Chapter 14 - Monster Hunting time

Outside back in the real world, Luna was having dinner with her parents. Her father spoke. "So Luna, I noticed you went back into the game earlier. Are you enjoying the game so far?"

"Yeah I'd say so, I've made a couple of new friends recently and we're going to fight a monster after I log back in." Her father was intrigued. Her reaction was a bit different then it was originally.

Her father was glad that she was enjoying herself. Luna's mother then spoke in a stern tone to her. "I've heard games like those can get quite addicting, just make sure you enjoy it in moderation. You wouldn't want to forget about the real world would you?" Her mother was only half joking.

But Luna had already wished that the outside world wasn't real. The outside world had so many more dangers that Luna didn't ever want to remember.

Even if she gained the console from her rampant insomnia. Luna's goal in the long term was to just play the game for fun now.

"So how well do you think the game has helped you so far?" Her mother asked.

"I'd probably say I've slept more in the game for the past two days. Than I have for a whole week." There were multiple times Luna had slept throughout her adventure. But she couldn't pinpoint how much time exactly, as Noll never told her the actual time when he woke her up.

Luna's parents were shocked by her answer. There wasn't a time before this where Luna had ever looked so energized. Her answers were becoming more understandable as her mind became clearer.

"You're able to sleep that freely in the game? Maybe I should get me one of those." Her father jokingly added. Luna thought for a moment about his comment.

"What if I was able to buy one for you?" Luna asked.

"What?" "Huh?" Her parents weren't exactly living in luxury. Luna herself hasn't worked for over a year. Her money wasn't anywhere near enough to pay for a second NeuroCast. But there was something she could do to earn money for one.

"In the game, there's a method of selling in-game items and gold for real money. I read about it on the game's wiki, apparently there's also auction houses as well that you can sell your items on for more coins." Luna was pretty enthusiastic about the idea of buying the console for her parents.

If they had originally bought it for her out of kindness. Then what's the reason to not give them the same kindness back. She already noticed some of the money that she could earn by just selling 1 gold coin. Luna loved Silver skies, so who's to say her parents won't find it just as enjoyable as her.

Luna's parents weren't as enthusiastic about her ideas as much as she was. But they thought of the possibility of earning money through the game and were slightly enticed by it. A way to make money in your sleep didn't sound so bad.

"Honey, if that possibility of you gaining enough money to pay for us is there. Then I think you should spend that money elsewhere. You should most likely invest it all into tuition for colleges." Luna frowned at her mother. She never planned to go to college at this point in her life. There wasn't a desire to cling to her family, but there wasn't a clear idea she had of her future either.

"Just wait! I'll make so much money that I can buy both of you a NeuroCast and pay for other things like college easily!" Her parents were happy with her enthusiasm, but they truly didn't want Luna to overexert herself. She was still stricken with an extreme fatigue and needed to recover. She might've found a solution to her insomnia, but that was only due to the fact she earned the class DreamWalker.

Without it, she would have still been stricken with an unending amount of mental fatigue. Instant sleep just turns her brain off as soon as she wants to go to bed. Each time she gets up, everything felt like a breath of fresh air as her stamina keeps regenerating.

A desire to sleep burned in Luna's eyes, as she left the dinner table and entered her room.

-

"I'm back"

Luna closed and opened her hand. "Yep, I definitely like the feeling of my body in this world." There wasn't a feeling of weakness like back in the real world. Here, her body was constantly healthy. Well... except for in battles of course.

She went back inside the smithy and waved to the old man. "Hey I'm back, are the repairs done yet?"

"Just about.. done!" The old man slammed his hammer down onto Luna's helmet. "Here, I noticed some information about that armor and sword of yours. I changed a bit of the info, so your armor doesn't look like you stole it off a Ushain knight."

Luna laughed awkwardly. She grabbed back her gear and equipped it. It wasn't a significant change, but the armor now looked like it was all a set piece. The color of Archer's armor was colored to look more in line with the Cosal knight armor set.

Luna thanked the blacksmith and asked about where to find the general store. She was going to need potions if she was going to hunt down a monster after all. It was a quick walk down the street before she came across the store clerk.

The first thing she wanted to get was 10 lesser healing potions for the future. After Luna got everything she needed. She checked if it was okay to sell the gear she stole, without telling the store clerk where she got it from of course.

There wasn't any problem with the purchase and she made it off with 1 gold and 32 silver. Now her inventory was looking almost completely empty. She even sold the monster materials she had from killing bugs.

There wasn't anything left she didn't have equipped, but there were still two things in her inventory. The first was the large mass of coins that she just acquired. And the second was something called a wind sigil. She received it as a drop from Archer, but didn't know what it was for. It wasn't something she could equip either, so she decided to take a look at it.

[Wind Sigil

Rank - Unique

Item details: A highly valuable rune. It possesses the ability to allow humans to freely communicate with wind spirits. If touched by a spirit while in the user's hands, the spirit will form a contract with the user and the rune will attach itself to the user's body. If the contract is to happen, the rune will still function as a communication device.

Weight - 3]

"A contract? I'm good there. I don't think I need another one of those for a loooong time." Luna already had Noll, what was the need for another buddy when she already had Noll by her side.

"Yeah, it's not like I can even use it right now anyways. I don't have a clue as to where the wind spirits could even be."

Luna looked to Noll in surprise. "Huh? Who?"

"...Not funny" Luna wasn't very amused by Noll's remark.

"Huh? …Wait no. No, no, no!" Her hands repeatedly shook in an X shape. "How could the Northwind family help?! I literally killed one of their knights and his soldiers!"

"There's no need to worry about that right now. Come on! Let's go find Jessica and the old man." Luna walked off with Noll tailing behind her. It was boring to her, walking around didn't have much charm, as people were no longer on the streets because of the monster.

It wasn't very hard to find the two of them in this deserted village. "Good afternoon DreamWalker, we've found out where a lot of the previous groups of soldiers have gone. We'll follow that route and most likely reach the beast's den by nightfall."

"Sounds good, I'm already set to go. Lead the way!" Luna cheerfully followed behind the two of them as they entered the forest.

[Kefria Forest - Recommended Lv 10 to 13]

The hunting grounds didn't exactly make Luna interested. Her speed leveling method of fighting the soldiers was way beyond easy. But that difficulty doesn't exactly apply for the battle against Archer.

While they walked, General Braggart explained to Luna about the beast's strength. Apparently every group of soldiers that came before them were wiped out. Luna herself was much stronger than a normal soldier. But that was about it.

The General mentioned several times that he was stronger than a 5th ranked knight. But based off his tone, Luna was starting to lose hope. Her only hope was that Jessica's ring could change the battle for better or worse. It's effects weren't dazzling but had potential for someone like Luna that didn't pay attention to her own safety.

[Jessica's Ring

Rank - Unique

Item details: Jessica Braggart's ring. It's filled with the love and hope her father held towards her as he surrendered his life on the battlefield. The design is reminiscent of a forest spirit's light. When worn in battle, the user's life energy increases.

*200 Intelligence points

*50 stamina points

*You are immune to the status effect: Disease

*When in battle, skill cooldowns are decreased by 10% and mana regeneration is increased by 20%

Requirements - Jessica's partner

Weight - 1]

The effects of the ring were super cool sounding. The 10% skill cooldown decrease and 20% mana regeneration were awesome. But Luna's interest was completely on the added 200 intelligence. Now with her mana being over 1000, Luna could use the inception sword skill without any issue.

The requirement on the ring caught Luna's eye. She didn't know that there were requirements on gear until now. Since the item's rank was unique, Luna assumed the requirement for the item was because of it's rating. But the other reason that it caught her eye was the requirements itself. The requirement, Jessica's partner could be taken two ways.

The first was a romantic partner. Luna hadn't thought of the idea of marrying a woman. She more or less thought that her romantic partner would be chosen by fate. Didn't exactly matter who, but that's when you're thinking IRL. Marrying an NPC was a little weird in her head.

But the second option was a partner when it comes to battle or a team of sorts. It wasn't farfetched to say the game knew this and didn't feel like explaining the real definition of what it meant to be Jessica's partner. It wasn't exactly a topic Luna wanted to think about anymore. Noll already noticed this beforehand and chose to stay silent.

To think about something else, Luna decided to take a look at her current status. She hadn't distributed her stat points that she had gained from her last battle yet. It wasn't exactly her trying to save them as it was mostly just her forgetting. She was already level 31 after defeating Archer. Her levels were climbing at a rapid rate and her stat points showed it.

There were 130 stat points to spend. Over the course of 30 minutes, she distributed each stat point. After the 30 minutes, her status looked like this:

Name - Luna

Class - DreamWalker

Level: 31

HP - 1040 MP - 1550

STR - 105 AGI - 45 INT - 110 + (200) STM - 84 + (50) WIS - 1

Sanity - 100

Stat points - 0

Chrysalis - Stage 0

Title - Legendary One, Marathon Runner

It did look like she was against wisdom. She didn't see its use and looked at it as a worse intelligence stat. On the wiki, it stated that it only increased mana regeneration slightly and MP by about half as much as intelligence. Instant sleep covered for her mana regeneration and she just thought that it wasn't a stat her class would need. So she decided to ignore it for now.

After their 45 minute walk, the team finally reached the monster's lair. It was a cave without any light inside. The moon was already out, so it wasn't much different outside than it was inside. But Luna was still a little scared of what might come.