Lucky Start

In Kingdom Forge, if you didn't grab the loot from a monster's dead body, it'd disappear in about half an hour. If the loot was really good, like excellent quality, the body would stick around for an hour. And for superb stuff or even better, you had a whole four hours before it vanished.

Now, monsters in the starting area weren't going to drop anything excellent. Unless it was a special boss monster, everything you found would be, at best, common quality.

So, even though the abandoned cart area was littered with dead monsters, they were just Frenzied Wolf Cubs that had died in the last thirty minutes.

Seriously, every five seconds, another one of those wolf cub corpses would just poof out of existence.

"Talk about a lucky break!" Ryan mumbled to himself, pulling a small pouch from a dead Frenzied Wolf Cub.

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Red Pouch

Quality: Common

Function: 6 slots

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When you first started in this game, the system gave you a 16-slot satchel, plus six empty spots for backpacks. Each of those backpack spots could hold, well, a backpack. And this Red Pouch Ryan just found? It was the cheapest, most basic backpack you could get.

"Better than nothing, I guess. Six slots is just pathetic, though."

Ryan clipped the little pouch on, instantly boosting his inventory to 22 slots. Man, he really missed his old Level 90 Paladin account, where every single backpack slot was crammed with a massive 36-slot bag.

The glowing pile of over 200 dead bodies made Ryan sigh. He knew that later on, the game would add a feature to scoop up all the loot in a certain area, which just made the current situation even more annoying.

"Another backpack!" Ryan hadn't even looted that many Frenzied Wolf Cub corpses before he stumbled upon another small black pouch. It was exactly like the red one, also with six slots.

Equipping it, Ryan felt a lot better.

Later in the game's history, there was this urban legend: if you didn't find a small pouch before leaving the starting zone, your luck was supposedly cursed, and you should just ditch that character. On the flip side, if you managed to fill all six of your small backpack slots, you were considered incredibly lucky. People would even make you the designated boss looter for their guild. A lot of people scoffed at this, but regular players totally bought into it, constantly making new characters just to try and find more small pouches in the starting zone.

As Ryan kept bending down to loot monster corpses, he didn't even notice two other players, a guy and a girl, watching him from a distance.

"Is that dude some kind of pro? All those dead bodies around him... they look like Level 3 monsters, don't they?" The female Priest player pointed at Ryan, her voice full of wonder as she spoke to the male Paladin next to her.

"Must be. Nobody can solo Level 3 monsters yet. Everyone has to team up and use kiting tricks to take them down." The male Paladin was also staring, wide-eyed, as Ryan just kept looting the corpses. His voice even shook a little at the sight of all those dead bodies.

"He's got a weapon! I saw it!" The Priest player practically shrieked with excitement, spotting the longsword on Ryan's back. "That's gotta be the novice longsword! Hey, quick, go ask him where the skill trainer said to find it!"

The male Paladin nodded and hurried over to Ryan.

Ryan had already looted more than half the corpses. During that time, he'd snagged three more small pouches, filling five of his six empty backpack slots. That put him in a seriously good mood. He wondered if he'd manage to fill all his backpack slots by the time he finished looting everything.

"Looks like this character's got amazing luck. Maybe in the future, I can find some rare pets to sell to collectors. That could be a way to get rich, too."

Ryan tossed aside some useless junk that was just taking up space and wouldn't sell for much. That's when he finally noticed the approaching man and woman.

'Someone's already Level 3 and here for a quest?' Ryan thought to himself. Then, seeing they weren't carrying any weapons, he immediately realized they were on the new player skill quest, trying to find their trainer's weapon.

"Hey there, my ID's 'Sky Dragon Ascendant.' Is that a novice weapon you've got? Could you tell me where to find the Paladin trainer's longsword?" The male Paladin blurted out a whole speech as soon as they met, leaving Ryan a bit speechless for a moment.

Honestly, Ryan didn't really want to tell them. This starting quest could hold up most players, giving him a big head start, so he frowned a little.

The game cleverly showed Ryan's frown, which made Sky Dragon Ascendant feel a bit awkward, but it was totally understandable. In a game, who wouldn't want to get ahead?

"Five hundred bucks, tell me where the longsword is!" The female Priest, seeing Ryan's expression, pouted and spoke with a bossy tone.

Sky Dragon Ascendant quickly glanced at the Paladin in front of him. Even though he was a little annoyed by his sister's impulsive offer, he still hoped it might convince the other player.

When Ryan heard the female Priest's offer, he hesitated. He'd originally planned to just ignore them. Five hundred bucks. While it wasn't a fortune to him, it could definitely help him out of a tough spot. Just a few days ago, Ryan had blown almost half of his family's living expenses on the cheapest virtual setup and instant noodles, making their already struggling household even more precarious.

With that 500 dollars, he could immediately buy some better food for his two younger sisters. Seeing the two little girls eating only a bit of pickled vegetables with their porridge these past few days had really twisted Ryan's gut.

"Hold on a sec. Let me finish looting these corpses," Ryan said with a sigh, looking at the female Priest. There's an old saying: a hero's spirit might be grand, but even a hero can be brought low by an empty wallet. He wasn't in a position to turn down this deal.

Five hundred dollars for the location of a Paladin weapon quest. To be honest, Ryan was making a killing, since it would only take a few hours to find it otherwise.

Seeing that the 'expert' in front of them was actually thinking about the offer, the female Priest lifted her chin toward Sky Dragon Ascendant, showing off how smart she was.

"Five hundred dollars is way too much, isn't it? I mean, it's not a lot to us, but we shouldn't let him take us for fools."

Sky Dragon Ascendant privately messaged his sister, pointing out that she was being way too generous.

"Don't say that. Five hundred dollars isn't just for the weapon's location. It's also to get to know him. Who knows, we might need his help later. Look at all these dead bodies; I don't believe an ordinary expert could pull this off so easily."

The female Priest huffed, watching Ryan loot the corpses.

"Five hundred dollars for the Paladin weapon info, and I'll even throw in a little extra gift," Ryan said, slowly walking toward the siblings after he finished looting.