Rebirth: Rise of the Slave Master

Chapter Nine: A Personal Awakening

Lola was an intern in real life, which was basically another word for “office-slave,” and she spent every waking minute at work pouring through obscure reference files. Couldn’t her boss have just splurged and bought a proper search program? That couldn’t be right, since Lola was actually the cheaper option…

Although her job was stressful, she always worked to the best of her abilities in order to make a good impression. It was in the evenings that she could finally unwind with her most favorite past time:

Virtual Dramas.

Lola loved taking on the role of important characters in history, or going on adventures with handsome time-traveling scientists. It was the thing that allowed her to truly let loose and be herself!

When Dream World Online was first announced, she hadn’t been very interested it. It looked too big and too complicated to be any real fun. How would she even know what to do with a game like that? She only started playing because one of her girlfriends talked her into it… incessantly so. Now…

“Eat this!” she dropped the heavy blade on the head of the [Bristle Boar] just in time, catching it as it attempted to dodge.

[Heavy Strike]

-105

This little level 3 piggy was the first monster Tanya had encountered with a Defense attribute. The boar’s tough bristles were like an armored coating, weakening the damage of all her attacks. Luckily, she favored the heavy two-handed greatswords, which had a high base damage value. It was a perfect match-up for her skillset, unlike the nimble [Sand Lizard] which had caused her no shortage of troubles.

Dream World Online had completely enamored her over the past week, leaving Lola stunned and speechless. Infinite possibilities, unlimited freedom… It was like a virtual drama that never ended and she, Tanya the Berserker, was going to be the star of it all! This right here would be her training montage! One day, it would all be a jazzy, well-choreographed memory when she ruled this world!

“Excuse me!” a somewhat dry voice called to Tanya, who had just finished dispatching the [Bristle Boar].

She turned her head. This was?

H-handsome! A wild [Handsome Guy] had appeared! Tanya only felt momentarily uncomfortable with her character’s sturdy physique and amazon-style way of dressing before she remembered what kind of character she was playing! That’s right, she had to stay true to herself. Tanya confidently hoisted the heavy sword onto her shoulder and took up a smug pose. This guy probably just customized his character model to be a pretty-boy, anyway.

This passerby stood quite a bit shorter than her, and was dressed like a stereotypical RPG adventurer with a poncho and a monochrome color palette. If he had gone any darker with it the outfit might have come off as childish, but somehow he gave off a mature, slightly sinister aura. He was even carrying a battered-looking [Fine Iron Spear]. Was it possible to customize your weapons and make them look tattered like that? Tanya would have to look into it later, as that would really match her character design!

“What’s this? A fellow adventurer? Why are you bothering me?” she called out in what she thought was a ‘confident-sounding’ voice.

“Sorry about this,” the guy said, as if what he was about say was going to be embarrassing.

Was this guy about to flirt with her? Tanya actually felt her ego rising a bit from this. Even if he wasn’t a good-looking guy in real life, it was still a nice feeling. Just as long as it didn’t happen so often that it got in the way of her game playing…

“I have a quest I need to do, and for that I have to be a bad guy,” he smiled calmly, but why did Tanya suddenly feel so uncomfortable?

“Please think of this as a lesson in PvP,” the man casually armed his spear and struck out.

Tanya thankfully hadn’t dropped her guard all this time. She had conquered the hell-like [Big Bee] and suffered for two straight days against the nightmare that was the [Sand Lizard]. She could even take down a level 3 monster by herself! This puny-ass spear attack was nothing to her! Shifting her weight, Tanya prepared to move out of the way and swing her sword to pulverize this jerk.

Just as the spear was about to reach her, Tanya kicked off the rocky terrain and leapt to the left, brandishing her weapon.

-203

Her body was suddenly stopped dead in its tracks, and her HP bar depleted by nearly the entire amount. She only had 230 HP in total! The spear attack had been like a brick wall in her way, and totally knocked the wind out of her. She thought she had dodged the attack, what… what had happened?

You have attacked a Good Aligned Player! Alignment: Evil +25...

Theo could only smile regretfully as he watched the shocked look take shape on the woman’s face. He had been surprised the first time he experienced this phenomenon too, but that had been a long time ago. He could imagine exactly what was going through her head.

A slow, direct appraoch, with clear openings to dodge into!

If a new player saw his attack, this is what they would think. Yet, they would end up being hit no matter how precisely timed their dodge was. In proper combat, this maneuver was called a feint, and it had been a tactic in fights long before weapons and martial arts were even a thing. In the world of Dream World Online, however, this move had a very different name.

Action cancel!

Action cancel… the act of prematurely ending a character's animation by interupting it with another action. It was a basic technique that anyone in this game would need to learn if they wanted to fight against other players. Some high-level NPCs could even fight with nasty tricks like this!

When that puny-looking spear attack was about to hit, and the player had already used their chance to dodge, all Theo had to do was cancel his attack early and switch to one that would connect. This sounded fairly simple, but was quite difficult to pick up and use in practice. Dream World Online registered a user’s mental inputs in order and put them into a queue. There was a delay between when you wanted to swing your sword and when it actually swung!

In order to cancel a strike early, the player had to be planning on canceling the strike from the beginning, since the attack would be too far along in the animation if they waited. Well, canceling late could be like a feint within a feint, so it wasn't totally useless. The player also had to decide where to aim their second attack before their target dodged, meaning they had to properly predict the chosen path, time taken, and distance moved.

In this case, it was easy to tell where the woman was going. She had a big sword on her right shoulder, so she was almost certainly right handed. Unless she had the sense to move closer her target first, which was unlikely for a newbie, she would dodge to the left to give herself room to actually swing her weapon.

As for the effect that stopped Tanya’s counterattack, this was known as an ‘interrupt’ in the game lingo. When you were hit with an attack in Dream World Online the system would register a tiny shock at the point of impact, to make sure you felt it. There wouldn’t be any pain involved, but a bunch of calculations would process in the background. Depending on your attributes and the power of the attack, a strong enough blow would clear out your action queue and stun you for a very brief period.

This was especially useful against spellcasters, who had to charge up their fire balls and lightning bolts ahead of time before they could be used. One good hit against those Intelligence-only types and you could easily stop them dead in their tracks.

Very few monsters were susceptible to this effect, especially the bosses, because they had an ability called [Hyper Armor] that would ignore interrupts. Players could also get this power through certain skills and items, but it was beyond rare at this point in the game.

Higher levels of play would become a game of feints, dodges, blocks, and parries. Like high-speed chess, you had to be a step ahead of your opponent at all times or you would fall into their rhythm and eventually take a hit. If you suffered an interrupt, you were usually as good as dead.This was player vs player combat in Dream World Online!

“With the early gear, I’m guessing it’ll take her about three minutes to heal to full…” Theo thought to himself.

Tanya quickly righted herself. She wasn’t stupid. This guy did 200+ damage in a single hit, and had weird attacks that could ignore her dodge! He wasn’t a player, he was a high-level NPC! She completely ignored the terms like quest and PvP that he had used earlier, choosing to refute reality instead. There was nobody this strong that existed in the current player base yet... he clearly wasn’t human!

In Dream World Online, you couldn’t see another player’s name and level unless you used the [Perception] skill on them. Even then, if your proficiency wasn’t high enough, and the target was a much higher level than you, it wouldn’t work. As a level 9 player, only someone who power-grinded their [Perception] this whole time would be able forcefully inspect him.

Retreat! Tanya immediately ran away.

Unfortunately for the woman, Theo’s strength was 85 after his level up. His movement speed was faster than hers. It wasn’t immediately noticeable, but it would still be impossible for her to escape by running.

Theo leisurely followed after her, keeping her just within range of his attacks. After her HP recovered to a certain point.

[Lunge]

-198

He attacked her again.

You have attacked a Good Aligned Player! Alignment: Evil +25…

Another interrupt! She stopped dead in her tracks and Theo quickly circled around in front of her. Poor thing, she was actually shaking.

“If you promise to sit still and let me attack you, I’ll let you live,” Theo blatantly threatened her.

Getting killed by a player wouldn’t cause you to lose experience until you were level 10 or above. The penalty was unaffected for deaths by monsters, though. Still, a threat was a threat even if there wasn’t any downside to it. Who wanted to be killed by someone else, after all?

“You… you’re sick!” Tanya yelled at the guy.

Theo wanted to sigh. It wasn’t like he did this kind of thing for fun! Players with the “Good” alignment couldn’t become Slave Masters. Simple as that.

You had to first drop to the “Neutral” alignment at least, which required you to accumulate “Evil” points. There were any number of ways to get these points, but one of the quickest was trying to kill other players. Everyone started out with the Good alignment in this game, and so were treated as sane, upstanding citizens. If you attacked a Good or Neutral player or NPC, however, it would give you Evil points. Attacking Evil players actually gave you Good points, though.

Accumulating Evil points was a slow process, but earn enough and you’d drop to the Neutral alignment. Certain NPCs started to treat you differently, as if you had a “rough-guy” air about you. Keep going after that, and you’d drop to the Evil alignment. There weren’t any real benefits of doing this, as most NPCs were Good and would attack you or run from you on sight. Some secrets would unlock for Evil players, but they were hard to find and few Evil NPCs would consider the distinction.

After all, Evil entities didn’t care if you were a good guy or bad guy when they stabbed you in the back…Theo frowned. He’d brought up a bad memory.

Tanya swung her blade at the creepy handsome guy, “Just die already! Scum!”

Unfortunately, the guy was even more slippery than a [Sand Lizard]. No matter how many times Tanya tried to hit him, her attacks always missed by just a tiny bit. It was absolutely infuriating. She hardly noticed the passing of time before…

-205

You have attacked a Good Aligned Player! Alignment: Evil +25…

He attacked her again! It didn’t hurt a bit, but it was really embarrassing. If it was possible, her face would have been flushed red in anger! This is abuse! This is harassment! Call the cops!

“You… you…”

An hour! Tanya had been trapped and toyed with by this terrifying guy for an entire hour already! While you normally couldn’t leave the game while facing a monster, there was no such restriction for regular PvP combat. In order to prevent harassment situations, much like this, the players could just log out in the middle of a fight. It was Tanya’s pride that hadn’t allowed her to just escape in this situation. She might have to put up with this kind of treatment at work, but this was a game world for crying out loud!

You have attacked a Good Aligned Player! Alignment: Evil +25…

For shame, adventurer! You have taken steps on the path of the evildoer, and your alignment has fallen as a result! Do good deeds to recover your fallen prestige.

New Alignment: Neutral.

“Finally!” Theo actually said it out loud, letting loose a pent-up sigh.

This young lady had actually been a huge help to him by refusing to logout all this time. He thought he was going to have to spend half the day chasing down stray players outside the city walls and smacking them around a bit. It would have been a real hassle to do something like that, especially if they ran away.

Player Theo has requested to trade with you.

Tanya’s eyes went wide when she heard this system message, and she almost swung her huge sword at the man in frustration. After failing to even once get the upper hand on him in the past hour, she had all but given up. That face would haunt her dreams! He may have looked handsome on the outside, but in truth he was a demon! That pleasant smile on his lips… staring with sharp eyes while he attacked her… waiting for her to recover and then…

Player Theo has requested to trade with you.

“So you really are a player…” Tanya let out an hour’s worth of pent-up stress as she sat on a nearby rock, finally accepting the trade request.

Judging by the man’s insistence to leave her alive, this was something Tanya had long since come to accept, only… it made her feel even more dirty in her heart.

“Yup,” the man named Theo said casually.

“Wha- what is this!” Tanya shouted when she saw what the man had placed in the trade window.

“Consider it compensation for letting me wail on you,” he said matter-of-factly.

200 [Lesser Earth Essence]! That was enough to fill two slots of her inventory! She only had a few dozen assorted essences by now, since she had to split them with other players helping her fight the monsters, and zero rare drops! How many monsters had this guy killed already? Had he been fighting by himself this entire time?

Of course, if Tanya knew that Theo was carrying around elite and boss monster equipment on his person, she would probably vomit blood in rage. The 200 [Lesser Earth Essence] were mostly dropped from the hordes of snakes he killed, and were taking up valuable space in his inventory! He had beaten her up and now he was basically using her like a trash can.

Ignorance really was bliss.

After seeing the huge fortune that had fallen in her lap, Tanya thought the guy looked a little handsome again. That demonic face suddenly had a charming countenance to it… like an evil prince!

Player Tanya has sent you a friend request! Congratulations!

“You… um, that is,” she was fumbling over her words, “if you need to do this again… you can call me…”

No! Stupid! That wasn’t what she meant. He was… this guy was strong… and he was rich… an alliance! Yes, she wanted to form an alliance. This had nothing to do with being beaten up, it was about the loot! The levels!

Theo’s jaw almost dropped. What was this woman saying!? Was this the reason she didn’t log out? She enjoyed getting beaten up? This was definitely someone he should stay away from, but...

You have accepted Player Tanya’s friend request!

Pity and guilt had won out in the end. Theo just couldn’t reject the woman when she was giving him a face like that. He might have felt a little bad at costing her an hour of her time, too, but he'd already apologized for that. At the moment, he had important things to take care of, and he didn’t want to talk to this weirdo anymore. He had to reach Oasis before that martial arts nerd, Bai, logged on and challenged him to a duel!

Theo turned and left with quick strides.

Tanya trembled slightly with relief as the image of the man’s back was burned into her memory. There was an uncomfortable feeling forming in the pit of her stomach.

After a few seconds...

“No!” she shouted internally, “It’s all about the loot! I’ll wring that creep dry, I’ll take him for everything he’s got! Hmph!”