“When I logged in after being killed by a bear, I found that I have been carried downriver by the stream to a place about 2 weeks travel from the city. Did my gem fell into the water? I decided that I might as well walked back to the city to change my loadout.”

“On the journey back to the city, I was preoccupied with thinking about the most optimal skill combination. I was torn between going back to be a warrior, keep my thief variant build – only to replace the mining skill with earth shaper skill, or make a new character build. I have never played a ranged character before in this game, but should I try making it?”

“in any case, since this is the last life that this avatar had, I should build my character around the notion of hard to kill.”

“The city was completely awash in the festive aura of celebration.  Everybody on the street was walking tall with a smile on their face. Even the daughter of the blacksmith – who was usually going around her days with an expression as if everybody in the world owes her something – had a soft gentle smile gracing her features.”

“Turns out that there was a contingent of people from the south, coming to rebuild the transport station that was destroyed by the shadow beast’s horde twelve years ago. That was about... one year before the game started? Is this something like city expansion event analog for this game? Something like making your beginner city get bigger and became connected to other beginner cities?”

“It’s not something that was important for me though. I prefer to travel by foot, enjoying the sight of the world, finding a new fun activity, and generally went wherever at my own pace.”

“But still, festivals and celebrations were nice. Everybody is happy, and even the most unsociable person socializes amiably with others – they became less as gruff and rough as usual. Everything that money could buy is discounted, and that was the most important thing to me.”

“There were players amongst the expedition team. I was pleasantly surprised, even though it was just the most obvious conclusion. I guess I was already being too used with the playstyle of the other player in Ulterre, who never strayed too far from the city’s wall and outposts. Always keeping their sphere of activity inside the city, avoiding to come out so they won’t get eaten by the monster and wildlife.”

“Speaking of which, It was hard to differentiate between the player and the NPC in this game because even someone you truly knew was an NPC would sometimes react like an actual person. There were even chances where you caught them doing the most incomprehensible deed for the most nonsensical reason. The only reason I knew that there were other players in Ulterre is that there was an internet group for them made by one of the people who decided to start here.”

“The dev was really trying to break the mold in making this game; no exp, no easy quest taking from a highly visible NPC... Even having the NPC went offline twice a week so they won’t be too different from the players. One would even start to think that this game was inhabited by players only, and the NPCs are game company employee that was being told to do a customer service job.”

Anyway, some players from Ulterre made a post about the expedition’s member and those with keen eyes found the presence of the firstborn – the 10.000 lucky people who had started the game with their avatar’s age set at 16 – among them. It’s easy to find and recognize them if you know where and what to look. After all, those people were famous among the serious player of the game.”

“Those people were just too lucky, if it was the real world, then their luck was in the category of a prominent lottery’s big prize winners. Not only they had their subscription waived, but they were also given a chance to get a spot on the official channel. That would mean salary from the dev and chance to get sponsorship. The only downside that I could see is they are not allowed to overtly change their appearance and they will be under pressure to keep producing interesting content.”

“The people on the forum also says that the expedition to open and rebuilt the destroyed transport station was a quest given to the participating firstborn after a series of achievement they made. The reward of the quest was said to be a huge amount of money and free blessing, the kind that was chosen by the player themselves.”

“The people in the forum were clamoring to join the party, but we players already knew that it was ultimately futile effort. There’s no such thing as bus carry or hugging thigh over here in this game.

“I have already finalized my character build. I picked earth shaping (minor) so I wouldn’t go over the limit of the upkeep I could pay. Then I took stealth and archery knowledge related to aiming and air current utilization (so that my shot wouldn't suddenly swerve wide when the wind picks up speed). I didn’t go for any kind of bows, I went for crossbows because It would be easier to use and aim using it.”

“Inbetween training my accuracy with the crossbow and using earth shaping to make a crossbow bolt from densely compressed earth, I spend some time in the city. It’s rare that there was such a spectacle, so I made sure to enjoy myself while it still lasts. I could go and take revenge on the bear and pick up my stash in the rift valley anytime, but there would only be one expedition – if it didn’t fail.”

“It would be such a shame for me to miss it because I went to do a non-urgent venture.”

“It didn’t seem that the expedition to reopen the transport station would start anytime soon, so I made various efforts to have fun to pass the time. Now I’m here on the terrace of one of the various shops dotting the city plaza, playing ‘spot the player amongst NPC’ while drinking a strangely colored drink.”

“I saw one of the Knight build players, Rudolph; people on the forum say he’s quite famous in the circle even though his channel rank was only somewhere around 2504. He was standing along about ten other knight players, none are famous enough for me to recognize easily.”

“But those knights were just a common knight archetype specialized in defense and ‘taunt’ –ing. I think I prefer someone like Adrian who uses a shield to parry and block attackers while charging energy into his sword. When he gets going, his charged blow is potent and damaging like how Megaman X’s Plasma X buster carved just about anything.”

“There were also some players with warrior build, some equipping one-handed weapon like sword and maces together with small shield or gauntlets while the other was equipping heavy weapons like war ax, hammer, and greatsword. It’s a shame that there was no one holding a one-handed weapon in both hands because it would look cool – even if it was a bit difficult and impractical.”

“I also spotted quite a lot of ‘priest player’ of various build among the member of the expedition. The priest in this game was quite weird compared to other games. Mostly they were separated into two variant, the first one is the sacrifice type priest. They use their skill, channeling it into the targeted player while holding some sacrificial object to do a ‘permanent healing’ of the injury suffered by the target.

“They were also those that could resurrect and respawn the player that ‘died’. Using a resurrection rite on the gem left by the dead player would speed up their recovery, making it so they could respawn quickly. Without their help, players had to wait until the gem repaired itself.”

“The second type was the ‘illusionary healing’ type priest. They use their skill to temporarily force the injured player’s body to work as they normally did. If there’s no follow up, the injury would open up again. This is the priest that was in the forum video – the one with the skill to force the guy that get all his bones broken to stay alive.”

“Their temporary healing could become permanent if the healed player stepped outside combat and eat – or sacrifice – something. The nutrition from the food – at least that was what the forum-goers say – would be used to fill the mold left by the illusory healing”

“Because of the weird way of healing and the fact that accessing gem’s space – this game’s equivalent of inventory – took time, there was a new type of character build; the porter. They were the support type players, the guys who walked around bringing bags and other things for other player’s easy reach. Their only requirement is quick wit and being sturdy enough to endure a punishing blow that could fell lesser players.”

“Of course, there was still the magician and other ranged character builds. I spotted a famous magician girl who had occupied the 76th rank channel, Reina. I’m not sure if it was the requirement of the expedition party or their own volition, but Reina and other magicians looked like they were wearing an outfit that matched their magic focus in its color.”

“She, among other five or so players were wearing a crimson-colored robe and magician equipment. There was another group of mages wearing other colors, but the highest amount was those wearing brown robes. If the color of the robe matched their focus like what I had guessed, then they might be a group of earth mages? Need a closer examination to make sure, but I wouldn’t bother.”

“Those players were standing and talking with their own group, interspersed among the NPCs. There were various NPCs, there were those wearing the officials' uniform, NPCs clad with military armors and other NPCs wearing various equipment with armband depicting the city where the expedition hailed from.”

“I know that players rarely cared about weather conditions and body sensation to outside stimulus, but how come these NPCs could bear standing around talking under the fiery ray of the sun? Even I, someone who was sitting on a shaded patio felt that they were really unreasonable. Standing around talking with each other instead of just departing promptly to rebuild the transport station.”

“Just how long do they plan to keep conversing?”