[Zee: You seem to have just come out of beginner town. Is this your first time playing this game?]
Della was silent for a while. The girl first considered her answer, before finally choosing to be honest with her teammate.
After all, repeating a game with a new character was not unusual in the gaming world. It was just that in her case, there would probably be a huge uproar if people knew that a player named Xena was replaying the game with a new character named Athena.
Della felt that she only needed to reveal half the truth and bury the other half deep in her mind.
[Athena: I played this game once, but that was when the game was just released. These kinds of events... I don't remember it anymore.]
Actually, because in the past Della was too busy taking care of the ever-growing Guild Domination, the girl could no longer participate in some special events that were not directly related to guild ranking. Della really didn't remember how these kinds of individual events worked anymore. The girl felt embarrassed. Della was afraid that this man who brought her would think of her as a burden who didn't know anything after this.
But unexpectedly, the next reply that came was instead another friendly sentence coming from the man.
[Zee: Ah, it's okay. I'll guide you slowly then. I also stopped playing games before and forgot a lot of things. Helping each other is what we should do when playing games.]
Not long after, a notification window appeared on Della's laptop screen.
[System: Zee invites you to share a ride. Refuse/Accept.]
Della watched in amazement as a dragon suddenly landed near them. The tone had shimmering black scales. Its entire body carried a luxurious majestic impression. Della was familiar with the dragon. It was a type of mount that was extremely difficult for even high-level players to obtain. The difficulty itself lay in the fact that the dragon could only be obtained from a special dungeon with a high difficulty level. Of all the people Della knew, she only knew her old guild master who had a mount of the level of the black dragon.
Della observed it for a moment before clicking the accept option. She knew she couldn't keep the man named Zee waiting for long. She also didn't want to look too much like an experienced old player. Della wanted to play humbly. She wouldn't ask too many questions, especially to someone she had just met today.
When Della finished clicking the accept option, her game character automatically boarded the dragon along with Zee. But since Della had never seen someone share a ride on a black dragon before, she never knew that riding the dragon could be a very awkward experience for both her and the foreign player. Della automatically sat behind Zee, with her arms tightly entwined around the man's waist.
Perhaps to be more realistic, Della's character looked more like she was hugging Zee tightly when the dragon finally flew into the vast sky. Their bodies do cling together, presenting an image of a couple enjoying their time on a magnificent dragon.
" .... "
But in the end, this male-female seating posture is the default system in this game. There's nothing Della can do to change it. After all, it's not like Della herself felt like sharing an intimate ride with the strange man.
Their ride was too silent as Della didn't feel she had anything to talk about with Zee during their ride. She was calmly enjoying the beautiful view from above the clouds when her message notification rang again.
[Zee: Oh yeah, do you have a house in this game? If not, you can drop by my house anytime Athena. As an old player, you still remember that it's an important place to recuperate and make some products, right? My house may be simple, but it's well-equipped enough that you can make anything there. Also, there should be enough room for you to rest if your life and magic reach zero. I'll prepare it for you later.]
Della raised her eyebrows. "This guy... Really doesn't give up easily does he?" she whispered to herself. There were always men who paid this much attention to female players. Della had experienced it many times, so she was no longer strange about this kind of approach.
But if Della wanted to think logically, his offer was indeed not a bad thing for a low-level player like her. Since there were only a few lives and magic, instead of buying medicine or food with a certain buff effect, it was better to make the character sleep so that the lives and magic could be instantly replenished. However, buying a house for a new character seems quite expensive. Always staying in hotels to heal her life couldn't be considered cheap too. In the past, she had to settle for saving up and then buying a small house in the end. But this time, someone had directly agreed to share her house with Della.
In the past, Della had always underestimated the strong female players because they were helped by many people. But now here she was, shamelessly utilizing the kindness of others for her benefit.
[Athena: Okay. Thank you very much, Zee.]
[Zee: No big deal. I'm just happy to be able to help a pretty girl like you ^^]
In the end, Della didn't want to reply anymore because Zee's words made Della's forehead frown slightly. Although Della knew that the other party didn't seem to have any bad intentions for her, the experience of being chased by a crazy man in the game was enough to make Della wary of anyone.
Fortunately, it wasn't long before they soon arrived at the point where the event was held, so Della was able to forget about their conversation without much effort.
Now, the dragon carrying them had entered a dense forest area filled with mist. With the atmosphere around, Della couldn't help but start to feel wary as she had no idea what kind of dungeon they were about to enter at the moment. The dungeon was supposed to be completed by all guild members. Each of them was given one free spot by the game developers just for today. The guild Della was in, however, only had one strong player and one weak player to complete the huge dungeon at the moment.
While Della was thinking about the success rate of this mission, Zee led her into the large cave that was the special dungeon for today. Darkness greeted them as soon as they entered the cave. Zee activated light magic immediately after that. Light magic was the basic magic that all players had. It functioned just like a lamp, illuminating a place that was too dark for the eyes to see. He and Della took turns turning on the light magic to illuminate the path of the two of them. The two of them entered the cave deeper and deeper until their shadows were swallowed up by the fog.