Planning the Bus

"It's been what, 3 months? I thought you quit the game." Chikinsupu chugged his root beer and said to Bob.

Bob looked at Chikinsupu in the eye and reminisced their short time together as friends. Although Chikinsupu left Donut City ahead of Bob, it was clear that Chikinsupu cared for Bob.

"Yea. I stayed with my mother during that time." Bob said solemnly. He looked at his glass of beer and drank.

'Oh, yea. This guy had a problem. I remember now.' Chikinsupu was reminded of Bob's crazy cuckoo roleplaying.

Chugging his root beer even further, Chikinsupu recalled the time where Bob impressed him. The guy that had the balls and a long schlong that ran around in the forest of the beginner village.

"Pffft." He giggled while his mouth was full. Root beer rushed to his nostrils and it choked him.

"Woah, calm down there." Gideon had to comment.

"Cough, gak. Fuck." Chikinsupu violently coughed out what he was drinking.

Recollecting himself after his coughing fit, Chikinsupu cleaned up the mess he made. He excused himself and went to the bathroom. Although this was a virtual world, the recent update also had its downsides where you can feel and smell gross things.

"Hey, E. Don't you have a job? Should we wait for you or something? I don't know how this will work." Gideon talked to the only guy that had a proper job.

"Yea. Don't worry about it. I got it covered. We can continue tomorrow morning without a hitch." E assured Gideon.

E's job is a massive hindrance to his game time. It should be the other way around but E had more fun in-game than doing his job.

"Don't worry about me either. Seirin High has a school-wide event tomorrow so I can just pretty much skip it." Annera explained.

"Oh yeah. It's all coming together." Enma could feel excitement.

Enma, Minion, and Blight. The three of them weren't particularly busy as they focused on separate aspects of life other than education or career. That's just a fancy sentence for jobless people.

"Well then! Let's meet tomorrow morning then. Take a rest for now as we'll be spending the entire day leveling up, we'll also spend quite a lot of time moving around." Gideon said to everyone.

"Also, please secure several TP scrolls. We're going to need them if we want to be as efficient as possible." He continued.

"TP scrolls? Toilet paper?" Bob was met with an unfamiliar term.

Annera—who was beside Bob—tapped on his shoulder and whispered to his ear.

"It means Teleportation scrolls. If you aren't familiar with it, it lets us use a channeling spell that teleports us to the inscribed city." She explained.

A TP scroll is a convenient item. However, it had major drawbacks to use. It can't be used during combat as the channel duration lasted an entire minute and it required the user to stay absolutely still.

The scrolls were also quite expensive, costing around 20 gold per single-use scroll and was limited to 1 person per scroll. It's a good item but its a luxury.

"Do you guys have enough gold to buy them?" Gideon asked E's party.

"I do. I'm not sure if I can say the same for everyone else though." E replied.

"It costs 20 gold from the shops, right? I can buy 3 for myself." Enma was positive.

"Yea. We can afford it. We were able to get some gold a few quests back." Minion confirmed.

Bob on the other hand had quite a problem. He's been using all the gold he gained to eat and to rent a room to sleep in. He needed gold more than ever now since he no longer has a place to stay.

"I don't think I have enough gold for them." He stated.

"It's on me, buddy." Chikinsupu instantly volunteered to cover for it.

It was a genuinely friendly gesture and Kazuma himself didn't think much of it. It's only a few gold coins which are not that hard to obtain in higher levels of the game.

"Thank you, Chikinsupu." Bob bowed his head in gratitude.

"Don't think much of it. This is an investment." Chikinsupu replied.

Chikinsupu remembered the odd skill that Bob had. During the exploding hamster hunt in the newbie forest, Bob survived and gained a few levels by himself.

In other words, Bob had the ability to get a lot stronger than most in the game. He just didn't have the drive to level up. Now, Chikinsupu could confirm that Bob is back into the game.

"It's weird though. You didn't quit the game, right?" He asked Bob.

He was curious, Bob was online for the whole 3 months that Chikinsupu was also online. It's weird for a person to be online 24/7 for 3 months but stayed being in the same level.

"Yea. I told you, I was with my mother." Bob replied.

"Uh. Sure. Whatever ya say."

After the jovial drinking party, everyone logged off the game to get a good night's sleep. They need to properly rest as they will go all out tomorrow.

Bob, being the only person that can't log out of the game, remained seated.

'Is this what I'll experience every single day?' He thought.

But there was no helping it.

What he should do for now is find a bed to sleep in.

-

"Hey, do you like this life? The adventurer's life I mean." Bob asked a question to the chicken-bird hybrid that was perched on his head.

He was walking along the streets of Donut City and was under the influence of alcoholic drinks. Bob couldn't deny it anymore, he's a typical homeless adventurer.

"Cluck." Lavanuk clucked emotionlessly. It was questionable whether she even understood Bob's question.

"Heh. Maybe? Okay. Then I guess it's worth a shot." He replied like he had an actual conversation with Lavanuk.

Thonk! Thonk! Thonk!

A loud sound invaded his ear as he approached the city inn. It was the sound of metal clashing against metal and it took away his tipsiness.

'Damn.' He complained.

But he really wanted to take a rest now so he entered the inn and looked around inside.

'It's oddly silent here.'

Bob looked towards the reception area and found the receptionist.

"Hello? Is there an available room?" He asked, still quite annoyed as the loud banging continued to resound the area.

"YES! PLEASE TAKE YOUR PICK!" The receptionist replied in a shout. The loud sound annoyed the hell out of her and made her forget her manners.

"OKAY! CAN I GET THE ROOM FURTHEST FROM THAT SOUND?" He replied in kind.

"BY THE WAY, WHY ARE THERE NO CUSTOMERS HERE TONIGHT?"

"ARE YOU DEAF? THAT LOUD SOUND DROVE ALL OF OUR CUSTOMERS AWAY."

"Oh. My bad."

"It's quite alright. Your room is on the second floor, the furthest room on the left numbering 210."

"Okay. This should be the right amount."

Bob paid for the room and walked towards the room he rented to retire for the night. He crash-landed on the bed and almost fell into a deep sleep if it wasn't for loud banging.

THONK! THONK!

"Fucking hell." He complained. Bob looked at Lavanuk—who looked like she had PTSD—and laughed.

"Pfft. Wanna go outside and see what's happening?" He asked, but Lavanuk's answer wouldn't matter anyway.

-

In a dimly-lit room with walls that weren't made of cardboard, Annera just finished using her virtual reality rig and was shutting her computer down. They didn't play until late tonight because tomorrow was a big day for them.

"I better go take a bath." She said to herself.

The culture of taking a bath once in the morning and once in the evening is quite prominent in Japan. After removing her clothes and draping a towel over herself, Annera went into the bathroom to take a shower.

RING RING!

Suddenly, her mobile device rang its ringtone. Presumably, someone was calling her. Taking a look at the caller ID, it was indeed a call from someone who she expected would call at this time.

"What's up, Chikinsupu?" She said as she accepted the call.

[Um. Are you taking a shit? Your voice sounds like you're in the bath.]

"I'm taking a shower! Well, about to."

[Ahahah. Nothing much, I just wanted to ask you a couple of questions.]

"Sure." She replied.

Annera took off her towel and placed her mobile device on a convenient pedestal. She primed herself with stagnant water to prepare for her shower session.

[You could have told me that you were friends with Bob. I told you about him months ago.]

"Uhh, yeah. I totally forgot about that. Hahaha. But to tell you the truth, I just didn't think that that friend of yours would stay in Donut City for 3 months."

[Yea. Me neither.]

Annera—who just finished priming herself—walked towards the shower area and slipped.

THUD!

She fell on her butt and groaned.

[I knew it, you are taking a shit!]

"God fucking. Just shut up. I'll talk to you later." She said as she reached for the pedestal whilst her other hand was holding her bottom in pain.