"I would like to buy those 3 skills," said Ikky when he arrived in front of the seller.
"A-Alright, w-wait a second dear customer," answered the seller with a shaking voice.
'What's going on with this guy? His actions are 360°compare to a few minutes ago.' Ikky was watching the seller who was on the edge of crying.
"T-That will be a total of 1 gold 20 silver."
When the seller saw the young man in front of him reaching into his pocket, he held his breath. Once he saw the shining yellow coin on the desk he couldn't help but let his breath out.
'Finally, my family...finally' he thought, and then he burst into tears.
Ikky was stunned. 'What is going on?! Why is he crying?'
"Thank you, customer, Thank you." man behind the desk continued with his thanks for several more seconds before he finally calmed down.
"Now that you have calmed down, could you please explain what just happened?" asked Ikky with concerns and full of questions.
"This.." the seller was unwilling to answer at first, but he couldn't resist at least explaining some details to his savior.
"The truth is.." and so he started to explain.
***
"Where have you been?! What a waste of experience!" complained Josh when Ikky finally left the shop.
"Yes, yes, the experience," answered Ikky while shaking his head.
"Did you buy what you were looking for? Fast show me." insisted Josh.
"To tell you truth, the previous unique quest I mentioned on phone, didn't only give me a lot of levels, it also gave me a lot of money," Ikky explained to Josh since it was inevitable to hide several different skills when they were about to level together.
When Josh heard the whole story, he couldn't believe his ears.
"And here I thought how extremely lucky I was dropping that rare material and selling it for a few silvers..," now it was time for Josh to shake his head.
"So where do we go now? Do you have any quests, since I do not have any." Josh continued.
Ikky got a flashback in his mind about the seller from a skill book shop and his explanation of his problems. The truth was that the price of those skill books was actually lowered to a minimum due to certain reasons, if other players would learn what was the actual price of the skills, they would go insane. And so Ikky decided on their next destination.
"Actually, yea.. but let me first go and buy a few tens of arrows," said Ikky.
***
Ikky and Josh were walking together through the forest. The Party feature was quite promising as both of them even received a 2% experience boost while staying at a party with people on the friend list.
Josh was a bit skeptical and afraid that they would die when he heard that they are going deep into the forest, looking for the mobs on levels around 7-10 or higher. Especially from the time, he learned that his friend was using a Bow since he didn't see anybody using the Bow yet, he didn't know if the weapon is strong or weak.
However, when he first saw his friend one-shooting a wolf he couldn't believe his eyes. Then his jaw dropped when his friend used his skill and another 3 wolves died instantly. That was 10 minutes ago.
"You should close your mouth or incest will fly inside." laughed Ikky when he saw his friend's jaw still fully open from the shock.
"Aren't you a bit broken? Are you sure you are not going to get banned by a Game master?" asked Josh with concern.
Ikky shook his head and told him that the bow is a very rare rank and it dropped from a very strong rare enemy.
"Rare enemy heh? I wish to meet one too," hoped Josh then he continued.
"So we are going to kill a bunch of bandits that kidnapped the seller's family and are keeping them to blackmail him regularly for all of his money?" he asked.
"Yes, the quest is not quite clear, but we should get more information once we arrive at the right destination."
[Quest - Miserable Seller (Hidden)]
-Condition: Anyone who buys more than two skills at once will receive this quest.
-Rank: Unknown
-Reward: Unknown
-Objective: Unknown
-You will be able to see your destination on the map, please help the miserable seller who got his family kidnapped by bandits.
***
Both of them arrived at the destination place after 2 hours of walking and fighting a different kinds of monsters. The destination spot was actually a slope. Even though it was very deep in the forest, the scenery in front of them was like a fairy tale full of lights.
In front of them, there was a small canyon with a waterfall coming from a rock wall which was a bit higher than the slope they were currently standing on.
Under the waterfall, there was a small lake, which was then coming to a branch of the river. Next to the lake was a flat rocky shore where they could see several tents.
"Seems like we arrived at the correct spot" whispered Ikky to Josh while ducking behind one of the brushes.
"Yea, but I think we should first observe how many of them are out there," answered Josh also in a quiet voice.
"True, I would also like to see their level, if the level is too high, we should just give up and go level somewhere else."
"What about the quest then?" asked Josh with concern.
"Oh wait, it should get updated now that I have arrived at the spot," Ikky totally forgot that he didn't know the quest condition for completion since it was marked as Unknown.
[Quest - Miserable Seller (Hidden)]
-Condition: Anyone who buys more than two skills at once will receive this quest.
-Rank: Unknown
-Reward: Depending on the objective
-Objective: 1) Kill all bandits and save the seller's family / 2) Sneak in in the night and try to save the seller's family / 3) Negotiate with bandits and buy the seller's family
Ikky told him the quest conditions.
"We do not have anything worth negotiating with bandits, and it's not certain, that they would not attack us if we show up" followed Ikky with an explanation.
"I'm also sure that sneaking in is not an option, maybe if we had some skill to sneak in, but they will definitely have lookout guards during the night."
"So killing them all, is the way." followed Josh after Ikky said his last sentence.
"Yea, there seem to be six tents, they are not so big, there are probably 2 people per tent, or in the worst scenario there will be 4 if they have double beds inside," continued Ikky with his opinions.
"There is also a high chance, that one tent is only for the leader and one tent is only for their treasures, food, material, and so on."
Ikky made a fast calculation in his mind.
"So we are going to fight around at least eight to ten bandits and leader, and at top twenty-four bandits,.."
"...twenty-four is a lot," said Josh in a worried voice.
"True, let's observer for some time before we decide." nodded Ikky and continued to watch the surrounding.
***
They spent a total of 2 additional hours watching all of the surroundings. The highest number of bandits together was counted to be seven, which gave them a good feeling since it means that there really would be merely ten maybe twelve bandits.
However, there was still a problem, their levels. The smallest level they saw was level 8 and they also saw level 10. Even though Ikky was level 8 himself and he was confident with dealing enemy of one or two higher levels, Josh was not the same.
Josh barely reached level 7 when before they arrived in their destination and his gear was not so good to fight something two levels above. And both of them couldn't see the bandits leader even once, if his level was even higher then it would be a problem.
"So what do you think?" asked Josh.
"I thought of a good plan, but it will all depend on our luck," answered Ikky.
"A plan where we will survive?" Josh asked seriously, but Ikky was silent.
"All right, listen up, we gonna do it like this.." Ikky started with his explanation.
***