A/N: EDIT: "This is an improved, re-uploaded version of Chapter 3 as I wanted to structure and reorganize the story. Sorry for any confusion!"

***

"Hmm..."

Evans sat in his room in front of his brightly lit computer monitor atop a desk. He was looking up information about Horizon, since well, being a newbie, he still had a lot of things he needed to know. He lifted up a piece of fried chicken from a plate just next to the monitor, and started chewing on it. With his free hand, Evans scrolled the wheel on the mouse, scouring the internet world for information he might need.

"Best Places to Eat for NEWBIES!"

"How Battles work in R.Y.H."

"Getting to level 20."

"Surviving 101."

There was definitely a lot of information that seemed to be aimed at newbies, Evans thought.

Currently, he was looking in one of the more popular blogs that a player from Horizon created. This player usually posted helpful information for new players, so it wasn't long after he created the blog that the traffic to his website increased dramatically. There were tons of new players joining Horizon everyday anyway. so a shortage of new players visiting his website never fell short.

"He gets paid to play a game that's as amazing as this.." Evans sighed. He was jealous. He blinked his eyes at the player's name, "Bluebird". His blog had thousands of hits every day, which probably raked in at least enough money to pay for the subscription of the game, if not more.

"As for me.. after 6 months, I'll have to start paying for the subscription."

Evans winced at the thought of his family having to spend a ton so that he could continue playing.

"Maybe in six months, when I've gotten pretty far in the game, I could do real money transactions?"

In every game Evans played, there were many players that did real money transactions. Basically, players in a game would sell in-game currency or rare items for real cash. Some examples of items that were sold in the past were so rare, you could buy a car in real life with the money it was sold for. However, the companies of the games did not exactly endorse the method, as there were many players who got scammed by using third-party websites.

"Oh well.. I guess I'll cross that road when it comes." he shrugged. He continued scrolling, and looking for more information on the website. When he bit down on the piece of fried chicken he held in his hand, he realized he had already finished it while he was thinking. Setting it back down on the plate, Evans got up from his chair and picked up the plate to go wash it.

"Okay! I'll log in after cleaning the dishes."

Evans took a few quick strides out of his room while holding the plate, and it almost seemed like he was going to drop it.

***

"I'm back."

Elm looked at the mini-clock that had numbers inscribed on it. The sun was already gone, and there were lanterns and lights lit up all around Viajecamino. He was still outside the tavern where he had logged out from, and beside the door, there was a lantern hanging where there was nothing in place before. Peeking through the tavern's window, Elm saw it was just as busy during dinner time, as adventurers that had worked hard during the day came to the tavern just to relax and have a drink before logging off for the night.

"Okay! So it's around 10:00pm right now? Great! Let's go finish that tutorial quest." he enthusiastically said. He wanted to complete it and get it out of the way immediately so he could have full access to the game. Typically, Elm would have liked to have skipped it, but it was apparently mandatory for every player to go through the tutorial for some reason. He didn't really mind though.

"Before that.. Equipment menu!" Elm wanted to take a look at what he had equipped, and while making a few swipes with his hand, he brought up the equipment menu.

Beginner's Leather GarbsType:CommonDurability:11 / 11Quality:AverageA set of leather shirt, pants and shoes for Beginner adventurers. Adds +3 to Defence.

Beginner's DaggerType:CommonDurability:11 / 11Quality:AverageA dagger for Beginner adventurers. Adds +2 to Attack.

In Horizon, there were many different types of weapons, armor and items. How they were classed however, was according to their Type and Quality. There were six different types of weapons, and were classed according to these six types.

Common.

Uncommon.

Rare.

Magical.

Legendary.

Artifact.

According to the blog Elm had read earlier, Common was the most easiest type to find, and almost all monster drops, or equipment that you could find in stores were Common. Usually how rare an item, weapon or armor depicted how strong it was. The higher the rarity, the better the stats.

That wasn't all though, an item's rarity was also determined by it's Quality, which fell into six classes as well.

Rusty

Poor.

Average.

Polished.

Great.

Flawless.

Usually, for item Types that were Rare and above, they would generally have a Quality of Polished or better, though it was possible for an item's quality to degenerate from use or having it's durability go down. That was why equipment maintenance in Horizon was especially important, because you wouldn't want your armor or weapon to break while you were fighting any monsters, would you?

While examining his equipment, Elm murmured. "Well, I guess as a beginner, this will have to do for now."

Dismissing the windows with a wave of his hand, he decided to go look for the tutorial NPC, and started walking towards the square's altar where he was originally summoned into the Horizon from. Supposedly, there should have been a guide NPC standing beside him when he first came, but because Braveheart and Mae were waiting there for him, he didn't get a chance to meet the NPC.

"I wonder if that guy is still there?" he wondered. Well, conventionally thinking, NPCs couldn't leave their designated spots anyway. "Wait a minute, we took a turn here earlier.. so it should be just down this way?" Elm had to get used to traversing around a city, but he wouldn't mind getting lost here anyway since this town was beautiful. It looked like how the city Venice, in Italy used to look like, with it's natural irrigation and water that ran through around the entire castle. The water flowed in from the lake, which was connected to someplace else underground, so there was always fresh water flowing throughout the city.

"Yeah, this way and..? Okay! I'm here!" he said when he turned a corner around a building and finally reached the square. He didn't get a chance to observe the altar when he was transported over earlier, but he could see it was quite intricately designed. The altar was shaped like a globe, in the form of a blue transparent ball, and had gold rings weaving around it. It was at the other end of the square, in front of the fountain he met his friends earlier. When he got closer to the altar, he noticed there were tiny white particles shining inside the globe. "That's pretty." Elm thought.

"Well, I'm here though, so where is the NPC?" he asked himself after taking a look around. There were still other people around in the square, chatting by the benches, or sitting by the fountain. There were players recruiting members for late-night party expeditions outside of the town too. Elm stood by the altar, silently observing the many different players coming and going from the square, it was certainly a sight he didn't mind getting used to.

While he was lost in his thoughts, Elm didn't notice someone walking up next to him.

Tap, tap.

He snapped back to reality when he realized someone was tapping his hand, and spun around to look at the person. The first thing he noticed was the stranger's height.

"This person's a dwarf."

"Hey boy'o." The dwarf greeted Elm. He immediately responded by looking for a face icon which determined whether a character was a human player or otherwise, Elm noticed that the dwarf did not have an icon on his head. Which meant he was an NPC. He picked up this information from the blog he was scrolling through earlier.

"Good evening." Elm replied the greeting with a slight bow of his head. He still didn't know how to treat NPCs, but he assumed that it was the polite thing to do, by just replying to them normally as he would to a regular person.

"You boy'o, you have character!" The dwarf beamed at him, obviously glad that a stranger had greeted him back politely. "As expected of a boy'o whom I had a quest for.. Hmm?" The dwarf quizzically held his beard while tilting his head slightly.

"Wait boy'o.. It seems you don't meet the requirements for my quest after all?" The dwarf sighed while still holding his beard.

Elm was getting slightly irritated that the dwarf kept referring to him as boy'o and before he could say anymore, he introduced himself. He would be turning into an adult soon and he didn't want to be referred to as a boy. "Mr.. Dwarf. Please call me Elm."

"Ah, my apologies boy- *cough*, I mean, Elm." the dwarf winced when he noticed Elm's eyebrow perk up in irritation as he was about to reflexively call him boy'o again. The dwarf slightly bowed his head apologetically and straightening his posture, he introduced himself. "I am Durin of Casardin." With a thump on his chest as he proudly introduced his homeland.

"I see." Elm nodded. "You said I didn't meet your requirements earlier, what did you mean by that?" he asked.

"Ay, boy- *cough*, Elm, we residents of Horizon are able to sense, or tell whether an adventurer we come across fits the requirements for a quest we want to send them on."

"How does that work?"

"I'm not sure, it's just how it always has been with you adventurers." Durin replied while still stroking his beard. "However, for you it's not something materialistic, the problem arises from something more innate."

"Within me..? I see. It's probably because I haven't completed the tutorial." Elm reasoned. NPCs of this world were probably already programmed that way, instead of the usual click and accept quest method used in games of the past.

"Tutorial? I don't know what you mean but perhaps you've the need to see Lacus." said Durin.

"Lacus? Is he the tutorial NPC?"

"I don't know what you mean by NPC, but every adventurer has to see Lacus. He's usually by the altar but if he isn't here, he's probably in one of the fields at this hour."

"I see. Thank you very much for your help Mr. Durin." Elm gave his thanks and a slight bow with his head. "I will go look for Mr. Lacus right now." With this new piece of information he just got, it probably meant that any new adventurers would have a need to go see this "Lacus", who was probably a tutorial NPC.

"Aye, boy-o. Once you've finished Lacus's quest, do come look for me!" Durin replied gleefully, already forgetting to call Elm by his name. Elm shrugged and gave up with a sigh, he would probably have to build up a higher intimacy level with Durin if he wanted him to regularly call him by his name. Durin offered his hand to shake with Elm as a sign of good-will, and Elm took it. As he turned to leave, two small notification windows popped up in front of him.

+5 Intimacy with (NPC)Durin. Current relationship status; Acquaintance.

"So just regular talking with an NPC can even raise intimacy?"

Elm left the square, while thinking about Durin.

"Maybe there's a chance I could get a good quest from him!" he thought to himself excitedly.

According to the blog he looked at, there were many different relationship statuses a player could have with an NPC. It depended on the situation or circumstances that were around a player's character. To date, there were 9 different relationship statuses discovered you could have with an NPC.

Acquaintance,

- This is the status most players would start with, with an NPC.

Stranger,

- If a player stops interacting with an NPC for a period of time, eventually their status would revert back to this.

Friend,

- If a player interacted with an NPC for a while, by giving gifts or completing quests, they would achieve this.

Close Friend,

- Same as the Friend status, achieved by giving gifts or completing quests.

Intimate,

- Some players who were curious how far the relationship status could go in Horizon discovered this by accident.

Master,

- Usually associated with Class Advancement NPCs.

Hostile,

- Trespassing on private NPC areas usually created this status.

Enemy,

- By verbally or physically harassing an NPC, this status could be achieved as well.

Nemesis,

- Unless the player had done something to deeply offend an NPC, it wasn't possible to achieve this status.

If you were a player with a Good alignment, naturally, your relationship with an Evil alignment NPC would be worse. If your character was an Orc and if you trespassed into the Elven Forest without having any relationship with the Elvish NPCs beforehand, the Elves would turn into Enemy status against you. Having a better relationship status with an NPC also guaranteed you a quest, and some players who discovered secret relationship statuses with certain NPCs meant that they could have special quests all to themselves.

"Well, since this is a Beginner's town, all the quests have probably been discovered." Elm thought while threading along the town's stone paved road. After walking a while, he finally reach the exit of the town, and the stone path that he was walking on gradually turned into a dirt path, trailing towards the fields just beyond the walls of the city. He was still in the 'safe-zone' of Viajecamino, and it extended a little ways more away from the plantations and fields of this area.

"Wow.." his gaze was suddenly diverted to something red growing out of the ground in one of the plantations. "Are these tomatoes? They're pretty huge and bright." He stared at the tomatoes, almost jaw-droopingly, and out of pure curiosity, plucked one of them from the stem. Almost immediately, a window appeared in front of Elm.

- You have stolen a tomato from Lacus.

"Wait, what? I stole a tomato from Lacus?" Elm shouted in alarm when the window suddenly appeared. In shock, he dropped the tomato and it hit the ground with a splat. The tomato shattered into pieces a few moments later and disappeared.

"Hey you! Just who do you think you're stealing from?" a voice suddenly roared while Elm stood there, dazed.

"Great.." he muttered to himself, almost cursing.

Main PageChapter 4 - Lacus