Chapter 3 - Born to Kill

[Hikari POV]

I was a little close to Touch_Me as we walked together through the initial areas of Álfheimr, the landscape was very full of light but soft and beautiful colors that gave a great contrast compared to the game's theme. I swear I could see some fairies floating in the distance, behind a cluster of trees near the road that connects Spawn to the first town in the realm.

"Yaaa hoo! How will we find many things around here???" Touch_Me said excitedly.

"Weren't you already walking around here before I showed up?" I asked adjusting a golden accessory in my red hair, making a spiky little ponytail.

"Ooh! Of course, of course! But I only know the easy places to gain experience, so far the only city I entered was the initial of Midgard. It's interesting the Lore base of this game, apparently the justification of fights and things like that between players and bosses, involves the fact that high beings want to devour the leaves of the great tree, which the game is named after, each leaf represents one of the realms here! And apparently, depending on where you start the first main quest, the game will say that the leaf that these beings are focusing on first is that same realm." he answered me incredibly grandly at the end.

"Oh! I understand... It depends on where the person starts, that same realm is the one that is most in danger, after an emergency situation, no matter what realm is... So let's see what we find around that initial area... or will we go to the XP Farm area you said before?" I asked while swinging my daggers, turning them one in each hand, they were the starting item of my Job as a rogue.

As expected, they were quite simple, so simple that I think that even an ultra beginner of drawings could draw them in a way that any player would recognize what item it is. There's no detail on them, no runes, no sign of damage, just something that resembles a generic metal.

When he looked at me, he was silent, staring at me for a few seconds. "Eh? What is it? Won't you answer me?" I asked again.

"Ah! Ahn... Let's go first to the place I said before, so we take advantage and also get drops to sell and get better equipment than the starters... But... Dude... How are you doing this?" he asked impressed, seeming to step out of his roleplay a little.

"Doing what?" I raised an eyebrow.

"Spinning your daggers like that. It seems like something you'd see an anime character do while he's bored!" he exclaimed, still impressed.

"But... isn't it a weapon art?" I was confused, after all I did a little research on the main YGGDRASIL website and it seems that, even though it's a VR game and the player controls it freely, there are still weapon arts, abilities of each weapon that make the player have predetermined and generally specific moves for each equipment.

"Uh.. Yes, there are weapon arts in this game. But starter items don't have this! They're just made for you to get the first kills without any problems so you can buy something better later! That means what you're doing, you also knows how to do it in the real world!!!" He stated extremely excited to see that I knew how to do something like this.

"Eh? Really? I was just trying to do this because I know it won't affect my real body... So you mean I always had a reflex for that.. I never tried because of fear... Wow..." I replied his big doubt while I made other moves to test.

We stop for a while and I start doing some tricks with those daggers, turning them around in my hands, doing a kind of juggling with them and then I think of a fun thing to do. I throw them into the air, because they are spinning, they would go a little backwards in the trajectory, so I try to do a backflip, I end up landing a few steps behind where I was and I stretch my hands up, holding tight to the handles my daggers.

"THIS WAS AWESOME, KEI-KUN!" Touch_Me exclaimed but soon covered his own helmet's mouth as he realized he spoke a nickname he gave me in the real world.

"Heh.. Thanks. Let's go to that place you said to get XP." I said and finally we headed towards the expected place.

"Btw! What's your agility? By the amazing thing you've done, you must have a lot of points in this stat!" he asked as we went out of the route to the starting city.

"I have 8 points in agility." I replied simply.

"Whaaat?! I thought you were at least 20, grandiose Hikari-kun!" he exclaimed, trying to get back into roleplay rhythm.

"But I just got here today... to this great tree of life called YGGDRASIL!" I answered him by roleplaying too.

"True... I forgot that detail, my fellow justice. I'm impressed with you, you're going to be amazing!" He said and soon we stopped walking, arriving at the place we wanted from the beginning.

It was a land surrounded by trees, with only two dirt paths free to move, the one we came from and the other on the opposite side of that clearing. The terrain seemed to have several ravines, the ground in parts was rocky and in others covered with grass.

There were few monsters in front of us, some resembled wild boars with horns on the front that had bright yellow runes, while there were also a small amount of monsters that resembled fairies, but there didn't seem to be any legs and their wings were bent abnormally, making them crawl to move.

If they weren't monsters made to attack players that get too close, I would feel sorry for them. But even then, they were just NPCs.

"Attack the [Fallen Fairy]s. They are between level 5 and 15 in this area, they are extremely slow to attack, however their attack does an average of 20 damage with paralysis effect, no matter the level.I take care of the [Low-runic Boar]s. The ones we have in this area are only level 10 max, but they make quick lunges." my colleague warned me as he grabbed his basic big sword and wielded it.

I swallowed hard, after all I had 6 max HP because I was still at level 1, unlike Touch_Me who was at level 10, possibly because he killed enemies like this in his spare time. But I knew very well that his maximum HP was high enough to be able to receive an attack from these monsters and still survive, must that be one of the advantages of being a heteromorphic player? Or maybe it's because he chose the Half-Insect race?

Anyway, a lvl 5 - 15 monster that will easily hitkill low lvl players like me..? The devs don't really expect there to be people who try to take a risky adventure? Although... They attack slowly, which could be a sign that they actually accept these strategies, but the fact that these fairies are close to wild boars... Maybe an element of natural difficulty among monsters?

With my daggers already in hand, I slowly approached the [Fallen Fairy]s while Touch_Me walked towards the [Low-runic Boar]s. He made a loud noise as he slammed his big sword against a tree, drawing the monsters' attention to him. The ones that looked like boars were running towards my colleague, while the ones that looked like fairies were just growling and making angry noises, possibly because he was far from them, even so, they didn't seem to have noticed me.

I was approaching from behind one of the [Fallen Fairy]s that was further behind the others. I had an idea of ​​how to attack her effectively and then I tried to make my plan.

I jumped, landing sitting on top of her wings, on her back. The fairy grunted in pain, possibly because the wings were not only broken but fragile. Still using the momentum of that same jump, I moved my shoulder, elbow, forearm, all in sync that made my dagger in my right hand hit the enemy's unprotected neck, causing it to be decapitated.

[Fallen Fairy Lvl12 received fatal method damage]

[Fallen Fairy Lvl12 killed]

[Player Hikari gained Experience Points]

[Player Hikari lvl1 → lvl2]

[Player Hikari received 1 level to spread between job/racial levels]

[+3 HP ; +2 MP ; +1 Phy.Atk ; +3 Special]

In a typical MMORPG game, I wouldn't be able to do this, but here, it was quite important to consider where the enemy is going to be attacked and how the attack will take place. This would be fatal to any human if we were in the real world, so why wouldn't the same be true for low-level "defective" fairies without any physical armor?

It wasn't surprising that you could get a level-up with just that kill. After all, that [Fallen Fairy] was at level 12, that is, 11 levels above me. But I actually expected to have at least 2 level-ups, maybe I'm almost reaching level 3 too?

Anyway, now wasn't the time to open my stats screen to get my question answered, I was still in combat.

I watched the other two [Fallen Fairy]s that were there, when they heard their friend's grunts, they turned and saw me. One grunts quite loudly with a thin and very irritating frequency, while the other started to have a glint in her broken wings and placed both claw-like hands on the ground.

I kept myself in a defensive position, with both daggers in my hands as I watched the fairy I killed, she disappeared and a kind of small crystal, with a faint glow, appeared where the corpse was. Possibly it was the way monster drops appear in this game. Interesting to say the least, it reminds me of a very old game from the last century called Digimon.

The fairy that was snarling, seemed to start copying her colleague, while the fairy that was preparing an attack, made the glow coming from the wings go directly to her hands and thus propelled herself towards me, trying to bite me. To avoid this I did a simple side step, making her fall face down on the floor and gradually come back to her common position.

I found the attack method interesting, it was much easier to dodge than I thought, now I understand why the damage was so strong, it was simply a way to punish players who thought they were too slow and weak.

When the other [Fallen Fairy] tried to do the same against me, instead of me dodging to the side, I tried to jump. This resulted in a favorable positioning for me to do something that would be considered quite disrespectful against monsters, including this one that was level 8.

When I jumped, I did it in a way that my feet were right next to my body, so when that fairy was below me I was able to step on her head and do another jump using her as a platform. Doing a pirouette and landing safely on the ground, still holding my two daggers.

[Fallen Fairy Lvl8 received damage.]

[Fallen Fairy Lvl8 appears to have reached close to half HP.]

Oh, so the system doesn't say how much damage or how much HP a monster has? Maybe that's because we're in early access, or maybe I need an item that is gained after main and mandatory quests to follow the lore of YGGDRASIL.

I could see that the fairy I attacked was now facedown on the ground and trying to get out of there, while the other one seemed to go with the same attack as usual. Again, I decided to dodge in a different way, this time ducking, but I took the opportunity to attack, raising my dagger.

The dagger hit her in the stomach, and because she was making that impulse attack, she ended up landing on my other side, with the dagger still stuck in the place where I hit her. She started to grunt in strong pain, obviously because this type of monster moves by dragging its body, having a dagger stuck in its belly is a nightmare for any of these.

[Fallen Fairy Lvl6 received damage]

[Fallen Fairy Lvl6 received damage]

[Fallen Fairy Lvl6 received damage]

[Fallen Fairy Lvl6 received "bleed" status.]

[Fallen Fairy Lvl6 will take damage while the status is happening.]

Great, apparently in these cases the system does not spam the damage caused, it already says the effect received. At least the devs of this game know what is annoying and should be avoided....

Hm.....?

[Fallen Fairy Lvl6 will only have the "bleed" status removed in 2 situations.]

[Situation 1: Removing the item that is lodged in the body and covering the wound with some cloth or using healing magic.]

[Situation 2: Using a debuff/negative effect canceling spell.]

Woaaah!?! Wait a minute... Is the game doing a tutorial on this in the middle of a fight? Wow, that's pretty smart. Maybe more tutorials like this will come if I do something for the first time. Right now, it's the first time the "bleed" effect has occurred near me and the system has identified it.

After being impressed, my mind returned to the battle when that fairy I used as a platform finally left the ground and was advancing on me with everything, this time without carrying that energy that originated from the wings.

"Hm? Are you going to attack me without your charged attack? I'm not stupid to figure out if it's going to do me a lot of damage or not." I said, doing a little roleplay as if the monster in front of me was understanding me.

As I only had one dagger at the moment, I dodged to the side, intending to hold her wing with one hand as I plunged my dagger into her back, but that was when I discovered something that took away any of my doubts.

[Player Hikari Lvl2 received "paralysis" status.]

Shit! So that's what caused the paralysis effect that Touch_Me warned me about! The wings of the monster named as [Fallen Fairy] causes this effect when touched, so this completely explains the difference between the charged attacks and the normal attacks of these fairies.

[Player Hikari Lvl2 will only have the "paralysis" status removed in 3 situations.]

[Situation 1: End skin contact with the item causing the effect and wait for a few turns]

[Situation 2: Using a potion against paralysis]

[Situation 3: Using a debuff/negative effect canceling spell.]

With my paralysis, I released the level 8 fairy's wing. Now I was an easy target for them, my only option was to do Situation 1, but there's no way I can survive a single attack from these monsters.

I then watched the field around me, Touch_Me seemed to be having fun fighting the [Low-runic Boar]s, there were 5 of them and he was more acting than fighting for real. But unfortunately, he didn't seem to be seeing my situation, or if he was, he wanted me to learn the hard way how things are around here.

Anyway, I looked again at the two [Fallen Fairy]s in front of me. Level 8's had just landed on the ground and was staring at me, growling, while Level 6's continued to grunt in pain and stared at me, already charging her attack, wings glowing and the glow transferring to her claws. I took a deep breath, already accepting that I would die and return to the spawn area, but the dumbest thing ever happened in front of me.

When the fairy, who was ready to attack, lunged at me, she evaporated like glitter, just before she wanted to touch me.

[Fallen Fairy Lvl6 received excessive damage from the "bleed" status]

[Fallen Fairy Lvl6 Killed]

[Player Hikari gained Experience Points]

[Player Hikari Lvl2 → Lvl3]

[Player Hikari received 1 level to spread between job/racial levels]

[+2 HP ; +1 MP; +1 Phy.Def ; +2 Mag.Def ; +3 Resist]

[Status "paralysis" removed by Level-Up]

So there was a fourth method to cure paralysis?... Well, that's what I should expect from an RPG game... So when we evolve our statuses reset? Or is it just in reference to negative effects of this nature? As I haven't dropped my HP so far, I haven't been able to figure out how this part of the system works.

I soon noticed my second dagger, the one that was stuck in the defeated fairy's stomach, on the floor, next to a monster crystal there. I also looked in front of me, seeing the fairy that was left coming at me, wanting to attack me without charging an attack.

Reflexively, instead of picking up the dagger or dodging, I simply kicked her hard in the face, causing her to fall back a little, onto her back against the floor. I quickly grabbed my second dagger and jumped on it, digging my two blades into the fairy's neck, which soon evaporates as well.

[Fallen Fairy Lvl8 received fatal method damage]

[Fallen Fairy Lvl8 killed]

[Player Hikari gained Experience Points]

I was panting for a moment and then decided to sit there on the floor, and pick up those crystals that were dropped.

[3× Data Crystal Common Class - Broken fairy wing]

So they dropped the broken wings? This was very interesting to see, but when I went to look at the item itself in my inventory, the description didn't say anything about paralysis effects. This means that maybe another drop from [Fallen Fairy]s has something to do with it, but there was also a chance that there were no dropable items like that coming from these monsters, at least at low levels.

I sat there watching Touch_Me enjoying his fight, deciding not to interfere and just waiting for him to finish. But I didn't stand still, I took the opportunity to see how my status was.

A notification window popped up in my face before I could do anything and then I went to open it to see what was there.

[Player Hikari. Your first kill was performed with a fatal method, within the first 24 hours of play, you earned the title "Born to Kill".]

[Titles can be enabled or disabled by Player choice. When enabled, the title will appear below your IGN.]

[Player Hikari. You managed to kill a monster that was at least 10 levels above your current level, you got the "Always Prepared" achievement.]

[Achievements can be seen in your achievements list. The Player can decide whether the achievements list will be displayed publicly, among friends, or private.]

I took a deep breath, that first notification shocked me, had the devs already posted a title involving this? And worse, by the description the Player had to kill his first monster in a fatal way, within an invisible time limit. This meant that no one would normally pick up this title, without someone talking to the person before they even completed 24 hours of playing. Most likely it is the type of title that will be taken by Players who decide to reset their accounts.

No way I would activate this title, it would make me look like someone evil, and since I'm wanting to keep Touch_Me, since he's my guide in this game, I don't want to ruin the reputation of a vigilante he wants to have just for being near him.

The second notification made me laugh, it was an achievement for the first time someone killed a very advanced monster. I can imagine the faces of Players who tried to attack a monster with a high level, were completely broken and still got this achievement, it's the same thing to make fun of their face. The Devs must have made an achievement with that name as a mockery.

I decided to leave my achievement list for friends only and finally went to see my character's screen.

————————————————————

Nickname: Th3Unkn0wnF0r35T

Began Playing: April 4th, 0000

IGN: Hikari

Job: Nomadic Rogue

Residence: Álfheimr

Alignment: True Neutral ————— Karma: -8

Total Level: 3

(2 levels points still waiting to be added)

Racial Level:

Human ————— Lv.Max

Jobs Level:

Rogue ————— Lv.1

Ability Chart:

Hp: 11 | Mp: 8

Phy.Atk: 8 | Phy.Def: 6

Agility: 8

Mag.Atk: 5 | Mag.Def: 8

Resist: 7 | Special: 8

Total Stats: 69

(Base: 45; Early Access' Little Benefit: +6; P/Level-Up: +9)

{A/N: I don't remember exactly if it's exactly like that, but I'll leave the amount of points earned as this.}

————————————————————

After seeing this, a notification screen popped up asking if I wanted to record the events of this fight I had, I accepted, as I needed some way to remember the events to write about on my YGGDRASIL review website. But it was strange that just now this notification came up.

That's when I noticed Touch_Me was done fighting the [Low-runic Boar]s, possibly he saw that I was done already with the fairies and he decided to stop acting. He was soon walking towards me and I got up from the rocky ground I was on.

"So, did you have fun? Hikari, the JUSTICE companion!!!" He said all excited while posing.

"A lot. Now I'm level 3 and I have a basic idea of ​​what to write in one or three posts on my website." I said wiping the dust on my pants.

"Perfect! Come on, fellow justice. We need to sell the items you got and see if we can buy you a good weapon!" He continued acting and making funny poses and soon seemed to walk towards the starting city of Alfheimr, but soon stopped staring at me. "And which stats did you choose to distribute your points about?"

"Huh? None... The system chose it for me." I replied, confused.

"Oh, I see. You must have the 'personalized choice' option enabled in your menu. It's a method of making players evolve depending on the specific things they do. Generally, people like me who love to roleplay here, love to let this option turns on. But if you want to have more control over it, turn this option off." He started explaining to me, completely out of character, in a more technical way.

"However, just turning this off makes your stats not increase by themselves, you are forced to enter the menu and increase them. But there is also another one that allows you to decide how many fixed points you will gain in certain stats after each Level-Up, if you choose this other option, I warn you that it's always best to remember to change it according to your needs, otherwise you will end up evolving only specific things while the rest will be far below the ordinary." He continued talking and meanwhile I was deactivating this 'personified choice' in the menu, but I decided not to activate the alternative method as I was still thinking about how I would focus my character evolution, the job choice was just because I love being agile.

"Okay, let's go then." I said starting to run in front of him.

"Hey! Hold on!" he exclaimed, trying to catch up with me as we headed towards our next destination.