I refused Dunstan’s offer to guide me to the next quest point, leaving him with Captain Edmund, and went my own way. There was much of the town to explore, and he’d just be an annoyance.

A town guard? I had used many classes like those in the past—a warrior, a swordsman, a knight, and so on. It should be fairly predictable. Talking with Captain Edmund made me ponder how I should go about picking my Ocadules. I shouldn’t…what was that stupid shit I used to say? Think like a box?

Yes, I shouldn’t think like a box.

Cooking with Pomphrey intrigued me more than whatever could be at the barracks. Making something from the meat I harvested from the poor rabbits? Sounds tasty.

May those cute bunnies have a final resting place in my belly.

More than cooking up a virtual meal, consumables were also key for a tank. In MCO, food items weren’t only healing consumables, they also provided buffs. I expected five-star meals to give impressive and indispensable boosts so I shouldn’t neglect those. There was also an Apothecary near the parish. ‘Apothecary’ was just the fancy archaic term for a pharmacy if I wasn’t mistaken, so potions should be there.

A baker Ocadule? A potion-maker Ocadule?

As I crossed the bridge to the town gate, I saw a player with the same grubby clothes I wore following a female ginger NPC who looked as if she could be Dunstan’s sister. The player turned to me as I passed and hesitantly called, “Excuse me! Uh, he-hello. Test?”

“Hi there,” I said with a friendly smile. “Test, that’s me. Test number one hundred and thirty-five.”

“You’re a player, right?”

“I am. Did my name confuse you?” I chuckled. “I’ve been testing several builds across multiple races and it was too much of an effort to think of a new name each time. I’m not an NPC.”

“Oh wow!” Her eyes widened. “You must be really experienced in this game.”

“You could say that I guess.” I scratched the back of my head and awkwardly grinned.

“I’m just a newbie. If it isn’t too much trouble, can I ask you a question?”

“Sure, go ahead,” I said. Intercourse inferno! Herald Stone, the Veteran MCO Player, was going to be put to the test. “I’ll see if I can help.”

“How can I learn Cooking Skills? I’m following her,” she said, pointing at the female version of Dunstan, “and I think I’m going the wrong way.”

“I assume you’ve passed by Pie Lane?” I asked. She nodded. “Do you have a Food Token? Your assigned NPC should’ve given one.”

“Uh-huh. I have it.”

“And did you go in to meet the NPC there at the bakery?”

She shook her head. “I was too shy because there were so many scary-looking players. They might be annoyed with a newbie like me.”

“You don’t need to be afraid of us,” I said. Yes, ‘us’ veteran players, I thought sarcastically. I bet she approached me because she saw I wore beginner clothes. “Anyway, you should’ve entered the bakery and claimed your free food using the token. You’ll be talking to just an NPC, so don’t worry about it. Continue asking the NPC about cooking and what you can do to help, and you’ll eventually follow a series of quests to learn Cooking Skills.”

“Erm, so, do I just leave her?” She pointed at the NPC leading her to Captain Edmund.

“It’s fine not to do a quest if you want to do something else,” I assured her. “Just tell her you’re going to the cookshops.”

She did just that, and the NPC continued alone to Captain Edmund by the forest probably to have some semblance of story consistency. I suspected it would then just disappear until another new player came along.

The woman I was helping, assuming she was a real “she”—I did see the option to change the sex of our characters—thanked me and headed back to Pie Lane.

“She does behave like a woman, I think?” I shrugged. I didn’t know how things were now, but during my time playing MMORPGs, it was common for guys to have girl characters and vice versa. “Who was it again?” I clicked my tongue as I struggled to remember which of my childhood friend always chose a female character. “Manson!” I said with a triumphant snap of my fingers. “Manson with his dumb jokes.”

I waved at the NPC guards as I entered the town. The player who wanted to learn Cooking was up ahead, probably forgetting the way to Pie Lane. I walked slowly so we wouldn’t run into each other. I breathed a sigh of relief when she turned down the correct path.

Unfortunately, it meant I couldn’t visit Pomphrey myself. It was like in real life when someone asked for directions to a place I wasn’t familiar with, and I pointed them in the same direction I was going, but then I had to go somewhere else because I didn’t want to meet them again in the off-chance I gave the wrong information and they got lost.

I could’ve just admitted I was a newbie…but Herald Stone isn’t a newbie.

And here we have a quandary.

Others might say my deceptive deception was despicable and dishonest, but there was no harm done. My advice was likely correct given how things worked in this game. What difference did it make for her to think I was a veteran player or a beginner? Nothing.

A win-win situation for everyone.

And the world kept on spinning with Herald Stone in the center.

I wandered far from the starting point in front of the parish, passing by houses and shops with NPCs acting out a believable Medieval life. Even here, a part of the town players would probably never visit unless on a quest-related errand—there was a whole fantasy world to discover out there compared to a boring human town—everything was nonetheless carefully designed.

There were other starting points for human characters. The continent with Assuwa-themed kingdoms and city-states that the Dalkanus had offered sounded like an awesome experience. However, I picked a ‘generic fantasy town’ set in Eroba because this was what I usually imagined as a kid whenever I read my favorite fantasy books. I planned to choose a more unusual starting place with my next character.

Lacking a concrete goal, I considered heading to the docks that Captain Edmund told me about. Perhaps there was a fishing Ocadule. Unfortunately, Herald Stone, the Navigator, was nonexistent so I consulted the very helpful signposts that provided a map of the town.

The town center caught my interest. It was a huge circular area with something called the ‘Amberkeld’ in the middle; I had to go there to find out what it was. Even more interesting was the ‘Gate’ near it. Could it be the warp portal system of this world? They seriously couldn’t expect people to walk from city to city so there must be a form of fast travel to interconnect the main hubs.

The ‘Amberkeld’ turned out to be a fountain with a man-sized golden crystal floating on top of it. The fountain was about three times larger than the one in front of the parish and had magical properties with its streams of water swirling up the air around the crystal.

Ten meters or so from this wonder was a more imposing sight—the ruins of a stone gate fit for a giant’s use. Its entire arch was still completely intact, but the massive stone blocks were cracked and crumbled with age. Every few seconds, its middle part which led to nowhere—or rather, to just the other side of the gate—would be filled with swirling blue energies looking like someone flushed the toilet with those blue cleaning tablets in it. And out came players from far away locations.

I immediately went to the Gate and tried to use it, but the guard said, “I’m sorry, you’re not sufficiently capable of withstanding the stress of the travel. Come back when you are ready.” The system then advised me only level ten players could access it.

“Must be to force players to explore this place first and learn the basics,” I speculated to myself.

I could barely hear my voice over the racket of the crowds. If the street in front of the parish was busy, the town center was bustling with insanity. And these weren’t NPCs pretending to be doing something; the people here were mostly players.

The perimeter of the wide circular space was lined with stalls of players selling various items, from their own crafted weapons and armors, to brewed potions, to cooked food. Some stalls offered to craft items if you brought them the materials. Another spot had three players in priestly garb offering one-hour buffs to parties for a hundred thousand Artas. Then there were the social stalls, players looking for parties, guild recruiters, probably the most important aspect of an MMORPG.

Since I couldn’t go to Pomphrey, I visited the food stalls instead.

The shopkeeper dwarf hopped off the high barstool behind the counter of his small kiosk and waddled to meet me. “Hello there, Mr. Customer! May I interest you in some hearty meals? All of them have one-hour durations. If you buy ten, I’ll throw in one for free.”

“This is a new character.” I referred to my character, not myself, as ‘new’, thus implying I had gone through multiple before. My name should also add to my façade. “I don’t have any Artas on me. And I won’t benefit from it now anyway. I’m just taking it slow this time.”

“Well, you never know if someone is high-leveled but pretending to be a newbie by wearing beginner’s gear,” said the dwarf. “When you do get the money, don’t forget my stall, alright? I’m trying to get my name out there.”

“Sure,” I uncommittedly replied as I surveyed the goods he offered. If I focused on a dish, the details would show up. The best ones he had were rated three stars. That could be the level of his cooking skills.

Most of the meals, about two-thirds of the entire table, gave buffs for DPS characters. They boosted things like Accuracy, Critical Hit Rate and Damage, Magic Damage, and so on. I might not be familiar with MCO, but the names of the secondary attributes were pretty self-explanatory.

In the MMORPGs of old, parties for PvE content would consist mainly of DPS characters to swiftly clear the mobs or dispatch the boss monster. Add in a smattering of tanks and healers to make sure the run wouldn't fail. Perhaps a dungeon with peculiar mechanics would require more tanks and healers than DPS, but that was a rarity. In easier dungeons or raids, parties wouldn't even need support classes—a sad reality. Judging by the types of food for sale, this was the same situation in Mother Core Online.

PvP should also be the same. It was a no-brainer that the ability to kill would be prized whether it be in a one-versus-one setting or in large-scale battles like guild wars. Tanks, healers, and other support players have their place in PvP, but there was limited demand for them—which wasn't a huge issue because only a small percentage of the player base chose non-DPS classes. Up to this day, I still couldn't wrap my head around why so many people almost instinctively build DPS characters.

It must be the numbers, I thought. Humans seemed to like numbers going up—money being the prime example. Like and Comments on Missive and other social media platforms seemed to trigger some sort of addiction within people. Just numbers going up. I couldn't deny the incredible satisfaction in dishing out millions of damage. But I found it more fulfilling to be able to stand up to millions of damage.

“Is it hard to get a business running with this much competition around?” I said as I surveyed all the other stalls, striking up a casual conversation to gain information.

“If I transfer somewhere away from all these guys, I’d just get flies as customers," the dwarf said. "Better here. A lot of people come and go. If I do get my name up there someday, I bet you I can open my store in the middle of the Fornecian Desert and people will still come. I’m imagining along the lines of the top Pastry Chef, Grand Mille Feuilles. Top of the boards, not the top ‘top’, mind you. That’d be the NPCs; it’ll take a long time to topple them.”

“That’s a high and mighty goal you have there,” I said. “No pun intended.”

The dwarf throatily chortled at my stupid height joke. “You got a point there, Mr. Future Customer. I’ll need to discover the fabled six-star recipes to catch up to the G-Milf herself. Man, just think of all the money I’d get from that.”

“I’m sure you’ll eventually get there,” I said, “I’ll visit you someday to help you with your dream.”

I filed the name ‘Grand Mille Feuilles’ in my head for future interactions if I had to pretend I knew a lot about MCO affairs. That name did remind me of Eclairs; both were French pastries. I had previously thought naming people after food was ridiculous, but I had to concede that ‘Grand Mille Feuilles’ was an awesome name for a Cooking-oriented character, especially the nickname that resulted from it.

And apparently, there was a ranking for the crafter classes and the players on it were held in high regard. Could there be sort of leaderboards for tanks too? How would that be quantified? I shook my head, there I go again hoping to complete the uncompleteable.

Was ‘uncompleteable’ a real word?

In any case, I was still going to make a tank because getting hard was in my veins. But not to become top or anything like that. I shouldn’t dwell on my failed Goal #1 in Nornyr Online. I had to accept and live with the fact that the great Herald Stone had one Goal he couldn’t complete. A Goal and a failure only known to me…a man who shouldn’t know failure.

Wow, that’s a downer though. I wandered over to the guild recruitment stalls to distract myself. Since I was late to this game and had plenty of catching up to do, guilds were the perfect way to get support. I wasn't too keen on joining one yet, but perhaps I could farm more information that could benefit me.