Chapter 012 s

With the completion of the quest, the sound that announced the level up sounded twice.

Misaki felt relief to know that the money she had earned was enough to pay for a week’s lodging.

“But the demi-rat’s tail cost a fortune.”

Misaki looked at the list of rewards displayed in front of her and chuckled to herself.

She was not yet ready to fight, so she waited at the gate and bought the tail from a player who had returned from a hunt to make up for it.

Still, the price was vicious. Half of the quest reward was gone for that thing.

However, it is an item that can only be obtained by hunting; even if looted from small fry mobs, it is an item that non-combatants cannot prepare on their own. Knowing this, the combatants would attempt to sell them at a significantly higher price, despite knowing that the items would sell for less than 5 gold to NPC.

Misaki tells herself that they also trying desperately to survive. So, she doesn’t think too much about it. Those actions reflect her personality perfectly.

(I’m not ready for a request form that includes a hunting mob, and I can’t prepare the materials on my own. Come to think of it, why didn’t I try something like an errand that can be done within the city?)

A request form caught Misaki’s eye as she gazed at the wooden bulletin board.

Request Description: Search for a lost dog

Client’s name: Mercia Rae

Effective period: 48:00:00

Request Description: Please find my lost dog, Dorothy. Her features are blue and red with odd eyes. She can do tricks to purr when you call her name.

Reward：170G/120 Exp

The rewards are much less than the previous one, but in exchange, it’s a quest that can be done just by being inside the city without risking any unexpected damage. Besides, Misaki understood that this was a quest that only required calling a name to search within the city.

Misaki handed over the request form, received the quest, and immediately went outside to call Dorothy. At that moment, she saw a strange floating [green dot] on the map.

The green dot was moving back and forth in a zigzag pattern.

Misaki, who is confident in her eyesight (one of the reasons why she chose to use a bow), turned her gaze toward the alleyway where it was located.

A small brown creature was moving. It seems to be scavenging for garbage.

Misaki recalls the pin that stood at the target location when she began the quest, and she begins to walk toward the creature, wondering if her assumption is correct.

“Um… Dorothy, is that you?”

Her words were met with a sprint of a small dog who fit the description of the quest. It had eyes that glowed in different colors on each side.

She picked up the dog, slightly disappointed to see that the quest only required her to search for a target on the designated point on the map, and the quest description had changed from [Searching] to [Protecting].

She was sure now that the dog was Dorothy.

(What a surprise! It was so easy, wasn’t it? I should have just taken this one from the beginning.)

Misaki heads for the Adventurers’ Guild with a light step, holding Dorothy in her arms with a sense of accomplishment.

If beta testers had seen this scene, they would have been the first to notice the [abnormality] in the series of events, but of course, being new to [eternity], Misaki was not aware of it.

****

A party was hunting mobs on the plains around the city of Aristolas.

One of them complained, “I’m getting a little tired of hunting small fry.”, and the other members of the party began to complain alongside him.

They were the second group of players who had just joined the Monshou Guild, a [thinning out the small fry] unit made up of six people who were willing to fight.

The guild’s priority is to protect beginners who are unable to fight at the moment, which means that each guild member is responsible for patrolling the city (to provide a reassuring presence for beginners), teaching beginners how to fight, and raising money and food. One example of these activities is thinning out mobs.

This is also doubling as raising funds and building up strength. Because if an invasion were to occur and the mobs were to break through the gates, the beginners, who don’t even know how to fight, would be wiped out in a second — The reason for this mob hunting is to prevent that scenario and to make the night watch a bit easier.

However, despite being an important unit in preventing the invasion, they had already improved their level before the death game began, and they felt it was too much to beat the demi-rats with six men.

“Hey, let’s take a peek at the next area, shall we?”

“Wataru said to take down only the small fry in the vicinity without taking any risk….”

“No, no, no, we can do it. I think the Ileana Tunnel is at level 7 or something, right? We’re already at lv 8.”

They are young people who originally started playing this game in search of freedom and adventure – And even though they are now practically a prisoner, they still have that ambition and curiosity.

They all felt the same way, and the other four agreed with that one person. Only one of them insisted on following the guild master’s advice in the end, but he also joined them because his opinion was rejected by a majority vote.

The sound of multiple people’s footsteps echoed through the Iriana tunnels.

The young man who leads the way moves forward briskly, feeling secure in the knowledge that he can return to the “entrance” indicated on the map at any time and enjoying the thrill of the new area.

He was in a good mood as he fought off the mobs he encountered without any difficulty, and the experience he gained was unparalleled to that of a rat.

Level in this world can be considered a position. Age and education have nothing to do with it.

Many of the combatants feel superior to the fact that most grownups in positions of power and authority in the real world have devolved into low-level, helpless humans who can do nothing but shut themselves up in their inns and whine – and these six people were no exception.

The items obtained would also be worth a lot of money if sold to the crafters. And the stronger the equipment, the more powerful you will be.

“I got a spider leg!”

“Oi, how rare are goblin swords?”

“The amount of gold I get is pretty good, too.”

The six young men were absorbed in their adventure.

It was as if they were relieving themselves from the sorrow of hunting small fry, and perhaps because of their carelessness, none of them noticed the figure that had been following them from the entrance.