[Status Effect: Exhaustion.]

"You did it, adventurer, you saved my home!" The poor guy wants to sign the contract. They no longer follow me during the mission because the character is too fast. And dangerous, swinging that rusty sword around.

They don't have time to repeat their copy-pasted sentences either. Let's hope Selena won't be mad about this treatment, but it was enough to listen to them once. The same words under the same mustaches get boring fast.

I'm sure she knows about the escalation trick and gave these missions for a reason. At least she shouldn't be mad for not reporting back. Still, I expected this to be easier. There are too many distractions, as usual.

Well, nobody said to rush through all the rats at once. The momentum kept pushing me forward though. It's always like that, it's a struggle to get something started, and then there's no stopping until it's done. Or rather, until I collapse from exhaustion.

"I'll be back later, don't worry." After waving him off, clear the previous place again, and take a breather. What's the tally? Only thirty tails from a hundred and eight rats? It could be better, even while focusing on the clock rather than precision.

This is all Wroddit's fault. Those articles about the lore and market stuff were that interesting. They had me daydream about finding exploits or starting a merchant enterprise. There was all the time in the world to clear these jobs between the respawns, and I left it to the last minute.

It's okay though, once they escalate to Plague Rats, I'll have to use the antidotes, which also have a tight time limit. Three minutes to be exact. Now that I know about the poisoning you get from taking too many potions, drinking them sip by sip sounds too risky.

This was the perfect example of how the task is doable fast enough, even with the sword. It was a wasteful run, but it was only for practice. The tough part was to tackle everything in ten minutes, but I was up for the challenge.

Exterminate one home, run to the next, do it again before recovering, and finish with ten seconds to spare. All while using a new weapon. It would have been easier with the dagger, but where's the fun in that?

Well, this explains the exhaustion. And why I was rushing from one place to the other. Why did I attack the rats right after midnight, and rush through the mission again? There are no answers to every question.

It felt right back then, but it must have cost me thirty rat tails. The next one for sure, I'll tackle it slow and steady, and with precision. Take on that house, and in about an hour, both missions will reach D-rank.

[Status Effect: Exhaustion.]

Oh, the character is going too fast. It's the momentum and the excitement of nearing the finish line. If not swinging the sword for a second, my brain shits out a dozen plans for the future. They are ambitious ones, crazy ones, and sometimes even a sensible idea.

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

Fine, let's slow down. It will take a while to stumble across the street that way, and my stamina should recharge until then. Let's hope my head calms down too, because it's spinning. It's the exhaustion effect and not some sickness, right?

There was a single Plague Rat in the last batch; a reminder that this happened before. It might be the signal that shows the quest will escalate soon, and I'm all for it. It didn't make me sick back then, and I only noticed the extra experience points, so it should be fine.

It's the excitement and the fact that I've been playing for what, sixteen hours today? The system would tell me after hitting the logoff button, but it's better not to know. If everything goes according to plan, I'll have enough Exp to reach the tenth level in three hours.

I can log out after that, and have a good night's sleep. Well, if the headache and the ringing ears will let me have it, at least. One of the rewards is seven days of premium, and they can render out dreams for the VIP players.

It would be great to spend the government's money by testing that out, celebrating the first quest. It's hard to imagine, after all this grind and the setbacks. Is it too early to start daydreaming about what will happen next?

[Status Effect: Exhaustion.]

"Oh, come on." There's no helping it, my legs keep rushing forward. Victory is so close, that I can almost taste it. Even with all the distractions, this plan worked great so far. It gave me a clear goal, a way to farm rat tails and secure some funds, and sword training in one package.

There are a few golds worth of them in my stash that can kickstart my merchant ambitions. Yes, I have those now. Sell the bandit loot in Taji once the system lets me travel, and buy some basic commodities on the cheap.

Let's have a caravan bring them back to Origin, and flood the local market. Even without the crazy margins they have now, trading stuff here should be profitable. CineMraft will keep getting new players, and why wouldn't they buy my stuff if it's the cheapest here?

To ensure I recover, check with Wroddit what the most sought-after commodities are. Look up where they are the cheapest, and plan a trade route to take advantage of it. There are all these third-party tools to use, one I'm done with this crap, life should be easy.

[Burn Taji, or the first Massacre of the Trade Hub]

Well, that's an ominous first article to pop up, and it even has to do with the largest trade center. What on earth happened? They posted it ten minutes ago when I was busy slaughtering rats. You can't ignore a title like this, with a hundred comments already.

[Since the GA was slower than usual after the last patch, our gankers decided to test something. You might already know how it went. About an hour before this article came out, we conducted a mass assault on the Taji Trade Center. The result: twenty thousand gold taken.]

Holy crap, what happened there? The article doesn't elaborate. It's more like a victory announcement than a detailed explanation. The comments won't disappoint though. After the first dozen praising messages from the participants, all hell's let loose.

[Fucking murderers, I hope you all die!]

That's one of the tamer comments, and the moderators will have a field day clearing this up. After scrolling for a while, the picture becomes clearer. As expected, Taji has permanent ganker teams like Origin.

They'd scout out players with the most wealth and worst security, and launch a surprise attack. It must have been something like they did yesterday at the Adventurer's Guild. Today was different though. The Guardian Angels reacted slower since that graphics update.

After attacking a wealthy player, they didn't go down immediately and went on a rampage. This resulted in the killing of almost a hundred characters in three waves. After that, their security status dropped below the threshold. They couldn't enter Taji anymore.

Twenty thousand gold from that massacre, in a single hour!