“Can you go home by yourself? Do you need me to escort you back to your house?”

In the busy parking lot of Steak Bros, Lisrem leaned on Aliel’s car and asked Aliel that was sitting inside.

Aliel scoffed at Lisrem when he let out a little giggle.

“What do you think I am? A little kid?”

Lisrem laughed and backed away as he waved her hand.

“Well then, take care on your way home. I bet you will be going as fast as you can to play the game again.”

Lisrem smiled with a knowing look on his face.

“I know. You better go back to your company soon. Because I think someone will get angry if you took your time like now to avoid your work.”

For some reason, Lisrem turned away when Aliel said that. With realization, Aliel asked Lisrem.

“Don’t tell me… you sneaked out?”

Sweat began forming in Lisrem face. Seeing this, Aliel started her car engine and bid good luck to Lisrem.

Vroom…

“Do your best, good luck.”

Aliel stepped on the gas and her car sped up, leaving Lisrem alone in the parking lot.

***

“I’m home… as if there is someone that will answer me.”

Aliel stepped out of the elevator and went to her room. She opened her drawer and take out a black sweatshirt with rabbit ears on the hoodie. She took off all the clothes and underwear that she was wearing and change into the sweatshirt.

The sweatshirt is bigger than Aliel's body, it stopped on her knees and the waist area is baggy making her curve unclear.

“Umu, wearing no bra and panties is the best. I always wondered why everyone besides me can wear them almost all day long. It’s a mystery.”

After changing into her sweatshirt, Aliel dived on her bed and she turned on the hologram installed on her bed, bringing a semi-transparent screen in front of her.

“Let’s check the New Horizon’s forum to see if the contract that Lisrem told me is real. I hope they already set the forum.”

Aliel operated the screen and opened the forum. The forum of the New Horizon is integrated into their main website, so Aliel who trusted the website didn’t need to check about the virus and entered the forum.

The first thing written in a bold letter in the forum was an announcement about a new feature. Aliel got interested in it and read it.

“New feature, for VR Pod gen 6-8 could now open this forum directly from inside the New Horizon game. You could open the forum from the system menu, right above the logout button.” Aliel reading the header of the announcement has no particular reaction. Because Aliel already knew about this feature from the talk with Lisrem before the game was released.

Aliel browse the forum again to find about the contract and she managed to find it.

“Let’s see, was Lisrem told me the truth or he lied to me…”

The content of the thread is mostly talking about a contract that they need to sign before playing. Some of them answered in a weird way.

[143 – Anonymous Player]: Are Atlas nuts? They actually managed to obtain government permission to make a game that gave the players this much freedom? I am so glad to be able to buy a copy of New Horizon Online!! I can touch a girl freely!!

[144 – Anonymous Girl Player]: @143 Atlas have sexual protection. I bet almost all girls who played New Horizon online will enable it. Maybe there is some pervert who turned it off I guess.

[145 – Anonymous Girl Player]: @144 I will definitely turn it on! There is no way I will allow any guys to touch my body! Although it’s just virtual, the sensation inside the game is as real as real-life!!

[146 – Anonymous Player]: I will turn it off!! For girls, you can DM me if you want a company!!

[147 – Anonymous Girl Player]: @146, Yikes~

[148 – Anonymous Girl Player]: @146, Yikes~

[149 – Anonymous Girl Player]: @146, Die pervert.

Reading the comment on the forum, a smile crept on Aliel’s face. She smiled ear to ear and almost leaped out from her bed because she's full of excitement.

She can’t wait to be back on the game to level up her character and play around with girls.

“This is the best. I will praise you Lisrem. This time you did a great job about it.”

Aliel was satisfied by the answer in the forum, began looking for the other thing. She found a piece of information about the cycle of day and night being at 6 and 12 amongst the other things. After a while, she looked at the time on the screen and it shows 05:00 P.M.

“It’s this late already?! I did spend some time talking with Lisrem at Steak Bros and looking at the forum. But to think it was this late…”

Aliel turned off the hologram screen and went to her VR POD. Because there is only an hour until the night turned into day in the game, she decided to log in. She entered the VR Pod and logged in to the usual meadow. Aliel enter the game right away and she woke up in the previous hole that she made in the cave.

She moved the rock that she placed to hide the hole and exited the cave. Aliel looked up to the sky and saw that it’s dark outside.

“It’s strange though, I remember that when it was 12:00 P.M. it was still day. Is it because today was the opening day and they decide to make the first night cycle to be shorter than how it normally is? Damn, I forgot to ask Lisrem about it.”

Aliel was looking around her surrounding to see if there is a monster active in the night cycle.

"I was a fool! Why did I spend a lot of time researching outside the game! I could enter the game and open the forum from inside to save time! And how can I forget about the realism aspect of this game? If my hunch is correct, then the monster will not active at night, they will be sleeping!”

Aliel decided to go back to the village. If her hunch is correct, then only a certain monster will be active at night and it will be safe to travel back to the village.

“I bet there is no one who managed to reach level 7 right now, I was lucky enough to get a quest to kill Mad Rock. I can’t imagine reaching level 7 at this speed in this game.”

Aliel reached the village safely without meeting any monster on her way. In the village, a lot of players do a trade of their loots to NPC or other players for coins. She tried to use identify to these players and see that most of the players only managed to reach level 3 or level 4.

“They bring the common sense from the previous game and stay in the village at night, huh. I bet only a few players realized about the night cycle in this game. Tch, I must go to the blacksmith to finish the quest and hunt right now. It’s my chance to level up again.”

Aliel hurry to the blacksmith and entered it.

“Oh, you are here Traveler! I was waiting for you.”

She was greeted by the blacksmith’s NPC with a smile on his face. He crouched and took out a white shirt from the shelves and put it on the counter.

“Here is the shirt made from Large Kick Rabbit’s fur. At first, I wanted to make it into leather armor. But, the fur is big and soft, that’s why I finally decided to make it into a shirt instead. I hope you like it, Traveler.”

Aliel eyes shines when she saw the shirt and she picked it from the counter. She raised the shirt to observe it. The shirt design itself isn’t too flashy. It was a simple sleeveless white shirt without any additional design or accessories.

But, when Aliel analyzes the shirt, she was surprised by the shirt’s attributes.

***

[Rabbit Shirt] (Rare)

Level 7

Defense +3

DEX +2

Requirements: 1 CON

Durability 20/20

Description:

A shirt made from Rare Monster Large Kick Rabbit’s fur. It is durable and comfortable to wear. The creator of this shirt put a lot of effort to make it and managed to bring out the potential of the fur to the fullest.

This shirt could be worn under the armor or a robe.

***

The additional description of the shirt that could be worn under the armor excites Aliel to the max.

“Sir! This is amazing!! Thank you very much.” Aliel thanked the blacksmith’s NPC and he laughed.

“Hahahaha, no problem! With that, you could defeat the Mad Rock without a problem, right? I will wait for your return.”

Aliel was confused by the blacksmith’s NPC word. Could it be, the NPC doesn’t know that the quest was cleared and she must report it manually?

“Ah, about that. I finished it already.” Aliel took out a Mad Ore from her inventory and put it on the counter. “The Mad Rock dropped this ore when they died.”

The NPC’s eyes bulged as he leaned closed to inspect the ore. He picked it up and tried to see through it.

“T-this is indeed a Mad Ore! You’ve managed to kill it that fast? As expected, my eyes didn’t betray me. But you still need 49 more, Traveler! I will give you your reward if you bring me 49 more of this ore.”

Without saying anything, Aliel took out all Mad Ore in her inventory in front of the NPC. She smiled and asked him. “How’s this?”

The NPC had the brightest smile ever as he laughed. “HAHAHAHAHA, to think you killed all of them. Truly unexpected!”

He approached Aliel and put his hand on her shoulder.

“Come with me, I will give you the rewards for my request.” He said as he dragged Aliel to the door that lead to his storage.

“Wa-wait!! Don’t drag me!!” Aliel tried to struggle but to no avail. The NPC is too strong for her to run away.

The NPC brings Liel to the storage full of weapons and armor. He stopped in front of a certain chest and turned to Aliel.

“This is your reward. Take it, Traveler.”

Aliel was finally released when he stopped. She tried to glare at the NPC but he kept smiling at her.

“Let’s take a look at the rewards you speak of, blacksmith. I hope it’s something good.”

Aliel analyzed the chest and once again she got surprised.

“T-this is!!”