Many authors make the mistake to write a large infodumps about their MC's background story at the beginning of their novel, thus boring the readers to death. Well, it can be proudly stated that this novel successfully avoided that mistake. This isn't the beginning of the novel, so let's have an infodump here. (Trololol.) At this point, the readers are too invested in the story anyways. It's unlikely that they would drop it just because of some random boring backstory.
Mark was born at the ripe age of 0, as a child of a mother and a father. There were many factors that influenced him as he was growing up. He ate, thus he grew. He slept, thus he was well-rested. He pooped into his pants, thus he realized the need of toilets. He learned a lot of useful things as a kid.
In school, he was his teachers' student and his classmates' classmate. He liked to play sports very much. He played soccer whenever the reader was American, and played football whenever the reader was from somewhere else in the world. He was his father's son and his mother's daughter.
He started having strange dreams ever since he hit puberty. Dreams about becoming the Harem King. At first those dreams were weird and he didn't understand most of them, because they were censored. But once he became 18, the dreams immediately made much more sense. He became an adult that night, and understood the true weight that fate had placed on his shoulders.
Just kidding. He had no idea if those dreams had any true meaning, but he was happy as a clam. Who wouldn't have been in his place? Sometimes he even tried to—
"WAY TOO MUCH BACKSTORY!" Mark shouted. "No one needs to know about these things!"
It couldn't be helped, though. Mark was a boring, average guy. Nothing ever happened to him in his previous life, so what was there to write about? The only thing that was remarkable about him was his porn collection.
"HEY!"
Ah! But here we are already, at our next destination. While the readers were preoccupied with reading about Marks's childhood, our hero and his girls had arrived safely to the grand city of *hits up random name generator again* SpankMeDaddy.
"Dafaq?" Mark asked.
Whoops, that was indeed the wrong site that the narrator was looking at. Umm... The actual name of the city was Boring.
"Yeah, yeah, I get it, man," Mark said. "City names are not that interesting, but I'd still like to know what this city is called."
Boring...
"Phah! Have it your way then," Mark said, crossing his arms. "I'll find out the name on my own, then."
Mark put his Battle Bike into his inventory, then strode into the city with Sebille and Tusky at his heels. They were going to stay here for some time. Yes, this much was certain. The place where Mark's most recent adventure would play out was going to be Boring.
"Well, then maybe help me make it more interesting!" Mark exclaimed. "Describe the place or something!"
It was a normal, crowded, medieval city. Nothing surprising there; most of the fantasy worlds have these kind of cities. It was a bit different from Earth, of course; there was magic in this world, and magical potions and special skills and abilities that players possessed. These were present here and there. On the crowded market, you could buy magical potions and sometimes even magical animals. There were shops that sold different kinds of enchantments and charms, and workshops where magical artifacts were being produced. But despite all these deviations from our real world, the whole city remained technologically underdeveloped.
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It didn't matter that magical fire existed, or that people used personal charms to ward off cold. They didn't use that same magic to warm their homes during the winter, or provide an easy way to light up the streets.
It didn't matter that magicians could conjure incredible amounts of water from thin air. They used that water only for fighting. Ordinary people went to the river and to wells to bring water.
The same went for any other magical stuff that the author will pull out from his hat in the future. They weren't widely spread, because of... reasons.
This whole thing was, naturally, not the author's fault. The blame lies with the programmers and creators of Fantasiaia. They were too lazy to construct a well thought-out world! Yes. Highly realistic game or no, the AI-controlled NPCs and the players were too lazy to make any effort to improve their living conditions and try to create something better and more logical. Even if new technological inventions could potentially make someone absurdly rich.
"Girls you hear that?" Mark asked, his superhuman hearing picking up plot-relevant stuff from the noise of the crowd.
"No, what do you hear?" Tusky asked.
Sebille was curious too—Mark seemed to be alarmed. Maybe he's hearing screams of people being burned alive? (Yes, that was an oddly specific guess of hers.)
"It's this way," Mark led the way towards an alley. A small and dark alley!
It was actually a dead-end, Mark saw. A young, black-haired woman had backed away to the wall, trembling in fright. Not too far from her, two thugs were waving fists in her direction, waiting for Mark to arrive. The woman's voice was raw from screaming too long, and the thugs' arms were getting tired, but the situation looked really troublesome.
Mark didn't understand what the girl was doing alone in an alleyway, why she was holding a necklace that was obviously expensive (it had a large ruby in it) and how the girl managed to get herself cornered—but he knew that he was her only chance.
"Stop right there!" he shouted heroically.
"Ah, finally!" one of the thugs exclaimed. "Do you have any idea how long we have been—oof!" The other thug hit him in the mouth to stop him from speaking.
Unfortunately, it was a really good punch. The thug who spoke fell to the ground, and lost consciousness.
"Whoopsie," the other thug said on a deep baritone.
"I'll stop you, you lowlife gangsters!" Mark shouted belatedly, then activated
"You look like a ballerina!" Sebille clapped excitedly.
A dangerous ballerina.
"Eeek!" the other thug squeaked, then fainted in fright. His unconscious body slumped right atop his accomplice.
"Well, it seems like I don't have to kill anyone today," Mark said, nodding in satisfaction. One of the thugs cracked an eyelid and sighed in relief.
"Are you alright, milady?" Mark asked.
It was a bit of a stretch to call the girl milady, but Mark felt chivalrous today. Judging from her clothes, the girl wasn't really rich, nor noble. She looked downright poor, apart from the necklace that she held in her hands—the necklace, which easily could have been a piece of stolen jewelry.
"Yes, of course! Thank you for saving me," the girl gushed. "And thank you for not letting these thugs steal my necklace." For some reason, she looked at the sky as she emphasized the last part.
"It was my pleasure," Mark said smoothly. "May I ask what you were doing in this alley alone?"
"Oh, they just backed me into this corner right here," the girl said, waving her hand dismissively. "Can happen with the best of us, no matter where you go in this city. This is Boring, after all."
Mark looked at the girl with newfound respect. "You call this boring?"
"Yup. Everyone calls it Boring, so I do too."
Mark scratched his head. "That's a strange thing to say. If I were you, I'd have been terrified."
"I have no idea what you are talking about," the girl said honestly. "Anyways, thank you again for saving me. Before I go, let me tell you that my name is Ayo. Remember it well!"
"Why?" Mark asked back stupidly. Ayo stepped closer and grabbed his ear.
"Because we will meet up later in the story, you idiot," she hissed. "The readers gotta remember me!"
With that, Ayo let go of Mark. She waved goodbye to him and his girls, then sprinted out of the alley. She disappeared in the crowd before Mark could demand a kiss as a reward for saving her. Oh well, maybe next time. Characters with names explicitly mentioned are bound to show up later in the story. Mark and Ayo will surely meet again.
"STOP WITH ALL THESE SPOILERS," Mark shouted at the end of this chapter.