Chapter 8: New Companion, Heading to the Secret Quest

[Player StarPillow invites you to join a party!]

Accept!

Alex almost immediately accepted this request, he actually didn't expect it to come so soon!

"Oh wow," he mumbled as he turned his head toward Alice, just to see her grin.

"Your spells are good, Alex," she nodded, "I'm sure that with you, I should be able to snipe my enemies easily!"

"…Right," he nodded back.

Ding!

[Party has been formed!]

[2 members: FateBreaker and StarPillow!]

When inside of a party, the experience you get from killing monsters is distributed equally among the party members, whether they participate in the kill or not doesn't matter.

This would slow down Alex a bit, but he trusted Alice's abilities, and it didn't matter anyway, since he would soon enough be able to participate in the S-level quest.

Alice had died exactly two weeks after the launch of Universal Descent, but Alex was confident her abilities were good enough to survive if someone else was there with her.

The first attack of 'beasts' on the real world wasn't actually a real attack, it was quite literally only three novice monsters that entered the Starfield family's home and killed her since, well, powers from the game weren't transferred to reality yet.

The guards of the family could only deal -1 with guns to try and kill them, but it was too late, and thus Richard had become a full-time player of this game, abandoning even his business to become stronger.

Alice's mother had passed away when she was young, so Richard just wanted to avenge the only person he cared about, something Alex respected.

But, what would happen if Alice survived this encounter with monsters?

Alex planned to help, as an ally with an SS-level talent was greatly needed.

Fireball!

Alex suddenly cast a spell, hitting a [Wild Boar] that was behind Alice.

"Second time I save you, you owe me," Alex smiled.

"Heh… maybe some day," she chuckled.

Alex sent yet another Fireball, killing the wild boar.

[Killed level 3 Wild Boar, gained 12 experience points.]

And as expected, the only got half the experience, which meant that Alice got some of it too.

Star Shot!

Fwish! Boom!

The beauty shot her bow at a level 4 green snake who was trying to bite Alex, killing it instantly.

"Just for your information, I saw it," he smirked.

"Oh well, let's go anyway, I wanna go deeper!"

"Fair."

To be honest, Alex was looking for something very specific in this forest, but it was so big that actually finding it would be difficult without a bit of exploration.

All that he knew was that it was in the final area, and that the location was marked by an "X" that was engraved on a tree.

[You have entered the level 5-10 area!]

After a few minutes, Alex and Alice finally entered the final area of the forest, only meeting two more monsters in between.

"This is the last area, you should watch out, the final boss of the novice village is there," Alex informed Alice.

The novice village was a level 1-10 area, and the path to the first city, Dawn City, would only be unlocked once a player defeated the boss.

Star Shot! Star Shot! Star Shot!

Alice was extremely quick with her attacks, and as being an archer didn't require any mana, all that she needed to do was create her arrows and launch them toward monsters.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

-134! -131! -135!

Alex was quite surprised that she was doing better damage than he was.

But, at that moment, something unexpected happened.

Ding!

[Please choose something to extract!]

The prompt appeared in front of him.

"…!"

And that's when Alex realized: as he was getting experience from those kills, the talent considered the monsters killed by his party members as part of the 20% chance of the prompt appearing!

[Snake Backpack (Uncommon)

10 Agility Attribute Points

Low-Level Snake Armor (Uncommon)]

He picked the snake armor this time, the item appearing on top of the green snake's body in the form of a green light.

"Here," he immediately gave it to Alice, who blushed a bit as she received the gift.

She hadn't had any luck with item drops, so seeing someone actually get one, and an uncommon tier at that, was kind of cool.

"Are you sure?" she mumbled, the snake chest armor in her hands.

"Yeah, don't worry about it," he nodded, and so the beautiful girl equipped it, giving her a +8 magic resistance boost!

And so they continued inside the forest, slaughtering any of the monsters they saw, including the newly introduced level 6 [Rage Bears] and level 7-8 [Poison Snakes].

Eventually, Alex reached level 5, granting him more stats that he put into spirit.

He now had x2 [Poison Rings], which reduced poison effects by 10% and one [Bear Claw Dagger] that he got from the bears, he had picked those since they were the only good items.

"What the hell?" every time he got an item drop, Alice's face grew with more surprise than before, thinking: how the hell is he getting this many items?

Even when she asked Alex, all he would answer was "trust the process".

This continued for an hour, and by then Fireball had reached level 4 and Red Crystal level 3,

[Fireball Level 4; Deal 60 points of damage to target + 100% of spirit to target; consumes 10 mana; 3-second cooldown.]

[Red Crystal Level 3; Deals exactly 100 damage to target; consumes 15 mana; 5-second cooldown.]

At this very moment though, Alex finally saw it.

One of the trees looked slightly different than the others, and once he approached it, he saw an X engraved in the trunk by a blade.

"Found it," he smiled as he looked up, "Alright, Alice, let's do this!"

"???" she was confused as there was nothing in their surroundings but when she looked from Alex's, position her eyes widened: there was a small cabin in the tree, concealed in a way that you wouldn't see it except from this very precise angle.

Fwish!

Alex headed to the other side of the tree, and as expected, a ladder the color of the trunk was there, almost invisible.

He immediately took it, climbing and entering the cabin after a few seconds.

Alice quickly followed as she didn't want to be alone in the forest, and if Alex was this confident, then there was no reason to be scared.

She climbed up and opened the small trap door that served as an entrance, and once she opened her eyes to check out what was inside the wooden cabin.

All she saw was… a burly silver-skinned human holding her flank, blood pouring out from it as she coughed out blood too.

A magnificent golden mage staff was beside her, and she seemed in extremely bad shape.

Alex smiled as he saw this scene: this was the S-level secret quest of the novice village, he had actually found it!

Of course, he hadn't been the one to do it in his previous life, but knowing it now was also an advantage.

"Hello?" Alice was quite considerate for people, so she immediately tried to reach for the silver-skinned human.

"Don't approach me, fool," but she totally rejected her, grabbing her staff and pointing it toward her.

"What's your current reputation with the silver-skin?" Alex asked her with a wide smile on his face as she stepped back.

"Uh… 50, since I did the first quest," she titled her head, looking adorable.

"Yeah, I knew it."

And this time, once it was Alex who approached the silver-skinned girl, she actually let him pass, dropping her weapon on the ground.

"Player, I need your help," she said, panting.