Jester Wildlands VR World

Crippling shot. An arrow went through the paws of the zombie dog crippling it for 5 seconds. A chunk of meat fell off along with the pierced arrow. Sam and Maya stared at Jim open-jawed seeing the lucky shot. The arrow interrupted the dog and it was back on the forest floor limping around.

Sam took the change and cast a flame ball at the zombie.

+10 damage

The health pool of the zombie dog lowered a bit. The descent damage made the dog stumble as it stopped and circled the group cautiously. Although it sensed danger, its hunger to eat their life maddened it to make the life-threatening gamble. Instead of running away, it kept moving back and forth trying to nibble some meat of the humans.

+10 damage

Sam was able to deal in another hit while Dona and Justin found their rhythm. Jim helped with the occasional crippling shots and Maya healed the tanks with a few healing pulses. It was a happy hunt as the zombie stray dog soon died under another of Sam's fireballs.

"Stay back, some zombies explode on death," Maya warned Dona and Justin who were eagerly approaching the dead corpse. True to her word the corpse exploded sending everyone in the party some experience.

You killed a zombie stray dog.

You received 5 experience.

You received 5 bonus experience.

The corpse didn't leave anything behind. After all, what else can you expect a zombie stray dog to leave behind but some rotten meat? The party checked the area for other monsters. Finding none, they sat down to take a break and refill their mana.

"Justin, you are a natural when it comes to fighting. How did you learn to fight like that?", asked Dona as soon as they settled down. The rest were also curious. None of them expected this scaredy-cat friend of theirs to outperform Dona who was innately violent in nature.

"I had to fight off beasts in the village." Said the girl expecting everyone to understand. And they did. Except for the fact that these monsters were usually the ones that would cause trouble even for the town guards. Mana recovery was a pain but without Sam and Maya fully recovering their mana, fighting another monster was out of the question even if it was another zombie stray dog.

Even if the lower-tier spells only cost a little as 5 mana each cast, Sam only had a mana pool of 40. It didn't take long and they finally recovered their mana and everyone got up to start looking for more monsters to kill.

You received a quest.

As they planned to start the hunt again, the interface showed up with an exciting message.

Kill three different zombified animals in the area.

Zombified stray dog(1/1).

Zombified bear(0/1).

Zombified wolf(0/1).

Reward: 100 experience

The quest was a source of unending joy to any party. Seeing such a simple quest giving out a lavish amount of experience reminded them of why quests were loved so much. With just two more kills they would receive enough experience to level up. According to Maya, it's required to reach level 20 tier 1 before you are allowed entry to the main cities and towns. The faster they level, the better.

They searched the area for the tracks of other beasts. With the system sending them a quest there must be some nearby. Justin was the first to notice the claw mark on the dead trees. 'It must be a bear,' she thought. The rest joined as they walked further down the trail left behind by the bear.

"These claws, aren't they a bit bigger?" Maya was worried that the bear might be a bit stronger than they could deal with. "It should be fine. There shouldn't be anything stronger this close to the spawn. Right?" Jim said looking at Sam for confirmation.

"No, we didn't spawn at a regular spawn point. It was a random spawn. There is no guarantee that no stranger monsters could appear." Sam replied and the party became a lot more vigilant.

They reached an area where the claw marks and stops were much deeper than before and Justin and Dona immediately withdrew their swords. Unlike the rest, these two were the system's chosen and had a few innate abilities. "Are we close?" Maya asked Dona. She hadn't acted this strange when they faced the stray dog. This bear must be a lot stronger than before.

A bear, black and plump, jumped out from the back, scratching Sam with its giant claws.

You are hit by a zombified greater black bear.

Critical hit. -5 heath.

The notification jolted Sam out from his shock. "Watch out. It's a greater version." Sam screamed to the rest.

You received a healing hand.

+5 health.

"Quick charge, taunt", shouted Dona as she rushed to action pulling the bear's attention away from Sam and she succeeded. The bear left its attention and charged towards Dona instead, flipping her back. Justin was standing to the side, jumped in as well smashing its massive head with her sword. The black bear roared, staring at her in return. With Justin taking over the aggro successfully, Sam was able to focus much more on the damage-dealing conscious not to shift its attention towards him.

The fight went on to a much stable pace as the two tanks successfully switched whenever their health was too low making it a little easier on Maya. Justin with her superior instincts avoided the majority of the attacks while Dina used her superior sword kills to parry most of the attacks towards her.

You killed a zombie greater black bear.

You received 20 experience, 2 gold.

You received 20 bonus experience.

They were happy with the reward and walked away from the corpse in case of an explosion. Seeing the corpse not explode, they got curious. Dona went ahead to check to limit the casualty to a minimum in case of a triggered explosion.