บท 5: The Plight of a newbie (I)

<Zero>

Why did the cracking just stop? I should have already hatched! thought Zero as he squirmed in his shell.

"Why is it so difficult to break through a damn egg!" Frustrated, Zero tried punching through the hard egg shell, but all he was able to do was hurt his own hand.

"This isn't going anywhere. This shell is too strong and I'm too weak." He never imagined his first life-and-death struggle would be against his own shell. Despite being in the process to be hatched, he hadn't eaten anything in a week. His satiety bar was empty, and he was going to starve to death very soon.

In the faint light appearing through the cracks, he looked down upon his body. It was a bit difficult to move around, but eventually he was able to take a peek.

Wait… are these paws? How am I supposed to break through with this?

Would you like assistance breaking through the egg?

"Yes!" There was no time for dawdling.

Please use your egg tooth on your nose to tap on the shell repeatedly. The egg tooth will fall off when the task is completed.

"Egg tooth?"

As he tried to touch it with his paw, he sensed something sharp and solid sticking out of his nose.

"Like this?"

He rammed his nose into the shell, and a large piece of the shell broke free.

"It worked!" He squirmed happily.

For the next five minutes, Zero continued to use his egg tooth. Extending out his paws, he tried to clear the opening.

"So cute. Is that a paw coming out?" Agnis's curiosity got the better of her, and she touched Zero's small black paws.

"Waaaahh. Its paws are so fluffy." Her fingers tickled Zero paws, making him itch. Zero tried to swat away Agnis's hand because it was making it more difficult for him to do his job.

"Would you like to give it a name?" asked the shop owner.

"He already has a name," said Agnis, confused.

"Excuse me? All pets are given a name. I've never heard of a pet that already has one," said the shop owner, also sounding confused. He peers over towards Zero with surprise.

"He calls himself Zero," Agnis responded while continuing to zealously pat Zero's extremely fluffy and soft paws.

"It must be a telepathic link that you both share," said the shop owner as if he knew what they were going through.

Zero's strength slowly left his body. With the last burst of his strength, he chipped away just enough for him to get out of the shell. A small, hairy fur ball emerged, covered in clear, sticky slime.

You feel very exhausted. It is best to rest or you will die.

"Squak!

What the…I wasn't supposed to make that sound, he thought as he looked around with wide eyes, embarrassed. The world around him was blurry with different colors blending into each other as a blob. He blinked a couple of times to refocus his eyes.

A soft lingering smell of peach, fresh grass, and old musty wood wafted through his nose. It reminded him of fresh smell of spring with mixture of the forest. His eyes refocused, he looked around with curiosity.

It was a small shop, very homey, and a bit crowded with different multi-colored eggs ranging from five to twelve littered in small brown nests.

There were variety of different shapes and sizes. Some were large as an ostrich egg, others were tiny like a quail's egg, there were some that had an odd looking lump growing out of the eggs, and a rare few looked sinister and diseased.

Each variety of nests was placed all over the shop, in-between cracks in the wall, hanging down from the ceiling, on tables, and a couple in the cash register.

Not a single space was wasted, every corner of the shop were stuffed with a nest filled with eggs. Even the plaque naming the eggs was slightly skewed and hand-painted. He wondered how people could read a couple of the words because the characters were badly written.

Soft chirping sounds could be heard throughout the shop as new pets were born from their eggs. It was not an annoying sound, it was manageable. There were a couple of loud chirps here and there, but those were not as often as the soft chirps.

Zero eyes rested upon the shopkeeper. The shopkeeper was a skinny guy. He did not have much muscle; his skin was slightly brown with weaves in his hair. His brown clothes were loose and comfortable. It was not baggy, but had a couple of buttons missing here and there. A couple areas on his skin had smudges of dirt.

The shopkeeper said, "Pets are very hungry when they hatch. Would you like to buy some food for your pet?" A wide variety of expensive and different flavored pet food was presented to Agnis.

Zero lay down exhausted on the counter, and closed his eyes.

"I'll get back to you on that." Agnis said.

Agnis poked Zero. "Hey, you alright? Ooooo, you have nice fur."

Zero stared up at her. Agnis was wearing all-blue, dress-like armor. An elegant brown wooden bow was slung on her shoulder, and three different styles of katanas were tightly strapped to her back. Her hair was white like snow and was pulled back, showing her pointed ears.

I'm surprised, her appearance hasn't changed much from outside the game. Zero thought.

Slowly he attempted to get up, but he felt too weak to even lift up his head for more than a few seconds.

" Fooood," Zero whined at her, his voice squeaking and rasping.

Agnis sighed. "Fine." She paid for the food, but Zero felt his hair rose. For a split moment he could hear her thinking You are going to pay me back a hundredfold, kuhuehue.

The pet shop owner shook a bag of kibble. It had a picture of a monster holding a spoon in its mouth and smiling. He poured it gently into a silver bowl, and Zero's stomach grumbled. It felt like his stomach was about to eat itself. For once he thought the pet food actually looked good.

Agnis brought the food over to Zero. She picked him up gently and plopped him into the food bowl; his size didn't extend past the circumference of the bowl. He gobbled down the food stuffing his cheeks. For some odd reason it tasted like high quality chicken meat that been barbequed well.

"You're so adorable! I wish I could keep a pet like this," Agnis squealed in delight.

As Zero happily ate his food, he felt an ominous chill run down his spine. Slowly turning around, he saw a wicked smile on Agnis's face as she gently stroked his fur.

Zero was suddenly filled with a sense of dread and foreboding.

"Excuse me, but did that pet just talk?" The shop owner examined Zero, lifting up his tail.

"Hey!" Zero snapped at the owner's hand. The shop owner jumped back in surprise.

"Whaaa? It seems to be a dangerous breed. Madam, you definitely will have trouble raising it," said the shop owner as he poked Zero with a stick that he grabbed from one of the nearby nest. He was trying to keep Zero away from furiously biting into his hands.

When Agnis inspected Zero closely, she noticed his name was bright red with a black star symbol next to it.

"Oh, Wow. You have a killer mark over your status name. You've even got a black star. That doesn't happen very often," said Agnis. Her eyes widened.

"What does that mean?" Zero asked as he devoured his food. A couple of kibbles fell out of his mouth.

"It's quite an achievement. Even when players kill one another, their names just get listed in red. To get a black star, you have to cause a disruption to the society in Noriene. More stars can appear, depending on the amount of disruption you cause."

"I'm guessing that's from the -255 infamy points, but a black star—what do you mean?" Zero stopped eating and stared up at her.

"Infamy points? Already? You were just born! A black star tells you how dangerous you are. The higher the stars, the more dangerous the player is. Five is the max a player can get up to." She kept petting him on his head. His head bobbed up and down from petting.

"I'm level one with one black star? My attacks barely harm anyone… I feel so small compared to you. Would you quit petting me?" Zero said with annoyance and flicked her hand off his head.

"Awww, but you're so cute. You are all black with some gold dots all over your body. You are like a mix between a fox and a dog. Not only that, your fur feels irresistibly soft! Hey, could you give me some to make clothes with?" she prattled on as she picked him up and cuddled him.

Zero tried hard to get out of her grasp. Her arms were getting squeezing him tighter and tighter trying to not let him go.

"My lady, are you willing to sell that pet?" The male elf player who was trying to buy the egg first came up and asked.

Zero watched the tall elf man kneel, take Agnis's hand, and kiss it gently. Agnis froze up as if she didn't know what to do. The elf man acted like he was a prince and she was the princess. He noticed that the elf had a long rapier belted to his waist.

On each inside of his thighs there were two long daggers safely tucked away in his leather pants. There was also a small metal shine on the insides of both his wrists. He suspected that he was hiding some throwing knives there.

Strapped to his back was a very elegant long black bow that went well with his complete silverish black and red outfit. Six small round black smoke bombs dangled on his silverish black armored chest. He stood back up. His short golden hair shimmered under the light as he moved.

Using the opportunity, Zero struggled out of Agnis's hold. "No, she is not. I am not a thing," he growled at him. He forced his way on top of Agnis arm.

The man raised his eyebrows in surprise. "That's quite an intelligent NPC pet," he said with a smile.

"I'm telling you I'm not a pet! I'm a PLAYER!" He arched his back like a cat.

"I've never heard of a player going into a pet contract before. So how much would you sell it for?" The man tried to pick him up. Zero slashed at his face with unretracted claws and opened his mouth.

"STINK BOMB!" He spewed it into the male player's face and dug his claws into the elf's chest.

Fame has decreased by 1!

You have damaged the reputation of the store owner's shop and Stunned the enemy for duration of 15 seconds.

"Lady, please control your pet! Call out HEEL!" the shopkeeper quickly gave instructions to Agnis to avoid even more damage to the shop's reputation. Coughing up blood from the horrid Stink Bomb attack, the shop keeper quickly retreated back behind the counter.

Cowering underneath the table trying not to inhale more smoke, on the other hand the elf was kneeling over coughing hard.

Agnis had no choice. "Zero, Heel!" she yelled and covered her nose.

A shock of blue electric lightning zapped Zero, stunning him for a couple of seconds. He fell off the elf man's clothes and landed with a thud.

"Yip!" he cried out in pain as he collapsed onto the ground.

This is animal abuse! He raged quietly in his mind. Nothing was more infuriating than being abused.

You have been temporarily disabled. -15 health points.

"Huh," Agnis said. "This is actually pretty useful." She poked Zero with her foot.

"This is animal cruelty! You are forbidden to use that ever again! I want to break this stupid pet contract!" Zero spat, enraged. He wavered as he got up. "Calm down, it's a companion contract," said Agnis as she poked him a bit more.

"And that is?" He looked at her, peeved.

"A pet contract makes a pet unable to disobey the owner. A companion contract is more of a mutual friendship contract, and no rights are taken except for one 'heel' function that's only allowed to be used once a day. There are other benefits, too, but there are not many known facts about it." said Agnis happily as she looked through her information window. Zero calmed down at the thought of it not being what he feared the most. A pet contract.

"A companion contract, I can work with that."

"Great." She smiled.

"Ahem." The male elf cleared his throat to get their attention. "Pretty lady, it seems it will not accept a male owner. Well then, I must give up on it. May I have your name?" he asked as he smiled warmly at Agnis.

"Agnis." Her face flushed as her eyes met his. She held her hands behind her back.

"I'm Zeraph. Do you mind if I register you as a friend?" As Zeraph winked at her, Zero rolled his eyes. This good-guy knight-in-shining-armor act was starting to get on his nerves.

"Sure. Oh, and that pet is actually a player. It might be a new race," said Agnis.

"Really? How do you know this?" Zeraph looked at her curiously. Zero was curious as well.

"Um…I'm a hidden GM," she whispered. She looked around nervously; hoping nobody else caught what she'd said.

"A what?" Zero looked at her, a bit confused.

"A Game Master," Agnis said a bit too loudly. Luckily, nobody was around to hear what she said—the shop owner was still hiding behind the counter.

"Oh." Zero didn't expect to luckily find one. Finding a GM could be beneficial only if the GM wanted to help. Most GMs knew the game well enough to know the danger areas of the game, and could even give them a heads up for new promotions, classes, and upcoming events. Also if they found problems in the game they had a direct link to the headquarters of the game company.

"How?"

"I applied for the position a week ago. It doesn't mean I get any special privileges or status. I am like other players. My first job right now is to look for any bugs or problems in the game and report them back."

"I see. That explains why you already knew that he was a new race." Zeraph turned towards Zero. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to offend you. I thought you were an NPC." He crouched down.

"I would have been fooled too if I didn't know him. Even us GMs are not given all the information about all the races. We only have the current ones just like everybody else. I'm guessing there's a reason for it. Why don't you friend him? He's really a player." Agnis glanced down at Zero with eyes that told him that she would murder him if he didn't friend him. Zero took a couple of steps back, a bit unnerved by Agnis's aura. He felt like she would cook him for dinner if he didn't accept.

Zeraph looked at Zero. "Do you mind?" It was as if he sparkled every time he punctuated his words. Zero pretended to hurl on the side. Agnis squinted at him with contempt.

"Sure."

They both registered one another.