(A/N: Hey~! I'm currently writing two works, and typing upwards of 5-8k semi-edited words a day has proven to be vastly time-consuming and mentally draining, more so than I think I'm capable of sustaining for long periods. As a result, I will only be releasing one chapter a day, alternating between the two novels, until I can improve the speed at which I type and improve my skills as an author.
Currently, my goal is to be able to reach and maintain an average of 1000 words of the well-thought-out/edited plot per hour—since I can't help myself from editing as I go, it slows me down—of which I can only maintain an average of 500-850 as of current if I stay somewhat focused, which I also have issues doing. :P
To those few who had read daily, sorry/not sorry for the inconvenience if not an outright let-down. But don't worry, I have no plans to drop either of the two; I just can't write for 14-16 hours a day, every day, without stressing myself out and turning my brain to mush. xD)
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Together, we made our way up the stairs and towards the realm portal. We're going to enter the Realm under the guise of cloaks—well, not me, but the other two—so that no one recognizes Queston and Truudfluue and reports their behavior to the orphanage. It's not exactly the most foolproof of plans I have had a role in, but I think it should still work.
As far as I can tell, both of the boys carry weapons on them, but there is a distinct lack of armor covering their bodies, which makes me slightly worried. It's not like I have much of a say, though, as I'm currently rocking the plain clothing, after all, which only gives me one defense. Still, after what I experienced in the Kitchen, I can positively say that I feel confident in my abilities to handle myself. . . not.
Shit, dude, fighting for your life is terrifying, especially after the fact. If I didn't have the handicap of being overpowered, I'm not sure if I would have made it out of the Kitchen alive. The guards seemed well trained in combat, while I only had a minor scrap or two under my belt at the time. There's no way I should have even been able to beat that first guy: He had a sword!
Welp. . . I guess we'll see what happens in the Realm. Neither Queston nor Truudfluue seems all that concerned for their safety, so I should probably have faith in their judgment; I haven't even been into the Realm yet. . . .
"Ready?" Queston asks—directed towards no one in particular—while staring into the portal.
"Let's do this!" Truudfluue excitedly exclaims.
"Yeah," I answer, hyping myself up for whatever I will face on the other side.
"Okay, let's-a-go!" Queston shouts.
"Luigi?" Truudfluue whispers out, barely audible to my own ears.
Queston is the first to move, and he walks through the portal, disappearing from my view. Truudfluue follows close behind and vanishes into the portal as well, leaving me standing alone. I brace myself and drive forward into the realm portal, leaving the Nexus and into Cube.
Stepping through the portal is an experience much the same as every other portal, but it's slightly different this time around. Much like when I first entered the "Exalted Kitchen," my vision goes black for a moment, but I'm met with white words saying, "Realm of the Mad God" and directly beneath it showing, "Cube," followed by, "9,817,593."
I'm unsure what the numbers mean, but the "Cube" obviously states that I'm entering Cube. . . it's a no-brainer. Perhaps the number represents how many people are inside Cube? If so. . . wow, that's a lot!
Given the information I have collected over my two days here in this world, I know that the Realm is large—like really huge. But how huge? Only one way to find out!
Suddenly, I regain my vision, and I find myself standing tall above the ground level—around the height of a small tree—on a familiar stoney pyramid. All around me, I observe hundreds of tents littered about inside a wood-walled camp, some bigger than others. There are observation towers close to the walls that—I think—are fortified with guards placed as sentinels. It appears like the area around the portals is well defended and well scrutinized.
Noticing my menu activate without my command, I inspect it to confirm that there are no changes. Instantly, I discern what's new, as I see that in the top left corner of my menu exists a box that holds information. It details. . . .
[Cube
Free 'Cube' from Oryx's minions!
(O) Reach Level 20 and become stronger.
(O) Defeat 47 Remaining Heroes of Oryx.
(O) Defeat Oryx the Mad God in his castle.]
Okay, the Heroes of Oryx are new; I never heard about those. Are they some sort of counter-insurgency or something? Will, I have to deal with traitors and spies. . . Urgh, that will be a headache and a half if that turns out to be the case. Luckily, there only seem to be about forty-seven of them and ten million of us. We should be fine!
"Here it is! This is the Realm!" Queston directs my awareness and showcases the view with his outstretched hand.
Past the wooden walls of the camp, far off in the distance, are many trees that reach as far as the eye can see, making one large forest. Looking throughout the encampment, it appears like we are on a beach of sorts—sand everywhere; palm trees taking root in strongly soiled locations; the sound of distant seagulls—and turning around to get the view behind me only confirms my suspicions. For miles and miles upon end is just ocean, only proving that we are, in fact, on a beach.
Inside the camp, the hustle and bustle of active life play out in front of me: A man drags a cart through the busy road, exiting through the main gate and along the path towards the forest: Two women, seemingly flirting amongst each other, ignoring the wayward glances they may provoke as they enjoy life in each other's company: Children accompanying their parents as they attend to important business within the Realm.
We step off to the side slightly— I absentmindedly while gazing upon camp—to allow passage for a man who walked up the steep stairs with two heavy-looking bags in his arms. He passes us and steps through the portal, heading back to the Nexus with a forlorn expression. I guess that everyone has to go home at some point.
There are a vast amount of animals as well within the encampment. Most of them follow close to those whom I presume to be their owners. They come in all different shapes and sizes, as is expected, of course, but the ratio of those larger to smaller grows as I continue to inspect the Realm. It would appear like the grander the pet is, the rarer they are, as even animals like giraffes, lions, mermaids, and centaurs don't have set height limits and tend to be somewhat small. . . . Mermaids?
Since I'm so far up in the sky, I can't really tell what I'm looking at, but it appears to be a small half-naked girl with brown hair and a blue fishtail. I say she's only half naked because of the red seashells covering her breasts and the utter lack of anything to even cover in the legs department. She's sticking close to another woman, so maybe I should go up and ask her once we get off the pyramid to figure out what's up with pets and how I could *hem* obtain a mermaid of my own. . . Nah—who does that!
Queston, once again, is the first to start moving as he heads down the stone stairs leading off the portal and to the path. The said path is the one that winds around the camp before exiting and snaking through the forest. It's a brown tile road made of mitch-matched bricks and doesn't appear to be in any need of repairs.
Reaching the bottom, I finally realize just how large the camp is. It takes two perspectives to really get a sense of the scale of things. We start walking through the compound, Queston leading and Truudfluue staying to my side, as I stare wondrously around the place with wanderlust.
Most of the tents all around are just tiny beige little sleep shacks, but there are a few large and even gigantic tents of multicolored blue and reds. A few of the larger tents seem to be selling goods or services, while the hugest tent I see towering above the rest—right in the center of the camp— has two golden guards stationed at its entrance. I had noticed them as we passed by, but neither Queston nor Truudfluue paid them any mind.
Queston brings us all the way to the exit, which has two large wooden gates that are currently ajar parallel to the brick road. Since we went straight for the gate, I didn't get the chance to explore and ask questions, but I guess I can just do that on my own time. We move out and down the path that leads away from the camp. Eventually, while walking, we reach a fork in the road where we can either continue into the forest or take the other path that looks like it simply winds down the beach.
Queston directs us towards the beach path instead of the forest, which surprises me because I thought we would head into the woods. Making my surprise known, I ask, "Queston, where are we going?"
"To harass some pirates," Queston responds, quite joyfully.
Pirates!
(---)
Along the brick road path we walked, we began to see fewer and fewer adventurers than before as we moved further away from the campgrounds. As we went, Truudfluue took it upon himself to clean up any wild snakes that got too aggressive with us. I don't know what their problems were, we didn't bother them, but they still decided to slither towards us and attack.
They were green hostile little snakes that didn't put up much of a fight. A single swipe or thrust from Truudfluue's pitchfork and they were done for. I learned from Truudfluue that the snakes only gave one experience point, so there was no point to go out of your way to hunt them. But honestly, to me, that sounds like simple levels. For level two, you only need one-hundred and fifty experience, and I already have twenty, so that means I only need to kill one-hundred and thirty snakes to level up, which seems easy enough, but I guess it would get tiresome after some time of just eradicating the already sparse snake population.
Occasionally, upon a snake's death, it would drop a potion, small-looking green scale called "Snake Scale," or meat aptly named "Snake Meat," in a nice little brown bag—most often the snake scale and meat. Truudfluue would always take the potions—leaving everything else—and even give a health potion to Queston. He tried to provide me one as well, but I refused, stating that I already had two, which actually seemed to worry him even more, but I didn't budge on my decision. Two potions were enough for now, and if he still needs to fill up his six, he should have them. Plus, I think I can top my own pretty quickly once I'm alone.
[Snake Scale
A small green snake scale used to craft different types of weapons and tools.
Stack Limit: 50
Craft Item
Feed Power: 1]
[Snake Meat
Cooked meat harvested from a snake.
Food Item
Feed Power: 3]
"Where are the pirates at?" I ask Queston. We still haven't seen any pirates, and there hasn't been a single ship in sight, so I'm confused by what he's talking about.
"They should be just a little further ahead. Populations of monsters and villains are kept away from the realm portals, so they learned to keep their distance over time. We should be coming up on pirates and scorpions real soon."
"Mmm," expressing content with the answer, I look towards the ocean and watch the waves.
"Yeah, the pirates are pretty easy to deal with. They're weak and stupid, unlike the kitchen guards." Truudfluue starts talking, "It's the scorpions you need to be careful with. They always come in packs, and usually, there is a big black one that is protected by all the smaller ones. You haven't seen them yet, but believe me, when I tell you, they're the size of dogs!"
Dog-sized scorpions? Yeah—yikes. No, thank you.
Queston interjected and went on to explain, "Yeah, be careful with those. Sometimes kids who sneak into the realm unsupervised end up surrounded and are stung to death. Don't let that happen to you. If you kill the Scorpion Queen or the black one in the middle, as Truud described, the smaller scorpions should scatter and flee."
"How do you know all this?" I ask, curious to know if they have killed any scorpions yet. Since I understand they aren't allowed into the Realm, I wonder how far they've already gone, given the restrictions placed upon them.
"Because we have fought them," Truudfluue states matter-of-factly.
"Oh, okay." Go figures. "Is there anything unique about the pirates that I should know about? Like will they shoot me with pistols or something?"
Queston is the one who returns with, "No, not really. It depends more on the type of pirate you're fighting. The ones here on the beach won't cause you any problems unless you're being stupid, and especially since you have a wand, you'd have to be doubly stupid. There's not really any places where they can ambush you unless they're hiding behind a palm tree, but look around you: Do you see any here?" Queston starts laughing
Indeed, there are no trees in sight, unlike near the camp. I wonder why?
"Look! There!" Shouting, Truudfluue points off in the distance towards a small collection of tents on the beach.
I look towards what he is spotted, and I see some figures moving about the small camp. Since we're too far away, I can't tell what they are doing, but a couple of them appear to be talking to one another while a third is squatting down.
"Pirates," Queston says and pulls down his hood—his pink hair now gently fluttering in the ocean breeze. He turns to Truudfluue and asks, "Did you bring the gun?"
Truudfluue only shakes his head and responds, "No, I forgot. Sorry."
"Tsk," Queston utters in disappointment.
"Gun?" I ask, astonished that Truudfluue has one, but given Queston's class, I'm not surprised that they exist.
"Yeah. . . It's under my bed."
Of course, it is. I'm not even gonna ask why. It's just surprising that no one figured it out yet, but then again, Truudfluue has only been here for a week—while I, two days—so maybe it's not that shocking. How often do the rooms get cleaned anyway. . . ? Wait a week!
I don't know why, but it finally just clicked in my mind that everyone but me has been in the Realm and Nexus for a little over a week now while I just arrived recently. How long was I asleep for! What the Fuck!
While I'm having my existential crisis, Queston and Truudfluue begin slowing moving towards the camp, but they stop when they notice I'm not following. "Zero, are you coming!" Truudfluue calls out to me.
"What—oh yeah, sorry!" I yell back and run towards them, kicking sand up in the air as my sandals impact against it.
After reaching the pair, we cautiously make our trek towards the camp together. As we get closer to the campsite, I begin to see even more pirates appear, and I can count upwards of seven. One of them sits on a stool, sharpening his saber, while the other pirates stand in little circle groups. They appear to be engaging in active conversation, which allows us to get close undetected.
None of the pirates seem to detect our arrival on the perimeter of their camp as we crouch down; they are far too distracted by each other to take notice. Queston says quietly, "Zero, shoot at them with your wand. Truud, and I will keep them off you." as he stealthily draws his sword. Truudfluue's 'spear' was already at the ready at this time.
Nodding in Queston's direction despite him no longer paying attention to me, I equip my Ice Wand, instantly feeling the wooden shaft apparate into my right hand. Since I feel like I'm not close enough to hit the pirates from this range, I start to inch my way closer, but Queston quickly stops me, hissing, "What are you doing?" in a soft tone before grabbing onto my shoulder.
Shrugging him off, I whisper, "I can't hit them from here. I need to get closer." My wand only had so much range after all!
He looks at me like I'm a monkey who just ate a hamster ball before saying, "Just use more magic."
Oh, yeah, thanks. Will do. . . bitch, please. If I knew how to use my magic proficiently, I would, no questions asked.
Sighing in exasperation, I resign to my fate and start charging up the wand in my hand. A ball of ice begins to form at the tip of the lifeless-grey jewel as I willingly let my magic flow into it. Since I don't know how to actually control or exploit my magic, the wand only sucks up one point of magic before firing the iceball forward towards the closest pirate I was aiming at.
Said pirate has his back turned towards me, unaware that he may be struck from behind by a big icy chunk of death, but that never happened as the ball of ice seemed to lose all its power and fell to the ground, only reaching half the distance I needed it to. Like I said, I needed to get closer. 'Just use more magic,' he said. Yeah, as if it's that easy!
The pirates confusedly turn towards our group with curious expressions, probably hearing the ice impact the ground. Noticing us, the group of pirates almost immediately spring to action, grabbing their weapons and hollering towards their companions to warn them of our presence. In total, there are now eleven pirates, four of whom I didn't see beforehand, all charging towards us with long pirate-looking sabers.
"Good going," Queston mutters with contempt.
"Shut up," I spew back, making him scowl.
Truudfluue is the first of us to start moving as he swiftly rushes towards the pirates, pitchfork at the ready. I quickly notice his actions, and I move to follow him, leaving Queston behind, but I hear the sound of his movement behind me soon after.
Reaching the front pirate, Truudfluue lunges out with his pitchfork towards his stomach. The pirate attempts to side-step, but Truudfluue manages to follow his movement, readily driving into the pirate and instantly depleting him of all his health points. It would appear like the pirates have stringently low hp, just like the guards and butchers in the Kitchen—is there a reason for that?
Now close enough to be serviceable, I ready and aim my wand at the pirate furthest away from Truudfluue but still in my range. Since I actually have friends I need to work with, I would prefer not to be the guy known to commit friendly fire, which means I need to be careful where I take my shots.
The iceball speedily forms and fires towards the man on the opposite end of my wand. The ice crashes into his face, creating a visible indent into his head before he explodes into the particles of light.
+1XP
[Lvl 2: 21/150]
It's hard to even think of these guys as people, you know? Honestly, it's easier to think of them as animals or just NPC's in a videogame, given how eager for death most of them seem to be. And the game-like nature of my menu and all doesn't help. . . . Is that even a good thing; it can't be, right? I don't know why I'm even thinking about this, just for whatever reason, watching that guy's skull cave in. . . it makes me feel. . . strange? These feelings weren't apparent when I was in the Kitchen, though, so I don't know. . . maybe I was just stressed or something.
Now with two of the eleven pirates out of commission, I turn my sights towards another pirate with a black eyepatch and blast him away as I watch pink hair zoom right past my eyes. Queston moves in to help Truudfluue deal with the pirates who were starting to surround him. Truudfluue looked to be doing an excellent job holding his own, but a bit of help is never not appreciated, although I guess that kill stealing could technically be a thing in this world.
+1XP
[Lvl 2: 22/150]
One of the pirates seems to ignore the two fighting up front and races towards my position, shouting, "Avast ye lad!" Processing that I don't have the time to shoot him, I quickly equip my dagger and backstep out of the way of his slash, narrowly avoiding a laceration to my chest.
"Blimey aye, ye's got a dagger thar, ye lattle scamp!" The pirate mocks before moving in for a vertical strike. Again, I backpedal, scared to move in any closer than I already am, and dodge the swing. I'm already regretting not bringing my sword with me, despite my previous logic.
"Stand yeself still so I can turn ye into shark bait." I don't follow his advice and quickly move in for a quick thrust, but he also backs away before going in for one of his own, which I also dodge. I don't know how effective a cutlass would be a stabbing, but I don't think I would find it pleasant enough to test on myself.
I decide to take a risk, and I throw my dagger towards the pirate, hoping this works, unlike last time. Surprisingly, the knife pierces deep into the man's left pec, depleting him of his health, as he mutter's in shock, "Well, blow me down!" before exploding in light. My rose dagger drops onto the sand, now no longer having a host to hold it in place with a pink-colored bag dropping near it.
+1XP
[Lvl 2: 23/150]
Moving the dagger into my inventory and then swapping the Ice wand back into my weapon slot, I teleport the weapon into my grasp. Queston and Truudfluue seem to be managing the pirates better than I did and don't seem as intimidated by their sabers as I do. They easily keep proper distances and strike at opportune moments, but since they are not as careful as me, Truudfluue has taken a couple minor cuts, and Queston has a deep slice taken out of his thigh. Still, they act unfazed as they slice down the pirates.
Quickly, we take care of the rest of the pirates. In the end, I did not secure any extra kills because of my caution against hitting my companions who were in the thick of things, but I did use the healing tome to heal Queston and Truudfluue from their wounds. Now that everything is over, there are a total of four brown bags and two mysterious pink bags, one of which was dropped by a pirate I killed.
Moving over to the defined pink bag, I see that inside it is a wooden-looking blade reading. . .
[Kendo Stick T1
Katana: Is Applicable
Damage: 30–75
Suitable for practice.
Feed Power: 7]
My dagger still does more damage, but I move the katana into my inventory, not thinking that Queston or Truudfluue would have any problem with me taking it as neither of them could use the weapon, nor did they get the kill. The other pink bag though. . . I will leave that to them.
After grabbing the kendo, I make my way over towards the pair and address them. "Good work, guys. We did that real nice and easy."
Truudfluue looks at me with a smile and responds with, "Yup! Easy experience!" before moving to grab the brown bags.
Approaching the last pink bag, Queston bends down and touches it before it *poofs* out of existence, dropping a rather thick-looking dirk. Queston grabs the dagger and brings it over to me, saying, "Appraise this."
"Hmm?" I hum, puzzled at what he means while taking the dagger into my hands.
"Do your hero thingamajig and tell me what it says." Queston states after I grab it. The dagger says. . .
[Dirk T1
Dagger: Is Applicable
Damage: 25–80
A short sword blade mounted on a dagger hilt.
Feed Power: 7]
Guessing what he want's me to do, I read the dirk's stats to him. He only nods and says, "So, an average dirk, okay. Can you keep that in your inventory for us? We'll try and sell that later to someone who can smelt it down or sell it to someone else. Oh, by the way, what did you get in that pink bag?"
Too many questions, but I answer, "Uhh. . . I got a kendo stick, one of those Japa—uh, katanas. Also, yes. I can hold onto the dirk." I almost forgot that Japan didn't exist in this world.
Queston only nods once again, and Truudfluue appears back from his looting, telling us, "Okay, there was only one mana potion, two ragged cloths, and a piece of driftwood. I only took the mana potion."
"That's perfect! Okay, Let's find the next pirate camp!" Queston enthusiastically yells.
(---)
We walked around the beach, just killing snakes, small groups of pirates, and roving bands of scorpions—yeah, those were scary. Big giant scorpions, who want to eat you—yeah, no! Luckily, like most animals, they weren't the epitome of intelligence, and we used my superior range to eliminate them from a distance.
They didn't drop anything special, except for Scorpion Chitin and Scorpion Meat, which I guess you can say would be. . . unique. The only thing I obtained from any of the encounters would be experience and lots of it! Looking at my experience bar, I can see it read, [Lvl 2: 66/150]: Nearly halfway there.
Anyway, what's important right now is a bag that just dropped from my newest pirate victim. It's a yellow-ish bag with a purple string tied around it, keeping it closed. Neither Truudfluue nor Queston reacted to the bag like they ordinarily would whenever one dropped, which made me curious enough to look at it without them. They seemed confused at first by my actions but then seemed to understand what was going on as they screamed, "Whaa!" and "How?" in tandem with each other.
Inside the bag was a golden key that had a pirate's head on it. The pirate head is covered in a red bandana and has two beady black eyes. Reading the key, it says. . .
[Pirate Cave Key
Key
A key which opens an entrance to a pirate cave. Dreadstump's personal cove for his ragtag pirate crew reeks of cheap rum.
Consumed with use
Feed Power: 200]
"Holy Smokes, that's a lot of feed power!" I exclaim out loud. "What is this key for?" Moving the key to my inventory, I ask what it's about, hoping for a somewhat logical answer.
"Wait, you actually got a key?" Queston asks, sounding astonished.
"Woah! That's rare!" Truudfluue blurts out, amazed by my sudden possession.
"Yeah. It says Pirate Cave Key." I take out the key and show it to them. With the key in my hand, I see a screen show up asking me if I want to activate the key. Saying "No," the screen disappears from my view.
"Hey! Don't play with that! You don't want to use it right now! Put it away!" Queston shouts at me desperately. I do as I'm told, and I put it back into my inventory.
"What's that all about?" I ask.
"It's a key. Keys allow you to open up dungeon portals from anywhere, which is why you need to be careful about where you use them. They don't last forever, and the gateways will eventually leave." Queston describes in careful detail.
"Why shouldn't we use it now?" Another question pops up into my brain, which I decide to voice.
Queston scrunches up his eyebrows at me and explains, "Because I don't want to die."
A good enough reason for me! Honestly, with my experience in the Exalted Kitchen dungeon, I think that it will be a while before I feel comfortable with going into a dungeon. . . At least till next time, I'm in the Realm alone.
"Okay then. . . Now, what do we do?" I'm getting kinda tired, and I want to head back to the orphanage. Sure getting this key is somewhat exciting, but I want to head back home for today.
"Ahh—Truudfluue, I think it's about time we went back. We don't want to be late for dinner again; otherwise, they will start getting suspicious." Queston addresses Truudfluue, who begins somewhat downtrodden at the news of our soon-to-be departure from the Realm.
"Alright." Truudfluue dejectedly acquiesces.
Queston turns back to me and says, "We'll be going home then. Let's go." before leading us back towards the Nexus Portal.