With a grin on his face, Eisen waved the notifications away, happy that he only had three more stats that needed to reach 100, and only two more if he considered that his AGI stat only needed one more stat point to reach 100 as well.
Eisen was doing pretty well against these Rank 3 Goblins at this point, so hopefully that wouldn't change even if he only concentrated on his INT and WIS stats and then kept fighting stronger and stronger enemies, for which he would then rely on the three stats he wouldn't keep increasing for now.
"Eisen, can you come over here for a second?" Jyuuk yelled and waved the old man over. When Eisen got close enough, he noticed that Jyuuk's eyes were completely white without an iris or pupil. By now, Eisen knew that this was what it looked like while Jyuuk saw through one of his beasts' eyes, so he figured that something was wrong with the area if Jyuuk called Eisen over.
"Is everything alright? Did you see something worrying?" He asked, and Jyuuk nodded sligthly.
"It's not something necessarily bad, it's just that we have to make sure we're careful. I can see walls, and there seem to be a great number of buildings beyond them. We're probably close to a Goblin Town."
"Ah, so it really was around here… Can you see any specifics about it?" Eisen asked and closed his eyes while he began to scratch his beard in thought.
"Yes. It seems to be quite large, consisting of several different areas. The outermost area seems to be holding the weakest Goblins in the town, as well as the worst equipped. The wall outside is made of old, unstable wood, and the huts are quite rudimentary, only consisting of mud and straw. Then there's another wall behind that area, seemingly quite a bit sturdier, and it's made of thick logs and even has some decorations. The huts there are a bit larger, and are made nearly completely of wood. I can't see the Goblins well enough to tell how strong they would be.
Then there's another wall, made nearly completely of stone, and beyond that are buildings made with bricks for the most part. In the center of that area is a large stone construct, something like a castle of some sort."
"I see… So the Goblins will probably get stronger the closer we get to the castle, huh? Should we set out toward the town? It would be a pretty good place to level up, right? Constant supply of enemies, and there will probably be a lot more materials to take advantage of. Oh, and if we clear a certain area, we can camp in the houses if we need to."
Jyuuk nodded in response to Eisen's suggestion, and the irises and pupils in his eyes showed up again. "That seems like a good idea, yes. However, we will probably be faced with a higher amount of enemies at once."
"That's fine with me. I'll talk about it with Bree and ask her opinion about it as well. Is there something like a gate we can enter through?" Eisen asked while mentally beginning to plan the attack against the Goblin Town.
Grasping the handle of his Zweihänder tightly, Eisen smiled exctitedly in the direction of the town, thinking about what this would mean. It would probably be possible to level up enough so that he could finish the quest he got from that cat. No, the creature that simply showed itself to be a cat!
Eisen was sure that it would be some amazing mythical creature, and more importantly that it would be able to give Eisen great materials, to make even greater items! Thinking about this, all that mentally exhausting fighting was completely worth it!
---
"Well then, let's look at the loot we got today." Eisen said and sat down at the table inside the largest hut that was in their immediate vicinity after they decided they had cleared a large enough area inside the outermost part of the Goblin Town.
It was getting close to evening, and Eisen's and Jyuuk's in-game bodies were starting to need sleep. So, they decided to camp inside one of the huts, just as Eisen had suggested before. Luckily, inside were some rudimentary furniture, meaning logs as chairs, a simple fireplace, as well as a large log cut in half vertically to act as a table.
"Alright~!" Bree said with a smile and set down her backpack next to the table, slowly grabbing all the mana crystals, gems, and the like and placing them onto the surface in front of her.
"So, if you two don't mind, I would like to take most of the gems from the mage staffs, since I'm sure I could do some cool things with them. If you two want some, though, I don't mind."
"No, it's alright. I don't mind. I'm not sure if I have any use for most of the things we got from these goblins, except the mana crystals to sell for some money, of course. We can just split those in three, if you want. You can split the rest however you want." Jyuuk said with a smile while his tamed beasts were snuggling up to him and each other.
Eisen frowned slightly, but ended up nodding. "If you say so. Well, if you want me to make something for you or your beasts, you just need to let me know."
"Of course, thank you." The Monkey-Man responded while the group simply split the mountain of mana crystals into three equal parts. After everyone packed their portions away, Eisen stood up and looked at both Bree and Jyuuk.
"Alright, now! Shall I make something to eat for us?" Eisen said with a smile and walked over to Bree's backpack and opened it up to look for the cooking ingredients and tools.
"Yamikuma, Aotori and the chicks can eat raw meat, right?" Eisen asked while looking at Jyuuk, and he nodded in response. "Yes, they do. You don't need to worry about making something for them. I'll go out with Tsurishika later so that he can eat as well."
"Alright, then here you go. Give them this." With a smile, Eisen handed Jyuuk some of the boar meat to give his beasts, and then stepped over to the fireplace, using one of the flame-enchanted mana crystals to start it up.
He placed the pan over it and poured oil onto the metal surface that was slowly heating up, then grabbed some of the pieces of the meat without any bones left in them to make simple porkchops. He was feeling kind of exhausted for some reason. Of course not physically, but he was starting to feel incredibly mentally exhausted lately. After all, he was basically constantly inside of this capsule, doing all kinds of things, some of which felt completely new to him. Maybe after finishing up this quest, he should just take a break and spend a day outside of the game, simply relax in his bed or read a book.
But for now, he needed to finish everything up, so Eisen decided to pull through and just keep doing his best.
So, Eisen began to cook. He placed the porkchops into the pan and smiled softly at the sizzle sound that appeared when he did so. After a few minutes, the old man finished browning the pork chops on both sides, and then placed them to the side on a plate.
Eisen then grabbed a few apples that he picked earlier this day and cut them into wedges. He placed them aside and then took one of the onions he had and cut them into thin slices. Luckily this game was realistic, but not realistic enough to make him actually tear up while cutting these onions. He did still feel some discomfort, though.
Either way, Eisen put the apples and onions into the same pan as he used before and added a little bit of water into the mix, which he then stirred for a little bit before placing the porkchops over the apple mixture.
Then, Eisen quickly mixed some olive oil and a little bit of vinegar together, which he then drizzled over the porkchops. And after sprinkling them with salt and pepper, he placed a pan cover on top of it to slowly let everything simmer.
It didn't take long until Dinner was done after this, and brought the whole pan over to the table where Bree and Jyuuk were already waiting after setting the table with the simple wooden plates and cutlery.
[Boar Chops Cooked with Apples and Onions]
[Quality – High][Rank – 0]
[Description] A simple dish that has been made of Boar Porkchops that have been cooked in a mixture of apples and onions.
"Nice. Simple, but delicious." Eisen muttered to himself after reading through the information about the dish he prepared, and then continued by serving the food to his companions.
"Thanks for the meal, Eisen." Jyuuk smiled and folded his hands shortly before starting to dig in.
"Mhm! Thanks for the food!" The Fey-kin Bree said with a smile that exposed her pearly white teeth.
Smiling, Eisen thanked the both of them, and the trio began to eat.
After laughing and talking for another one or two hours, the group decided to go to sleep, with Bree standing on guard first, then Eisen, and then Jyuuk, just in case that some goblins were to wander around into the hut.
But just before Eisen wanted to lie down, he saw something… weird. It seemed like Jyuuk fell asleep before him, and his body was quickly turning into wood, as if someone had simply carved a statue of him. And it wasn't only Jyuuk's body, even his pole turned into simple wood. After all of these parts of Jyuuk transformed, his body became slightly overgrown here and there, with moss growing primarily on his back, and a small flower beginning to bud on the top of his head.
Jyuuk's beasts seemed to just instantly fall incredibly lethargic and nearly all fell asleep not too long after Jyuuk did.
Was this what it was like for players to log off?
Eisen looked around and made sure that Bree couldn't see them just now, and moved up to the Monkeyman-turned-wood, trying to see if his body was now truly just wood.
And it seemed so, at least judginf from the feeling of the material and its roughness, but Jyuuk and his beasts were suddenly incredibly heavy, so much that Eisen wasn't able to even budge him in any way. This was probably a protection against attacks from other players while you were offline, but wasn't this kind of a waste of space?
Would there just be wooden statues standing around everywhere once other players got to play? Or maybe this was different for Jyuuk since he was one of the originals? Only time would be able to tell him that, but he was still curious, so Eisen called Bree over.
She was incredibly surprised to see Jyuuk in such a state, although in a different way than Eisen expected. Bree wasn't surprised that such a thing was possible, but rather that Jyuuk was in possession of this 'ability'. She explained to Eisen that this was something actually quite amazing, as it was supposed to be a physical protection in weak moments that was only attainable at high levels, but was connected to one's soul.
"So Jyuuk probably had a reeeaaaally high level at some point! Even something like this can't be stolen through stealing experience! Although, whoever took it might be able to use that ability now as well… hmm… Ah, wait! Can you do something like this as well? I haven't seen you sleep before, so it might be! Do you want me to tell you when you wake up?" She asked with an excited smile, apparently happy to be able to gather this type of information, and Eisen chuckled lowly.
"Yes, sure. Thanks. I'll talk to you later then." Eisen said and laid down on the ground of the hut, slowly dozing off.