It was the next day and I was back at the bar wasting my day away when someone suddenly called out to me from behind.
"NPC69 I've completed my quest."
I turned around and discovered it was the noob hero from the day before.
"Oh? Did you get help from that witch behind you?"
"She's not a witch, she's a very kind woman who offered assistance with the outrageous quest you gave me."
"Haha. Kind woman."
"Is there something wrong with what I said?"
"Not really." She only came to PK you at the start is all. If not for me ticking her off and making her desire to kill me outweigh her desire to kill you, you'd have found yourself with a blade through your back before you even realized it. She's the sort of kind woman who says she'll bury you beside my grave the instant you trigger the main storyline and drag my ass out of the beginner village.
"Here's your reward, DH1M."
I took out my coin pouch and tossed him a single gold coin.
"Get yourself some decent beginner gear I guess."
"All I get is a gold coin?"
"You should be overjoyed that I'm being this generous. I could just give you a bronze coin if you wanted that instead. If you're so dissatisfied with your reward, give it back."
"Ugh. No… that's fine. I'll take what I can get."
Naturally, the top ranker behind him was shooting daggers my way with her glare.
"With this, is the tutorial in the beginner village over?"
"Of course not. You've still got things to do."
"Your next quest is to go gather one thousand- no, make that ten thousand goblin ears. There's a cave near the village where they spawn." Even if they get one-shotted by that top ranker that should hopefully keep them a bit busy for a while.
"What the hell kind of quest is this? I've never heard of a beginner quest this unreasonable before."
"Yeah, well, that's a you problem. You don't like it, then just go reroll for an easier storyline."
The DH ground his teeth together but still accepted the quest.
"I'll do it, but what will the reward be for this quest?"
"Hmm… the reward? How about a new skill or something?"
"What sort of skill?"
"Here's a list of skills along with the instructors that can teach it in the village. If you pass, I can get one of them to teach you your skill of choice."
When a semi-transparent window appeared in front of the hero, he skimmed through the list of all the learnable skills displayed.
His eyes lit up when he found one he liked. Seemingly extremely satisfied with the reward for the quest, he grabbed that woman's hand and ran off excitedly without another word.
I didn't know what sort of skill he would pick, I was just relieved the two nuisances to my peaceful leisure time were both gone.
"Another beer."
"Coming right up."
Five days later.
I noticed there was a sudden influx of heroes who'd joined this world. Some of them apparently went after the hero to kill him so they could take over the rights to the main storyline for this world, but they all either died or returned as pitiful defeated dogs. They just barely escaped with their lives. Among the complaints I overheard from wasted heroes at the bar, that top ranker had taken care of them effortlessly.
Some of them even partied up with the little DH when they realized they weren't that top ranker's match. Haaaaah. I guess even after all these years this is what happens when word spreads that a noob rolls a rare storyline and enables the MMO option on the world. Everyone dog piles them to try and claim it for themselves. In the early days, it was more common as everyone was still new, but after a while, I only got heroes that had a lot of experience and already held a considerable level of strength.
If they did enable the MMO option on the world, that would only be because they were extremely strong and nobody dared pick a fight with them. They would also have very strong party members prepared long in advance. Sometimes they even had large guilds backing them up should someone try any funny business.
The DH I had before this one was a very high-level solo top ranker though. They opted to only play single player and use NPCs for party members which made things much less complicated for me.
"NPC69… I'm finally back."
"Haha, you look pretty exhausted."
"Shut up. I can't even count the number of people that have tried to kill me in the last five days."
"Well, that's what you get for being a noob and enabling the MMO option when you get a rare roll for your storyline."
"What else am I supposed to do? There's no way I could finish these unreasonable quests by myself in a short amount of time."
"That's why rerolling exists you DH."
"I never give up once I start something."
"Yeah, yeah, whatever you say. It looks like your party has really expanded though."
"When they realized they weren't able to deal with me because of White, she suggested we recruit them into our party to speed up the quest and also deter other PKers from getting in our way."
My eyes narrowed as I scrutinized the two new faces in the group. "Well, that is the smart thing to do… but… they're all women?" And all three are top rankers? Fifteenth and seventeenth on the national leaderboards.
The DH got close and whispered, "Now about that skill for the reward. I want the Charm skill that you're able to teach."
I'm seriously going to murder someone. Why do men always want this damn cursed skill?
"Pick something else."
"What? But you said I could pick any skill that I wanted from that list. I want that one. I won't settle for anything less."
"How about I let you pick two skills if you pick something else?"
"No way, I want that skill."
My face immediately warped into that of a wrinkly old man's. You've got to be shitting me. Out of all the skills he could possibly learn, he went and chose this one?
"Hey, obnoxious ugly chick with the white hair, get your ass over here for a sec."
"Ugly! Ugly! You really just called me ugly!" She ground her teeth together as veins bulged out from her forehead.
"Just shut up and look deep into my eyes. Charm." I activated the skill and my eyes glowed red for a second. Unfortunately, two fingers shot out toward me and poked me in the eyes.
"Ow ow ow ow ow! It hurts! It freaking hurts! What the hell is this? I broke my nails?"
Yes, the one crying out in pain rolling on the floor wasn't me. It was the woman the DH referred to by the username, White. Miss top ranker who wants to kill me. Thankfully we were inside the beginner village and heroes wouldn't lose HP here unless certain conditions were met. If it wasn't thanks to that she would have just had her character wiped.
"What the hell are your eyes made out of?"
"Uh, they're actually fake eyes made out of titanium." They're really not, but it's not like I can tell them my defensive stats are all infinity, right?
"Bullshit! I don't buy it!"
"Now, now, let's just forget about that for now. It seems like the skill wasn't effective, but you should still see a window now to learn it, right?" I glossed over it like it wasn't a big deal and redirected the conversation back to the skill.
"Huh. Yeah, I do."
"Good. Now that you've learned it, here's your next quest, so get lost."
"Let's see… kill one hundred thousand wyverns! What the shit is this! Are you messing with me? How did the numbers go up so much! And the difficulty of the enemy is just unreasonable! Where is the balance here?"
"If you don't like it, go file a complaint with the devs or something, it's not my problem."
The hero was already level 41 after all the low-level mobs he'd killed with the assistance of these high-level top rankers.
"And this is still the tutorial in the beginner village? How can this even be called fair?"
"The world ain't fair kid. Deal with it or give up."
"No... I won't give up after coming this far. I'll... do it…"
"Oh, as for your reward this time… well, how about a legendary sword of your choice or something?"
I've got a ton of those useless things sitting in garbage bags at my place after all the heroes I've killed. Though I can't really do much with them aside from offering them as quest rewards.
"A legendary sword for a quest to kill a few mobs! What kind of unbalanced beginner village is this?" White sneered to herself.
"Huh… uh…" I suddenly realized I got a bit ahead of myself. "Well… that is… I call them legendary swords, but they're actually not that great."
"Hmmp! Of course they aren't. An unlikeable low-level guide NPC in a beginner village like this who's hit rock bottom drinking his days away in a bar day after day probably thinks a common stone sword is a legendary sword. How pathetic."
"Right…"
I seriously forgot legendary swords were a big deal to heroes because of how desensitized I was to them. Whenever I saw them lately, I just thought of them as over-glorified coat hangers. They were like a dime a dozen.
"Anyway, hurry up and get lost. You got your skill and your next quest as you requested, so scram."
The hero party took their leave while shooting nasty looks at me on their way out.