Tart Ore Shop

It was a few hours before noon, and Aiden had finished hunting Drop Dew Sapers for healing dews.

'If I remembered, there should be a Blue Forest Wolf that drops material for making armor. If I hunt just one of them, it should be enough to buy medicine,' he thought.

Blue Forest Wolf, which was a 1-star rank monster and around level 3, lived in the forest. They had higher defense stats compared to their other stats, which make them tougher to kill.

Although they had high defense, Aiden chose them because of their low stats in physical attack and speed.

With his skills, he was confident he can defeat one of them. And he only needed to defeat one since the materials he needed to sell were guaranteed drops.

Aiden made his way through the forest to look for a Blue Forest Wolf. On occasion, he saw a small Clawed Boar, ravens with fangs, and other weird monsters, but none of them attacked him, instead, they avoided him like a plague.

Seeing how the monsters were leaving in haste whenever he was near, Aiden felt something was wrong.

'Why are they avoiding me?' Aiden was puzzled about the situation. Although it was a good thing that he did not have to fight them, however, it also meant that the Blue Forest Wolf would run away from him too.

He took a good look at himself and see he was covered in sweat, and sewerage water.

'Is it because of my smell that monsters are avoiding me?' He gave it a thought and it did seem plausible for that to be the case.

Even in the game, Aiden could smell things, so he concluded that monsters were able to do the same. Drop Dew Saper did not have a nose, so that was why they did not avoid him.

'How realistic can this game get?' Even though he played the game for two years, he mostly spent his time out of the game programming and would log in only to test his program out.

Even though Aiden clearly hacked the game, when playing as an NPCs, it did not feel like a game. He can feel the wind in his hair, and the sunlight reflected off the leaves. In fact, when he was a player, he always felt like there was a mental barrier that made him feel that he was always in a game.

Now as an NPC, he felt that the mental barrier became thinner, and the world around him felt more real.

'It is probably my imagination. There is no way a game world could compare to the real world.' Aiden decided not to dwell on it and thought about how to remove his smell.

Honestly, he could just remove his tattered clothes and walk around naked, but he did not. He could not imagine himself walking through the city like that. What made it even more embarrassing if he did was this time was, unlike players, he had a genital.

So, he just went through the forest while heading towards the city direction with his smelly clothes. In the end, he did not find a single Blue Forest Wolf.

'It is fine. I will just sell this sword. It should cover the medicine and more.' He wanted to keep the sword since it was a good beginner weapon. It gave a +5 physical attack which was a lot for his level. However, his life was more important.

At the gate, guards were standing around.

When the guards saw a little boy came, they look at him with disgust. With a wave of their hand, they told Aiden to quickly leave their sight.

He was looked down upon because of his poor look. If it was not for the sword, they would suspect him to be a beggar and not an adventurer.

Aiden made his way to the only blacksmith he knew from a while back, Tart Ore Shop. He used to come here in the first month of playing the game before he stopped playing legitly and look for a way to hack the game.

"Hello, welcome to Tart Ore Shop… What is that smell?!" A robust man was standing with a strange look. When he caught a whiff of the smell coming of Aiden coming in, he felt his breakfast was going to come out of his mouth to say hello. "Boy! What is with that smell? Are you a zombie or something?"

"Don't joke around. I am a customer. I am here to sell this sword." Tiptoeing to reach the height of the desk, Aiden placed his sword on it. "How much can I get for this?"

"Is this even your sword? It seems too big for you" The man said while holding his nose. "How about this? I give you 10 copper for this sword."

"10 copper? I am sure it is worth more than that. The metal here is a higher grade than the most common sword sold in this town… 25 coppers" Aide said his price.

The man was caught off guard upon hearing the boy trying to negotiate. He got so used to dealing with players since many of them do not bother to negotiate and would sell things to him based on the price he set.

"The sword is chipped and it's not a small one either. Even I bought it from you, I will have to use my resources to fix it… 15 copper."

"True, but you can sell it for at least 40 copper after you repair it. And repairing it will take no more than 5 copper worth of iron. So I am selling it to you for cheap," Aiden said.

The man laughed hearing what he said was true. "Are you secretly a merchant? Okay, deal, I'll give you 25 coppers. No more, no less." The man took out 25 copper coins from a small iron chest.

"My name is Drart, what is your name?"

"Aiden"

"Aiden. If you have any more items, sell it to me. I give you a good deal."

"Why is that?"

"Cause I like the way you talk. You should know many playman come and go from this city. It is annoying talking to them as if they see me less of a person. I even tried to make small talk, but all they want to was to buy a weapon and leave. The only time they come back is to either sell or buy something"

"It sounds like you are just lonely" But what Drart said had some truth to it. Players want to leave the beginner zone as soon as possible, thus, the interaction between the NPCs and players was small unless it was for a quest.

The only people who are willing to stay in this city are people who did not like to fight and wanted a place to relax than go back to the real world. Also, guilds because it was a good source of income if they stay in this city.

"If you put it like that, it made me sound pathetic, hahaha!" Drart said with a burst of hearty laughter.