For the first time, I can remember I woke up with a smile on my face. I had killed an impressive monster and registered as an adventurer. I looked over at my clock and noticed I had woken up 30 mins before my alarm so I went through my morning routine.
After finishing getting ready I sat on my lumpy bed and thought about my experience in the sleep Infinium. I went over the fight with the Minotaur in my head and then I remembered the ax that I got.
I hurriedly opened my inventory to check its stats
INVENTORY:
DPS (DAMAGE PER SECOND) AT CURRENT SKILL LEVEL
DURABILITY ENCHANTMENT IRON BATTLE AX
15-30 +5
+3 CONTINUED BLEED
235/250
SHARP 3: +DAMAGE +BLEED
GRANITE ROCK 2-5 20/25 NONE IRON HUNTING KNIFE 6-8 198/200 NONE BROKEN STICK 2-5 0/50 NONE SMALL WORK HAMMER 5-8 195/200 NONE
Is that enchantment why it was so easy to slice through its head? I’m inclined to think so. I also wonder why Amy doesn’t have very much gold compared to me. Is she not getting gold when she kills stuff like I am? I’m not sure. There is a lot I don’t know. What about that Sletha girl she seemed nice but maybe a little too excited to go out and kill monsters. I wonder if she has ever killed one before.
I stand up from my bed with a smile on my face I say “well, time to go to work” the day is boring I mean like remarkably boring and kinda sad. Up until this point not many people have been nice to me, it’s mostly been a lot of yelling and people telling me that I’m trash but I was used to that it was my normal. But now that I have people that I could almost call friends it really makes me feel like my life is shitty in comparison to my life in the sleep Infinium. Sure I’m not putting my life at risk to earn money in this life but at least in my other life, I feel like I’m doing something interesting.
During my lunch break, I decided to use some of the minuscule amounts of money I have earned to go out to eat. I walk out of my building onto the sidewalk and immediately get shoved into the crowd of people going about their day. I slowly make my way to the restaurant that I had overheard my boss talking about called “Just Eat It” he had said that it was “the tastiest food around.” You know now that I think about it that Minotaur kind of reminds me of my boss at least when it comes to being remarkably overweight.
I finally make it to the restaurant but you can’t really even call it that it’s more of a fast food joint but I’m always up to try anything so I go inside. When I get inside and wait in line I notice that the cashier looks kinda familiar and then it clicks it’s Sletha but she doesn’t have any scales. but she is the spitting image of her so when it comes to my turn to place my order I quietly say “Sletha?” She looks shocked for a moment before recovering and says “stop don’t say anymore I will explain more tonight. Now place your order.” I give her my order with a confused expression and wait at my table for my food.
My food is delivered by some other employee and I dig in expecting the “tastiest food around” but sadly it was not meant to be as I took the first bite of my sandwich my taste buds immediately revolted due to the overwhelming taste of fat and lard. There was hardly any meat in the sandwich it was mostly just fat “disgusting” I said out loud which brought some awkward glances from people around my table. Comparing this lardwich and the cooked direwolf makes me want to just starve so I rewrapped my lardwich and headed back to my office.
After arriving back to my desk my boss noticed my lardwich in my hand and wobbled over and snatched it from my hand saying “Wow! How did you know that I was craving a sandwich right now?” My mind recoiled in disgust when I saw him eat my partially eaten lardwich in just two bites. My boss then said “wow, that really hit the spot thanks Green. Keep up the good work!” He then wobbled off to his cubicle. Slightly stunned I sat back into my seat. My only thoughts of this interaction were of revulsion.
Finally finishing my shift I returned to my room. Although I call it a room it’s more of a small closet there really isn’t even room to walk around, there is a bathroom so I guess that’s something. I climbed into bed just now realizing how uncomfortable it is and drifted off to sleep.
I wake up and immediately I’m filled with warmth and comfort as I shift in my bed. It’s like I’m resting on a clouded compared to my other bed. I hear a knock on my door so I put on my clothes and walk to open it and on the other side is Sletha I invite her in and she takes a seat on my bed. I ask her “so you work at ‘just eat it’ huh?” She makes eye contact and says “ya but it’s strange, I haven’t met another player since starting my Sleep Infinium a couple weeks ago. I just figured that everyone was an NPC.” I shake my head in agreement saying “yeah, I honestly thought I was playing with just NPC’s when I started but now I have to question if everyone I meet is from the real world.” She seems to hesitate before asking her next question “so did you choose all when the system gave you the three options on what kind of adventure you wanted?” I shook my head yes and asked, “did you spawn out in the woods like I did?” She looked at me in mild horror and said “no! I spawned in Serpenridge. Is that what happened to you? Did you die yet? What happens when you die?” Based on my reaction of shock to her tirade of questions she stopped talking letting me answer “Yes I spawned just off the main road about 8 or 9 hours walk from Serpenridge. But due to my luck, I have yet to die so I’m not sure what happens. I have survived two nights outside of town and both were rather dangerous. Have you been out of town since getting spawned in?” She looked downtrodden and replied, “No I have been practicing my Priestess class in the safety of the city but I’m confident that I’m ready to head out and do some quests.”
I hear Amy’s voice on the other side you of my door “Green, it’s time to go meet up with Sletha. Meet me downstairs.” I reply “ok see you down there” I get up from where I was seated and say “ok well that answered a few of my questions but I want to continue this discussion later.” She shakes her head yes and says “ok sounds good I will meet up with you guys in about thirty minutes I have some stuff to get done.” We say our goodbyes and head down stairs I near our table and overhear Amy ordering food for us. As I sit at the table I say “hey guys, how did you two sleep?” Lucy replied almost instantly with “like a dream! That is the best I have slept in weeks.” Amy seemed to agree as she shook her head. Our server brings over our food and I thank them while paying for our food with the requested 3 gold.
The food seems to be some kind of meat with a sauce that kind of looks to have the consistency of barbecue sauce but has a strange blue color to it. While the side is some sort of vegetable with what looks like rice. The vegetables are leafy with odd little balls at the end kind of like a beet but have blue leaves and the ball part is black.
I take a bite of the meat and I’m taken aback by the rich flavor, I don’t have anything to compare it to as I have never had food this tasty but for sure it’s way the hell better than the direwolf. Amy and Lucy are silently watching me eat with a look that says “dude it’s just meat, chill out” but I don’t care. After finishing the meat I take a bite out of one of the strange beets and it tastes good but not nearly as good as the meat. It has a sweet flavor with a little bit of a mild spicy flavor, not unlike celery.
We finish our food and our plates and silverware are taken away. We sit for a few minutes digesting our food when Sletha walks up with her sharp toothy smile and sits on the only open seat at our table saying “hey guys how did you sleep?” Giving me a subtle wink. She places a few pieces of paper on the table saying “so these are the quests I think would be good for us.” We look over the quests, they read:
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TYPE REWARD MONSTER PART GATHERING- SPIDER MONKEY TAIL 5 GOLD EACH DUNGEON MAPPING- COMPLETE MAP OF NEW DUNGEON 50 GOLD DUNGEON BOSS HUNTING- GET A BOSS MONSTER CORE 200 GOLD
I’m a little confused and ask “what’s a dungeon?” Amy and Sletha look at each other before coming to some sort of silent agreement and Amy says “dungeons are places that are able to spawn monsters all the time and not just during the night. They are relatively common and have higher level monsters than the ones that come out at night. This is due to them fighting and killing each other to gain levels. This keeps the total monsters in the dungeon down but makes the ones that survive stronger.” I shake my head in understanding while Sletha says “the reason these quests would work well is because the new dungeon is said to have spider monkeys and we could map it as we collect their tails and if we find a boss monster then we can try to kill it for its core or just run away if it’s too strong.”
We all agree that this would be a good plan and as a group, we head over to the reception desk. Amy talks to the clerk saying “we would like to take these quests” handing the clerk the sheets of paper. The clerk takes the sheets and says “I will take down your names for these quests and I would recommend getting your classes chosen this morning before you depart. We have our guilds class expert here today.”
We head back over to our table and Sletha pipes up saying “You guys are lucky! The Class Expert is never here. Normally he is holed up in his house and you have to seek him out to get your class assigned. When I got my class Priestess I had to go find his house and that’s not easy because of how much it moves. The damn thing teleports into empty lots around the city whenever the class expert feels like it. So finding it is always a chore you have to ask around for the last place it was seen. But you almost always end up walking the whole city trying to find it.”
She points out the expert in the far corner of the guild hall. He is wearing a pointed hat covering his eyes and a thick black robe covering his body. We walk over to where he is seated and just before we get to him he lifts his hat away from his eyes and looks me dead in the eyes and says “well it’s about time I almost thought coming here would have been a waste of my time.” He lazily swings his left hand and two of the chairs at his table slide out and he says “Green, Amy take your seats so we can get this underway.” We are baffled as to how he could have known our names but take our seats anyway. Lucy and Sletha sit at a table across from us and watch us closely.
The Expert takes my hand and I get the same cold sensation from when I had released my magic on the Minotaur but instead of it flowing out of my body this magic is flowing into my body traveling from where the Expert had grabbed my hand to the rest of my body after a few minutes I was completely consumed by the cold feeling. But as soon as he removed his hand the coldness disappears. He nodded his head saying “impressive, my first class to be assigned today is a rather rare one. From this point on you will be a Spell-sword if you want to know more about your new class I’m not the one to explain it to you, there are one or two Expert Spell-swords in this city so seek them out if you want advice”
He then grabs Amy’s hand and the same process occurs. But it ends much faster with him shrugging his shoulders saying “well you at least have some attunement to fire magic but that’s about it. Thankfully you are good with a bow or you really wouldn’t be cut out for being an adventurer. I have changed your class to Archer. Now if you will excuse me I have other classes to assign today as he pulls his hat to cover his eyes and slouches back into his chair. We look behind us expecting to see more people waiting in line but there is no one there.
I give Amy and Sletha a confused look and we all head back to our table. Amy is the first to speak up saying “my class is pretty self-explanatory but what the hell is a Spell-sword?” Sletha shakes her head saying “the church I practice at is called the Church of Ithaqua they told me that when you have a class it levels up as you use it and for every five levels in your class, you are randomly assigned a skill and an extra stat point. I’m currently a level 11 in my Priestess class with the skills “Heal” which has some range but less effect and “Healing Hands” which is my more direct healing skill. So based on that the spell-sword class probably levels by using magic or the sword so let’s go to the market and get green some armor and a sword. He is going to serve as our Tank after all.
The yellow sun has just hit its highest point when we enter the market. it is flooded with people not unlike my real world. We bustle through the crowd led by Sletha who takes us to an armor and weapon shop called the “Skinned Elk” we walk through the door as it makes a ringing sound alerting the shopkeeper that he has customers. I take a glance around the shop noticing that there are no customers and not a piece of armor or a weapon in sight.
We get a grumbled greeting and the shopkeep says “armor or weapons?” I say back “I could use a set of armor and a sword” the shopkeeper seems excited by my words and rushes over to me. He starts measuring me out saying mumbled numbers and figures after getting me measured he then asks “you are not wanting enchanted gear right? It's pretty expensive.” Not knowing exactly what expensive would be I say “right no enchantments” after hearing my words he rushes into the back room.
He comes back out a minute later carrying a full set of armor its iron with a tinge of greenish blue in the metal that seems all too common in this city so I assume it must just be the style. He helps me put the armor on and it fits me good leaving only a few places a weapon could get through without meeting my armor. He says “the armor set will run you 200 gold” I look to Amy but she just shrugs her shoulders. It appears she doesn’t know how much this type of armor should cost. So I say “could you do 175?” The shopkeeper gets a sour look on his face and says “no, but I can cut off 15 gold if you promise to get one of my swords.” Not wanting to push my luck I say “fine, 185 gold is good. Now let’s see what swords you have” he takes my gold and returns to the back room and brings out four swords one is a short iron sword with a blade of around 2 ½ feet. The next pair sword seems to be of a better quality at it is made of what appears to be steel with the same length blade as the previous but they have a more curved blade with only one side being sharp. The next one has a blade almost twice the length of the others and is edged on both sides like the first and has the steel of the second and the handle is made of what appears to be the same greenish blue iron of my armor so it seems fitting.
So I ask “how about this longer sword?” He smiles and says “the long sword is not enchanted and costs 75 gold” shit I only have 60 gold remaining well I guess I better barter good then, so I say “eh the best I could do is 50 gold” the shopkeeper gets that sour look on his face and says “no, that’s too low how about 65?” Now it’s my turn to use a sour face shaking my head I say “how about 55 gold?” The shopkeeper seems ok with this and shrugs his shoulders saying “sounds good to me” I pay him the 55 gold and he helps strap the sword to my back showing me how to draw it and how to sheath it.
We leave the store saying thanks to the shopkeeper. Sletha says “we have everything we need let’s see if we can’t get to the dungeon today it should only be a 4 hour walk from the city.” We stop by the guild and drop Lucy off much to her dismay. she was apparently under the assumption that we would take her with us but she would only get in the way. So, Amy talks to Lucy about how she needs to be 15 before she can become an adventure and how she only needs to wait a few months. She still seemed upset but not nearly as much as before and she headed upstairs to Amy's room. We then leave the city and start our journey towards the new dungeon.
Our journey takes us through a rather dense forest that makes us take longer to reach our destination but thanks to Amy being vigilant she also nabbed us a dinner. She was able to shoot three black squirrels that have red eyes. We stopped about a mile from where the dungeon was supposed to be because we wanted to prepare for the coming night fall. The sun will set in about 30 minutes so we set up camp in a small clearing and started a fire and cooked the squirrels. They tasted like barbecue sauce even though we didn’t put any on them it was wonderful. Just as we finished eating the yellow sun disappeared from the horizon. We put a few more logs on the fire and watched the tree line of the clearing for any movement.
Luck seemed to be on our side as we only heard a loud roar from at least three or four miles away throughout the entire night and as the blue sun started to rise on the horizon I felt a rush of cold flow through my body. I checked my status screen and noticed that my mana was fully restored so it seems the blue sun is what restores your mana.
NAME: GREEN OCCUPATION: STIFF COPPER ADVENTURER HEALTH 240/240 MANA 130/130 GOLD 5 LEVEL 6
CLASS SPELL-SWORD LEVEL: 0
STRENGHT 15 AGILITY 8 INTELLECT 7 WISDOM 6 DEXTERITY 8 CONSTITUTION 12
UNALLOTTED STAT POINTS: 0
We decided that it would be a good idea to rest before making our trek into the dungeon so Amy said she would take first watch. So Sletha and I fell asleep on the grass.