HBDLo78

Chapter 16

Added 2019-10-22 11:47:16 +0000 UTC

“What are you doing?” a woman around 24 asked as she came into a room with only a chair and table in it. The room was a well-ventilated room with big windows facing the private garden behind the house. In the room, on the rocking chair, a middle-aged man was sitting, typing away something on the laptop.

She was holding a steaming cup in her hand.

“Oh, Janet! I was just reaping the rewards of my effort. Nothing much. I see you have brought me coffee.” The man said as he looked back, a handsome face greeted the woman who brought the cup of the coffee.

“That game again? Travis, I don’t understand, how can a mere game be enough to provide us enough money? Why don’t you go outside and search for a real job?” the lady frowned and advised the man.

“Janet, you don’t understand how much potential this game has. You may think it’s a mere game, but I believe it’s a lot more than that. I feel like when I log in to it, I transfer to another world altogether, not just a virtual world…”

“Okay, okay, stop there. I don’t want to continue this argument anymore. Here, have a cup of coffee.” Janet stopped Travis from another of his long-winded speeches about this so-called game that he bought last year. He claimed all that, but its already a year, and there were no results. He claimed he could earn money there, but its already been 9 months, and yet there was no sign of cash that he claimed he could gain.

“You don’t believe me? Now come and look here…” Travis frowned, then he smiled and beckoned Janet to come closer as he turned his laptop towards her. Then he played the video of a very familiar player’s walkthrough of slaying the wolf. The scene was so epic that even Janet herself lost words and observed until the very ending of the wolf.

Finally, after the end of 31 minutes video, Travis looked at her with a twinkle in his eye, “What do you think of that kid? With this kill, he achieved two consecutive Hall-of-Fame record, making him famous instantly.”

“Alright, I admit. This game is no mere game… it's like another world there. But, it still didn’t solve your problem of unemployment. You know how much money we require per month, right? Amy’s hospital bills are gradually increasing per month. At this rate, our savings will dry out before your so-called master plan comes to fruition.” Janet said softly and saw how Travis’s expression turned serious at the mention of Amy.

“Amy… we can’t let anything happen to her. She is our everything.” Travis said through gritted teeth. Janet smiled lovingly and caressed Travis’s head with her palm, as she did so, Travis frowned and grabbed it before running his hands through her callous palm.

“These are used to be so soft once upon a time… I am sorry for being a failure, Janet!” Travis said with a frown as the corners of his eyes started to twitch. Seeing this lady smiled warmly and shook her head with a disarming smile.

As he saw this, Travis thought, ‘Sorry, Walker, for duping you. I need all the opportunity I can to earn as much money as possible… life of a little girl is at stake here. I hope you forgive me for what I am about to do.’ After this mental apology, Travis had a determined look on his face, seemingly made some decision.

…

On the other hand, Jonas’ plan was a huge success.

[Construction Success]

[You have created a Common Ranked Wall with defensive properties]

- +200 PP

- +70 DEF

- +5 ATK(spikes on the wall)

- DUR: 50

Now Jonas was surrounded from all sides by two layers of these thick and sturdy walls. He had made a small gap in between to allow his arrow to traverse through it and attack the beast. This setup was a picture-perfect of ancient city walls and sentry atop it to defend it. What’s more, they are made of ice, which wouldn’t paralyze Jonas’s vision even if he stands behind the ice wall.

“Yes, with this setup, I need not worry about these overwhelming monsters,” Jonas exclaimed happily. This wall took some real effort from him to build, since the skill failed many times during the process, crumbling the whole wall as an aftereffect.

“If I had Blacksmithing skill, I would have reinforced the wall with some metals, increasing its offense and defense even more… man, I can’t believe this game gives this much freedom to its players.” Jonas was so happy with this result that he started to praise incessantly to the devs of the game.

Jonas then took in a deep breath, knocking the arrow into the bow, he pulled the string. Then he aimed at the creature’s head and let loose the arrow.

[Critical Hit!!]

[-250]

[Long Haired Yeti Lv 17]

[HP: 750/1000]

{Roar!!}

Like before, it shouted once again, then it bent down and grabbed a huge snow-ball(?) and threw it towards the general direction from where the arrow came from. Earlier, he had received a snowball and knew it had 90 + ATK with that snowball. The wall’s DEF was only 70. Sooner or later it will crumble. That’s why he had made two layers of it. Both together can endure all the attacks of the snowball thrown by the monster.

BOOm!

The snowball(?) landed on the wall, making an explosion-like noise. Except that nothing more happened, grinning from ear to ear, Jonas let loose another arrow. It sailed across and landed on the thing’s head, right between the eyebrows.

[-35]

“20 arrows, huh!” Jonas calculated the amount needed and get down to business. The creature just stood there like a fool and threw a snowball every 3 seconds. During those three seconds time period, Jonas would do no less than 60 damage to it.

A few minutes later…

[Congratulations, you have killed level 17 Long-haired yeti. Gained +12,000EXP]

[You have obtained 50 silver coins, a Yeti bone marrow.]

[You have leveled up. You have become level 13]

“yay!!” Jonas finally cheered for his successful debut in this place, and it's only the second day of him playing the game. After taking a breath and basking in the accomplishment he felt, he neared the face-down corpse of yeti.

“Dismantle”

[Dismantle failed. Item is being destroyed.]

“Fuck!!” all happiness drained in an instant. Jonas could do nothing but watch the body disappear into colorful pixels. The frustration was so intense that he felt like pulling his hair out and jump like a monkey. He even felt like rolling on the cold ground that covered in snow.

Suddenly at that time, an interesting thing happened…

[Server Announcement! Player Tarvis00154 has done the impossible and slews the special monster Swamp Crocodile solo. He has created a Hall of Fame record, please congratulate him on his achievement.]

“what the!? Someone created a server announcement worthy feat? And that name sounds really familiar…” although he was surprised for a second, Jonas didn’t mind it much. In his heart, he had a misconception that creating a hall-of-fame record was extremely easy; you just have to do something different. Because of this misconception, he didn’t take these things seriously and hence wasn’t that surprised.

It was a different matter for those players who had already played the game for more than a year, from the time of it’s launching. They knew the true importance of a hall-of-fame record, as well as how hard it was to achieve one.

Now that the monster was slain, Jonas left to find the herbs, according to the description, a herb could be found where these yetis loiter. That means, to collect 10 herbs, one need to kill 10 of these yetis. After careful searching, he finally found the herb he was looking for, a white flower with blue dotted petals. It looked extremely beautiful, Jonas bent down and lightly touched the flower, feeling the soft texture in his hands. Then he grabbed its stalk and pulled it out before storing it into his inventory.

The number of herbs collected increased from 0 to 1 in the mission progress list.