Inside Ander’s room, Anton, his father, Nermina and Lucas kept on standing while they were facing each other.
“What did you want to talk about?” Anders asked Lucas and Nermina.
“Lucas and my son’s contract specified that they will be your guards until the city of Tiande but I would like to apply to be part of your business. My family talked about it and we would like to be with you until the end of your journey. If Sir Anton here doesn’t have any plans of stopping anytime soon to help you with your business, I’m sure that you will be incredibly wealthy and my family wants to be a part of that. Lucas and Devon will be your guard and I would like to assist you in any capacity. I know a bit about handling finances since I’ve been managing the finances of the mercenary band that my husband and my son were a part of.”
“What happened to the mercenary band?” Anton asked curiously.
“They accepted a commission from the city of Vondi to fight the undead and I’m sure that the city is doomed. I don’t want Lucas and Devon to die so I urged them to quit the company now here we are.” Nermina said.
Based on the situation, Anton gathered the decision-maker in his guard’s family was Nermina and she was a strong woman.
“We’ll test it out for a couple of months and if everything is agreeable I’m sure that we can talk about your contract but for now, Lucas and Devon will remain our guards and you can assist us as our secretary,” Anders told Lucas and Nermina.
Lucas and his wife nodded when they heard Anders’s decision and they went out of the room.
“What do you think son?”
“I agree that a probationary test is necessary. If she is as good as she thinks she is you can hire her Father. I don’t know about their loyalty though since they did escape when they knew that the mission was doomed which I’m sure I’ll do the same with my family but that does not bode well for their loyalty. Well, I’m not qualified to judge. I’ll follow your decision since I’m still learning about the ways of the world.”
After telling his father his opinion about the situation Anton left his father’s room and went to his to rest although he planned to grind for levels in Baal's throne room first.
A couple of hours of grinding only leveled him up to level fifty. It would have been faster if he could adjust the number of players using the console command to increase his experience gain but unfortunately, it was not possible on his version of Diablo II. The level-up was slow because he was also grinding some runes from the Countess in the Black Marsh zone once in a while to break the monotony of killing the Baal’s unique monsters.
Anton planned to start the Nightmare difficulty once he reached level fifty and since he did, he stopped playing the game and surf the internet for about an hour then slept.
The next day he joined his family for breakfast and then after that, he observed his father talking with the villagers for a while. He was surprised though that it seemed like everything was back to normal. Since Anton’s father had been insisting since yesterday to treat the business as separate from what happened, the villagers did start to haggle with Anders.
It made Anton a bit glad that the villagers were like that and not some mindless sheep that could be affected by the specific actions of certain people. Well, the situation was about coins and everyone knew the importance of having an emergency fund that they could use.
He did notice though that his presence was interrupting the business since his use of spells was blatant last night and everyone now knew that he was the wizard and his father was just using a tool which was the magic wand. He didn’t know how the villagers found out but it was not really important.
Anton did not know what was the difference though since being a wizard and having a magical tool were both dangerous in his opinion but for some reason, the villagers treated a wizard as more dangerous. Funny enough, he saw his father signaling him to go away so he went upstairs to his room to continue playing.
In his room, Anton practiced the lute for about an hour before he entered the game virtually to start playing the Nightmare Difficulty. One good thing about entering the Diablo world personally was some stats that were highly important as a sorcerer like “Fast Cast Rate” were not important in virtual mode since his casting reaction was based on how his body reacted.
It was easier in a way because casting spells personally was just a simple thought. He could Teleport then cast Frost Nova then Teleport again outside the enemy range and then cast Frozen Orb in one hand and Chain Lightning on the other hand with just a simple thought. That meant that he was more powerful if he was there personally instead of using the on-screen option.
Playing personally was also teaching Anton how to battle several enemies using his spells expertly so it was truly advantageous for him to keep playing using the virtual mode. The only disadvantage in playing virtually was he couldn’t utilize Teleport the way a sorceress could using the on-screen option. With on-screen, you could teleport continuously but virtually you would need to see where you’re teleporting, and using the mini-map or overlay map was disorienting.
That meant in virtual mode, he could only use Teleport in battle not for travel especially if there were obstacles.
Another huge disadvantage of playing virtually was the Diablo world was scary. Imagine facing a terrifying monster in the dark and the only consolation that he kept thinking of was that even if he were hit, it did not hurt and even if he died, which he had not experienced yet, he would still be okay. He hoped.
The FAQ did state the fact that the death mechanic was the same as the Diablo II mechanics but he was too much of a cowardly cat to experiment.
But still, he was thankful that he had a mercenary companion and Anton knew that sooner or later he would get used to the Diablo world.
He played for two hours then surf the internet for an hour to rest then went back to playing the game. He reached the Countess in Nightmare difficulty but he only leveled up once so now he was level fifty-one.
Since it was about lunchtime, Anton decided to stop to eat with his family then after that, he would grind the Countess Nightmare Difficulty using the on-screen option for runes and items. His gems and runes collection was growing nicely so there was that and the internet was there to help him know which items or runeword to aim for.
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