Playing 【NWO】 And The Start Of Our Journey (1)

Hey, Shun here!

Have you ever played a game with your younger siblings? How's the experience? I bet some of you got a little tilted due to how bad they're playing or something sometimes.

To be honest though, I think you shouldn't be tilted by that. I, for one, don't really take things seriously whenever I play with them and just enjoyed the time. Forming bonds with your family is more important than that momentary feeling of superiority that you'd feel whenever you try to berate your younger siblings for being so bad.

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(Shun's POV)

"I'll go back to my room now Mom. Don't cook dinner by yourself okay? Let me help you later."

"Okay Shun. But you don't have to treat me like you baby you know? I may be pregnant but I'm not a disabled person." Mom told me while pouting, similar to the expression that Miu would show occasionally when she's upset about something.

"I know Mom. We just want to make sure that nothing would go wrong or anything. That's why we aren't prohibiting you from doing what you like you know?" I said before kissing her on the cheek.

They say that pregnant women could get very moody and such but, at the moment, Mom doesn't seem to be that moody. We obviously want her mental health to be stable so we aren't really limiting her in her actions.

What we do is we just make sure that, whenever she's doing things like cleaning the house and etc, there would be someone to help her out on that. Of course, we also make sure to talk with her and not just game everyday.

Even Miu, the game addict herself, would log out of the game and dedicate a few hours to just spending some quality time with Mom.

Going upstairs, I noticed that the door on Miu's room is open and as I began to walk past it, I saw that she have her VR Gear on, obviously gaming, while laying down on the bed. The problem with that is that she didn't cover herself with her blanket.

She probably plopped right on top of her bed right after changing to a new set of casual clothing. Are you that excited to play?

"This girl… You might catch a cold if you do that…" I murmured before entering the room and tucking her inside her blanket.

"Okay, that should be fine now." With a content smile on my face, I walked out of Miu's room before quietly closing the door.

Entering inside my room, I immediately changed to a more comfortable set of cloths to wear — some pants, a plain solid colored shirt, and a hoodie — before getting ready to wear my VR Gear and play the game. However, I was interrupted by my spirit bonded familiar, Tsuka.

"Squeak~? Master, what we play~?"

She suddenly appeared out of thin air, which didn't really surprise me since I'm already too used to this habit of hers. 

"We're playing [NWO] right now. Come on, wear your VR Gear already and let's play together. Later, we'll go help Mom prepare dinner then go to a new quest…"

"Squeak~! Play with, Master!"

Along with Tsuka, and after lightly stretching my body and wearing the VR Gear, I entered the game where I managed to get some genuinely helpful skills and equipments that really saved my life during that recent solo quest I got, [New World Online].

I've been playing this game in conjunction with [Only Sense Online] ever since I got access to this game and it's honestly been a lot of fun. Now that [OSO] got their new system going, I was able to play this game a lot more often but definitely not in the same realm as [OSO].

The reason for generally not playing this game as much as we play [OSO] was because I and almost everybody else from our [Group Chat] managed to get really overpowered items and skills during our earlier days of playing it. That, and because we honestly don't have anything else to do aside from hunting every boss we could think of in hopes of getting another Unique Series.

Risa-san, or Sally in-game, already managed to get a pretty great Unique Series for herself but Tsuka, Fenny, Mutsuko-san, Rikka, and Satania-san are yet to get their own Unique Series. Honestly, I kind of get why they didn't, and that's because we arrived really late to this game and the content we managed to get was already taken by other players.

I do think that there are some prerequisites that you have to meet in order to get some Unique Skills like ours, as well as the Unique Series of armors and weapons that we have and Satania-san and the others are yet to trigger any of that. There's also probably some luck involved but I'm not too sure.

As I was thinking of such things, I was then transported to a very familiar spawning point where I was immediately blasted by the loud sounds of many people talking to each other. There's people with wacky appearances like they came straight out of an anime or whatever, which I really can't call them out for since I'm also the same, but hey, I figured I should still mention it anyways.

"Oh, right. Tsuka."

I checked my friend list and saw that only I and Tsuka are online at the moment. Mutsuko-san, Pochi, Tama, Rokuko, and Fenny are obviously out to prepare for the upcoming quest while Kaede-san, Satania-san, and Rikka are in a video call with each other to talk about their homeworks.

I heard that even Risa-san was there to join in on the discussion, apparently. I should probably join in later to help them out after this.

✽✽[Chat]✽✽

Syunpo: Where are you now Tsuka?

Tsuka: Tsuka, in middle of many players, Master~.

Shun: So you're also in the spawn point huh. Let me go find you. But first, accept the party request…

Tsuka: Yes~!

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After sending a party request to Tsuka, I could finally see her on my mini map. However, since there are literally a sea of people in the spawn point, I had to thoroughly scower the whole place before I finally managed to find her a little over the right of the fountain.

As soon as she caught sight of me, Tsuka Immediately ran towards me and gave me a big hug.

"Master~!"

"Haha. You act like we've never seen each other for years as always, Tsuka."

Tsuka just laughed it off and continued to hug me while showing a radiant smile.

"Hehehe~…"

Since she's such a precious little darling, I couldn't help but squish her cheeks a little before patting her on the head.

"Let's go? Right, which boss do you want to face next?"

"Big and weaker Rickles!" It was an immediate answer.

I heard about this dungeon since it was a dungeon that's been frequented by players and it's pretty famous for getting its clear record be broken over and over again by the same people from a large guild called [Congregation of the Holy Sword]. I've seen its name pop up on the forums multiple times but was never really interested and going in and clearing it myself.

I was too busy grinding my levels at the time.

"You want to enter the Dark Woodlands huh…"

"Yes~! Want to see, weaker but, bigger Rickles!"

Tsuka is talking about the boss of the Dark Woodlands who's a bluish ash grey wolf who's two meters tall while standing. It knows how to use some pretty powerful ice magic but it's not even a Little Fenrir or anything like Rickles, much less a real Fenrir like Fuyuku.

Knowing how strong a Fenrir is from the myths surrounding it, this boss could not even mimic a fraction of its power.

"Alright. Let's go then. Umm… if I remember correctly, we could pick up the quest for it from a grandma running the nearby NPC shop."

We first need to finish this quest in order to gain access to this dungeon.

"Then, then, let's go, Master~!"

Tsuka pulled me by the hand as we marched towards the NPC shop where a decrepit old woman at her 80s is manning the counter with a dark expression on her. This NPC's shop is obviously not very popular to the players initially due to the default expression on her face, but it soon changed when a group of players discovered the quest that led to the discovery of the Dark Woodlands.

The prerequisite for triggering the quest was pretty simple, actually. You just have to have this item called [Dark Wolf's Fang Necklace] equipped on you while paying for the goods that you bought from the store on the counter and the quest will immediately be triggered.

It's really very easy to get this item since you only need to kill some Dark Wolves that are living at the forest where the dungeon is located a few times until this item drops. This drop is obviously a rare drop from that particular monsters but you have a higher chance of obtaining it when you managed to kill the rare monster called Alpha Dark Wolf.

Anyway, enough about how we obtained this item weeks ago. We just had to hunt the rare mob and some Dark Wolves at the time, getting like three items with the same name.

I had Tsuka buy some stuff herself with the said item equipped to make sure that she'll be the one that will trigger the quest. I accompanied her as she seriously considered what to buy before we finally approached the counter where the old woman is.

"Umm… This, and this, please~?"

Tsuka chose to buy some potions, as well as consumables that gives minor ice resist. This proves that she did her own research about the dungeon before requesting to go there with only the two of us.

"Hmmm? That necklace is…"

Tsuka was literally beaming as she waited for the NPC to finally give the quest.

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※~To be continued~※

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Author's Remarks:

※ Well, that's finally done. Phew, thankfully, I managed to finish it on time.