Huntin' Wabbits

"Man they really give you nothing good to start with."

Jax looked at the piss-poor items and stats he had to start with. Everyone started with the same stuff, no money, basic clothing items with not defense, a shitty weapon for their class... and that's it.

People of course complained, but that was the vast minority of people who just wanted to game casually. The devs never said this game was for casual gameplay. It was meant to be competitive and hard to master.

Jax made his way out of the village to the forest. He could already see players battling rabid rabbits with their parties or by themselves through the tree line. When he made his way past the first tree he got a system notification.

[Warning: You are now in a danger zone. Monsters and Players can now attack you. You will drop a random item equipped when you die except for starting items. Proceed to a safe zone if you are low on health, you will lose a level if you die.]

Jax read the message carefully and evilly grinned by the end of it. He could already see several players in the 2-3 level range, some even at 4 and they even had some items that they bought that looked much better than a starting item. The message made it sound like it was guaranteed to drop something which means Pking is going to be big in this game.

In addition, and the most important factor, was the safe zone. If a safe zone prevented people from killing each other, then he could steal kills or kill players with ease, as long as he got to the safe zone before he could be caught. This was what he was most excited about.

He continued walking a little until he saw a group of players with 3 rabbits being tanked while 2 damage dealers dealt damage. The last person was a healer, who looked frantic as she healed the tank. Although there was no health bar visible, Jax could tell he was having a hard time. Whenever he got hit, blood spurted everwhere and he paled, and when he got healed, he color returned and continued the cycle.

'He must not have a lot of health or the rabbits deal a lot of damage.' The rabid rabbits were the easiest monsters in the beginner villages but they were still tough to take on in packs. He couldn't tell the rabbits' health either but they looked pretty banged up.

'I really will need to do that analyze quest huh.' the analyze quest was one of the quests he got. It was also the first chain quest. It wasn't hard, but it was tedious to complete. He didn't know how much health the rabbits had, so he wasn't sure if he could kill them with one shot.

"Alright guys! They are all under 10 health now, we got this!" yelled one of the mages in the party. They cheered, but Jax had to hold his mouth to keep him from laughing out loud. 'What an idiot.' he thought.

He shouldn't have yelled something like that if he didn't want people to steal kills. He could already see people in the vicinity turn towards them. Although none stepped up to steal kills.

'More for me then.'

Jax pulled out the old flintlock that was sitting awkwardly in his pocket and took a look at the stats.

[Old Flintlock Pistol]

[Attack damage - 5]

[reload time - 30 seconds]

After looking at the forums for so long, he found out how the stats worked and how reloading worked since his in-game life depended on it.

'5 damage, so 10 with my stats and I don't have to worry about bullets.' He thought. the stats for attack damage at least was pretty straight forward. Just adding them up, and multiplying the total number by a percentage if it was a percent based attack damage.

In addition, normal bullets or arrows or whatever was used for ranged classes didn't cost anything. They were free but they only dealt a certain amount of damage which would drop off to become useless in the late game he predicted. If you wanted to buy other bullets and such to have more damage or effects, that was possible, but they were limited and you had to reload them physically.

He creeped closer to the group, being careful not to be seen before aiming the barrel of the gun at the rabbit closest to him. Although aiming felt different than the normal pc games he used to play, it almost felt natural to him so he didn't hesitate.

He pulled the trigger letting the bullet fly. The recoil was hard, which surprised him, but he still managed to hit the rabbit, ending it and sending it to the afterlife. He quickly hid behind the tree as he heard the other two rabbits squeal not soon after.

"Hey! Who stole our kill! Where the fuck are you coward!" The tank yelled. He had gone through all that pain just to get the exp stolen at the last moment. If he and Jax had been in the same party, he still would've gotten exp, but he lost it all when the kill was stolen.

It was a brutal system. The only way exp was shared between non-party members was when it was a boss monster, as everyone got some sort of reward as long as they participated.

While the tank kept yelling and accusing random people of kill stealing, Jax moved on to another area as he wove through the trees to avoid being seen. As he did, he looked at his exp bar.

[ level 1: exp - 10/500]

'Holy cow that's low!' His eyes widened at the amount of exp he got from that rabbit, and how much he still had to go. this leveling curve was no joke. He needed 49 more rabbits to level up once, and if level exp grew exponentially, it would take forever just to kill steal.

'Looks like I'll have to find rabbits on my own so I can get some drops.'

Since he only stole the kill, he didn't get any of the items or money that dropped. If he wanted to pick up the pace, he would need to take risks and kill on his own. He couldn't use the normal way he played games as often and it would be more efficient to just kill players rather than monsters since he was guaranteed something worth good money at this stage in the game.

"Alright, onto the next group."

Jax made his way around the outskirts of the forest, picking off low-level monsters from other groups and making sure he wasn't seen. Some people threw a fit, but most just sighed and went on their way, which was very surprising considering how butt hurt people got in pc MMOs and such. Maybe it was different since it was so realistic? People might have to change how they normally play since it was 'in person' rather than through a screen, so the toxicity will change.

After a while, he was able to get up to 110/500 before he got bored and decided to go further in himself. It stayed a low-level area for a while, so all he saw were players and bunnies.

'Found one.' He thought as he observed a rabbit munching on grass by itself. He checked again around him to make sure he wasn't followed, or someone else was coming. Before aiming down the none existent sights.

---------------------------------------------------------

Current Character info

[ID: KENNYYYYYYY]

[Level 1: Exp - 110/500]

[titles: none]

[class: Marksman]

[stats:

Health - 10/10

Mana - 10/10

Attack - 5

Defense - 5

Speed - 5

Magic Power - 5]

[items equipped:

old flintlock pistol

starter shirt

starter pants]

[Inventory - empty]

[Unique - N/A]