The Weirdest Noob

by Arthur Stone

  “Want anything in return?”

  “Nah, just take it—workers like us gotta help one another. I have no need for it here, so I’ll buy a better one later on.”

  “Thanks!”

  “Thanks are fine, but if you decide you want to share some of your rat meat with me, I won’t mind too much.”

  “I can take a hint. Although I don’t really know when I’ll be able to hunt again. Didn’t you say those warriors exterminated all the mobs from the mines?”

  “I may have exaggerated a bit. You’d need around two hundred players to hunt for a whole week in order to mop up them all. And even that may not be enough. There were few decent experts back in the time they were building this mine, and they charged exorbitant fees for their work. The Swords couldn’t afford anything of that caliber, and made some error in their calculations. As a result, they made the mine about ten times bigger than needed for a deposit of this size. The main tunnel and the galleries go on for miles, deep into the mountains, crossing lots of caverns and underground rivers. They built it just the way it had been drawn on their plan without overthinking it—I suspect there wasn’t anyone to do the thinking in the first place. There turned out to be a ton of hollows—a whole cavern network was apparently discovered. They even sent a few warrior parties out to explore in hopes of finding a lair.”

  “A lair?”

  “Didn’t I tell you about them? They’re a special kind of dungeon with elite mobs, bosses, and valuable loot. Clans fight for the ownership of such places.”

  “An elite mob attacked the settlement at night.”

  “You find elite mobs even in regular places. But in lairs they are the majority—or maybe all mobs are elite there. It also depends on how long the lair had stood there. I don’t know that much about it—I have no need of such things.”

  “So they exterminated the mobs in the mines, but others can get in through the caves?”

  “They didn’t even check the mines thoroughly. Only the closest galleries and the ones at an intermediate distance from the entrance—they hardly reached any of the remote galleries. So don’t you worry about your rats, they didn’t go anywhere.”

  “You can come across a tough mob even during the day in the far galleries.”

  “So they’ll kill you again. Big deal.”

  “Sure. Another reason for Greedie to have a good laugh.”

  “That much is true. He sits there on his ass all day long, watching everything that happens around here. He’s interested in everything, the vulture. Whenever one of us respawns, he laughs like a schoolboy.”

  They fell silent as they approached the group of warriors coming back from their extermination raid. Most of the men were tall and muscled, with the faces of movie stars. The women were voluptuous, their curves emphasized by fancy armor, and looked like beauty queens, perhaps even better. There were no “squiggles” next to their names, which looked nothing like a worker’s hodgepodge of syllables.

  Once they left the warriors behind them, Pup changed the subject.

  “Did you see how hot they are? That’s the beauty of an expanded account—you can choose the character’s appearance. Did you see small face icons next to some of their names?”

  “I didn’t notice.”

  “An icon like that means the character’s appearance resembles that of its owner. But you see few enough of those—everybody wants to look the best they can. An elderly lady of seventy or more IRL can be a twenty-year-old beauty here that will take your breath away. I’m a bit weary of having affairs with those—you can call me picky.”

  “Affairs?”

  “Sure. If it’s by mutual consent, and the accounts belong to adults, there’s nothing stopping you. Cities even have brothels with special level zero players working there. They pay for a month of an extended account with the appearance choice option, create a hot-looking character, level up their Vigor, and then revert to a work account, losing half the accumulated points. Then they’re ready to start making their fortunes doing all kinds of impotent old geezers who totally lose it when they find themselves in a young body. They’re usually well-heeled, too.”

  “You sound like you envy them.”

  “I might a bit, come to think of it,” Pup chuckled. “It’s not like swinging your pickaxe about in a damp mine. Much easier, and you can enjoy yourself while you’re at it.”

  “So why don’t you create a female character?”

  “You cannot. Not even in 2D—the game won’t let you. Accounts are linked to specific owners, and you can’t launch the game without a bracelet. It’s not like you can practice your Kama Sutra skills in 2D, either. Mining is much easier in that respect. Anyway, I was just joking.”

  “I have already leveled up my sense of humor a bit, so I guess I get it.”

  “Keep up the good work—I got the impression you believed me for a moment.”

  “Hey, Pup, there’s another thing I wanted to ask you. It appears that you receive more experience for some rats and less for others. I figure it depends on the mob’s level. What if you kill mobs whose level is much higher than yours?”

  “The mathematics is as follows: the lower a mob’s level, the easier it is for you to kill it, but you receive less experience for such mobs. If a mob’s level is lower than yours, you receive a whole lot less. You’ll end up getting one point for each, which is the lowest it gets. There’ll be penalties affecting the loot, too—you’ll be getting virtually no pelts or fangs, and fewer items as well, many of which will be damaged. If you kill mobs of a level higher than yours, you receive more experience—the greater the level gap, the more you get. There’ll be no penalties on the loot, either, but it will be harder for you. In order to level up, your best bet is to focus on mobs of your own level or around there.”

  Ros had a different opinion on this account, but he kept it to himself, asking another question:

  “How many levels can this gap between yourself and the mob you kill be? The absolute maximum?”

  “I’ve heard of fifty or even higher. That mostly applies to archers and mages who ambush their quarry from the top of a tree or a tall rock. Tricks like that are said to be rewarded by pretty decent achievements. Warriors and other melee fighters will find it to be a much tougher feat. But it isn’t all that easy for the classes that deal ranged damage, either. You can’t kill a high-level mob quickly, so while you’re nuking away the mob will either get to you or realize that chasing you is futile and retreat beyond your weapon range. And then it will hang out near your tree, waiting for you to come down.”

  “How do they manage to kill them, then?”

  “You need proper weapons and equipment to max out your damage. That’s expensive. Very much so. Hundreds of thousands in gold, maybe up to a million. I don’t think the Swords have any members with that kind of gear—their clan is too noobish.”

  “How do people even manage to come up with that kind of money?!”

  “The leadership of a large clan makes more money than top managers of multinational corporations. You can also reach some agreement based on payment in real money—it isn’t forbidden. Tax inspectors go ape-shit trying to trace transactions of that kind. No one else cares.”

  “But you need to have real money in order to be able to spend it on such equipment.”

  “Do you think there’s a shortage of millionaires and billionaires? There are more buyers than sellers even in case of rare items, let alone epics.”

  “Will you stay here long? In this mine?”

  “My contract expires in two weeks. I won’t extend it—I intend to leave at first opportunity.”

  “What’s to stop them from making you stay and work?”

  “They take too big a cut from our profits, anyway. If they lose all sense of measure, we shall flood every topic at the forum with true stories about their clan’s practices. Also, once the bind point expires, I’ll be able to kill myself and respawn at the altar of a temple in the nearest village. And I’d be a
ble to tell enough sordid stuff about them within the game itself—I could go so far as to place articles about them in newspapers and ruin their reputation at the Miners’ Guild. Would that be worth their while? You can’t hold us by force, so there’s no point in getting burned needlessly. But why are you asking? Are you going to…”

  Pup froze in the middle of the phrase and stood there for a while without moving. Ros thought the dwarf wasn’t even breathing, but then he started to move again.

  “Some IRL distraction?”

  “Nope, it’s the damned lag. A royal pain in the rear in 2D and 3D. I froze up for twenty minutes or more the other day. The character just stood there right next to a piece of ore that had almost been harvested, and someone pinched it from right under my nose. There were just a few taps left to go. I need to switch to partial immersion.”

  “How does that work?”

  “You get a helmet, bracelets, a belt, as well as all sorts of bangles and rings. The lag is much better there, and much less serious. You could also get a bunk with latches—it’s cheaper than a capsule, and the body doesn’t get as numb as it does in a helmet. However, that’s more expensive, and I need to count every coin. I have a large family to feed.”

  “You shouldn’t have chosen this mine—there’s not much profit to be had here, as you probably understand.”

  “Well, Ros, you don’t know everything yet. I won’t be empty-handed once I leave; also, for the likes of me, it’s famine one day and a feast the next. Sorry, but my means of turning a profit are confidential.”

  “That’s fine with me—we all have our secrets.”

  “I’ll head back to the same gallery. I’m used to it, and it’s also longer than the rest of them. You know where to find me, if anything.”

  “I’ll try to get you some meat later today.”

  “Watch that no one makes a snack out of your own meat.”

  Chapter 14

  Ros was holding two Soul Crystals in his hands. One contained a rat, and the other, the Leprus. He was anxious to use the latter, but there were good reasons not to. After all, where would he get another chance to trap a summoned creature of this level? An attempt to conduct a summoning in the settlement had ended up in the rat dying from Greedie’s boot. He had tried to leave one of his raised rodents in the tunnel overnight, but had found no one there in the morning without so much as an inkling as to what had happened. He suspected that the pet shouldn’t spend too much time away from its owner.

  So he’d have to sleep in the mine in order to raise the Leprus. He’d need food for that. To hell with the quota—Ros was sure he earned even less than Pup on his contract, so he’d hardly get rich with that kind of job. All he could do was spend a month to his own maximum advantage—try to level up his stats, stock up on valuable loot, and learn to become a better player.

  But before all that he’d have to pay off his debt to Greedie and try to get something useful for his forthcoming underground dwelling from the dwarf.

  So the Leprus could wait. Ros would spend the day accompanied by the rat and casting Soul Trap on its living kin. He might end up with a few more crystals.

  He kept coming across evidence of last night’s extermination raid—shreds of Leprus bodies and scorch marks on rocks. But these disappeared eventually—apparently, the clan’s warriors didn’t make it that far. Ros killed the first rat he encountered, cutting off its plump hind legs, and realizing with relief that it was nowhere as revolting as he had feared. Hygiene was much easier here than in the real world. Your body would get dirty from mine work, but pouring a pail of lukewarm water over it in the sauna made you as fresh and perky as if after a proper bath with soap and a sponge. Blood from the player’s own wounds and their kills did not stain the clothes for long, disappearing without a trace within minutes. Only rags with durability close to zero got really dirty.

  In other words, there was no repulsive stench, and his hands didn’t get dirty. In what Ros deemed a blessing, dismembering a carcass turned out to be much easier here.

  The next rat surprised Ros—apart from the standard body parts, he also got a trophy:

  “Bronze Bracelet.”

  That was it—no further information. Not so lucky this time, after all. It was clear even to a noob that this bracelet had no value whatsoever—smelting was the best you could do with it.

  Feeling somewhat disappointed after the elation of seeing an unusual object in the rat’s “inventory,” he entered the nearest gallery and started walking along it absent-mindedly, examining the walls perfunctorily as he went by. It was becoming easy for him to find ore—he did it automatically, without having to peer endlessly at the wall like on his first day.

  Yet he did come across something he ended up examining attentively, having spotted the rocky surface with something upon it that didn’t look like a regular copper vein.

  “Worthless sandstone with quartz veins and a quartz geode. Chance of finding a quartz crystal: 68.19%. Chance of finding an additional quartz crystal: 9.11%. Chance of discovering an unexpected resource: 0.02%.”

  Ros didn’t know how valuable quartz was, but decided it would be stupid to pass it by. He took to his pickaxe, and the resource’s hit point bar started to shrink much faster than in the case of copper. He finally tapped the rock for the final time, and his trophy fell out.

  “Quartz Crystal. Cloudy, with cracks. Weight: 10.6 g.”

  He felt like visiting Pup again at once, but Ros told himself to chill. He’d have to work some more and fill his bag up with ore to take it to the cart later on. After that, he could try roasting the meat.

  He went to see the dwarf some two hours later, after killing three more rats and harvesting another similar quartz crystal weighing a little less.

  * * *

  The orcs at the furnace paid no attention to Ros. He still didn’t understand why they didn’t mingle with the dwarves, but they must have classified him as one of the latter and now dutifully pretended he didn’t exist. The two rat legs that he’d skewered on the branches taken from the scraggy bush growing near the slope of the crater were soon covered with a crust, and the smell of roast meat filled his nostrils.

  “So you’re a hunter, are you?” he heard someone ask behind him.

  He turned around and saw an orc, which surprised him quite a bit—he was the first of the local greenskins to address him of his own volition.

  “Yup. I really want to level up my stats as soon as I can.”

  “What’s your race? I’ve never seen the likes of you before.”

  “It’s pretty rare. I got it randomly at the race selection screen.”

  “Are you related to the dwarves?”

  “Not that I know of. Is there a war between your two races or something?”

  “Not a war. It’s just that the miners have this custom that orcs and dwarves keep to themselves. It’s a tradition—I don’t know why it exists.”

  “Dwarves are more inclined to talk to me than your kin.”

  “You just haven’t met a nice guy like me,” the orc flashed a scary fanged smile. “Got any more meat?”

  “Eight legs.”

  “Look, I’m leveling up my Cooking skill—how about I roast them for you? They’ll be finger-licking good. You don’t use any marinades or spices, so yours won’t taste quite as good as mine.”

  “How do you level up Cooking?”

  “Cooking is an auxiliary skill. You level up when you cook food successfully. So, do we have a deal? We’ll both profit from it.”

  Ros didn’t take long to decide. On the one hand, it would be nice to unlock his Cooking skill on his own; on the other hand, he could do it later, and he didn’t really feel like wasting time mucking about with rat meat. It made sense to trust it to a specialist, and get on friendly terms with him as well.

  “What’s your name, greenskin?”

  “Shoto. Or you can try using the name you see over my head. But let me warn you: everyone who’s tried it so far had to be treat
ed for a tongue sprain.”

  “Right on, I have the same problem. You can call me Ros. Here’s the meat. I can bring you some on a daily basis, and there’s a lot more where this came from.”

  “You serious?”

  “Two dozen hind legs are totally doable.”

  “Get me the carcasses, I’ll butcher them myself.”

  “I won’t lift more than one—I’m weak, and they’re huge. So legs are what you’ll be getting for the most part. I won’t be able to eat that much myself, so I can either leave them or get them for you. But you should think of a way to compensate me for it.”

  “You know rat meat isn’t worth much.”