All Chapters of Return to Level 0: Chapter 41 - Chapter 50
59 chapters
Chapter 41 Observe Closely
“Fighters! Are you ready!” As one of the training hall’s faculty looked across the large eastern style-like dojo room, the man in the training grounds work uniform, straightened his tie and looked to see Flama unsheathing her twin swords out with a wide and terrifying smile on her lips. This shook the man to his core and he wished that he didn’t have to do this. He knew that Flama was Queen Flamewrath of the Kingdom of Primeria, and while he felt honored to be the referee of one of her upcoming fights, he could not help but feel as if he was about to witness a slaughter. Tales of her fierce fighting style were in circulation before her time as Queen, when she was just an up and coming adventurer in this neck of the continent. Looking at her opponent, the referee could only pity Luck who seemed to be completely unarmed and unarmored. Yet even still, Luck was cracking his neck and knuckles as if he were ready to brawl himself. The referee knew that these two people were not ordin
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Chapter 42 Hot Match
As their sparring match continued, Luck and Flama were tempering their skills and learned how each other moved and fought. While they both learned about each other with unmalicious intentions in their hearts, the thought of one day becoming enemies did cross their minds for a few short moments. Nevertheless, they continued to spar with each other, hoping that that day would not come. Match after match, they pushed themselves to become stronger and better than they once were. Both knew that their goal ahead, to destroy the orc encampment, was going to be a long and difficult battle. While Flama wanted to bring her people in on the matter due to the disparity in numbers, Luck had forbidden her in doing that. Luck had no right to deny Flama from going through with her decision, but since she had given authority over the land around Luck’s new base, she had to be accommodating to his demands. She could always easily take it back by force, but felt that she would still be on the losing
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Chapter 43 Hot’n Soft Springs
Seeing Carol at the head of the group of NPCs, suddenly asking if they could join Flama and Luck in the hot spring perplexed them both. To Flama, this kind of forward behavior from an NPC was strange to her. The NPCs she recruited or hired always seemed subservient and showed no sign of asking out of ordinary questions. Their questions were usually about how they could help the player or how the player could help them, which sometimes led to a quest being generated. It was a very game-like conversation, but sometimes, you had a unique scenario, nevertheless Flama saw Carol as just that, an NPC. Flama was about to deny them the chance since she saw it as not necessary to give non-sentient beings that luxury. “Go ahead.” Luck said, subverting Flama’s expectation. “Are you sure about this Luck? Shouldn’t we keep our discussions private?” Flama knew that Luck was likely going to speak about their future plans before logging off, but seeing him wave his hand as if not minding the NPC
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Chapter 44 Double X Discussion
As Luck, Flama, Carol, and the other training hall staff NPCs were spending time in the hot spring together, they all took a moment to relax from a long day of work. Luck and Flama particularly had all the reason to rest due to how hard they had been beating the crap out of each other. For the NPCs on the other hand, it could normally be argued that they didn’t have the need for it. But due to the game's realism, NPCs lived and breathed, meaning that they eventually got tired and their performance and overall mood dropped, like a regular person in real life. From the normal perspective of players, like Flama, people saw them as non sentient humans who were just a part of the game, but Luck knew better. With each [Age of Expansion], NPCs seemed to undergo a change in persona and level of complexity to their behavioral patterns. Currently, NPCs were subservient to the players and some were leaders in their own right. Later expansions had them become stronger, and special individual
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Chapter 45 Mithril Equipped
After agreeing to Luck’s offer of a job as his assistant, Carol, Flama, and Luck conversed a bit more about their plan going forward. Hearing about the orc encampment, Carol was concerned with their strategy of only fighting with the people in their party. “Only 4 people? How do you expect to fight an orc encampment that’s over 100 strong? I would think you would at least recruit the kingdom’s army?” While Carol seemed like she knew little of combat, even an amatuer would understand that the odds were stacked against Luck’s part. She was concerned and while she herself thought that Orc’s were of only slight difficulty for herself, this was only if she used all her hidden skills and Carol was not willing to break her cover until she had gotten a better grasp on Luck. Confirming that he likely didn’t know about her secret yet, Carol felt both a mix of assuredness and skepticism. While she had found him interesting and a lucky catch for a quick connection to this continent, Carol knew
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Chapter 46 Moving Up
As Luck and Flama finally finished their conversation about the mithril ore and its hypothetical uses, they logged off due to how they needed to uphold the deal concerning the gaming pod Flama wanted to deliver to Luck. This sophisticated equipment would need its own dedicated place to be used in and Luck’s room would no longer be of suitable standards. It wasn’t just some gaming device that people could plug into the wall and a TV, no, it was much more complex and technical. Keeping that in mind, Luck got on a call with Flama over the phone. “Hello? This Luck?” “Yeah, it's Luck. I must say, you sound like your character in the game. It's strange that you didn’t change it with cash items,” “Same to you, I thought you'd try to use one of those cheap voice changers to make yourself more mysterious.” It had indeed crossed Luck’s mind, but that felt as if he would be distancing himself from people, which was a notion he was trying to shake off. “Anyway.” Flama’s sigh came over the c
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Chapter 47 Masters and Master?
“Please! I’ll find the money! I’ll take out a loan, but please! Treat my sister so that she can at least have a chance!” On his hands and knees, Luck begged. The sight of him was pathetic, a grown man looking seemingly a good few years older past his prime and his expression haggard like a beggar. His clothes were somewhat tattered and dirty from all the manual work he had been through, but there were a number of other health concerns that were visible to see. His eyes were sunken in, his lips cracked, and his eyes a yellow hue, all signs of a lack of proper nutrition or care for oneself. The reason was obvious to the neatly dressed doctor who sat above the graveling excuse of a man. Getting himself comfortable in his expensive ornate glass desk, which was currently his bigger concern, monitors on the walls and laid across his desk showed the number of patients he was working with simultaneously. With humanities technology, real time monitoring of patients from the comfort of a d
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Chapter 48 Life of the Middle Class
Upon arriving at their new house, Luck and Chancy couldn’t help but gasp when they saw where they’d be living from now on. For all their life, they had been living in the lower district which was usually packed with small houses stacked on top of each other to make use of as much space as possible to accommodate as many people to a minimal amount of code of comfort. Luck’s family had at least a house that had 3 rooms but they were small and were less than half the size of a studio. The living room was the only part of the house that had enough room for all three of them to comfortably walk around in, but the bath was incredibly tiny and they had to squeeze in as pairs to make sure they didn’t run up the water or electric bill. But when they entered the high rise through the automatic sliding doors, Luck could already see the difference between being a lower class citizen to a middle class citizen. The room they entered was like just a lobby area, it had staff moving to and fro, hel
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Chapter 49 Gaming Pods
The next morning, after Luck and his family had settled into their new home, Luck departed.“Have a good son, be sure to do your best.” “Yeah! And forget that you promised to take me to the hospital’s roof, Alright?!” While his father gave him words of encouragement, his sister seemed more inclined about the benefits Luck had. “Now don’t bother your brother, he’s got work to do. But when he thinks you can, I’m sure he’ll let you. Now come on, it's time for school.” “Ouch.” Chancy yelped as her mother pinched her ear and followed her out. “Okay Mom.” “Heh, I’ll be back in a few days, take care everyone.” Luck took his leave and while he knew he wouldn’t be seeing them for a while, he knew they’d be fine. He had his assurances. His parents would of course continue their own work in the lower district, but word would soon spread that they were elevated to middle class citizens. This meant his parents would be given the opportunity to advance their careers, the main reason they cou
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Chapter 50 New Adventure and Party
Making his way out of his private room in the training hall, Luck found Carol and Flama doing some light sparring. Carol struck out with a short dagger, aiming for Flama’s blind spot while Flama rolled out of the way. Luck wondered how Flama was able to react in time to dodge that attack from her blind spot. For a second, Luck thought Carol had this match in the bag but soon found Flama letting loose a flurry of slashes. “Eat this, [Scarlet Slasher]!” Swinging each of her twin blades, Flama created a web of red slashes that continued to pelt Carol. The slashes left no permanent damage due to how this was a training area, but from Luck’s knowledge, [Scarlet Slasher] was a unique weapon skill for twin blade users which allowed them to produce a knockback effect. And just as he recalled that, Carol was sent flying backwards and out of the ring. For a moment, Carol thought about going for another round with Flama but seeing that Luck had arrived, her ears peaked up. “Good morning! M
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