I had never met a wolf before. From documentaries, they were hunting in a pack of at least 4 wolves. It was better to avoid them than fighting head on, considering the fact that I would have a hard time fighting a slime without tricks.

Would getting in the tree help? If it wasn’t, why would a monkey sleep in a tree.

I did it. 

Climbing on a tree wasn't as hard as I thought. You had to pick a tree that had branches or bumps, easy to get on.

Actually, I have wanted to climb trees since I was young. We, my parents and I, had to go to another province because of their work and that was my first time seeing something else that wasn’t a cityscape.

But it wasn’t like I was excited by it. Nature was rare, not like those botanic gardens in the city, but genuine nature. You would get fined or arrested from climbing a tree there.

Still, I stayed as an indoor girl because I hated insects, especially worms. Was it strange that I found a worm disgusting than a cockroach? That wiggly jiggly little thing creeped me out… Butterflies had no exceptions, just worms on wings.

Enough with yikes, I should think about something else.

I only went up half way because there was no reason to go higher. Looking down from this height, it was around 3-4 meters. With this trained body, I wondered if it hurt when I fell or jumped down. 

The branch was big enough to sit comfortably? Checked.

Safe from wolves? Checked.

No insects crawling on my skin yet? Checked.

The great tree was chosen. Who would you feel about being the chosen one? It felt great, right? Be my shelter tonight.

“Grarr” One of the wolves groaned.

They spotted me, however; too late. I was safe up here.

“OOK OOK EEK AAK!”

A surprised attack! Did I get hit from behind?

As I quickly grabbed a tree branch to prevent myself from falling, our gaze met. The furry creature which evolved into humans we all knew, but with a slight difference in appearance.

It wasn’t worth mentioning. A monkey was still a monkey. Also, in the real world, there were many kinds of monkeys.

Wolves below, a monkey above.

The monkey didn’t give me time to rest, charging in as if it didn’t know the meaning of coexisting.

It was stomping on my hands.

As I layered qi to defend, it didn’t hurt much. But I had to do something before becoming wolves’ meal.

“Sorry.”

I grabbed the monkey’s leg and threw it down.

The next moment was a picture of agony; screaming and struggling. The monkey tried its best to escape from claws and fangs, but that was futile. It was already injured since those wolves pounced on at the moment that it landed.

Goodbye~ No need to feel remorse because it attacked me first.

I pulled myself up, hoping that the crisis was over, but apparently, it wasn’t. Countless presences were looming in the same tree. I might have angered the family of the victim, well, I was also a victim too.

I moved closer to the trunk because the branch was bigger. In their territory, it was better to put myself into a less disadvantageous position.

“EEK AAK EEK!!!” “EEEK EEK!!!” “OOK OOK AAK EEK!!!”

Like angry protesters, the screams were noisy. Judging from directions of sounds, it wasn’t hard to guess their locations. Not just this tree, there were monkeys on other trees as well.

How were they going to attack me?

No, the real question was, should I go down and fight wolves while they were busy ganking on the prey? Since there were a lot of monkeys up here from my assumption, it might be better to fight 5 wolves.

If I managed to take out wolves, fighting monkeys on the ground would be better.

I took out the knife that Yang gave me and unsheathed it. I didn’t know how to use a knife. However, I thought I somewhat knew how to fight with it. It should be a better judgement to use a knife rather than using a bare hand to fight against them; my Hand Blade’s hardness was at the wooden sword level.

Thinking less, that was what I should do. I had to use this opportunity to ambush one of them.

Without time to admire the blade, I dropped on the largest wolf. Taking out the biggest threat should be the top priority.

Thud!

As the impact pushed the wolf’s body down, I lunged for the head.

Shluk!

The aim was off the head, but the neck wasn’t bad either. I pushed the blade deeper and used all my strength to cut the wound open.

Sphhhlt!

The wound ruptured, spraying the blood on my clothes. It wasn’t a time to daze. I had to evaluate the situation.

 

[You’ve killed a monster.]

 

Expeditiously noticing my ambush, one of them was charging at me with its fangs.

Chomp!

 

HP: 81/88

 

[You're bleeding.]

 

Damn, it hurt! 

Its teeth dug down on my left arm. Before it could snatch my arm, I responded by thrusting the knife into its cheek.

Ripping it open, the wolf whimpered from the pain.

When the injured wolf retreated, other wolves had already circled me.

—Shit.

 

***

[Your character died.]

 

That one was the closest definition of being eaten alive. One by one, their teeth dug into my fresh without giving me time to breathe. It was a minute long of a pain train.

But I was lucky that I had my favorite skill, Pain Tolerance, which saved my sanity.

This skill was important, but to increase its rank I had to experience more pain, which wouldn’t be good if I became a masochist in the process.

Maybe I already went insane. Who knew? However, if I were, I was sure that others would too.

Let’s see… I didn’t respawn at training camp. Where am I? I forgot to ask the name of the first town too, so I had to confirm it.

The town—no, the city was bleak—black smokes, showy ashes, and oddly silent atmosphere; lifeless and tense. If the training camp was a crowded city center, this place would be a graveyard.

It reminded me of an industrial district in China where the majority of people focus on doing their job. The difference was, there were no robots here and zero corporate environmental responsibility.

There were a few handfuls of players walking around, but it was relatively low compared to NPC. 

The glasses wearing timid guy who didn’t look confident was a perfect person to ask, although it would be annoying if he was a muttering type.

This guy was definitely a player, wearing bags, having a gun on his side, and a combat practical outfit. 

“Hey there.”

Smiling and acting friendly was their weakness.

“Er… umm… hi?” He startled because a cute and good-looking girl talked to him. Definitely a virgin, right? Ehehehe…

He looked at me from head to toe as if there was something wrong with my clothing before he turned his head away.

“Y-your clothes.” The guy said.

Hmm? Wait…

IT WAS RIPPED AND THERE WERE HOLES EVERYWHERE!!!

Ahh shit shit shit! It was embarrassing, but t-there was no turning back. I had to keep my coolness intact! So, shrugged off and be proud of my body figure.

“It doesn’t matter. I’ll buy them later.” Yes, I didn’t faze a bit, at least on the outside. “More importantly, I have a question. Is this the first town?”

“T-the first town? Did you mean Naberta, the place that you are supposed to go after leaving the training camp?”

“Yes.”

“Sorry to disappoint you, but this is Malkea.—Did you, by a chance, die in the forest? Because this city was closer to the forest than Naberta. The game will respawn to the closest town, city, or landmark.”

Shit “Yes…” 

He tried his best to avoid looking at me. “Compared to Naberta, Malkea has 50 level higher monsters.”

Who designed this game, seriously? What was this difficulty spike?

Also, how did he know the monster level? When I fought with slime, monkey, and wolves, I didn't see any pop-up information.

There were so many things I hadn't known about the game.

“Could you give me the direction to Naberta?”

“That’s suicidal! You would never get past golems if you’re a low level player!” He shouted. “Although if hitting a weak point, a low level player could kill a higher level monster, the problem is—the golem is too tanky!” 

"Compared to a wolf, how would you rate a monster around Malkea?"

"At least 20 times stronger. Don't even think about trying to outspeed a golem, there's a speedy type too."

“I have more questions.”

“Ah… Please ask!”

“How do you know the monster level?”

“All monster information is assessed by players. You can buy a monster encyclopedia in the hunter's guild.—Oh! If you’re new to this game, hunter guild isn’t a player guild, em… it’s an NPC guild. And, the clothes shop is over there.” He pointed to the end on the corner nearby which wasn’t far. Without him telling me where the store was, I would find it anyway.

“Thank you.” I slightly nodded and left.

He didn’t tell me about the location of the hunter guild, but there was no time to ask. I needed a new dress asap!

Maintaining a walking speed at a natural pace, it shouldn’t catch much attention.

 

[Fame -20]

[People in Malkea saw you walked in torn clothes.]

 

The system message got me again. Was this what every player had to experience? Like, they had to die at some point, right? They definitely had spare clothes and armors, or some magical way to repair clothing.

5 minutes walk, I had arrived at the store. 

Nothing fancy on the storefront display, they looked vintage, rustic, and somewhat durable. 

As I entered, the bell rang notifying their precious customer had come, yet there was no sign of the owner. 

There weren't many clothes compared to a real world shop, but still a lot for a small place like this, packed on racks. Mostly they were male clothes, and I haven’t found a single one that was made for women yet.

Surprisingly, without dust, this place was clean despite how unorganized it looked. As I breathe, I could feel clear dry air hitting my lungs. As I touched the fabric, I could tell that it had been kept in a good condition, either the maker loved and cared about their craft or they had contamination OCD.

Since I was indoors and there was nothing to worry about public gazes, I should check if anything was missing.

Yep, only top and bottom clothing were damaged. Everything else was fine in the bag including the knife and gloves.

“Are you lookin’ for… Oh god...” 

I turned to the source of voice. He was a middle aged man with a little graying on his head. He was rather a tall and well-built guy for a tailor, if he was one.

“Follow me. Women’s clothes are in this corner.” He beckoned.

Following the man, I saw a small shelf and rack. There were around 2 dozen clothes which were surprisingly low compared to the amount of men’s clothing.

“There ain’t much for girls because Malkea doesn’t have many. Most girl customers usually buy made to order stuff.—” The man talked without looking at me. I guessed that he had a gentlemanly attitude to some degree. “The changing room is over there. I’ll be waiting at the counter.”

He left me shopping. Well, it looked like there were no other customers coming soon, I should spend my time trying to match these clothes.

 

***

A black jeans and a white crew neck shirt, there was no other option, like literally there were only jeans and shirts. And there was no belt, so I had to buy a suspender as well.

I didn’t have to care much about a temporary outfit, apparently they look good on me.

I wondered what was the price because there were no price tags.

Since my old clothes were torn, I went to the cashier wearing what I was going to buy. The man glanced from head to toe, checking what the items were.

“3 Silvers.” He said.

Speechless. I didn’t know what to say. Assuming that at least 100 copper equals to 1 silver, that was 12 times from my total cash.

“I have 50 Coppers.”

“Sigh...” He paused, putting a hand on his head. “Are you perhaps a newly arrived outlander?”

“Yes, and?”

“I cannot give you a cheaper price since these clothes are magic enchanted, your old clothes are also beyond repairing, and you’re too weak to go outside.”

Shit, should I sell gloves or the knife?

“While training yourself in Malkea, do you want to work here?” He offered. 

God, this guy was too kind. Did he have a hidden motive? Was I going to sign a slave contract?

 

[You received a quest. Would you like to accept?]

 

Tailor’s Apprentice 

Difficulty: F

 

Clear conditions:

 

• Working in Raul Tailor for at least 4 week.

 

 

Minimum rewards:

 

• 5000 exp

 

 

Failure:

 

• Abandoning the quest halfway decreases the affinities of all NPC in Malkea.

 

 

Raul pitied the poor outlander who accidentally revived in Malkea and didn’t have enough money to buy basic human needs, so he offered them a job.

 

So, his name was Raul.

Did I have another choice? Did 30 copper coins enough to get a room? Let’s imagine that I had to wear the torn clothes and sleep on the street.—Never!

The game forced my decision again… geez.

Of course, learning sewing and stuff shouldn’t be bad. I was also interested to try it out. Because in reality only a small percentage of the textile industry was handmade, tailoring existed for the upper market or became some kind of an art.

But 4 weeks were like a week in reality. That was like getting a short college course or something.

For now, I should play a bit before agreeing. The tone should be humble and gentle, so we could see more of his personality.

“Thank you, but I don’t think I’m qualified for the job.—I’ll return the clothes to you.”

“Nah, don’t worry about that because no one knows everything from the start.” Raul shrugged. “Besides, you're not the first outlander who's coming here like this."

He was nice. I would like to have a nice AI like him instead of Pochi.

Fuck. You won, Raul.

"Thank you for your generosity. I'll be in your care, boss."

"Just call me Raul, alright?"

I guessed adventuring had to be postponed for now.