Survive five days (0/5)
[[ Johnny ♡30 ]]
The figure next to the “♡” that stood above the heads of every NPC indicated the favorability the NPC felt towards the Overlooker. Asking his teammates, he found out that the NPCs had different starting favorabilities depending on their impressions, likes, and dislikes. Take Johnny’s favorability, for example. It was a staggering 80 for a young gorgeous woman like Aythe while for Dimen (Avah) who was young and gorgeous but not quite a woman, the value was less than half even though neither of them had interacted with Johnny at all.
Masom took over the role of conversing and the two were having a small talk at the front of the group as Johnny brought them to the house that had been prepared for their stay. Finally, they arrived at a two-story house with its wooden exterior weathered and windows that were covered with such a thick layer of dirt and crust that they had lost their transparency. The house was a 10-minute walk from the village head’s house and the main residential area, separated away from the village. There was nothing but a small shrine that the villagers worshiped in its immediate vicinity. Johnny claimed that the shrine would protect the house and cleanse the hearts of those who had come back from outside.
“Oh, and just in case you don’t remember, our village still doesn’t get enough electricity so the light will be out after 10 when people sleep. It will come back at 5 so we can cook and get ready for work.”, Johnny said before leaving them alone in the house.
As soon as Johnny’s figure faded from their view, all of them turned towards Masom waiting for his order and advice. “Alright, you girls stay downstairs since there are two bedrooms. Two of you should sleep in one room and the three should share the other since it would be dangerous to sleep alone. We will take the upstairs. Adnam and Peter take one room, and Dimen stays with Oliver in the other. I don’t mind sleeping alone because I’ve got ways to protect myself. But don’t be too paranoid, you won’t die unless you go out of your way to fulfill the death conditions. The first night’s relatively peaceful so get as much sleep as you can tonight in case you won’t be sleeping the other nights. Any question?”
“When can we go explore? Do we have to go in teams too?”, Peter asked looking like he would go explore at once as long as Masom gave him permission to.
“You can go by yourself once it gets bright outside. We will share what we’ve discovered throughout the day at dinner. Remember, this isn’t a solo game and it isn’t about who breaks out first. We have to cooperate and put our clues together for our survival. I suggest you newcomers against it but, if you want to do your story quest, I won’t stop you as long as you don’t drag others down. As for the story quest, since this should be an easy world, you can most likely trigger it by talking to the villagers.” Masom said firmly but his quick speaking towards the end betrayed his wariness towards the stunts the newcomers tend to pull.
Seeing no one else had questions, Masom and the guys including Dimen went upstairs and entered their room. Although the house looked old and dirty from the outside, the interior was neatly maintained and all the pieces of furniture were thoroughly dusted. Oliver strode into the room nearest to the toilet without asking for anyone’s permission causing Dimen to apologetically nod towards the others and follow him in. The room had two beds, each with clean sheets, and the cupboard in the middle was filled with clothes of two different sizes that strangely fit them perfectly. Dimen inched towards his bed to stretch his back when Oliver extended his hands in front of him, halting him from moving any further.
“Tsk, tsk. You newbies are always so careless. What if the village prepared some hex in the room or the beds? Watch, I will do you a favor.”, Oliver swaggered towards the middle of the bedroom and took out a silver Tibetan handbell from his inventory space. The bell was much smaller than the ones Dimen had seen before but with one shake of Oliver’s hand, it jolted the air in the room with a shrill chime. Its reverberations were felt almost tangible as if the sound waves were visible in the air. The bell burnt out to ashes and completely vanished as its chime died down.
Dimen guessed that this must be what the system referred to as ‘Keepsake’ and the bell was a consumable type. Dimen nodded his head seriously and said, “Thank you.” As he went to his bed, he thought to himself that the veterans were really supportive as the nature of the world forced them to work together.
Seeing him go straight to bed without asking anything, Oliver was left hanging in his place with a missed opportunity to show off his tail feather to this hatchling. What the hell was he supposed to do with a ‘thank you’? Eat it?? Oliver stomped his feet out of the room and slammed the bedroom door followed by a few more stomps and another slam of the bathroom door.
Stolen novel; please report.
Lying in his bed, Dimen’s curiosity regarding keepsakes grew before deciding to follow the only clue he had. Let’s go dig some graves tomorrow.
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Dimen stirred slightly in his sleep and hugged his blanket that was neatly covering him the same way it had the entire night. A gentle warmth from the rays of sunlight that penetrated through the layers of dirt on the windows landed on his face, waking him up. As he blinked away the sleepiness, an unfamiliar ceiling came into his view. Dimen found himself still unused to not waking up to the furious ringings of his phone from his infuriated manager calling to scold him for being late again to some meetings or interviews that had entirely slipped his mind.
It seemed to be around 8 and Oliver was no longer in the room. Dimen had gone to sleep the latest last night since he had to wait for everyone to finish showering as there was only one bathroom on each floor. He folded his blanket and got ready for the day. Just like Masom had said nothing unusual happened last night. Everything was peaceful to the point, that it felt like a real holiday to their peaceful hometown.
Dimen made his way downstairs to find that he was the only one left at the house. There was some chicken fried rice on the table which didn’t suit Dimen’s taste since Dimen wasn’t quite in a rush, he took his time to take out each piece of chicken from his bowl. While he wasn’t exactly a vegetarian, he liked to exclude meat from his meals when he could choose to. Thankfully he found a jar of raw honey which he drowned his bowl of fried rice with, turning it into a mushy and discordant mixture. A truly odd-looking combination but the honey’s intense sweetness satisfied Dimen’s sweet tooth and the fired rice filled his stomach.
It was completely bright outside by the time Dimen left the house. He followed a walking trail overtaken by weeds, the result of not being used for some time, and made his way out of the lawn. At the same time, a middle-aged woman came out from the adjacent gate that led to the shrine. She was of average appearance with nothing about her standing out except the bunch of withered flowers of different varieties she held in her hands.
Dimen approached her, “Morning, did you come to change the flower?”
Seeming to be taken by surprise by his greeting, the woman replied, “Oh, It’s you! Dimen, right? Good morning and yes, I’m in charge of taking care of the shrine this month. Do you need something? I saw the others left around 5 but I’ve no idea where they’re right now.”
‘It turned out that the NPC would automatically register you by the name you had given, whether it was your real name or not’ Dimen pondered the fundamental principles of the NPC and the world as he answered, “Right, I was going to visit the village cemetery, but then I found out that I don’t quite remember the way and the streets had become unfamiliar since we’ve left.”
A look of realization dawned upon the woman’s face as she uttered, “Ah, what a filial son you are, visiting your mother before anything else! Good, good! Do you remember the way to the main village entrance? Just go straight from there and take the first right turn. Your mother’s grave has been moved to that cemetery from the one at the back of the village. She rests in the third row from the entrance; you will find her on your left.”
While he promptly grasped that the woman was talking about the setting of his character in this world, the concept of having a deceased mother felt awkward to him, especially when he had both sets of parents alive and hearty.
He parted ways with the woman quickly after that as she had other things to do and headed his way toward the cemetery. There were a few other villagers along the way but the village was mostly empty at this time as they were either working at the village market or attending to their farms. The summery atmosphere shifted drastically as soon as he walked past the village welcome sign, and the air grew progressively heavier and colder as he approached the cemetery to that point it felt like there was a sudden shift in season.
Noon was just a few hours away yet, a heavy layered fog enveloped the entire area, suffocating every sunbeam, and denying their entry. As Dimen stepped into the cemetery, a jolt of electrostatic shock traveled along his hand, which was the first to pass through the gates, all the way to his arms. The tingling sensation in his hand resonated through his body as if the air inside had turned to icy needles passing electric charge between themselves. Dimen perceived that he had entered a special area inside the world. Everything about the place from chilling mist crawling on the floor that swallowed his feet and hid his path to the menacing clouds overcasting the sky screamed ‘death flag’. While it would have been an instant death sentence to visit this place at night, Dimen fought nothing that threatened his life, other than a hundred or so pairs of eyes that he felt upon him, a replication of last night’s ‘welcome’.
But then, he finally noticed something that caused his eyelids to twitch. He came all this way, fully convinced that the village would have traditional in-ground cemeteries, the kind that’s diggable, but what greeted him was a cemetery with above-ground tombs…
‘Oh, well..at least I found out about my character’s dead mother.’
Dimen carefully navigated around the cemetery with his hands clasped together as the cold was already getting to him. If it was his previous self, he wouldn’t even notice the temperature change but for ‘young master Avah’ who did nothing but rot in his cave, he knew he wouldn’t have much time to leisure around here.
Each of the tombs had a name and a title, most of which were either ‘bravest soldier’ or ‘best comrade-in-arms’ that got Dimen pondering. This place seemed to be a war cemetery but if it was one, how come ‘his mother’ was moved towards here? It didn’t take him long to find the woman’s grave on which it said, “Sandie Anglin, Proudest Mother”.
The second he finished reading her headstone, a familiar noise rang in his head.
[[ Ding! Story quest triggered. ]]
[[ Task: Find out about Sandie Anglin’s son. ]]