12

The First Step

Stepping around a corner, Rian saw where the road through Thile Harbor ended: a dirt path lying ahead, winding across the plains. It looked the same as the one that led to the Temple of Altir, he recalled, but the forest line was closer on this side.

He stepped up to the end of the brick road and took a deep breath. Doubts in the back of his mind were already nagging him to go back and stock up on as much armor and potions as he could afford, just in case the early game was harder than he expected. It was the smart thing to do, if he was really at risk of dying—if each death in-game would permanently degrade his consciousness.

But if he was really afraid of dying to level one mobs, then he had no business playing a game like this with his life on the line. He was better than that; he could handle whatever the game threw at him right now.

He stepped outside of the town. Behind him, someone started clapping. He turned, and Corvis was applauding him—slowly, as if to mock him, Rian thought at first—but his expression was serious.

“You’ve impressed me so far, Rian,” Corvis said. “You’re still willing to move forward, despite everything hanging over you. I admire your resilience.”

Rian shrugged it off. Hearing something like that coming from someone as haughty as Corvis, he couldn’t help but feel resentment. It felt as if half his circumstances, including his life being at stake, was Corvis’s fault. As if he was just some pawn being played with for entertainment. Anger almost found its way into him, but he let it pass him by. Anger could come later. First, he was going to find a way out of this mess.

“Well, now,” Corvis said. “Let’s see what you’re truly made of.”

Spread throughout the plains were nearly a dozen other low-level adventurers, all fighting against some kind of small, agile creature. The plains were filled with the distant sounds of clanking armor, swords, and arrows whistling through the air.

The guild-fight seemed to be over, at least. Rian hoped Kat and Maia had made it to the temple. He supposed he could ask them in guild chat, but they were probably busy.

Rian stepped up the footpath as it rose and fell over gentle hills. Closer now, the creatures skittering about the plains were a cross between a rabbit and a fox, nimble and lithe, with long and feathered ears and white fur. Their speed varied—some of them were so quick on the ground that he had a hard time following them. Others were more slothful; adventurers quickly picked them off, and the creatures fell and rolled beneath the knee-high grasses to lay motionless and unseen. They cried out as they were stricken down, but it was soft and nonchalant, like a sigh rather than a wail.

He focused upon one of the slower creatures as it warily avoided—or attempted to avoid—a clumsy sword-wielding Beginner.

Meina (Level 1)

HP: 12/12

Difficulty: D (Common)

“A playful, timid creature of the Elmguard forests. Tends to wander. Agility varies depending on concentration of spirits.”

One of them scampered by as Rian stepped along the path. He held his short sword at the ready, but the creature had already disappeared into the fields. The winds rustled the grass.

He gripped the sword with both hands as he walked, waiting for another creature to reveal itself. They didn’t seem terribly dangerous, but he wanted to be ready to strike.

Another meina emerged from the grasses, stopped in the middle of the path, and glanced up at him with its ears folded back. Like a scar, it had a darker patch of fur along its side. Each of the meina, he realized, had slightly differing features.

Hesitating, Rian leapt forward and swung the blade down.

It all happened in an instant. The green stamina bar above his HP and MP depleted by a huge chunk; the meina darted across the footpath and into the grass, and Rian’s sword struck the ground. It rebounded and he winced, expecting the force of the blow to travel up his arms and jar him to his bones, but he felt almost nothing—just a slight pressure pushing back against his hands. The entire motion, however, had thrown him off-balance. In his attempt to correct, his feet slid out underneath him against the dirt path. Losing his grip on the sword, he fell backwards and landed on his ass.

Okay, he thought, sitting there for a moment, watching his empty stamina bar refill. So I’m not as talented as Kat thought. That’s fine. Everybody starts here.

He got up, picked up the sword, and continued walking, glancing at times to the other adventurers and seeing how they were faring. Two of them were having decent success with bows and arrows, and another was flinging daggers only to scramble in search of them in the tall grasses.

Another meina peeked out from the edge of the path in front of Rian. He didn’t hesitate, taking a quick step forward to close the range, then swung—not toward it, but ahead of it.

As he’d expected, the meina tried to cross the path and ended up directly under the blade. A crescent of flickering light emerged at the end of Rian’s sword as it cut across the creature’s body. A health bar above it appeared and depleted almost instantly, and a bright orange number emerged on the air and began to fade: he had dealt 14 damage, enough to slay it.

The meina let out a sigh and fell to the ground. A momentary whirlwind surrounded Rian as wind chimes rang in pleasant, ascending tones.

You have gained experience! (+10)

LEVEL UP! (Lv. 1→2)

You have gained +10 Max HP! (106→116)

You have gained +10 Max MP! (99→109)

Available attribute points +2

The meina partially dissolved into light, leaving behind a leathery skeleton. A tendril of smoke emerged from its body and coalesced into small disks, which clinked to the ground. Rian peered closer before realizing they were gold coins. They began to levitate, then became translucent before floating their way into his pocket—thanks to the Coin Magnet in his inventory.

When he looked closer, a page appeared, listing the materials he could scavenge from the corpse: a single leather scrap. Crafting material, no doubt. He reached for the icon which was resting above the meina, then found that the scrap of leather had materialized in his hand.

He stuffed it into his pocket.

You have obtained 1 Leather Scrap!

Corvis floated up beside him, expression blank as he looked upon the remains of the creature he’d slain.

“And so your reign of terror in my homeland has begun,” Corvis said. Rian thought he imagined it at first, but there was a twinge of sadness in his eyes.

Rian shook his head, feeling his anger build up then recede. He turned away and headed onward, away from Corvis.

Like I’m going to feel sympathy for you.

He brought up his stat page as he walked the footpath. From the level-up, there were two unallocated points for him to spend on his stats. He almost put them into Strength, but held back. He wasn’t sure what each stat exactly did; he had an intuitive understanding like most players, but every game was different. Building his character probably wasn’t as simple as dumping all his points into one stat, though he didn’t want to discount that option entirely.

When he focused upon each of his stats, more information displayed beside them.

STR: 4 (Strength: increases physical attack damage, stamina, and Max HP.)

DEX: 4 (Dexterity: increases movement speed, attack speed, and conservation of stamina.)

INT: 4 (Intelligence: increases magical attack damage and perception.)

SPR: 5 (Spirit: increases Max MP and attack power of summons; decreases damage taken from magical attacks and reduces EXP loss on death.)

He was right: every stat had its use, and there was quite a bit packed into each of them. Especially that last one—Spirit. He wondered why it was sitting at five unlike the rest, but he remembered there was a bonus point in the stat from the lore entries Corvis had given him.

As for where to spend his points, it was simple. Not dying was his priority, and having a nice big pool of HP would help him more than anything right now. He tapped on his Strength stat, and it displayed his unassigned points. Pressing an arrow icon beside it twice, the number “2” appeared on a tab which then receded into the stat page with a satisfying clunk, closing like a sliding drawer.

You have gained +2 Strength! (Max HP: 116→126)

Your stamina has increased! (8→12)

A wave rippled through his body. Though it was faint, he thought he could feel it: a strengthening of his muscles, like an involuntary flex of his arms. He breathed in, tasting the surge of energy as if the air entering his lungs were slightly electrified.

The red and green bars reappeared on his HUD and grew—the HP bar ever so slightly, and the stamina bar by an entire half. They faded.

With some difficulty, he returned the sword to its scabbard on his hip. He began to trot, then moved into a jog. Seeing that the path ahead was empty, he pumped his arms and legs into an all-out sprint until he could feel the wind push against him.

The stamina meter depleted rapidly. After barely a second of sprinting, Rian was hunched over with his hands on his knees and out of breath, heart pounding.

Even if it was all virtual, it felt astoundingly real—the way his heart thudded, the way his lungs expanded and his breath left him. But it wasn’t even slightly uncomfortable, which left him feeling rather odd, like something was wrong with his body. He wasn’t dizzy or nauseated, but he felt like he should’ve been, and arising in their place was only the memory of those feelings he was expecting.

Exhaustion left almost as quickly as it had come. The green meter slowly refilled, and everything was back to normal. It was peculiar, but nothing ached and there was no residual fatigue from his exertion.

“Don’t push yourself too hard,” Corvis said, catching up with him. “You can hardly defend yourself like that.”

“Yes, yes, I know,” Rian said, righting himself. “No stamina equals bad times. I don’t need your help.” He started walking down the path again. As he went, he figured this was what he’d missed during the tutorial—his chance to initially explore the system and see how everything interacted.

“So I’m guessing this was the tutorial I was meant to have,” he said.

“And as I thought,” Corvis said, “you didn’t really need one. You appear to be a rather experienced conquerer of worlds.”

Rian couldn’t help but chuckle. “That…sounds pretty awesome when you put it like that. But yeah, I guess. It’s not my first game.”

Corvis nodded. “Yindra chooses her off-worlders wisely. Even so, you begin as every other adventurer does. Don’t let your past experiences blind you with overconfidence.”

“Oh, trust me. I’m not the type to let it go to my head.” He glanced up at the sun, not even wincing as the sunglasses filtered the glare, until a cloud passed in front of it.

He was already reconsidering his class choice, with what Corvis had told him. Regardless of being stuck, the fact that he was playing Mirage on some kind of secret hard mode was enough to keep him in check. There was only a matter of time until he was killed, losing one of his precious lives. It was how these games worked: in the process of learning to play at his best, he would die eventually—to come back and try again.

The years he’d spent grinding away at Shadow Spirits had predisposed him to a style that naturally revolved around evasion and quick hits, anticipating the movements and actions of his enemies; Kat was right to assume he’d make a good Monk. But as he considered it, the security of having a weapon to keep creatures at a distance was sounding more appealing now. Maybe there was a fast swordsman class out there waiting for him.

As he weighed his options while walking, he already could see the farm, his destination. A field of tilled soil and sprouting crops sprawled at the edge of the forests ahead, and rain clouds had gathered near the western side. Meina were rampant throughout; groups of them had gathered around the outer edges of the farm and were eating away at the stalks.

The footpath through the plains reached the farm, and there it split off from its route into the forests. As Rian approached, he sensed that something had gone missing, as if he’d forgotten his wallet or keys. By the time he stood at the open gates to the farm, he realized what it was.

All the other adventurers who’d been hunting creatures across the plains were gone—all sound of their clanking armor and their shouts of joy or distress had silenced, and there was no sight of them upon the hills.

“Well,” Corvis said, “aren’t you lucky. It’s one of your own.”

When Rian turned toward the farmhouse to see what he meant, there was a heavyset man wearing a straw hat and overalls walking up to them.

“‘Bout time one of you showed up,” the farmer said. “These damn spawn events are getting ridiculous.”

Almost instinctively, Rian opened the man’s stat page.

Jensen (Non-Adventuring Player)

Farmer (Level N/A)

(Quest available!)

Jensen adjusted the suspenders on his overalls before resting his hands on his hips. “You’re here for the quest, aren’t ya?”

“Yeah,” Rian said. “Just a simple hunting quest, I’m guessing.”

“Good,” Jensen said, and then his words began to appear in the air like a system message: “There’s been an infestation of meina coming from the forests recently. I’m gonna need your help to clear ‘em out before they do too much damage to the crops. If you’re successful, I’ll be glad to reward you for—yourf—” He stuttered. “Ah, shit,” he said, suddenly dropping his accent. “There goes the authenticity bonus.”

Rian stood there, blinking, feeling like he was missing something.

Jensen rubbed his forehead before reaching into a pocket and pulling out a piece of paper. He squinted, reading it for a moment, then stuffed it back into his pocket. “Man, forget it,” he said. “I’m not a goddamn NPC. Just kill some fuckin’ things and I’ll pay you some gold for it.”

Farmer Jensen has offered you a quest: “Just Kill Some Fuckin’ Things and I’ll Pay You Some Gold For It.”

Reward: 100 EXP; 30 gold.

Accept? (Yes / No)

Trying his hardest to keep a straight face, Rian nodded.

Quest accepted. Time limit: 10 minutes. Kills: 0/8.

“Well, all right, then. I’m going back to farming,” Jensen said, pointing his thumb over his shoulder. “Don’t worry about the time limit, though. It’ll start once you find the infestation. Oh, and be mindful of the Zephyr here. You probably don’t want to get in his way.”

“Zephyr?” Rian muttered, but Jensen had opened his inventory and wasn’t paying him any attention.

Corvis gestured beside him to the rain clouds over the crops. “Advanced storm mage,” he said. “They’re quite the moody bunch, in my experience.”

Jensen reached and pulled something out of his inventory. He caught a hoe as it materialized and landed against his shoulder, and in his other hand a watering can appeared. He turned away and began to walk off as his inventory closed. “Go get ‘em, soldier.”