The ground violently shook as dirt flew out the ground, trees being uprooted around them as the two swiftly ran away from the monster that somehow managed to catch their presence.

But they were calm.

With the shared double vision that Aezan and Lia had they were able to have a much better grasp of their surroundings, and so escaping wasn’t much of a diffult task, at least not right now since they were still a fair distance away from whatever monster was chasing them. Deftly jumping and ducking through the forest with almost practiced grace, they quickly found themselves nearing a mountain.

The monster’s roar made them stumble for a moment, but Aezan managed to catch his footing in time, Lia wasn’t so lucky, but before she fell to the ground Aezan caught her in his arms.

“Watch your step.” Aezan said with a grin, Lia just rolled her eyes and instead looked behind them to see just what was causing all the ruckus.

“Oh… oh no.” Lia muttered in a low voice as her eyes grew wide. Aezan just ran faster.

[Giant Orc LV.4]

“How the fuck is a level 4 that strong already?!” Aezan cursed out in disbelief, the ground shaking intensely again as the Orc somehow moved towards them even faster. Oh, and don’t forget the large rocks being thrown in their direction, ones that they’ve barely been able to dodge so far.

“Did we get into a hardcore asian MMORPG?” Lia mused, with just as much disbelief as him, “That gift they gave us has to have something to help us deal with this.”

“Right. Inbox.”

{INBOX(3)}

=~=~=~=~=~=

<Vaera Starter Kit [NEW]>

- A special starter kit for new players. Specific only to Vaera Domain.

[Unlock Vaera Domain Map, 1x Random Unique Weapon, 1x Survival Equipment] {Aezan and Lia}

<Splitscreen Mode Bonus Rewards [NEW]>

- A hidden reward for new players who chose Splitscreen Mode. Additional rewards for activating the hidden Parallelization System

[Additional Bonuses for Parallelization System, Unlock {Co-Op Sync} Unique Skill, ALL STATS +2, 1x ??? Item] {Aezan and Lia}

<Standard Beginner Pack [NEW]>

- Standard reward for new players. Additional Specialized Rewards unlocked for reaching specialized stat thresholds.

[1x Warrior Set Equipment, NEW TITLE UNLOCKED] {Aezan}

[1x Mage Set Equipment, NEW TITLE UNLOCKED] {Lia}

=~=~=~=~=~=

Not wasting any time, they immediately recieved all the rewards and equipped all of the new eqipment they’ve gotten.

[UNIQUE WEAPON <Frostflame Arclight Sword> ACQUIRED!] {Aezan}

<Frostflame Arclight Sword | Unique Evolving Sword | Bound to Aezan Diaz>

Can be summoned at any time.

50 Base Physical Damage [LV. 1]

+10 Affinity to Frost Attribute [LV. 1]

??? Passive Skill [UNLOCK AT LV. 10]

??? Active Skill [UNLOCK AT LV. 10]

??? [Additional bonuses unlocked as you level up]

[UNIQUE WEAPON <Void Tempest Starscream Staff> ACQUIRED!] {Lia}

<Void Tempest Starscream Staff | Unique Evolving Magic Staff | Bound to Lia Saejan>

Can be summoned at any time.

50 Base Magical Damage [LV. 1]

+10 Affinity to Wind Attribute [LV. 1]

??? Passive Skill [UNLOCK AT LV. 10]

??? Active Skill [UNLOCK AT LV. 10]

??? [Additional bonuses unlocked as you level up]

[UNIQUE SKILL <CO-OP SYNCHRONIZATION> UNLOCKED!]

<CO-OP SYNCHRONIZATION / UNIQUE PASSIVE>

Only active if you’re within 20 meters of a player you are Synchronized with

+2 to all stats

??? [Additional bonuses unlocked as you level up]

[NEW TITLE <Indomitable Warrior | +5 P. POW., +2 END> UNLOCKED] {Aezan}

[NEW TITLE <Graceful Mage | +5 M. POW., +2 SPD> UNLOCKED] {Lia}

[WARRIOR SET ARMOR (BEGINNER) EQUIPPED. +2 P. POW., +1 END] {Aezan}

[MAGE SET ARMOR (BEGINNER) EQUIPPED. +2 M. POW., +3 PRP.] {Lia}

With the sudden burst of power they’ve gotten, they jumped away from each other—barely dodging a large rock from crashing down on them, instead hitting the unfortunate trees that were in the way, leaving a sizable crater on the ground.

Standing on top of the trees just far enough away from each other to still recieve the buffs from their Co-Op skill, the two summoned their weapons.

With the increased Perception that Lia now had thanks to all the new skills and the armor she was wearing, she was able to see a lot more details about their surroundings. One, it was a large forest. Two, this wasn’t the only Giant Orc in the area, thankfully, however, the other ones were far enough away that this Giant Orc was left to madly run towards them by itself.

Lia observed the Giant Orc carefully that suddenly stopped in its tracks and glared at them, an odd red aura starting to form around it. Seeing that, she frowned, “That can’t be good.” She narrowed her eyes, and to her surprise, with her heightened perception, she was able to see its HP.

[Giant Orc LV.4 (9600/9600HP)]

Seeing the opportunity to strike, Lia raised her staff charging up her spell, and on the other side, Aezan was already running towards the Giant Orc.

They could run away from it now of course, but they were curious about something; just how much EXP will they get from killing a monster that’s three levels above them?

Though they had a feeling that the EXP curve for this system wasn’t going to be kind, they could at least test out their damage against the monster.

Besides, this was the only monster that they could really see around this part of the forest, and she wasn’t able to really see any Goblins or whatever it might be anywhere nearby right now.

Seriously why were they thrown here to start with again?

{Aezan | 1140/1140HP 380/380MP 86/107SP}

{Lia | 620/620 HP 1070/1070MP 35/56SP}

Taking note of their current stats, Lia dashed forward to follow after Aezan, considering her increased speed from all those rewards, she wasn’t too far behind him, rather than that, she was able to catch up to him after a few seconds.

The Giant Orc noticed this, and roared, raising its huge arms in an attempt to crush them with it. They were able to barely dodge its arms, and after jumping up towards its face, Lia pointed her staff towards it and cast the one magic spell she had right now.

[Mana Bolt LV.1]

15MP Base Cost, stacks an additional 5MP to the cost per consecutive cast (resets 5 seconds after the last cast)

Activates 8 second cooldown after 5 stacks.

10 Base Magical Damage

Casting Mana Bolt just once to test it out, a large white bolt appeared at the top of her staff, swiftly flying towards the the Giant Orc’s face, a loud explosion occuring as it made contact.

“What the—?” Lia’s eyes were wide as she saw the damage she’d dealt, watching as the monster staggered backwards, its face now looking like a mess. The red aura that was forming around it now disappearing.

[Giant Orc LV.4 9040/9600HP]

That was almost a tenth of the massive monster’s HP.

Aezan didn’t stop his dash towards the Giant Orc however, and was only more curious to see what his new sword would be able to deal to it. And as he sliced at its torso with his sword, he couldn’t help but grin at the just as outrageous damage he was dealing.

[Giant Orc LV.4 8630/9600HP]

“Holy shit!” he exclaimed, laughing as he stepped back, looking back towards Lia, “Did you see that?!”

“I can see through your own eyes you idiot!” Lia shouted, glaring at him as she seemed to be stuck in between the tree branches, “Get me out of here!”

“We have a ton of HP, who cares?!” Aezan said, turning back to attack the monster again as it roared,

“We’re supposed to care! Did you not see how much damage we’re doing to the monster?!” she screamed, managing to pull herself out of the trees and branches she was stuck in a moment ago. “Hey! That’s my XP!” she said, casting three mana bolts successively in a row, making them fly towards the Giant Orc really quickly.

The Giant Orc didn’t seem to care about whatever inane conversation they were having, instead roaring once more as it tried to attack Aezan with its arms. Aezan managed to dodge them fairly easily and the Orc was then hit by the three mana bolts, pushing it back again.

Aezan didn’t miss this chance, however, as he immediately went forward and hacked at the monster as much as he could before it could recover, managing to land four attacks before he was forced back by its arm which managed to hit him this time, throwing him towards a tree.

He managed to land properly just before crashing into the tree—a surprising thing, considering the fact that they never had much of an experience of doing stuff like this in their past life. But he could only speculate that this was due to the additional mental power that having two minds as one gave.

Speaking of which, Lia landed right by him.

… and the Giant Orc was heading towards them at a rather alarming pace.

[5460/9600HP]

Well, not much left to go. Glancing at each other one more time—an action that really didn’t mean much of anything, similar to how they talked with each other, but it reassured them somewhat.

After all, having two bodies at once isn’t exactly the most normal thing ever, and he had to make sure he didn’t go absolutely insane from… everything. So pretending two be two people worked out for Dresden.

He can do that here now, after all.

Dodging yet another attack from the Giant Orc, Aezan didn’t waste time and slashed his sword at the monster’s arm just as it landed on where they were just a few seconds ago. On the opposite end, Lia cast Mana Bolt again just as it reset back to zero stacks, casting it just once this time. There was no need to needlessly burst their opponent right now as it was the only one going after them at the moment anyways.

The Giant Orc started to glow a bright red after this, entering an enraged state.

But the two just effortlessly swapped the orc’s aggro between the two of them by timing their attacks properly, and in just under ten seconds, they got their first kill.

[+500XP for killing Giant Orc]

[Level has risen to 2]

[5 Free Stat Points Available]

“Huh, the XP isn’t as brutal as I thought.” Aezan said as he laid the sword above his shoulder, “Though maybe that’s just because of all these ridiculous bonuses and equipment we’ve gotten…” he muttered, looking at the light blue sword that he was holding.

“Indeed. These weapons especially are ridiculous.” Lia said with a shake of her head, “Anyways, we should look at the loot… if there is any.

They turned to the corpse and watched, expecting something to happen… but nothing happened.

“… I think we’re the only ones ‘Gameified’ in this world.” Aezan said, narrowing his eyes, “Then it really would have been a rather horrible time if not for those ‘gifts’ they’ve sent to us.”

“Yeah. It would have been rather horrible if we were just left to survive on our own… I don’t even know the first thing about making a sleeping tent out of stuff you could find in the forest.” Lia said, shivering at the thought.

“I know how to make a campfire at least.” He said, making the sword disappear into particles of light as he willed it to be unsummoned.

“That’s the only thing we know.” She said, giving him a deadpan as she sighed. “Let’s look at the map, we did unlock it lately after all.”

Aezan nodded at that and opened the map menu… only to be flabbergasted.

Lia just let herself collapse onto the ground, with a very loud sigh.

[Access to Map isn’t available until Level 5]

[EXP UNTIL LEVEL 5: 25900]

“What did you say about the XP not being as brutal as you thought?” Lia said with her eyes closed, rubbing her temples.

“I’m sorry, I’m going to stop tempting fate now.” Aezan said, before making a tentative smile, “I mean, it’s not like we’re hundreds of miles away from the nearest civilization… right?”

“I’m going to fucking kill you.” Lia said with a glare, summoning her staff, a large white bolt appearing atop it.

Aezan just started running.

Sometimes, you really just can’t help yourself.

ddrhckrzz

I think the MC is going insane from loneliness if he's somehow forming a perfect split personality here... what do you think?

EDIT: June 13 2020, changed the level that Lia's weapon would get stuff since for some reason I made it different from Aezan's which confused me lel.