After walking for a bit Katou and the other two met up with two more people. "Sup Shiri (Shirikoto), and who is this fellow sister among men?" Katou asked. "Hi Katou, nice name, this is Fraeya, a new player in our guild," Shirikoto(Shirako) answered. "Fresh meat huh," Katou said, then licked his lips, causing Fraeya to shiver a bit. "Don't freak her out Katou, she is pretty high level and could throw you into a pit of slimes, and I don't mean the meat dissolving ones," VertiKal said, and then quickly added, "By the way, Katou is most definitely a dude, he just likes to test the limits of the character creation screen and make his male character as effeminate as possible." Fraeya visibly blanks, causing Katou to chuckle a bit and say, "She's cute, where'd you find her?" while still moving in a very feminine way. "Don't mind him Fraeya, he is just doing this to mess with people," VertiKal said, and further commented, "He has practiced his feminine wiles a tiny bit too much for it to be 'just a joke' at this point." Fraeya recoiled a bit, but then asked, "But it is just a joke, right?" Awkward pause as everyone stares at Katou. "Right?" she asks again for clarity.
Katou smirks and says, "That's something that you will have to find out," while putting his right hand on his hip and blowing a kiss her way with his left, bending over slightly in the act. Fraeya blanks yet again and just stares into the abyss, a red tinge visible on her cheeks. TorqueWilde laughs a bit, and says, "Now, now Katou, don't seduce her yet, and definitely not in front of us." Fraeya's face is now visibly red, as VertiKal starts muttering about how life is so unfair to some people. TorqueWilde then says, "Alright, enough teasing the new girl, let's get to the point." Katou adopts a serious expression, and replies, "All right, let's get to it then," and then asks, "What's the basics that I absolutely need to know that aren't mentioned on the store page and the first page of the forum?" Fraeya, having recovered rather quickly from the shock, answered his question, "If you read those then you should know all that there is to know about the game so far." Katou then said, "So basically only melee classes have been extensively explored, magic is almost never used among players, and some people discovered that you can have a baby-making-time with the npcs if you satisfy some conditions." Fraeya visibly staggers. Katou smiles and continues, "You can get quests if you go to the adventurer's guild, some other npcs will also give quest if you are nice to them, one guy decided to start a farm in a monster filled region for no reason, and we are seen as gifts from the gods of this world." Shirikoto took over for Fraeya, who must recover from shock again, and said, "Yup, that's about it, which means that all we are going to do now is show you around since nobody is willing to put good maps on the forum."
"To start with, this area is the town square. It is currently empty because of the sermon that is going on. Usually, the npcs use the town square as a shopping district by setting up stalls here. If you need help finding a specific place or stall, then just ask the npcs, most of them will be happy to give you directions," Shirikoto explained. "Interesting, do all towns have sermons?" Katou asked. "Most towns and cities do have sermons every once in a while, there are also a few villages that have them, but most don't have temples," Shirikoto answered, then continued with, "Moving on to the important buildings, the temple that you just came from is north of the town square, the adventurers guild is west of the town square, the mercenaries guild is to the east and the auction house is to the south. This changes for every town and city though. Also, don't expect an auction house in each town, and don't expect a guild branch in every village." Katou replied with," So basically no village, town or city is the same? Got it, anything important?" Fraeya could be heard muttering, "That was important thought?"
Fraeya was ignored as TorqueWilde said, "All that's left is to show you a basic process of a guild quest." Katou nodded and said, "Lead the way." With that, TorqueWilde led the group to the Adventurers Guild building. Now that Katou is looking around, he notices that the guild building isn't really that fancy, just the usual big ass building made with stones at the bottom, with the higher floor being made of very crude looking bricks. The walls have big stone pillars every 3 meters or so, with a wood framed window after every third pillar from the corner. The currently open wooden doors of the guild look very worn, the door doesn't look expensive, but even the basic carvings that are on the door looked faded. The inside of the guild surprisingly doesn't have a creaky floor, and the counter where Katou assumes the receptionists works, on account of the person currently passed out face down on it, looks relatively new. Now that he is inside, he can see that the walls are made of brick on the inside, though they look a bit crude still, it is better than having a stone wall visible inside the guild.
TorqueWilde then walked over to the notice boards on the wall adjacent to the counter, mumbles in the language of the ancients (gamer speak - see notes), takes a paper pinned on the board and walks over to the receptionist sleeping at the counter. A new npc just fades into existence right next to the sleeping one and grabs the paper, reads it, puts it back down and slides it over to TorqueWilde while giving a thumbs up. TorqueWilde grabs the paper, then proceeded to walk back, dragging Katou out of the guild before he could ask any questions. "Alright, ask away Katou," TorqueWilde said once outside. "First of all, why did a person just materialize, and why did she just give a thumbs up without talking? Secondly why was that guy just sleeping?" Katou bombarded him with questions. "The person that spontaneously appeared is the manager of this specific branch, people just call her the guild master since she could kick anyone's ass without them even realizing, she has ridiculously strong stealth skills. The guy sleeping at the counter is supposed to be on duty is her nephew I think, point is, the guy was transferred here from one of the city branches and is the only person that stays here while the sermon is underway. But he is a tad bit irresponsible, he stays up way too late and then can't stay awake when he must stand in for the other receptionists. The guild master keeps an eye on the receptionist area since she knows that he won't have the capacity to work," Fraeya answered the questions without pause, causing VertiKal to mutter 'nerd'.
VertiKal then looked at Katou and asked, "Satisfied?" Katou did a small nod and said, "For now." TorqueWilde then said, "Good, let's get going then, I have shit to do irl." Katou asked him, "Doesn't this game have a time dilation thing?" TorqueWilde nodded and said, "Yeah, 10 days in here is one day irl, but spending 3 hours in the game would make me late for my train." Katou just made 'oh' face and put is left hand on his cheek, saying, "That makes sense, guess I need to try my best to delay you." TorqueWilde reacted with a emotionless voice, "I know where you live and I know Verti has a spare key to your lock, but most importantly, I know your gaming habits." Katou replied with a slight shiver, "Fair point, let's get going then." Queue a 10-minute walk to the south gate through a silent town that has a strange run down medieval-modern look and aesthetic. Just like the adventurer's guild building, the other buildings are made of stones and crude-ish bricks. The foundation of the houses is made of large stones, with brick walls built on top of it with the corners of most of the buildings just being a long and wide stone. Wood frame windows can be seen on a lot of the street facing walls, it wasn't mentioned before, but the roof is clearly made of wood with some strange stone looking tiles on top of it.
After reaching the south gate, one guard greeted them, "Hello blessed ones, what can I do for you today?" TorqueWilde greeted him back, "Hi, we are going to be taking care of recent monster incidents that have been affecting this town and the nearby villages." The eyes of the guard light up as he says excitedly, "Really? That's great, we have been struggling to deal with the random beast attacks, they have even attacked some trade caravans, making our trade goods more expensive than they usually are, so this will help a lot." Katou looked at the town guard curiously, while TorqueWilde replied, "Is that so, then we better get going before the monsters can cause more problems." The guard responded with a beaming smile, "Of course, let me open the gate for you." With that said the guard when off to the side and gestured for the group to follow him, which they did. He led them through a door into the wall surrounding the town, then to another door, which led to the outside. "I can't open the main gate for you since I don't have the authority to do that because most of the guards are off duty at this moment, so this will have to do," the guard explained. TorqueWilde replied with, "That is fine, we'll be back in an hour or so," and started walking away, after which the guard closed that door that now looked to be just another part of the wall.
"So, how which monsters do we have to kill?" Katou asked. Fraeya asked, "We?" VertiKal answered for Katou, "Yep, we. Believe it or not, Katou is basically a god when it comes to games, he learns everything about a game in the first session, and then becomes better than the person that introduced him." Fraeya then asked, "So you're gonna let a level one that just started fight a level 10 wolf...?" Katou interrupted, "So we are hunting wolves specifically, why?" VertiKal replied with, "That's because wolves in this game come in many types and in a variety of level ranges, the ones we are after now are ideal for our current goals. They are close by and somewhat weak, though they can be a pain to deal with sometimes, with the more important aspect being the grunts. You'll be taking at least one of them down, this way you can get a feel for combat, the important thing is you'll essentially get a bonus since it's 10 levels stronger in best case scenario you might just hit level 7 or 8 on your first hunt! Ahem sorry I got carried away anyhow you get the point Katou and be sure to remember the part about the bonus Exp!"
Katou had a half-dazed expression as he said, "Wow, I didn't know that you actually knew things." The "OI!!" coming from VertiKal was overshadowed by Shirikoto saying, "All right! Shall we get going faster? I have family visiting in like, an hour irl." Katou chirped, "Still never cleaning your apartment I see." TorqueWilde also commented, "I thought that you focused on looking good no matter where you are, guess that didn't extend to reality." Shirikoto asked, "Reality? Is that a game? I haven't heard of it before." Fraeya sighed and began wondering how there exists someone that is more out of touch with reality than she is. She then checks her map, and notices that they overshot the wolf nest by a bit. "Guys, we walked past the quest location," she announced. Katou then hit Shirikoto over the head and said, "This is all your fault." Shirikoto looks like he had gained some sense as he muttered "Real life?" but was shaken out of it as Katou turned to Fraeya and said, "Lead the way," with a smile that almost caused Fraeya to fall face first to the ground.
A few seconds of silence passed before VertiKal said, "Another one has fallen." That snapped Fraeya back, making her ask, "What?" TorqueWilde said, "We should get going, it's this way," while starting to walk into the forest. Fraeya asked, "What do you mean?" With Fraeya being ignored, they continued through the forest, eventually stopping in an area with lighter forestry. "I'm assuming this is the place," Katou said. Fraeya asked, "How did you know?" Katou put on an inquisitive look with his left hand motioning that he is putting on a hat and his right hand on his chin, then says, "Well you see, my dear Wattzom, I could deduce from the decrease in the tree density that we have entered a different area in this forest, what some would call a clearing, and from my extensive history with various forms of online entertainment, also known as video games, I could see a recuring pattern where most monster slaying quests take place in a clearing such as this. Also, we stopped moving." Fraeya just stares at him with a flat gaze and asks, "Are you done Shemlurk." Katou just gives her a cheeky smile.
TorqueWilde interrupted before Fraeya could continue with a sarcastic remark, and said," All right, let's get into formation, I will take on the black wolf, Shirikoto will take the white one, the rest will take on the grunts. Make sure that VertiKal doesn't die," he finished with a sly smile. "OI!" is heard from VertiKal before a loud rumbling is heard from the forest, followed by the howling of two wolves. "Any final remarks captain?" Katou asked. TorqueWilde smiled and said, "Let's have some fun!" Fraeya quickly says a chant that sounds like a prayer, causing a feeling strength to come over everyone, before TorqueWilde starts rushing forward, followed by Shirikoto as they moved to the left and right sides of the coming wave of wolves. Fraeya follows the previous chant up with another chant, that causes a wave of lightning to shoot towards the wave of wolves. The wolves all stop as the lightning chains between them, allowing TorqueWilde and Shirikoto to run by them towards the big black and white wolves behind the normal wolves.
Fraeya starts chanting again as VertiKal rushes towards the stunned wolves as the lightning is slowly dying down, arriving in front of them just as the lightning disappears, swinging his sword from a strange crouching position and beheading two wolves on the spot. Fraeya finishes her chant as chains rush out from the ground by her feet and wrap around the feet of the wolves, then disappear as the wolves start to glow dark gray. "Thank you!" is heard from TorqueWilde that just entered a brawl with the black wolf and was now gaining an advantage as he was now successfully blocking the strikes of the wolve while also dealing damage back with his katana, while a quick look over to Shirikoto shows that he was not trading blows with the white wolf like TorqueWilde was with the black wolf, but instead dancing through the attacks of the white wolf while leaving small cuts on the fur with a katana that he unsheathed from his music instrument on his back.
"Guess I have to join in," Katou said, then proceeded to take out his sword and analyze the battle closer to him, ignoring the chads taking a boss type monster on alone. Fraeya had already finished another chant that shot a blade of water towards the wolves, while VertiKal has already killed another wolf that lunged at him while injuring two that were in the path of that killing blow. The water blade killed three wolves that were charging at Fraeya while injuring 4 that were behind them. Katou spots a single wolf that actually dodged the water blade and was close enough to become a problem for Fraeya, so he jumps in between Fraeya and the wolf to defend her from the wolf, saying, "I'll handle this one." Katou blocks the swipe of the wolf that was intended for Fraeya with the flat side of his sword, deflecting the wolf off to the side, then following after it, hearing a "Thank you" from Fraeya behind him, then another chant.
Focusing on the confrontation between Katou and the wolf, it was shockingly slow paced. The wolf was moving like it was looking for a way to get past Katou and not to attack him. The wolf charged at Katou, but Katou only blocked the wolf with the flat side of his sword and redirected it, following behind shortly after to stay in between the wolf and Fraeya. 'Why isn't it attacking me, but just trying to intimidate me?' Katou thought. The wolf then kept trying to circle around Katou to reach Fraeya, but Katou stayed between the two. The wolf also tried to tackle Katou out of the way, but Katou just redirected the wolf again, but this time using his scabbard while thinking, 'Maybe it's because I haven't actually attacked a wolf yet?" After a few minutes of this back-and-forth action, Fraeya said, "I'm going to cast Lightning Strike VertiKal," after which she started chanting. The wolf Katou was keeping away from Fraeya started becoming more frantic, pacing more, and just deciding to finally act, as it lunged at Katou and finally attacked him.
Katou saw this opportunity and used his left arm to block the bite off the wolf. After the wolf bit into his arm, he thrust his sword into the neck of the wolf with his right hand. The sword pierced right through the wolf's spine, causing it to go limp and let go off his arm. Screaming internally at the pain, even though it was reduced, Katou saw that his level jumped all the way to level ten, healing his arm, and making him feel stronger. "Finally finished that one off, now did ya?" VertiKal yelled as he ran away from 16 left over wolves. "I thought you would be faster, guess I expected too much from you," he added. In response, Katou threw his scabbard at VertiKal's legs, causing him to trip, and missing his chance to escape from the lightning strike that Fraeya cast. A lightning bolt released from Fraeya's hand and hit the place where the rest of the wolves were clustered together, causing the damage to spread to all the wolves, including VertiKal, because of the water blade spells that Fraeya had cast before.
Katou commented, "Now that's what I call using your brain," towards Fraeya, then he turned towards VertiKal and said, "Unfortunately it seems that the IQ points are not equally distributed among the group." Fraeya said, "Such a strong friendship you have, you can even tolerate someone like VertiKal." VertiKal just said, "Real smart of you to weaken your ally in the middle of a battle and then ignoring the battle entirely." Katou then asked, "What do you mean? The wolves are dead." VertiKal was about to retort, when TorqueWilde shouted from afar, "A little help over here would be nice!" VertiKal immediately said, "Exactly my point," while looking all smug. In response Fraya started chanting, and a few seconds later she shouted, "Vortex Spear incoming!" Afterwards a spear made of spinning water flew out and just missed TorqueWilde as it pierced through the black wolf and hit the white wolf that was conveniently behind it, causing both to howl out in pain, and giving TorqueWilde and Shirikoto an opportunity to attack.
After a quick slash across the throat on the black wolf by TorqueWilde, and a stab into the brain of the white wolf from under the chin by Shirikoto, the battle was over. "Guess that means the quest is done, or is there more?" Katou asked. "We just need to turn the quest in at the guild, also, their pelts are somewhat valuable," Shirikoto answered. He then turned towards VertiKal and said, "But it seems that one of us is out of commission, guess we can only share that profit with one less person." An ignored "OI" sounded from VertiKal while the rest of the group started walking away. Fraeya had a strange expression as she thought, 'We aren't actually abandoning him, are we?' but VertiKal quickly stood up and chased after them as if nothing was wrong. When he joined up with them and continued as if he wasn't almost dead, Fraeya realized that he is a drama queen and moved on with her life.
The trip back to town was just like the trip towards the wolves, but this time with less explanations and more casual conversations, with a slight deviation into degeneracy where Katou decided to tease Fraeya by semi-flirting with her. With steam shooting out of her ears, they arrived safely back at the town. "You really went hard on her," VertiKal said with a disappointed gaze towards Katou, and added, "She just joined us, you could at least tone it down." Katou turned to VertiKal and says with a pouty face, "But we have have to initiate her into the group if she is gonna join us." VertiKal responded with a straight face, "I didn't tell you to stop, just to go easy, we can't have you breaking her mind the first day you meet her." Katou sighs and pouts more, "All right fine, I will stop, for now at least." They pass through the now open gates of the town, and Katou waves to the guards, and receives a wave back.
After weaving through the crowds of the now active town, they eventually reach the guild. They all enter the guild and walk up to the counter. After reaching it, TorqueWilde said, "Hi, we're here to turn in a quest." The receptionist looked up at him and asked, "Paper and proof?" TorqueWilde then put the quest paper on the table and took out the black wolf's head. "That pretty much confirms it, do you want to sell the materials here?" the receptionist asks. TorqueWilde turned to look at the rest. VertiKal said, "Sure I'd sell here." Fraeya nodded, and Shirikoto said, "I'm keeping the fur, I can make something nice with it, I'll also buy the black fur from you." TorqueWilde said, "I'll just give you the black fur, what about you Katou?" Katou answered, "I'll keep it for now, see if it can be useful somewhere." TorqueWilde nodded and said, "Understandable." After some capitalism happened, they left the guild building. TorqueWilde said, "And this is how far we can help you for now, I'm cutting it pretty close with my schedule right now so I will leave now." VertiKal nodded and said, "Yeah same, my plans are also nearing." Shirikoto panics and says, "Oh shit! I still have to clean my house!" Fraeya groans and says, "And I have to study, guess we should find an Inn." Shirikoto nodded and said, "There is one right over there," and just sprints off.
After an exhausting chase, they arrived at a somewhat fancy looking Inn with the same styles as the other buildings, a rock foundation, big stones for the walls on the ground floor, bricks for the first half of the second floor, and then wood upwards from there, with wood framing everywhere. Shirikoto was the first into the Inn, the rest following after him. The inside of the Inn is very clean despite it having a bar area, the wooden floors being shiny too. Shirikoto, TorqueWilde and VertiKal quickly booked rooms, and then entered them to log out. Fraeya stayed behind to explain, "Inns are only important to set your spawn location, logging out in them isn't that important, and not actually necessary. A booking usually lasts two days IRL." Katou then asked, "So is there some sort of advantage to logging out in a booked room?" Fraeya replied with, "It gives a small stat boost, it doesn't really help much though since it doesn't last long enough to make a big difference. The only real reason why we book rooms and log out in them is to set our spawn to this town." Katou replied with, "That makes sense." Fraeya then said, all right let me get going then, my studying aint gonna do itself." She then booked a room and went into it, she then set her status to invisible and logged out.
Katou then said to himself, "Alright, guess I should explore the town now," and left the Inn.
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END OF CHAPTER NOTES:
Language of the Ancients = Its Basically an NPC term to refer to unfamiliar terminology used by the players NPC's are programmed to be unable to understand the real world terminology unless it is explicitly shared in a VERY "Specific" way or other conditions are met it is impossible to converse on this topic the methods for this will be revealed to you the readers later on in the story itself. No spoilerz!!!!
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