The old man passed a middle-aged man a bowl of noodles. He had arrived while the girl ate. The purchaser nodded in thanks, passing over a gold coin. Meanwhile, the girl slurped up the remains of the noodles and drank the soup straight from the bowl, then placed the bowl back on the table.

"Ahhhh!" she let out a sigh of satisfaction.

"Had a good meal? You can come back for more next time if you want to." the noodle man said kindly.

"Yeah, it was good." answered the girl.

She passed the bowl back to him. The old man turned around, placing it put it in a tub full of water that was filled with other dirty bowls. The eyes of the girl seemed to lose focus for a second. A gold coin materialised out from her inventory, falling onto her hand.

"Here!" she tossed the coin to the noodle man.

Out of reflex, he caught it. 

"Wait! There's no need-" started the old man. 

He stopped as he realised something. The girl had already run away. He looked in the direction she ran and sighed.

"To have such values even when so poor, how admirable!" he praised. He wasn't sure if he would be so upright if he had to starve daily.

~~~~~

Mei ran from the noodle shop towards the public shower, soon arriving at her destination. She took off rather quickly as she was a bit worried that the old man would insist the money be returned to her. She didn't want to rip him off.

She walked into the section labelled 'Women's Shower'. No one was inside. Perfect! Mei was sure it would be really off-putting for someone to shower next to a person covered in mud that dyed the water on the floor brown. Namely she herself.

She walked under the nearest showerhead and turned the knob to the rightmost. Water cascaded onto her. She couldn't help but hum. As the dirt and grime came off her skin, she thought back about the situation earlier. To think that she would be mistaken for a beggar and even offered a free meal by the old man. How embarrassing! Heck, she wouldn't even be surprised if he offered her a few hundred gold.

Were there players who made use of their poor starting appearance to scam the NPCs into giving free stuff? Mei hoped not. It might sound silly to be concerned about 'fake people' in a 'fake world', but this world... it felt so real to her. The touch of it. The sounds she heard. The scents she smelled. The people she met. They all felt so vivid. If not for the fact that she remembered donning the VR gear and creating her character, she would have even suspected she had been transported into another world.

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Her arms continued to scrub semi-automatically as she was immersed in her shower thoughts. All the mud soon came off her skin. She tried to wash her scratchy rags next. Most of the mud came off easily, but the rags were still dyed brown by the mud. If only she had soap! But as her father used to say to her when she was younger: "The world does not revolve around you.".

She squeezed the rags as dry as she could afterwards and walked to a part of the room where the floor remained dry. There, she tried to shake off the water on herself by jumping and just shaking in general. Very much like a dog, thought Mei to herself with a slight grin.

Her body now mostly dry, she donned her 'clothes' again. They were still quite uncomfortable, but Mei was quite glad all of a sudden that she spawned with the coarse and overly thick rags. Had she been wearing comfortable cotton like she did in the real world, her clothing would be... a little more revealing than it should be after the washing.

But her rags weren't going to bother her much longer! Mei resolved to go to a clothing store to buy some proper clothing. While saving the starting 100 gold to buy a more powerful class early was good, she didn't care anymore! She would rather quit the game than be stuck with such lousy clothes. 

She exited the shower room, feeling much more refreshed. There were still people who stared at the weird slightly drenched 'beggar girl' as she headed towards the clothing store guided by the map, but at least there were less now that she wasn't muddy. 

Mei arrived before the store. She steeled herself and opened the doors.

"Welcome!" said a bubbly woman's voice as Mei walked into the store. "How may I- Oh! One of those um... players, are you?" 

"Yeah, I guess," said Mei a little awkwardly.

Still, she was a little excited! Could this be one of the events in the game? Up till now, none of the NPCs seemed to have identified her as a 'Player'. But to Mei's disappointment, the woman did not say any more afterwards, continuing to read the book in her hands.

So she decided to walk into the 'Women's Clothing' aisle and took a good look around. There were tons of selections, be they for casual wear or battle gear. And to her dismay, they were all expensive. The cheapest was the casual wear. The most inexpensive shirts and skirts she could find cost 20 gold. And this was not even mentioning the battle gear; the most expensive ones costing up to thousands of gold. So naturally, she ignored the battle gear section and only browsed through the casual wear.

As she struggled to decide which to pick, walking left and right aimlessly and fidgeting, a hand tapped her shoulder.

"A little too pricey for you?" the same woman asked with a smile.

Mei jolted in surprise. She turned around to see the same woman standing behind her with a smile.

"Um... I guess I'll-" Mei frantically reached for the nearest cheap clothing item she could find.

"I can loan you a tiiiiiiny sum if you want." the woman said with a mischievous smile.

"Eh?" Mei was surprised. She didn't see any NPCs offering loans when she watched streams.

"I've noticed something about you 'Players', or at least that's what your kind call yourselves. Undying people from another world who land outside of low levelled town in ugly brown rags for whatever reason. Most of us natives don't dare to risk our lives to challenge powerful monsters or dungeons, but you lot always seem to be the... fighty type. Always getting into the battle and making a killing from the sale of monster parts." rambled the woman.

"Umm..."

"So... I'll give you an offer. I'll use the loaning system to let you buy any equipment you want to. But you will have to return double the amount in a month!" 

"What?! So much?" Mei was shocked.

"Heh. This is called an... INVESTMENT!" the woman proclaimed proudly. "Think of how much faster you will start earning gold!"

The woman had a point. Mei considered it-

"Just think about it! You'll need a hundred hits to kill a level 1 slime but you can demolish it in a single hit with-"

"Yeah, I know! I've played games before!" interrupted Mei. 

So the woman stood there confidently as Mei considered the offer, looking at all the available equips.