Day 8 - August 21:04

Faith 1 / 10

Hunger 95 / 100%

As One scowled about the developments and was cracking his head over how to deal with this the merchant interrupted him again.

“So?”, he asked sternly. “Why the bounty?”

One decided to answer honestly, as to maybe inquire about the bounty himself. “Well, I was unaware of that myself. Although I did kill a player just a few hours ago… Maybe..”

Sekomi interrupted him sharply. “No. If you die, you are at least five to seven days buys with coming back. At least that’s what I’ve gathered from the temples and guilds in the villages. I would also very much doubt that a player could afford over a thousand silver as of now. At least no one else but me.”

One nodded. “It maybe has to do with the class quest I finished. I am a priest to Loki. The spawn of the deceiver sounds very much like some other priests put out a bounty on me right?” While the merchant was thinking, One added some thought to that. “But it should be possible to get rid of the bounty right? I mean, I can’t go into any village and do quests like a normal person now or can I?”

Sekomi agreed. “Yeah. You could pay it off, so that the bounty is deleted. That however is expensive, and your bounty is rising slowly too. So I guess it would just start again.” He sighted. “Most likely best to just ignore it and avoid cities. You have a target on your back now, you gotta live with that. Only a priest of a hated faction. And here I thought you might be special.”

One glared at the merchant. It was not an easy situation to be in at all. Imagine him running into difficulties like that early on. No trading for the legendary merchant. Pfft. “Alright, tell me about the other questions.”

“Alright. Well, as you have figured out by now I am rather rich, I could most likely pay a whole village to make me leader. How much I am not gonna tell you, since that would be no better than telling you my battle strengths. My warrior costs me 100 silver a day. It’s affordable, although you do not gain any experience when he is around an hired. Which makes it pretty useless other than for protection. All in all a waste of money if you do not have the proper income.” Sekomi seemed rather indifferent about everything, like he was obligated to get this over with. He really was mainly interested about the money. What did he expect One’s bounty to be about? “From what I have heard, you can use copper ore to craft coins, blacksmiths can do that if they are skilled enough. I can hook you up to some smiths later, if you are interested. For a fee of course since you can’t talk to them yourself at all. Hehe.”

One found it really ironic how much the game treated him like shit all the time. How was he supposed to gain anything now? But the information on copper ore was gold well spent. If he ever found a lode of silver or copper he would be richer than the merchant for sure. If he found gold he could be richer than anyone. The return would be massive. A plan formed in his head. “Alright. You know about the [Receipt of Approval] type of scrolls? You can get them from NPCs for advancing to the next level of crafting?”

Sekomi looked up. Now he payed more attention. “Yes. But it’s really hard to grind the masteries. Why do you ask?”

One smiled. “I would like to buy approvals for miner and woodcutter. As high as you can get them. I could sell you wood or stone in return. If you can get approvals for builder and other professions too that would be great as well.”

Sekomi thought long and hard about it. “Yeah. I should be able to get my hands on those. Even if not, I can hire a warrior to protect you so you gain access to the NPCs necessary or something. It’s rather risky though. You want to be my producer? Wood sells rather well on the shores, since they are building boats.”

“Agreed. Is there any way for long distance communication by the way? I will set up a camp remotely where no villagers can find me easily and start gathering resources there. Then I can send word once I want to trade or need the approvals?” One hoped there was. Otherwise his plan to set the merchant up for constant “friendship” trading would fail miserably. And at a high cost too.

“Yeah. Sure, I will give you a couple of them later. For the price I get them for. Anyway, let’s first finish our questions shall we? God’s, the eight worlds and dungeons was it?” One nodded and Sekomi continued to talk. “Well every god has followers, most cities have one or two of them. I have seen 4 out of the six so far, Freya, Odin, Thor and Ymir. Loki and Hel being the only ones that I haven’t seen as of yet, but then again I’m not surprised. The keeper of souls and the devious devil himself are not exactly god’s the common people would call upon right? Maybe there are some villages that follow their believes though. From what I have heard it’s really difficult to get into the club, so to speak. Very hard entry exams. I figure that was the same for you, right?”

“You have no idea, man.” One glared into the distance. The feeling of being trolled by Loki all the time clenched his guts. “Continue please.”, he added friendly.

“Well, other than that we know of the dragon god, Nidrethg. There are a couple of priests around, but I have not heard of any quests accepting you into their ranks. There are rumoured to be other gods in the eight worlds though. For now we only know that you are able to buy keys for entry once the 30 day mark is reached. Of course no one has any near details, but the keys will cost between 1 and 500 gold, depending on which world you want to go to. There are rumours that some worlds are inhibiting giants, elves and dwarfs. Aside from those we have the fire and ice worlds as well as Helheim and Asgard. But again, no real information other than the lore most people know. I don’t want to go into detail here you can look it up yourself later. Google for Yggdrasil, the world tree, or something.”

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

One thought of how the hell he should google that, since he was ingame and in a come too? Maybe if he wrote to the doctors? But then he would have to deal with his family prematurely again all over. Urgh. “Okey, thanks. Then dungeons? You know about those?”

Sekomi smiled. “Of course. At least what all the NPCs told me about it. Apparently dungeons are a threat to all life in Midgard. They grow quickly, depending on how many visitors are frequently farming them and how many of them die there. As they are trying to kill you once you are inside it happens quite a bit too. At least if you are unprepared or stupid. There is a dungeon core inside as well. You can destroy it to let the dungeon die, or try to take it out of the dungeon. The dungeon will do anything to stop you from doing so though, so that’s the very much harder option. They are a very good source of money apparently though. Drops and stuff I would figure. They may be worth more than any resource you can find on Midgard. Although they are said to be rare even after the 30 days I would guess there will not be any found for at least a couple of weeks. And even then they will be fought over a lot, so it’s really dangerous.”

Interesting. Very, very interesting. One needed to keep track of dungeons. If he could secure one for himself, him building a city was no unrealistic feat. “Alright. Seems pretty square to me. Now let’s trade the map, and give me as many of the messengers as you can so my debts total 10 gold coins alright?”

Sekomi nodded and requested a trade. This time he selected some options for the trade.

[Nidrethg]: Permanent.

[Trade conditions]: Payable later.

[Trade guild pledge]: -N/A-

Seemingly Sekomi was not part of a guild either. The amount of gold in One’s trade window reflected minus 10 gold. Then the merchant dragged his map into the slot alongside 115 small birds. At least they looked like birds. Trading was happening rather quickly so One only was able to inspect his new goods inside of his inventory, rather than in the trading window..

[Messenger Bird: Grade A] - May transmit messages to other players over long distances. The time needed depends on the distance to each other and the quality of their birds.

Sekomi got the mule ready to go and signaled his warrior to get up. “The birds are not S grade, so they are a bit slow. At least they don’t cost a lot. They need 1 hour per 50 km distance. The S grade travels 200 km/h. (Author note: no idea how many miles that is in retarded units)

One thanked his new friend for the trade and smiled. Another popup appeared.

[Sekomi would like to add you to his Friend List.]

[Accept] [Decline]

Of course One accepted and the trader went along his planned way down the road. All in all that went way better than One expected it to go, after being pinned down and on the brink of death he really thought he would have to deal with the death penalty here. The bounty was a real setback though, but it’s not like it’s Sekomi’s fault. It would have been much easier to get into villages and manipulate some NPCs in telling him their secrets to crafting, maybe he would have gotten good gear or learned some fighting. Now One was really not in the position to do all that. He would just spend his time leveling his job masteries. That was never a bad thing to do, and it would pay him some money as well. At least after he paid of his debts. 10 gold would not come easily, but Sekomi seemed to be very interested in him farming wood and stone. And the trader had proven to know his shit in this game. One called upon his woodcutter mastery.

[Woodcutter: Beginner I]

69%

Foresting I: 16%

Chopping Wood I: 100%

That would be his new aim. After getting this skill to Beginner II with his receipt of approval he could max the second level out too before contacting the merchant. After studying the map some more he found a remote area between two villages far off the road. There was a small river, a lot of woods all inside a mountain valley. As this provided the most likely prospect to find enough diversity for all his job masteries he decided to go there first. Maybe he would be able to find some players on the way. If there were any serious ones around he would try to recruit them. If not… well that was obvious.

One decided on the direct way towards his destination. It would a at least be another 50 km or more to get there, and without any roads this could take longer than expected. But he really had to get off the street. Any group of travelers that played together or a bunch of bandit NPCs would be potentially lethal. He headed straight through the high grass, sometimes encountering some deers, that he carefully avoided. Hunting was not yet his profession and he would do well to avoid them for now. A stag possessed dangerous antlers as well as speed and One did not want to end up pierced by them. On his way through grassland he inspected his inventory and took notice of all his belongings.

[Apple] x 21

[Carrot] x 7

[Burned Meat] x 2

[Bonfire Meat] x 124

[Firestone] x 27

[Common Bread] x 4

[Messenger Bird: Grade A] x 115

[Blueprint: Temple Plan: Roof]

[Blueprint: House Plan: Floor]

[Blueprint: House Plan: Roof]

[Blueprint: House Plan: Door]

[Blueprint: House Plan: Window]

[Blueprint: House Plan: Wall]

[Blueprint: House Plan: Second Story]

[Blueprint: House Plan: Stairs]

[Axe Level 1]

[Pickaxe Level 1]

[Scythe Level 1]

[Hoe Level 1]

[Hammer Level 1]

[Fishing Rod Level 1]

[Seed: Pine Cone] x 43

[Seed: Red Oak Acorn] x 8

[Seed: Birch Tree] x 4

Additionally he had 78 copper and 1 silver. Alongside this a huge amount of gold… debt.

All the inspecting he did not notice the large figure that approached him from the side.

One really hated himself for being this careless all the time...