Chapter 20 Favorite Food, Pastime, Family

Rona: I want to burp.

Isaac: Don't make a sound.

Rona: But there's no holes here.

Isaac: The only reason why there were holes because they heard sound and came out.

Llyne: So those children before us never made it to the beetles.

Isaac: Yup. They were all dead at the entrance.

Rona was finally done with her meal.

Llyne: Let's go, Rona. It's adventure time!

Rona's eyes were filled with excitement as we moved deeper into the dungeon.

As we walked deeper in, all we saw were endless trail of cold hard stone wall.

Llyne: We walked for hours and nothing? What kind of dungeon is this?

Isaac: Stop talking and move faster. There has to be something. It might be just in front.

Rona: Let's go! Let's go!

Llyne: Alright. Alright.

We walked a few steps, and a blue screen appeared.

[HP and MP are fully recovered]

[Congratulations! You are the first to have made past the 1st Stage.]

Isaac: First and only.

Llyne: That was only the first stage? That ain't good.

[If you are ready for the next stage, press the 'OK' button on the blue screen. If not, move back. When you are ready, please come back here, and the screen will appear again.]

[Are you ready? OK]

We moved back, and the blue screen disappeared.

[You may use the camping function behind you. It helps build bond between your teammates.]

We looked behind and saw a well-made campsite there.

Llyne: There wasn't anything there just now. This place is really freaking me out.

Isaac: Only now?

Rona ran towards the campsite and began dancing around the fire.

Isaac: I'm interested in the camping function. It improves bond, right?

Llyne: Yup.

Isaac: I wonder what benefits it will give us.

We walked toward the campsite and sat on the chairs. We sat there for a while, and another blue screen appeared.

[Please choose your topic: Family, School Life, Ghost Story, Romance Life, Favourite Food, Pastime.]

Llyne: I'll choose family.

Isaac: Pastime.

Rona: Favourite Food!

[You have chosen the topics: Family, Pastime, and Favourite Food to discuss. I hope you all will enjoy it. Have a great chat!]

The blue screen disappeared.

Llyne: I guess they knew we're introverts except Rona. Hahaha.

Isaac: Who wants to start first?

Rona: Me! Me! Food! Food!

Isaac: Don't get hungry while talking about food.

Llyne: Why worry? She just ate, she won't be hungry that fast.

Isaac: We can never know when it comes to Rona's stomach. Her hunger is too unpredictable.

Rona: I love lots of food. Avocado egg sandwich, Tomato Mayo eggplant beef burger, sushi, lamb wrap, cheese salmon, chicken claypot, pork steak -

Isaac: Stop. Do you know what favourite means?

Rona: I know! It's a WORD! And I'm hungry.

Rona rubbed her tummy.

Isaac: Why did we let her choose?

Llyne: Rona, if you can only pick one food, what would it be?

Rona: I can't pick between stinky tofu with natto and King Beetle.

Isaac: Just pick one before you eat us.

Rona thought long and hard.

Rona: King Beetle!

Llyne: Oui. She's a monster eater.

Isaac: Mine would be Ravonsac boar meat.

Llyne: What boar?

Isaac: It is a type of boar that is extremely hard to catch in a jungle. It's huge and very ferocious. It's also very territorial and only hunts alone. Although they're huge in size, they are very nimble. Their favourite food are humans' flesh. They can sense a human 100 miles using their hearings alone, so you need to distance yourself from it. To hunt it, you need to use a special type of gun to shoot it down. Another way to kill it is to burn down its home, the jungle.

Rona: Wow! Sounds yummy.

Isaac: It had really juice meat.

Llyne: Wow. You know lots about it.

Isaac: My father taught me all that. We live in the jungle, and since small, he would bring me to hunt animals.

Llyne: I thought you had never seen a forest. You were wowing outside the dungeon.

Isaac: I was just amusing you. It was fun.

Llyne: Why you -

Rona: What about your favourite food, Llyne?

Llyne: My Ma's homemade meat pie.

Rona: Me love meat pie too!

Isaac: I doubt there's any food you don't like, Rona.

Llyne: You would love my Ma's meat pie.

Isaac: Onto the next topic, pastime? Mine are hunting, planting, and hacking.

Llyne: Hacking? Which hat?

Isaac: Black Hat.

Llyne: Does your parents know?

Isaac: Nope.

Rona: Isaac wears hat?

Llyne: Errr...No. The hats refer to different types. Erm... When a person think of the word hacker, they would think of negative stuff. But there are different types of hackers. Black hat, white hat, grey hat, red hat, blue hat, and green hat. Not all of them are bad, though. Some of them are unintentional. For Isaac case, he's bad, the meanest of them all.

Rona: Isaac bad!

Rona sent a 'Bad' sticker.

Isaac: You just wasted your breath.

Llyne: Maybe she understood what I've just said.

Isaac: Ya... Right. Moving on. Let me guess, Rona's pastime. It's eating, right?

Rona: Right! Isaac is a genius~

Llyne: Only eating?

Rona: Yup! I eat everything! No discrimination.

Llyne: You mean you're not picky.

Isaac: Whereas Llyne's pastime was pranking and running.

Llyne: So what?

Isaac: Thank goodness I'm not your teacher.

I stuck out my tongue at Isaac.

Llyne: Next is family. I have mom, a housewife, and a dad, whom I've never met before, and my sis, whom I have no close relationship with.

Rona: Never met your father?

Llyne: No. Not once.

Rona: Poor Lil.

Llyne: Rona's turn.

Rona: My loving family has me and my parents only. I love my family so much, and I know they do, too, even though they were rarely home. Sometimes, when they come home, they bring back new people and tell me to hide in my room. And when I tried to go outside, they would get angry and lock me inside my room.

Isaac: Rarely home? New people? How-

Llyne: So you really love them, right?

Rona: Yup!

(PM) Isaac: Why did you cut in for? Did you hear what she said? It sounds like she has never gone outside. And her parents? What's wrong with them? It's a dysfunctional family. I nearly puke when I heard that!

(PM) Llyne: I know. I know. But if you question her like that, it would break her heart, or she would despise you or both. The only way to solve this is to show her what a real loving family is, and hopefully, she will realize it herself.

(PM) Isaac: You better be right, or her parents are in it for real trouble.

(PM) Llyne: Okay, okay. Chill. We will need to survive this place if you wanna do something stupid.

Rona: Is Isaac family great too?

Isaac: Way better.

Rona: Wow! Tell! Tell!

Isaac: Well, my family, there were 3 of us. We lived in the jungle. My father was a huntsman, and my mother was a housewife who loved flowers. In fact, my mother's dream is to be a florist. When my father was not dragging me into the jungle to hunt, I would be by my mother's side and helping her plant some flowers.

Llyne: Were?

Rona: Aww~

Isaac: However, she died when I was 8 due to an unknown disease. After she died, my father decided to move to the city for my education. The city was hard to fit in, especially when you weren't rich. Our family's financial situation wasn't so good, so I decided to do some hacking. Soon, our financial situation stabilized, and everything went smoothly until now. That's all about my family.

Llyne: Woah... We have quite some families there.

Rona: No worry, Isaac. Now you have us, Llyne and me!

Isaac nodded silently.

[Congratulations. You have completed all 3 topics. You have max your bond levels. Rewards: Skill Sharing, Inventory Sharing, Stats Swapping. Note: If the teammate is kicked out of the team, the owner can not share anything with them.]

Isaac pressed on each reward.

[Skill Sharing: Teammates are able to use the shared skills one time only. Note: Not all skills can be shared. Skills can last for 30 seconds. Shared skill will not consume MP.]

[Inventory Sharing: Teammates are able to share their items in inventory to each other.]

[Stats Swapping: Teammates can swap any stats they desire to each other. Only one stat can be swapped each time. Note: There is a cooldown period.]

[Do you wish to continue? School, Ghost Story, Romance Life, No. Note: No extra bond points will be rewarded.]

Without second thought, Isaac pressed the 'No' button.

Rona: Why?

Isaac: …

Rona: Ghost Story scares you?

Isaac: …

Llyne: No romance life?

Isaac: …

Llyne: Dark past in school.

Isaac sweated.

Llyne: Dark past in school!

Rona: Story!

Isaac: What do you guys want to know for? Let's go to 2nd stage already. Hurry up!

Rona: Nuuuuuuuu~