Note: We'll be back to our MWF sched starting this Monday. Sorry for this week's inconvenience.
CHAPTER SIX
Achievement Unlocked
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Once the light of ‘Unshakable Justice’ dissipated, a scene of blood and gore appeared, and the winner of the duel between man and beast was decided at last.
The headless corpse of the red grizzly slumped to the ground just as a notification appeared in the air.
CONGRATULATIONS! You have completed the tutorial quest [Slay a Red Grizzly]!
CONGRATULATIONS! You have achieved the great feat of defeating an enemy much stronger than yourself. All your attributes have increased by [+1].
Seeing it caused all the adrenaline to leave Nike’s face.
She dropped her staff.
“I did it.”
Noticeably weary in body and mind, she fell to her knees.
“I freaking did it.”
She looked battered, coated in sweat, and beast’s ichor dyed her clothes red. Bits of grizzly were sprayed over her face too. Possibly a fang or two was tangled in her hair.
“Holy shit.”
Yet excitement flashed through Nike’s face as she pumped her fists in the air.
“Hell yeah!”
Hidden behind tall bushes and an enchanted fog roughly twenty yards away, the two observers who’d seen Nike’s death match released the breath they’d been holding in during that final gambit.
“Well, that was nerve-wracking,” Bram sighed.
“Now you know how I feel watching those battles you survive only by a hair’s breadth,” Rowan replied in a knowing tone, adding, “Looking even worse than our dear traveler does.”
Bram couldn’t refute it. After all, his fights always seemed to end with him being such a mess that he needed Rowan’s blood to heal him. In comparison, Nike, who was only out of breath, with strands of hair clinging to her sweat-coated brow, looked relatively fine. That was until she puked out blood and then collapsed on the ground.
“Bloody hell… Rowan, I don’t suppose…”
“Do you really want me to share my blood with someone other than you?”
“Nope. No. Never.”
So, instead of getting the trickster to do it, Bram, still wrapped in Rowan’s fog like it was a cloak over his shoulders, moved over to where Nike lay. He was cautious in his approach, making sure she was truly unconscious before dropping to his knees at her side.
Her eyes were shut tightly as if even her blackout offered her no relief.
“Oh, no.”
Nike’s breath was ragged. Her face turned pale.
Blood pooled underneath her born from the wounds she’d earned from the red grizzly’s embrace.
“She’s dying,” Bram realized.
It was a pity.
Nike had done so well until now.
QUEST REWARDS: 100 EXP, 20 Fame, and 20 Ranking Points.
Bram could still see the floating blue window waiting for Nike’s acknowledgment.
He hesitated.
If he saved her now, wouldn’t he spoil all the work he’d done so far?
“I’m an observer… I’m not supposed to intervene in a player’s time on Aarde.”
It would be a different thing if Bram had been part of Nike’s quest as a companion. According to the rules Hajime had written for the observation team, such a connection would have allowed Bram to intervene.
Bram sighed.
“Fuck it.”
He rolled Nike over as gently as he could.
“You’re not dying on my watch.”
Bram didn’t bother asking for her permission when he tore off a portion of her leather vest with only his hands. It was an emergency after all. Thanks to his updated status, his monstrous strength had become even more prodigious, and the thick leather gave way as easily as if it had been made of cloth.
“I’m providing first-aid now.”
It was as if he needed to justify what he’d just done, something he wouldn’t have bothered doing before he’d met his friends from Earth.
“Earth decency is a strange thing… Oh, bloody hell.”
Garish claw marks raked across Nike’s back. They were bloody and deep. So deep, in fact, that Bram didn’t doubt that her organs were probably damaged.
“Can a healing gel even deal with this much injury?”
Nike coughed.
Blood dripped from the corners of her mouth.
Time was of the essence now, and Bram would have to hope that the tools in his possession would suffice. For even now, he was loathe to call on Rowan for aid.
He slapped several healing gels on Nike’s back.
These were medicinal salves made with alchemy that healed various wounds and ailments while also granting anesthetic and clotting effects to one’s injuries.
“I survived an open gut once because of these…”
Yes, a while back, during his duel with Loveless, the mad nymph’s claws had raked across Bram’s abdomen. He might have died of blood loss then if Bridget hadn’t used several red packets of healing gels to cure his wounds.
“Work quickly… I can’t have the first death of a player be on me…”
Bram kept telling himself it was because of his pride as chief observer, but deep down he understood—he didn’t want anyone dying around him. Not if he could save them.
Fortunately, the healing gels worked their magic, a natural conclusion considering how expensive they were to purchase. Pretty quickly, Nike’s wounds began stitching together, forming into pink scar tissue that would’ve normally taken days or weeks to occur naturally.
When color returned to Nike’s face, Bram breathed a sigh of relief.
Then her eyes blinked and panic surged back into his mind. There was no way he could explain why he was there or what he was doing to her—not that saving her life was a bad thing. Though it might make the player suspicious of the ‘trick’ the dev team was playing on her and her fellow travelers if she caught Bram now.
“Rowan…I need you.”
The trickster appeared as if she was spat out of the fog.
“Sleep.”
Rowan’s finger tapped against Nike’s brow. Then the eyes that were blinking open shut again, and Nike’s breathing dulled to a slow and steady rhythm.
“You are a kind man, My Prince.”
“No, I’m not…but I guess I can’t help but try to be.”
They stared at each other, each looking favorably at the other.
“Shouldn’t you dress her wounds?” Rowan asked, ending their moment of, well, Bram wasn’t sure what to call it.
“That might be too much.” Bram glanced down. “She’ll probably notice.”
He waited for Nike’s wounds to heal before peeling the now-gray packets from her back. He didn’t bother bandaging her up. Nike’s wounds healing on their own could’ve been attributed to her being a player but bandages out of nowhere were harder to explain. Still, Bram cleaned her wound, wiping off the blood and muck that clung to her back to ensure no infection would occur later…and his due diligence paid off.
CONGRATULATIONS! You’ve saved another user from death. You’ve earned passive ability [First Aid]!
“Huh, this could be useful.”
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
ABILITY: First Aid LEVEL: 1 TYPE: Passive DESCRIPTION: When medically treating yourself or others, the effects of healing items or spells are increased by 10%. Performing the proper treatment required for specific battlefield injuries will raise the chances of saving a companion from death.
Increasing the chances of saving others was quite a boon.
There was, however, one thing about Nike’s condition Bram couldn’t fix.
“Rowan, I don’t suppose you can fix her vest?”
He felt bad about ruining her clothes. Embarrassed too.
Bram had seen the seamstresses of Bastille’s Hightown repair clothes with magic. He didn’t doubt such a trick would be easy for the rebel trickster of legend who could wield the once-lost sorcerous Art of Transmutation.
“Very well.” She flashed him an impish grin. “Wouldn’t want you to sully your honor with this act of savagery.”
“I-I was trying to help her!”
Her grin only widened. Then…
“Pwythwch eich hun gyda'ch gilydd.”
As red sparks of magic flew from Rowan’s fingers, the pieces of Nike’s leather vest stitched back together, though not perfectly, as if the caster remembered that a red grizzly’s claws had ruined the vest once already.
Meanwhile, Bram, who marveled at the magic she displayed, couldn’t help but feel in awe of Rowan’s talents.
“It’s been a while since I’ve heard you speak that strange language,” he whispered.
“One of these days, I’ll tell you about my past,” she promised, but added, “Just not today.”
Bram nodded.
He’d been very patient with wanting to learn Rowan’s backstory apart from the few bits and pieces he’d gleaned from his past research. But he’d tried not to ask, preferring that she told him of her own volition. Rowan making this promise to him now was a huge step forward for them both.
“The Loom is quite harsh,” she said.
“Why do you think that?” he asked.
Rowan brushed a strand of Nike’s hair away from her face.
“Our player nearly died to complete her quest, yet it didn’t give her enough merit to gain even one level.”
“To be fair, it took our friends a whole week in the Red Forest to reach level three.”
“Ah, the good old days… Speaking of the Red Forest, didn’t our friends level up twice after fighting Loveless?”
“Loveless was a ‘boss level’ opponent. Two levels seemed an appropriate reward for surviving her.”
Thinking of Loveless made Bram glance down at the thin tome strapped to his belt. This was his dimensional diary that could hold items in its fifty pages. One of those items was an acorn that was the ‘Nymph’s Seed’ that he inherited from Loveless’ corpse. Such a seed, if taken care of properly, could birth a new Loveless, one without the shade of her tragic past to make her go mad.
When he’d claimed the nymph seed for himself, Bram had promised that the nymph’s next life would be a happy one.
“Instead of experience, the system offered her fame,” Rowan said aloud, drawing Bram from his musings. “But what can players do with fame — they aren’t nobles.”
According to the Loom’s Kingdom Resource tool, fame and infamy were ways for landed lords and ladies to grow or diminish their ‘Prestige,’ a resource that quantified one’s reputation and standing among the citizens of a kingdom. Theoretically, a user like Bram could consume prestige to earn favorable outcomes when dealing with other nobles such as securing good trade deals or alliances. He didn’t have enough prestige to test this theory yet though. To date, Bram’s Prestige score was [-70/100], also categorized as [Severely Unpopular].
“I believe the Loom is offering players a chance to achieve greatness on Aarde.” Bram’s face turned contemplative. “Fame might be their path to nobility.”
Not all nobles were born from great bloodlines. Others achieved nobility after being recognized for achieving great deeds, though such nobles were admittedly fewer than those born to the role. They were also considered lesser nobles to those whose bloodlines spanned generations.
However, in theory, players like Nike, dev team members like Hajime, or even Aarders like Ravi could earn fame and infamy to raise or diminish their prestige. The higher one’s prestige score, the more likely they would have opportunities to interact with high nobles who could help them scale the mountain of social status. In theory…
Nobles were fickle people though, and earning their interest was just as likely to mean trouble rather than be a favorable thing.
“You have a prestige score too, don’t you?” Bram asked.
“I do,” Rowan answered.
“What’s your rating?”
Rowan flashed Bram an impish smile.
“I have a ‘Notable’ rating.”
“Fuck.”
This alien word seemed such an appropriate curse for these moments.
“Whereas I’m in the negative — what a cruel world we live in…”
Bram wasn’t the only one who felt disheartened.
After they’d gone back to hiding, Nike woke up and finally had a chance to see the results of her victory over the red grizzly.
“That’s it?”
She glared daggers at the notification floating in the air.
“I just risked my life, and I don’t even get to level up?”
As if it had been waiting for such a complaint, a new notification window popped up around Nike.
Experience: 190/1,000
“Wow, this game’s freaking brutal…”
Her gaze drifted to the red grizzly’s corpse next to her.
“You nearly killed me, and you were only worth a hundred points…”
She frowned.
“Nearly killed me…”
Nike glanced down at her hands.
They were caked in dried blood. Her clothes were a mess too. But she felt fine. More than fine, though she couldn’t shake off the feeling that she’d nearly died earlier.
“It’s just nerves…”
Nike cast a wary glance at her surroundings.
The foggy woods had gotten quiet since the fight ended. No birds, crickets, or other sound could be heard save the beating of her heart.
“Just nerves…”
The night had darkened the ground, though Nike could still see thanks to the soft blue glow of her notification windows.
“This game feels way too real…”
Nike lit her torch to be certain, but apart from the fog that seemed to snake around the underbrush, nothing seemed amiss. She was alone—or so she thought.
Before she could question things further, a new notification appeared in front of her.
CONGRATULATIONS! You are currently ranked one on the ranking list!
“Finally, some good news.”
Nike tapped on the [Ranking List] underneath the notification, and a new window appeared showing a list of ten names.
RANK MONIKER SCORE 1ST Nike 26 2ND Gawain 24 3RD Curufin 23 4TH Beth 21 5TH Lore 20 6TH Slaughter 18 7TH Tolv 16 8TH Ardyn Frost 15 9TH Arsène 13 10TH Venus 11
“Nore’s on this list too…but she’s only tenth.”
Nike’s gaze drifted back to the nearby headless corpse.
“Guess I owe you for the win.”
She would quickly learn that hers was a temporary victory.
According to the next notification, Nike needed to maintain her rank until the end of the ‘Feast of Travelers’—the week-long event meant to acclimate the alpha players to the Loom—if she wanted to claim the top prize of five gold griffins, which, apart from being a sum most commoners would never see in their lifetimes, could later be converted into Earth money.
Current rate of exchange: [5] Gold Griffins = [5,000] US Dollars
“Damn, that’s bank.” A wide grin flashed on Nike’s face. “I can finally fix the furnace and have enough left over for this month’s expenses…”
Thinking about her ‘real world’ problems made Nike sigh.
“I need a way to earn more points fast.”
Once more, as if it had been waiting for her to ask, the system gave Nike an answer.
CONGRATULATIONS! Through your actions, a new path has opened, one that has yet to be seen in this world!
ALERT! A new quest has arrived!
JOB PROMOTION QUEST: Mark of a Marksman!
Nike’s eyes widened. “Holy—”
“—Fuck,” Bram finished for her, though only Rowan heard him. “This… She hasn’t even chosen her beginner job yet — isn’t the Loom favoring her too much?”
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Some of you might notice that your player created characters are mentioned in the rankings. Look forward to seeing them soon. XD