The Weirdest Noob

by Arthur Stone

  “But you don’t even bring me enough meat to feed that half.”

  “I’ll feed everyone, don’t you worry.”

  “How do you intend to do that?”

  “That’s my problem. All you need to do is find the time to cook and sell the stuff.”

  “I will, rest assured. I desperately need to level up.”

  “What about your furnace work?”

  “The boys will cover for me if I save a few choice pieces for them.”

  “Fine. Another question: is it possible to load carts up with rat carcasses?”

  “I can’t see why not.”

  “Could you manage to find a cart for me, then?”

  “You won’t be able to roll it back—you don’t have a mule’s stats, after all. You’ll exhaust your Vigor a dozen times before you reach the exit.”

  “OK, then how about you get it as far down the tunnel as you can, and collect it by the evening? Will it be able to hold enough meat for the whole gang?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Well, in that case, once at midday, and once again in the evening.”

  “No problem. Make sure you keep track of the time, though.”

  “I will—there seems to be a chronometer in my head.”

  “That’s a useful quality. So, when do I pay you five silver pieces?”

  “Starting tomorrow. Today you can have as much fun as your conscience will allow.”

  “I do have a conscience. I also remember our first conversation, and I think I may have something nice for you in return. Take a look at this,” the orc produced a bag.

  “Simple Miner’s Bag. Forty slots, weight reduced by 1.0. Weight: 0.56 kg. Durability: 21/35. Bonus: well-protected from rock hits. Requirements: none.”

  “This is for you—the one you have now is just completely noobish. This one’s not in tip-top shape, but it should serve you for a couple of months.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Here’s something else—it will be easier to dress the carcasses with a better knife.”

  “Short-Bladed Steel Hunting Knife. Versatile tool and a bladed weapon. Damage: 2-3. Requirements: none. Weight: 0.21 kg. Durability: 19/20.”

  “The knife is crap, of course, but it’s still better than the one you have. I’ll also get you a whetstone—forgot all about that. You can use it to sharpen the blade in the evening. It makes your Blacksmithing stat grow, albeit very slowly. Still, though, growth is growth. Also, it’s at its most effective when your weapon is in truly bad shape.”

  “Thanks again, really. But tell me, is there any chance of finding a weapon I could use? I’m tired of the pickaxe—it’s barely serviceable.”

  “I don’t think so. A more advanced pickaxe is the best you could hope for. But it will cost you around thirty silver pieces—and it won’t be in top condition.”

  “Get one for me. I’ll get the money.”

  “Sure. I’ll talk to the guys—the ones whose contracts are about to expire. They won’t have much use for a pickaxe in the city, and finding another one is easy enough. Is that it, then, or do you need anything else?”

  “I don’t suppose you’ll manage to get me some armor, so that’s it. Oh, wait a second! Do you think I could make a bunk of some sort to stay in the mine overnight? It gets chilly here.”

  “The mobs will gobble you up.”

  “I’ll come to some arrangement with them.”

  “An arrangement?”

  “I’ll be very persuasive when I ask them to leave them alone.”

  “Ha, I’d like to see that conversation. I could get you some canvas from the furnaces in a cart so that Greedie wouldn’t notice. And I can probably find a patched-up cloak for of a blanket. Would that do?”

  “Well, sure, if silk sheets are a non-option.”

  “All right, I’ll head back, then.”

  “Sure thing.”

  “Can I take this rat with me?”

  “Sure.”

  Ros watched the orc leave, pondering. The news was extremely promising. This new arrangement would resolve a number of issues: he’d be able to level up his stats, paying almost no mind to mining, and he could still grow his Mining & Quarrying. He would also earn a little money and stock up on trophies.

  The downside was that he couldn’t afford to disappoint Shoto. Having assured the orc that he would supply him with enough meat, he’d have to find a way to make good on his promise.

  Especially given that it was in his own interest to kill as many mobs as possible.

  He could raise the Leprus, of course. With a pet like that, he could dispatch rats by the dozen. He didn’t know how a high-level pet would affect the loot, but the meat wouldn’t go anywhere.

  On the other hand, he risked losing the pet if he ventured too close to the settlement. Spending his nights in the crater, the way he’d been doing lately, was also out of the question—the Leprus would get noticed sooner or later, and the consequences were too unpredictable. Ros remembered how Greedie had reacted to his first rat well enough.

  He also didn’t want to advertise his abilities, which were unusual for a worker. The race he had chosen was turning out to have its surprises: the skills it afforded were useless for a worker, but priceless for a hunter. It was too soon to tell whether or not he had made the right choice, but there was little reason to complain so far. Even with his noobish stat distribution he had already managed to achieve something.

  Ros realized that his knowledge of this world was too limited to afford drawing extra attention. Shoto alone would be enough. And the orc would probably keep his mouth shut. There was no point for him to divulge the details—their deal was too good to risk it.

  Ros had good reason to ask the orc’s help with furnishing an underground lair. Once the Leprus was summoned, he’d stay underground for a very long time.

  However, he’d have to go up for a visit to the settlement first—it wouldn’t be proper to leave behind unfinished business.

  * * *

  Greedie was sitting in his usual spot, and greeted the approaching Ros in his usual mocking tone:

  “I don’t believe it! You have decided to come up on your own for a change? Although I haven’t seen you respawn in a while. What were you up to if you weren’t getting killed every hour?”

  “I was out whoring.”

  “Oh, I see. Young blood and all that. Seeing as how we have a whopping zero women, it must have been quite a binge. Didn’t sprain your wrist from all that lovemaking, did you?”

  “I swap hands. One hour with the right, another with the left. No blisters, and I don’t get tired.”

  “How clever. Who could have thought you could learn something useful from a noob?”

  “I came here for a reason. I still owe you those pelts, so here they are.”

  “Pelts are nice, hand them over. Now, if you could only start fulfilling your quota, that would indeed be priceless.”

  “I’ll try starting tomorrow.”

  “Try. Try hard. Your superiors will appreciate it for sure. Also, don’t mind what I said about the food—eat whatever you can find inside the pot. Virtually no one eats that gunk, anyway. The clan members who level up their Cooking skill dump their first experiments in the mess hall, and it’s such lovely fare that the smell alone can kill flies. Even shit would taste better. So help yourself—I’m in a generous mood today.”

  “So, how about that weapon?”

  “How about that quota?”

  “Twenty quartz crystals for you to forget today’s quota.”

  “Let me take a look. Well, well… Think you’ve found some diamonds, have you? This is nearly worthless.”

  “Well, the kind of weapon I’d need shouldn’t be that great a treasure, either.”

  “Didn’t I tell you there’s nothing that fits the likes of you?”

  Ros emptied his bag of the loot collected from the rats: hairpins, worthless rings and bracelets, a mirror, and even a fork with broken prongs. The lot cost nex
t to nothing, but took up a lot of space—every item took up a separate slot, regardless of its size. It just wasn’t worth the space it occupied, even given the capacity of his new bag.

  “This is junk, of course, but smiths might find it useful. The amount of silver alone should be equivalent to three or four coins. So, how about that weapon?”

  “You’re a hard-headed one, aren’t you? Look here, noobster: there’s no good stuff that fits level zero players. All they get are tools. And crappy ones at that. If you want to be able to equip something better, you’ll have to remove your lock and level up.”

  “I’m level one, actually.”

  “All level zero players have a virtual first level so that they wouldn’t get the Monster Scourge achievement once they kill a mob. Our AIs may also fail to compute it.”

  “What’s that?” asked Ros, feigning ignorance.

  “That’s an achievement you earn when you kill a mob ten times your level by yourself, without anybody’s help. Only level one ranged classes can manage it. For example, they can take a noob bow, enchant it to the max, apply whatever runes they can find, equip items with bonuses, get buffed by high-level buffers, eat expensive food, grab a bunch of high-level elixirs, and kill a level ten or level eleven mob from a safe distance. You get a considerable bonus for such a victory. But even if you invest tons of money into the game, it will still take you days of hard labor and quite a few deaths before you get that first achievement. The next one is rewarded even better, but you might as well forget about it—the condition is not only that the level has to be ten times higher than yours, but also no less than twenty-five levels higher. That’s a level twenty-five mob if you’re a level zero player. Even if you have decent gear, that’s a real tough thing to do. You might get lucky, but it will take weeks or even months. But how many players with that kind of money would want to spend that much time at level zero? There are plenty of other achievements that can be earned much more easily, if you’re not completely broke. A level twenty-five mob might be noobish, but it’s not dumb. And even if you find a dumb one, you can’t kill any more: they won’t count another critter of the same species, so you’ll have to find another. You could try the ones that are thirty levels higher than you. That will count no matter how many you kill, but even with the best kind of gear, something like that is incredibly hard for a zero. I may be getting the numbers wrong a bit, but not by much. Once your lock is removed, you can forget about such achievements. They cannot be earned—your levels grow too fast as you complete the tasks, and you cannot reset them back to one: you only start losing XP and levels after death once you’re level ten. There are no further locks up to level ten, either, and once you get there, you’d need to start killing mobs with a level of around one hundred. None of those are dumb enough to just stand there while you blast away at it for hours—they will either find a way to get to you or run away. Take your beloved rats, for instance. You kill a rat that’s level one while you’re level zero. If I remember my math correctly, you cannot even divide one by the other. So you have a virtual level one for such calculations. The achievement database doesn’t suffer any unduly strain, and you don’t have to overload the AIs, lest they might get overheated with that kind of algebra.”

  Ros digested the information, then showed his arm, rolling up his sleeve.

  “I have a bracelet that gives an extra point to the general level. So I should be able to use level one weapons without any penalties.”

  He had the rats to thank for it, having found the bauble in their disguised nest at the end of a gallery. Apart from the bracelet with the level bonus, Ros also had a ring that gave an extra point of Vigor, and an amulet providing an extra point of Intellect on his neck.

  “Why didn’t you tell me before?” asked Greedie gruffly.

  “Guess I forgot.”

  “Well, since you forgot, I’ll take all your junk. Maybe some of it will raise some stat by a point, and you’ll be of some use at last.”

  “And what do I get in return?”

  “Wait here, I’ll bring something over in a second.”

  The dwarf entered the building used as a warehouse for work clothes. He returned a few minutes later and gave Ros a pole slightly longer than his height, and with a long spearhead.

  “A spear?”

  “An Orcish Short Pike. You can use it for stabbing, cutting, and even throwing, if you have to.”

  “I could do with something better…”

  “Would you like a legendary weapon instead?”

  “That would be nice.”

  “Sure thing. I’ll do it in a jiffy, only I gotta wait for hell to freeze over first.”

  “I’m not so good with pikes…”

  “Well, we have no need for noob daggers or axes. These pikes can be used like javelins, which is why we have a few. They deal good damage to smaller mobs, and they’re easy to throw. We use it to kill rats when they start pestering miners. To control the rodent population, as it were.”

  Ros got the impression that the dwarf was telling the truth, and he reached for the weapon.

  “OK, gimme.”

  “Steel-Bladed Orcish Short Pike. Bladed weapon, used for cutting and stabbing. Can be used both as a melee and a ranged weapon. Damage: 5-7. Requirements: level one, 10 Strength. Weight: 2.42 kg. Durability: 37/60.”

  “Just stab the rat and hold on to the pike. Make sure the beast cannot reach you while you twist the pike to wrap its entrails around it—that deals extra damage.”

  “Thanks for instructing me. It feels so light, though. I hope it doesn’t break when I sneeze.”

  “You’ll break first. It’s got a decent shaft. Not iron-sided or anything, but the best you can find for this level. Rats are OK, but I wouldn’t recommend tackling an elite Leprus with it.”

  Greedie appeared to have made a joke, but it didn’t cause him much mirth—instead, he instantly became rather grumpy, apparently having recollected something unpleasant.

  “Now scram. You keep promising, but I haven’t seen one full quota from you yet. If hunting rats is your things, you could have stayed in the city—there are plenty of them in the sewers.”

  “I might just do that. Right on, it’s really time for me to get going.”

  “Just beat it already.”

  * * *

  Ros was very thankful for certain features of his character’s digestive system. The creature that emerged from the dissolving cloud of dust and darkness looked so repugnant that soiling one’s pants would seem like a perfectly natural reaction.

  “Resurrected Wild Leprus. A creature summoned from the realm of darkness. Level: 126. Skills: Stun, Strangle, Panic. Stats: Defense: 224; Attack: 249.”

  “Last of the rrokhs: you have summoned a creature whose level exceeds yours by over one hundred. No one in Second World has managed to achieve anything like it before. You receive a commendation from the higher powers—your skills now restore 15% more HP of your summoned creature’s base value.”

  Ros tested the controls, and realized the Leprus was as easy to control as the rats. He chuckled.

  “How about it, bud? Shall we go and do some killing?”

  The Leprus raised his eyes. There was nothing of the dull regard of zombie rats about them. The whites were covered in bloody blotches, and the pupils shone menacingly, hungry for death.

  And the hunger appeared insatiable.

  Chapter 16

  “Strangle him! Stop, you brainless brute!”

  The leprus froze, but it was already too late—his taloned paw had dealt a mighty blow to another rat, squashing it completely. Collecting any meat was impossible—the corpse was a bloody pulp mixed with hair. The order had come too late.

  Ros had been disheartened at first by the mess his pet was making, and had assumed he’d never see any loot if something didn’t change. And then he experimented a little, having recollected the pet’s skills, and learned that he could order the leprus to strangle the enemy. Things instantly started
to look more promising, as he was getting virtually undamaged carcasses.

  That was when he started to collect serious loot.

  The pelts, claws, fangs, skulls, and tails took up around a quarter of his bag, even though one slot could hold between a hundred and a few thousand similar items, depending on their type. He would discard the extra items dropped by rats due to lack of space, keeping only some of the jewelry, either for sale or for his own use. He could now raise his Strength by eleven if he so wished, with eight rings, two bracelets, and an amulet capable of raising it. However, he had come to prefer wearing jewelry that gave a bonus to Stamina—in case of a sudden attack by a high-level creature. Although the leprus stood guard while he slept at night, anything could happen. And if anything did happen, he’d need to be able to survive a hit or two.

  There were no penalties for the level of the leprus as he had feared—only the player’s level mattered in battle, and not that of his summoned pet. So, he was still getting experience as before, as well as substantial amounts of loot, provided the leprus kept his talons to himself.

  It was the fourth day that Ros kept combing through one gallery after another, reaching the end in every case, and leaving no creature alive in his wake. He kept moving farther and farther away from the mine exit. Oddly enough, he didn’t encounter a single high-level creature so far. Had they gotten so frightened after the recent extermination campaign? Or were they afraid of something else—the monstrous leprus? That was possible. Only the rats were probably stupid enough not to get out of the monster’s way in time. He should probably level up his Disguise stat—it was supposed to help in such cases. As well as his Hunting skill, though that was being taken care of, as his stat was already at three. Another auxiliary skill became unlocked—Skinning.