"What's your name?" Asked Motan out of curiosity as he eyed the dazzling array of shops and stalls along the road, turning to the young canine girl behind him, "Or, how should I address you?"
The girl had been wagging her tail joyfully throughout the journey. Upon hearing his question, she pondered for a bit, then instead of her usual bark, she uttered lowly, "Ya...Ya..."
"Ya?" Motan confirmed, "That's it?"
The girl shook her head vigorously, her ears folding back, "Ya~ Ya~"
Scratching his head, Motan asked, "Ya Ya?"
"Woof!" The canine girl named Ya Ya nodded enthusiastically.
Motan: "....."
Feeling mentally drained...
If viewed from high above, Anka Market looked like a massive diamond, cobbled from four smaller ones, and situated towards the lower end of the northwest continent.
As per its unique geographic layout, all four corners of this diamond, the north, south, east, and west, hosted numerous shops and stalls of all kinds. The array of goods on offer ranged from Goblin Rocket Belts to fake jewels used by dragons to console their children, from compact elemental pile drivers used by Orc shaman for erecting totems to peppermint leaves preferred by Cat Folk Beastmen. You name it, they had it~
However, the largest commercial areas were still the west and east end. The former was a large market place - if you had enough money, you could find anything you wanted there, while the latter housed a landmark building of Anka Market, the Golden Sour Plum Auction House, which doubled as the administrative district of the market.
The north, where Motan was previously, was a multidisciplinary area, primarily populated with adventurer guilds, Mercenary Associations, magic guilds, Thief Guilds, and a plethora of inns, eateries, and other service industries.
The smallest area, the south end, was a residential district. Many locals of the Anka Market, well-to-do researchers, scholars, and merchants who seldom ventured out of their homes, all resided there.
Motan himself had a task in the southern area, reportedly, weeding a couple's yard. The location was not far from where Ya Ya needed to go.
"Um... " Motan helplessly eyed Ya Ya, who had been staring through a display window for two minutes. He patted her shoulder and said, "You seemed to be in a hurry, right? So, let's finish our main tasks first and then you can come back to check out these dog chews. Sounds good?"
The canine girl instinctively turned to him and bared her teeth. Then, her face turning red, she hung her head and nodded, her cheeks reddening. In an apparent attempt to please him, she rubbed her face against the back of Motan's hand and let out a pleased 'woof'.
.....
Fifteen minutes later
Motan stopped in front of a slanting wooden house and, turning back, nodded at Ya Ya. Indicating the house in front of him, he said, "This is Miss Molly's home. Your task is to clean her garden, right? We've arrived."
"Woof! Thank~ you, woof!" Ya Ya excitedly clapped her hands. Her tail practically blurred with the speed it was wagging, and she happily ran two circles around Motan before nuzzling his face. After that, she bolted towards the front door and started knocking.
Motan paused for a moment, then shook his head with a smile, and walked towards another street nearby. The couple named Gulov, whom he was supposed to help with weeding, lived nearby and were no more than two hundred meters away from his current location.
...
"Hmm... Aromatherapy Avenue 11, this should be the place." Motan looked at the huge courtyard in front of him, which was at least half an acre in size, and rolled his eyes. With a strong sense of discontentment towards the rich, he pushed open the low garden gate and muttered, "I wonder how many weeds there are inside. Probably more than I expected..."
He didn't finish his sentence, but under a sort of sixth sense, he looked up, and then...
"Holy crap!!!!!!"
Five seconds later.
The door of the two-story house in the yard was forced open from the inside, and an old, skinny man hobbled out leaning on a cane. As he walked, he hollered, "Who's swearing at my doorstep! I'll see… Hm? No one?"
...
[You've urgently disconnected. Please select whether to reconnect.]
"Yeah, let's reconnect..."
[Reconnecting...]
[Connection complete, loading character data.]
[Welcome to the land of Innocence, Tan Mo of the Chaotic Neutral alignment, have a good night.]
...
"Haha, interesting~~" Motan appeared and immediately chuckled with a shake of his head, "This is the first time I've seen a 'weed' that's sturdier than a person and equipped with a double row of sharp teeth. I guess they must have been fed some real top-notch fertilizer... But speaking of which..."
He glanced at the small mound of earth by his feet, which clearly hadn't been there for long, and gave a soft snort: "Soft-hearted... but since my quest completion was signaled, it means that the little priest named Ai is now safe."
Indeed, he received a system prompt the moment he logged in:
[Side quest 'Rescue the Warm Sun Team' completed. You currently have 200 Experience Points to distribute.]
Dead people don't need rescuing. When he arrived here that night, the Warm Sun Team's great swordsman, Dona, was already lifeless. The female priest Ai Vanja lay next to a pool of blood, her stomach gashed wide open. And the strongest member of their team, Dav Sagel, was nowhere to be found.
Considering the only mission Motan had received prior - [Smite the 'hero' DAVE in Pato City], things were quite clear.
Motan used all of his remaining three initial life potions and one God's Grace Scroll – all scavenged from Med's house – to save the nearly-dead apprentice female priest.
After understanding the situation, he quickly fooled the poor girl who had just experienced betrayal and the death of her companions, urging her to hide herself in Pato City as soon as possible. He then prepared to leave in search of the two Redback beasts.
True enough, he'd inexplicably logged out during this process. Supposedly, there was still plenty of time left, but when he emerged from the game cabin, he found it was already seven in the morning...
"Something's fishy." Motan slouched carelessly next to the makeshift mound that served as Dona's grave. He leaned against it and stroked his chin, murmuring, "This has happened twice since I started this game, each time I lose about two hours of real world time. Sleeping in the game cabin seems far-fetched, and there's always a 'you have exited the game' notification each time I wake up. Could it be a bug because I have multiple characters... But if so, then what's causing this bug... hmm?"
He didn't continue pondering, but noticed the notification corner flickering at the edge of his field of vision.
"Hehe~" Motan chuckled deviously, "You must really miss me... Really want to win this 'game', huh?"
His character only has one friend, so the source of the message, outside system alerts, was clear as day.
"Are you there? Are you there?"
"Are you there? Are you there?"
"You're not offline, are you?"
"Hey! Are you online but ignoring me?!"
"You haven't been doing anything lately, and being a shut-in, what else would you be doing late at night besides gaming? Why the hell?!"
"Say something!"
"I'm so bored~"
"What level are you now? I did a few quests today, I'm already level 5."
"Hello hello hello hello hello!!!!!!"
All of these are the historic messages sent by Double Leaf, yes, the last message just came in.
Leaning against the grave and stretching lazily, Motan summarized Double Leaf's incessant harangue casually, "Crazy."
Though he's probably the last person who should be calling someone else that.
"Dusk leans against the wild grave~" Leaning against a grave and smiling, Motan composed a casual limerick, "The laments of the woman are like smoke."
"Do not measure the ordinary passage of time~" While saying so, he slyly sent it to Double Leaf, "Only remember a person's madness."
A few seconds later, Double Leaf's reply was received, "What do you mean?"
Motan rolled his eyes and replied considerately, "I'm comfortably leaning against a fresh grave and contemplating something. I don't have time to bother with you, it's none of your business what I do at night, I'm actually quite curious about how freaking out you are right now…"
Having said that, he ignored the flurry of messages sent by Double Leaf in a split second. He didn't block her nor reply; he merely shakily stood up, turned and patted down the mound, then swiftly left, blending into the lingering sunlight of the setting sun…
Chapter Twenty-one: The End