NewWorld Online
Ryuga had to say it again, this world was very lucky.
Despite seemingly being in a similar stage of civilization as his old world, they already had the ability to create full-dive video games where the person could send their consciousness into the literal game world to enjoy.
After having gotten back from school, Ryuga was immediately messaged by Yuna to hurry up and get into the game. After booting up the game, Ryuga soon found himself standing inside what he assumed was probably the pre-game menu area or whatever.
Looking downwards, Ryuga found himself now wearing a new set of clothes. And if his suspicions about it were correct, then it was most likely that these clothes were the starting newbie equipment every player gets.
It consisted of a simple white shirt with a brown open leather vest over the top. His lower half was covered with a simple pair of slightly baggy leather pants, as well as light yet durable darker leather boots.
『Please Enter Your Name』
『Name: ________』
"So, first things first is a name..." Ryuga muttered as he saw the screen appear in front of him. "Nothing too extravagant or cringeworthy... fuck it, let's go with this."
『Please Enter Your Name』
『Name: Fang』
The reason he chose this was his name, which was typically translated to 'Dragon Fang'. He simply took out the 'Dragon' part of it and went with his in-game name being Fang, it wasn't anything special, but it works.
After inputting his chosen name, Ryuga watched as the screen disappeared before the projections of all kinds of different forms of equipment appeared hovering around him in a circle.
Looking around, he noticed a majority of them were bladed weapons, and there were also more unique ones such as a shield, bow, and more. This was an important decision, mainly since he didn't know at what point he'd be able to get something new to equip himself with.
It'd be smart to think of what kind of character he wanted to make first before deciding on what weapon to use. With that in mind, Ryuga personally preferred speed over pure power. He was no barbarian or musclebrain, he was the type to like the generic rpg classes such as Assassin and Rogue.
"What kind of character... how about a Blade Dancer?" Ryuga muttered to himself as his eyes soon locked onto the crossing daggers in front of him. "They have decent power, a typically very fast, and most of all rather relentless and ruthless... yeah, let's go with that!"
Blade Dancers were not your common class that people really hear about, but to simplify their battle style as much as possible, they are usually described as elegant fighters who are extremely agile and deliver continuous strikes to overwhelm their enemies.
Graceful yet deadly they say.
After choosing his starting weapon, the next topic on the agenda was his first initial distribution of points.
.
『Status』
● Name: Fang
● Level: 1
● Health Points: 32/32
● Mana Points: 25/25
Parameters:
〖Status Points: 100〗
● Strength: 0
● Vitality: 0
● Agility: 0
● Dexterity: 0
● Intelligence: 0
.
Prior to playing the game, Ryuga had already read a quick guide on how each of the stats worked, that was a very important mechanic of an rpg game after all. So, knowing just what stats he was going to want to invest in the most was crucial for future development.
Strength clearly represented physical power.
Vitality was the player's defensive stat.
Agility was movement speed.
Dexterity was strangely enough related to luck.
And Intelligence helped determine the efficiency and damage of skills.
Unlike most RPGs that Ryuga had played in the past, both the HP and MP of the status didn't actually improve based on something like Vitality. Instead, they acted as their own separate parameters for allocating status points where each point added 20 into them.
Considering he was looking to be a Blade Dancer in this game, the stats he'd probably be investing in the most were Agility, Dexterity, Intelligence, and probably Strength as well. Vitality wasn't a priority, armour was typically more than enough to compensate.
After some decision makings, this was his final result. Once he confirmed the stat allocations, Ryuga noticed that the status screen soon updated itself to display far more information from what was previously shown.
.
『Status』
● Name: Fang
● Level: 1
● Health Points: 132/132
● Mana Points: 125/125
● Skills: 〖None〗
Parameters:
〖Status Points: 0〗
● Strength: 10 (+10)
● Vitality: 0 (+0)
● Agility: 50 (+5)
● Dexterity: 15 (+0)
● Intelligence: 15 (+0)
Equipment:
● Head: 〖None〗
● Body: 〖None〗
● Right-Hand: 〖Beginner's Dagger〗
● Left-Hand: 〖Beginner's Dagger〗
● Legs: 〖None〗
● Shoes: 〖Beginner's Boots〗
● Accessories: 〖None〗
.
After everything was completed, Ryuga soon found his vision turning completely white as the space around him slowly but surely collapsed around him. Fortunately, this didn't last long as he soon found his vision returning to him.
"Holy... shit."
Ryuga's eyes immediately as he soon found himself standing in front of a large circular makeshift pond made of rock, with a shining tree standing tall at the center of it. Looking around, Ryuga looked at all of the wooden houses as well as the numerous players as well as NPCs walking around.
Unlike in most games, the players in this game didn't seem to have any indication aside from their behavior to put them apart from the NPCs. With how realistic the NPCs in this game were supposed to act, distinguishing a player from an NPC was a bit of a challenge.
'To think that I could actually experience such a video game...' Ryuga thought to himself as he thought back to the games of his old world. The people of this world truly were a different freaking breed. 'Now, Yuna said she should be waiting for me here...'
"Over here!" Hearing the rather familiar voice, Ryuga turned his head to see a girl with long green hair waving at him while walking over. She wore clothes similar to his own, except they were tailored for females and had a light brown and green color scheme. "Glad you didn't take years in the starting menu."
"And hello to you too." Ryuga replied dryly as he crossed his arms. "Call me Fang here, and what name did you choose?"
"I just chose Yuna."
"You... used your real name?" Ryuga stared at her incredulously as he felt his eyebrow twitching. It was a common thing among gamers that using your real name was quite risky, some people in games could be wolves in sheep's clothing. "Is that really a good idea? It's bad enough that the game barely lets us adjust our real-life looks..."
Hearing this, Yuna gave a nonchalant shrug. "It doesn't matter to me."
"Oh, right. You don't at all even leave your apartment, so it doesn't really matter to you..." Ryuga shook his head with a sigh. Aside from her NEET personality, Ryuga had come to learn just how easygoing and accepting Yuna was of ridiculous situations and circumstances. "So, have I missed anything?"
"Nothing worthy of note, though we should get going as soon as possible. We're both already pretty far behind some other players. Damn those delivery people and their delays...!"
"It can't be helped, the number of orders for the equipment easily reached in the millions worldwide." Ryuga deadpanned as he saw Yuna bad-mouthing the delivery drivers. "Just be happy that you actually own a virtual dive headset."
Although the price of the equipment wasn't as expensive as Ryuga honestly thought it'd be, the price was still something an ordinary household could just buy casually. Only those with some somewhat decent wealth could risk buying such things.
"Anyway, let's get going!" Yuna stopped her antics before pointing toward one of the exits of the town. "Just like any RPG game, the first thing we need to do is get stronger. I overheard that the monsters around the town in the forest are a good way to start!"
"Sounds legit. Let's go."
[A/N: When in the game, Ryuga will be referred to as Fang from here on]
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After walking around the forest, both Yuna and Fang began taking down any mobs that they happened to encounter. Since most of the monsters were quite weak, neither of them really needed to team up to grind up some levels.
Of course, there were always some of the bigger boys in the group. With them working together, they'd eventually manage to take down some of the stronger monsters who were hiding away in the forestry.
Speaking of Yuna, Fang had come to learn that Yuna had opted to go for a ranged build aside from a close-ranged one as he had. To put things simply, Yuna had chosen to become an archer who specialized in magical projectiles, which meant she invested particularly in Agility, Dexterity, Intelligence, and MP.
"And that should be the last of these things." Ryuga commented simply as he twirled both of the daggers in his hands before they disappeared back into his inventory. Turning around, Ryuga watched as Yuna hopped down from one of the trees. "You get a level as well?"
"Nope, not this time around." Yuna shook her head with a shrug. "We made some decent progress, though unfortunately not too many skills were unlocked. Then again, this is only our first time out here grinding."
With a swipe of their hands, their respective status screens appeared.
.
『Status』
● Name: Fang
● Level: 15
● Health Points: 132/132
● Mana Points: 125/125
● Skills: 〖Whirlwind〗〖Sonic Slash〗〖Quick Step I〗
Parameters:
〖Status Points: 0〗
● Strength: 20 (+10)
● Vitality: 0 (+0)
● Agility: 70 (+5)
● Dexterity: 20 (+0)
● Intelligence: 20 (+0)
.
『Status』
● Name: Yuna
● Level: 14
● Health Points: 120/120
● Mana Points: 135/135
● Skills: 〖Rapid Fire〗〖Tracking Shot I〗〖Arrow Storm〗
Parameters:
〖Status Points: 0〗
● Strength: 0 (+3)
● Vitality: 10 (+0)
● Agility: 60 (+0)
● Dexterity: 25 (+0)
● Intelligence: 35 (+0)
.
As can be seen from Yuna's status, Strength was certainly not at all what she needed. In fact, the only points added originated from the fact that she was wielding her bow. It wasn't like she was going to start running around and smacking monsters with it.
Of course, it could happen, but most of the time no.
"Now that, that's done and we've gotten ourselves some levels. How about you and I tackle ourselves a dungeon?"
"Do you know where one is?"
"Nope, but I have an idea as to where one could be." Yuna smirked slightly as she responded. "I overheard some people talking about some nearby ruins, they say you can find some stronger monsters to fight over in that area. If there are monsters, then who knows what else is there."
"I guess that makes sense, the monsters here in the forest are starting to become too weak to actually provide much to us anyway. Any more information on this area aside from it being some ruins?"
"Nothing much really." Yuna shrugged. "People say it looks to be a relatively large city, albeit destroyed. This is pretty surprising considering what we know about the floors in this game. Isn't the first floor supposed to be mostly natural ecosystems?"
"Key word being mostly there, in any case, we should go before it gets too late."
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It took some time, but eventually the both of them arrived at a relatively large medieval-looking city. The only thing was that it was in complete ruins, the buildings were destroyed and countless hills of rubble scattered around the entire place.
Since this area was apparently a rather popular grinding location for some players who were around their level, Fang and Yuna decided to head deeper into the more isolated areas where there were little to no other players around.
In regards to the monsters, all of them seemed to be skeleton-related monsters. No doubt the power of these monsters was greater than those in the forest, but not by such a large margin that Yuna and Fang were at all overwhelmed or pressured.
"Still nothing after an entire hour of searching..." Yuna sighed as she finished off another skeleton that rushed at her from behind. Though, with how slow they were, Yuna was more than able to react in time. "Maybe there's nothing here after all."
"Let's not go to such a conclusion just yet." Fang replied as he walked on over to her. "With how big this area is, I don't think the developers would make it without any intentions of making another use for it aside from grinding."
Despite having only grinded for an hour, they were both able to level up a few times with Fang reaching level 18 and Yuna reaching level 16. The only thing was their skills, both of them severely lacked them, they needed to either unlock new ones naturally or find another way to obtain skills.
"I hope that's the case, if only something happened that would give us a quest or something." Yuna said before going silent. She then began looking both left and right continuously. "Huh, I thought something coincidental would happen..."
"What do you think this is?" Fang deadpanned. "Stop your shenanigans, I found a cemetery not too far from here. Shit typically goes down around areas like that, so it might be worth checking out thoroughly."
"Then what are we waiting for? Lead the way!"
It didn't take long before they both arrived at the local cemetery of this once probably prosperous city, and it was rather surprising to see that the cemetery itself wasn't at all that big, probably only the size of the average household block.
"This place is more disappointing then you made it out to be..."
"Don't judge it yet, look at the design of the surrounding architecture." Fang rolled his eyes before pointing up at the entrance gate of the cemetery. "If we ignore the decay and overgrowth, you can tell this was no ordinary cemetery. Maybe it had a special purpose aside from burying dead people."
"Hmm... yeah, I don't see it." Yuna deadpanned after staring intently at the entrance gate for a bit. Hearing this, Fang sweatdropped before simply shrugging and shaking his head. "There aren't even monsters here! Aside from gravestones, there's nothing here."
"I wouldn't be so sure about that." Fang chuckled before walking over toward one of the larger gravestones. Curiously, Yuna followed him over before looking to see that Fang was tracing his hand along the text on the grave. "Gerald Landrus. Forever the Grand Royal Knight, be it in the living world or the afterlife."
"And...?"
"If you read the other gravestones, they all seem to belong to knights, most likely the ones who served whatever king ruled this place. This one, however, is the only one with the title of Grand Royal Knight, so there must be something special about this grave. So... let's dig it up."
"...Do you have hobbies I don't know of?"
"Screw you."
Without waiting for another response, Fang began trying to dig away the already previously tampered soil. Fortunately, the soil hadn't hardened much at all and he was able to dig through using his hands as well as using his daggers.
After a bit of time, Fang had managed to throw aside most of the dirt, revealing what looked to be a decayed yet strangely enough beautiful-looking white and silver coffin that rested at the bottom of the grave. True, the white color was not exactly lustrous as it once probably was, but it was still beautiful in a way.
"I'm still not sure about this." Yuna sighed with a bit of disgust in her tone as both she and Fang slowly but surely lifted the coffin out from the ground. "There better be something or we're just a bunch of no-good graverobbers who dug this coffin out for no reason."
"If that happens then we'll just have to give our proper and sincere apologies. I don't exactly like the idea of having dug it out either, okay? But considering this is a game, perhaps it's okay for us to cripple our moral standards a bit."
Grabbing the lid of the coffin from both sides, the two of them eventually pried off the lid before gently placing it down next to the now-open coffin. Yuna stayed back as Fang opted to sneak a peak inside, and when he did, his eyes couldn't help but raise up in confusion.
"D-Did you find anything?"
"I did, but I also didn't find something I expected to."
"Huh? What do you mean?"
"Just look, you scaredy-cat."
"I'm not scared! I just don't want to look at a-! Where's the body?" Yuna immediately switched to a tone of confusion as she soon saw that the coffin was void of any actual corpse. "Either someone already dug it out before us, or it either got up and walked away or it was here long enough that even the bones decomposed."
"Whatever the case is, there was this thing inside." Fang added as he showed off what looked to be a red dull sphere that was rather rough around the edges. Feeling it, it felt as if he was touching a glass ball. "I saw something like this on the other side of the cemetery, it was placed inside a torch stand."
"Really? Not sure about you, but that sounds like this thing is a special key of sorts. We gonna use it?"
"Isn't it obvious?"
Wasting no time at all, Fang and Yuna quickly placed the coffin back into the grave before filling it back up. Although they wanted to quickly check out this new potential key item, they weren't going to be disrespectful enough to just leave a coffin they dug out stay dug out.
After finishing with that, it was time to see what this 'key' had in store for them.