Second World

”Heya! Howʼs it going?” The door opened and a loud voice reverberated around the room. The Man had arrived and took the seat opposite them.

”Fine, fine,” Bowler replied. ”You seemed to be in high spirit.”

”Of course! If itʼs an invitation from Boss, Iʼm sure it will be good,” The Man said with a smile.

”Thatʼs true,” Bowler said with a wider grin, looking at the gloves on his hand. He had already received a benefit from Jack even before they started questing.

The door opened again, and the slim figure of Fierce Flame came inside the room. She quietly sat down to join them.

Since everyone had arrived, Bowler looked at Jack. ”So, should we go to the Adventurers Association to pick up a joint quest?” He asked.

”We are going questing, but not from Adventurers Association,” Jack replied.

”Oh? Do you have a personal quest you need help with?”

”No. You will find out soon. Before that, letʼs have a meal first before we depart.”

As he was speaking, a servant girl came in bringing four sets of meals. They inspected the food.

Prawn Noodle (Expert grade)

Recover 250 HP

Increase HP, Stamina/MP by 100

Increase all stats by 10 points

Effects last for 6 hours

They gasped, this food had a good effect on low-level players. Normal level 15 Fighter usually only had a strength stat of 40. By eating this food, the level 15 fighter will receive an instant 25% increase in his strength. While all his other stats will receive an even bigger increase as they are usually less than his main stat.

This food might see a decline once players started increasing in level, which made ten points of increase not so large. But at the moment, this food was one of this restaurantʼs hot-selling top menu. Bill and Ellie had used their coins to purchase many different recipes, allowing them to cook a variety of food.

After they ate their meals, Jack bought a few sweet dumplings and split them with the others. They could use them once the prawn noodleʼs effect wore off. They could only have one food effect at a time.

They were impressed by Jackʼs generosity and offered to pay their shares of the food. But Jack just waved them off. He took them to ride a carriage after coming out of the restaurant, they were now impressed by Jackʼs extravagant ways of spending coins. The carriage took them to the front of the Hunters Association.

”Hunters Association?” Bowler read out the sign in front of the building.

”Yes,” Jack then turned to Fierce Flame, ”you still hold on to the Trophy items I asked you to hold on to before?”

Flame nodded.

”Iʼve also got some more after last time. I keep them this time, didnʼt sell them anymore,” Bowler said.

”Good,” Jack said, and then brought them inside as he explained the mechanics and rules. He guided them to make the Hunter batch and brought them to the Bronze hall to pick up hunting quests.

He didnʼt pick the efficient trip which the Death Associates and White Scarfs had been using, they might end up competing with them. Peniel had devised another efficient hunting trip that took them further. Much further actually as it did not include a return trip. They were going to use the Town Return scroll for the return.

Jack gave them each one Town Return scroll out of the ten he had in his bag. They were excited to learn so many new things. Jack told them where to buy the scroll if they need it again later but he didnʼt take them there.

They picked up the same hunting quests following Jackʼs instruction. Seven of them were the ones he had done before, Silver Wolves, Goblins, Gnomes, Gremlins, Lizardmen, Grey Sabrecats, and Fire Jackals. The other three were new monsters that could only be found further from the capital, Horned Rhino, Swamp Boa, and Crowing Bird. These three new monsters were all D difficulty from Bronze Hall, so it would not be as difficult as the Rock Golem. The four of them should have no problem dealing with them.

Bowler and Flame cashed in the trophy loots in their possessions, and were nicely surprised by the coins they received in return. The Man was grumbling during the process. Apparently, he had gotten some of these trophy items as well, but he had sold them away as the description on the items said that they were junks.

Once they completed the process inside the Associations, they immediately went out of town and started hunting for monsters. Jack had already shown them the route they would be taking on their maps, just in case if they got separated. Jack also gave them each a Whetstone to be used before the hunt to increase their damage output.

Since they were all advanced classes, Jack found the progress faster than when he was hunting the monsters with the six others from Death Associates. Not to mention he had better synergy with this team and he was using his Warrior skills this time.

Before long, they had already completed the hunting quota for all monsters except for the Horned Rhino, Swamp Boa, and Crowing Bird. They had also journeyed further than they had ever been. Probably the furthest among all players at the moment.

Unlike the old VR RPG games, players tended to be more adventurous to explore unknown terrains. Because if they had the misfortune to encounter strong monsters, they would only lose a bit of experience or 1 level from dying. In this world, they would lose everything and start again from scratch.

This caused players to be more cautious. They would first scout out new areas carefully, in the safety of a group, or look for information about the area, before venturing out to the place. This had made the exploration progress of this new world very slow.

Even the big guilds focused on strengthening their members and kept their activities around the city, the thought of exploring the far-off places was only in planning at the moment.

Jack and the others found themselves in a fast expanse of savannah, covered by yellow-colored grass the height of their lower thighs. In the distance, they saw a couple of large four-legged beasts. They had horns at the front of their heads. They looked exactly like a normal rhino from the real world.

Every rhino had a horn, Jack didnʼt know why the ones here were called Horned Rhino. It was like giving a bird the name of Winged Bird. But the logic of names held no importance to him at the moment, he just needed to kill the beast to fulfill the quota of his quest.

There were two of the beasts. Since it was their first time encountering this type of monster, Jack told them to engage on one first to study its combat pattern. Luckily the two beasts stood quite a distance apart, so they should have no problem fighting one first.

”Eh?” Jack stopped his advance.

”Whatʼs wrong?” Bowler asked.

Jack didnʼt answer. He was looking at his radar. There were a couple of red dots on it but he could only see the two rhinos. It didnʼt make sense as the savannah was flat and wide, he could see the distance on the horizon. Doesnʼt make sense if he could not see the monsters in this open field. The logical reason should be they were hiding under this grass. The grass was rather tall, but not that tall. If the other red dots were monsters covered by the grass, they should only be small monsters.

After considering it, Jack thought that these small monsters shouldnʼt be a menace. He continued his advance towards the closest Horned Rhino.

”Okay, letʼs get in position,” Jack said.

After battling together for a while, they had formed a habit in their formation. Fierce Flame would be at the rear and initiated a fight using her arrow. Bowler would be at the center and sent range attacks for support or heal when needed. Jack stood in front of them, giving him the flexibility to attack or return to defend the two ranged players if necessary. The Man was their vanguard, he would engage the enemy in melee once Flameʼs arrow attracted the monsterʼs attention.

Fierce Flame pulled back on her arrow until the string of her bow became taut, she then released the arrow. It produced several circling sonic booms as the arrow sped in its trajectory. This was the effect of Archerʼs first skill, Precise Shot.

Peniel had explained the effect of the skill to everyone. It increased the arrowʼs speed to around 1.5 times compared to a normal shot and increased the damage. Again, Jack didnʼt know why the skill was not called Speed Shot instead. He wonʼt question the developerʼs choice of names.

The arrow struck the Horned Rhinoʼs thick skin and bounced off. 10 damage was caused.

”Eh…?” Each of them was startled.

😉