Connor was sitting at one of the tables in the inn, pondering about what to do next. As soon as he went to the inn, he was greeted by a beautiful maid. As Connor was sitting at the table, Jeanne quickly came back to him.
“Esteemed guest, is there anything else your lordship may want?” Jeanne said with gleaming eyes as she gave a cup of water to Connor.
“Uh… What do you have to eat right now?” Connor asked.
“Well, my dad’s recipe for a good old steak is awesome, would that be fine for your lordship?” answered Jeanne.
“Sure.” Connor answered. As a reply, Jeanne bowed towards Connor. Making sure to show as much cleavage through her maid outfit and said, “As you wish, my lord.” before heading back to the kitchen.
Connor, waited until she went back to the kitchen. Currently, he was the only one in the dining area of the inn. Considering there was nothing to do while waiting, he continued his previous thoughts regarding his current situation.
‘She is treating me nice as well. I still don’t understand the reason I am being called a lord though.’
‘Is it about my uniform?’
‘My… rank?’ Connor thought as he looked at the stripe on his arm before shaking his head.
‘Impossible, I am just a Private.’
‘It must’ve been at least an hour or so since I’ve arrived here at this point. How come the game developer still did not realize something is wrong?’
‘Ah, come to think of it.’
Connor quickly thought about opening the system shop screen.
Shop Newbie Cooldown 0:46:43
‘Alright, only 46 minutes left.’
Connor quickly checked the other features of the system one by one to see if there was anything that changed, to no avail, he received the same error messages in front of him as both logout and help page were still unavailable. Glancing at the character sheet and the inventory, he could not find anything new or out of place.
‘Are there no other menu options other than these?’
‘Urgh, right. I could’ve checked it if the help page was running.’
‘They could’ve made the tutorial a bit more detailed though.’
He thought as he cursed the developers for making the tutorial to only teach the very basics, basics that a private needed to know. How to check your character sheet, inventory, equip and unequip weapons and armour and basic infantry movements with shooting mechanics. The rest were probably introduced through the help page or in-game events, as it has been the case for many other games Connor had played for years.
As he was mulling over his thoughts, Connor could feel his brain overheat. He grabbed the cup of water that the maid, Jeanne, had brought in a few minutes ago and drank a few sips out of it.
‘What the actual fu- what kind of water is this supposed to be? Piss probably tastes better!’
He cursed, spitting the remaining water back into the cup.
‘Can these people even drink this?’
The taste of the water was unbearable. Even though with the new technology on Earth, humanity had found a way to fight with the ever-increasing population. Artificial foods. Some were tasty, colourful snacks that looked like a chocolate bar. While some looked like jelly beans and could keep a person satiated for a few hours but tasted awful.
The citizens in the very poor countries, or just poor in general, were only able to afford these kinds of meals while the rest of the population could still eat regular beef, lamb and other delicacies, raised in various artificial farms; healthy, organic and tasty as usual.
‘This even smells and tastes worse than those jellies.’ Connor sniffed the cup and remembered the taste of that water while smacking his mouth, feeling the aftertaste of the water.
As he was sniffing the cup, Jeanne walked in with a few plates in her hand. Seeing Connor sniffing the cup so violently, she felt like she wanted to scream, barely holding it in.
“Is- is there something wrong, my lord?” she was able to utter towards Connor before starting to lay down the plates on the table. She was afraid. Nobles were not known for their mercy and common sense in the kingdom. As there had been many cases in the past where someone was executed for looking at a nobleman wrong, or maids being executed almost weekly just because the noblewomen in the courts were suspicious of them stealing their husbands, and with it, their bank away.
“Ah. Just… why does this water taste so weird?” Connor asked, coming out of his stupor and looking up towards Jeanne.
“What do you mean my lord?” Jeanne asked.
“Uh, forget it. Why do you keep calling me lord though?” Connor replied with a question.
Jeanne was somewhat ecstatic at this reply, she was wondering if Connor had implied that they should be closer. Jeanne started blinking lusciously towards Connor.
“What do you want me to call you my lord?” she asked.
Connor hastily raised his right hand and started waving it around.
“No, no, that is not what I meant. Why do you call me lord in general? Since I came into this village, or town, whatever you call it. Everyone has been calling me lord, no one questioned my attire and these guns I have.” Connor replied as he pointed at the MP5 slung over his shoulder while sitting.
Jeanne was surprised, she was not sure if Connor was joking or not as the question he had asked was practically basic knowledge. But not wanting to anger the man, she replied.
“Your hair and your eyes, my lord. Yellow and blue. Throughout the kingdom, only mages and nobles are born with your features my lord. It is our duty as the citizens of the kingdom to respect our valiant mages and honourable nobles.” Jeanne replied.
“And my attire?” Connor inquired.
Jeanne smiled and shook her head.
“No one would question a noble or a mage no matter what the case is my lord, that is courting death.” she answered Connor’s question.
“This might sound interesting, but have you ever seen anyone else wearing the same clothes as I do or had guns similar to mine?” Connor asked another question.
Jeanne had a bewildered face.
A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
“I… forgive this lowly peasant for not knowing what “guns” are my lord. I have been working at this inn since I could walk and talk and throughout many years, I’ve seen many people come and go. Including nobles visiting the town every now and then. But I have to admit that I have never seen anyone else having the “guns” you talk about or wear the clothes you have at all.”
‘So it is not a widespread issue. That might explain why it takes developers so long to realize there is an issue. Though… what is she talking about? Mages, kingdoms? Is this supposed to be a hidden content?’
‘No… no way, they would at least hint something big like this. Since the beginning of the development, they kept mentioning Warzone was a modern action-strategy game. Emphasis on modern, not medieval.’
‘Then how the hell am I here?’
“My lord?” Jeanne asked.
“Ah, sorry.” Connor replied, coming out of his thinking frenzy once again.
“If you have time, please sit, I would like to ask you some extra questions.”
“While eating, that is. I hope you don’t mind, I have been really hungry for a while now.”
Connor said, which Jeanne motioned it was fine and quickly sat on the chair in front of Connor.
Throughout the next half an hour or so, Connor kept asking basic questions to Jeanne, what was the name of this town, where it was located, who was the leader of the town and many more.
The town’s name was Sehtra and was located in the Kingdom of Aure, which was ruled by King Reginald III Aure, Kingdom of Aure was formed after the Great Warring Period when the Empire of Fiel had a coup which resulted in a civil war. After the 63 years of war, the Empire had split into five different countries. Kingdom of Aure, Kingdom of Medias, Kingdom of Terasun, Republic of Sezeona and finally, the Kingdom of Fiel, which were founded by the remnants of the royal family of the Empire.
Sehtra’s leader was a nobleman called Lorik. According to Jeanne, the lord of the town did not have a good reputation amongst its habitants. He was known to be very stingy towards the citizens and would occasionally ask them to pay a lot of taxes while not giving anything back. The town had an issue with thieves and bandits roaming in the streets. The merchants had to issue quests more often than thought in the adventurer’s guild to ensure the safety of their cargo and shops in general.
The fact that people knew a piece of not-so-secret information, where Lord Lorik, whose rank was apparently a Baron, would marry really often, it was unknown how many wives he had as the women he married would never be seen again after the ceremony. Some said that the Lord used them in various magical trials, some said that the Lord would get bored and get rid of his playtoys.
“Can you tell me a bit more about the adventurer’s guild?” Connor interrupted Jeanne.
“Sure thing, my lord.” Jeanne answered.
Adventurer’s Guild was formed after the Empire had fallen, as organized military was hard to come by, most villages, towns and cities started to form their own militias. This proved to be effective against both bandits and animals attacking the city, not to mention other territories. However, some lords were not able to afford a militia or just did not want to keep paying their wages. In the end, most of the militias throughout Aure Kingdom started disappearing. Replaced by Adventurer’s Guild and people called “Adventurers” who served as mercenaries and freelancers depending on the situation. If there were an animal outbreak, the lord would pay the Adventurer’s Guild a lump sum to hire them to handle it. Or if a merchant wanted some extra protection for their goods during travel, they could also hire an adventurer. The jobs ranged from going into battles to collecting herbs for shops in the adventurer guild.
‘Huh, just like the novels.’ Connor thought.
As Connor was listening, a small notification popped up in his peripheral.
Shop cooldown has expired.
‘Ah finally.’ Connor thought.
“Is there anything else you’d like to ask my lord?” Jeanne asked after replying to Connor’s question.
“Hmm… not at the moment. Oh, just one, is there a place where I can sleep at night here?”
“Of course my lord, we are an inn after all.” Jeanne said as she smiled. “We do have vacant rooms available, I’ll start preparing one for you. How long are you planning to stay?”
“I don’t know, how many credits is it per night?” Connor answered.
“Credits? What is that my lord?” Jeanne said.
Connor frowned.
‘Shit.’
‘Another medieval currency.’
‘How the hell am I supposed to pay?’
“Uh… forget what I said, how much does it cost?” Connor rephrased his question.
“One silver per night, my lord. I assure you that our price is fair. Throughout Sethra, Sleeping Oak Inn is the safest and has the biggest rooms. Not to mention that we provide daily breakfast, all included in the price.” Jeanne sold her pitch.
‘Okay… Time to check the shop if there is any currency conversion.’ Connor thought as he opened the shop. After gaming had become mainstream, most games, especially MMOs had started to introduce some sort of a currency conversion system. Any person could buy or sell their in-game currencies. The price was dependent on the players and followed the market flow. Thanks to this feature, anyone who spent some time playing the game could actually earn a considerable sum, initially, people argued that any rich person could just invest a lot of money to win the game instantly, but that soon proved false due to the basic market principle, supply and demand. The prices would spike to astronomical levels, any person who bought in from that high was basically, financially killing themselves.
A huge screen popped up with various guns, tools, first aid packs, MREs and of course, the dreaded lootboxes. Nearly half of the screen was covered with advertisements for lootboxes and how premium their items were for less than 80% of the price.
‘Urgh.’
Connor clicked the sub-menu called ‘Wallet’ to check his balance.
Credits: 500
C/r/E/dI/T/S: 500
c҉r҉e҉d҉i҉t҉s҉:҉5҉0҉0҉
Balance: 5 gold, 0 silver, 0 copper.
‘What?’ Connor was shocked.
The credits, the word in front of him had started glitching out before being replaced by the new text. Connor was heavily confused as this could only be a system error, but was also surprised to see that he now had 5 gold, which in theory, would be valid in his situation.
Withdraw Currency
The option to withdraw currency was there, same with other games. However, Connor could not find any option to deposit or exchange the currency to anything be it UND, which was United Nations Dollars or credits.
‘Okay.’ Connor mused as he mentally clicked the Withdraw option.
How much would you like to withdraw?
A question box had popped up which prompted him to enter a certain amount of gold, silver or copper and click either Withdraw or Cancel. As if to test the system, Connor entered the number 5 in the silver box and clicked withdraw.
Suddenly, 5 silver coins appeared in his hand. The coins had a “WZ” logo on them, it was the symbol of the currency in the game with W and Z letters somewhat intertwined with each other. Somewhat resembling the dollar symbol.
Jeanne seeing this, smiled.
‘I knew he was a mage.’ Jeanne thought.
Connor, on the other hand, was shocked beyond belief.
‘What the hell? That is both cool and scary at the same time.’
“cough. Here, 5 silvers. I hope they can cover a few days and the cost of this meal.” Connor said towards Jeanne as he dropped the silver coins in front of her on the table.
“It will cover, my lord.” Jeanne smiled brightly.
Jeanne looked at the table to realize that Connor had finished eating most of his meal.
“Would you like me to prepare your room now, my lord?” Jeanne inquired.
“Please do. I would like some rest.” Connor replied.
‘I need some time to figure out this shop. In private.’ Connor thought to himself.
Jeanne got up and started cleaning the table then she headed upstairs. After a few minutes, she came back and let Connor know that the room was ready. Connor went upstairs with her as she guided him into his room.
“My lord… let me know if you need anything, anything.” Jeanne said while blushing a little.
Unfortunately for her, Connor had a lot in his mind.
“Ah yeah, sure. Thanks.” he answered and got in the room, closing the door after himself.
‘Alright, time to figure out this shop and the lootboxes.’