“How the hell did all of you go to the wrong starter town? Is this a prank? Did you think it would be funny?”
In the midst of hunting goblins, a bald streamer was berating his friends via voice call.
“It’s a misunderstanding! I swear! We just heard you wrong!” A girl with a dulcet voice answered hurriedly, “I thought that everyone would start at the same place; I didn’t know it would split us all up!”
“I wasn’t doubting you Ruby, but... was it you, or was it Jasmine who picked your starting area?”
“Huh? Well it was Jasmine, but-”
“Baldie, you really think I would split up the team just for fun?” Another girl pitched in with a sassy tone.
“Yes.” Lemonade responded matter-of-factly, “That is undoubtedly something you would do, actually.”
“Okay, well, that may be true, but I actually didn’t this time!” She protested, “Why else do you think the others all went off separately too? Even Derek didn’t join you; do you really think that guy would fend for himself willingly?”
“I can hear you; you know.” A monotonic male voice spoke up to complain.
“That’s a good point actually.” Lemonade ignored the man and kept talking with Jasmine, “Then why did you not come to the right place? I clearly said ‘Novus’ Town.”
“Yeah, you said to ‘go to the Novus town’, so we thought you were just being illiterate like usual and meant to say ‘novice’ town. Because of that, we took it to mean all the players started in the same place.”
“...You’re kidding me, right?”
“Why would I kid? Ruby and I are struggling right now since we don’t have any melee ability. The others are probably having a hard time too.”
“I’m having a great time actually.” Another man with a Spanish accent interjected, “I’ve killed so many goblins, I’m starting to feel like the main character.”
“You’re not the main character, Rafael.” Jasmine shot him down immediately.
“Anyways, we need to meet up somehow.” Lemonade tried to keep them on-topic, “Does anyone know how the fast-travel system works?”
“Yeh.” Rafael responded, “I saw it on the forums. Every town and city has some big rectangular stone which sprouts out from the ground. You need to go to one and touch it to unlock fast travel.”
“Then, could I come to your town?”
“Oh, no. You can only teleport to ones you’ve already unlocked.”
Multiple groans were heard.
Lemonade spoke again, “All right, then here’s the plan. Since we’re split up all over the place, let’s just grind until we all hit level 5 and then meet up at the capital city; that’s the centre of the kingdom on the map.”
“Are there any mobs to kill there though?” Rafael asked concernedly.
“Yeah, apparently there are a bunch of dungeons and missions. I heard when you hit level 10 you can also do some sort of ‘class trial’ mission which is only available there, so we can do a bunch of dungeons and then try that... What do you guys think?”
“Sounds good to me.” Jasmine agreed. “Are you capable of hitting level 5 on your own though, old man?” She teased, “You might die of old age first.”
“I’m literally thirty.”
“My condolences.”
“Alright, I’m hanging up now!” Lemonade left the call and looked for more goblins to vent on.
...There were none, so he decided to read his chat instead. He hadn’t read any messages while he was on call, but they were streaming in rather quickly.
—Is Gun hacking or something?
—Lol thirty is old
This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.
—That archer’s stream is insane. I’m not even kidding.
—It’s okay Lemonade, you won’t get grey hair because you’re bald
‘Mm? What’s this?’
His chat was split into two halves; one half was bullying him like usual, while the other half seemed to be talking about the archer he’d met earlier.
“Guys, are you talking about the archer? What did he do?”
—See for yourself!
—Oh not much, he just defeats orcs like breathing and never misses
—Watch his stream and you’ll understand
—Can someone send a link to his stream?
‘Orcs?’
Lemonade remembered a massive creature he’d seen earlier. It was around 7ft tall and looked bigger, stronger and tougher than MMA fighters.
‘Th-There’s no way they’re talking about those, right?’
Lemonade found a link in chat and decided to check out the stream for himself.
‘Holy sh*t.’
Lemonade booted up Max’s stream to find two orcs writhing on the ground below him, while a third was running away into the forest.
‘The orc is running away from him? Not the other way around?!’
Lemonade was completely dumbfounded as he watched Max curse rather than celebrate his victory, before sprinting in a different direction.
Not knowing what was happening, he asked the viewers, “What’s going on? Why’s he running?”
—He rescued a bunch of people from the orcs; they got angry and chased after him
“Oh.” Lemonade nodded. So he was doing his mission, presumably.
After watching for a while, a sudden orc voice boomed loudly, making him jump.
—Holy sh*t he broke into their internal comms
—They even talk when there are no players around? That’s so cool
—What’s tetherball?
‘Wow... he really pissed that thing off.’
Lemonade kept watching for a while and wondered if there was any way he could help with Max’s mission...
Probably not. After all, he had the combat skills of a normal human, unlike this guy who looked as though he had been transported directly from a medieval barracks.
As if on cue, a message suddenly popped up in Lemonade’s inbox.
[ Lemonade, my good friend! I know you said you didn’t want to join my mission, but if you have any more of those healing potions I would greatly appreciate if you took them to the half-dead NPCs who will be running down Faul River very shortly. The rewards would probably be great for it, too! ]
“Good friend my arse, we met twenty minutes ago.” Lemonade chuckled while reading the message. So there actually was a way he could assist! This archer must have seen him drinking a HP (Health-Point) potion earlier and guessed he had more.
He sent a message back while smiling and addressed his chat. “Ok guys! We have an errand to run for the archer. Let’s hope he doesn’t die and waste our time!”
—In all likelihood you will die before he does
—What’s the errand?
—Lemonade running errands for a small-time streamer, this must be love at first sight
—Noooo you can’t fight an orc!
“Guys chill, I’m not fighting an orc. I just need to meet up with some NPCs.”
He checked his map to find the river. Doing a small favour like this was nothing to him, though he did hope he would be reimbursed for the potions later; they were pretty expensive... If he was lucky, that archer streamer might even feel indebted to him; it would be great to have a skilled player like that as an ally.
Thinking this, Lemonade left for the river with light steps.
...
...
At the same time, a well-dressed man sat behind a lavish desk, equipped with expensive computer hardware which radiated light in every colour of the rainbow. He glowered at the screen in front of him while holding a phone tightly to his ear.
Ring. Ring.
“Hello? Tristan, what is it? I’m busy right now.”
“I don’t know, Damien. Maybe it’s the fact that you agreed to delete the account of that bastard who killed me, and yet, not only is he still playing, but he’s actually live-streaming right now.”
“What? Live-streaming? Does he have a death wish?”
“Death wish? You say that like you’re actually looking for him.”
“Don’t be like that. I am looking for him. I sent all our guys in that town to go search around, but they couldn’t find him. Send me a link to his stream.”
“Fine. But why didn’t you just delete his account like you said you would? I distinctly remember hearing you say we have ‘world-class’ hackers.”
“Virtek also has world-class cybersecurity by the looks of things. They have an agreement with the government to share their dive technology in exchange for the best protection. I didn’t think that level of security would extend to the user-data, but it seems I was wrong. They even detected our presence and shut down the game server.”
“Oh.”
“It doesn’t really matter; we can just find him in the game and kill him repeatedly until he quits. It will be a miracle if he even reaches level 10, in my opinion.”
“Right.” Tristan smiled, “I’m sorry for doubting you, cousin.”
“Don’t be. It’s shameful that you managed to find him before I did. I’ll send the link to my guys now. Keep watching that stream; he won’t live for long.”