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Chapter 27: Beginning Town’s Sightseeing at Night
Sila arrived at Beginning Town. He walked towards the Quest Building and noticed that the number of people was significantly lower than before. Only Varee and Miss Host stood there.
Sila approached them. He looked around realizing he had never witnessed the sight of a desolate and peaceful Beginning Town before.
“Why is it so quiet?” asked Sila.
“How can it not be? Players take two hours to revive; it will be long until the first one dying revives,” answered Varee.
“Then, can we get the reward now?” asked Sila as he didn’t want to be the center of attention.
“No can do, sir. This event is held by the system. We have to promote it for the game’s marketing,” said the young female host.
Sila checked the time in his system window. It would take around two hours until the time came.
“Well, I will be training myself then. As for the reward, you can take all of it. I don’t want any,” said Sila.
To be honest, Sila thought the combat experience he had gained was more valuable than the reward. Moreover, Varee told him beforehand that she wanted this reward, so he didn’t care much what the reward was.
Sila took out the Invitation Card to the Bamboo Hut. It made sense that the nameless elder was starting to feel annoyed as Sila always bothered his place to keep training himself without a break.
However, Varee grabbed his hand when he was about to activate it, making him slightly blush.
“Sila is always busy practicing. Just take a break sometimes. Now that we have two hours, I will be your guide to sightsee Beginning Town’s night atmosphere,” said Varee, “Miss Host, can we come back here two hours later?”
“Of course, please take your time.” The female host smiled.
“Let’s go, Sila.” Varee led the way without releasing Silas hand.
When they left, the smiling host clapped two times. Suddenly, there were rows of floating shining lamps hovered on both sides of the street. They were originally prepared for the award ceremony tonight. But she decided to use it beforehand to create a romantic atmosphere for this couple.
“Well, well, this couple is so sweet yet so savage,” muttered the host as she perceived that these two had killed all the players able to witness this peaceful atmosphere.
The two might look like they were holding hands romantically, however, Sila was actually being pulled by her forcefully.
“Hey, hey, you can release my hand now. I won’t leave, okay?”
“Nope, we are the Beginning Town’s best couple tonight, remember?”
Sila blushed slightly, “About this matter, why didn’t you tell me beforehand that this was an event for a couple?” asked Sila.
“If I did, you wouldn’t be participating, am I right?” Varee asked him back.
Sila didn’t say anything in return. If she had told him that fact beforehand, he indeed wouldn’t have participated. While it was true that they knew each other in real life, they still had just met. Sila felt that they weren’t close enough to attend an event for couples together.
“Just let it go and let me show you around Beginning Town instead.”
Then, Varee brought Sila to visit various places in Beginning Town. They even visited a Fortune Telling Shop that Sila wouldn’t ever consider entering.
This romantic atmosphere (in a normal person’s perspective except for Silas) continued. Regardless, the two of them stopped by the market square. The place was usually crowded with merchants. However, right now there was only one merchant sitting alone. He even seemed confused and wondered why he was the only person with a stall here.
Varee brought Sila to visit that merchant’s jewelry stall. She picked some accessories to inspect while Sila who wasn’t interested in jewelry started his conversation with the merchant.
“Why are you here by yourself today?”
“Well, there is an event for couples today. Almost everyone joined, but I’m not interested so I decided to sit here. However, I didn’t expect people to all be gone like this. If you two hadn’t come, I would have prepared to close my shop,” replied the merchant.
Actually, the event “Seeking for the Beginning Town's Best Couple” was one of the most ridiculous events in the game. However, it always gave big prizes so a lot of people always attended. The absurdity of the event lied in the fact that its content changed every round: there was a time that the content was a duo singing contest. Since the only requirements for the event was being a couple, many people joined the event in case that something easy came up. That was why most of the participators teamed up for mutual benefits rather than being a real couple.
Hearing the explanation, Sila understood why many of the players that surrounded him didn’t look like couples at all. This made him felt less guilty to kill them.
“Did you craft these accessories by yourself? They’re beautiful and very well-made,” said Varee.
“Yes, I craft all of them myself,” answered the merchant.
Sila started to become interested in the items. They consisted of necklaces, bracelets, rings, earrings, and common jewelry that looked quite good.
Varee picked up many bracelets to try on herself and repeatedly asked Sila for his opinion. Good grief, Sila wasn’t interested in this kind of thing so he just replied that they all looked beautiful on her.
“How about you Sila, do you want any?” asked Varee.
“No, thank you. I think what I’m wearing is good enough.”
Varee looked at Sila from his head to toe. No matter how she looked, there was almost no equipment on Sila.
“What are you wearing right now?”
Sila opened his system window. He thought, ‘The Right Arm of the Sealed One is unusable right now so it doesn’t count. The rest is…’
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“Well, there is this wuxia clothing,” said Sila.
“And?” Varee really wanted to know which equipment had Sila put on.
“Erm, it’s just that,” replied Sila.
“That’s all?” Varee frowned. She wondered why. It shouldn’t be the case of lacking money though since Sila had upgraded his system window to C grade.
Even the merchant was skeptical. With his sharp eyes of a merchant, the cloth that Sila was wearing must be C-grade Wandering Wuxia’s Clothing which increased both physical and magical defenses by 300 points, attack by 5%, qi point by 5%, qi circulation’s speed by 10%, and agility by 5%, together with the option of being able to clean itself but couldn’t self-repair (as expected of a merchant, they were completely correct). The cloth cost around a hundred thousand silver coins, so it was impossible that this man was poor.
Sila was surprised that everyone seemed worried. For him, all sets of clothing were the same as he didn’t intend to rely on it. He would even still wear Beginner Clothing right now if it wasn’t dirty and ragged.
“Well, in this case, you should buy something for yourself,” said Varee prior to trying many accessories on Sila.
Sila felt bored so he started a conversation with the merchant again.
“I think all of your products look pretty decent, so why do you seem not quite proud of them?” Sila noticed the expression of the merchant.
The merchant was surprised that Sila could tell what he truly felt.
“The reason is, although they look pretty, their ability is not that high. These could sell only in Beginning Town as there are plenty of better accessories in the Main Continent.” It was Varee who replied in a merchant’s place.
Sila frowned and looked at Varee with scolding eyes. He felt that Varee’s speech was too mean.
“I’m sorry. This woman was quite rude.” Sila said to the merchant. This time, it was Varee’s turn to frown. Wasn’t what Sila just said considered ruder?
But the merchant shook his head, “No problem, Bro. What she said was completely correct. These goods of mine aren’t able to sell in the Main Continent, I know that myself.”
“Most of the craftsmen in the Main Continent are dwarfs or plant race. Those two races have the skill to increase the ability of equipment and medicine. From what I saw, I guess you still haven’t changed your race.” Varee said to the merchant.
“That’s correct. But the race that I want to change into is very rare. I want to choose my own path so I haven’t changed to another race yet.”
Varee frowned again. She wondered which race was better in craftsmanship than the dwarf race.
“And what is the race that you want to change into?” Sila thought that if it was a plant race, he would just give him the Dragon Tree Cards that he didn’t know where to use or spend it on anyway.
“It’s a merpeople race, Sir.”
“Merpeople race?/Merpeople race?” Sila and Varee exclaimed together with doubt. However, their doubt was different. Varee was suspicious of how the merpeople race was better than the dwarf’s, while Sila wondered whether it was too coincidental that he just happened to obtain a lot of Merpeople Cards recently.
“Although Big Sister said that the best races suitable for craftsmanship are dwarf or plant race, there’s still more to it. Each of the races has their own aptitude. While it’s true that dwarf race is great in craftsmanship ability, it only specializes in crafting weapon and armor. For plant race, it specializes in medicine creation. There are also elf and fairy race that specialize in textile.” The merchant explained.
“What about the merpeople race?”
“Merpeople race specializes in jewelry. The jewel that merpeople polish is far more exquisite than others. However, there is a big problem with the merpeople.” The merchant’s expression saddened.
“What is it?” asked Sila.
“The problem would be the fact that merpeople monsters are rare to encounter. They all live deep underwater. The reason that the event today was to fight them must be partly due to this. The game’s creator might want us to try fighting it once.” Varee answered in merchant’s place. This was common knowledge.
“Did you two get to fight against merpeople monsters?” asked the merchant. His eyes sparkled with hope.
Sila nodded, while Varee shook her head as she hadn’t killed any merpeople. Her task was to assassinate the players.
The merchant felt a little puzzled. These two were together but one had fought the merpeople while the other hadn’t. No matter how he looked at it, Varee didn’t seem to be the support type.
Well, it wasn’t important. He quickly spoke to Sila.
“Do you have any Merpeople Cards to sell to me, Bro?” asked the young merchant. He had played this game for a while, but he still hadn’t even seen a single Merpeople Card before. Although merpeople’s level wasn’t as high as dragon’s, the level of difficulty to obtain its card was considered harder than dragons.
“Yes, I have. But can I ask for something first?” said Sila.
A big smile formed on the young merchant’s face. He nodded to allow Sila to ask any question. Meanwhile, Varee was somehow surprised by the fact that Sila was so lucky to obtain the card. But after reconsidering the fact that Sila had killed many merpeople, it shouldn’t be so weird for him to obtain one or two cards.
“How many cards are required?” asked Sila. He thought if a large number of cards were required as the slime race, what he had wouldn’t be much helpful.
Hearing that, the merchant made a sad face. He perceived that Sila only had one card, which was a common scenario. It was not something easy to obtain.
“It requires ten cards to change into merpeople race, and twenty more cards are needed to obtain the Invitation Card to its kingdom,” he replied softly. If he bought one card from Sila, he would still need twenty-nine more cards to fulfill his goal.
Sila nodded, “Good, I just feared that it might not be enough.” He said before putting out all seventy-four Merpeople Cards to the merchant.
Varee and the merchant were shocked beyond words. The merchant extended his hand to take them and inspected them via his system window. His hand was shaking heavily.
“Th-Th-Th-The real deal, this many?” the merchant began to stutter.
Varee looked at the card pile with amazement. Although it was true that Sila had killed many merpeople, the number of merpeople that died shouldn’t exceed three hundreds as she had witnessed. For the cards to drop this many, there must be something behind it.
“Just take them. I already have a race myself,” simply replied Sila.
“B-B-B-Bro, I don’t want this many. No, I mean, I don’t even have the money to buy all these.”
“In that case, just take them for free,” Sila gave them easily like they were just candies left in his plate.
Varee looked at Sila while thinking that common sense couldn’t be used to measure this man. She thought she had already seen through him, but he still had some actions that she couldn’t comprehend. This man wasn’t interested in external materials in the slightest.
“F-F-F-For free?” the merchant looked at Sila incredulously.
“Sila, you may be unaware of their worth. These Merpeople Cards are even more expensive than dragon’s. They’re an item that people can’t buy even if they have money,” warned Varee. She wanted to verify whether Sila wasn’t interested in cards or just didn’t know their value.
Sila turned his head to the young merchant, seeing him nodding in agreement to Varee’s statement.
“Why do you guys seem to be so shocked? It’s not a big deal. I said I would give them for free so they’re free. I’m going to sell them to the Card Shop anyways if you hadn’t told me all those craftsmanship things.” (They could be sold for 2 gold coins each.)
Varee felt surprised but her face didn’t show that. She could feel her heart beating slightly faster for no reason.
Sila thought that although they were expensive, they were just only in-game things. Sure, he also needed some in-game currency to spend. However, he was comfortable with what he currently had. He didn’t have any financial problems.
He was unaware that this ‘just only in-game’ of him had ruined many friendships of people from the conflict of interests. Due to Monster Soul being a virtual reality game online, some people took it for real that this place was another world that exists.
“B-B-B-But I really can’t just take them for free, considering how priceless they are,” said the merchant as he was calming down.
“Then, let’s do it this way.” Sila took out Jewel of the Sea. “When you are ready, you will have to use this to your best to craft an accessory for this girl, okay?” Sila’s words made Varee turn her head to look at him again.
“This is an A-grade item, Jewel of the Sea, hmm.” As expected of the merchant, he recognized it immediately just by looking at it briefly.
“Can you do that?”
“How can you believe in me? I may just take it away for myself.”
“I believe that I trust the right person,” replied Sila. Meanwhile, Varee’s heart beat slightly faster. She felt that this man was different than others.
As thing was decided, the merchant spoke up “I’m Burapha.”
“My name is Sila, and this girl is Varee,” Sila introduced themselves.
After that, the three of them added each other as friends. Burapha promised that he would contact Sila and Varee when the accessory was completed. By the way, Varee finally chose two jewelry pieces which Burapha didn’t mind giving them for free. Although Sila wanted to pay for them at first, Burapha rejected the offer and said that he had received too much already. Granted, Sila understood and then walked away with Varee. They were still holding hands but Sila was somehow accustomed to it already.
Two of them spent their time around Beginning Town until other players began to appear. They checked the time and realized that it was nearly 10.00pm, so they walked back to the Quest Building with many players glaring at them.