face Emerr''s new direction!
Emerr panicked and ran in a different direction. Just then, Pepper''s burning robes began to turn white from their increased intensity.
[Blessing Of Fire activated!]
He ran towards golem as his blade shone with a vibrant flame bright enough to light up the whole area, aiming for the golem''s turned back.
"Inferno Blade!"
-7,775! +2000
[Burn V activated!]
The golem was knocked to the ground. It let out a pained groan as fire engulfed it,rolling on the ground like a maniac.
-750! -750!
After a few twists, the fire went out. Mei could see that the health bar of the golem was only around 25%. She was surprised. Didn''t Pepper say that the golem wasvery hard to deal with?
"Oi Pep! Didn''t you say this thing was really tough?" shouted Alzeth. "Also, what are you doing? Kill it before it gets up!"
"I only have 2,200 mana left! Not enough to use Inferno Blade! No other attack does enough damage to break its defence!" shouted Pepper. "I need to wait for20 more seconds before I can drink another potion!"
"Ehh, it''s going to die any second anyway." shrugged Alzeth.
"That''s what you think! This thing heals stupidly fast! It heals some health and mana every time it ignores damage!"This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.
The golem finally got up as they spoke. It felt very upset. After pretending to be unable to get up, why didn''t that weird burning human try to attack it? It was about to quickly activate its defence skill and punch him in the face when he got close! But no point moping about that. It activated its defence skill anyway.
[Iron Will activated!]
A dim glow shrouded it. It charged at full speed towards the burning human! Pepper tried to quickly hop from side to side to confuse it, but the golem was too quick at correcting its direction. It finally got in range, usingPunching twice with itsattack skill, Giga Punch! Pepper had no way to dodge both of them, only one.
-20,182 HP!
Pepper quickly raised his sword and somehow managed to block the punch, but he was sent flying anyway. He crashedagainst the wall.
-34 HP
Argh... 184/20,400 HP was not a good amount. Sensingthat the durability of his sword had dropped from 95% to 40% and the cracks that covered it, Pepper felt like his heart was breaking. It wasn''t worth it todamage his best sword so much just to survive 1 hit!
The golemdecided to punch the walls with its attack skill repeatedly to recover its HP with the help of rebound damage.
+400 +400
+400 +400
+400+400
+400+400
...
Seeing that the health bar of the golem starting to go over 40%, Pepper knew they had to quickly stop it. Just as he was about to shout to the newbs to distract it, he sensed that his potion sickness had faded.
He hesitated for a moment before taking out his rare 15,000 MP potion. But he steeled himself. He was going to have to have all the mana he could have if he wanted to beat it!
+15000 MP
[Blessing Of Fire activated]
"Inferno Blade!" he yelled as he charged towards the golem just as its HP started to go over 60%
Seeing the crazy burning human charging over with the nasty attack, the golem stopped punching the wall. It felt slightly panicked but quickly calmed down. With its defence skill, that attack would do no damage to it!
Just as the sword was about to hit it, the flames on Pepper''s sword died down. The golem was confused for a moment, then realised it had been juked! In anger, it Giga Punched towards the burning man!
Pepper quickly jumped to the side, narrowly avoiding it. He immediately started to run away. The golem chased, closing in with its superior speed!
"Someone! Distract the golem!" yelled Pepper.
"Aaaaaaaah!"
Alzeth quickly charged over,swinging his bamboo pole violently as he yelled. The golem didn''t know how strong Alzeth was, so it quickly dodged the attack just to be safe and Giga Punched Alzeth.
-23940 HP
Naturally, Alzeth died instantly. The golem was shocked. So weak?
Just then, Iron Will faded. With the last seconds of his blessing, Pepper yelled as he swung his glowing sword.
"Inferno Blade!"
-7775! +2000
The golem was knocked down again. Seeing that its HP had dropped to 248, itfreaked out. Itsuddenly realised that this time, Burn did not take effect. Phew!
"Inferno Blade!"
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
[Iron Will activated!]
+1657 +1657
[Burn V activated!]
A sense ofrelief filled the Golem for reacting in time. It was prepared to kill Pepper with a Giga Punch until it realised it actually went on fire this time despite ignoring the damage. Panicked, it bent over, prepared to roll crazily to put out the fire.
"Someone do-"
A bolt of ice shot from Emmer''s staff and struck the right foot of the golem, making ittrip and fall to the ground face first, stopping it from rolling.
+26 +26
-750!
-750!
No! The golem desperately punched the ground one last time.
+400 +400
-750
-750
Life finally seeped out of its eye. The golem''s fist raised for another Giga Punch fell limply to the ground.
|
Heart Moss Golem(Lv 50)defeated!
23,750 EXP total.
21378 EXP to Green_Pepper. (90%)
1186 EXP to Emerr. (5%)
1186 EXP gained.(5%)
Player Lv13 -> Lv15
Spell Sword Lv10 -> Lv11
Race EXP: 386/700
SpellSword EXP: 686/1000
|
Back To Reality (Chapter 23)
"Tsk... this stupid thing is so hard to break! Inferno Blade!"
Pepper yelled as he smashed his sword onto the golem''s face yet again. Despite being defeated, the body of the golem remained as insanely tough.
Finally, the cracked exterior of the face gave way, crumbling away. Inside was a grey core the size of Pepper''s fist. He quickly pocketed it. Next, he undid the straps for the golem''s armguards and stashed them away as well.
"Phew! Finally done. I still can''t believe we beat that thing!" Pepper grinned widely.
Hearing that, Mei was slightly embarrassed. The whole fight, she hadn''t contributed in the slightest bit! Not because she got scared of how fast and ferocious the golem was, it was definitely because she wasn''t sure how to help... yeah...
"The golem is dead." Emerr typed into the party chat.
"no exp for me T-T. btw pep didnt u say you have trouble with those guys? dont we deserve a reward for helping u win?" Alzeth sent a message.
Pepper felt like Alzeth was so shameless and direct!The main reason they won was obviously because he sacrificed his rare MP potion.But honestly,he was thinking of giving them something to them as a form of thanks anyway. Aheart moss golem''s superior core was worth as much as twenty normal moss cores, which was enough to buya few rare potions if he sold it.
He thought a while about what he should give... aha! Didn''t he have tons of arm guards from the normal moss golems? He could give one of the lower levelled ones that didn''t get greyed to them. They didn''t sell for much in the pawnshop despite being Rare anyway... probably becausetoo many people traded them in.
"I was lucky enough to find ungreyed armguards from a golem while I was farming. Lv20, Rare. Do you want it?"typed Pepper.
"hell yeah!" replied Alzeth, unaware that he was getting ''discount goods''.
"Alright, take this and hand it to him." Pepper took out the armguards and handed them to Mei.
"Oh... thanks," said Mei sheepishly.
The one who Pepper should have passed them to was Emerr, not her! But Mei didn''t blame him, he had no way of knowing.
"Here," said Mei as she handed them to Emerr.
"Thanks," said Emerr.
"I''m sorry butI''m going to have to go to the Dwarven City to get my sword repaired. I won''t be able to help you guys out in grinding or whatever you''re here for."Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
"That''s fine. There''s nothing worse than having a rare sword accidentally broken!" Mei nodded, able to relate.
She remembered once when she forgot to check the durability of her rare weapon in a PCgame. It broke, along with her heart.
"once i respawn i''ll summon you all so no need to run all the way back" messaged Alzeth.
"That''s not from another online guide, is it?" sent Mei.
"whut! that''s just common sense!"
"I''m kidding ;P"Mei chuckled.
~~~~~
"Ooohh! These look really awesome!"
Mei, Emerr and Pepper had teleportedto Greyland town''s portal area with the help of Alzeth''s summons. Pepper said "Bye!", leftthe party andteleportedtoDwarven City.
Alzeth held the two armguards in his hands and examined them from every angle with delight. The armguards themselves were made of some sort of grey metal withsmall purple crystal shields attached. The shieldswere a bit flashy for his taste, but he thought to himself about how a quick paint job would fix that.
"Alzeth can I scan them?" asked Mei.
"Sure," said Alzeth as he passed them to her.
|
Crystal Armguards
Type:Armguards
Rarity:Rare
LVL: 20
5,000/5,000 DUR
Effects
+1000 DEF
Blocks 1000 Damage
Armguard Passives
Kinetic Absorption: The Crystal Arm Guards restore 1 MP and 1 HP for every 20 damage blocked.
|
So the whole time, the golem''s overpowered healing powers came from its passives? Mei was somewhat surprised. She handed them back to Alzeth.
"Huh, didn''t expect the healing passive to come from the armguards. That''s pretty neat!" Alzeth seemed surprised too.
He suddenly decided to check the time, something he had forgotten to do earlier during the excitement.
"It''s alreadyeleven twenty! Emerr, let''s go for lunch. Zera, you should also prepare for lunch too."
"Huh?" Mei was confused for a moment. "Oh, that''s my username!"
"Haha, it took a while for me to get used to people calling me Alzeth too! Alright, we''ll be heading off."
"Bye," said Mei as they logged off.
Mei decided to log off too. Playing solo wasn''t as fun if you asked here. And as they said, lunchtime was nearing.
Her eyes opened, seeing the ceiling of her room. Urgh, she could feel sweat covering her body. Was it because her body thought she was exercising while she played the game? Mei took a quick shower and bathroom break, then decided to watch one of the streamers she liked to watch playing the same VR game.
The area he was in was flooded with players who had teleported to his location to join him. Well, he definitely wasn''t going to have issues getting into a party.
She watched him for around 20 minutes before suddenly getting amessage from her phone.
Dad: Mei, its lunch. Bring your vr gear downstairs too
Huh? Why was her dad asking her that?
Mei: y tho
Dad: You''ll find out later ;D
That didn''t sound ominous at all. Mei had a few unpleasant thoughts flash through her mind. Was she somehow in trouble for something and her dad was going to take the VR gear away? No no, she definitely didn''t do anything wrong. No reason to worry.
Slightly nervous, she finally went down the stairs and into the kitchen holding her VR gear. What greeted her was a horrific sight.Almost every single plate on the table was filled with different vegetables! And on her plate was a rainbow assortment of vegetables of all kinds. Not even rice was on the plate!
Mei felt like running away. Sure, she was fine with eating one side of vegetables along with her meal with some nudging from her parents, but not a mountain of them!
AR Transmutation (Chapter 24)
"I can''t eat it! I''ll die!" whined Mei.
"Hahahaha!"
Her father laughed while her mom watched on sternly.
"You need eat more vegetable! You grow up become big, tall and strong!" said her mom.
"I''m not interested," grumbled Mei.
"Don''t worry, it''s not that bad. When I was considering buying the VR gear, I read up a bit. The VR gear has many more uses than just gaming! Give it to me and I''ll show you."
Mei handed the device to her father nervously. He opened one of the panelsandpressed a few buttons.
"Okay, should work now. Wear it and turn it on."
Remembering how she had hurt her head yesterday, Mei decided to sit down before she turned it on. She heard her father snicker in the background as she did so, making her slightly embarrassed.
[Welcome to AR lifestyle mode!]
"Oh," said Mei.
[Saying the words out loud is unnecessary.]
''Oh''
"Mei, try activating the food editor or whatever it''s called mode!" said her father.
"Huh? What''s that?" she asked.
[Food editor activated.]
[You can now change the appearance and flavours of the foods. Perfect for picky eaters.]
Mei felt like she was being thrown shade at.
"The system will tell you,"he answered, a bit too late.
''How do I edit the food?''
[Visualise what you''d like to eat over the food before your eyes.]
Mei closed her eyes and imagined that all the vegetables were pieces of bacon because why not.
[Closing your eyes is unnecessary.]
''Yeah, whatever.''
When she opened her eyes, the plate was covered in bacon... in vegetable shape.
''Um, why does it look like this?''
[Do you want to choke because the food is in a different shape from what you see?]
''No, but you don''t have to be so mean.''
[I am a machine. I am incapable of malice.]
Mei decided that there was no point in arguing with the system.
"Mei what you doing sitting there? You eat or not?" pestered mom.
"I was just about to eat it!"
Mei took one of the broccoli shaped ''bacon'' bits and chewed gingerly. Mmm... tastes like bacon... with the texture of broccoli... It was a very strange experience.Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.
''Why is the texture not changed?''
[Do you want to injure your teeth by biting too hard or fail to chew your food because the resistance is different?]
Mei: ...
"Waa! Mei actually eat it!"
"See? I told you it would work!" said her dad smugly. "The VR gear will chang-"
"Yeah yeah you tell me already!" interrupted her mom.
Her parents joined the table and began dining as well, her dad donning his own VR gear as he ate a plate of vegetables. Her mom had a plate of chicken rice with small amounts of vegetables on the side. Dad wanted to buy a VR gear for her too, but back then, she complained about how "game is for children" and how expensive they were.
After Mei finished the plate, she took off the VR gear. Bleh, her mouth tasted like vegetables now.
Her mom went into the kitchen and bought out a plate of chicken rice and placed it before her.
"I know I tell you not to eat a lot but vegetable low calorie! Here is your reward."
"Thanks, mom." said Mei.
She took a bite. The chicken was not salty enough.
"I told her to put less salt!" laughed dad.
Mei grumbled. So this was her dad''s plan to get her to eat healthier. She put on the VR gear and tweaked the taste to perfection before eating. As she quickly finished the last bites, she got off her chair and headed for the door of the kitchen.
"Mei! Today we go out to shopping! Stay all home all day no exercise, so unhealthy!" shouted her mom.
Mei had a look of dismay. Her father looked at her with a knowing look. Apparently, he too was planning to use the VR gear all day. Her mom must be dragging them out because she felt left out.
*Ding!*
She realised Dad had managed to send her a message despite both of his hands being occupied eating. AR convenience...
Dad: Don''t worry, later when we head out, bring the VR gear. There''s an AR game mode where you can encounter different monsters at different locations and even get EXP in the base game!
That sounded pretty good to her.
~~~~~
"Hiya!" her father shouted as he swung a non-existent sword at a non-existent enemy with a shopping bag in his other hand.
Mei was also swinging her non-existent blade at the same non-existent enemy.
[Giant Moth slain!]
[100 EXP to Number1, 100 EXP to Zera]
[20 Base Game EXP Bonus]
"Oi, we come out here for youtwo to play game is it?"Mom complained.
"You talked about exercise, didn''t you? We are exercising!" laughed Dad.
"Yeah!" cheered Mei.
She was gettingrather tired since she had to do real exercise, but she found it kind of fun too.
For the rest of the trip, Mom felt very disgruntled, until the two of them ran out of battery. She was very pleased when they could only watch random peoplekill imaginary monsters withenvy.
The family returned home hours later, the sky already dark with several shopping bags in hand. As Mei returned to her room, her mom decided to have a word with Dad.
"You better also get me that VR thing. I will see what you two think so fun!"
Dad smirked. All according to keikaku. (keikaku means plan)
~~~~~
As soon Mei logged on, she checked if she was still in the party. Yup. Emerr and Alzeth were online too. She found to her dismay that even Alzeth who didn''t get the golem EXP was now Lv16, one level higher than her. Emerr was already at Lv17.
"Hi. Sorry about joining late, my mom dragged me outside for shopping." she entered into the party chat.
"no problem. i''ll summon u in a while, fighting stuff"replied Alzeth.
Just as she was about to reply, she received a text.
Mark: Hi Mei! Join my party?
Mei found that slightly demanding of him since her other party members were still online, but she realised that Mark had no way of knowing that so she retracted that thought.
Mei: Sorry. I''m already in a party with a few friends. Maybe you can teleport here and join us? I think the Greylands area I''m in has Lv50 monsters too so you''re not too overlevelled.
Mark: Oh. I''ll ask Tom if he''s alright with joining your party.
Just then Alzeth''s invite finally came.
|
Alzeth is summoning you.
Teleport there?
|
She accepted, flashing to the location of the siblings immediately.
"Hi! We''ve been farming for a while," said Alzeth.
"Oh. By the way, do you think you can invite two more people? They''re my friends... well, one of them." asked Mei.
Alzeth seemed surprised.
"Yeah, no problem. The EXP splitting will be more extreme with more people though, so try not to gettoo many friends to join."
"They''re level fifty plus so it''s not that bad," said Mei.
Alzeth was silent for a moment.
"Mei, you know what? I don''t mind if you get more friends to join. I changed my mind."
Crashing Mounds (Chapter 25)
"Man, getting us to travel so far and waste a teleportation crystal? I hope you''ve got something good planned for us!" grumbled the skeleton.
"The crystals don''t cost that muchanyway, Tom. Only 20,000 gold each." Mark pointed out.
"Still sucks."
"Haha, don''t worry! I have planned stuff fit for pros like you guys!" laughed Alzeth.
While party leaders were able to summon their members from a long distance, it was only allowed in the same zones. Mark and Umuton had no choice but to use portal crystal. Hearing their conversation, Mei suddenly remembered that she wanted to return the crystal.
As she took it out of her inventory, Mark spotted it in her hands.
"Hmm? Why didn''t you use it, Me- I mean Zera?" asked Mark.
Alzeth seemed to have realised something.
"Well... I didn''t want to leech too much..." mumbled Mei as she handed the crystal to him.
"But- Okay, I understand."
Mark wasabout to insist on letting Mei keep it, but he realised it would make her uncomfortable if he did that.
"Anyway, what have you planned?" Umuton asked Alzeth.
"Well, I discovered a huge crawler nest a while ago. Normally I stay clear of it, but with you two, I think we can attack it safely enough," said Alzeth confidently.
He pointed in the distance, where a huge mound around 10 metres tall stood (33 ft). Mei was reminded of termite mounds, except that this one was covered in menacing lookingmetre tall bugs that resembled pillbugs with mantis limbs. She began to regret agreeing to trash the nest with Mark and Umuton''s help.
"Wait, don''t these guys have a super powerful king or something? Level 20 monsters aren''t that hard to deal with for us, but I don''t think we can handle that," asked Mark.
"The last time, Mei managed to piss it off. Then a huge gang of high levelled players came and destroyed it! Ahahaha! I have no idea how she got away without being instantly killed." Alzeth laughed.
Mark looked impressed.
"There just happened to be high levelled players nearby. I''m not skilled enough to dodge its attacks for too long..." said Mei sheepishly.
"Yeah yeah, whatever. Let''s go smash up the nest already," said Alzeth.
"Are you sure there is only one king anyway? Termites and other insects with kings have more than one, don''t they?" asked Mark.
"Termites are not insects. Also, grey crawlers aren''t termites, umu," said Umuton.This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
"Thanks for the trivia. Anyway, if there are more kings, we just run away! That easy. If Mei can do it, we can too." said Alzeth.
Mei felt like she was being thrown shade at.
"We will lose a lot of experience if we-" Mark hesitated. "You know what? Let''s just do it. Tom,use your spear throw to take it down!"
"Aye aye captain! Oh, wait you aren''t the captain anymore. It''s this guy now."
"Just throw it already!"
Finally, Umuton took out a throwing spear. As the skeleton readied his throw, Mei felt a bit uncertain. Were those spears that had problems with even fishing really going to even make a dent in the mound?
Umuton finally flung the spear. It shot through the air with astounding speed, crashing into the mount andsmashingstraight through the whole thing with a huge bang, leaving a huge hole.It thenexploded midair, a safe distance from the mound.
"Oops. Threw it too hard," grumbled Umuton.
Mei was stunned. He had been using explosive spears to spear the fish?
"Skreeeeee! Skreee! Skreee!"
Dozens of angry grey crawlers hopped down from the mound, hissing in anger.
"Get ready!" shouted Mark.
[Iron Skin activated!]
Mark''s visible skin turned the colour of shiny metal as he charged towards the crawlers.
-5234! -5245! -7821!
As they charged over, Mark easily sliced them into pieces with his blade. Mei braced herself for a whole screen of battleexp boxes, but all she got was +2 EXPprompts with each of them destroyed. Seems like the system only used those for difficult battles.
Umuton threw a few others explosive spears at the mound, this time angling the throws better. With huge booms, the mound collapsed. Hundreds of the horrifying creatures streamed out.
Even though Mark and Umuton were able to destroy the bugs in a single hit, they were unable to stop the flow of so many at once.
"Run!" shouted Alzeth as he ran.
Emerr quickly popped a pill into her mouth before running ahead of Alzeth. Mei wanted to run with them, but the stream of bugs separated them. She had no choice but to run in the opposite direction.
Mei decided to use send a party message while running.
"Summon me later when it''s safe, okay?" she sent.
"k" sent Alzeth.
Seeing how fast the bugs were, Mei had no doubts they were going to catch up at any second. Suddenly, she had an idea. What if she ran in a zig-zag? The crawlers didn''t seem to have much directional control while they rolled.
As they weren''t very smart, the bugs tried to reorientate themselves every time Mei changed her direction. She felt a sense of satisfaction from her idea working.
Soon, most of her pursuers were shaken off except for one especially determined one. Mei was also beginning to get tired, panting as she slowed. It was a good thing she had a lot more stamina in the game.
Seeing that there was only a single crawler left, Mei made up her mind. She had been relying on other people to level up for too long. This time, she would try to defeat it by herself! Seeing that the invader suddenly stopped, the crawler decided to stop as well. Ithissedat her threateningly.
''Scan!''
|
Grey Crawler
Grade: Uncommon
LVL: 20
HP: 3,000
Skill is too low levelled to excess more info.
|
Well, that wasn''t unexpected. Mei still felt disappointed, however. Shereally needed to get to training her Scan skill.
"Come at me!" she shouted at it.
The crawler suddenly shot forward at incredible speed, catching her off guard and knocking her down.She was then rolled over like a rolling pin over dough.
-971 HP!
Mei was dismayed. Her HP was down to less than half in just a single attack! Suddenly, she thought of something. She quickly got up and took out a can of chips from her inventory. She then opened her mouth wide and somehow got every single chip into her mouth. An impressive feat, even though the can only contained 20 chips. After a few crunches, she swallowed.
+1000 HP
Much better!
A Bit Late For A First Kill (Chapter 26)
The crawler snarled, staring at her as it paced cautiously.
Mei leapt forward and tried to slash at it, but it waved its scythes wildly, knocking her sword away. It hissed at her in anger, slowly backing off.
Since when did dumb beginner mobs have the power to parry? She quickly thought of an idea that could deal with it. If she could find a tree or boulder, maybe she could try to lure it into slamming them? The main problem was finding a tree or a large enough boulderhowever; they weren''t exactly common in the area.
The crawler continued to watch carefully. Mei felt like the fight wasn''t going anywhere so she decided to pick up a rock from the ground and fling it at the crawler''s face.
The rock bounced off the crawler, as the impressive damage number of 0 appeared above it. Not unexpected if she were to be honest.
"SKRREEEEE!"
The angered crawler prepared to charge at her yet again. But this time, Mei could see the obvious "warning". The moment she saw it curl up, she hopped to the side and watched as it shot past her.
The insect slowed to a halt, taking a brief moment to uncurl and turn back towards her. As she saw that, Mei had a different idea. If she attacked at the moment it stopped rolling, she might be able to avoid it parrying her!
She threw another rock at it and watched as it charged at her again. As it reached the end of its roll yet again, Mei ran over and gave it a Mana Slashes in the chinks.
-524! -524! -524!
The creature screeched in pain and rolled away. Mei had a brief moment of anxiety. Was the crawler just going to run away like that? But to her relief, it charged back in her direction again.
She attempted to run up to it again as it stopped, but she was too slow this time. Why did fighting this dumb insect have to be so tedious? Mei could not imagine how annoying it would be to fight a whole group of them.
Mei spent the next few minutes trying to bait it into the exact right positions to give it a few stabs, finallyemerging as the victor.
|
Grey Crawler(Lv 20)defeated!Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
200 EXP total.
2 EXP to Alzeth. (1%)
2EXP to Emerr. (1%)
2 EXP to Umuton. (1%)
2 EXP to Markkkk (1%)
192 EXP gained.(96 %)
Race EXP: 421/800
SpellSword EXP: 421/1200
|
As she watched it fall lifelessly to the ground, Mei felt a sense of satisfaction despite her previous annoyance.She was able to get her revenge after being constantly defeated by them! She couldn''t help but grin ear to ear.
After staring around for a bit, she decided to send a few party messages. How were they faring anyway?
Zera: Is everything fine?
Mei immediately regretted sending it, but the deed was already done. Fast Chat had sent her message instantly! What type of party message was that anyway? It was almost as if she was trying to console an upset friend!PerhapsFast Chat wasn''t as good as she thought. Shestarted to regret buying it.
Alzeth: yeah its safe on my side want to be summoned now?
Markkkk: Easy exp
Perfect.
Zera: Yeah, beam me up.
Accepting the summon invite, Mei was sent to Alzeth and Emerr''s side. They spent the rest of the night farming the crawlers. Mei managed to reach Lv17, something she was quite pleased with. She decided to dump all her stat points into MAG. She needed the mana and magic damage anyway, right?
Saying her goodbyes to her friends, Mei logged off and went to sleep.
~~~~~
"Gahhhhh! This is taking forever!"
A young-looking man in blue robesleaned against the mast of the ship.
"Stop complaining, Atty!"shouted an old man.He hadan especially long white beard andwas in fancy embroidered golden robes.
"You''re the only who decided on renting a cheaper magical ship! Who was the one bitching about the price of a ship with enchanted sails, enchanted propellers and enchanted whatever the hecks? If you want to be a stingy little sh-"
"Shutthe hell up! I''ve told you a thousand times not to call me Atty. What do you think I am, some sort child?" Atteus yelled at the old man.
"Don''t change the subject! If you got a better ship, we would have long sincereached our destination! The rooms would also be properly sized, not broom closets!"
From a distance, the other guild members were watching them squabble. Mythia was reminded of the time when she saw two monkeys fighting over a banana for some reason.
"Okay, desperate times call for desperate measures," said Atteus after arguing for a bit. He turned away from the old man and walked to the railings near the edge of the ship, looking into the turbulent waters.
"What, you''re chickening out?" sneered the old man.
Atteus ignored him. He walked back to the mast of the ship and closed his eyes, focusing on something. He reached out his arms in both directions dramatically. The deck of the ship began to rumble slightly.
The old man realised the horror that was about to transpire.
"ATTY!DON''T YOU DARE!" he shouted.
The guild members realised what was going on as well, and quickly tied themselves to the ground with binding spells. The ship rose slowly off the waters of the ocean, wobbling unsteadily in the air. It then shot forward in the air with insane speed, with screams trailing behind it as it flew.
A Strange Quest (Chapter 27)
bzzt.... bzzzzt... bzzzzzzzzztttt...
Mei woke up in shock. She quickly waved her hand randomly and shooed the unseen insectaway.
She hated them. Stupid mosquitoes. If they wanted to bite her, why did they have to fly so close to her face and wake her up in the middle of the night with all the buzzing? Just bite a leg or something!
She shrugged off her blanket, reaching for her phone woozily. 3 AM... Mei put her blanket over her head as well andtried to sleep for what felt like an hour.
...
Of course. She couldn''t sleep after that. Frustrated, she grabbed her VR head and put it on. Might as well not waste time if she couldn''t sleep, right? She was greeted by a familiar message as her surrounding faded into darkness.
Booting...
Welcome back!
Meiappeared on the streets of Greyland Town, the place where she logged off. The sky was still cloudy and dark, as usual. Streetlights glowed gently, lighting up the place, while the taverns and shops had their windows dark. She did not see a single person walking around.
Great... everything was closed. Mei sighed. Was there really nothing to do?
After taking a few moments to enjoy the cool night air, she decided to pay that pesky QuestStone a visit. She still had a slight grudge at it after it scammed her.
It was then when a realisation struck her.She completely forgot to polish it!Mei felt extremely annoyed and contemplated just ignoring the quest. But after thinking about how Alzeth forked out his gold "kindly" in order to help her, she changed her mind. It wasn''t like she hadanything else to do... right?
She walked slowly towards the town gates where the town gates were located. Despite the lifeless atmosphere of the place, she was surprised tosee a few people walking around as she neared the QuestStone. Probably people pulling all-nighters, doing quests.
She waited for her turn, then took out the polish, using her fingers to spread the polish messily all over the orb. Touching polish with her hands was probably a very bad idea, but she didn''t really care as it was a game. Afterwards, she scrubbed it all over with rags to spread the stuff all over evenly and wipe off the excess. That was good enough, right? She ignored the constant -1 numberssproutingoff her hand like smoke from a chimney, tossingthe remaining polish into her inventory.
[Polish The QuestStone]
(Lv1-100)
| Quest By |
Relative Difficulty |
Quest Progress |
Maximum Questers |
| QuestStone |
F |
0% |
1 |
Quest Complete!
Notes:Took you long enough. It wasn''t very well done either.
Rewards: 500G
|
Ignoring the QuestStone''scomment, she decided to do what she intended to do in the first place: scrolling through all the quests and seeing if there was anything interesting now that she was a higher level. Unfortunately, most of the quests either weren''t worth the effort or way too difficult. Just as she was able to give up, one quest caught her eye.
[Potion Testing]
(Lv1-100)
| Quest By |
Relative Difficulty |
Quest Progress |
Maximum Questers |
| ? |
? |
0% |
1 |
Requestor''s Note
I''m an aspiring alchemist who needs people to test my potions. I''m in a bit of a hurry right now, so I can''t just go back to my guild for proper testing.When you accept the quest, you will get a compass. The red end points towards my location so just follow it.Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.
Rewards: 15,000G
|
15,000 gold?!
| Quest accepted! Optional Quest available. |
[Delivery]
(Lv1-100)
| Quest By |
Relative Difficulty |
Quest Progress |
Maximum Questers |
| ? |
? |
0% |
1 |
Requestor''s Note
I''m the same alchemist testing the potions. Help me collect a package from the QuestStone.
Rewards: 5,000G
|
|
Mei accepted the quest. The orb glowedslightly for a moment, then spit out a compass and a wooden box with a lock built into it.She panicked, reaching out her hands to catch them from the air, only to realise the items were already floating in the air and in no danger of dropping. She felt slightly embarrassed.
Meiput the box into her inventory and took a closer look at the compass. It was simple and crude,a small disk of metal with a compass needle with one end painted red embedded on it. There wasn''t even a layer of glass to protect it or any directional markings.
The needle pointed towards a direction that was outside town. Thatwas definitely not suspicious. She took out a lantern Alzeth gave her and headed out of the gates.
As she walked in the darkness, her surrounding lit up by a dim lantern alone, she felt nervous. The eerie silence and the occasional howling wind didn''t help either. It didn''t feel half as scary when she was with her party.
After what felt like forever, she arrived before a strange little wooden hutthat was surprisingly well made. The cosy lightsshone out of the windows. Mei didn''texpectreaching thesuspiciousalchemist would make her feel so much better. She knocked on the door gently.
What followed was the sound ofsomething being knocked over followed by glass shattering.
"Gaaahh!" someone shouted.
Meiheard the sound of someone hurriedlyrushing toward the door.Shetook a step back as she heard the doorknob being turned, narrowly avoidinggetting slammed by the door.
She was greeted by a very tall figure who wore a cloak that hid his entire body. On his face was a blank white mask with only two eye holes carved out to him to see. The figure seemed to be on guard at first, then spotted her holding the compass and relaxed.
"Hello. I assume you have come to help me test my potions?" heaskedin an oddly gentle tone.
"Yeah, hi..." Mei said, slightly nervous.
Of all things, she didn''t expect someone like that! It didn''t help that he was extremely tall, towering over her. He seemed to be around 2 metres tall?
"Come on right in."
Not waiting for her to sort her thoughts out, he tookthecompass from her hands and walked into the hut, beckoning for her to follow. He walked in an odd and unstable manner as ifhewere drunk.
There was only a single room inside the hut. In the centre of the room was a wooden table with two chairs on the opposite sides. On the wall to her left, she saw a long metal table pushed right up against the wall. There was a rack filled with many vials of strange coloured liquidsand all kinds of weird equipment that somewhat reminded her of the chemistry labs in her school. But what caught her eye most was a strange metallic pad with the top glowing red hot. On the side of it was a shattered flask, with red liquid spilling all over the table.
"Don''t worry about that. I''ll clean it up later." said the man.
"Oh," said Mei.
The man sat on one side of the table. Naturally, Mei sat on the opposite side, facing him.
"I will keep things short sowe need not waste time. Firstly, did you accept the package from the stone?" the gentle tone was now gone,now slightly stern.
"Uh... yes." Mei shrunk back slightly.
She took out the box from her inventory and gingerly handed it over.
"Good. Now drink this potion."
Meiwas handed a murky greenpotion. She hesitated, smelling it first. It smelled somewhat herbal, which was not as bad as she thought it would be. Still, she didn''t really want to drink it. But seeing the alchemist impatiently tapping the table with his fingers noisily, she quickly gulped it.
It tasted slightly bitter, making her grimace.
+100,000
[Buff:Regeneration II]
Mei was surprised by the fact it worked. Maybe the alchemist was actually not as bad as she thought he would be. The man took out a notepad and scribbled down something before wordlessly handing her another potion. The concoction was black and pulsing with random red stripes. It looked really bad, but after the previous potion, she didn''t think the man could be that bad at making potions. She quickly chugged it without looking.
It tasted like she was drinking very angry liquid fire.
-20,000 HP
[Buff: Rage IV]
| YOU DIED
Respawn timer: 4 mins 49 seconds |
Naarlos Plight (Chapter 28)
As the girl toppled on the table facefirst, the alchemistwas shocked. Whoin the world dared to test random potions with such a low amount of health? Briefly, he considered whether he should try his standby revival potion on her quickly to minimise the chance of her soul dissipating or to jot downnotes.
He wrote down his notes on the rage potion, pleased by the fact that it did in fact work as intended, minus the unexpected death. He hastily shoved his chair aside and took out a bubbling golden potion and stared at the "corpse". Reluctance filled his heart. He had spent so much effort to gather rare herbs and materials to make it. But in the end, it would be worse if he found out later on that the potion did not in fact work. It was best to gather results.
His hands trembling, he removed the cork from the bottle and gently poured it all over her head.
~~~~~
Mei stared at the ads on the walls of the "Sponsor Room", bored and slightly grumpy. Now that the alchemist took the compass away, how was she going to find him again? Even if she knew the right direction, she really didn''t want to walk all the way back in the creepy darkness...
|
Naarlos isattemptingto revive you.
Accept?
|
Naarlos? That was a somewhat odd name.
Excited, she reached out her index finger to tap the table. It was then when she realised her mistake. Because of the angle that she was moving her hand towards and her overly fast speed, her other fingers accidentally hit "No"! Why did she have to use her finger to tap? She could have just accepted it mentally as the system was designed to register that too!
Shegrumbled and laid on the surprisingly comfy and cooling floor of the the room,ignoring the ads by closing her eyes. She decided to just claim the reward for the box andjust log off and go back to sleep once the respawn timer wasover with.
~~~~~
Naarlos smirked trimphantly under his mask as he watched the corpse start to glow with a vague golden hue. From his alchemy books, that was the clear sign of a revival potion working. His heart still ached but he was filled with pride at the same time. As expected of him, a (self-proclaimed) alchemy genius!Which other alchemist could brag that they managed to make a revival potion on their first try, a potion notorious for itsdifficulty?
He laughedheartily to himself, preparing to say an appology to the girl once she revived.
"Okay, I''m-"
The girl crumbled into light particles and faded away.
Poor Naarlos''s confidence was shattered. What type of alchemist accidentally makes a body disolving potion while trying to make a revival potion? He slumped down on his chair, feeling slightly guilty.If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.
~~~~~
Gently humming a tune to cheer herself up, Mei headed towards the QuestStone. She was still a littleupset that she wasn''t going to get the potion testing money, but at least she would get the sum for delivering the box. She waited shortly for her turn before activating the stone.
|
2 Quests completed!
Potion Testing
Delivery
Rewards: 20,000 gold
|
Instantly, she was filled with delight. She didn''t expect the QuestStone to be generous enough to give her the reward for the testing despite dying halfway. Her impression of the stone greatly improved. She navigated the menu and selected the option to log out.
As shewent back to realityin a good mood, she felt an itch on her face. Realisation set in as she reached out her hands to touch the swollen bumps on her cheeks and nose. That mosquito took advantage of her vulnurable state!
That was the last straw. Whether it was the same mosquito that woke her up or not, she didn''t care. She would find it and smack it to death!The angry girl turned on the lights, wincing as the sudden light assaulted her eyes.
The mosquito was nowhere in sight. Shesearched all overher room. Under her bed, behind her curtains, inher closet, under her table and chairs, behind the textbooks and other random objects on her table. It was nowhere to be found. Defeated,Meiwent to bed with the blanket covering her whole body.
It felt likemere moments before the sun decided to shine through her uncurtained windows. Mei woke up, still half asleep. She forgot to close the curtains again after searching for the pest, so now she had to pay the price.
She reached for her cabinet, grabbing her phone and checking the time. It was7:48AM. She headed out of her room, into the bathroom to do her business, then headed for the kitchen to grab something for breakfast. Hopefully before her daddecided to attack her witha mountain of vegetables again.
Her parents weren''t in the kitchen, a good sign that they were still sleeping. So she took out fourslices of bread and applied peanut butter and jam to all of them, then added cold ham and cheese from the fridge between all the layers. Afterwards, she took out a glass mug and poured out a big cup of fruit juice for herself.
While she ate and drank, she wasvaguelyamused by the thought thatpeoplewould probably be internally screaming at the culinary abomination she had just made. Satisfied from the sandwich, shewent back to her room and donned her VR gear again.
The moment she logged into the game, she checked if her friends were online. Alzeth and Mark were already online. She decided to send a message into the party chat.
Zera: Hi
Alzeth: sup
Markkkk: Hello
Mei: Where are you guys? I''mnear the QuestStone.
Alzeth: grindingcrawlersez xp
Mei didn''t really feel like dealing with the crawlers again after a full night of fighting them. She wasn''t the type of person who was patient enough to grind constantly.
MeI: Arewe gonna spend theday grinding away again? I''m a bit tired of that tbh.
Alzeth: maybe
Mark: Haha, I guess it can get boring.
Alzeth: maybe
Mark: Oh yeah, you still don''t have a proper sword and storage bag, do you? Why don''t we go back to the Sealand Port to take a look?
Mei liked the sound of that.
Mei: Okay, sounds good.
Alzeth: there better be stuff to fight there too lol
Mark: There are a lot of monsters near the beach worth a lot of EXP so we can still grind there for a change of pace
Alzeth: yay
Mei wasn''t sure if she liked the sound of that.