After spending some time looking around the stalls that Catherine had told us about both of the girls bought a very basic piece of equipment. Evie got a new pair of gloves in preparation for when she brought the new gun that she wanted. It wasn’t like she blamed me for us not having enough money to afford her new weapon though, despite the fact that I had used a large amount of the money that we had gotten from selling off the loot. But I could tell that she really wanted to buy a new weapon so Fern and I talked about it and quickly agreed that as soon as we had earned enough money as a group, we would buy her a new weapon like we had with my Lightning Core.

Fern brought a single leather bracer with the last of the money that we had, it was a ratty looking thing and didn’t look like it would be able to take much punishment but that was what Fern had decided that she wanted and I didn’t begrudge her what added defence that it would give her. Anything that would increase our survival and take some weight off of Evie’s shoulders was a good thing in my book.

Once we had done that we decided to head back to the inn. This time we didn’t bother buying any food or drink and simply went up to our rooms. Thankfully Katy told me that she didn’t need a room of her own and would receive the same benefits that I would if I slept in a room even if she didn’t enter it.

“Well then, I’ll log out for a bit to take care of a couple of things, then log back in to sleep,” I told Katy who was currently sitting on my bed. There was no point in spending several hours sitting around the house without anything to do but sleeping in game was only slightly less effective as sleeping in real life and it would be easier to wake up on time if I was already in-game than if I stayed logged out to sleep which was why I was going to log back in once I had eaten some lunch and dealt with my other bodily functions. Hopefully if I managed to get the job that I had been offered by Gransoft I would eventually be able to afford a new Rig that took care of these things for me but for now I still had to go to the toilet and eat like a normal person. “What are you going to do?”

“Doesn’t really bother me,” Katy shrugged. “Besides even if I don’t log out into your personal space there’s part of me that always stays active outside of the game. I won’t be as responsive, but you can still communicate with me.”

“Huh, that makes sense,” I said nodding in understanding. Of course, she still knew that was going on outside of the game as well. That made sense, a personal AI would be pretty useless if it stopped working normally every time someone was playing a game. “Alright I’ll just log out then I guess.”

Once I logged out, I quickly went about my business and after devouring one of the packets of instant ramen that had been my primary source of sustenance for a few months now I logged back in. Katy had also logged out by the time I logged back in so that I would be more comfortable as she knew that I was still slightly uncomfortable around women, although I seemed to have been improving since I started playing this game.

The next morning when I woke up, I was greeted by the impressive sight of Katy logging in. First a bright light appeared in the middle of my room making me shade my eyes a little as I wondered what was going on. This was then followed by Katy’s body slowly forming inside of the light like something off of an old sci-fi show.

“Hey Zeke, did you have a good night’s sleep?” Katy asked me in her too cheerful voice as I blinked to clear the spots from my eyes and then scowled at her irritably. I really wasn’t a morning person.

“Fine,” I grumbled as I got out of bed and pulled the rest of my gear on. I wasn’t embarrassed by being mostly unclothed in front of Katy, it wasn’t like she hadn’t see it before and besides she was an AI.

“That’s good,” Katy replied smirking at me again. “Shall we head downstairs then?”

“Sure,” I grunted. “Jeez I need a coffee.”

Katy giggled as I staggered through the door and down the stairs, being an AI, she never really slept. She just went into a sort of standby state but was always aware of what was going on for the purposes of security (among other things) so I knew that she didn’t really understand why I was so grumpy in the morning. That didn’t make it any less irritating though.

When we made it, downstairs Fern waved at me from a nearby table. Noticing a large steaming pot sitting in front of Fern, I hurried over to the table, noticing as I did so that Evie wasn’t here yet.

“Is that coffee?” I asked as I sat down next to my party member. “Please tell me that’s coffee.”

“Well it ain’t tea boss,” Fern snorted. “I mean I like tea just fine, but I prefer coffee in the morning.”

“Oh, thank god,” I groaned. “Do you mind if I have a mug?”

“Go right ahead,” Fern chuckled as she passed me the pot of coffee. “I paid for it with money that the whole party earned, so it’s for all of us.”

“Thanks,” I replied as I quickly poured the dark liquid into my mug followed by a splash of milk and then waved away the sugar that Fern offered me before taking a drink. “Ah, that’s good coffee.”

“Do you want a mug Katy?” Fern asked giving my AI her normal small smile which Katy returned.

“Sure, why not,” Katy agreed, and she too poured some coffee into a mug followed by a little milk the same way I had it and then took a drink.

“Gah!” she exclaimed after she swallowed the first mouthful. “That’s bitter!”

“Try some more milk and a little sugar,” Fern recommended passing her the bowl. “Not everyone likes coffee the way that Zeke drinks it.”

Once she had adjusted the coffee to her tastes Katy leaned back in her chair with a happy sigh and we started talking about our plans for our respective builds which was thankfully something that we could talk about even without Evie present because she didn’t really seem like she knew a lot about planning builds but the rest of us did. Even Katy which didn’t surprise either of us, she knew more about this game than the rest of us combined even if she couldn’t tell us half of it.

Fern was naturally going for a rogue-type character, she had already told me this, but we had a bit of a better idea of the sort of Soul Cores that she could get to obtain most of the normal Skills that a rogue would have such as stealth and trap skills and Katy suggested that Fern think about having a look at Shadow magic as well which Fern had agreed sounded like a good idea.

Katy was going for more of a ranger build specialising in archery and tracking skills with a healthy or rather unhealthy dose of poison-based skills as well. She was also planning on looking into skills that allowed her to control and eventually tame monsters which sounded like it would be an impressively powerful skill set to have.

“Alright then it’s my turn isn’t it,” I sighed as the girls turned towards me. Part way through the conversation Evie had turned up and was also watching me with interest.

“I’m basically planning on being like a red mage with a slight emphasis on Agility and Dexterity that uses spears,” I told them, I liked playing those sorts of characters because it gave me the ability to adjust to just about any situation and cover for my other party members of I needed to. “When I unlock the other equipment sets, I’ll probably just have different Magic Cores equipped instead of the lightning one that I’m using now just to give me a bit more flexibility. I might get a proper shield as well; I’ll have to think about it.”

“Well that makes sense for you I think,” Evie admitted. “But what about me?”

“Well like I’ve said before that depends on you,” I replied. “Trying new things is always a good idea though. Even I’m using new types of equipment that I’ve ever used before.”

“Okay, but what about other things, should I just focus on increasing my Spirit?”

“Oh, gods no!” I exclaimed in horror, then remembered that the other game that Evie had played; Legends of Garemia used a system that had very little customisation for both Stats and Skills. It was basically a game that was made for people who were trying to get into gaming, so they had streamlined the process of building your character as much as possible.

“Sorry,” I apologised quickly as Evie’s face dropped. “I didn’t mean to upset you. But you should definitely increase your other Stats as well, especially your Constitution. I know that this wasn’t something that you had to worry about in Legends of Garemia because most of your Stats were automatically assigned when you Levelled Up but the mobs in this game are much smarter than the ones in that game so actually being able to take a few hits without dying is much more important.”

“Yeah I think I understand what you’re saying,” Evie agreed eventually. “But I should still get more Intelligence than anything else right?”

“Yes,” I replied. “And anything that increases you Spirit regeneration is also essential to any sort of caster. People with builds like Fern or Katy might be able to get away with less Spirit regen but that’s less the case for me and you definitely can’t. On the other hand, you might be able to get away with largely ignoring Strength but increasing the other Stats will still be more important than it was in Legends of Garemia especially if you end up using guns as well.”

We had gone over this a little bit the other day but going over it again in more detail wouldn’t do any harm.

“Yeah you mentioned that every Stat was important in games like this yesterday,” Evie sighed. “I guess that I still have a lot to learn about that sort of thing though.”

“We all do,” I chuckled good naturedly and Fern nodded her agreement.

“It doesn’t help that every game handles Stats a bit differently as well,” the dark-haired girl pointed out encouragingly. “So, players often have to relearn things as they go anyway.”

Seeing that we had finished our conversation Milly made her way over and asked us what we wanted for breakfast and after taking our orders the much more cheerful looking young woman bustled off to let the cook know.

“So, what are we going to do today?” Fern asked once we were alone once more.

“Well I think we need to finish off the rabbit quest first,” I said, and the others nodded their agreement. “With Katy we now need a total of 40 Rabbit Paws now but with our new gear and Katy along to help out we might even be able to finish that up pretty quickly depending on how many other parties there are hunting the rabbits. After that… well we have two options; the first one is that we go and finish off another quest that I have involving some rather nasty monsters called Terror Birds or we could start on the Quest that Kerr gave me yesterday.”

“What about your training thing with the guards?” Evie asked.

“Ah, well that’s broken up into different groups so that there are always guards on patrol,” I explained. “Besides I don’t have to go if I don’t want to it’s purely an optional thing and yes before you ask Fern, I did get permission for you two to join me next time I decide to do training.”

“That’s great!” Fern exclaimed happily making me smile weakly.

I had to remind myself that she didn’t know how tough the training was, just the memory was enough for my legs to start aching again. Still being able to increase our Stats by training with the guards was an advantage that was worth the pain of the training, if only barely. I was sure that other people would figure out that training could increase your Stats eventually as well as the other techniques that Liam had mentioned in the interview but for now, they hadn’t so we had to make the most of it while we could.

Soon our breakfast was brought to us by a smiling Milly and we all dug in. By the time that we were done eating the bar was starting to fill up again as the other players started either logging in or waking up which told me that I had woken up even earlier than I thought I had.

“Alright then, let’s head off,” I said once I had finished the last of the coffee. “Katy still has to get her part of the Quest from the Katherine after all.”

“Yeah, by the way aren’t those names going to get a bit confusing?” Evie asked.

“Eh?” I grunted before realising what she was talking about and snorting in amusement. “Yeah, no I don’t think any of us is stupid enough to call Catherine anything other than ‘Catherine’ or ‘Sergeant Heller.’ Especially without her express her permission.”

“That’s… actually a really good point,” Evie admitted. Catherine seemed to be a nice person who was easy to get along with, but we had all agreed that it would be a very bad idea to get on her bad side. None of us could quite put our finger why we felt that way either but then again, we weren’t planning on pissing her off either. But I did know one thing and that was there had to be a reason that she was a guard Sergeant.

“Oi, are you two coming?” Katy asked as she and Fern headed out the door. Seeing this Evie and I glanced at each other before chasing after them waving goodbye to Milly and Conrad as we left.

Once we had sorted out Katy’s part of the Quest much to the surprise of Catherine who was very interested by Katy mostly because she had introduced herself as my ‘Spirit Companion.’ This had led to her asking several questions about how she had been able to join us in game or rather as far as Catherine was concerned in this world which Katy had answered in much the way that I had expected. She had told Catherine that she had no physical form back in our world and that I had to pay someone so that she would have a form in this one so that she could join me, both of which were technically true although she had explained it in a way that Catherine could understand instead of trying to explain that she was something that had been made in a lab.

When Katy had finished explaining things, we had made our way through the gates and out into the fields where the rabbits were waiting for us. Like I had noticed yesterday there were still a few people sitting around outside the walls although there did seem to be considerably less of them today which admittedly might be because of how early it was but it was still a little weird to see. Of course, for all I knew these could just be people who wanted to experience this world in ways other than killing the local wildlife and running errands but that seemed unlikely to me especially considering how expensive this game was.

Spotting a group of five rabbits to the left of us we all glanced at each other and nodded. We should be able to deal with them easily with my new lightning magic and our extra party member without really having to worry about another group attacking us.

Both Kay and Evie took aim with their respective weapons and started firing at one of the smaller rabbits which shrieked in as the two projectiles tore into its flesh. Immediately the other rabbits in its group reacted and charged towards us as Fern and I took up positions just in front of our two ranged fighters who continued their assault. They even managed to finish off the rabbit that they had attacked first, firing at it in between attacking the other members of the group in an attempt to slow them down.

By the time the rabbits were in range of my new spell all of them had at least one arrow sticking out of their body and had been blasted by Evie’s magic. As expected Katy was an excellent shot with her bow and Evie had surprised me again with her own accuracy, for someone who hadn’t played that many games she was an incredibly good shot which made me wonder if there was a particular reason she wanted to try using a gun as well. The use of firearms had become less and less common over the past couple of decades despite the protests of certain groups. There were still a few people who did use them for recreational purposes. It was far more difficult to do stuff like that these days, but I was starting to think that Evie had some experience with that sort of thing.

But I didn’t have time to ask her that now, so I put the question aside for later and reached out my left hand towards one of the injured rabbits before firing off my new Jolt spell for the first time. A small flash of bright light shot out from my outstretched hand with a loud crack. As the electrical charge passed through the rabbit’s body its muscles all locked up at once allowing me to easily stab it with my naginata before spinning around and slamming the haft into another of the rabbits as the first rabbit fell off the blade in a limp heap.

As expected, my new spell was a very useful addition to my arsenal, and I used it as much as possible to get used to it. While it didn’t do that much damage, it did slow the target down enough for one of us to defend against an attack that would’ve otherwise hit us or finish off a wounded enemy with a counterattack of their own, especially when the stunning effect actually worked which wasn’t very often.

“Well that went well,” I said turning towards then others who also looked quite pleased with how the fight had gone. Fern and I had taken a bit of damage, but it was well above the levels that we had agreed that Evie would start healing us if we dropped below them. “But we should quickly loot these before another group attacks us. I’ll keep watch.”

The others agreed and got to work looting the rabbits as I looked around warily at the other rabbits nearby, but surprisingly none of them seemed to be particularly interested. Now I wasn’t sure whether this was because the fight that we just had was over so fast or some other reason, but I was quite thankful as it gave me time to think about how I was going to actually use my new spell going forwards. This was why I liked playing as an all-rounder character, while I might not be as powerful as a more specialised character in some ways, I could adapt to different situations very easily where other types of characters might not. However, this fighting style required the player to be very quick at thinking on their feet which was why it wasn’t as popular as other, simpler play styles.

Not long after I was shaken from my thoughts when Katy placed a hand on my shoulder to grab my attention.

“Hey, we’re done looting the rabbits,” she told me as I turned towards her. “What were you thinking about?”

“Oh, you know, I was just thinking about how I was going to change my fighting style now that I have my lightning magic,” I replied with a shrug. “I’ve been thinking about it for a while but now I’ve actually used it I just wanted to do some mental fine tuning now that I had a better idea of what lightning magic can do.”

“Okay,” Katy nodded. “We’ve got 3 more Rabbit’s Feet from this group of rabbits. So, we have 12 of them in total now. Do you think that we should go back and complete the Quest for someone or keep hunting rabbits?”

“Hmm, we could give ten of them to Fern and she could go back and complete her portion of the Quest and the next time we have enough for someone else to complete the Quest someone else could go and complete it,” I mused glancing at our resident rogue who nodded slowly in agreement. “And then someone else could go the next time we have enough Rabbit’s Feet. That way we can keep hunting until we’re all done.”

“That sounds like a good idea,” Katy agreed. “Evie?”

“Yeah sounds good,” Evie agreed. “We already know that we can handle a group that size with 3 people, if only barely and Fern’s faster than the rest of us so it makes sense to send her.”

“And by the time we have enough for the next person to complete the Quest we will probably have Levelled Up our Soul Cores again,” Fern agreed as she took the Rabbit’s Feet from Evie. “I’ll see you guys later.”

Once she had all of the things that she needed Fern ran back towards town as fast as she could while we watched on.

“Alright then let’s get back to it,” I said turning back towards the others. “We promised that we would keep hunting while she was gone after all.”