Fifteen minutes later, Cinder left Kode behind at the edge of Rata, the starter village he had ended up in. They had been a productive fifteen minutes.
When players first started the game, they got the clothes they had on them, a beginner class, and five Tokens. If they chose to play as a Naturalist, they didn't naturally didn't get a class or anything like that, but the rest was the same.
Travelers got their Tokens in their Inventory. Naturalists, however, had their Tokens stuffed in a pocket, usually the breast pocket or the pant pocket of the player's dominant side.
Kode took one as payment for his help in guiding Cinder around the starter village and helping him buy a weapon at a discounted price. The weapon still cost him two Tokens, though. If he wanted to buy armor, which Kode recommended, it would cost him another two. That would have been all of his Tokens.
Cinder figured he only needed armor if he was going to get hit. As long as he didn't get hit, he would be fine.
Kode had shaken his head and sighed deeply when Cinder said as much.
But Kode had sighed a lot during his conversations with Cinder, so Cinder didn't think much of it.
Instead, he adjusted his grip on the mace that was about as long as his arm. It was a straight steel rod with an uneven head. It didn't look as charming as a sword, but according to Kode and the weaponsmith, blunt weapons were best for beginners. He could always pick up the sword later if he wanted.
Besides, he had experience with manual labor. The mace was heavy, but it wasn't unbearably. He could swing it with relative ease. It was even easier to handle than one of the big sledgehammers.
While playing around with the mace, Cinder followed the path away from the village. For the first time since he started the game, he looked forward and upward.
"...That's a big mountain…" Cinder craned his head backward until his neck hurt.
The mountain wasn't steep, at least not in the beginning. It was an uphill slope that seemed to continue forever. He couldn't even see the top or the upper half due to the clouds.
"How the fuck are you supposed to climb that?" Cinder questioned, shaking his head. He had never seen Mount Everest up close, but he had seen pictures.
The Mountain of Sisyphus Online made Earth's tallest mountain look like a cute hill.
Cinder looked around the grassy slope. There were a few trees here and there, offering shadowy protection from the sun and a place to rest when following the winding, uneven path. He couldn't find any monsters.
He glanced back.
He still saw the village clearly. Kode even waved at him. Cinder sighed and waved back. It felt like he had walked longer.
It also meant Kode had seen him do those lunges and swings. Cinder walked a little faster.
Finally, after five or ten minutes, he crossed over a slight ridge and only saw the tops of a few houses if he stretched. He had escaped Kode's judging eyes. He breathed a sigh of relief. He was definitely not panting because walking uphill with a heavy-ass mace was harder than he thought.
"This stupid realism…!" Cinder rested the head of the mace against the ground and stretched his back. Why was he exercising in a game?
"Huff!"
Cinder was startled out of his stretch by the loud snorting grunt of a boar less than a stone's throw away. He slowly picked up the mace.
'I guess that's a monster.'
It had dark brown fur and a big, solid-looking body. Cinder looked at his mace. It suddenly felt very small. Cinder realized at least part of the reason why Kode had looked at him with pity.
"How the fuck am I supposed to kill that with—" Before he could finish his question, the boar suddenly charged straight at him, its two tusks looking very dangerous.
Cinder threw himself to the side.
'Fast!'
The boar had crossed the distance between them in just a few seconds. If it hadn't alerted Cinder of its presence before charging, it would have rammed straight into him.
Cinder scrambled to his feet, not forgetting the heavy mace, as the boar turned around and prepared another charge.
Cinder knew running was useless. There was no way he could escape the boar. He had trouble just dodging its charge, and unlike him, the boar didn't even look out of breath.
His only option was to kill it.
In a weird way, it felt strange. It was a game, but it felt like he would die for real if he couldn't kill the boar. It was a life-or-death situation.
Cinder wanted to complain that the game was too realistic. There was no way it could be good for his mental health if he actually got killed by the boar.
With how realistic it was and how well touch and his other senses were replicated, Cinder didn't want to know if his sense of pain was the same as it was in reality.
He grabbed the mace hard enough to make his knuckles turn white. One hand at the butt of the handle and the other right below the head.
The boar charged.
Cinder raised his mace. As it extended above his head, the hand at the mace's head slid down to the other, making full use of the mace's length to drive as much force as possible into the mace before matching it to the boar's head.
The boar got close.
Cinder brought down his mace. It landed somewhat accurately on the boar's snout. There was a satisfying crunch.
The boar was big and strong, but there was no way its skeleton could compare to the solid steel of his mace.
And then the full momentum of the boar slammed into Cinder.