(Recap) From the previous episode:
"DUDE!" Mark shouted. "What the fuck! Just let me finish—
No no no, not this part. The other one.
For a long moment, the bandits just looked at Mark in silence. Then they began to laugh.
"Looks like we've been caught, lads!" One of them said, then pulled out a dagger from behind his back. "Let's teach him a lesson!"
**flashback ends**
The bandits attacked Mark with a ferocious war cry. This scene would have been more dramatic if the build-up before the fight was in this chapter instead of the previous one, but that cliffhanger was worth the sacrifice.
Still, it was quite cool. The smelly bandits rushed at Mark, and some epic rock music began to play in the background. Mark didn't wait for the bandits to get close, and activated one of his core Skills from his Berserker-Ninja class called
He shot forward, ducking under the first bandit's swinging weapon. He punched him in the stomach as he passed, then jumped upwards to avoid the second bandit's sword swing. He kneed that second bandit in the face, then disarmed him and took his weapon. With that sword in hand, he activated
The bandits cried out in pain, ketchup and tomato sauce flew everywhere, and soon it was only Mark who was still standing. He leveled up several times during the fight, and was now looking around triumphantly. The dead bodies of the bandits littered the ground. Mark had delivered justice, and hadn't even lost a single HP!
Despite their life-like behavior and their looks, the bandits had been definitely NPCs. Therefore, Mark didn't feel disturbed at all that he had killed them. Fantasiaia Online was just a VRMMO—and Mark had played lots of video games in the past, slaughtered countless enemies. This one wasn't much different at all: although Fantasiaia was perfectly lifelike, it was still just a game. Yes, just a game. It wasn't real people he murdered, no matter how realistic they were.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
Mark didn't ponder on the ramifications of this. He didn't need to worry about how VRMMOs like this were allowed to legally exist. Whoever allowed this game to get to the market, they surely knew about the psychological consequences of murdering overly-realistic virtual people. It probably wasn't a big deal, not affecting the mind of the players at all. Gamers will be always gamers, right? Just because someone loved to play action games on PC or console, it didn't mean that they became violent in real life. Surely a fully immersive virtual reality wasn't much different!
"I'd still need to be careful who I kill," Mark said to himself as he looked over the puddles of ketchup on the ground. "I'm the good guy, after all."
Mark happily looted the bodies, taking everything that the system offered to him. A pair of worn leather boots, providing 1 point of armor. A cloth chest-armor, giving +4 mana and 2 armor. A rusty dagger, and lots of food. Those would recover his stamina and HP.
That done, our little psychopath our hero Mark went on his merry way. It didn't matter that the bandits had been wearing much better clothing and swung much finer weapons than the ones he found. The system gave him these, so this was what he took. Oh, and he definitely didn't take anything from the bandits hoard. The idea crossed his mind to do something with all the stuff the bandits had stolen, but he decided to leave them where they were. He didn't receive any Quest to return them to their rightful owners, so it wasn't his problem to deal with.
As Mark walked, he decided to open his character menu and dump his newly acquired attribute points to Charisma. He was level 11 now, gaining 10 whole levels from the bandits. He didn't know yet what the maximum level was, but he felt like he made a huge progress with this encounter. It made him happy. His dreams of becoming maximum level was just a little bit closer now.
For some reason, the training with Master Kawaii didn't make him level up, so luckily the readers didn't miss the interesting parts.
Because Mark's training made himself already very strong, the best decision was to spend his new attribute points on other things. Like his looks. He wasn't trying to be a pretty boy, of course. Markus Fickus was selfless. The most selfless person on the planet. The only reason he put points on Charisma was so that people wouldn't be disgusted as they looked at him. Yes, making himself more beautiful was only out of consideration of everyone else.
"Now listen here you little—" Mark was about to deliver another unoriginal insult, but then he suddenly stopped. He arrived to an intersection. To the right, he saw a large mountain, with an enormous cave entrance that was visible even from afar. To the left, he could see a town in the distance. Lots of houses, other people, safe inns and warm beds.
"Yes! And hot chicks!" Mark rejoiced, then turned to the right and headed straight towards the cave.
Mark was angry that he didn't choose the logical option here, but such things couldn't be helped. Going to the cave was good for the plot, so into the cave Mark went.