“You… didn’t I tell you just a little while ago that it’s dangerous for us if you log off outside of a city?! What were you thinking?! Do you want us to die?!”
Even when irate, Titania was an incredible beauty. Her long hair was red and reminded him of fire, each strand catching the light and appearing like a flame; her eyes were like two emeralds that reflected a beautiful forest, and her gorgeously proportioned body was clad only in a green dress. She wasn’t wearing any shoes, not even sandals. Her bare feet were tiny. That might have been due to how she was only one foot tall, but even objectively speaking, she had small feet. They reminded him of jade sculptures.
Had she been taller, Adam might have been stunned by her perfect beauty, far different from Fayte’s mysterious beauty or Aris’s innocent appeal.
“Ah…”
When Fayte had called him to deliver the news that Aris was awake, Adam had completely forgotten all about Kureha and Titania. Any sense of propriety he might have had flew right out the window whenever that girl was involved. Now that he was back in Age of Gods, Adam finally realized that he had made a grave mistake, which was why he didn’t say anything as the woman berated him.
“Don’t you realize that we’re not like you? You otherworlders get resurrected when you die, but we do not. Death is permanent for us. Had we run into an enemy that neither of us could handle, Kureha and I would have died.”
Kureha woke up at the sound of Fayte’s shouting. The little fox unfurled herself from the ball she’d curled into and sat up. After releasing a wide yawn, the fox yokai shifted her gaze from Titania and suddenly discovered Adam. With an excited yip, she leaped to her feet and ran over to him, where she began rubbing her face and body against his legs.
Adam would normally have picked the little fox up and began petting her, but there was no way he could do that while trapped by Titania’s fierce glare. She could have melted steel with those eyes.
“You’re right,” he said after Titania finished. He bowed his head toward her and expressed a heartfelt and genuine apology. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have left you two like that.”
Titania glared at him a bit more, but then she sighed. She felt silly being so angry at someone who was so contrite. Even though the anger she felt slowly evaporated under Adam’s sincere gesture, she still crossed her arms and glared at him.
“Promise me that no matter what happens, you won’t do something like that again,” she said. “That’s the only way I’ll forgive you.”
“I promise,” Adam said with a fervent nod.
Once Titania accepted his apology, the three of them made their way into Solum. Adam had a huge inventory of items that he needed to get rid of. He was very fortunate that he’d mostly been hunting the same monsters. While the item pouch only allowed him to store up to ten items, he could store multiples of those items up to one hundred.
His current inventory was:
Item Pouch:
Item Name: Low-Grade Health Potion
Item Type: Potion
Grade: 1-Star
Quantity: 100
Description: A potion that restores +100 health points
Item Name: Low-grade Magic Potion
Item Type: Potion
Grade: 1-Star
Quantity: 100
Description: A potion that recovers +50 magic points
Item Name: Monster Bone
Item Type: Material
Grade: 1-Star
Use Requirements: Can only be used by crafter and blacksmith classes
Quantity: 100
Description: A monster bone that can be refined and used in the creation of armor and weapons
Abilities: Physical Defense+25
Item Name: Monster Core
Item Type: Material
Grade: 1-Star
Use Requirements: Can only be used by crafter and blacksmith classes
Quantity: 100
Description: A monster core that can be used to enhance armor and weapons
Abilities: Magical Defense+25
Item Name: Heavy Plate Armor
Item Type: Armor
Grade: 1-Star
Use Requirements: Anyone of the Warrior Class
Quantity: 1
Description: A heavy chestplate made from overlapping steel plates
Abilities: Physical Defense+50; Speed-5
Item Name: Iron Ore
Item Type: Material
Grade: 1-Star
Quantity: 100
Description: Iron ingots that can be used by crafters and blacksmiths to create armor, weapons, and accessories
Item Name: Durability Ring
Item Type: Accessory
Grade: 1-Star
Quantity: 1
Use Requirements: Can be equipped by anyone.
Description: An enchanted ring that adds to a person’s Defense and Magical Defense.
Abilities: Magic Defense+10; Defense+10
Item Name: Heavy Plate Leggins
Item Type: Armor
Grade: 1-Star
Quantity: 1
Use Requirements: Can be equipped by the Warrior Class.
Description: Heavy leggings made with overlapping steel plates
Abilities: Physical Defense+25
Item Name: Unknown Key
Item Type: Key
Grade: 4-Star
Quantity: 1
Use Requirements: Can be used by anyone
Description: This old but ornate key was discovered with the item [unknown map]
Abilities: None
Item Name: Unknown Map
Item Type: Map
Grade: 4-Star
Quantity: 1
Use Requirements: Can be used by anyone
Description: This is a map that marks a location somewhere on the Sun Continent
Gold Coins: 920,000
He had a full inventory of mostly useless items. He wouldn’t even call the health and magic potions useful anymore since he had way too much health and magic for these low-grade potions to help him.
However, as he looked at the inventory, Adam’s eyes fell on the two items [unknown map] and [unknown key], both of which he had completely forgotten about after leaving the Village of Beginnings. Now that he was staring at them again, he could not help but be curious about them. Where did this map lead to? What did this key open? He wanted to know.
There were a lot of shops in Solum, and you could tell what they sold by the sign hanging overhead. Adam entered one that had the sign of a chair, which was the symbol used for the general stores in Age of Gods.
The shop was not large, but they did have a decent supply of items on stock. He wasn’t sure if general stores like this had ever existed in ancient times, but the room only contained a few items hanging from the wall, which showed what they had in stock. When he looked at one of the items, a screen appeared that told him the name of the item and how much it cost. Because this was a general store, they sold a lot of different items, from armor and weapons to books and potions. They even had a [scan scroll] on sale.
“Hello! Welcome to Jessabelle’s Emporium! What can I help you with?” A woman with a refreshing smile greeted him. She was standing behind the counter. Her face was painted entirely white with makeup, which made her look too gaudy for him to consider her attractive.
“I have some items I’d like to sell,” Adam said.
“Okay! Just let me see what you’d like to sell, and I will estimate a price for you.”
To show an NPC what he wanted to sell, he had to show her his inventory, but that was as easy as pressing a button. A screen appeared before him, telling him that Jessabelle wanted to see his inventory and asking if she had permission to look. He pressed yes.
“Hmm… which of these items are you selling?” asked Jessabelle.
“Everything except the [unknown map] and [unknown key],” Adam answered.
“All right! Let me calculate how much all this stuff totals up to really quick… but g
osh, you certainly do have a lot of high-quality items. These monster bones and monster cores can fetch quite the high price. There are a lot of blacksmiths who would kill to get their hands on these.”
Adam let the woman run her calculations. In the meantime, he searched through her inventory to see if she had anything he might want to buy. Most of the items she sold were pretty basic. She had [middle-grade health potions] that recovered +500 health points, [middle-grade magic potions] that recovered +250 magic points, and a few other potions like the [antidote] and [magic bell], which healed specific status effects like being poisoned or put to sleep. The [cure-all] healed every status ailment, but it was five times more expensive than potions that cured individual ailments. She also had [scan scrolls], but Adam didn’t need those since he had Titania.
“Adam, it looks like she has an [item expansion stone]. You should buy this. It will be very useful to you,” Titania suddenly said. She was sitting on his shoulder as always, while Kureha was perched on his head… also as always. He felt like his body was becoming a roost or a burrow. Fortunately, Titania and Kureha were both very light.
“[Item expansion stone]?”
Adam looked at the inventory list again. The woman had a lot of items, so he had to scroll back up before he found what Titania had spotted. It was called [item expansion stone] and had the effect of expanding an item pouch, allowing it to carry up to thirty items instead of just ten. It was currently listed at 150,000 gold coins, which was expensive, but he had 920,000 gold coins from all the enemies he had killed.
“I’m going to buy one hundred [middle-grade health potions] and another one hundred [middle-grade magic potions]. I’d also like to get this [item expansion stone],” Adam said to Jessabelle.
“Okay,” Jessabelle said. “I’ll just deduct the cost of the potions and the [item expansion stone] from how much I’ll pay you for all of these items. After everything is subtracted, it looks like your total comes to 223,000 gold coins.”
The gold coins transferred from Jessabelle’s inventory to his own. Adam watched as his 920,000 gold coins became 1,143,000 gold coins. That was a lot of money considering most of what he’d been doing was killing monsters. He only earned this much because of how many monsters he killed and because he slew a lot of them solo. The [item expansion stone] was also transferred to Adam’s inventory, but he used it right away, which expanded his item pouch’s space, allowing him to carry thirty items instead of ten.
“Thank you for your business,” Jessabelle said, waving at him.
Adam waved at the woman out of instinct as he left the store. However, his mind was no longer on the items he just sold and bought. It was on the [unknown map] and [unknown key] that he still had in his inventory.
The morning after Aris and Adam went to see Dr. Sofocor found Adam in the kitchen, cooking breakfast. Aris was sitting on the couch. She was watching old cartoons. Fayte was not awake yet, but he imagined she would wake up soon. Aris was only awake because she woke up when he was getting out of bed and demanded he take her with him.
To celebrate Aris being completely cured of Mortems Disease, Adam decided to splurge. He’d gone to the nearest grocery store and bought the ingredients he needed to make cannoli-stuffed French toast. It only took eighteen minutes to make four servings worth.
Cannoli-stuffed French toast was a decadent dessert breakfast that consisted of creamy ricotta filling sandwiched between two slices of French bread. Mini chocolate chips were mixed in with the ricotta. The French toast sandwiches were cooked in sizzling butter to create a golden-brown crust, and then Adam had added powdered sugar on top.
The smell had already drifted into the living room and made Aris take several deep breaths. Adam could hear her stomach rumbling from the kitchen.
“What are you making?” she asked.
“Something delicious,” Adam replied as he came out with three plates of food.
Aris saw what he set on the coffee table and began drooling. “Waaaaaaa... this looks so good!”
Adam wore a proud smile as he watched Aris drool over his breakfast; this was one of his greatest pleasures in life. He loved it when Aris enjoyed his food.
Just like Adam suspected, Fayte arrived not long after he sat down and began feeding Aris. She didn’t hesitate to sit and begin eating, though he did notice that she chose to sit further away from him than she usually did. He felt like a distance had opened between them. He wanted to close it, but he sadly didn’t know what he could do to make him and Fayte as close as they had been before Aris woke up.
“Mmmm.”
While Fayte might have distanced herself from him, that didn’t mean she appreciated his food any less, evidenced by the joyful moan she released after taking a bite of his food. Adam pretended not to notice.
“Hey, Adam? I can begin playing Age of Gods today, right?” asked Aris.
“You can,” he allowed. “However, I am going to impose a few limitations on you. While virtual reality doesn’t strain someone’s mind like people used to think it did back when it was first introduced, your body is still weak and needs more rest than the average person’s. You can only play four hours each day. Once your time is up, you and I will log off and I’ll begin helping with your rehabilitation.”
While Aris did pout at him a little for imposing a four-hour time limit, she didn’t try to argue with him. She knew he was just doing this for her own good. He wanted her to be healthy and safe, and now that she didn’t have Mortems Disease, he was even more unwilling to risk her health.
“Once your body recovers, we can increase the amount of time you play,” Adam said. “But I first want your body to recover enough that you aren’t exhausted by staying awake for several hours.”
Mortems disease sapped a person’s endurance. Their body’s immune system was working overtime, which left them perpetually tired, making it so they had to take long naps throughout the day. Before Aris had gone into the cryobed, she’d only been able to remain awake for two hours tops.
“How long do you think that will take?” asked Aris.
“I’m not sure,” Adam confessed. “A few months, probably, but it’s not like I’ve ever done anything like this before. No one has ever been cured of Mortems Disease, and you had it for three whole years. That’s not something you can just get over with a little bit of time.”
“I guess not,” Aris said with a frown.
While they were speaking, Fayte slowly ate her meal, savoring each bite. The look on her face was so mixed at this moment. She seemed incomparably happy now that her sweet tooth craving was being satisfied, but Adam knew from the scrunched up nose that something was bothering her.
“What’s up, Fayte? You look like you just got sprayed in the face by a skunk,” he said.
“Do I really look like that?” asked Fayte, blinking several times.
“A little. Yeah.”
“Well… that is unpleasant.” Fayte sighed, finished off the last bite of her cannoli stuffed French toast, and set the plate down. She observed Adam with her intelligent gaze, then slowly spoke. “It sounds to me like you will not be playing Age of Gods as much to help Aris with her rehabilitate.”
“That is correct,” Adam said. “Aris has always been my number one priority. Now that she doesn’t have Mortems Disease, I need to help her muscles recover so she can live a normal life. However, you don’t need to worry. I haven’t forgotten my promise to you. I will help you win your win. Even if I spend a little less time inside Age of Gods during the day, I will make up for that by grinding my level during the night. Speaking of, do you know when the money exchange system will be implemented?”
The money exchange system was the system that allowed people to exchange in-game currency for real-world currency and visa versa. It had been introduced to virtual reality games one year after the WWIII armistice, and it was also what had propelled virtual reality to the top of everyone’s priority list. There were many rich and powerful families who had risen to power s
pecifically because of this system.
“I do not.” Fayte shook her head. “There has been some speculation that it will be released within the next month, but that’s all it is. Speculation. Mystique Incorporated has not announced any information regarding this subject.”
Adam absorbed this knowledge as he took away the three plates, placed them in the dishwasher, and came back. As he sat down, Aris leaned into his side and he wrapped an arm around her shoulder like it was the most natural thing to do. He only paused when he saw the look on Fayte’s face. At that moment, there was a conflicted expression in her eyes as she stared at them.
He suddenly felt guilty.
“I guess it doesn’t matter when it’s implemented.” Adam tried to get back on track. “Right now, the most important thing is finding a hidden class for you. Once you have a hidden class, we can focus on grinding our levels. I think once everyone is at level 20, we should be able to take on the Spider Queen and the Undead King. They should give us a lot of money, and I bet they’ll have some really amazing item drops too.”
Fayte did not deny the truth in his words and instead nodded. She stood up after their conversation was over, said she was going to play Age of Gods, and then left the two of them alone.
“Is something wrong with Fayte?” asked Aris with a frown. “She seems sad…”
Adam didn’t know what to tell her. He had recognized the look in her eyes, and he had a pretty good idea of what was bothering her, but there wasn’t anything he could do. He could become Fayte’s sword, act as her shield, and place her needs before his own, but there was one thing he couldn’t do for her.
“I’m not sure. Anyway, before you log into Age of Gods, I have some advice I’d like to give you about how to play.”
“Okay.”
“Once you earn enough money, I want you to buy yourself a mask like mine, or a veil like the one Fayte uses. You should be able to find one at the general store. Just a simple one will do. I don’t want anyone to figure out your identity. If they have your face on profile, it will be possible to look up information on you in the real world, which could lead to trouble.”
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