Chapter 4: Monster
After almost 15 minutes of nonstop running, Harlem finally arrived at the residence, and she quickly knocked in Jacob's room door while panting.
Within a few seconds, Jacob's Burly face appeared as the door creaked open.
"What are you doing here! This is the time you have to do work! I just did my rounds and now that I came to take a break, you decided to stop working!?"
Noticing that Jacob was preparing to continue his lecture, Harlem resolved herself and spoke.
"Sir Jacob. And emergency has happened. I did not wish to disturb you but we might need your help!"
"Hmm? Go on"
With this, Harlem blurted out everything that had happened starting from how she met Lucas and their conversation, to how Lucas had not met Gard along the way. She also told him Lucas' plan of the hound dogs and how he went on his own to search for Gard alone.
"Oh is that so? Seems like that brat finally grew a spine! Very well. I will get the hounds, you prepare my gun. This might not be as simple as Gard running away if even you and Lucas didn't know about it."
Technology was pretty advanced even in the early stages of the game. Gunpowder weapons were already available to the general public, and as time passed in-game, technology progressed further, and a new form of weapon was invented by the time the war in Gamin came to an end. However, things like magic and energy were far more useful until that point in time.
In the game, there are quite the number of pathways one can choose from:
Warrior, Magician, Hunter, Mechanic, and Priest, from which Priest and Magician used Magic and energy the most, followed closely by Mechanic.
Each pathway had innumerable specialisations gained every 10 levels. Every 10 levels, a player would be able to choose between a list of specialisations based on the quests, rewards and other factors.
Each specialisation would give additional skills and talents.
Along with this, each player would choose their race at level 0, and would be able to select race evolutions every 20 levels starting from level 5. Race evolution gave racial talents which would be unique to a specific race, preventing others from different races from utilizing them, unless they tried to fuse with another race during their evolution.
"Yes sir!" Harlem instantly turned around and ran towards the large wooden shed to the south of the residence.
Just as she found the single-barreled hunting rifle, along with the corresponding bullets, she heard barking sounds coming from the outside.
Turning around, she saw 3 ferocious dogs barking and salivating while pouncing towards a particular direction. However, their ravenous attempts to dash forward were stopped halfway by thick leather leashes around their necks.
The one holding onto the leashes was the muscular middle-aged man Jacob.
Seeing this, Harlem rushed towards him while holding the rifle and bullets in her embrace.
With this, the two set off to find Gard. Currently, the only able bodied man in Jacob's family was himself, since both his sons where below the age of 12. Therefore he had no choice but to buy slaves to manage the plantation, and he himself had to handle emergencies like now by himself.
At this moment, while the blue eyed Harlem and black haired Jacob set off in search for the slightly plump Gard, Luke had already found animal prints and was following them.
As soon as he had spotted the tracks, he had received a mission.
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Chain Mission (1/3)- Track
Follow the tracks left behind by an unknown creature to find clues about you lost friend
Mission completion reward- 100 exp, 1 Talent point
Mission failure penalty- Loss of Gard Botson
Difficulty- F
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The only problem was that the prints were pretty large, and had the shape similar to that of an ostrich in both size and depth. However, this creature clearly had four limbs, and was large enough to create a path through the thick forest vegetation, for 2 people to comfortably walk side by side.
This made it stand at around 5 feet in height, and around 4 feet in width. Its actual length would only be estimated based on the gait of the tracks. Luke estimated its height, while on all fours, to be about 6 and a half feet.
A Monster of a creature to be frank.
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