Chapter 16: Next Village

After searching stuff on the forums Vikram realized something. He had not realized it earlier but he surely did it now. Earlier while checking the forums, he didn't pay attention to the quest rewards but now when he did, he realized that compared to what the players were getting his rewards were a lot!

For example, in the quest where he was supposed to clean the old man's horses, he got around 20 Bronze Coins from it and 10 EXP. In the case of other players though the EXP they received were the same but the number of coins they got was only 20 Copper Coins!

One had to mention that 100 Copper Coins were equal to 1 Bronze Coin so there was a humongous difference in the number of coins Vikram was making which filled him with excitement. Not only this but when Vikram searched the forum for the latest news, he found that the joint mission that the top guilds were doing was finally completed and a path to reach the elf race opened up on the world map.

Unfortunately, the path was densely packed with monsters above level 200 making it difficult for the current rankers to cross it. Seeing that they couldn't access the location even after knowing the path spoiled the mood of many rankers from those guilds as they started levelling up madly but since the difficulty of levelling up in Odyssey is so much even though the players sped up their levelling speed their EXP bar was slow as a tortoise.

After getting familiar with all this stuff Vikram logged back into the game. Vikram saw the gauntlets he was wearing and couldn't help but smile seeing it. Yesterday he was too preoccupied to check the stats of these gauntlets so he opened the menu to check it now.

Gauntlets of the Dark Knight [B Grade] (Equipped): - The Gauntlets worn by one of the forces of the dark emperor which had greatly reduced the number of casualties suffered by the demon army greatly.

Increases the Defence of the user by 20% of their HP.

Seeing this Vikram's curiosity took over him and he opened up his player stats.

NAME – ROSSIAN

RACE - DEMON

LVL – 11(0/11,000EXP)

CLASS – Swordsman

STR – 12 [+80 (Baleful Sword Bonus)]

END - 11

DEX - 12

INT– 11

DFN – 2.2

HP – 11 [ +2.2]

Seeing this Vikram got the gist of this defence stats and how it would help him. Since Vikram's intention now was to explore the lands, he went store nearby which looked to be stacked with things that an adventurer would buy. He was looking for a map and from the outward appearance of this store, he felt that this would be the place where he would get his hands on it.

Entering the store Vikram met a short spectacled middle-aged man who was going over an old book. Seeing Vikram entering his shop he put away his book and asked him what he was looking for her.

"Do you have a map? I want to explore the kingdom." Vikram said.

"Of course." The shopkeeper said and went behind the store to get a scroll before passing it to Vikram.

Vikram opened up the scroll and looked over the map titled 'Darmacia' as the shopkeeper's words entered his ears. "The map of our Kingdom Darmacia is highly sort after by young adventurers who are keen on exploring the lands and from the looks of it, you seem to be exactly one of them. How about looking over the shop and seeing whether there are some things that you may need in your journey?"

It was Vikram's first time hearing the name of Kingdom so he looked at the map with quite an interest. The shopkeeper's voice soon entered Vikram's ears and ended up successfully baiting him into looking for more stuff at the shop.

A few minutes later Vikram came out of the shop with a few coins less and a few items more. He had bought a carry bag which had increased the space in his inventory. Even though his original inventory space was enough Vikram felt that it won't take long for it to get full if he came across a lucky encounter. As a result, Vikram decided to invest his coins in a good carry bag.

Vikram made his way to the bakery and other food stalls and filled his inventory with the proper amount of food items so that he would not starve midway. With all this done Vikram now was finally ready to head out of the Ekkinisi Village. His destination was the next village named 'Horac Village'.

Vikram could have stayed right here and farmed demonic hounds found in the area for more time if he hadn't reached level 11. All the beasts in the vicinity of the Ekkinisi Village were level 10 and below. So now that Vikram had reached level 11 he would get zero EXP from hutting them. That's how it was in the world of Odyssey and that's why many players cursed the game for its difficult levelling system.

Although this was a demon kingdom the surroundings weren't demonic at all. It looked like a normal beautiful grassland similar to what would be found in the human kingdom. Vikram enjoyed the sensation of travelling alone on a lonely road as the fresh breeze hit his face. This was a feeling had not experienced in the real world. He couldn't help but feel freer here.

Enjoying the breeze Vikram started walking towards the Horac village while resisting the attacks of the low-level beasts from time to time. He had bought flint stones at the adventurer shop so when his food stock gets low, he can try roasting these monsters for food. It was something he didn't want to try but if need be, he had to.

Just like that Vikram successfully reached the Horac village after following the path shown on the map. It was at first difficult for him to interpret the map but after looking at it from all angles he could finally make some sense of it and reached his destination without any trouble.