He waited for a while after knocking, while paying attention to the blue dot on his radar. Before his knock, the blue dot had been moving around, but after the knock it became static. He assumed it must have heard his knock. He knocked on the door again, heavier this time. The blue dot still stayed in its place.
'Was it pretending to not hear my knock?' Jack thought.
He lost patience and knocked for the third time while yelling, "Hey, I know you are inside! Open up!"
After a moment of silence, he heard footsteps rushing to the door. The blue dot was coming. Tensing up, Jack jumped backward and took out his sword and magic staff.
After several clicks, the door opened.
A middle-aged man wearing casual attire was staring at him with a bewildered look. The look turned to joy, but was almost immediately replaced fight when the man noticed the sword in Jack's hand. Realizing the man was not a menace, Jack put away his weapons. The man's expression now changed to relief. Using his God-eye monocle, Jack could see descriptions floating above the man's head.
*
Master Chef (Ranger, level: 1)
HP: 110/110
*
'He is a player as well,' Jack thought, though he wasn't sure if he should call himself and the man players. Players, after all, were participants in a game, and he was not at all sure if this world they were in right now was a game or real.
"Yo– You are… a person!" The man stammered.
"That I am," Jack answered.
"Oh, really? Really?" The man stepped forward and grabbed Jack's shoulders hard, as if afraid Jack was just a figment of his imagination.
"I haven't seen anybody since… since all this started! Do you know what happened?"
"No, I'm confused as well," Jack said. "You've been here all this time?"
"Yes, of course. Why would I be wandering around with all those things outside? Come in, hurry, before those things show up!"
'He must be referring to the monsters,' Jack thought. The man went back inside and beckoned Jack to follow. Jack complied and went inside. Jack immediately liked the neat interior of the house; simple furniture decorated the house, no fancy stuff or ornaments. A sofa and a small coffee table were beside the boarded up windows. Opposite to them was a small table with a small clock and some family photos on it. He heard the clicks again and turned to see the man locking up several bolts and latches on the door.
"I was afraid I was the only one left," the man said as he led Jack into the dining room, "Would you like something to drink?"
"Yes, please," Jack replied.
The man poured some water into a glass and brought it to him. Jack looked carefully at the glass.
*
Drinking water (Junk consumable)
Alleviate thirst
*
He drank it and asked, "you really didn't go out at all?"
The man sat down opposite him. "I did, when it first happened. After the loud ringing stopped, I tried to find my wife. I thought she must have gone out, so I went to search for her. And that's when I saw those dead people on the street. One of them chased after me and I barely managed to run back to my house. That's when I boarded up the windows and added some more locks on the door. What was it? Was it a virus epidemic? Like the ones in those old apocalyptic movies that you young folks like to watch?"
"I don't think so," Jack said. He didn't think it would be a good idea to tell him about the skeleton monster. That would destroy his theory of the apocalyptic epidemic. "You mentioned loud ringing? What about a bright flash?"
"What bright flash?"
"… Don't worry about it."
"I just can't make heads or tails about it," the man continued. "After the loud ringing, there was this woman's voice. And then a black box appeared as if by magic. Inside was a bunch of stuff. I tried to move away at first, but it was like something was holding me. I couldn't move away from that box. So I picked up this knife, figured I could at least use it for cooking. Afterward, there was the woman's voice again, saying some stuff which I didn't understand. After all that, I started searching for my wife."
Jack was speechless, 'This guy has absolutely no idea what is happening. Not like I do either, but at least I grasped the class, level, and combat mechanics. This guy just stayed at level 1 all this time. Wait a minute! This means that what happened here was not limited to gamers. This guy doesn't sound like he's played any games in his entire life.'
"Forgive me; I was so excited to see another person that I forget my manners. My name is Bill," the man extended his hand.
Jack shook his hand, "Jack." He gave his real name since Bill did the same.
"So, you have been roaming around since yesterday? How have you avoided those things outside?"
"I haven't," he replied.
"You haven't?" The man was confused. "You haven't been roaming? Are you a nearby resident then?"
"No, I mean I haven't avoided them," Jack took out his sword. "I killed them."
The man was flabbergasted. "With a knife?"
"Dude, this is a sword…"
"Young man, this is not the time to be joking around. Unless you have a gun, don't think about confronting those things outside."
Jack just nodded silently. He was already tired out after a full day of journeying; he was not going to waste his resting time arguing with this uncle.
"Are you hungry? Why don't I make you something to eat?" the uncle offered.
"I don't want to be a bother."
"No, no bother at all. I enjoy cooking. It helps to calm my nervous mind." By the time he finished speaking, Bill had scrambled into the kitchen. Jack could hear the sounds of cooking not long after.
'Guess there was a reason he had chosen that alias of his,' Jack thought, smiling.
While he was waiting, he looked at his status window. His Strength was already 28, but his Dexterity was lagging behind at 25. He had 1 free attribute point and 1 free skill point for Fighter class and 1 free skill point for Magician class. After some contemplation, he still kept the free skill points for later, but once again added his free attribute point to his Dexterity, increasing it to 26.
The sounds of cooking subsided, so he closed his status window. There was a good smell coming from the kitchen. Not long after, Bill came out carrying a dish. He put it on the table. It was simple fried rice, but the smell was rich, and the color and appearance were very enticing. Some text appeared above the dish.
*
Egg Fried Rice (Food, Apprentice grade)
Recover 50 HP
Increase stamina and mana recovery by 50% for the next 3 hours
Ingredients: 1 Rice, 1 Egg
*
'Apprentice grade? What was this?' It had a different classification from the normal consumable items he had gotten till now. 'Never mind, let's enjoy a good meal first.'
He had been eating bread since yesterday, a well-cooked meal was much welcomed. After giving thanks to his host, he dined on the fried rice. The taste was delicious, the man well deserved his alias!
"This is very good," he said to Bill while still munching. "If I could cook a fine meal such as this, it would be great."
"Well, young man. This is my simplest dish. If you want to learn, I can share the recipe with you."
Bill held out a small piece of paper. "Here, take this. I used to write down my recipes, but I can make this fried rice with my eyes closed."
Jack took the offered piece of paper. Some words were scribbled on the paper. After reviewing it, he realized it was the recipe for this fried rice. Suddenly, he heard the mechanical notification again, "you have learned Cooking Recipe: Simple Fried Rice."
"Congratulations, you have unlocked the Auxiliary Skill page, you can review the skills inside the Status window."
Edited by OneFellSwoop
'Auxiliary skills?' He called up his status window at once. Once it was up, he immediately noticed an additional page after the Battle Skill page. He turned to that page.
*
Auxiliary Skill
Gatherer
- Forage: basic apprentice
- Lumbering: basic apprentice
- Mining: basic apprentice
- Fishing: basic apprentice
Artisan
- Blacksmith: basic apprentice
- Alchemist: basic apprentice
- Cooking: basic apprentice – see available recipes.
- Scroll Making: basic apprentice
Support
- Lockpicking: basic apprentice
- Detect & Disarm Trap: basic apprentice
- Runecraft: basic apprentice
- Inspect: basic apprentice
Social
- Leadership & Teamwork: basic apprentice
- Diplomacy: basic apprentice
- Haggling: basic apprentice
- Influence: basic apprentice
*
He studied the Auxiliary page intensely, but there was no explanation for each of the skills. He didn't remember reading about these skills in the Beta Guide either. They were all at basic apprentice level. He guessed he would need to repeatedly use these skills in order to increase their grade, like the star proficiency of battle skills. If so, it would probably take a great number of uses. He had still not filled up one-tenth of the first stars of his battle skills, Power Strike and Mana Bullet, after continuously using them for two days,.
"What's wrong, young man? You seemed to space out. Was my fried rice that good?" Bill's voice disrupted his train of thought.
Hearing Bill's comment, he realized something.
"You didn't see my status window?" Jack asked him.
"What window?"
'So we can only see our own status window,' Jack pondered. 'That's good, it will prevent people from learning about my stats and equipment attributes if I look at them while other players are around."
"Try opening yours," he said to Bill
"Open what?" Bill was at a loss.
"You can mentally call it up, but, in your case, you can try it for the first time by saying 'status window.'"
"Status window?"
After he said the words, Bill immediately jerked up from his chair. He stared at the empty air in front of him bewilderedly. His hand waved forward trying to touch something. Jack imagined his status window projection was floating in front of him.
"What's this?" Bill asked.
"It's the description of your status," Jack explained. "The first page you must be seeing now is your attributes window. It contains numbers that describe the basic limitations of your body."
"Huh?" Bill seemed more confused after the explanation.
Jack sighed. He then asked Bill to sit down and began to go over what he knew. He explained about the attribute, skill, and inventory system. It took him almost an hour to cover everything, with multiple interruptions for questions, which, mostly, Jack couldn't answer with any certainty.
"So, you are saying we are in a game world right now?"
"I'm not sure, but the rules governing this world do seem like a game world system."
"So, this is not real? Can we go back to the real world?"
"I don't know."
"What about my wife? She is not here, so she must be fine in the real world?"
"I don't know."
"How do we go back to real life?"
Jack sighed. This was getting out of hand.
"Let's call it a day," he suggested. "Tomorrow we can work on figuring this out somehow."
Bill opened his mouth to ask another question, but then decided against it. He nodded. "All right, let's take a rest. If you really have been walking around town all day, you must be tired. Let's go upstairs. I have a spare guest room you can use."
Jack nodded in gratitude and followed him upstairs. They came up to a spacious room at the top of the stairs. Not much furniture was in the room; there were two stuffed chairs with a coffee table and rows of bookshelves along the walls. Many cookbooks filled the bookshelves. It seemed like his host might be a professional chef. There were several doors on two of the walls. Bill brought him to one of them.
"This will be your room for tonight, that door beside it is the bathroom."
Jack was about to thank him when he heard a beep from his God-eye monocle. He looked at his radar and was surprised to see a red dot that was slightly larger than usual in the vicinity. The red color on this particular dot was also slightly different. It was a darker red, like blood red. Its direction was around the front side of this house.
"Where's that door lead to?" He asked Bill while pointing to a door in the other wall.
"That's my room," Bill answered.
"Does it have windows facing out to the street?"
"Yes. I didn't board them up, but don't worry, those things can't climb up to the windows."
"I need to see outside, please excuse my rudeness," Jack said while dashing into the room without waiting for Bill's approval and went directly to the windows opposite. Bill followed behind with a dazed look.
Jack crouched down under the window sill and gestured for Bill to do the same. He gave him a sign that they should be silent. Bill complied and crouched down beside him. Jack then peeked out of the window in the direction of the unusual red dot. When he saw the thing that was outside, he was shocked. It was a three-meter tall monstrosity wearing thick plate armor, it held a humongous saber that emitted an eerie light. Inside its horned helmet was a grey skull with two abyss-like holes for eyes. Those eyes scanned the surroundings like a hunter search for prey. The aura Jack felt from this creature was completely different from those Zombies and Skeleton Thugs.
Bill gasped when he saw the monster. "Wh– What's that?"
"I don't know. I've never seen this one before. Let me check." He used his God-eye monocle to identify it.
*
Skeleton Captain (Elite monster, Undead)
Level 6
HP: 1200
*
Level 6?! It was 3 levels higher than him, and it had an Elite description on its name. It was certainly much tougher than the ordinary Basic monster. It was not an opponent he should be facing at his current level. Not to mention its HP was over a thousand, it would take a long time to whittle down that amount of health, even if he could manage to stay alive while doing it.
"Stay in hiding, don't let it discover us," Jack told Bill.
He nodded silently to express his understanding. They stared at the Elite monster outside unblinkingly, fascinated and terrified at the same time. It was walking slowly along the street, when it was about to pass by the house they were in, it stopped. It turned left and right as if unsure which way to go, then it made a loud stomp that cracked the street pavement and created a small tremor, then it looked to the sky and let out an ear-piercing roar.
Jack heard a bump behind him and then a loud crash. He looked back and saw Bill sitting on the floor with a broken bed lamp by his side. Jack looked out at the street again. This time the Skeleton Captain was looking straight back at their window.
Edited by OneFellSwoop
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