Zach went back to the guildhall to see Aurora consoling Aria.
“…” Zach watched them from a distance and raised his brows.
‘Why do I have a bad feeling about this?’
Zach approached Aurora and Aria from behind and heard Aurora saying, ‘I will talk to him.’
“Oh?” Zach furrowed his brows and asked, “What are you going to talk about and with whom?”
Aria’s face turned pale after seeing Zach, but Aurora’s face cheered up.
“How long have you been standing there?” Aurora asked.
“Since the beginning,” Zach replied.
Of course, it was a lie, and he made it obvious by averting his gaze.
“I completed my quest,” Aurora informed.
“Yes. I got your message.” Zach turned to Aria and asked, “But it seems someone didn’t.”
“I-I can explain,” Aria replied while stuttering on her words.
“Yes, start explaining,” Zach uttered with a frowned face.
Aurora came in between Zach and Aria and spread her arms.
Zach raised his brows with a confused look on his face and asked, “What are you doing?”
“You will keep your distance from Ameria.” Aurora squinted her eyes and asked, “You do know that she is a shy girl, right?”
‘Shy girl, my foot! She is a sly girl!’ Zach wanted to yell that so badly, but he couldn’t risk it.
Aurora then turned to Aria and said, “Ameria, don’t worry. Just tell him what happened.”
Aria looked into Zach’s eyes and uttered, “So I first went to the forest to collect the yellow petals because the time limit of that quest was the least.”
“But when I entered the forest, I was attacked by monsters,” Aria asserted.
“I am not sure, so I will ask you.” Zach raised his brows at Aurora and asked, “Are there monsters in forests?”
Aurora nodded and answered, “There are monsters everywhere, and it’s common in VR games. However, the monsters don’t come near towns or safe zones.”
“Alright.” Zach nodded and looked at Aria before saying, “Continue.”
“Of course, killing monsters was like stepping on ants for me. But I couldn’t find yellow petals. So I went deeper into the forest. However, the deeper I went, the more monsters I encountered.”
“They should be stronger too,” Aurora quipped.
“Still, I couldn’t find the yellow petals. So I summoned the black slime for the help section, and it told me that yellow flower petals only spawn at a specific time of night.”
“…” Zach knitted his brows and uttered inwardly: ‘That is possible.’
“And the time limit for that quest ended?” Zach guessed.
Aria nodded and continued, “Then, I had only one hour left to fish 20 silver scaled fish. So I ran my way to the river and started finishing.”
“Now, please don’t tell me that the silver scaled fishes were rare fishes, and they also spawned at a specific time,” Zach guessed with a remark.
“Umm. You are not wrong. But I did manage to find them. However, as expected, one hour was too less to fish 20 fish,” Aria stated.
Zach face-palmed himself and thought, ‘Where is that savage woman I met in the domain. This one is useless.’
“How many did you manage to fish, though?” Zach asked.
“19. I was so close! I even had the 20th fish under my hook, but…!” Aria sighed and lowered her voice to say, “Sorry.”
“Sorry doesn’t suit your mouth,” Zach sneered. “If you truly feel sorry, then you better accept and complete more NPC quests.”
“I will do them tomorrow,” Aria muttered. “I am too tired right now.”
Zach raised his brows and asked with a curious look on his face: “How many monsters did you encounter?”
“I lost the count after 1200,” Aria replied with a sigh.
“1200 monsters?!” Aurora exclaimed. “That’s too many monster. How deep did you go in the forest?”
“As deep as I could,” Aria replied. “The deeper I went, the narrower the path got.”
Zach covered his face with his hands and muttered, “My mind is so dirty.”
Zach met with the merchant in the guildhall and confirmed the completion of two NPC quests.
After that, they went to the restaurant and ate lunch.
Zach stopped at the gear shop on his way and tried to sell the default sword, but as one would have expected, the default sword was useless in the first realm. So he threw the sword in the sewer.
“Isn’t this too early to go home?” Zach commented.
“Yes, but…” Aurora glanced at Aria, who was barely standing on her feet, and said, “She looks exhausted.”
“Then let her go home. We will do something else,” Zach suggested.
“What?” Aurora asked with a flushed face.
“Well, originally, I was thinking we would once again defeat the boss monster of the 50th floor in the dungeon. But the freaking gods changed the EXP gain to only 10%, so it’s useless now.”
Zach turned to Aurora and asked, “You suggest something good.”
“Let’s go clear the dungeons,” Aurora uttered with a grin on her face.
Zach snorted and groaned, “Come on~”
“We will polish our sword skills as well as our duo syncing attacks,” Aurora asserted.
“I guess?” Zach shrugged his shoulders and said, “I also need to practice a new move with my DT skill.”
“And that is…?” Aurora asked with a curious look on her face.
Zach smirked and replied, “You will find out soon enough.”
Aria went home while Zach and Aurora entered the dungeon and started clearing it with floor one.
“Kill all the monsters, but leave one,” Zach asserted.
Aurora killed 99 monsters alone without breaking a sweat and left one for Zach.
Zach grabbed the monster’s head with his hand and used his DT skill.
[Floor 1 has been cleared!]
“…”
Aurora furrowed her brows at Zach and asked, “What’s new about this?”
“Not this. But I wanted to try using a specific amount of my MP.”
“Why would you want to do that when you call kill any enemy by touching it?” Aurora asked with a puzzled look on her face
“Sometimes, I run out of MP, and DT uses my HP. While sometimes, when I am carrying a certain someone, I need to use other ways to deal DMG to the monster because my DT skill would kill the monster in one hit.”
Zach looked at Aurora from the corner of his eyes and said, “So imagine, what if I could deal the DMG I wanted using a specific amount of MP? I could leave the monster at 1 HP and let you have the last hit so you can gain the EXP.”
“That does sound cool.” Aurora grabbed Zach’s hand and said, “Let’s go practice it then.”
They passed through the blue portal and entered the next floor.
‘I don’t know what I would have done if I hadn’t met Aurora. I would have still met Victoria, and she would have still broken up with me.’
‘Maybe I would have turned into a lone wolf who surpassed everyone and ascended to the peak, risen to the pinnacle, unleashed the monsters inside me, and went on a rampage. Or perhaps, I would have become a monster myself?’
***
Total players in the game 405781.
0 new players logged in.
41 players died.
====
Author’s Note- No one cares.
