CaTastrophy427

Trying out some new formatting for system windows/notifications/whatever, let me know what you think in the poll at the bottom. If the reception for it isn't bad, I'll go back and apply it to the prior chapters as well as future chapters. If it goes over like a lead balloon, I'll go back to the old formatting for the future chapters

I found myself floating naked in the same empty space I created my character in, with an eerie lack of external sensory input. No air against my skin, but I could feel my arms pressing against my sides just fine. No gravity weighing me down, nor any sound at all, not even when I tried to speak. I didn’t find myself gasping for air, somehow being able to breathe fine despite the lack of air. But before I could think of anything else to test, I was thrust out of that space and into the temple at the center of Ichishiro, wearing all of the equipment I had on when I died.

“So that’s what happens when you die with a respawn penalty. Interesting. Oh, what was that title I got?”

“So, [Leech] 2.0? And based on the remarks, it sounds like it’s a title that’s linked to another title”

“What’s linked to another title?”

“Gah!”

I jumped when I heard Artemis’s voice from right behind me.

“How did you get here?”

“Same way as you”

“Pecked by the chicken?”

“No, the chicken stalled me long enough for the PKers to catch up to me. So, about that title... is it that new one above your head?”

Fuck, it’s there already. Do I have any legendary or unique titles I could display instead? Uhh... oh, Area Underboss, that’ll work. Since only half of it needs to be higher... how about Under Seeker? I mean, Under The Sword sounds badass, but the suffix effect is absolutely useless, whereas raising my visual acuity by 10% is pretty good.

“Yeah, it’s like the leech title in how it displays itself against my will, but the remarks sound like they’re likely the follow-up to a related title’s remarks”

“Interesting... the title’s name reminds me of that old saying, ‘the pen is mightier than the sword’, so maybe that’s the related title’s name? But that’s beside the point, what do we do now?”

“Well, we’re here now, let’s go buy the last few materials we need for the quest and turn it in”

“What’s left on the list? Oinkmints, Butterbee Honey, and what else?”

“Yeet Yeast. We were expecting it to half a dozen Oinkmints, 24 sticks of the Honey, and the quest says 4 Yeet Yeast”

“Right. Let’s go”

We went off to the markets, and found the honey right away. While the mobs that drop them are rare outside of their nests, their nests are in fixed locations and contain hundreds of Butterbees, so if you’re strong enough you can farm them for a few hours to get a massive number of drops. There’re even a few NPCs specialized in stealth who periodically sneak into the nests and gather some of the honey that accumulates there to sell in their shops. It’s expensive, but not in short supply, and apparently many NPCs in town have it as a staple ingredient in their home cooking. A pack of 4 sticks cost us 50 silver, or half a gold coin, meaning 3 gold coins for 24 sticks. 

Harder to find, but still pretty easy (and very expensive), was the Yeet Yeast, costing us 7.5 gold each, or 30 gold in total. Finally, the Oinkmints. We had to go to the auction house to find them, and there weren’t any that would have their auctions conclude before the time limit for the quest. However, one of them did have a somewhat reasonable buyout price, 15 gold for a set of 10. The bidding likely would’ve resulted in a final price of about 6 gold, but we needed it earlier so we paid a bit extra. Such is life. With the materials in hand, we went off to see Shad, hoping we’d found most of the hidden materials and didn’t spend a bunch of time and/or money for nothing.

“So, you’ve got all the materials I asked for? Let’s see ‘em!”

“Well shit, we got three G’Oats, but it would appear that either we need 6 of them or something else entirely”

“Oh, you got some G’Oats? I’d love t’ make use of them too, but it sounds like you don’t have enough”

The quest once more updated, showing the 4th optional mission as “Deliver G’Oats (6)”, and Artemis immediately ran out to buy a few, coming back out of breath in just a few minutes. I asked later, and she bought five of them for the buyout price at the auction house, costing 20 more gold that she expected me to pay back - which I did upon request, though my wallet was now almost dry... though my inventory was piled high with random mob drops I could probably sell for a decent chunk of change.

Upon Artemis handing me the newly purchased items, Shad’s face lit up and he came out from behind the counter.

“Oh, you have everything I mighta wanted to use! How wonderful! I’ll start as soon as ya gimme the materials”

“Sounds good, when should I come back for the sheaths?”

Placing the materials onto the counter, he put them into a few bags before carrying everything into the back. He then came back to the front and told me that it’d be ready tomorrow, so Artemis and I decided to log out, go to sleep, and come back in the morning.

We’d been gathering those materials for two full in-game days, or 16 hours in real time, so it was a fair bit after midnight when I got out of the pod, and almost 2am when I fell asleep. The night came and went (or rather, just went, it was there before me), and I logged in at about 10am, finding Artemis already online, waiting for me with her arms crossed.

“I hope you didn’t wait long”

“Not long, only an hour or so”

“Real-time or in-game?”

“Take a guess”

Oops. To be fair, we never said when we’d meet back up... but I still could’ve sent a message to coordinate that. She could’ve as well, so it’s on both of us. We walked back into Shad’s shop, and he was also standing there waiting for me with his arms crossed.

“Well, here’re the sheaths ya asked for. Try ‘em out, make sure they work alright, since your swords have a pretty unique shape. If there’s something wrong with ‘em, I’ll see what I can do to fix the problem now, or I’ll make you a new one with the leftover materials, and anything missing I’d get at no cost to you”

I summoned my swords, and immediately realized a problem. The sheaths worked great, don’t get me wrong. I just... don’t need them now. As a Bladelord, with these two set as my two One True Blades, I basically have them in hotring slots already, which is even more convenient than having sheaths for them.

“The sheaths fit, no problems there. Thanks for making them”

“Thanks for requesting them, I had a blast cooking up these things. It’s nice to do somethin’ different from my usual commissions, come back if you need something else like this made, or if you wanna learn my trade”

The other one was identical save for being named [Croissant Sheath (R)]. And, like, they don’t take up any equipment slots and have some decent effects, no reason not to equip them, even if I don't use them as sheaths. Butter Blade, upon investigation, temporarily coats the sword it’s used on in melted butter, and the buttered blade covers anything it touches in the same butter (though not temporary, this stuff will last until it’s removed), causing it to become slippery and hard to hold, as well as allowing it to be set on fire more easily. Only downside is, to use the skill you need to sheathe and unsheathe the blade you’re using it on.

A very unexpected gift, but not one I think I’m going to make use of. Probably the hidden reward for completing all the optional requirements, maybe also needing under a 33% or 50% on the failure condition rating. I’ll put it up for auction, it might fetch a good price from collectors... or the like 4 players in the entire game who could actually use it somehow.

I equipped the sheaths, my combat form looking even more ridiculous than before, now a humanoid black ant with a pair of two foot long croissants on its hips and a crude iron collar. I then tried sheathing my swords, and realized a significant problem: due to the curve of the blade, the motion required to draw wasn’t particularly compatible with hip sheaths, unless I wanted to draw them in a reverse grip. Fortunately, I could sheathe and unsheathe the swords fine if I had them on my back, so I now had an X made out of bread on my back like a sad wannabe pair of wings. I didn’t keep the swords there, I had them in the hotslots so I could summon them with a thought.

“Now, shall we go? I don’t think there’s anything more for us to do in this town, so I kinda wanna move to somewhere with higher leveled mobs”

“I mean, we could try killing the last few bosses, like Billy the Cereal Killer, who lords over the hills”

“What kind of boss is that?”

“It’s an area boss, just like Armora Boarealis, but for the G’Oats, level 30 or so. There’s also a pair of field bosses for the Crocobiles and Alligraters in the swamps: Kikro the Abominable Crocovile, and Munda the Ally Grater. Both of them are level 40”

Gah, so many stupid puns. But I don’t see the point in going out of our way to kill those bosses, and I said as much to Artemis.

“Yeah, they don’t drop anything particularly special, they aren’t very easy to fight, so I don’t see a need to kill them either. I was just throwing the idea out since we’ve already killed half the bosses in this town’s vicinity”

“True, but no need to go for 100%, right?”

“For all I know, there might be a title for doing so before registering a second town, but... no guarantee that such a title exists, nor that it’d have any useful effects”¹AN: it does exist, it’s an epic title known as Boss Seeker, and the passive is decently useful

While more titles might be nice, I’m not a title maniac so there’s no need for me to go for every potential title I might be able to get.

“Yeah, let’s not. Let’s just move on”

“Sounds good, how about we move to Deuxor? It’s about a day’s travel to the southwest, so we might encounter Billy on our way there if we’re lucky”

“Would that be good luck or bad luck?”

“Who knows?”

With banter like that, we moved towards the west gate, though I stopped just a few steps outside of town, seeing a group of four players with green names running for their lives from a few players without green names.

“Hey, aren’t those three the same bastards who attacked us yesterday?”

“Looks like it. Should we avoid them, or help the people they’re chasing?”

“I wanna see if I can snipe them from here”

“Go for it”

I took out my bow, put an arrow to the string and pulled it as far back as I could manage. Taking a few seconds to aim and predict where my target would be when my arrow reached him, I released the string and watched as my arrow sailed straight and true for about a hundred yards, finally stopping when it embedded itself in FURDaddy’s left eye.

{-495}

They weren’t in a party last time for some reason, so that was my first time seeing the final message about exp and drops being held. Perhaps it has something to do with how Moon Rabbits’s name was now yellow? Regardless, I quickly repeated the same actions to kill Injust Ice, who was just standing still while confusedly searching for who killed his partner, but the messages I got the second time were slightly different.

“Huh? Another new class?”

“How many more are you gonna get? This is, what, your 12th class?”

“I don’t know, but that sounds about right. I wanna get it now though, as if it’s the class I’m thinking of, it might have requirements I can stop meeting and thus lose the qualifications to change to that class”

I checked, and there was indeed one new class in my class options list.

As it’s a chain requirement, I did indeed need to get the class before the chain got broken, so I quickly changed both of my classes, and then immediately changed Knight back to Bladelord for the One True Blade bonuses (as well as the much higher stats, of course). Incidentally, Knight opened up two new mainline options for me, both of which had requirements I didn’t meet, so no promotions there right now.

Ni-

What the fuck? That’s really lu-

What the fuck happened there? Oh, the other group turned around and finished her off, that makes sense. But that’s a lot of EXP for just killing two people.

What. The. Fuck.

A minute of floating naked in that empty space later, and I appeared in the temple once again. Artemis showed up not even three seconds later, and I asked if she saw what happened.

“Yeah, someone came up behind us from inside town and cut us both down in one hit”

“Holy fuck, that’s a really strong assassin then, how’d we piss them off?”

“Dunno. Could’ve been a coincidence. But uh... did you just get a shitton of levels too?”

“Yeah, right after two insane new titles”

“Ooh, do tell”

Since I still had the penalties from the class change, we just sat in the temple while I explained both of the titles I got, and I finished right before another cluster of light appeared and condensed into a familiar face: Moon Rabbits. Her name was still yellow, and she just ran out of the temple without a word after she noticed us. While I was explaining the titles to Artemis, I realized I might be able to make use of the new prefix I got, and so I changed my title to Class Seeker, speeding up the wait time. Oh hold on, Seeker is now a rare suffix... oh because 

It worked how I figured it would, doubling the rate at which the debuff timer ticks down. The better part of an hour later, the debuff finally had just ten minutes left, so I changed back to Under Seeker. Title change penalty stacking with the same duration of class change penalty is fine, better than one finishing and then still being bogged down by the other, and soon after we left the temple and went out the west gate once more.

“He’s camping the gate, right?”

“Yeah, looks like it. I don’t think he’s killing everyone though, otherwise his PK points would’ve gone up by more than just the two it went up for killing us the first time. This feels... quite targeted”

“Try another gate?”

“South gate, let’s go”

“You’re shitting me”

“We’re basically being spawncamped”

“Like what, why? We only killed them a total of three times between the two of them”

“Let’s try the other two gates, but if those are blocked off...”

“We’ll be stuck here for a while”

After leaving the temple twice more in the next five minutes, we threw up our hands in disgust.

“Let’s try again in a few hours. Come back at 6pm IRL time?”

“Sure, see you then”

We logged out, and I went out to blow off some steam at the archery range for a few hours.

CaTastrophy427

Well, that was a bit longer than I was expecting. I considered splitting it but decided not to in the end, and the main reason why is because I'm rather fond of the title I had and it'd be hard to use it in either half.

As per usual, next couple of chapters will be for my other novel. Even if you don't follow that one, you can see when I'm done with those chapters and have started working on the next one for GotDL if you join my discord.

Edit log:

1.1

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A single fucking letter was omitted

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1.2

Spoiler

Dialogue formatting change implemented in the next chapter retroactively applied, text box formatting changes from chapter 11 also retroactively applied

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