The Beginner Gamer

Seojoon walked around the village until he came upon a small wooden gate. At the gate were two soldiers standing guard while talking to each other in a light-hearted mood. As Seojoon got closer, the guards noticed him and gave a friendly wave.

"Hey you, I don't think I've seen you around here before.... are you an outsider?"

"What is an outsider?" Seojoon asked with curiosity.

"You must be an outsider if you don't know what it means," said the guard with a laugh. "An outsider is someone who teleports in at the village center and can come back to life after dying. It's a pretty cool ability if you ask me."

"Ah, thank you," replied Seojoon while bowing his head feeling a little embarrassed from being complimented.

The guard saw this and raised an eyebrow. "You aren't like the other outsiders, at least you know how to thank others."

The second guard sighed. "Those god damn bastards ignoring us even after we gave them our sincere warnings.... not that they need it anyways. If they die, they can always come back to life."

The first guard poked the second guard in the ribs. "Oi, watch your tone. Getting in trouble with outsiders is a very risky business."

"I know man, but they all have self-important attitudes and treat us like worthless people. I wonder why I even bother to give them advice."

"It's our job man. Nothing we can do about it."

Seojoon felt guilty for the two guards and decided to bow down and apologize. "I'm sorry for my fellow outsiders' behavior."

The first guard waved it off while laughing. "You have nothing to apologize for, so you don't have to feel bad about it."

The second guard gave Seojoon a good look before giving a small smirk.

[The guards start to see you in a good light. Beginner's Village Guards - friendly.]

What?

Seojoon stared at the message blankly when all of a sudden, the second guard started to speak. "I like you kid. Tell you what, let me help you out a bit."

The guard drew his sword and pointed it to the field that was just beyond the gate. "Out there are a few beasts and monsters. Out of them, the rabbits and slimes are the easiest to kill. I'll give you my sword so go out there and kill five rabbits and five slimes. If you manage to complete it, I'll give you a reward."

Almost instantly, a message appeared before Seojoon.

[Hunting Quest

One of the guards has decided to help you learn how to fight. Go out into the field and hunt five slimes and five rabbits. Please be careful of other strong mobs.

Rabbits - 0/5

Slimes - 0/5

Reward: something good]

"So, will you accept or not?" Asked the guard with the same small grin.

Seojoon hesitated. He did not know how to fight in the game, but he figured that he would be able to work it out.

Seojoon bowed once more towards the guards to express his gratitude. "Thank you very much."

"It's nothing."

"Go hunt them rabbits and slimes already. Be wary for crazy dogs though. They have a mean bite."

Seojoon took the sword from the guard before making his way out to the field. He immediately spotted a few players swinging their fists at a few slimes or chasing rabbits. None of them had a weapon.

One of the players noticed that Seojoon had a sword and immediately ran over.

"Bro! Where did you get that sword? I've been hitting these stupid slimes for ages and I only do 1 damage to them! To make matters worse, they give me an abysmal amount of XP so I need to kill at least a hundred to level up once!"

Seojoon tilted his head sideways at the player before asking, "what are levels? Is there like an increasing difficulty that happens the more you play?"

The player froze and stared at Seojoon like he was some complete idiot. "....have you ever played a game before?"

Seojoon shook his head. "Not really, this is my first one ever."

The player's eyes slowly got smaller and morphed into two a (3_3) shape as he got more and more confused.

"Did you go to the village head and obtain your quest?"

"The line was too long so I skipped it and came here."

"....how the fuck did you get that sword?"

"The guard gave it to me, he gave me a... quest as well?"

"WHAT THE FUCK? WHY DIDN'T HE GIVE ONE TO ME?"

Seojoon watched the player immediately dash off back to the village with a confused look. He still had no idea what levels were and why quests were so important and a lot of things did not make sense to him. For now, only one thing was clear to him. Kill five rabbits and five slimes and go back to the guard.

Seojoon quickly found a spherical blob-like monster, which had to be a slime, and slowly made his way to it while holding his sword towards the slime. The slime responded by shifting into a multitude of colors and jumped once before going still.

Seojoon gently poked the slime with his sword.

[-2]

"What in the world?" Muttered Seojoon as he stared at the red letters that appeared before his eyes. He gave the slime a harder poke.

[-4]

Seojoon took a step back as the slime jumped towards him and furrowed his brows before taking a swing at the slime.

[-15]

He gave one last slash and flinched in surprise as the slime lost its round shape and turned into a gooey liquid.

[-15. You have killed a slime.

+1 exp.]

Seojoon raised an eyebrow before lowering his sword.

"One down, nine more things to kill. That was easier than I thought."

Although Seojoon still had no idea what to do and what was happening, he carried his sword and made his way to his next victim who was flashing a multitude of colors a couple of meters away.

If he completed the quest, he would surely understand how things worked, right?