After my mission guarding the plants of the Mardukryon, I harvested my own plants, fruits, branches, roots, leaves, everything, and went back to the Lodge to get my rewards and possibly get my next mission.

I was thinking what to do with all the fruits I got from the basic seeds I planted. Foragers have a skill where they can extract seeds without ruining the usability of a fruit so after extracting the seeds, the fruits could still be eaten.

But they only give a tiny tiny tiny amount of health. I could regen back the health they give in a second. These fruits were nowhere near the quality and potency of the fruits Justalyne gave me when we hunted the crystaminds. I could eat my fruits to fill my satiety, but I already have lots of nonsense stuff to eat that I found all around the village.

My first thought was to give them to noobs, new Mardukryon players. Maybe I could gain some ally or friends when I make a guild someday. Then it occurred to me that I should just give the fruits to Zaido and Beltis!

I have nearly neglected my relationship with them after Zaido gave me [Pyro Shell]. Surely, Zaido could be a possible source of other skills if I take our relationship stat even higher.

“This has got to be one of my most brilliant ideas ever in my whole gaming life,” I said. I folded my arms and nodded approvingly at the garden in front of me.

“Is this fine Big Brother?” Little Pony said, patting the ground with his shovel.

“I’ve said many times that we’re not relatives and I don’t want to be your relative,” I said. “And that’s good work.”

Little Pony helped me dig a garden in the backyard of Zaido. Now, Beltis has a job to do that doesn’t require her to go outside and possibly die. She could tend the garden and her payment would be in fruits and other produce of my plants. Since she was always eager to help her father with chores, she could do this one and be paid. And Zaido would have peace of mind in knowing that his daughter wasn’t outside the village being the quest objective for players to save. Who knows, I might be able to raise a plant that would heal her weak body. I wasn’t shortchanging them or anything; I was sure what I was going to give them covered Beltis’ wages and the rent for the plot of land.

I wasn’t too much of a douchebag to cheat. I didn’t draw up a contract because I haven’t seen Mardukryon writing besides the sigils and runes used by the Hunter-Warriors. When players post notices on the bulletin boards or the Mardukryons posts quests, it was always in English, duh, for me to understand.

But their actual writing appears to be in runes so I didn’t bother writing a contract in English since Zaido wouldn’t be able to understand it.

Like I said, I wasn’t cheating anyone, even NPCs.

My goal, for now, was to quickly breed plants and raise seed stocks. Then I could proceed to plan out my progression in the Faction Skill Tree. My plan was to go with the vine armor thing first then poison plants next.

Normally, Foragers would plant their seeds somewhere safe and come back after a few days to harvest them. Take the seeds or roots or vines and plant again. The Forager job seemed to be a slow progressing one.

Taking care of the plants like watering them and giving them fertilizer would speed up their growth. And you could always plant them on the Lord Mirdabon pathways, but then, you need to guard them all the time. Even Forager players didn’t want to stand around and guard their plants all day long.

Good thing that Beltis was here to take care of my plants. The act of actual planting and harvesting gave Job Experience so I would make sure I was the one who did those. Everything in between like pulling weeds and watering plants could be left to Beltis.

Earlier, Little Pony came by to help me dig the garden and even got a shovel. A shovel was much better than a spear to use for digging, obviously. I grudgingly let him dig the backyard. I also wanted to ask him to help Beltis in watching over the garden but hesitated because he might set the garden on fire or something. I didn’t trust Little Pony one bit.

That guy needs supervision. He turns everything he touches into a questline.

“Thank you for helping us out Big Brother,” Beltis, the daughter of Zaido said.

“I’m fine with you calling me Big Brother, Beltis,” I said, patting her head. She giggled as she ate the fruits I gave her. “Your dad gave me such an awesome skill so I like you too.” I turned to Eliseph, the Little Pony. “I guess you also helped a lot in making this garden.” I then gave him some of the fruits I harvested earlier.

"These fruits make me feel better already," Beltis said. "I'm sure Big Brother raised them with love."

"I raised them with the corpses of dozens of monsters," I said with a dead pan face. "And also love. Since I love killing monsters."

"You planted these ones outside?" Little Pony asked, referring to the fruit I gave him. "On the places where the Lord Mirdabons tread?"

"Yup."

"You're very brave Big Brother."

"Well, you know me. I'm very awesome. Nothing as brave as planting on patches of land legendary monsters walked on." I looked on the ground while thinking. There was no way for us to kill those Lord Mirdabons in our current state. Mardukryon levelling gets exponentially slow. Our gear sucks. We don't have many options for other skills, jobs, items, etc. while stuck on this mountain. I didn't think the game developers really expected us to stay here until we could take down Lord Mirdabons. So that meant that we were supposed to escape the mountain and return at a later time to kick Lord Mirdabon ass?

"Someday, I also want to go out and fight monsters," Beltis said, interrupting my thoughts.

"Help me get my vine armor plants strong so that I could give you one and you could go around safely," I said.

Little Pony raised his hand. "I want one too!"

I straightened up and trotted away. "I remember I have to do something. Take care of the plants, Beltis! Enjoy the fruits I gave you." I wasn't lying. I was going to the workshop of Blacksmith Sumuel. I figured that I could do some quests with him since that could earn me some discounts when I upgrade my gear. And I need to upgrade my gear.

I opened Nornyr Online's website as I trotted to Sumuel's place. There it was. The experience boost event players were talking about.

"Next, next week, huh? Thiry percent added experience." That would coincide with the second major Hunt of the Mardukryons. By that time I should have upgraded my gear. I should take advantage of that event to push myself further. If I wasn't strong enough to carry my own weight during that event then the higher level players would probably exclude me. I also planned to learn about the playstyle of other players and other game mechanics.

After checking their website, I opened another tab to buy airplane tickets.

I was still playing inside the hotel. I didn’t go back home yet because we were waiting for the sister of the dead guy to appear. Turned out he had a sister. The police wouldn’t let us get a copy of the forensic report. And I really wanted that report, not only for possible future litigation, which shouldn't happen if I handled this right, but for other purposes as well. Purposes such as pushing for forced technology standard for spinal port implants. But that was a story for another time.

Bottomline was, I wanted that report. I didn’t want to press the police or go to the mayor or something because that would look bad for a big corporation to do that in a small quaint city.

It was fortunate that Mr. Cao, through his investigations, found out about a sister. We originally thought this guy was living alone, forgotten by his family or something because of his nutjob conspiracy theories, only submitting feature stories about gaming to the local news, but never really making his presence felt in his community. But he had a sister. The sister didn't seem to care about her brother and based from her tone on the phone, she was annoyed that her brother had died. She said she would come to settle the funeral and paper works. I wasn't about to become a guidance counselor and talk to them about their family problems so I simply asked her for her consent to get the report in return for VR pod.

Quite a deal, if I may say so myself. But the possible future value of that report was something she wouldn't even comprehend.

Still, I felt a bit of pity that no one really cared about this guy, except possibly, his online fans. I wasn't aware if they knew who he was in real life.

I looked at some of his stories and they were mostly about events inside the game in the news website. Normal game stories like one guild taking the territory of another, or more controversial game stories, like people meeting up in real life with someone in the game only to get robbed. Mildly interesting news that would net a spot in a feature corner of a small news site. Those occurrences were unfortunate if those were true, but you could hardly blame our company for that. Those things happen all the time in social media to gullible people. Getting swindled, conned, tricked by some guy you found while playing a game.

People should know about this but people still get scammed. Frustrating, really.

Those incidents happened in other countries, anyway. He only got his information from talking to other players. He was a member of the guild that was famous in the game for information brokering. Maybe there was some truth to his news that there were some underground sketchy illegal dealings by players in the game.

“Hmmm, I don’t think I have visited his site yet.” I typed in his name to check what would show up. “Oh, I’m already at the workshop.” I skidded to a halt and nearly missed my stop because I was preoccupied.

I closed my interface. It could wait some other time. I was sure his website was full of nonsense stuff. I could get our IT guys to find his website. On the off chance that the game was used as a platform for illegal transactions then that would be more than a simple bad press and I have to deal with that.

“Hello, Master Sumuel,” I said when I entered.

“I see you have horns growing on you now,” Sumuel said. He was polishing a sword behind the counter. A Mardukryon player was in front of the counter. Sumuel handed the sword to him in exchange for some rings. The player went out but gave me a nod as he passed me.

I nodded back without really thinking about it. Seems like we’re bros now, huh?

“Master Sumuel,” I said. “I haven’t really passed by your place for a while now. I’m sure you have work for me. I’m much stronger now so you could trust me with collecting those rare pieces down the mines.”

“Indeed, I have work for you. But it’s going to be dangerous. What I need are in the fourth and fifth level of the mines.”

“No problem for me. It’s expected that it will be harder the further I go down. I’m game for anything.”

“It’s not a simple matter, young warrior.”

“Oh, I’m young warrior now instead of youngling.” I checked out his horns to compare them with mine. His was about three or four times longer and had a wicked curve. Do I get more badass horns the more I level or do I have to do something specific?

“A couple of days ago, the Miners clearing the sixth level has dug a hole into a tunnel made by the Wraithpedes. Good thing some Hunter-Warriors were with them. Something right those Hunter-Warriors did for once.”

“Did they kill those Wraithpedes?” I asked. Those monsters sounded big because they were able to dig tunnels instead of just holes. Kind of creepy to think that there were gigantic creepy-crawlies hanging around deep inside the mountain, waiting for the right time to burst out and attack an unsuspecting Mardukryon.

“Kill the Wraithpedes? No way they were able to kill a Wraithpede! They barely escape with their lives.” Master Sumuel shook his head. “What is wrong with young warriors nowadays. You don’t simply kill a Wraithpede. They melt back into the shadows if they sense that they are losing. You were already born when we had a plague of Wraithpedes half a decade ago. We lost many of our numbers at that time. You should have remembered that.”

“Whoops,” I said, grinning sheepishly. “I’m sorry I forgot about our history and all that. I think it’s the fault of some rotten food I sometimes eat to fill my satiety bar.”

“Those damn Hunter-Warriors with their Head Warrior went out yesterday for some stupid mission, still a pompous brat if you ask me, that Head Warrior, instead of beating back the Wraithpedes.”

“Wait, wait. So, if I go to the mines now, I’ll have to deal with Wraithpedes to get you what you need?”

“Not really…I think,” Master Sumuel said. He hesitated before continuing. “The Miners said the Wraithpedes are staying on the sixth level. They didn’t move upwards.”

“That’s good then. I’ll just be careful and watch out if some of them move up.”

“The problem is that other creatures which use the tunnels of the Wraithpedes to navigate the heart of the mountain have spilled into the mines. They are the ones moving up the mine levels.”

“Ah, there’s the problem.” I smiled. Why were there so many monsters on this mountain? It was nothing short of a miracle that Mardukryons have survived and even flourished in this stupid place. Everything here was out to get them. Is this the Australia of the Nornyr Online World?

“You still want the job?” Sumuel said. “I have several items that I need that can be found on the fourth and fifth levels. Choose to collect only some of them. You don’t want to be staying long in the mines.”

“While Danger is not my middle name, because I need to petition for a change of entry in my birth certificate for that one, and I don’t think they’ll allow me to do that, I’m willing to get down the mines to get the materials you need.”

A list of quests appeared before me. They were either for ores or rocks that needed to be mined or they were parts of monsters which I assumed to live in level four and five.

“You’re free to choose which ones you want to do,” Sumuel said.

I accepted them all because I was a badass that didn't have Danger as his middle name. I didn’t have a middle name, which was a bit unusual. I think, in some countries, the middle name refers to their mother’s maiden surname rather than a second given name.

Anyhow, let’s get down and dirty in the mines!