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[From here on, descriptions of maimed body parts and mention of suicide follows. Who cannot handle descriptions of mutilation and suicide, please skip this part.]
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Since AI tools improved a lot, once could decide to use an artificial voice in game or only use their real voice in special cases.
If one didn't especially choose to use their real voice, an artificial voice based on the character one played would be used instead. This voice could be changed accordingly to their preferences, but I had skipped over all settings. If I wanted, I could change them but since I didn't talk that often before as this character, it didn't even bother me. And since my own voice definitely wouldn't fit my rugged appearance, I kept it as a slightly deep, manly voice.
And since now it would be better if the other player couldn't notice a hint of my emotions in my voice. It was the perfect act. In times like this, I was thankful for this invaluable feature of the game offering utmost privacy to its players. This helped me a lot in deceiving the poor fellow and swindling him out of his prized item. I couldn't even imagine what he had to pay for a weapon like the glaive. Since he was beside me, I couldn't just inspect it, but the craftsmanship told me all I needed about a possible price.
Although the guy seemed to be a hopeless pervert, I didn't want to make him my enemy. Players like him loved to troll and avenge themselves if they suffered a minor loss or considered something as an unjust act. Quite troublesome fellows, if you ask me.
But as long as he couldn't and wouldn't find fault with me, I would entertain him for a bit of hunting. At least for a day or two. It wouldn't hurt, right?
I shouldn't have jinxed this adventure at its beginning. The journey went quite well with a few rabbits which were either sliced by my sword or bashed into a gruesome mess by my shield. But then, as the other player, Firion, followed me into the salamander territory, I got a taste of his vengefulness. Or at least a mixture of clumsy gameplay and an absolutely bonkers elf, running around and hindering me in my fight.
After the first battle against a single salamander almost killed me, I grabbed the elven player which HP was down to a fourth and dragged him out of the salamander territory.
"Pop a health potion!" I grunted as he just slumped himself to the ground. I expected at least an impressive amount of damage with those two shortswords, but he only almost hacked me in half when he attacked the salamander's head instead of aiming for the eyes. Ignoring the fact, that I literally told him ten minutes ago to attack their eyes as they were some of their weak points, he messed up even more: As I had pushed him out of the way (face-first into a muddy pit) he returned by blindly swinging his sword at both me and the salamander. In this motion, he sliced a few fingers from one of my hands along with shattering my [Light shield]. It had about 20 durability left!
So, instead of a smooth hunt, a single salamander turned into a nightmare just because of this pig teammate. Now I slowly was thinking I could understand the players better who kicked me out of their group because my skills were "Worse than a kill-stealing leech.". At least I never was such a klutz. Looking back, I hoped I was none.
Anyways, I was about to just return home and yell my frustrations into my pillow, as I thought of a devious scheme. From the way the elf swung his swords with deadly precision at me while acting out a whole K-Drama, I would be able to do the same. Although only splinters of my shield remained, my other weapons were still in a good condition. Equipping the poisoned dagger as well, I prepared myself for the right moment.
The mud-stained elf gave me a stinky eye while he gulped down a health potion. The green bar was filling itself up again. I only wanted to watch him drowning his potion, but thought of a scheme to rattle the annoying bastard:
Smiling, I approached the fellow and said with an aimable voice: "Since you don't need the full potion, why don't you hand me the rest of it as compensation for relieving me off a few fingers?" I said wriggling the hand with the missing limbs and trying not to let my aggression contaminate my tone of voice.
Firion paused, lowering the bottle from his lips and looked at me dumbstruck. I just moved my injured hand again while snatching the bottle from his hand with another. Surprised by my action and turning to the bottle,already getting out of his reach, he didn't notice how I pointed the dagger at him in the first moment. As he did notice the dagger, he wanted to move back but stumbled down. He didn't see my sneaky tail coming!
Well, it sounds wrong somehow.
Shrugging mentally, I lowered myself onto eye level while returning the dagger to the inventory.
"Listen, elf, if you have suicidal tendencies, please die alone, but don't drag me down with your bullshit. If you want to stay my teammate, refrain from aiming your weapon, even in an accident at me. In case you are unable to follow my instruction, you can also walk in the opposite direction right now and try to fight salamanders alone." I paused, gauging his reaction.
His mouth was gaping and moving like one of a fish on dry land. Not a single sound was leaving it.
"You don't need to try to argue with me. Either you follow me today and we kill a few salamanders or I'll be on my way to slaughter them alone after kicking you from my party. Your answer?"
"I'll try my best." I frowned and closed in, my face barely a few centimeters apart from his.
"You won't try. Do or die, ever heard of it? If I would be harmed indirectly or directly due to your antics again, I'll swear to hunt you just to increase your death count to one million. So choose wisely!"
Moments later, we were on the way to battle salamanders. Once again. And I still believed myself to be in grave danger.