Author's Note: Oh thank you for your comments! I got my fix!
Kinda felt lazy with the title today.
---------------------------
While Null and Cici were on their way to meet the alchemist in order for Null to get the mission to find the cure, he was being shadowed by two people.
“Man. He is not going to like this.”
“Yep. The main reason he was trying to find the cure was so that he could impress Cici.”
“I'm not telling him. I told him bad news last time.”
“*sigh* Fine, fine.”
The two people make it to an alchemy workshop. As the original inhabitants of the workshop are now sick, and with all of them having one of the highest chances of finding the cure, the other alchemist players made way for them to use the shop. There are 18 people there working hard at finding the cure to the plague.
“When we complete this cure, we will have finally reached the Profound Realm.” Their leader says.
“What the hell are you talking about?” Their vice leader says.
Due to the leader having his alchemy mastery at Beginner level 9, they just decided to make him leader, but it's really the vice leader, with alchemy mastery at Beginner level 8, making all the decisions. The reason? Their leader is insane. Their name is Potion Commotion.
“I think we need further indoor cultivation before we can continue finding the cure. I want us to reach the Spirit Douluo level by the end of the day.” The leader says.
“This game doesn't have any of those things!” The vice leader yells at him.
The vice leader's name is Ricky, with everyone calling him Rick for short, while the leader's name is TangSanLinleyBaruchYunCheChuFeng, with everyone calling him Schizo for short.
“If only we had a Class 3 Monster Core. We could easily find the cure with that.” Schizo speaks solemnly.
“Stop binge reading old Wuxia and Xianxia novels!” Rick yells at him.
The door opens and the two people who have been spying on Null come in.
“Oh little brother disciples. I was about to break through to the Spirit Douluo level by getting a spirit ring. Why do you interrupt?”
“Well, you're not going to like this.”
The leader right now is sitting in a cross legged position with candles around him.
“Speak.” Schizo says.
“Well you know Cici right?”
“Yes. I think she likes me. I've sent her a love letter, but she has been too shy to reply back. Has she finally admitted her feelings for me?”
“I don't think sending 8 love letters will make her fall in love with you.” Rick deadpans.
“You think I should send another?” Schizo ponders.
“Wait. We're getting sidetracked. What was it about Cici?” Rick says to the two.
“Well she's been seen following around a guy that had arrived in town today.”
“It could be her brother, or maybe her cousin.” Schizo reasons.
“Well, no. We heard their conversations. They're definitely not related. Not only that, but the guy tried to kill her, and yet she still follows him.”
“We need to rescue her post haste then!” Schizo says.
“Well, no. See we learned that Cici is following him on purpose. He has even tried running away from her several times.”
“Some people get all the luck with women! Now I can no longer save face! Let's kill him!”
“Schizo I don't think that's a good idea.” One of the scouts tells him.
“Why not? Is he really powerful or something?”
“It's not that. It's just everyone who tries to fight him always end up dying in mysterious accidents. We don't know if he's the cause or not.”
“Hmph! Well let's see what he looks like. He must look like a movie star for Cici to follow him everywhere. Where did you last see him?”
“Near the church. He shouldn't have gone far. He walks pretty slow.”
“Okay! Everyone! Stop what you're doing and follow me! Release spirits!”
“*sigh*” Everyone else says.
*******************
Potion Commotion runs through the town and see Cici in the distance.
“So where's the amazing guy? All I see is Cici.”
“He's right next to her.”
“Huh?” He looks closely and sees a hooded guy. He gets a good look and notices how plain he looks.
“...This is supposed to be the amazingly handsome guy?”
“We never said that. You did.” The scout says.
“Hahaha! He looks so dull and plain! If that's the case, then snatching Cici back will be a piece of cake! We'll work double time to find a cure! Then Cici will fall in love with us!”
“I don't think that's how it works.” Rick says.
“After we find the cure, we will enter the Sky Profound Realm! Come on. Let's go cultivate.” His group gives him weird looks and follow him.
**********************************
Cici takes Null to the alchemist who will give him the mission. The house he is staying at is quite big compared to the other houses.
Null thinks, 'Well I can see they may have wanted to accommodate the people from the capital with luxury.'
He enters the house and goes to the room where the alchemist is staying at. When he sees him, Null is shocked. This is the first time he is seeing the disease. He has rotting purple splotches all over his skin. He looks near death like he's been reduced to a skeleton with skin on him while the disease makes them rot while they're still alive. There is also a pungent odor coming from the man.
'He's rotting from the inside out.' Null squints. 'He's struggling to breathe and he also looks to be in unbearable pain. Is this what everyone in Panford is going through? To think that someone would do this. What am I saying? Of course someone would do this. It's human nature to do whatever you want if no one can stop you.'
There are 3 clerics there. They are saying a spell in unison. “Ianuaria, sooth his wounds and let him be well. Heal!”
His wounds look like they heal a little, but it doesn't seem like it is very effective. The disease has spread too much. The clerics are frowning until they notice Cici. The frowns soon change into faces of relief.
“Oh thank goodness! Cici, he's getting worse! Please come help us!”
Cici nods and goes to where the alchemist is. When she does her healing spell, the difference between her spell and the other 3 cleric's spell is like night and day. Cici's healing spell is leagues above theirs. It makes the disease greatly retreat. The smell isn't as strong. He starts looking less like a skeleton. The purple splotches start shrinking until there are only a few left, and his ragged breathing starts to calm down.
'Amazing. So this is what a cleric at the intermediate level is capable of. It looks like it didn't cure him completely though.' Null thinks.
The alchemist wakes up.
He looks around, sees Cici, and says, “Oh Cici, it's you. I once again have to thank you for all you are doing. If it wasn't for you, half of the people in this town would already be dead. You should stop worrying so much about me and focus on helping the others in this town.”
“No, I can't do that. There are only two people in this town right now with intermediate in alchemy, and the other guy is untrustworthy who wouldn't hesitate to stab you in the back. If I can't find a healing spell, it will be up to you. We need to get you better so you can help us find a cure.”
“I'm afraid that's impossible. I can barely even move, and right now, not even you can reverse the effects of this disease. How can I even search for ingredients in my state? So I'm begging you. Please put the other villagers first.”
Cici is silent when she hears this.
'Still thinking of others even after you've been reduced to this.' Null thinks. 'It may be just a game to us, but for them, their lives are really at stake. What's the difference between players and NPCs? Players can die here with no big deal to us and are able leave this world to our world, but when NPCs die, they stay dead. That's it. That's the only difference.
NPCs feel like players, have dreams like players, and are just as smart as players. I need to hurry up and find the cure so I can sell my items. I don't care about the sick villagers. Nope. Not one bit.'
Null goes up to the alchemist to break the silence and says, “Excuse me. I was hoping you would give me the mission to cure the town.”
“Oh, another brave and selfless soul?”
“No I'm not. I only came to find the cure so that a person can buy my things. My bag is full.”
The guy looks at Null like he has three heads.
He says to him, “...Are you serious?” He then looks at Cici and says, “Is he serious?”
Cici closes her eyes and nods. “He is serious.”
She then facepalms and shakes her head.
“So can I get it or not?”
He grimaces. He finds Null rude, but tries to remain polite. “Well let me introduce myself. My name is Loretalon, an alchemist from the capital of Qasburg Kingdom. I was sent here along with Swordedge to put a stop to Plague. Swordedge had run off on his own, and for the love of Ptah, I don't know where he is. He hasn't been heard from in two days. People think he's dead, but I don't think he's the type to die that easily. It's been 3 days since I came to this town, and I'm afraid I'm running out of time. Many have tried to undertake this quest, but so far, none have succeeded. Are you sure you want to undertake this quest?”
“...Lo... huh? I'm not going to remember that name, so I'll just call you Mr. Alchemy for short.”
Loretalon is an alchemist that has always been revered and treated with respect. After all, he's one of the few to make it to intermediate. He has never been treated like this. If Qasburg's soldiers were here, they would have killed Null on the spot.
“Such blatant disrespect! Maybe I shouldn't give you the mission!”
“Sure, that's fine. I hear dying horribly is the “in” thing in this town at the moment. Dying horribly is the new not dying horribly.”
“Fine! Take the mission and get out!”
[/size]
Quest: Cure PanfordQuest Information: A disease that has been caused by Plague is ravaging the town. No one has any idea on how to cure it. If nothing is done, people will die.
Reward: Unknown
Quest Rank: C
Penalty if refused: Would decrease affinity with Loretalon, but it seems like it is already at its lowest state. Panford's people would never forgive you. Qasburg kingdom will know of this and make life harder for you.
Failure if everyone in town dies.
Do you accept?
“Why thank you.”
You have accepted the quest.
Null then leaves along with Cici behind him.
She says, “You know, you really are a prick. You know that right?”
“Yeah. Now he's focusing over how much of a jerk I am instead of worrying about other people. It's not good for him to try and take all the burden onto himself. To think that there exists such selfless people like that in the world.”
“Of course they exist! If you weren't so focused on isolation you would know that!”
She then sighs an shakes her head.
“You really are hopeless. You should learn from me. See how I go through life with proper etiquette and grace? Aim to become more like me.” Cici says while putting her hand over her chest, eyes closed, with so much smug it could block out the sun.
“How much proper etiquette and grace did it take for you to draw dickbutt on my desk?” Null says.
Cici remembers that and her face turns red from embarrassment.
“Sh- Shut up stupid!”
“Wha? Stupid?!” Null says in false surprise. “If I'm stupid, then what does that make you, girl who's worse than me in Mathematics and Chemistry? No wait, your title has been upgraded this year. Girl who's worse than me in Mathematics, Chemistry, and Physics?”
Null knows that talking about subjects he does better than her in is a sore spot for her.
“Grrr, you...” Cici growls out.
Null then pulls out a health potion from his inventory.
“Here.”
“Why are you giving me a health potion dummy!? I'm a cleric!”
“You need it for that severe burn I've just inflicted on you. I'm worried your cleric skills won't be enough.”
Cici is started to get really angry. She no longer has that beautiful look to her, and is looking more like wrath in human form.
“I... you... kill... NOW!” She starts stomping towards Null.
“I think you just failed the Turing Test. Well, that's expected, as you never were as good on tests as me.” Null says with a shrug.
2 minutes later. Null is currently running for his life.
'I really need to know when to shut up.' Null thinks panicked.
Cici is running towards him with a tree branch far larger than herself.
“COME BACK HERE SO I CAN KILL YOU!!” Cici yells, running towards Null with fangs bared.
Cici eventually catches Null and beats him to near death with the branch, then she heals him, then she beats him again, and this continued until she was satisfied.
After she's done, she tells Null, “If I see you again...”
Cici makes a beheading gesture with her hands and walks away.
'Finally, I'm rid of her. I was worried I might have to do something more drastic to get her to leave me alone.' Null thinks while breathing a sigh of relief.
Null walks and then goes into a random house. He needs a sample of the disease in order for him to make a cure. Only alchemists of the intermediate level can do this, so he has an advantage over the other alchemists who are randomly mixing chemicals together hoping something sticks. When he goes in there, he sees a cleric tending to wounds of a young mother and daughter. She is constantly healing them.
When she sees Null, she does something with her hands, then nods.
'She must be checking if I have the mission as well.' Null thinks.
Null grimaces when he looks at the mother and daughter. It looks like the daughter has the starting stages of whatever this disease is, but the mother looks even worse than Loretalon when Null first saw him. If nothing is done, it looks like the mother will soon be knocking on death's door.
'Where is that damn cleric? She is never around when you need her. How ironic.' Null thinks.
The daughter is currently crying looking at her mother. It looks like she's about 5 years old. Since it's at the beginning stages for her, she's just sitting in a chair next to her mother.
“Mommy, please get better.”
“It's okay dear. As long as you are well nothing else matters.”
“Mommy, please don't leave me alone!” The little girl starts crying hysterically.
The girl sees Null and starts wiping her tears. She says to him, “Mister, please help my mother.”
Even though she herself is infected, she's more worried about her mother.
Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.
The mother says to Null, “It's okay if this disease is too hard to cure, but judging from my state, I will die before my daughter. My husband, who is her father, already passed away. Can you make sure that after I die, that she dies happy?”
“Mommy don't say that!” The girl yells out to her with tears in her eyes.
Null watches this scene. He has never known familial love like what's going on here. He's only seen it through how his family treat each other, and seeing it around his city. Null knows that if his parents and siblings were to die, he would be exactly the same, neither happiness nor sadness. He would probably forget about them by weeks end. To this mother and daughter, who depend on each other, it would be a devastating blow if one of them died. They have already lost one person.
Null tells the mother, “There's no need to do any of that.”
The mother looks at Null like he's a monster. “I'm not asking for much! Just make sure my daughter is taken care of and dies happy!”
“No, you misunderstand. I will find the cure, so there is no need to make sure she dies happy.”
The mother and cleric there look skeptical, but the daughter looks at him with stars in her eyes. The mother thinks that he just might be saying this to make the daughter feel better.
“Thank you.” The mother says, smiling.
She might not know it yet, but Null really does mean to find the cure.
Null tells the mother, “This might hurt, but I need a sample of the disease in order to find the cure.”
“Okay.”
She nods and prepares herself for the pain. Null goes and wipes off a lot of the rotting purple spots with a rag, and puts it in a bottle. While wiping at the spot, it looked like the mother was in extreme pain. He says, “I'll find the cure.”
The daughter nods.
The cleric there looks at that heart warming scene and says, “Eeeeew you're touching it!”
Null walks out the house. The cleric avoids Null like he has some disease, which he does, so I guess that makes sense.
Null later goes out of town into the forest. He doesn't want any distractions.
He thinks to himself, 'If I remember correctly, there was a town way back when I cured some people. It was a D-rank healing mission. It was nowhere this bad though, as only around a quarter of the farmers got sick, and they weren't as sickly as the people here. Near 100% of the people in this town are sick. How much harder is a C-rank than a D-rank? Well, I will soon find out.'
Null gets out all of his available ingredients. He takes out some water and prepares to find a cure. He takes out the bottle with the diseased rag and does the potion creation skill. As he thought, when he used the skill, the ingredients showed up as incomprehensible colors. It's better than having the ingredients show up as gray, as that meant he wouldn't be able to find a cure, but even with the Potion Creation skill having the ingredients show as colors, he still would be unlikely to find a cure.
'Okay, first things first. Trial and error.'
He starts mixing in anything that shows a color in random amounts. Every time he did this, the water turned red, which meant that he failed. He keeps trying more and more things. 9 hours pass and his ingredients are running dangerously low.
'I need to go into the forest. I don't have time to be planting seeds.'
Null sets out into the forest. As if this mission was predetermined for alchemists, he finds a lot of ingredients in the area.
'Wow. When I'm finished finding a cure, I need to come back here later.'
Null is carrying the ingredients in a Sack like Santa Clause, as his other bag is full. He goes back to his spot and further experiments, but all the Potion Creation skill shows are red results.
'In order for me to find a cure, I need to find out what those incomprehensible colors mean. I need to push myself.'
4 days past. Null has not slept a wink. He is slowly learning how to decipher the colors, but he's still nowhere near to finding a cure.
'This is too difficult. Is it impossible to find a cure?'
He thinks back to the sick mother and daughter he saw. He then made a face of resolution.
'For my items to sell!'
******************
In real life, David is in class nodding off. This is a strange sight as it is something that rarely happens. David is usually too on guard against people to nod off, so to actually nod off like this must mean he's exhausted.
Cecile looks at him thinking, 'Was he serious about finding the cure? I thought that finding the cure was something of a whim for him. Why would he go through so much trouble just to sell off some items?'
She shakes her head and continues on with her assignment.
*******************
The 9th day. Null still has not gotten more than 2 hours of sleep at a time. He's starting to get pretty good at deciphering the colors, but having to go and look for new ingredients is taking a toll on him. Some weak monsters around level 50 even almost killed him. He defeated the monsters and set out to find more ingredients.
'For. Items. To sell.' He thinks to himself.
He goes back to his spot and further experiments. 'Okay, so blue striped with yellow means I should boil it at 173 degrees and no more, then dry it. It's starting to become clearer to me. Red vibrating with green with yellow pulsating out means I have to first dehumidify it, then I have to bake it. Then let it dry. Then reheat. Okay. Now to figure out the other colors.'
Null doesn't know, but Cici is hiding behind a tree watching him. 'Why is he working so hard? This couldn't be just to sell his items. He could have easily put a quarter this much effort into finding a new town to go to. What's going on?'
Finally on the 12th day, a result comes up that Null has been waiting for. The water turns green.
“Yes! I found the cure!” Null yells triumphant.
Cici, who was currently hiding being a tree, was surprised, then skeptical.
She comes out and says, “Really? I don't believe you.”
Null takes out some paper, then in a split second does his ink hand technique. He's writing how to make the cure. The ingredients are all found in this area. He writes where to get the ingredients and how to make the cure on the papers. He repeats this, making around 50 copies. He gives them to Cici.
Null says, “Give this to some alchemists. Tell them when they get the reward for turning in the cure to make copies and hand it to other alchemists. It will be faster that way.”
Null then passes out.
***********************
It's been 13 hours. Null has still yet to wake. Cici is currently tending to Null. She took off some of his clothes and armor, so he is currently topless. To say that Cici was surprised is an understatement.
Cici thought, 'My goodness.'
She was waving her hand to her face. 'He's always wearing those huge clothes! Why would you hide such a sexy body!?'
She makes sure Null is asleep, then slowly starts touching his abs.
'Oh he would kill me if he knew I was doing this.'
She stops and gets a wet towel. She starts wiping his face.
'He's so handsome too. I never noticed because he's always frowning, but he looks so at peace right now.' She smiles.
“Who the hell said you could get in my personal space?” Null says.
Null is upset. He has never shown himself topless to anyone after the age of 8. He won't tell anyone, but he's incredibly shy when it comes to this sort of thing. He covers himself up and hides under the covers.
“Hehehe are you serious? You're a guy. Why are you doing that?” Cici laughs.
“Go away.”
“*sigh* Fine. I'll leave so you can get dressed.”
She leaves the cabin. When she leaves Null starts shaking.
'I feel so naked and ashamed, even though I still have my pants on. Being a woman must suck. It's socially acceptable for me to do this and I still feel horrible.'
Around 10 minutes pass, and Cici knocks on the door.
“Can I come in?”
There's no answer.
“I'm taking that as a yes.”
She opens the door. Null is currently going through his inventory.
“What are you doing?” Cici asks.
“I'm making sure you or anybody else didn't steal anything while I was out.”
“You're so paranoid!”
“Hmmm... looks like my Alchemy mastery gained a lot of experience. I'm surprised, as that skill hadn't grown in a while. So how did the cure thing work out?”
“There were some problems.”
“What do you mean?”
****************************
Cici goes to Fumes. She doesn't like him because of how underhanded he is.
She says, “Fumes, this is the cure for the disease. Could you copy it and give that bac- Hey!” Fumes steals the recipe. He then runs away.
“Stop! You thief!” Cici yells.
Fumes thinks, 'I'll copy the recipe alright, but then I'll destroy this one. I'll recreate it my own way so that I can get the credit for finding the cure.'
Unknown to him, she has copies she already gave to other alchemists, but Cici's performance is convincing. He tries to burn the original paper with a fire created from the camping skill. It didn't work. He tries to tear it. It didn't work. He tries to first get it wet then tear it. Didn't work. Balling it up? It unraveled good as knew.
“What is this paper made of?” He thinks astonished. Cici was watching in amusement the whole time.
Flashback end:
***********************
“Other than that, I did as you said. Everyone is starting to recover! It's all thanks to you, but still, you could have gotten the rewards and fame all to yourself. I can't believe it only took you 12 days to complete this mission.”
“I don't want any fame. I just wanted to sell my items.”
“Geez. You're the same even in the game. You'd rather not have people know of your achievements.”
“What's wrong with that?”
“Nothing. Nothing at all.”
After sitting like this for a while, they hear a knock on the door.
“Come in.” Cici says.
The person who enters is Loretalon, the alchemist who gave Null the mission.
“Ah. You're finally awake.”
Null looks at him. Loretalon is still sick, but he's looking a lot better. The purple spots are nearly gone, and he's starting to get some muscle back.
Null says, “You sure you should be walking about yet?”
“This much is easy." He walks to Null's side. "So Cici told me about how it was you who truly found the cure.”
There are some things that NPCs instinctively know about, such as how Mrs. Allensworth was able to know how many players have the librarian class or anything related to a quest an NPC gives out. They'll usually know if you try to cheat them, but sometimes they can be tricked. Loretalon had known that Cici was telling the truth, because he instinctively knew Null had found the cure.
Null angry looks at Cici. “Why did you tell him that?”
“Because I knew you wouldn't.”
Null sighs and says to Loretalon, “Yeah, what of it?”
“Well, the alchemist named Tamura got some high grade alchemy items, because he was the one who turned in the cure, but I couldn't leave you empty handed, so have this."
Advanced Potion Mixing bowlEnchanted by the best enchanters in the capital, and baked over extreme heat, potions mixed through here have 32% more potency.
Tier 9 item
'Wow, Tier 9? Awesome!'
Potion Mixing SpoonMade by a blacksmith of advanced proficiency and enchanted to an absurd degree. Potions mixed with this spoon have 15% more potency.
Tier 8 item.
'Pretty good! The potions I make will now become more potent!'
Null then says, “You know, loaning these items to alchemists could have probably saved a lot of lives.”
“Don't question my methods! Well, the reward wasn't the only reason I came here. You currently know of the alchemist named Plague who caused this epidemic in the first place right?”
“I've heard of him yes, so what?”
“There is no one here other than you whom I trust this to. Plague goes into different towns and sends notes saying that if they aren't able to pay him a billion gold in a week, he would wipe them out. He also only visits small towns, knowing that they don't have that kind of money. He's a complete monster, so this is the mission that I offer to you. Can you go help find and defeat Plague? Make sure he never does anything like this again.”
[/size]
Quest: Defeat PlagueQuest Information: You may have cured the disease, but the cause of it is still out there. Go help find the one responsible and bring him to justice.
Reward: Unknown
Quest Rank: C
Penalty if refused: Decreased affinity with Loretalon and the people of Panford.
Do you accept?
Null thinks to himself. 'The D-rank mission to cure the sick in Wakefield took me 3 hours. The C-rank mission to cure the sick in Panford took me 12 days. It looks like C-ranks are several orders of magnitude more difficult than D-ranks. I'm not even sure if I can beat it. Besides, I would rather not get the fame.'
Null says, “No.”
You have rejected the quest.
“What? Why? You have to! It's of utmost importance! I'll ask again. Do you accept?”
The mission box comes up again.
“No! Why should I involve myself in something so troublesome? If I complete it, my fame would probably rise, and that's terrible news for me!”
“Huh? But we need you! I'll ask once again. Do you accept?”
The mission box comes up a third time. Null can now see that he cannot decline this mission. He tries to walk out the door, but its like the game made it so he can't leave the area unless he accepts. He tries blasting his way through the room with sticky bombs that you stick to the wall and twist to detonate, but all of a sudden, the door, walls, and windows are all made of adamantium.
“I don't have a choice do I?” Null says sulking.
Cici smiles saying, “Nope!”
“Ugh. Whatever. Fine.” Null says defeated.
You have accepted the quest.
------------------------------------
Author's Note: Uh oh. Please don't tell me that Cici is starting to fall for Null! Say it ain't so! Nah. Couldn't be.