Beginner Town

We were standing across from each other with about 15ft between us. He'll probably try and use his speed as a thief to disorient me, after all, that's the main benefit of his class.

-Damage Enabled-

The man speedily ran to my left, then tried juking to the right. He's trying to make me lose sight of him, but that won't matter; once he gets closer, I'll try something that should guarantee my win. He continued to quickly switch directions and try to avoid my line of sight while slowly getting closer. Once he's comfortable with the range between us he will probably attack.

He's close enough. I spread my arms out and quickly punched the knuckles of the two gauntlets together and used [Shockwave].

A wave of wind came out of my gauntlets causing the thief to stumble a little. He almost fell but managed to catch himself. I took this chance to close the short distance between us and use [Fury] before pummeling him.

I attacked his stomach region for the first few hits and finished with an attack to his head. The man flew back a few feet and hit a tree as he started to vanish into particles. Before he completely vanished I think I heard him say something along the lines of...

"You suck at this game, get good."

"..."

-xX-Tonic-Xx Has Won the Duel-

-5 Gold Has Been Rewarded-

The fight lasted maybe two minutes at most. For me, five gold isn't much, in fact, it's extremely little, but I guess it's better than nothing.

"That was AWESOME!"

"What was that stuff you used? You punched your hands together and then it went like bwaaaaa and then he like almost-"

"Hold on a second, where's the other guy?"

"Oh, he left as soon as you two started the fight. Anyway, so what was that stuff? What did you do?"

Should I really tell her? She won't even be able to learn these skills for about another 40 levels, and even then there are better things to choose from at the start of the game. I don't want her to get the wrong idea of what abilities to choose and dedicate everything she does to get a skill that is decent at best.

"Well..."

She looked up at me with excitement and anticipation. I thought for another few seconds and ultimately decided that it should be alright to tell her.

"The first one was Shockwave, and it creates a, well a shockwave that can make people stumble or fall over; it has a short range, and is best used against people who have the upper hand in speed. The second one was Fury which makes me immune to negative status effects for about five seconds. I thought he would try and use poison or something like that, but he didn't."

"Ooohhh... that's pretty cool!"

"Oh, but that being said, you won't be able to get these skills for a really long time. If you still want them later on, let me know when you're around level 35 or 40."

"Oh, okay."

She didn't seem to be too disappointed, maybe even a little motivated.

"So, do you want to do some more beginner quests after turning the goblin one in?"

"Hmmm... Yeah, sure. I probably have enough energy to do one more quest."

We both walked through the woods until we eventually reached the beginner town. Well, it was called a town, but it was more like a small village. The whole town was surrounded by woods, so without the minimap, it would probably be really difficult to find your way to your way around. Most of the tools that are considered commonplace in the major nations of the game were missing here, so for example, you could probably find an anvil to repair some equipment, but there was no blacksmith or forgery to make weapons or armor with. This was probably to encourage the new players to quickly set out and leave the starting town. Anyway, we walked to the NPC that gave us the goblin quest and submitted it. Since we were in the same party, the gold was split between us. The reward was 4 gold coins, so I got 2. I looked at the two gold coins in my hand before tapping Olivia's shoulder and handing them to her. She thanked me and we kept moving on.

The NPC started talking, but it was pretty much all filler knowledge, like... "Oh, thank you, travelers! If you hadn't dealt with those goblins, they would have ransacked our crops and we wouldn't have had enough food to last through the winter. I don't have much to pay, but you have earned our most sincere gratitude."

In reality, it's only winter for about a week around Christmas time, those goblins will infinitely respawn there, the NPC has an infinite amount of gold to pay new adventurers, and this town being grateful to you ultimately means nothing. Oh, I started ranting again. It is just a game after all, and sometimes you have to suspend your disbelief.

We walked over to another villager who had a quest symbol above his head and talked to him. He wants us to kill some wolves in a nearby cave and collect a few materials from that same cave. Fairly simple and straightforward.

We made our way through the forest to the cave, and when we arrived there were already two other newbies nearby. I told Olivia she should party together with them to get used to teamwork and all that stuff. She was reluctant but agreed and went to talk to them. They formed a group together and got ready to fight the wolves. Just like before I would be sitting on the sidelines unless they actually needed some help.

The three of them approached the cave, and as soon as they did five wolves rushed out towards them. All three of them haphazardly swung their swords around missing most of their attacks, but after some back and forth between them and the wolves they eventually defeated them all. They started celebrating a little while preparing for a second wave of enemies, but to their surprise, there were no more waves, but rather just one more enemy left.

The wolf slowly walked out of the cave. Its fur wasn't grey like the others before it, but instead black with stripes of red here and there. Red text appeared above it stating this enemy's name, it said "Alpha Wolf."

It was a boss monster.