Chapter 5
It took him a whopping fifty second just to pick up my call, can you believe this? “Dad, where the hell have you been? I was worried sick here and and…” I couldn’t keep going as my eyes turn soppy red.
His image in front of me looked perplexed but then broke into a sneering smirk. Oh that did it, I was really angry now. I screamed at him with everything I had up to the point he opened our front door and gave me a reassuring rub down on my hair. Can you believe there was such a parent? Here I am worried sick to my bone and crying my eyes out and there he is, laughing as if the funniest joke had just appeared in front of him.
“Hey champs, don’t worry man, your father isn’t going to leave you alone just yet. I still need to live long enough to see my grandkids and you get marry to a loving girl.” He gave me a thumb up, “I can’t go meeting your mom without anything to tell her now can I?”
The next morning I looked absolutely horrifying. Black eyes from lack of sleep and the memory of yesterday would forever haunt me in my dreams. Oh how I want to forget it. At least I know my dad is doing fine now, his friend found him some part time work at his place so we will somehow get by I hope…
Now to explain why I ended up lacking sleep and came up with baggy eyes or what I like to call, panda eye.
Since my experience with the little mishap inside the VR game Noah, cough cough. I have decided to do a little more in depth research about what to expect and some of the ways to raise my points in the monthly ranking. What I concluded only after reading through hundreds of forum posts and watching videos on Yotube, mindless grinding doesn’t work to raise my points.
Certainly killing monsters and gaining levels helps a player gain points in the ranking, but here’s the problem. With each level gained, it gets increasingly harder to reach higher levels. And killing monsters in the game has no pattern in the rewarding points whatsoever. Someone posted their month long slaying of thousands in a high level zone, the result only gained him at best a hundred points. Time to reward ratio just don’t make sense for either method.
So how do people gain a thousand points in the ranking system? The truth was, nobody really knows or even if they found a way, they wouldn’t share it now since knowledge means money.
I yawned before getting into my soda pop can (VR capsule), the sun has just risen and it was high time I got back into Noah. I lost some valuable leveling time yesterday and George probably left me behind by now. We were buddies but he wasn’t exactly known for his patient when gaming.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
As my avatar appeared inside, I was immediately bombarded by spam mails sent by the one and only George. Some were questioning me about what happened while some messages were showing how angry he was at me for ditching twice in one day. I decided to hold off on my reply for a bit until I get the lay out of the city I’m in. I don’t want him to get even more frustrated at me if I can’t answer some of his questions like “which city did you start in?”
Looking around, I could see avatars walking around minding their business and party recruitment shouts everywhere. I’ve known there were a lot of people playing the game but this was beyond normal. Thinking hard, it wasn’t all that surprising considering the ranking contest was just announced two days ago. Everyone must be like me aiming for a chance to get their hands on the monthly prizes.
“Now what should I do first? Go level my avatar a bit or explore the city, hmmm.”
As I pondered my options, a commotion down the street was drawing a crowd around the noise and the curious me couldn’t help but go see what the trouble was.
“Excuse me, coming through, hey watch it!” I squeezed myself through the wall of viewers to see a ensuing fight already taking place.
In the middle of the street, two men holding swords and shields were going at each other like their very life was depended on it. Why are they doing this in the middle of the metropolis city was something I don’t understand. Killing inside a green zone like this is forbidden, even if you manage to subdue the other person, you won’t be able to deal a decisive blow to end the player’s life.
Looking beside me, I asked the women next to me, “Umm, miss, do mind telling me why no one is stopping them?”
Hearing my question, she gave me a sneering look as if I was parasite but still answered my question anyway. “Those two are having a duel using ranking score points as a wager. The winner takes all so piss off before I stick a bullet into you.”
I flinched back at the women’s rude behavior but the idea of gambling in the game was jaw dropping to me. The illusion I had of Noah being a fun and amazing game was starting to fall apart like a domino effect. The game was meant to be a fun getaway, it was supposed to be fair, it was supposed to be my one chance to do something in my life, but these people are turning it into a casino gathering.
I felt sick just standing here.