Novice Level 1

Haru’s eyes adjusted to the light of the meadow, but her calm faded with its arrival. She had just finished character creation, adjusting her character’s looks to appear similar to her own likeness—long, light gray hair with violet eyes. After her vision returned, she found herself standing in a small hamlet, three houses and a barn, with a lone dirt road leading away.

The confident, cheerful marching music of the title screen faded, replaced by wind chimes and sounds of the wind rustling leaves. She was in Pocka Village, the human starter area which would eventually lead Haru to her own encounter. How it would work now that she was a surrogate player was a mystery, but her familiarity with the area would give her a better chance of success. The opportunity to explore parts of the game she wasn’t as familiar with as a player wouldn’t come any time soon, if ever.

She walked around the fountain between the houses, disoriented from the transformation into a player. Her motion was no longer immediate. There was a slight acceleration and deceleration, which threw her off balance.

But what caused her the most distress were the NPCs. No longer did they make eye contact. Despite what she was doing, running in circles and nearly falling over, they just stared into the distance. The fact she was being entirely ignored freaked Haru out the most.

Then around her, other players began to appear, having just logged in. Professor Min was right, the servers came out of maintenance just as she finished creating her character. The pressure was on to get moving.

Haru knew that the game’s design revolved around making parties to take down mobs of all types. Players could solo until they left the starter area and picked their first job. Then grouping up with others was the only way to progress. To get to the demon’s lair, she needed to get to level 20 on at least one job. She also needed a level 10 sub-job to maximize her main job’s utility.

So she decided to plan ahead. Turning to the player that just logged in next to her, she smiled and waved. “Hi there.” Making friends early could only help.

The player spun in place, tracking along a half-circle. Then he bolted off without a word.

Haru frowned and stared as the player ran over to the first quest giver. After standing next to them saying nothing, he then disappeared behind the house the portly NPC stood before.

Determined not to let the overall feeling of neglect get to her, she decided to try again. She found another player still lingering at the fountain. This time the player had been standing perfectly still for quite a while. Haru marched up and turned her frown upside down. With a chirp, she greeted the stranger.

There was no reply. The player didn’t move. She just stood there, staring into the distance.

Haru decided if making friends wasn’t going to work right now, then making progress was just as much of a good idea. She marched over to the portly, balding NPC, Johannes , near the house and greeted him.

Johannes spoke in a flat tone. “Hello, HowRude—”

Haru cringed when he repeated the name she entered during character creation. She thought they would know who she was, for some reason.

The NPC continued. “—I’ve been having a bit of a boar problem out back. My fields are almost ready for harvest. But wild swine have been chasing off my farmhands. If I can’t get my pumpkins out of the ground in time, they’ll rot. Then we’ll all starve. What do you say, can you help me?”

A menu appeared in front of her, showing how much experience she would get, along with the reward. She’d receive a few dobluens, the game’s currency.

Haru leaned to peek around the corner of the house and spotted a horde of boar mobs roaming around. She turned back to Johannes and straightened herself upright. “Yes, that is a problem, isn’t it? Say, do you know where…” Haru was distracted by the NPC’s unblinking gaze staring through her. “…I could find…” She lost her train of thought, unsettled by the situation. She punched the accept button on the quest menu, which then disappeared. Getting a move on would be the best way to settle her mind.

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As Haru walked toward the field of boars, she looked over her shoulder, to see if the NPC was watching her. He was not. The farmer just stood, looking broadly toward the fountain. That experience was something which would take a long while to get used to.

She drew her Greenhorn Sword, the novice’s weapon given to all new players and readied to attack the nearest boar, lingering near a ripe pumpkin in the farmer’s field. From what she knew, so long as she was targeting a hostile mob, the auto-attack would trigger at a set interval.

Haru braced herself and closed to melee range. The boar turned. Her auto-attack was about to trigger.

Then more time passed. Nothing. The boar pivoted and walked away.

Haru wasn’t ready to give up. She brushed against the boar, hoping that she was just too far from the beast.

No attack happened.

Haru grumbled, not understanding why it wasn’t working.

A voice called out from behind her. “These are neutral mobs. You type ‘slash attack’ to engage.” It was the player that ran off without a word from earlier. Now that he’d taken damage, she could see his name hovering over his brown hair, EcruEmu.

Haru blinked and pulled up the chat window and did just as he described. The subtle sounds of the wind and chimes faded. Then she swung and hit the mob. All around her, intense battle music played, horns and strings. The pig was down to 50% HP.

The swine brayed and targeted her. It opened with a wild charge move. It slammed Haru for 50% of her HP and staggered her, preventing Haru’s auto-attacks. She was slumped over by the effect. Then it followed up with another standard attack, swiping with its stubby tusks.

Haru was already down to 25% HP. The staggered effect hadn’t worn off yet. Haru closed her eyes, ready for defeat.

The boar began to strike again. Then an attack rang out from behind her and the beast fell dead. It was Emu, standing over her.

“Bad luck.” The player performed a laughter emote. “This is one of the most painful parts of this area, these boars are way too hard. Everyone has been crying for a nerf forever but the devs don’t listen, as usual.”

A party invite menu popped up in front of Haru.

Emu pivoted, gesturing toward the rest of the field. “Let’s group and do this quest. That last one almost got me too.”

The stagger effect wore off on Haru and she stood upright, then poked the accept button. “I like that idea.”

“It’s good practice for when we have to do the real thing, right?” Emu turned and rushed toward the next nearest boar.

Haru tilted her head. “Real thing?” She blinked and ran after him, readying to strike her teammate’s target. This time, since Emu was already engaged, she began auto-attacking without needing to type.

This fight went far more smoothly. Emu took only one hit and both of them downed the enemy with one strike each.

Emu sheathed his sword, then took a knee, bowing his head.

Haru looked at him in confusion. “What are you doing?”

“I need HP, so I’m in recovery mode.” The player responded without moving. “Press ‘H’.”

Haru did so and then took a knee just like him. Their health slowly ticked upwards, in 10% increments.

“It’s so annoying,” Emu said. “World of Woden allows you to recover HP out of combat. But this is a far better game overall so I just bear with it.”

“That seems hectic.” Haru felt a bit jealous toward the rival game.

“It can be. They want you to rush to end game. Here, the journey is the experience.” Emu stood up, fully healed. “End game here is fun too, but leveling all the jobs and finding all the items is more enjoyable.”

A touch of pride welled in Haru. It made all of her hard work even more worthwhile.

The two continued to slay boars until the field was nearly empty. There was one last swine left among the pumpkins. After a tough fight where the boar opened with a charge, the two downed it. An item dropped, pork tenderloin. It was placed in Haru’s main inventory.

Text emerged from Haru’s torso and shot up over her head that she couldn’t read. A swishing noise along with the game’s fanfare played. Then the notification settled in front of her shoulders.

Level Up

“Ding! Congrats!” Emu played the clap emote.

Haru felt much stronger, and her HP almost doubled. “Whoa!”

“Yeah, they’re pretty generous to new players with the stat increases,” Emu started. “It makes having to fight these minibosses almost bearable.” He played the winking emote. “Almost.”

Then the player turned and surveyed the field. “Ack. It’s going to be a while before the boars come back. Let’s recover while we wait.”

They both took a knee.

A familiar voice called out in the distance. “P—please… help…”

Haru stood up.

“I keep hearing that. I think it’s a quest NPC, but I don’t know which.” Emu turned toward the voice.

Haru jogged over toward the direction of the cry. As she took off, Emu stood and followed her.

“…hungry… so… hungry…” The voice called.

The two ran over a small hill, then down into a valley. Not far from the field was a boulder. Behind it, was the source of the plea.

Haru recognized him immediately. It was the strange player she encountered in the cave. The one that rescued her from the demon on the beach. He was laying prone and had the starving debuff.