Zach and Aurora strolled around the city after getting information from the players around— although they didn’t get any helpful information.
Both Zach and Aurora considered that as a date, but neither of them said it out loud.
After that, they went to the inn and ate more than usual. Aurora wanted to celebrate Zach’s birthday, so they had a small party in the room.
Fortunately, neither of them drank any alcoholic drink, or it would have undoubtedly triggered a cliche event where they mistakenly slept with each other and didn’t remember any of that.
After waking up, they ate breakfast and went straight to the guildhall.
Guildhall was a place where most of the players stayed for business purposes. All the guilds gathered there and conducted a meeting.
Zach wasn’t interested in that, but Aurora insisted on going there because they could meet strong players there who could provide information. Zach and Aurora had a major disadvantage in collecting information because there was a party of only two people. Their knowledge of the game was limited compared to the parties of 10 players and guilds of over 50 players.
After reaching the guildhall, Aurora and Zach split up so they could ask more people.
Zach’s main plan was to get Aurora to reach level 25 as soon as possible, so he could give her the sword. However, as a player leveled up, the leveling up got harder.
Zach approached a beefy player and politely asked for information, but the player asked for money in exchange.
Then, Zach went to a nerd-looking player and asked for the information, but that player turned out to be a douchebag who asked for not only money but also his items.
Zach had it enough, but he went for the last try and asked the player standing by the door, but it turned out to be an NPC who only had knowledge about the guild-related stuff.
“This is why sociability is dead…”
Zach opened his menu and messaged Aurora to meet him at the backside of the guildhall.
‘I guess we will go to clear dungeons. It’s not like we have anything else to do.’
After a while, Zach wondered, “Could there be a secret dungeon in the capital too?”
‘I remember Aurora mentioning there are hidden areas that aren’t mentioned in the maps. I wonder what else the gods are hiding. But… why are they hiding?’
“Zach!” Aurora called him from behind.
Zach looked back to see Aurora approaching him with another girl.
Zach looked at the girl and asked, “Who is this?”
“Her name is Ameria. And… she is a healer,” Aurora introduced Ameria.
Ameria was a little taller than Aurora— she was about the same height as Zach. She had long black hair that was coming to her waist. She had black eyes, and she was wearing a normal healer outfit.
She looked shy and meek. She was looking down at the floor and hiding behind Aurora.
Zach found it hard to deal with a girl like that,
“Oh. Is she here to give us information?” Zach asked with a curious and excited look on his face.
“No. She is on the same boat as us,” Aurora replied.
Zach raised his brows and asked, “So.. why did you bring her here?”
“She wants to join our party.”
“…”
Aurora and Zach stared at each other in silence for a while.
“She wants to join our party,” Aurora repeated herself.
“I heard you the first time,” Zach groaned. “Why does she want to join our party?”
“And I thought we were supposed to gather information, not party members,” he added with a remark.
“She is a healer. Do you know how rare the healers are in this game? They are on-demand right now! Every party wants a healer,” Aurora asserted.
“Yeah, but I already have you, and you are enough for me,” Zach uttered nonchalantly. Of course, he was referring to her healer class.
Aurora’s face flushed as she got lost in her thoughts, but Ameria pulled Aurora’s sleeves and gripped her tightly.
“Right..” Aurora nodded and said, “Listen to her story first.”
Aurora turned to Ameria and said in a gentle voice: “You have to speak for yourself.”
Ameria walked forward and stared at Zach for a while before saying, “My name is… Ameria…”
“My name is magic-man.”
“I… was…”
“Speak loudly.”
“My first class is bowman; it has now evolved to ranger class. My secondary class is healer; it has now evolved to priest,” Ameria uttered meekly in a low voice.
‘Ranger and priest… so she is level 25 or more…’
“I was a solo player until I was recruited by a party to join them. At first, it was fun; we went to the dungeons and towers and fought monsters. But after some days, they noticed that I was getting a lot of attention because of my healer class,” Ameria asserted.
“In my free time, I healed players for free because I felt bad for charging money from players.” After hearing that, Zach shot a glance at Aurora and knitted his brows as though he was mocking her because she charged money to heal layers. However, the only player Aurora had healed so far was Zach.
“But when my party found out that I heal players for free, they forced me to charge them. I thought maybe charging a little money wouldn’t be bad as it would help me financially. However, I was mistaken.”
“Your party took all your money and didn’t give you anything?” Zach guessed.
Ameria nodded and continued, “I was tired of it. And when I confronted them, they threatened me that they would kill me.”
“And then you somehow managed to run away and ended up here?” Zach guessed more.
‘She can live a good life as a healer, but her personality will get her in trouble. And her primary class is ranger, so unless she has some OP skills, she can’t survive alone.’ Zach pondered for a while and nodded.
“You can join us, I guess…” Zach groaned. “Having two healers by my side will keep me reassured.”
Ameria smiled widely and said, “Thank you! I will try my best.”
‘Wait…’ Aurora’s face turned pale after she realized something.
‘Ameria is a healer, and she is higher level than me. Isn’t her character basically replacing me?’ Aurora thought to herself.
‘And most importantly, she is a girl.’ Aurora glanced at Ameria and saw her smiling at Zach.
‘Did I just… dig my own grave?’
****
Total players in the game 452863
0 new players logged in.
231 players died.
====
[Weekly Quest.]
«300 power stones or 100 Golden tickets – 1 chapter.»
«500 power stones or 200 Golden tickets – 2 chapters.»
===
Author’s Note- This concludes the three extra chapters for reaching the golden ticket goal last month. One more bonus chapter will come after 19 hours!