Donald was one of the Players from another world. The Players from another world were handsome for the men and beautiful for women, perhaps because they could modify their avatar appearances. It was normal for us to see beautiful adventurers, even though logically speaking, there shouldn’t be any beautiful adventurers. How could beautiful girls do things like adventuring? No, even if a beautiful girl went to an adventure, the sun would burn her beautiful skin and the rough training would make her muscular. It shouldn’t be possible for beautiful girl to stay beautiful after becoming an adventurer.

Cough, anyway, Donald was one of the adventurers who always visited me. He was quite handsome, having blond eyes and blue eyes, and his face was quite similar to a certain God living in my house. A certain silly Goddess once saw him, and ever since, she urged me to introduce her to him.

Alright, it was actually not a secret that both the God and the Goddess were actually bro-con and sis-con. That was why the sister always chose handsome blond hero with blue eyes as her Champions because they looked similar to her brother, and the brother chose beautiful blond heroine with blue eyes as his Champions because they looked similar to his sister. So, when the sister saw the handsome blond hair and blue eyes adventurer named Donald, she fell in love at the first sight.

As for Donald, perhaps he was a professional gamer or he played a lot of RPG games before, but he always came to my place to ask about my ‘grandma’. Yep, my fictional ‘grandma’, which was not exist. Why did I say that he asked about my ‘grandma’ told me that he was a gamer? Because in a game, there would be chain quests, or a hidden quest after a certain action was done.

How could I know about it?

Well, even though I was not a gamer, I had a gamer friend, whose action I couldn’t understand. Like, he always entered someone’s else house and opened the chest inside the house. Hey, that was trespassing and you tried to steal something from their treasure chest!

Or he always tried to complete his maps even though it was 99% completed just for a certain achievement. Or he talked to a certain NPC over and over again even though he knew what the answer the NPC would give him. Or giving the same kind of gift time and time again just to increase the intimacy level, even though in reality, if I were that NPC, I wouldn’t be happy getting the same exact thing over and over again. No matter how much I loved teddy bear, who would be happy to get a thousand teddy bears from a single person? Where would I put all of those teddy bears?

And the Players in this world were quite similar to those gamers in my past. Some of them entered the villagers’ houses, only for them to be reprimanded harshly by the villagers. Not only that, they were punished by the villagers too. I believed if there were reputation points, their reputation would be deducted greatly because of that action. After that, the other players didn’t dare to do disrespectful things to us, the NPCs, and I was quite happy because of it. That meant, my lie of having my ‘grandma’ couldn’t get up from the bed wouldn’t be exposed!

Anyway, back to Donald. As I noticed that he probably thought that there was a hidden quest or a chain quest from me, perhaps I should give him what he wanted?

It had been three days and I finally able to create more than fifty EXP Potions (Small) every day. I never thought that those potions could be sold for fifty copper coins… even though the base price should be around five or six copper! It inflated for almost ten times!

Cough, alright, I needed to give the shop owner where I put the potions some benefits too, still, I benefited more than him. Perhaps it was time for me to make other type of potions?

What kind of potions I could make next…?

Strength Potion? It could enhance strength stats for five minutes, the side effect was after that five minutes passed, the user would be weakened (stats reduced by thirty percent) for a minute. However, I needed quite difficult-to-gather-ingredients, unlike the previous mushrooms that grew everywhere in this world, as long as you knew where to find them.

No, considering the average level of the Players, they should be able to gather the ingredients quite easily now, right? Alright, I needed the blood of Vicious Wolf, the Bezoar from the Ramhead Goat, the Seed of the Man-eating Flora, and the Heart of Rock from a Golem type monster. Those monsters were around level 5 monsters, and the average power level of the adventurers were around level 3 at the moment.

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How did I get this information?

It was because of Briana, that silly Goddess. She leveled up to level five just yesterday, and she got an appraisal Skill, named Appraisal. Yep. Appraisal, a cheat Skill in every story. God sure was unfair, cough, well, I meant, the world sure was unfair. She got the Skill that every main character in the story had even though she was just a silly Goddess.

As for Brian, the brother, he got something enviable too. He got a debuff type Skill named Dystrophy. It caused the target’s strength to be reduced by 10%. Yep, 10% just for a level one Skill. It was really annoying.

As for me? I levelled up to level 5 today, but the Skill I got after I reached level 5 was useless. Yep, useless. It was definitely a useless Skill for me. Seriously, why would I need a Skill to emit harmless smoke from my mouth? Moreover, it was called Smokeless Breath, yet it emitted smoke. It was really useless, right?

But that wasn’t what made me the saddest. The worst part was… even though I raised my level to level 5 already, my stats were still pathetic. They were all still under the average stats of the Players… level 1 Players. How could an evil God like me, a Demon Lord like me, had such pathetic stats? Or perhaps the stronger I would be in the end, the harder it would be to get stronger?

That was why I decided to be a person behind the scene a bit longer. Yep, it was definitely not because I didn’t want to go out of my house or because I wanted to slack off. It was because I was still too weak at the moment, so I needed to stay inside the house and asked those Players to gather all the ingredients that I needed for me.

“How is your grandma?” The blond man in front of me, Donald, asked me and abruptly pulled me back from my thought. His level should be around level 3, right? Unfortunately, that silly Goddess was not here at the moment, or else, I could ask her directly. Oh, right, I should use that silly Goddess and her brother to gather those Strength Potion’s ingredients!

“…she is still sick. She said she needs more ingredients to make medicinal soup, but I’m not sure if you guys from another dimension can help us or not, as you are too weak at the moment.” I said with a hint of hope and disappointment at the same time.

“Oh, what kind of ingredients do you need next?” Donald the Player became excited after I changed the way I replied to his question. Yep, for him, it meant that I would give him the next quest and it was definitely a good thing for him.

I mentioned the ingredients I needed, and he became slightly dejected because those monsters I mentioned were quite strong. It would be difficult for him to gather those ingredients. So, it should be my time to give him a little hope. “My cousins should be strong enough, but I’m worried if they went by themselves. How about this. Tomorrow morning, you can go with my cousins and help them gather the ingredients we need?”

After mentioning this little hope for him, Donald’s eyes brightened once again. Without hesitation, he nodded. “Alright, I’ll accept this mission of yours! I’ll help you gather those ingredients, and I will definitely protect your cousins!”

Yep, that was what you, Players, useful for. Since you all could be revived, you should be a meat shield to protect the NPCs of this world. It seemed Donald understood his role as meat shield as well, so I nodded and smiled at him.

“Thank you, Donald!” I said.

Donald was stunned. No, it was not because of my smile, naturally. I hoped he was not a lolicon. Fortunately, the reason he was stunned was not because of my Charisma, but for other reason.

“You know my name?” He asked in surprise.

I raised my eyebrows. “Of course. You introduced yourself to me just two days ago, how could I forget just in two days?”

Was he an idiot?

“…this game is so realistic. The AI is so amazing…” I caught what he muttered softly and I noticed where my mistake was.

In typical games, unless your reputation was high enough, people wouldn’t call your name. Especially in MMORPG games. Usually, the Players would be called as ‘Adventurer’ or ‘Hero’. Even the gender sometimes wrong, such as calling a female adventurer as a ‘him’. Or sometimes, the NPCs wouldn’t even mention the Players at all. Anyway, more often than not, it was very rare for the NPCs to call their name like what I just did. Not only that, I also said that he introduced his name to me earlier, so he was stunned with how advanced the AI was.

I wouldn’t tell him that it was actually not the AI was advanced, but rather, it was another world, so, we, the NPCs, were real people too.

“Anyway, don’t forget about tomorrow morning, alright?” I raised my hand, specifically my pinky finger and he responded like what I wished him to do. My acting was perfect, he must think that I was just a child who made a childish promise with him.

Later, that night. I told my promise to the silly Goddess. “…and that is why, tomorrow, both of you will go with that Donald guy to gather the ingredients I need.”

After that, I regretted helping this silly Goddess, as she almost killed me because of it. Mm? No, she wasn’t angry at all. In fact, she was happy, to the point that she hugged me with her ridiculous strength.

“Woaaah!!! Fey! I never see you in positive way like I do now! You are unexpectantly kind! I love you Fey!!!” The silly Goddess suddenly leaped and hugged my head. Even though she looked like thirteen years old, but she had a little growth on her chest, unlike me. And that little growth of her was almost suffocated me to death… nope. Actually, what almost killed me was her ridiculous strength. She forgot that she was already level 5 and her strength attributes had increased by seven points.

“Ah! Silly Goddess! Release me! I’m gonna die! Oy! My neck will snap if you put more strength… aaahh!!!”

My neck… really almost snapped. I heard a popping sound from my neck and the silly Goddess heard it too before she hurriedly released me. Although I was barely survived, my neck hurt so much. Moreover, the silly Goddess tried to ‘put’ my neck back, but I stepped back and refused her offer. Yep, I still wanted to live, after all. I definitely didn’t want to die a ridiculous death like this!

“…and that is why, don’t touch my neck, you silly Goddess!!!” I yelled at her who crept closer to me.