"Excuse me, Sir," I called. "I'm a new player, and I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do right now. The drinks shop lady told me that most people who come here don't do quests. Is that true?"
The man in the suit turned to me, followed by his two girls. "Oh, who do we have here? Allow me to introduce myself first, then. My name is Moustache. And these two girls are Polly and Akacya." He held out his hand for a handshake.
I shook his gloved hands firmly while also paying attention to all three of their outfits.
Funnily enough, his name was Moustache, but he doesn't have a mustache. His face was clean of facial hair, and he looked young for a man who wore a suit. He stood there, sandwiched between the two girls.
The girl on the left, who wore a green dress with white sleeves and looked about my age, was the one he called Polly. The girl on the right who looked mature yet didn't seem to be much older than me was Akacya. Polly and Akacya, I have yet to meet many people in this game, but they were definitely the prettiest girls I've seen.
"I—I'm Hallowell."
As our handshake came to a close, the man adjusted his suit and told me, "To answer your question, yes, a lot of us are non-questers. Either because we were too chicken to become questers, or because we've quested before, but we moved on."
"What about you, Mr. Moustache? Were you a quester?"
"Yes. But nowadays I do more managerial work for my in game business."
"In game business?"
The man stopped and looked at both of the girls. All three of them share a nod, as if knowing and approving what the man was going to say and tell me. "I run an idol company... Actually, we were just here to relax and talk about idol work. These two are new talents. I'm trying to make them as comfortable as possible before their first performance."
An idol company? In an RPG game? I expected him to be like a banker or something, but that was just way out of my expectations. That would explain their natural prettiness and their immense presence in front of my eyes.
My eyes lit up in surprise as I nodded along at his answer.
"What about you?" Mr. Moustache said. "Are you doing quests?"
"Well, uh. I haven't decided yet. I just got my headset today, and I thought I was gonna do quests and stuff. But I just finished playing through the Beginner's Zone. And now I'm not sure... So I'm just surveying for now. I wanna know what everybody is doing first."
I subconsciously looked down, thinking that my unsureness was something to be embarrassed of. My thumbs twiddled as those sentences came out of my mouth. And it doesn't help that I have practically no experience speaking with strangers. I don't even know if my mannerisms were right for the situation. The nerves were spiking.
Out of the blue, I felt someone's grip on both my shoulders, pushing me back a step. It wasn't the only thing startling me. As I slowly looked up, there were 2 eyes so close up to my face that I let out a little "Eep!" in my surprise.
It was Miss Polly, the person who stood beside Mr. Moustache. We were pretty much standing face to face, all of her face blocking my vision. "Hey," she whispered. "Wanna watch our show?"
"Wh—what…?" I could feel blood rushing through my systems, caught off guard by her bold approach.
"Our first live show! It's tomorrow!"
She was hopping up and down in excitement, almost pushing me to the point of slipping. The stars glimmer in her eyes as she stared at me straight into my soul.
Her face was so close to mine, I couldn't even breathe properly in her presence. It made my heart beat so fast from all the mix of surprise, embarrassment, and anxiety I'm currently experiencing. I could hardly find the words to answer her. "Uhm… I—Uh… Well…"
Before I could finish, a hand pulled her away from me. Mr. Moustache had saved me from the Polly barrage. "I'm sorry. She's just a bit too excited," he said. He slowly nudged Polly back to the edge of the fountain basin as he whispered things to her I couldn't hear.
"I'm sorry for her attitude," Akacya said to me. "She's always been little… lively."
I slowly recuperate from the excess joy Polly had infected me with.
"Ehem. Anyway. About what you said earlier, you will definitely see a large percentage of players who work normal jobs in this game. I think last month the devs shared a statistics chart that showed that the percentage of players who do quests has plummeted. I think it was only 25… no. Only 20% of players did quests last month. After the Second Eclipse Event, most people have given up on quests entirely."
『…』
Hmm?
I heard a slight sound coming from inside my head. It was definitely Celeste's voice, but she didn't say anything afterwards. Maybe her response was cut off or something? But it sounded like someone was gasping or sighing, like she was taken aback by something.
But I thought that it might've just been an error. I wouldn't think big of it.
Mr. Moustache mentioned an Eclipse Event. That phrase popped out when he was talking about the decrease of questers in the game. I should ask him about that.
"What does the Eclipse Event have anything to do with quests?" I asked.
…
There were seconds of silence. Maybe it was hesitation, but Mr. Moustache and Akacya looked a little tense when I asked the question. Was it something bad?
Then, Mr. Moustache answered, "The world system changed completely with the event." His tone much lower and much more ominous than before.
"'Changed'?"
Though he hesitated, he continued answering, "The event removed player stats and traditional skills from the game. Have you noticed how there are no helpful user interfaces in the game?"
I nodded.
"We used to have those traditional stats. But that night, when the event reached its peak, everyone started losing their inventories and stat points; even their health bars disappeared. What happened next was—"
"Look at these little fishies!! Gasp! Oh look, they're so cute~" Polly screamed at the top of her lungs while inspecting the fountain waters. Her loudness distracted Mr. Moustache from finishing his sentence.
Polly was balancing on the basin wall with her arms stretched out. But at that moment, she stepped on the wrong foot, making her fall from the lack of balance. "Whoa!"
Luckily, Mr. Moustache's quick thinking led to him grabbing her shirt and pulling her out at the last second. Though she didn't splash into the fountain, she did crash with a loud thud on the bricked ground, hurting her in the process. "Ouch!" she uttered.
"Good thing you didn't fall in, Polly. Getting wet in this game is really uncomfortable, you know," Mr. Moustache said.
Even though he said it in kindness, she still rebelled against him. "Hey! I would rather get wet than crash onto hard rock!"
Akacya let out a little giggle as she watched Polly bicker against her own boss.
After a while, they both settled their emotions and made peace. Even Polly laughed at her own crash that just happened a few seconds ago.
I didn't really know what was happening. I just stood there awkwardly as I watched the two get through the accident. I didn't know if it was better for me to walk away or join in. My body opted to do the middle ground of those two things.
Eventually, they remembered that I was still standing there. Mr. Moustache said to me, "Sorry about that. Anyway, where was I?"
Polly, who stood behind Mr. Moustache, said to him, "You were about to tell him about the event, right?" She was still incredibly lively even after that fall and argument with the boss.
"Oh… right." He looked at me in the eyes and said, "Do you really want to know?"
I could only nod as my curiosity ate me whole.
"I see…"
…
*Beep*Beep*Beep*
Suddenly, an alarm beep went off. The sound came from the man's wristwatch that was covered under his sleeves. He quickly turned it off and checked the time. "Well girls, I think we have to go now."
"Sure," Akacya replied.
Polly didn't seem too energized about the announcement. "Huhh?! Oh, come on! What about the thing you were about to tell him??" She pouted at him menacingly.
The man walked up to me and patted my shoulders. "I'm sorry, kid, we really have to go now. And... It's better if you don't know anyway." He held out his hand for another handshake.
Though it was a sudden departure and a disappointing cliffhanger, I still shook his hands as a goodbye.
Mr. Moustache said to me, "Hallowell, was it? It was a nice talk."
"Mhm…" I said and nodded.
Akacya and Polly waved and said their goodbyes as they followed Mr. Moustache down the street.
----
I didn't follow them. I still had more people to talk to in the hub. There were still 2 other groups I've yet to talk to.
Yet, before I approached them, I thought about what the man said.
Why was he so tense about it? It's a game event, right? Was it accompanied by an update? It must be if the UIs suddenly disappeared from everyone. He said, "It's better if you don't know." But why? Was it something that bad? What's so wrong about a game update?
『Trust me, you don't want to know』