Come on, Arnim, don't give in to the distractions. Sure, something's always in the way. There is a wide variety to choose from, whether it's a physical obstacle or personal stupidity. First came this food poisoning and the unplanned break, but my mind can go pretty wild too.
It's not like I didn't spend that time right, even though that headache almost killed me. There was a lot to learn from that SoniSung booklet, and adjusting the settings will help in the future. The issue is how the momentum breaks.
Whenever it seems like the goal's within reach, something stops me.
The fed's mission progressed at lightning speed today, making me believe it's doable. And now here I am, getting distracted by random thoughts as usual. What is wrong with me? Keep grinding, it should be easy.
The Pharmacy's Crew is long gone, the street is empty, and there are other jobs to run. Stocking up can wait anyway since four more antidotes and five potions sit in the inventory. No more yellow caffeinated nightmare of an energy drink though.
It's a good thing that normal rats shouldn't need them. What do the other two errands have in store? The closer one is a hundred meters away in a straight line, but the houses are in the way. The minimap doesn't help me plan my route, it only shows the direction and distance.
I should run, as an experiment to see how fast the exhaustion stacks on the character. The UI will display it in the upper left corner before the status effect activates, so why not test it out? As for the previous experiences, let's draw the line at D-rank quests.
Death Rats were ridiculous. Even if it's odd to ignore the best-paying errand in this scarcity, they were way too much for me. It's a huge leap from the weak and slow common and plague ones who wait for you to kill them.
These were like that rabbit from that old movie with the knights pretending to ride horses. The one with the swallows and the coconuts. It was a parody made almost two hundred years ago so why am I thinking about it now, when time is of the essence?
Well, this is what I'm dealing with. Random thoughts distract me out of the blue. Focus, Arnim, rats. There is some work to do, so run towards the next arrow on the minimap, and take inventory of the options.
Ratpocalypse is too risky. Those mobs are closer to their real-world counterparts, yet they pose too much of a challenge. One mistake this close to the goal and I have to start over. There is not enough time for that.
And I complained about how easy and unrealistic those critters were early on. Did the devs of this game ever hear about a gradual increase in difficulty? Imagine having a field day with those easy ones that can't hurt you, then run into these and have your face bitten off.
No, it was a lesson learned the hard way, it's better to leave them alone, even if there isn't much of a choice anymore. The Exp would have been nice, sure, the mobs alone would have given me seven thousand which is crazy.
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The contract promised another two, but only if I lived long enough to claim it. I couldn't even enter the house, let alone clear it. There were twice as many rats that respawn at midnight, so even if they couldn't kill me, they were too much to handle.
It's still a shame to miss out on the experience points. It's over nine thousand! That would have been an amazing Jazz, six of those C-rank missions are enough to reach the tenth level from zero. Where I am now, one would almost push me over the edge.
Of course, it's more likely that it would have me start over. How much time do I have left?
[Government Issued Quest: Reach Level 10 within 3 days. Importance: Utmost. Difficulty: Average. Progress: 9/10, Exp to next level: 10174/25600. (17/72 hours left).]
Oh, God. Imagine two hours wasted on a single mission, including the break. Well, there was no other choice after the food poisoning. That effect came at the worst moment, fighting the toughest opponents until now, so let's take it easy.
Fifteen thousand experience points in seventeen hours. I need less than a thousand Exp every hour - if it doesn't kill me - which is doable, so it's not worth taking those risks. Slow and steady wins the race, and other cliches to keep me on track.
Plague rats will do fine even with the huge difference between C and D-class ratting jobs. From zero to ten, you'd need to finish twenty-one D-class missions. From where I am now, it would take seven of those, the question is, if Selena will have that many.
In hindsight, these numbers look trivial, except the ratting missions are running out. Why couldn't that event with the bandits start a week later? Or only a day. No, it's on me, if the first day wasn't wasted on woodcutting, the government's quest would be already over.
Not even this is true. Today's progress in the first five hours was more than the two previous days together. The mission wasn't impossible, it was me who kept messing it up. So what should I do if there's another one of these Ratpocalypse quests?
There was only one so far, so they're rare, and worth more than six plague ones. No, it's too risky; with better gear, or that Stone Skin spell. There is no chance to survive without that, food poisoning or not. And my aim needs to improve too.
Even after practicing tail-cutting on the previous jobs, I kept missing. The good thing is that with the new display settings, it will be easier to keep track of these debuffs. Running around the block took me two minutes, and cost two exhaustion points.
The poisoning chance is now down to seven, so it's safe to drink the potions. Whenever possible, I'll stick to eating food instead, and no more playing with the timers. So what the next task will be? It was a regular E-class contract and no alerts about escalation.
How did they do that, the Pharmacy Crew? They said something about upgrading the quest on purpose but didn't go into details. Selena gave it as an F-rank errand and I almost complained about it, then it became the highest class I've ever seen.
Sigh, distraction or not, that was another thing I wanted to look up. If it's something a free user can do, it might be worth it with the remaining missions. The subwroddit even has a match for the escalation keyword.
So the question is, should these rats die before reading the article? Or is it better to attempt multitasking? Or extend my break to get rid of the two exhaustion points? Decisions, decisions. It would be nice to cut their tails off too, there are so many things to do.
My go-to solution is to do nothing in cases like this. I wish it weren't though...