‘Actually, let’s see what my stats look like!’
STATUS
Name: Gun
Css: Deadshot
Level: 0
EXP: 0%
Health: 200/200
Mana: 200/200
Abnormal State: None
ditiohy
ATTRIBUTES
Vitality: 20
Strength: 20
Dexterity: 20
Agility: 20
Intelligence: 20
Wisdom: 20
Charm: 0 (+1)
Luck: 0
DETAILS
Subcsses: None
Titles: None
Active Skills: None
Passive Skills: None
Level-based RPGs (Role-Pying Games) would always have a special system to digitally represent the pyer’s abilities with numerical digits. Max had spent an excessive amount of time looking for ways to even minorly increase these amounts in Hero of Liberation.
This time, however, the game was not ohat was desigo be beaten, sihe format was an MMO (Massively Multipyer Online) game rather than a single pyer campaign. As such, Max wasn’t prepared to try as hard this time around; he would just mess around and have some fun.
Unfortunately, Max only felt annoyaher than fun when he looked at his information s.
‘Charm is so low?!’
He had a single paltry point in charm, a far cry from the values of his other stats. If it weren’t for his cool hat, the value would be zero.
‘Unfivable!’
In fact, the pyers ihe game were forced to create an avatar with the same body structure as they had in real life, because the game used the pyer’s existing sensory receptors to be able to see, touch, taste and smell things. Even Virtek’s teology wasn’t advanced enough to allow people to feel or trol body tissue they didn’t have. At best, they could give a few minor vanity options for facial structure and ge the outward appearance of a pyer to look strohan they actually were.
In Max’s case, he mostly missed out on ising his avatar because he got locked out of those options after registering his username. Fortunately, Max worked out most ms in real life before leaving for work, so he already had a muscur aoned body, capable of appearing on the front cover of a gym magazihout looking suspicious.
Even with this, his charm without the new hat would be zero. This was uable to Max.
Before he could look up how to increase his charm, a melodie started pying in the air.
[ Notice: Pyer ‘Cye_Rone’ has accepted your friendship request ]
[ Notice: Pyer ‘Cye_Rone’ is calling. Accept? Y/N ]
Max accepted and was immediately weled to the sound of yelling.
“Maxie-boyyyy!!!” How did you go, did you pass the test?”
“Ahh!! Don’t talk! Don’t talk!” Max searched for the audio settings like his life depended on it and turned his call volume down.
“Hm? Why, did you fail?”
“No, I passed, I passed. Your voice was just more loud and annoying than usual for some reason.”
“Rude. Well I passed my test too, so do you wan up to do a dungeon nearby?”
“Sure. Do you know where one is, though?”
“Yeah, there’s a starter dungeon nearby. Well, I say nearby, but it has ara literally every starter town in the game, so it’s basically just om.”
“Gotcha. How do I get there?”
“I’ll add you to my party a a oint on your map for you to travel towards.”
“Okay. By the way, if you seo a random s or something, I’ll unfriend you.”
Rone cursed silently oher end of the call.
...
...
Max arrived at the dungeorand stared at the man across from him. The man had refined facial features aly styled purple hair, vastly different than the version of the man that Max was familiar with.
“...Why do you look strange.”
“Good sir, have you ever entered the term ‘looksmaxxing’, perce?”
“You’re trying to cospy as a nobleman, aren’t you?”
“Perce. Anyways you’re er, you suddenly became a red-haired cowboy today?”
Max smiled remembering his gmorous new hat and grabbed the brim by reflex. “I sure did, partner.”
“Stop.”
“So how do we get in? Do we just walk up to it?” Max looked around and saw there were already a few dozen pyers nearby. “Are there people ioo?”
“Yes to the first question, no to the sed. The dungeons teleport you to a separate, isoted server so that everyone challehem at the same time without hindering each other. There is one problem with this duhough, which I didn’t realise before. Just a very slight problem.”
“Which is?”
“It’s actually a 1-person dungeon, so we ’t go in together.”
“Phew.” Max made a show of sighing exaggeratedly and wiping away his ent sweat.
Rone narrowed his eyes. “Hoho, I think I just came up with the perfect idea.”
“Go on.”
“We both ehe dungeon at the same time, and whoever clears it first wins.”
“Iing, but that won’t be any fun, will it?”
“Huh? Why not?”
“I’ve pyed Dive games for four years, whereas you only just started today. Have you even fought anythi?”
“Er, well no... Alright, I see yic.”
“Right? It’s like a grown adult peting with a toddler in a triathlon.”
“Okay I wouldn’t go that far.”
“How about this, if I ’t beat your time by more than half, you win.”
“...So you mean, If I take less than twice as long as you, I’ll win?”
“Yes.”
“You’re quite fident, aren’t you?”
“Anyone would be fident against a toddler, though?”
“Could you drop that analogy already?”
“Nah, don’t wanna.”
...
...
While the two grown men bickered like toddlers in front of the dungeorance, another pair of pyers looked on from nearby.
“Yo, Gee. How do I get a hat like that?”
“Sorry? Where?”
“Over there, the two idiots he entrance.”
“Oh, I see. My apologies young master, but I do not believe there was any such apparel at the marketpce, so it is likely a mission reward. Would you like me to approad ask them?”
“No need, just have our tacts tell us the necessary-”
“NO! You ’t wear it!” Making a loud disturbahe man with the cattleman hat took off his hat and held it above him, as the slightly shorter purple-haired man attempted to jump and grab it. “This is a unique, one-of-a-kind mission reward, I’ll have you know! It even increases my charm stat; as if I’d let someone else touch it!”
“...” Gee suddenly had a bad premonition.
“...Gee.”
“Y-yes, young master Tristan?
“Get me the hat.”
...
...
“Phew, that crazy bastard. Didn’t expect that, did he?”
Rone had unfortunately fallen victim to the hidden effect of the cattleman hat, which was an AoE (Area of Effect) pulsion spell. Anyone who saw his cool hat would instantly bee enamoured with it and want it for themselves. This being the case, Max couldn’t really bme him for his as.
Luckily, they happeo be right o a dungeorance, so Max simply backstepped into the dungeorao be teleported away and escaped.
“Hehehe wait- I should be hurrying right now, shouldn’t I?”
Realising he agreed to a speed petition, Max broke into a run and equipped the bow he’d been given after passing the archer test. Outside the dungeon, there had been a rge wall mural with paintings of a certain small, ugly creatures. As such, Max kly what sort of eo expect here.
Pew. An arrow shot through a goblin’s head. The goblin was fag the other way and died instantly, not knowing what killed it.
Pew. Pew. Awo arrows tore through some goblins who were sitting at a lit campfire. One of the goblins ushed back by the force of the arrow and fell into the campfire. Max appuded his own charitability for free cremation services.
Pew.
Pew. Pew.
Pew.
Max shot while running as he tore through the dungeo alo up a fight, most of the goblins weren’t even able to see him before they had their heads invaded by arrows.
Entering an interseax didn’t know which way to go, so he just proceeded straight. As he ran, a gobli off of a boulder towards him and was met with an arrow through the ium.
“Eh? Isn’t this pretty easy? Is it because it’s the first dungeon?”
For Max, it felt trivially straightforward to defeat the ehis was in stark trast to his experience from Hero of Liberation, where fighting was difficult from the get-go. It felt like there wasn’t even any danger here; there weren’t any traps, either.
“They must be making it easy finner pyers this time.”
Sihey wahe game to be popur and attract as many new pyers as possible, it made seo go easy at the beginning so people wouldn’t be turned away.
“But... It’s s.”
Max didn’t enjoy this type of gamepy. For normal pyers, a massacre like this would make someone feel at least a small sense of superiority and dominance, but to Max, this was like gratuting yourself for defeating a snail, or some other i; it did not provide even a minute sense of fulfilment. He would much prefer a tough challenge instead.
‘I wonder why they made the archer test so hard, when the bat is so easy?’
Pew.
“Woah, haha.”
One of the arrows went straight through a goblin’s brain and into another’s, sg Max a bizarre double-kill.
Eventually, after shooting a hundred or so goblins, Max arrived at a rge open room with a tall ceiling. His gamer instincts called out to him. ‘Boss room!’
Dungeon bosses were almost alut in rge, spacious rooms, so the pyer would have enough ground to manoeuvre and dodge attacks when necessary. It ractically an unwritten rule in game design at this point.
Looking across the room, a taller, more muscur goblin was standing there fidently, wielding a metal sword. It s Max as some saliva dripped from its face. Max had quite good eyesight so he could see the saliva hit the floor from where he was standing. It was a bit gross, but he’d seen much worse when watg Rone.
That made him remember: Acc to Rone’s long-winded lecture st night, dungeon bosses were the guardians of dungeons; strong monsters, who would try to prevent a special crystal called the ‘dungeon core’ from beiroyed by the pyers.
Wanting to probe how fast the boss was, Max let off two shots at its head. If it used its on to block rather than dodge, Max would be able to use this to force the boss on the defensive, keeping it from attag. Oher hand, if-
“Eh?”
The two shots found fortable homes oher side of the boss’s forehead as the rge goblin slowly staggered backward, before crumpling over and falling to the ground, devoid of life.
[ Level Up! ]
“...”
After a few seds, the boss’s body disied into red particles a nothing behind except a small jewel, which emitted a faint lustre oone floor.
Slightly angry at having gotten worked up for nothing, and not g about the value of the jewel, Max fired a shot at it, causing it to split into small fragments, which skidded along the floor with a brief, high-pitched noise, remi of shattered gss.
[ gratutions! You have cleared the dungeon ]
“What?”
[ You have set a speed record for this dungeon. Would you like this achievement to be made public? Y/N ]
“...”
Max felt a profound sense of dissatisfa. He also pressed ‘no’ to making the achievement public. Who would care about Max’s personal high-score in a mere starter dungeon? People would only ugh at his narcissism. Why would they even have an option for beating your speed record when you hadn’t beaten the dungeon previously? What a dumb system!
Max grumbled for a little longer... before realising he was actually being a bit petty. Why get upset over such a small and insignifit matter? Just ig and move on.
Regaining his crity, he set off to collect all of his arrows and find some dungeon loot.
[ You have cleared this dungeon. You will be evicted in 10s ]
“...”
Max ged his mind and decided to tinue sulking.