MC: “Please give me a moment to decide.”

Rense: “Of course, but please, time is of the essence.”

That’s one of the options I picked in order to buy me some time. And I mean real time, I urgently need to decide my next course of action...

Ahah! I’ve come up with a plan. If my thought process is correct, this should work. If it doesn’t, then this will be the first time my character will die and respawn. Yes, there thankfully is a fair and normal respawn system in this game because it isn’t trying to pursue ultimate realism, just ultimate balance, I guess.

I see some villagers have come out nearby to see whether Allee has managed to keep Rense in the village. But now they’re looking at a new face in the village, me. Anyways, I need to hurry! Too bad I can’t just tell them directly to explain what I’m looking to do.

A water well, no not that. Broken weapons…no. What is there that can help me here…

Ah! I found it. Actual firewood which needs to be chopped here at the village! If my plan works, it will be amazing but I’m not sure if it’ll be enough to win over the Marauders.

Let’s see, yes, I can tap to see the description and available actions I can perform using this woodcutting axe. But it might be suspicious if I just take this axe and start chopping wood. I’ll ask that old man, he looks to be one of the elders in this village.

Elder 1: “Hmm? Have you decided to help Rense out with his silly idea?”

MC: “May I chop that firewood?”

Elder 1: “But Rense is currently waiting for your response?”

MC: “I’d still like to chop the firewood.”

Elder 1: “Very well then”

It also looks like this game allows weird/illogical choices to be made by the player similar to how it is in many other video games. But it also seems like AI characters are still somehow able to react to these kinds of obscure gameplay choices being made by me.

Good…now I’ll go back to Rense!

Rense: “What have you decided to do?”

Let’s see the dialogue options…nice!

Out of the many choices I have, I’ve found the one I want to do in order to succeed with my plan: [How about you go with your original plan by calling for help. I promise to stay and protect this village in the meanwhile!]

This choice allows me to encourage him to follow his original plan, without me having to be the one who will walk back to the starting town and then back here again for a whole damn hour! I did say that I will “protect this village in the meanwhile”, but in all honesty, I can’t say for certain that I will be able to do that. Hopefully in the worst-case scenario, my character will get killed by the Marauders while the villagers are still forced to give up all their supplies, like they already assume that they will. As a result, the end scenario will still be relatively the same. At least it’ll be a Divine Spirit (me) dying instead of an NPC who probably won’t be able to respawn in this world. But I don’t plan on letting that happen! And if it does get dire, maybe somehow help will arrive just in time after I drag on this upcoming event long enough.

Rense: “That’s a strange proposition, a bit too strange. You want me to go ahead anyways, while you stay at this village saying that you’ll be able to protect it. How can I trust you? What if you’re actually a spy sent by the Marauders?”

Once again, I have many ways to reply to his question. But there are two similar response choices which I’m interested in. One is [Why, because I’m a Divine Spirit of course!], which sounds like I’m very proud and confident about this whole situation. I’m not at all.

And the other response option is [*Whispers to Rense* I feel capable because I’m a Divine Spirit, you can trust me]. I normally really don’t want to reveal that I’m a Divine Spirit to any NPC. Because who knows what might happen to me if I do. That Allee lady seems to be adamantly of the opinion that Divine Spirits are demons. If the whole village finds out, I wouldn’t need to worry about the marauders anymore but the villagers instead! I think at this point, I really need to convince Rense right now or else he won’t go along with my plan. He was also already thinking about contacting the Divine Spirits for help. So, this response should work.

Now that I told him, his eyes popped up as if he’s heard an alarm go off.

Rense: “Oh…is that so! Traveler, I feel a lot more optimistic knowing this. Very well, I shall trust you and accept your proposition.”

Allee was standing next to Rense but Rense was slowly distancing himself away from her while he responded to my proposition. She was trying to lean in and hear what I was whispering to him about. But before she gets the chance to understand the situation, Rense sprints off and is quickly running away from the village, following the road I came from. Not a minute later and he was already too far to call out for and too far to reach after he ran past the wall-like shrubbery that surrounds this village.

Oh dear, now Allee and all the villagers nearby are staring at me. I am certainly the cause of this.

Allee: “What did you tell Rense?! Traveler, I do not blame you for backing away, but how come Rense leapt off like that?”

Elder 1: “Because you would’ve used all your energy to try and stop him. But Allee, worry not. Rense is a capable man, and I am very sure he’ll return just fine without a scratch or incurring the wrath of anyone.”

An older lady is approaching closer to me.

Elder 2: “So you chose to decline our offer?”

MC: “Worry not, I have chosen to remain here while Rense calls for help. I’ll try to protect this village in the meantime.”

They all give me a worried look.

Old lady, to be honest, I know this doesn’t sound very convincing coming from a person who is wearing a basic plain robe, and the only weapon they have is a training axe.

I would have liked to explain to them my whole plan in detail if I could, but it’s too complex and obscure for even this game to offer me the ability to.

So, according to what Rense told me, the Marauders came to this village a couple of hours ago demanding that the villagers give them all their food and supplies. Then Rense told me that they promised to arrive back in a few hours for their demands…hold on. Couldn’t a few hours now mean that there is just one hour left? This is bad! I might not have enough time to accomplish my plan.

I will at least have one hour to chop the firewood. Maybe more than an hour, like two or three hours if I’m lucky. If I think about this quest more closely, wouldn’t Rense have had enough time to run all the way to a nearby town asking for help if he had left straight away after the Marauders left? Maybe he spent a while arguing with his fellow villagers about what to do…or maybe the Marauders are still nearby? They certainly aren’t at this village. But why would anyone want to waste their time walking back and forth, especially Marauders if their planning to rob the village. If there were regular guards around, then it would make sense for them to be more cautious since they’d have to use hit-and-run tactics to accomplish their goals. But there are of course no regular guards around here, from what I’ve seen, and according to this region’s story there doesn’t seem to be much of a presence of a protective government in these parts.

So, my theory is… it’s likely that the Marauders are encamped somewhere nearby the village ready to return at any time, but perhaps the villagers asked for some a bit of privacy while they were preparing to give their tribute to the Marauders. And that Rense couldn’t have ran off to call for help straight away or else that would’ve alerted the Marauders. Let’s go with that story. If something like that isn’t true, then this is just a usual “coincidental” part of a game where the quest givers are conveniently at a dire moment and just when a hero approaches the area.

Whatever, I don’t have time to waste. I need still need to learn about a couple more things about this game to make sure whether this plan (I came up with on the spot) will work out or not…

While the villagers are currently moving their food and supplies to the center of the village in preparation for the arrival of the Marauders, I’m standing by a large pile of firewood that needs to be cut.

I’ll be using the village’s woodcutting axe to chop wood. It actually looks to be significantly better than my training axe…Hopefully nobody is noticing me attach this new axe into my inventory…I’ve also now used my VR controllers to grab and place a piece of firewood to chop in half on this tree stump next to me.

I don’t actually know how to chop firewood in real life, but I’ve seen enough video examples of it. And this game probably isn’t attempting to realistically replicate the physics concerning wood chopping. So, I’ll just “attack” from a top angle like how I practiced doing with my training axe before.

Let the chopping commence, here I go!

Floating numbers appear again! And they’re now filling up my Experience Bar further to completion.

It’s a success. So far, my plan is working.

Now I know that I can start performing one of the most basic and ancient elements of video games. Divine Mortality may not rely on this type of gameplay as a major aspect of character progression, but Divine Mortality definitely cannot escape its lineage which it shares with the many RPGs that have existed before it...

I will now begin, what is known as…the GRIND!

Chopping wood…chopping wood…chopping wood…chopping wood… chopping wood…chopping wood… Chopping wood…chopping wood…chopping wood…chopping wood… chopping wood…chopping wood… Chopping wood…chopping wood…chopping wood…chopping wood… chopping wood…chopping wood…

*And a short while later…*

Chopping wood…chopping wood…chopping wood…chopping wood… chopping wood…chopping wood… Chopping wood…chopping wood…chopping wood…chopping wood… chopping wood…chopping wood… Chopping wood…chopping wood…chopping wood…chopping wood… chopping wood…chopping wood…

Phew…I’m actually getting pretty physically tired in real life doing this. I’ll take a very short break for now. Yet…I don’t have time to spare, the Marauders can arrive here at any moment. And yes, I don’t care about all these annoying NPC children that playing all around me! Shouldn’t you be hiding in case the Marauders start attacking?

Whatever, I must continue chopping wood…okay break time is ove-

*Ting ting*

A message from my Friends List! Who could it be from?

WiseMaster667! He sent me a text message.

“What was it you wished to discuss, Amulet? I wasn’t able to converse earlier because I was concentrating while performing something.”

Hehe, so you do have time for me! Well guess what…I don’t have time for you now!

W-w-wait…I actually do need to ask him something. I forgot what I exactly wanted to tell him when I messaged him earlier, but I’ve got a new and very important question.

I’ll ask him, “Could you please tell me in a short and concise way about how attributes work in this game? After leveling up, will I get points to spend to improve my character? “

Alright, I sent it to him. But of course, he isn’t going to instantly reply…I’ll quickly continue chopping wood in the meantime…

*Ting ting*

Ah, his response!

“Dear Amulet Pond: Simply put, leveling up in Divine Mortality does not directly increase a character’s power. It is difficult to explain in an accurate way, but you can maybe imagine it as something like a permit. The higher your level, the larger the number of traits and skills a player can have. A higher level also means that there is a larger range of possibilities for you to do in the whole game. I myself do not fully understand because the developers have likely programmed in many complex equations to sort and calculate this all out. Meaning, I want to know more specific details myself but alas time will tell. But you may now be wondering, if leveling up does not provide you points to increase your attributes…then what does? From my observations (and from many others), the main consensus is that your attributes increase in their level number by the simple act of performing an action or via many other more minor ways. You can call those numbers next to your list of attributes in the character status window as “attribute levels”. I do hope this answers your question, Amulet Pond. -Sincerely, WiseMaster667”

Why did he write his message out like an email??? Anyways, it was more or less short and concise. Thanks to him, the assumption which I have been thinking about at the back of my mind is now proven correct.

I wasn’t sure if I was imagining this earlier, but now after checking my character’s status window I can clearly see that my strength and stamina attribute levels have increased a little higher than before!

This is great! So, I don’t need to worry if I’m gaining enough experience points or not, because simply performing the activity of chopping wood is indeed increasing some of my attribute levels. One thing that I already knew, but WiseMaster667 failed to mention (perhaps he thought it was unrelated to my question), is that the combat system in this game is not solely determined by a character’s level or their attribute points. I learned about this at that training grounds in the starting town and from researching more about this game before I started playing today. The game combines a certain style of linear RPG combat mechanics, like these attribute levels and the chance of damage when a target is hit, with the more flexible and advanced combat system in a VR game. Unless the enemy AI in this area is super smart, then if I do fight the Marauders, I will have an upper hand in flexibility and agility in this game simply due to using my VR controls well.

As long as I avoid getting hit, if I start landing my attacks on the Marauders with high damage thanks to swinging my weapon down from a top angle and also continuously increasing my strength attribute level beforehand as I grind chopping this wood…Then I might actually be able to properly defend this village in a fight a melee against the Marauders on my own!

I’m clenching my fist in determination!

Oh crap…I've accidentally stopped chopping enough wood!!!

Chopping wood…chopping wood…chopping wood…chopping wood… chopping wood…chopping wood… chopping wood…chopping wood…chopping wood…chopping wood… chopping wood…chopping wood… chopping wood…chopping wood…chopping wood…chopping wood… chopping wood.........