3 Road Block

     The only indication given about this quest was a marker. One that was 1 kilometer away from our position. We dropped down, into a sewer. Luckily, the settings allowed for you to disable or tone down certain things. One was for the sense of smell, which was a handy feature. Since it was on a slider, I just brought it down to 20%, meaning I could still smell, but not incredibly well. I was not about to inhale the gross fumes coming off of literally everything. 

     While we were walking through the sewer, I did end up searching through the settings. 

     A lot of stuff was disabled, such as a color blindness feature, a hint feature for combat, and a bunch of graphical tuning such as brightness, FPS, and a guide for new players. I decided to enable the color boundless feature since I was color blind and the guide just to help me out. I'm not some PC guru so FPS wasn't my thing, I was content with the frames I had. The guide appeared in the form of a book. It had a few pages of starting out your journey such as helpful items and equipment, and a whole section about weapons and spells. It also had a bestiary that helped with fighting monsters but it was mostly blank, giving a few portraits of common monsters people my level would come across, with a basic description of the monster. The resistances and weaknesses sections were completely blank, meaning that we'd have to figure all that out ourselves. 

     I stopped upon hearing footsteps that were not our own. I held my hand out to stop Veronica. "Hold on a second." I said. "Something isn't right here." 

     My observation proved to be true, as four large rats made themselves known to us. Upon appearing, their names popped up and their health bars appeared. A percentage appeared just above the health bar. 

[SEWER RAT]

HP: 100%

     "Isn't this a treat?" I said, flipping my sword around and dashed forward. My speed stat helped me a lot, allowing me to pull a feat like arrivint just behind all of them. This reminded me of my past experiences in VRMMOs. Sewer Rats… 

     My sword was brought down on two of them, cleaving both in half. 

     "Are massive pushovers!" 

     Veronica intercepted an attack from the third rat, and countered. It fell limp on the floor, dying instantly to the attack. I swung my sword once again, killing the last one. A status screen appeared, giving a battle report. At first, I had 0/50 EXP, but from the rats, it went up to 40/50. "So a rat provides ten experience points…" An idea immediately popped into my head. I turned to Veronica, saying, "Let's grind here for a little. At least until we're close to level 3." She nodded. We took a few steps, and came back. The rats appeared the same way they did before, and the two of us killed them in mere moments. 

[ LEVEL UP !]

     A level up screen appeared in front of the battle report. Now I was level 2, and the exp reset to 0 but added the 30 that was left over after leveling up, leaving me at 30/250 EXP. The monsters dropped an item this time: Rat Pelt x2. They were automatically put into my inventory. 

     We did the same thing twice over, making my EXP count 110/250. I was content with this, it meant that the next few battles would be a little easier. I looked over and noticed that every stat went up by 1. I was then given 2 extra stat points which I put into SPD. Veronica and I went further into the sewer. "I don't want to speed through this, because we might run into something we can't handle, but also don't wanna take so long that her mom could die." I thought out loud. But the longer I thought about it, I ended up being angry with myself, so the two of us started to run out, killing the mobs as fast as possible. Veronica was doing pretty well. Like the mobs, I can see her name and level, along with her HP. The both of us ended up figuring out that the system responded to thought commands. We found out that we could also use commands to distribute our stat points. The guide helped us figure that out. For example, if we had 5 stat points, we just needed to say the number of stat points and the stat we wanted to put them in. 

     The both of us had an MP bar. It was obvious to tell that this meant that skills and magic took MP to use. So far, it was only Veronica with a skill. She seemed to be using some skill that allowed her to heal herself that was the equivalent to the damage taken. It seemed like a useful skill, but it was only good for the attack that came after it, so it would need to be recast before the next one hit. I myself don't have any skills, so I was just left with my physical capabilities.

     My speed was pretty good since I invested into it a little bit more than my other stats. 

     The same could be said about my strength. 

     I looked into the guide and it gave information on each stat and what it did. Speed and strength were obvious. Intelligence increased the strength of spells. Agility was for your ability to dodge and acrobatics. MP and HP raised the amount of their respective bars. 

     I put the guide away. 

     The longer we went through, the more uneasy I became. 

     I had this suspicion that something worse than what we thought was going to happen. 

     I only just met Veronica, and for some reason I'm worrying about her safety. This is one of the reasons why I wanted her to stay back. It was clear, at least to me, that this kidnapping was done with a group effort, and that the targets were women, but not incredibly young women. Her and I seemed to be relatively the same age, I was 18. From the way that the girl explained things to us is that the kidnapping was quick. She only noticed it after a bit more walking. Though that itself was concerning since who would take so long to notice what happened. 

     "Veronica?"

     "Yes?" 

     "Depending on what happens next. . ."

     We were slowly approaching the marker. 

     "Stay back."

     Albeit very confused, Veronica gave a quick nod, a bead of sweat rolling down her face. This only made her worry as a result of me acting so protective. She seemed unaware of what I was talking about. But she seemed to have noticed on account of my tone of voice. I even surprised myself at this. 

     It was only then that the both of us found a large door before them, one composed of rotting wood, moss, and dark vines crawling upon the surface of it. The handle was worn down to just a piece of metal. It looked like it would fall if it was nudged on accident. The vines wrapped around the hinges, probably the reason why the door was unable to fall in the first place. There was this odd feeling they gave off, like someone used magic to create them. The moss that stretched across it had the same feeling to it. 

     It was only then that I heard the noises. Noises that were too unpleasant for me to experience for any longer. I disabled my hearing to 0%, and stood there in shock. I could see Veronica's lips moving, but I could not respond. It was possible that I may have been able to read her lips, but at the moment I was more focused on horrors I had heard. 

   I first heard a scream.

    Then what sounded like a table being shifted, possibly the bottom of the table catching the concrete that the floor was made of. 

     Chains rattling.

     Then, something was torn off. 

      My body felt like it had shut down, my eyes widened and mouth agape. 

     It was only then that I finally snapped back to reality when Veronica wrapped her fingers around my hand. I turned my head, and stared into her green eyes. I sighed, and slid my hearing back on. While I hated what I was hearing right now, it was not as bad as my heartbeat pounding in my ears. At that very moment I knew what I had to do. 

     I poured a bottle of oil onto the ground. 

     My sword was also drenched in the flammable liquid. It trailed over to the door, which I also had covered in oil. The tip of the blade was at the very end of the trail, and I swung. Sparks flew, catching the oil and setting it ablaze. My sword was then engulfed in flames, as the door was burning away, I put all my strength into my kick, breaking the door into many pieces. When they dropped it illuminated the dark room to show what horrors awaited me. 

     Dead bodies of women. 

     Chained to the walls.

     I gripped my sword upon seeing four men around a single table, with a woman in between them all. I slammed my teeth against each other… 

     All reason escaped me. 

     There was no reason to delay any longer. 

     The lives of those men ended up being mine for the taking.