It took another hour for Taylor Lynn and Jenny to finish their preparations for the journey. It turned out being a class flinging spells around was more complicated than poking stuff with a dagger. The women had enjoyed each other’s company on the shopping expedition much more than the boys had. Ken wasn’t glowering exactly, but he had continued to shoot Jay looks as the group went about their business. Jay knew he was going to have to say something, eventually.

It wasn’t until they were at the gates and ready to leave that Jay remembered he was still carrying around a pet egg. When he pulled the egg from his inventory to inspect it, Ken glowered at him, which Jay elected to ignore.

The egg was quite strange to look at, behaving as if it could not decide what kind of egg it was. The shell shifted in size, shape, and color. Jay watched as the material morphed from a thin, red egg shell to a larger blue scaly egg and back again.

“How do you have this egg?” Ken interjected, sounding frustrated.

Jay noticed that the conversation had died down between Jenny and Taylor Lynn, their focus drawn to the egg and Ken’s outburst. Without further ado, Jay activated it, and noticed an immediate surge of power from the egg as it vibrated in his hands. The egg continued to shift until it landed on a red and black shell similar to a chicken egg.

The shell cracked, spiderweb-like veins crossing the entirety of the surface until the egg suddenly exploded. A cascade of shell fragments clattered to the ground and disappeared.

Jay eyed his empty hand in disappointment. “Aw man. I got an empty egg? Is that even possible?”

Jenny’s voice shook with fear as she pointed in his direction, "is that what I think it is?”

“No way,” Taylor Lynn said, her voice holding more wonder than fear.

“What are you talking about?” Jay asked. “I don’t see anything.”

Jay turned from side to side, surveying the ground around him. He spun around to check behind him, as well, but saw nothing. Shifting his weight to turn back to the party, he finally noticed a small pressure and some movement on his shoulder. It was light, but there was definitely something there.

He blindly grasped at the area and felt himself pick something up. Moving it in front of his face to get a better look, he stared at an unusual tiny creature. The fur was dark as any shadow, but it stared back at him with shining red eyes. The eyes seemed to glow, even in the daylight. Jay started to laugh maniacally as he realized what the creature was.

“It’s a squirrel!” he said loudly, his words difficult for everyone to parse through his laughter.

“That’s not just any squirrel,” Taylor Lynn explained, her eyes riveted to the animal. “That’s a Strogian Death squirrel. They’re supposed to come from another dimension and the dark ones keep them as pets.”

“Like demon pets,” Jenny echoed.

Before Jay could respond, Ken spoke up, scorn clear in his voice: “Someone needs to explain what is going on. It’s obvious you have a Founder package, but those packs were expensive. If you’re that rich, how are you still a level five? Three days have passed since the game started. Most of the Founders are level fifteen to twenty-five already.” He stepped closer to Jay as he spoke. Even though it was a game, with the full dive VR experience, Jay could feel the guy’s breath on his cheek.

Ken seemed to be handling his loss very well.

Jay couldn’t be sure where the anger was coming from, but Ken clearly wasn’t interested in relationship building. Jay didn’t want to mess a potential team up before everyone got a chance to really know each other. There were another ninety-five levels to go. It would be nice to have some in-game friends or even just partners.

Jay was starting to realize why neglecting to read the contract was a terrible move. He wasn’t even sure what things he could or could not speak about. It would make sense for Tumult Corp. to want him to keep his advantages quiet. He was already benefiting from a unique class.

“It’s complicated,” he finally settled on, realizing immediately it wasn’t a good answer. To try and smooth things over he added, “we’ve been busy in real life the past few days.” He wasn’t even lying. He and Taylor Lynn had both spent a lot of time preparing their equipment and lives.

The squirrel made a growling noise, distracting everyone from what undoubtedly would have been a sarcastic reply from Ken. Jay remembered he was still holding the creature out in front of him.

“Sorry, buddy. This squirrel really came out of the egg?” he placed it back on his shoulder as he spoke. The creature seemed pleased with the turn of events and nestled into his shoulder.

Jay took a few steps away from Ken, who was still breathing on him. He was happy to see that Jenny was glaring at her companion, but Ken still showed no signs of embarrassment. He did back off, at least for the moment.

It was then Jay noticed the rest world was eerily silent. He looked around and saw the entire road was standing around. Even the non-player characters froze to stare. It felt like all eyes were on him, but it became apparent everyone was staring at his new pet.

It didn’t make any sense to him that a squirrel came out of an egg, but it was a game. In a world of magic, squirrels could come from eggs.

“Nothing to see here!” Taylor Lynn yelled out to the street. She stepped in front of Jay to put the pet out of sight from the largest group of onlookers. When no one reacted, she summoned a ball of fire and tossed it at the ground a few feet in front of her, just out of range of hitting anyone.

The effect was similar to blasting a shotgun in the air. The crowd dispersed, but several guards exchanged glances, as if trying to decide whether they were going to intervene with Taylor Lynn’s pyrotechnics.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

Jay, on the other hand, was focused on the prompt on his screen. He needed to choose a name for his new pet. He settled on the only plausible name for a death squirrel kept as pet by demons: Cuddles.

He entered the name, updating his pet’s game label. The guards, who had decided to approach the party looking official and stern, took note of the change and began to laugh uncontrollably. They were so amused that they dropped the matter without a word, waving the party on as they chuckled.

Cuddles was listed by the game as a male squirrel and shared the same level as Jay. He was snoring, somehow having managed to fall asleep on Jay’s shoulder, unaffected by his new name.

“Let’s just get out of here,” Taylor Lynn suggested. The rest of the group fell into step behind her as she led them out of the city. Cuddles managed to stay asleep on his shoulder, even as the party started really moving.

Ten minutes later, they were free from the prying eyes of the city, standing in the midst of the forest. The city could be seen in the distance, but there were no people around so far from the road. Jenny was the first to break the awkward silence with a big grin. “Well! I, for one, am super excited to complete our first quest.”

Ken just grumbled in response, taking his time to survey the area around them. When he didn’t see any obvious threats, he leaned against a tree and closed his eyes, waiting for the others to decide on a plan.

Taylor Lynn was eyeing the other woman, silently thanking her for breaking the uncomfortable silence. “Yeah, I’m happy to get to team up with some real talent!” she joked. Jay met her eye contact and raised his eyebrows. She took the hint – he wasn’t in the mood. He figured ragging on him wasn’t going to help the situation with Ken, even if Jenny seemed more than willing to accept them.

For his part, Jay was trying to decide on a course for completing their quest as they sat. The women started to discuss their opinions on the game so far. Jay was surprised to see Ken peek one eye open and meet Jay’s gaze. Jay didn’t have a reason to distrust them. After all, he knew the worst they could do was set him back a level or two.

“Do you think we should retrace our steps?” Jay asked. Taylor Lynn pursed her lips as she considered the question, eventually nodding.

“Yeah,” she agreed. “Let’s start by going back to that statute of Gereg. From there, we can find the general area we saw the boars.” Jenny was pleased to start the quest. Ken just gave a gruff nod, moving to walk closer to Jenny.

The party made the trek to the statue of Gereg. Jay left the small talk to Jenny and Taylor Lynn, using his own attention on the small squirrel riding along on his shoulder. He kept worrying the creature would fall, but Cuddles managed to hold tight, even in his sleep.

They passed dozens of forest critters but left them alone. Their days of forest critter farming were over. They weren’t worth enough experience anymore. Jay wondered idly if there were any titles to be gained from massacring low-level creatures. Back in his power gamer days, he would have had no qualms trying for it. With the full dive hardware, on the other hand, there was something to make him pause. It was too visceral.

There were no boars at the statute when they arrived, but that made enough sense to the party. After all, the statue was some kind of artifact that facilitated resurrection when players died. Games needed some semblance of fairness and monsters that attacked respawn points was far from fitting the bill.

As the party approached the area, however, Jay noticed something.

Title gained: Perceptive Hunter! This title increases the perception statistic by three points. Any true monster hunter recognizes the first difference between a hunter and an adventurer: the hunt.

There were tracks a few dozen feet away from the spawn point. Jay recognized the prints matched a boar. He pointed them out to the others.

“I don’t see anything,” Ken said blankly.

“Me, either,” Jenny agreed.

Jay looked at Taylor Lynn, but she just shook her head. He wondered if it was a part of his Monster Hunter class. There wasn’t anything in his four abilities mentioning tracking directly, but there could be other components to the class design. He followed the tracks for a few yards to confirm he was able to follow them.

“I guess I should lead the way,” Jay offered. No one else could see the tracks. There was no dissent, so they began to make their way through the forest with Jay at the front this time. The sights were beautiful. Jay was once again impressed with the detail in the game portrayed by the full dive system. He swore he could feel the rays of warm sunshine breaking through the treetops hitting his skin.

The vague scent of something floral wafting in the area caught his notice. Part of him wanted to stop and see if the flowers could be collected. Items useful in alchemy would be worth money, even in the worst case. Jay was holding plenty of gold, but one could never be sure what the future would bring. The scent was tempting, but Jay focused on following the tracks. They had an immediate task in front of them and could expect rewards from their two quests.

“One second,” Jenny said.

Jay stopped to tell her that he didn’t want to lose track of the… tracks, but lost the opportunity. She disappeared into the forest without another word. Somehow, Ken knew to follow right behind her. Jay started to count the seconds. Even though he knew, on some level, they were in a game, the situation still felt tense. At a count of fifteen, he decided that he would go after them at the thirty count. They reappeared at the twenty-three count.

“Awesome! This is a rare find. It’s called a Crystalgild,” Jenny explained as she held up a small golden flower. The golden flower had an orange stem, which fit the theme of the Elven forest quite well.

“What’s special about it?” Jay asked.

“It’s used to brew a potion temporarily increasing all statistics. Supposed to be very useful against low level dungeon bosses, obviously.”

Jay nodded. He’d played enough games to know that many dungeon bosses required every edge the players could muster, especially later on in the game. He really wanted to know more about how Ken seemed to intuit she would be running off.

“How did Ken know to-” Jay said, but Jenny seemed to know where he was going already.

“We’re twins,” Jenny said with an apologetic shrug, as if it explained everything. By the by, maybe it sort of did. Jay hadn’t known any sets of twins.

As he mused about the flower, he felt like something was tugging at the edge of his senses, trying to gain his attention, but he couldn’t place his finger on it.

“Should we try and fight some wolves along the way?” Jenny asked.

“It’s a little late for that,” Ken teased, drawing his weapon.

It was hearing Ken draw his weapon that made Jay realize what was bothering him: the cacophony of forest noises was absent. Ken was just the first to realize what was going on.

The party broke through the edge of the forest and saw what Ken had noticed: a struggling merchant wagon being swarmed by boars. The merchant was fighting back from the wagon with some kind of halberd, but his clothes were disheveled. It didn’t seem like he could keep up the fight much longer.

Inspecting the game text, Jay confirmed that they were all marked boars. He drew his own long dagger, preparing for the fight.

Marked Boar: Level 10. HP: 150/150.

Jay tried to find some confidence as they headed to battle the boars, which noticed the group. But self-assured Monster Hunter was a difficult title to wear when Ken was still watching him with distrust.

Even worse, Jay heard the rustle of brush behind him. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw another group of boars behind them. Jay realized two things. The first was that he needed to stop learning the same lessons more than once. The second was that marked boars were the sneakiest boars ever created by a gaming company.