Level Is Everything

In the morning, Ryou didn't forget to do his daily routine of jogging. After having breakfast and cleaning up, he logged in to the game. He was surprised to see that Luna was already logged in too.

「Whoa, she's here already. Doesn't she need to do anything else? 」

"You're here!"

Luna also saw Ryou logging in and immediately greeted him.

"Shall we go to turn in the quest?"

Luna nodded to answer his question and the both headed towards the village chief's hut to turn in the quest.

"Ah, it's you again. What business do you have with me today?"

"I am here to deliver bad news."

After saying that, Ryou handed him the assassination letter and he also handed him the dagger that belonged to Nader which he looted from his body.

Seeing the dagger, the village chief already had a bad premonition. When he finished reading the letter, he immediately started crying.

「Is he really an NPC? 」

For sure Ryou had seen NPCs having emotions such as smiling, laughing, aloofness and many more. But this time when the village chief cried out, it seemed so real that Ryou wouldn't doubt it if he was told that the village's chief is a player. The emotion, the sadness, it could all be felt by him.

The village chief cried for a while until he realized that Ryou and Luna were still there.

"Don't be sad. At least we managed to kill the assassin." Ryou tried to console him.

In a grieving tone, he said: "Thank you. Although my son is dead, I feel a bit better knowing that his killer is paying for his crime. I couldn't thank you enough and I can't give you anything except this."

「You have completed the quest 'mysterious letter'. 」

「You have gained 1000 EXP. You have leveled up. 」

「You have gained 'village chief's recommendation letter'. 」

"Although I am old and rarely go out of the village, my words still have some weight. If you visit a city at a later time, you can hand this letter to your class instructor."

「Ah, it seems the reward that I got this time isn't that bad either. It has to do something with my class later on. I also got a level up and reached level 9. I only need one more level before I can reach the world map of Aaru. I am one step closer to see you, father. 」

"If you can excuse me, I need to be alone."

After that, the village chief headed to the back of the hut and disappeared. Out of consideration Ryou and Luna went out of the hut.

"So, what are you going to do next?"

Luna knows that Ryou is already level 9 and needed only one more level until he would be able to leave the beginner's village. While she herself is still at level 8 and still needed two more levels before she can leave the beginner's village, she wanted Ryou to help her level up, but she realized that she was only slowing him down. She couldn't fight monsters properly and she didn't even know her class skill. She could see that Ryou is somehow playing the game seriously while her motives were to have fun inside the game.

"I think we should hunt some monster on the field. I guess there's some sort of time gap before the tempest wolf will come to find you. We can use that time to level up."

Luna couldn't believe what she was hearing. She was so sure that Ryou will ditch her to level up alone. After all she is only slowing him down. But after hearing what he said, she was happy while at the same time she disbelieved her own hearing.

"Are you for real?"

Ryou wasn't sure why is Luna asking that.

「Maybe she thinks that I will leave her behind? 」

"Yeah, let's level up so we can finally leave this beginner's village."

Ryou started going to the fields but Luna got another idea.

"Ryou, how about we level up inside the dungeon?"

"The dungeon? Aren't you forgetting something? You can only enter the 'impossible difficulty' dungeon. There's no way the two of us are capable of clearing it."

"You know, we don't actually have to clear the dungeon. We can just hunt all the monster that we can kill and go back if the current monster is too much for us to handle. I can also now choose 'nightmare' difficulty level."

Luna said that while making a victory pose. To be honest, the nightmare and impossible level were still too much for them but at least there's an improvement. As it said, the impossible level is really impossible for both of them to beat. But choosing the nightmare difficulty would be better and it is much safer than hunting in the fields considering Sakura is still located at the same beginner's village with them. Ryou didn't want the same thing from last night to happen again. It was too troublesome for him.

Ryou and Luna headed towards the dungeon entrance of the beginner's village. This time they entered the nightmare difficulty level dungeon. It was easier than the impossible difficulty dungeon, but the experience and the drop rate were much worse. Ryou even thought that it would be better to choose the impossible level dungeon after all.

「It is still possible for us to hunt wild boars, but it will be impossible for us to hunt wind wolfs at this rate. It also means that our leveling speed will be as slow as a snail at this rate. 」

For Ryou and Luna which were level 9 and 8 respectively, killing a level 1 horned rabbit was only filling their experience bar by a negligible amount.

「I wonder what to do to increase our hunting efficiency. Should we change our hunting tactics? But Luna is basically useless in combat. Although she can now attack once in a while other than dodging, her damage was practically close to zero. Do we have to find a new party member? 」

Looking at his partner Luna, it was already hard for him to find a new party member. After all, it was already well known that Luna is the cursed clown that will bring bad luck to the party.

Ryou asked Luna what to do but she left the decision to him because she was only there to leech experience.

"Alright, let's try to find a new party member. Although I don't know whether anyone wants to join us or not we should at least we try."

Ryou and Luna decided to give up their current dungeon and return to the entrance. Right now, Ryou and Luna can give up the dungeon without a care while they exploited the system. In the world map of Aaru however, a player is only given a certain amount of times to dive in the dungeon every day or week, after that they must wait for their dungeon dive count to be refreshed.

As Ryou expected, players around them immediately went to discuss something while pointing at Luna when they arrived at the dungeon entrance. Ryou however didn't care about what other people think. He wanted to find a party member and he needed to try it regardless of what people say. At first, he wanted to do it alone, but he realized that there is a limitation to his playing style. Indeed, he can one shot a monster, but it was limited to monsters that were several levels below his level and the experience he gained would be abysmal.

He also didn't regret having Luna on his party because even though her skill is amounted to nothing, her 'luck' proven to be useful sometimes. Right now, Ryou doesn't have any problem with the amount of damage that he dished out, but his party right now really needed a close combat fighter to tank the monster. After all, Ryou's best point is his archery, he can't do everything on his own.

"Recruiting party member, preferably someone that is specializing as a tank."

Finding a tank for a party isn't as easy as it seems. A tank for a party is crucial as they are the ones who needed to face the brunt of the enemy attack. They are also the ones that have the highest probability of dying. Their teammates also must trust them enough to make sure that he is able to do his job. Because of that, it was rare to find a tank player hunting solo and at their level, most of the tanks already had a regular party. It can be said that the popularity of the most sought party members on the game Aaru are in this order: Tank, healer, damage dealer.

After a while searching for a tank, it seems that Ryou found no one who wanted to join him, and he had to rely on his last resort. Just like Luna, he needed to recruit someone who had come to the dungeon entrance for the first time.

(edited by Sazhbak)