During the period since John had started to play Royal Road, he had grown very fond of the game.
He spent most of the time in it and the only time he wasn’t in the game was when he got hungry or grew tired, sometimes he even slept inside the game.
Now he could not log back in for twenty-four hours.
He longed to go back in the game, and struggled to kill his boredom.
After 24 long hours he got into the capsule and logged back in.
He found himself back in the city, where he had started first. He was notified that his level had dropped by one; fortunately his skills only dropped a little.
*new message*
“Alcaeus
Please do not let this world corrupt you,
I heard of what you did, I am the pope after all.
Please be more careful from now on. Or else…
-Almond. ”
*Go ahead and die already; there are like five pope candidates awaiting your death*
After he read it, a hand grabbed him and quickly pulled him to a dark alley.
The cloaked person removed the hood.
A blood red name written over her head “Pandora” and a ruby on her forehead had appeared.
“Please, help me!” said the girl who had killed him twenty four hours ago.
Using his skill to gain the favor of an NPC at an inn, Alcaeus managed to get a room for them even though murderers were not allowed such luxury.
***************
“So what do you need from me?” I asked her.
“Remember when I killed you yesterday?” She said apologetically.
I didn’t reply.
“Well, you see after that I got the murderer mark, and had to go to church to remove it.” She continued
“I met an old man and told him about it, but he didn’t remove it, instead he extended it to three months and told me to apologize to you.”
*so she’s the one who ratted me out*
“Since you did waste 96 hours I could have spent in the game, I could accept your apology if you did something for me.” I smirked.
She looked at her body, face flushed red. “No… No way! Pervert!”
-50 HP
I could not contain my laughter.
“This is not a NSFW story! I was going to make you help me with the wolves’ den dungeon inside the forest.”
“Well you should have said that first.” She mumbled embarrassed by her assumption.
“Meet me in front of the gates in one hour” I told her knowing she’d have a hard time getting there safe and unnoticed; that’s what she gets for killing me… and slapping me.
***************************
After one hour Pandora and I met and started going towards the forest. Although I had read about the den on a book I read in the library, she knew of its exact location so I let her lead. She looked dazzling, but contrary to her appearance she had a different personality, though it would be a lie if I said I didn’t like that childish part of her.
On our way there we did not encounter any monsters so the journey was quiet, with little chats.
“So what’s your class?” I asked her. ”We need to know each others’ class before we start battling.”
“I’m a Champion; it’s a hidden class.” She said with her head high.
“So it’s just a cool way to say Warrior.” I said mocking her class.
“No it’s nothing like that; a champion gives up his entire defensive armor and concentrates all on attacking, parrying and dodging.” She said proudly.
*That explains the armor she’s wearing ^^*
“What about you? Some kind of mage?” she asked judging by my robe.
“No, I’m a writer.” I replied seeing Pandora’s disappointed look infused with pity. “But I have a sword.” I tried to make her feel better.
“Well at least your level is above 20”
“Nope, I’m level 10.”
“Let’s go then.” She said as she seemingly gave up on life.
And so we entered the wolves’ den. It was empty. Even after discovery, it never became popular as it was too difficult for low level players, but did not give good rewards for higher leveled ones.
*****************************
Epic battle between me and Al to decide who narrates the story, I won.
*****************************
And so Alcaeus and Pandora entered the dungeon.
As soon as they entered they were surrounded by five wolves.
As Alcaeus was preparing his PenSword, Pandora already jumped at the wolves, alone fending against five wolves. Her movements were mesmerizing as she dodged and attacked at the same time. But five wolves were too much as even a small scratch dealt serious damage to her.
“Not to kill but to protect
Grant me the power and will
Make a hard iron sword,
from my soft and feathery quill.”
This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.
As he readied his sword, Pandora killed one of the wolves, but her health was at 60% already.
“Shield”
“Heal”
He used both commands on Pandora and her health was now at 75% with an additional shield protecting her.
After Alcaeus joined the fight the battle was over quickly. Though throughout the battle he had a very passive stance and only healed and shielded Pandora.
The dungeon was deep and hordes of up to 10 wolves kept attacking them as they reached deeper into the den, at first the battles were hard and tiring, each of them would struggle, after a while though things became much easier, as they continued to level up.
By now they had gotten used to each others’ style and had little difficulty defeating the wolves, the extra levels helped considerably as well.
The battle strategy was fairly simple.
Pandora would go in and get support from Alcaeus, and whenever she needed to recover stamina, they would switch places for a short time.
Things were going well, considering both of them were still under leveled, in a dungeon that required a five man group.
After four hours of fighting with few short breaks in between, Alcaeus had leveled up five times while, Pandora leveled up four times.
“We need some rest” Pandora said, with her stamina hitting rock bottom.
Alcaeus was not doing any better, and his Mana was depleted so he couldn’t support her in battle.
Their stomachs started to complain, they needed to eat.
Both of them started to gather roots.
They had enough wood to start a fire, but neither knew how to.
So they just sat there.
“I need to log out for a few minutes, I haven’t eaten real food for hours.” said Pandora.
Starving, Alcaeus got a little creative.
For the first time he tried to use a command on an inanimate object.
“Scorch”
He wrote over the wood and it started to burn.
Writing on air level up.
*So it rises faster when I use them in new ways* Alcaeus made a realization.
He started to cook some raw rabbit meat he got from the cook in the church.
Recipe:
Put a stick through the rabbit
Hold it over the fire
Turn every few minutes.
.
“I’m back! I also looked up how to start a fir…” she stopped as soon as she saw Alcaeus eating rabbit meat.
“So did I!” he responded quickly, to avoid explaining why he didn’t use “scorch” earlier.
Happily she took some of the rabbit meat and had a big bite.
Her face expression drastically changed.
“It’s… edible” she said about to puke somehow managing to force everything back in.
“It fills up your satiety, so don’t complain.” Alcaeus told her slightly offended although he himself would pick Rye bread over his cooking.
“You must me a terrible cook considering even the system can’t make it taste normal.” She added.
She slowly pulled out a few things from her bag, some of which were a pot, some spices, ok a lot of expensive spices and started to mix stuff together.
“Where did you get enough money to buy all these expensive items?”
“Oh, these? I got like 30 gold from killing…” she stopped.
“Me?”
-silence
.
.
.
-silence
.
.
-silence
“Food’s ready” Pandora announced happily.
It was delicious, almost enough for Alcaeus to forget she had stolen 30 gold from him… almost.
Still with his satiety still low, he ate without talking. He decided to open the subject after they cleared the dungeon.
"By the way how did you learn the cooking skill before learning how to start a fire?" Alcaeus asked curiously though he himself had not learned how to.
"You need a cooking skill to cook?"
.
.
.
.
After they ate and recovered, they moved forward.
A howl could be heard from the distance, a growl which got louder and louder the further they went.
Gradually the tunnel they were walking through widened and from the distance a large black wolf could be seen.
Boss battle: The leader of the pack ETHEL WOLF.
(Due to not being hunted for a long time, Ethel wolf has grown immensely in power.)
*************************************
Next chapter; finally some real fighting. ^^