We were headed towards somewhere new! That sounded exciting enough, but there were lots of preparations to be made. I managed to change the subject by talking about places we could visit, but now my parents wanted to go to this mysterious Nevda Town to stock up on potions and such. Apparently the town hadn't existed when they last came here, which was at least ten years ago. And they claimed that from our descriptions of it, the place was quite different from the usual Shyi'eldian architecture.

I surmised that was because the town was specially constructed for players like Masa and I and the admins wanted something simple, perhaps? If that was the case, could the people working and living there all be part of the administrative team? What about Daryl and Crystie? Or Feyril? Maybe the elf or whoever he was had disguised himself as one of the random townsfolk. Or maybe he could even be the guildmaster, since we didn't meet him. Wait, but what about the injured adventurer? That had certainly seemed real. Maybe there were real adventurers living and working there after all?

There was plenty of time for me to ponder these questions as we headed in the direction of Nevda Town on foot. My parents had not been registered as users of our teleports, so we were forced to take the long way there. My dad was a Transporter, but he said he couldn't transport us to somewhere he hadn't been, which made sense to me. We made use of the opportunity to see how my parents fought and work on our teamwork. With these two around, the usual mobs weren't a problem and we even managed to take down more dangerous monsters like a Giant Mantis and Giant Viper.

Well, standard names aside, my parents noted that these were definitely monsters, since they attacked us on sight, something which normal creatures would never do. Not only that, they puffed into smoke once defeated. My mum was somewhat disappointed, since the viper looked like it could have some valuable materials. I still felt somewhat squeamish about that. I wasn't that fond of snakes per se, but they were still part of the ecosystem, so I didn't really like the idea of killing them. Hopefully I could still do herb-gathering quests or something like that if I had to earn money as a mercenary.

It did take us a while to reach Nevda Town, but I wasn't worried about the time, since my parents were here with us. Having them here with us took a load off my mind since I didn't have to keep secrets from them anymore. On the other hand, I was getting more curious about the differences between this "game" area and the actual Shyi'eld. Hearing about it was one thing, but actually seeing the differences for myself might be kinda interesting. I glanced at Masa. He might not be able to go adventuring with us once his holidays were over though. Well, as long as we had the teleports, he could come and meet us whenever he was free. I assumed the time difference within the "game" still applied as long as we used the established portals, which would give us a bit more leeway.

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My dad gave an appreciative whistle the moment Nevda Town came into view. "It does look like a quaint little town, doesn't it," remarked my mum. "The blue roofs really make it stand out. And I wonder why they decided not to build additional floors to their houses."

I just shrugged and pointed out the places of note, like the town teleport, tavern, Adventurers' Guild and shop. Naturally, my parents wanted to visit all of them. I didn't really mind showing them around, since it might be interesting to hear their opinions on the things we assumed were the standard here. For some reason, my parents, especially my dad, were particularly excited about joining the guild. Their eyes practically sparkled when they saw the request board.

"Aren't you already mercenaries?" I asked them in a loud whisper. "Surely you don't need to–”

"Didn't you say this is some sort of game?" interrupted my dad. "Of course we want in as well. Mercenary work is work. This is supposed to be a game, so of course we can play too, right?"

"And it's even better if we get to earn money while playing," added my mum.

I rolled my eyes as I recalled how fond my dad was of playing adventure games. Come to think of it, he always used to complain about how unrealistic they were, but he still relished the gameplay nonetheless. And Mum was being her typical self, having money on the brain.

But with their high Levels, perhaps they might not be allowed to be adventurers? I could only imagine the number of regular requests they could already fulfil. I glanced at Masa, but he merely gave me a shrug and reached for the bird encyclopaedia again. My parents were obviously my problem and nothing to do with him, huh. Fine.

I marched up to the receptionist and asked if my parents could become adventurers. The young man gave them a long look, then told us to sit down and wait while he went to ask the guildmaster. Okay… Maybe we might actually get to meet him this time. I was having somewhat mixed feelings about that though. On one hand, meeting him might be cool, since he could possibly be one of the game's admins, but on the other hand, like any other Asian, I wanted to keep a low profile and not cause a big fuss.

After showing my parents to the waiting area, I wandered around and ended up going to look at the request board again. Masa had already settled in a corner to read his encyclopaedia and my parents were having an excited conversation about the requests they wanted to do after registering.

Before I managed to get bored gazing at the same few requests, someone tapped me on the shoulder. A very familiar someone, as it turned out.