9 Quality of Life

Dragging his injured body out of the infested Rat Fields, Eidiri set about writing up on his experiences on his blog yet again, making sure to detail his experience with the rats and how harrowing it was.

He also made sure to inform the other players on what services the village could provide, a blacksmith, auction house, multiple taverns, tailor, leather-worker, essentially all the basic services one can expect.

Something he made a point to elaborate on was the currency system, the low-leveled kobolds dropped no forms of currency whatsoever, after all, why would they need a human form of currency?

Eidiri proposed a theory that the 17 coppers that he had obtained from the rats were only due to their innate fascination with, particularly shiny objects. With their habit of hoarding, it should not come off as such a surprise that currency could be obtained from the rats from time to time.

Elaborating on this theory, he further proposed that in order to make sizeable amounts of currency, they would need to establish some sort of profession, like that of an alchemist or mercenary.

Relying on grinding mobs for income would be too unreliable as which mob would really have a need for currency? They might happen to have particularly valuable materials in rare circumstances, but such a form of income would be far too unreliable.

As time passed his post received an increasing amount of upvotes, becoming one of the trending posts in the forum.

This was primarily due to how he possessed information that others didn't by having access to the village.

In the comments, many people were clamoring for just why exactly Eidiri was let into the village while they weren't.

Thankfully enough, those who had seen the guard's demonstration from before explained what had happened for him.

After finalizing his post, he proceeded to set up a rudimentary camp of his own in the woods close to the village.

Sure, it won't be well constructed, but it would at least keep most of the elements at bay.

By gathering some medium-sized branches and arranging them into an open-facing triangle shape, Eidiri was able to make a shoddily crafted lean-to for himself, turning in for the night and signing off.

After attending class the next day once again, Rowan logged back into the game after scarfing down a quick snack.

Immediately after he signed in he began to grind out the rats again, this time ensuring to keep a wary eye on his surroundings.

After about a half hours time, he had accumulated about 12 more coppers, and several more shanks of meat.

Through some investigation among the shops, Giant Rat meat was one of the lowest quality meats available. Something that was worth taking note of while going through the shops would be that this world was apparently styled for efficiency.

This of course meant that rather than pursing supreme taste, the food would be considered barely edible to reality's standards while maintaining the highest amount of nutrition.

Such details left quite large amounts of space for development in terms of the service and entertainment industries.

Nevertheless, after selling a 4 shanks of the rat meat for 6 coppers, he headed back into the fields.

A punch here, a push there, dashing back over there, it was a very monotonous session of grinding.

Sure the initial exhilaration of combat was there, but after adjusting to it, it became quite tedious as these rats weren't intelligent and could only be infinitely kited.

Then suddenly, as he slew yet another one of these stupid rats, a deep rumbling reverberated through the ground, the very Earth, shaking a little.

Loud snapping echoes through the air as several trees at the edge of the woods snap in half as if they were simply twigs.

The rats around this disturbance flee the area, clearing the way, almost as if they were creating a path that directly leads to Eidiri, but certainly, they couldn't be doing that, right?

Wrong.

A black blur rumbles out the treeline, its size being triple that of the normal rats.

After quick observation through the interface, Eidiri learned that this rat is actually a Horde Leader, a classification of mob above that of the simple mobs he had been recently farming.

This horde leader would prove to be no easy task, it swiftly swinging its tail at Eidiri, who could do nothing but leap out the way to dodge the attack.

From then on, the rat went on to aggressively slash its claws down, each consecutive swing missing as he continued to roll.

"Goddamn it all, what am I supposed to do now? Just how exactly did they expect me to be able to somehow deal with all this?" Eidiri complained.

The rat then viciously jumped forward, gnashing its oversized teeth at where his head had just been.

In a panic, Eidiri quickly scrambled away, throwing a glance over his shoulder, he sprinted away from the fields, eager to get away as the slow, heavy body of the Alpha Giant Rat lumbered after him; as the distance between the two grew, the Rat slowly lost its interest and returned back to the field.

-

"Damn it! I can't keep fighting like this. Those blackhearted game developers. What am I even supposed to do? I can't afford a weapon, not that I would know how to use it even but like, how am I even supposed to kill these things?"

"Guess that's what the betas for I guess, huh. If everyone were to be tossed in without anything on release, surely the PR would be horrendous."

This status couldn't be any good for long, eventually, he would have to learn how to combat the mobs outside, but the issue is that he has no form of resources.

And if Eidiri had no resources, one could only imagine the pitiful state of those who could not even enter the village.

Anyways, it was high time to secure a profession to earn some money, it was also way past time to learn how to fight, but it's the thought that counts right?