[Congratulations! You have killed a Yellow Tusk Boar. You have received 210 Exp.]
A white light flashed and my level went up by 1 once again. After solo- hunting six boars in the next half an hour, I had finally reached Lv7.
I had regained my lost confidence as I made my way back to Party No.2. While I traveled, I decided to check up on Stivi and others and opened my Friend List to contact them.
However, as soon as I saw the Levels beside their avatars, my confidence collapsed once again.
Stivi - Lv8!
Zamir - Lv9!
BigSoftie - Lv7!
MamaMia- Lv7!
HardBro - Lv8!
Before I could process what I was seeing, MamaMia and HardBro leveled up again at the same time. Now every veteran member was at Lv8 while only I was stuck on Lv7!
I could understand why Zamir leveled up so fast. He was on scouting duty and unburdened by a Party. He could freely kill monsters as he moved from one area to another.
What I could not understand was why the levels of others were so high?
I immediately contacted Stivi. The moment she saw my level she frowned. She also could not see my Party members around which only made her frown deepen.
She quickly opened a window next to the call and checked something, probably the levels of other Veteran members. Whatever she saw made her expression stern.
"Are you guys having trouble killing the Boars? Where is Party No. 2? Did they die at the hands of Boars?"
"NO!"
I defended a bit too aggressively. At first, I was confused by her question, but when put in the context of her high level and that of the rest of the Veterans, her question made sense.
"No. Party No. 2 has killed 11 Yellow Tusk Boars in the past one and a half hours. I came out to hunt on my own while they rested." I answered a little bit softly after calming down my raging emotions.
"11? That's a lot! My party has also killed 10 so far. Wait, if your party killed 11, why is your level still stuck on 7?" Stivi asked with a puzzled expression. Then she had a teasing smirk on her face as if she had thought of something hilarious as she asked, "Did you get killed by a Yellow Tusk Boar, essentially an ordinary mob?"
I ignored her teasing tone and focused on the first half.
"What do you mean by 'If your party killed 11, why are you stuck on Lv7?' What has my party's kill count got to do with my level?"
Now it was Stivi's turn to look at me strangely.
"You- Don't tell me you didn't join the Party while they were killing the Boars?" She asked in an incredulous tone.
"Was I supposed to? Wouldn't that be like mooching off the trainees and reducing the amount of Exp they receive?"
Stivi started laughing in response.
"No you dummy! In Dreamverse VR, every player in the Party receives a fixed percentage of total Exp after killing the monster. The Guild has noticed that it is somewhere between 60 to 40% regardless of the number of players in the Party."
Now I felt like an idiot. Even though I had studied the game quite extensively, my knowledge of game mechanics was still not as thorough as that of a guild's.
This lack of information had made me miss out on nearly a level's worth of Exp! I felt very annoyed and it reflected in my tone.
"Couldn't you have told me this information before we started?"
"It is common sense to join a Party if you are going to supervise it." Stivi replied with a bite.
We had reached an impasse. Whatever I said in response would only escalate this small quibble and may turn it into a quarrel. The wise thing to do was keep mum and end the call to let things cool a little.
Anyways it was not as if I had suffered a huge loss. My gesture of not joining the party had been seen as 'confident arrogance of a higher up' by Party No. 2 members.
Everything that followed, from my swift killing of the Boar to sage advice on improving their abilities, only enlarged my stature in their hearts.
They were thoroughly convinced of my ability by now. The members of Party No. 2 revered me to the point that they would only obey my commands over that of any other Veterans, including Stivi. With such loyalty, they could become my small group of trusted followers in a huge organization called the Grandeur Guild.
Even if the fact that I was not an actual R4 was exposed, it would not matter to Party No.2. This was a much more significant gain than the Exp from a few monsters which I could get on my own after just another hour of hunting.
Just as I was ruminating about my call with Stivi, Zamir sent a message on our Veteran's Group chat.
"Alert! I spotted a team of 10 from Fortune Guild enter the Amber Woods. The Leader, Pangu, has a Black-Stone grade Ax and Armor while the other 9 are all decked in White-Wood Grade equipment."
The report was like a bomb and it shocked everyone. The Chat immediately was flooded with curses from HardBro and MamaMia.
"Those Bastards! First trying to sabotage our recruitment and now this!"
"Yes! They deserve to be killed like the mad dogs they are!"
The two magic class aspirants spent no time badmouthing our enemies and exposing their misdeeds. I had no idea about half the incidents they were talking about but since Stivi did not see fit to involve me meant they were manageable with just the five of them.
However, the threat this time was quite serious. A team of most Elite players of the Fortune Guild had come after us and it deserved our utmost caution.
In general, the veterans of Grandeur Guild were much stronger than those of the Fortune Guild. The problem right now was that we were scattered. Moreover, we were with our Trainees who were just not ready to face this challenge.
There was a huge difference between the Stats and Equipment Standards of our Trainees and those of our incoming enemies. The Trainees had a mix of Ash-Gray and White-Wood equipment while the Elites of Fortune Guild had uniformly White-Wood equipment.
In such a case, it was not hard to predict the outcome of the encounter - A complete slaughter of the Trainees. Hence, it was best to avoid encountering the team until all the Grandeur Guild's Parties could gather together.
Apparently, Stivi had reached the same conclusion as me.
"Zamir, send the location of the team and trace their path."
"The Fortune Guild's team is at the Southwest side of the Amber Woods. They are heading deeper, probably to the Center where the Elite Ivory Tusk Boars gather."
Stivi took a few seconds to ponder our options. I was expecting a message from her to discuss the motives of Fortune Guild but it never arrived. Instead there was an order from Stivi on the veteran channel.
"Alright, Zamir, keep an eye on them. Everyone else, gather your parties and meet up in the central area of the Amber Woods. Avoid direct confrontation with the Fortune Guild's team until everyone gathers, understood?"
Five 'Yeses' flooded the channel, acknowledging Stivi's command. I was slightly taken aback that Stivi had not asked me first like she used to, but when I read the contents of her message, it aligned with everything I had in mind.
It only showed how much Stivi had grown in the time I was away from the VR Games.
After closing the channel, I returned to the members of Party No.2. Upon checking the map, I realized we were already inside the central parts of the Amber Woods and close to our agreed upon location. So, I decided to lead the party to the location ahead of time.
On the way, I did not encounter a single Yellow Tusk Boar. The Boars killed by Romero and others before, had also not respawned.
This unusual phenomenon made me suspicious. It could not be a glitch as Dreamverse VR was reputed to be a bug-free game, monitored and corrected in real time by the operating AI. Hence, I ruled it out.
That left me with only one possibility, the only event that could cause such abnormality - the birth of a Field Boss!
Field Bosses in Dreamverse were not born naturally. They were either the results of Human Empire's experiments that had gone wrong, Disproportionate enhancements of Beasts by the Elves or Corruption caused by Undead faction.
In some cases, a Field Boss would be born in real time due to a Player's actions. While such a Field Boss was coming into being, the monsters killed would not respawn and the ones alive would gather around the Monster evolving into the Field Boss.
Only this phenomenon could explain the current situation of monsters in the Amber Woods.
My heart palpitated with excitement and a hint of fear. After reading the information about the Field Bosses on the forums, I had never expected to encounter one before reaching the Elven Forests but one had appeared in the map I was in.
The only thing to be seen was whether its appearance was a blessing or a curse for the Branch 89 of the Grandeur Guild.