IX

Chapter 9

It’s been a couple nearly eight hours (in-game) since I left the city to go hunting in the woods. I have levelled up quite a bit. At least that’s what I’d like to say. There are no monsters worth good experience points. I haven’t seen any higher than level 16. At this rate it’ll take a lot of time to level up. Just one more level to change tiers. Sigh.

I pause by a stream and drink from it with my hands. My real body probably feels thirsty too.  I stare up at the moon in the sky as I eat some food. I bought a ‘Meal Ticket’ worth 1 U coin. Did I have a U coin? No. I bought it on credit, but I’ll pay the system back with three U coins.

What is a meal ticket? A meal ticket is like a debit card for the food store in the game. You could also buy directly but 1 U coin worth of food is quite much and if you don’t have the space to store them in your inventory, what a waste. With the Meal Ticket, it will continue to give you food in small quantities until it’s maxed out. Since there’s no such thing as 0.5 U coin, this is the best way to buy food.

[The game treats U coins like physical coins. If someone offered you half of a one cent coin that was broken off with a saw, and said it is half so it is worth 0.5 cent, would you accept?]

“Ah!”

“Wake up! Beast attack!”

“Juliet! Marcus! Guys!”

I was lost in thought, but I am brought back to reality by the distressed calls nearby. I head over in the direction of the sound quickly but stealthily to see what’s going on.

[Silver Fanged Cobra (LV 15)]

A blue 7-foot-long snake with large silver fangs that can be seen whenever it opens its mouth and attempts to bite its prey. This is what is attacking the players who decided to rest here. There are 4 players.

I wouldn’t want to steal their experience points (a level 15 prey is not even useful to me at the moment), but they seem to be struggling. Oh. Yeah, that’s right. Others spawned in or near cities, so they haven’t found as much prey as I did when going from the floating castle to the city.

“I don’t have to show myself.” I say in a low calm voice as I pull out my Scythe in combination with SOTD skill and decapitate the cobra.

“Juliet! Are you ok?!” A boy with short blue hair with bangs and golden-brown eyes hurried over to a girl lying on the floor. The cobra attacked her first and she must have lost substantial HP.

“I’m fine Allen. I didn’t die so I’ll just wait for my HP to recover.” The only female and non-human of the four. She appears to be a female orc. She has green skin and long ears. Her build is like that of an average size, but she looks fit with signs of abs appearing on her abdomen (stomach). She appears to be about 5’5 with long black hair and hazel eyes. If her skin looked like a human’s, she would be mistaken for a beautiful elf. Her chest is wrapped in grey cloth leaving her abdomen, arms and shoulders exposed. She’d wearing a skirt made of brown leather and is barefooted. If she weren’t injured and resting on the ground to regenerate HP, she would look like a beautiful orc warrior princess.

“That’s good.” The guy in blonde hair that was shouting earlier to wake them up pats Juliet’s head. He is dressed in silver armor that doesn’t look magnificent and doesn’t have a helmet, but he has a 1.8-metre-long spear. He appears to be about 6 foot tall with an above average build. I can’t tell if it’s muscle or fat he has under there. “But we probably shouldn’t stay here long though. That scuffle with the beast must have attracted other beasts or some vermin.”

“Ah. Ok. When I recover 30 percent, we’ll go.” She replies with a slight smile.

“Guys. Did any of you see who or what killed this thing?” Asks a guy dressed in a red magician’s robe with green hair and blue eyes. He appears to be about 5’7.

“I thought it was you who killed it, Marcus.” The fourth member of their party replies the green-haired mage. He has black hair and eyes and is dressed in a grey suit and red sneakers. That’s pretty out-of-place amongst the rest of the part’s avatar’s designs. I wonder what his job is.

As for me, I’m still dressed in casual clothes. Yes, a black shirt, jean pants and a pair of black leather boots.

“No. My level may be one higher than the rest of you, but the beast was still two levels higher than myself. My wind blades could barely harm it much less cut off its head so cleanly.” Marcus the green-haired mage replies.

[Wind blades are not a weapon. It is magic that turns air into blades and can be thrown rapidly. They are quite fast and have high penetrating power (for the user’s level)]

A party of 4 with a pretty female orc warrior, a blonde spear knight, a green-haired mage, and a brunette in a grey suit. What a bunch. I have always been a solo player in RPGs.

The team seems to be on alert after seeing what Marcus is talking about and are on alert scanning their surroundings. Too bad their levels are quite low so their sensory bubble isn’t as big as mine or they would have spotted me. Anyhow, they look like they’ll be fine, but I’ll just wait till they leave when the orc recovers while I listen in on their conversations from a treetop.

[Sensory bubble (LV10→19) = 11.5 metres→20.5 metres] +1 metre per player increase in level.

 When they are done, they finally leave, and I return to my own camp where my dinner has been stolen and a group of three guys are seated together around the fire I made. After some observation and listening in from a distance, I gather that they hunt other player down for weapons and other in-game loot. The game just started not long ago but vermin have appeared. These guys are like a virus that no RPG game is immune to and an RPG that prevents players from killing one another is deemed less realistic. Plus, what if a player has done bad things such as luring and deceiving others and the rest of the community want to punish them by death? Ah. What am I saying, go report it to the admin or game developers. Who has the strength to do that when it can just be solved in-game? What am I blabbing on about? Back to reality.

I doubt there would be many players more powerful than the current me, but you never know how fate works. I activate the usual SOTD-Scythe combo and start an ambush while hiding in a distance.

“…” The players died after a few slashes. Not much resistance at all. “I guess I was worried for nothing.”

I come back to camp but there’s nothing left of my food. Sigh. I guess a lot of people are passing through here to go hunting and level up. I want to go deeper but my avatar is tired. I head a little further into the woods before laying down to sleep,

*** *** ***

As I open my eyes and am greeted by the sun shining above me, I stretch and get up to resume my journey. Doesn’t look like anyone passed through where I was. At least the only footsteps around are mine.

I continue my hunting for the whole day but still couldn’t find any monsters with a level higher than mine, but I managed to level up.

“Status.”

LEVEL: 19→20

FORM 2: HUMAN-LOOKING

HEIGHT: 5’9

HAIR COLOR: RED

HAIR STYLE: LONG

EYE COLOR: BLUE

BODY TYPE: RECTANGULAR

UTOPIA COINS : 0

[STATS]

STRENGHT : 23→24

AGILITY : 28→29

STAMINA: 26/26→27/27

DEXTERITY: 38→39

DURABILITY: 22→23

INT: 28→29

IQ: 128 [STATS CANNOT BE ASSIGNED TO THIS]

HP: 100/100→105/105 

MP: 95/95→100/100

SKILL POINTS: 5→6

UTOPIA COINS: 0

“Close.” I close my status window as I hear a thud.

Was someone following me, and I didn’t know? I just finished a fight and spent a little HP since my opponent was the same level as myself (a hard find). If he managed to conceal himself, it’s likely he’s a formidable foe.