Sam heads back to the counter, “So where to next?”
Potato hands Sam her cut of the loot sales then asks, “Weren’t we going to buy you some mage start books?”
“Nah, decided to do something else.”
Potato takes a moment to think, “Well I suppose next is to head around town and to collect the uncommon hidden quests then grind completion of them and the sword skill quest you have.”
“How about you three go collect the quests and share them with me then. I’ll start grinding on the adventurer quests first then we can meet back up to continue questing.” From reading forum posts Sam knows the developers made all but some of the hidden rare quests repeatable and sharable.
The party minions look like they want to say something but before they can Sam exits the building quickly and heads back outside the village. Checking her quest status on weapon usage she sees she has swung the kriegsmesser 728/1000 and the dagger 692/1000 times. She decides to switch weapons to the zweihander and buckler.
Sam wants to use both the buckler and zweihander at the same time but finds holding the large two hander one handed very awkward. It can be done but a couple practice swings of the zweihander throws her off balance and is slow.
The quest doesn’t say anything about proper technique though. Sam decides to try gripping the zweihander by the blade and using the handle as a poke stick. A few pokes and Sam sees the quest weapon usage goes up.
A horned rabbit hops into view. Charging, Sam hits the horned rabbit with both the buckler and zweihander pommel. The damage is around a quarter of what she was doing with the kriegsmesser but she doesn’t care as it still increases the usage count.
She punches with the buckler again but misses because of her lack of skill. The horned rabbit’s eyes briefly glow before it counters with a tackle that knocks Sam on her butt. Letting out an ominous shriek the horned rabbit pounces at her. Sam is just barely able to get her forearm up in time to deflect the horned rabbits attack. Or so she thinks. Instead of a deflected attack the horned rabbit is gutted as the blade of the zweihander is between her forearm and the fast moving horned rabbit.
Standing up Sam considers what happened. The horned rabbits tackle was far more powerful than she was expecting both reducing her HP by a third and knocking her down. Then when she was able to counter the horned rabbits pounce it died even though it still had most of its HP bar left.
To kept the game realistic there were no damage numbers displayed. Although the fact there was the HP bar sort of defeated this. Still it meant players had to guess how effective an attack was. Having defeated many a blue slime Sam knows that some attacks will do significantly more damage than others. Sam wonders if it is due to just some random critical chance or if there are other unknown factors involved.
Walking up to another horned rabbit Sam hits it once with the zweihander pommel then waits. Predictably the horned rabbit charges and Sam blocks with the buckler. No damage is done to either Sam or the horned rabbit. Sam again waits for the next charge but this time lets the horned rabbit hit her. She takes about tenth of her HP in damage.
A bit more waiting and the horned rabbit charges again. This time Sam doesn’t just block the attack but instead punches with the buckler. Unable to dodge the horned rabbit is bashed on the head. It falls to the ground taking about a fifth of its HP in damage. The horned rabbit flops about a bit then rights itself and shakes its head. Sam wonders if that was a stun as the horned rabbit wasn’t really doing much for a couple seconds.
Once the horned rabbit has recovered Sam makes a come at me motion with her hand. However the horned rabbit seems reluctant to make another attack. Sam forces the engagement by punching with the buckler and intentionally misses. The horned rabbit’s eyes glow at this feint and it crouches to attack.
Ready for the attack Sam quickly parries the charge with her bladed forearm. The horned rabbit is split in two covering her in a spray of blood. Sam is not sure but thinks the parry may have done more damage than the first horned rabbits death.
So counter attacking in the middle of an enemy attack or after an enemy fails an attack seems to cause more damage. Possibly also adding addition effects like stun, knockdown and interruption she thinks. This mostly confirms what she has read about in the forums. The forums also mention location hit matters as well. Attacks targeting the head and torso do more damage while attacks on limbs less so.
She decides to continue to try for counter attacks in the next horned rabbit fight. She charges at the new target but stumbles barely grazing the horned rabbit. The horned rabbit takes advantage of this and with glowing eyes counter attacks knocking Sam down. Unlike the first two fights Sam mistimes the parry and the horned rabbit shatters her HP bar and impacts her head.
Feeling pain for the first time in the game Sam is unprepared. She moves her hand to hold her forehead without thinking. Shrieking the horned rabbit jumps on top of her. Luckily she held on to the buckler and is able to block the rabbits finishing move just barely. But now she’s holding off the drooling shrieking horned rabbit just inches from her face with the buckler.
[How’d this turn into a horror film? With a cute little horned rabbit no less.]
She struggles with the headache pain and horned rabbit trying to bite her face off. Soon she is able to get enough leverage to start pushing the viciously cute thing away. A great sword cleaves the horned rabbit in two.
“Are you alright my fair lady?”
Surprised she looks toward the voice she sees a tall, broad shouldered, half-elf in shining white plate armor. Her heart beats faster as she looks at the handsome noble. His rugged face with manly blond locks are right out of a romance novel cover art. He reaches out his hand to help her up and Sam put’s her hand daintily into his.
Helping her up he hugs her a bit too closely before distancing himself a bit. Sam starts to blush. [… What the hell is wrong with me? I don’t even like men.] Sam wonders if the horned rabbit hit her too hard in the head. [Her? Wait, when did I start thinking of myself as a woman?] Sam shakes her head trying to clear it.
[I’m a he! I like women. The game helmet must be influencing my emotions.] Shyly looking at him again she starts to feel heat spreading from her face to the rest of her body. [Bad digital body, no sexy time with men! He must be at least noble level and max appearance. Riajuu go explode.]
“Beautiful lady may I have the honor of knowing your name?”
“I’m Sam… Samantha I mean.”
“A pleasure to meet you Samantha. I’m prince Lorric.”
He must be rich if he purchased monarch rank. Rich, tall, handsome and helping others in distress. He’s so perfect Samantha thinks dreamily. [Stop that. My name is Sam. He’s not Mr. Perfect. Ack, who cares if he is? I. Don’t. Do. Men. No way is this a normal reaction to even a 25 appearance stat. He must have gotten some trait to make women desire him more.]
“It would be my honor to help you out with your questing. No harm shall befall you while you’re with me.”
[That line… And he rescued me from a dangerous situation… No. No. No. No. No. I am not the damsel in distress.] Sam is horrified by the current turn of events. No matter how she tries to decline Prince Perfect she’s trapped with a damsel in distress flag.
If she gets angry then she’s just a feisty girl that wants to be tamed. If she acts cold then she’s the ice queen that wants to be warmed up. If she runs she’s the shy girl that wants to be caught. Only way to stop the advances is to kill Prince Perfect right now and make it hurt, a lot. But Prince Perfect has way better gear and HP. So attacking and losing to the handsome hero will just make her the villainess who secretly wants to be captured by PP’s charms.
Sam starts breathing heavily as she feels trapped and completely helpless in this situation. [Just kidding.] “I’m sorry I can’t group with you. I already have a full party with three others who should be here shortly. Besides I must get stronger on my own if I’m able to fulfill my vows.”
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
“I see, perhaps in the future we shall quest together. Well until we meet again fair lady.” Prince Perfect does a sword salute and walks away.
Saved by the duty bound noble guardswoman route. This doesn’t stop the damsel in distress flag but forces one to appeal to the woman’s sense of duty to win her heart. Only way to do that is group and quest together showing the girl how noble and chivalrous he is. He could also save her several more times without a grouping but either way it diverts the problem until later. Hopefully until after Sam has logged out and created a different male character to play with.
After a short rest to recover her HP Sam begins hunting horned rabbits again. This time focusing more on not being hit then on perfect counter attacks to prevent a repeat of her previous defeat. A few dead horned rabbits later her three party minions show up.
“Collected all the quests babe. And who’s the creep with eyes on you?” Carrot asks pointing at Price Perfect who’s still pretending to kill horned rabbits while looking at Sam occasionally waiting for an opportunity to rescue her again.
“Ignore him he’ll go away shortly now that you three are here.” The party minions look happier at Sam’s words.
“Carrot you’ve heard of curb stomping before right? Do you know how to do it correctly without a curb?” Sam asks.
“Of… of course I do! Err just for reference how have you seen it done?”
“Well just go up to a mob and kick it hard in the shin so it falls and hits it head on the virtual curb. Of course it won’t do this at first so it’s best to raise your skill by kicking it in the shin then running away back to me to finish it off.”
“Dat sounds Dope.”
Sam grins to herself for teaching Carrot another sissy move.
Addressing Potato, “Focus on getting the loot and gathering quests. With your extra loot drops and gathering skills it should be very efficient. Also since you know the quests the best can you turn them in for the rest of us?”
“Of course.” Sam is sure Potato will skim off some of the loot but as long as he leaves enough for the quest completes it should be fine.
Now with Bowl here Sam can go all out on attacking the mobs without worry. Although when Sam makes her new character none of the skills will transfer she should still be able to remember the timing of the attacks. So she focuses on counter attack timing and critical hit locations for practice.
The next hour and team Sam’s NGO is able to complete 17 quests, 5 of which are upgraded due to speed of completion, quality of drops and quantity gathered. Most importantly Sam’s first quest in Kunst des Fechtens is done.
Headed back to the guardhouse Sam walks up to the instructor to turn in the quest.
“I’ve completed the first step of my training. What is the next part Sensei?” Sam is barely able to hold in a giggle calling a German fighting instructor by a Japanese term but figures it’s probably the correct term since the place is a bizarre mix up of several cultures.
The instructor look happy at the term, “Hmm not only do you show proper respect but you have outdone yourself. I see you’ve already started to use intermediate techniques on your own. Using kurzes schwert and counter schild to good effect in your battles.”
“I have?”
“Haha yes, you may not know the specifics but felt some of the core tenants of the style. Kurzes schwert, or half-sword, is a technique of gripping the blade to do additional techniques the enemy won’t be expecting. Offensive use of a shield is another intermediate technique. Most beginners think a shield is passive but you’ve grasped that it just another style of weapon to learn. Even better you’ve been trying for counter attacks and causing weaknesses in the enemies’ defense with feints.”
Grinning the instructor continues, “Normally for the next part I’d have you train here in the dojo. At least ten thousand swings on each technique. But you seem one who will naturally learn and gain more from actual combat experience. Still it is not good to skip out on the basics. I have three quests for your next training. The first is to correctly use each of the basic techniques ten thousand times. Mind you an improper swing won’t count only the correct form will do.
Next is to start a battle 100 times in each of the four basic stances. Ochs or Ox in common tongue, Pflug or plow, Alber or fool, and Vom Tag or Roof. Using a stance can greatly improve several aspects of your fighting. The mid stance of plow is a good balance of both offense and defense. The low stance of the fool greatly benefits defense and allows for surprise attack type strikes. The high stance of roof allows for the most destructive of strikes and is good for offense. Last the Ox fills the role of special usage stance allowing for a variety of specialized utility strikes to be used.
Finally footwork is very important to combat. For a thousand times each do the passing step to dodge, closing step to parry, false step for blocking and assault step for attacking.”
“That is a lot to do all at once…”
The instructor takes out a book and hands it to Sam, “Not to worry here’s a book detailing out how to do each of them. I have confidence you’ll find the best path to learn them all correctly. Oh you may also start calling yourself a swordsman. You still have far to go but you have started on your path.”
Sam sees she now has level 1 in swordsman job. She looks at the details of the job on her magic tablet. Swordsman gives an extra 10% damage per job level to swords as its active bonus. The leveling bonus gives +4 to strength, +2 to endurance, +2 to grace and two times speed to learn sword skills. The passive bonus gives 5% increase in dodge skill per level.
Jobs are similar to other games classes but a bit different as well. It generally takes a quest to get to level 1 at any job. And all jobs have a passive skill that gets applied based on its level. Only one job can be active at first but later more can be active as the character gains more total levels. A job can only gain experience when it’s active and the active bonus is only applied then.
Specific actions level the job based on what it is. So for swordsman any actions involving sword usage or battle will level the job. But for a blacksmith it would instead be hammer swings and crafting blacksmithing goods to level it.
Most jobs also improve some aspect of growth. So swordsmen job also makes learning sword skills easier and the bonus to stats counts as a base stat increase allowing for more rapid growth in the listed stats.
Looking at other jobs she has access to she sees peasant, adventurer, noble, princess, and
Which job is active can be switched after five minutes of waiting. So technically one could switch jobs in combat but normally most people do it in down times between and don’t switch jobs often as no skills can be used in those five minutes.
Sam had been using the default peasant job and it is now level 3 from helping villagers by completing their quests. Probably not the optimum path since peasant job doesn’t provide any bonuses. Some other jobs do require a certain level of peasant as a prerequisite so it’s not a total loss. However she should use a job with better bonuses so she switches her job to swordsman and spends the five minutes reading her sword manual.
She continues to quest with her party for several hours more until it starts getting too dark to see. They’ve completed most of the start area quests at least once and repeated many of them as well for additional rewards. Sam is almost sad to say goodbye to her party. They had non-existent combat skills but made up for it by being obedient and having some beneficial abilities outside of combat.
The three stooges had reached their game time limits and logged off. Sam still had a couple hours left before being forced to log out and decided to spend them in some, personal exploration.