Author's Note: Phew, okay so I had just finished this weeks' chapter. I had left it for the evening of yesterday but in the end I wasn't feeling too well and had to complete it today, which was the deadline. I will try my best to keep to the schedule I had place upon myself but sometimes things just don't go the way you want them to, so if I miss the deadline by any stretch of time, I will say why.
Moving on, I read through the reviews, the more in-depth visuals of Rhea's avatar is written in this chapter, as one of the reviewers had asked me about it. To those speculating or asking to put her in the Ainz Ooal Gown guild, you can rest easy, yes Rhea will join the famous guild of heteromorphic races, just bear in mind that from what I had seen in both anime and manga, it is still years until the guild is made.
From what I have seen in anime in one of the snippets on YGGDRASIL scenes. Touch Me, the first guild master of our beloved guild, saved Momonga, our Overlord protagonist, at least a year into the game seeing as the paladin like Touch Me already was geared in items he had won in the yearly world tournament, so there is one year here. Then at first it was said that instead of a guild, they had created a group, named Nine's Own Goal, which only then changed into our beloved guild.
Now then, Enjoy!
Clang!
Slick!
"Haaaugh!" screamed a small green figure as a sword dug into it's flesh and spilled it's green blood.
Rhea looked at the being in front of her, her trainee sword slightly stained by the blood of a goblin that she was dispatching for one of her many quests that she was able to complete within the vicinity of the beginner town.
Looking at the snarling visage of a goblin that looked to be the size of a ten year old child, wearing nothing but a lion cloth. Dorea couldn't help but admire the sheer technology as well as time and effort put into the game.
The realistic sounds of the forest around them that seemed to be housing real trees, despite her knowing deep inside that they were in truth creations of man without any reality to them.
The goblin lunged for her, a sharpened stick in it's hands poised to skewer her on the crude weapon. Instead of blocking or dodging the wooden weapon, Rhea instead chose to use her longer reach and in turn stab the goblin in front of her.
The monster in front of her didn't have enough time to maneuver out of the way and was skewered by the trainee sword, straight through the chest. A red -4 appeared above the beast, ending it's life as it turned grey and lifeless and fell upon the ground.
This was one of the few things that Dorea appreciated about the game. Her avatar instead of having a child's body, which would reflect her true age, was instead standardized by her race and made an adult. At the height of one eighty, with slight curvature only to hint at the female gender, shoulder length hair, ten centimeter horns that could easily be called stubs, golden eyes, along with average features, Rhea's avatar was of an average looks when it came to her race or at least that was how she saw it.
The adult reach was the most helpful addition to her adult bodied avatar.
Sighing slightly, Rhea brought her free hand towards the corpse, allowing the loot tab to open and deposited everything the goblin had dropped into her item box.
While the box itself wasn't limitless, having the limit of holding up to maximum 500 kg of weight inside of it. It would take much longer than an hour since she started playing to fill even a quarter of it.
Quickly checking one of the few quests she had taken upon herself to complete from the town of beginnings, Quest: Kill the pests, which asked her to defeat five goblins inside the forests adjacent forest for some gold and seeing the progress bar at 3/5, she proceeded to looking for the next goblin to slay.
As she walked through the forest, she quickly went through the things that she had learned about the game at large. While talking, moving the avatar, and sound were at an impeccable level, there was no sense of touch, taste, or smell at all. A small mercy when Dorea thought about it as she couldn't possibly imagine a game where she felt the resistance of her weapon impaling her enemies or the stench of corpses.
Another thing that, while helpful in it's simplicity, Rhea hoped would change as the monsters in-game gained levels was the A.I. Of monsters. While she didn't hope for any kind of hardcore A.I. that could easily wipe the floor with her, as it would make her gamer powers much harder to properly utilize, she still felt that the difficulty bar was set too low as even with no prior knowledge about using any kind of weapon, she was still able to wipe the floor with goblins without losing health, if she didn't make any kind of large mistakes.
As she walked forward, she spotted another player, of the human races fighting with another level 1 goblin that was pitifully equipped with only a wooden dirk. Unlike her it seemed, the player in question was having a little trouble due to their chosen trainee weapon.
The weapon in question, the bow and arrow set, seemed to have the same problems that she had initially thought it would have. Without any guiding system for their attacks, it was hard for a player to score any kind of blow even in groups, or as they are referred by the system as parties, much less the player who by the looks of it was playing solo.
Seeing that it will take more than a while for either combatant to finish the other off, Rhea turned slightly away from the fight, looking for two more goblins to slay before she moves to another part of the forest where she will be able to complete a quest to slay large spiders. Not only for the money but to also see how the creatures move, something that should be helpful even in higher level areas where they will most likely have much more varied attack patterns computed into them.
Another thing that pleasantly surprised her was in fact the lack of people attacking heteromorphic race players at the moment, it seemed that while there are no penalties for such conduct, for now, everyone was focused more on increasing their level rather than harassing others.
She was certain that after people get bored of the constant grind of work, there will be some who will jump at the idea of bullying a minority within the game.
She finally spotted two goblins, which was rare seeing as it was the first she had ever encountered, and quickly thought if she would be able to take them on. Both of them were level 1, equipped with a single weapon that would most likely do small amounts of damage.
She hesitated for a moment before coming to conclusion that it would be the best if she were to chance it. Even if she died at this point, there wouldn't be much loss for her, seeing as she had yet to level up and from the gossip on the global chat channel, she saw that the most that the death would cost her was a little bit of gold, something that she had little either way, and go back to level 1 at 0% experience.
With that in mind she dash towards her two targets and pointed her free hand towards the closer goblin.
[Tier One: Chaos Bolt]
The spell came to life as it shaved off fifth of her total mana and a bolt of black and white intermingling colors sprung to life and shoot forward hitting the goblin on the shoulder and dealing 12 damage.
Chaos bolt, was a spell that was limited only to races that were born of conflicting elements. In Rhea's case her nephalem race which had both dark element, from it's demonic heritage, and light element, from it's angelic heritage, coursing through her veins. It was a racial tree skill that could be further expanded with classes.
It dealt chaos damage, increasing the damage dealt by 5 points.
The damage system in YGGDRASIL was rather easy to see once you see it in action. It pitted the atk value, whether it be magical or physical, of the attacker against the corresponding defense value of the target of said attack.
The goblin, being a demi-human race, had much stronger basic stats than humans, in this case 3 Mag. Def., which made it's foundation much more solid than a human's. On the other hand, due to goblin having a race class already ingrained into it's system by it's race, couldn't field as many normal classes as human-like races did.
The snarling echoed around the small outcropping of trees Rhea had found herself in, indicating that the goblins were aware of her presence and were already moving in to attack. The only thing that truly made it hard for Dorea to fully immerse herself in the game was the static like faces of her opponent, never changing.
Once both of them were close enough, she activated her second chosen skill for her first level.
[Chaos Claw]
Rhea swept her free hand upwards, targeting the already injured goblin, her fingers leaving behind them the same black and white glow of chaos energy, damaging the goblin by a mix of physical and magical attack for 15 hp, killing it before it could fully engage.
Chaos Claw, being the mix of physical and magical attack, made attackers physical and magical attack value be pitted against both values of the target's defenses. Something that made it's attack much higher, at the cost of more mana.
While Chaos Bolt cost a fifth of the mana in Rhea's pool of resources, the Chaos Claw took twice as much, leaving her with only two fifths of her whole mana pool.
Leaving the already greying and lifeless goblin body on the floor, she focused on the undamaged goblin.
While Rhea could easily cast either her spell or ability once more in a few moments, their cool down being only few seconds long due to them being weak, she felt the need to practice with a weapon, being in close quarters, even if she won't pursue that avenue, she would be able to not flinch once a monster comes up too close for comfort.
Sure there was no sense of touch or smell in the game but in the end if something were to jump into your field of vision suddenly or swing some sort of dangerous object then one couldn't help but flinch away from it, it was a natural response and something that could be mitigated with enough exposure to such stimulus.
The dirk flashed into her view, quickly becoming bigger as it closer the distance between them. Rhea swung her sword sideways redirecting the incoming stick and causing it to miss before punching the goblin in the face with her free hand, causing a bright red -1 to flash for a moment, which she swiftly followed by an upward slash that caused 2 damage before jumping backwards to create some semblance of distance between them.
While she could easily slash with wide arcs that didn't make the sword uncomfortable to use, extreme close quarter combat would make it much harder to use her weapon and she didn't want to rely on her higher than monster stats to win the fight.
The fight continued in the same fashion, Rhea redirecting the wooden dirk before retaliating, it took a minute but finally the creature drew it's last breath and fell lifelessly unto the forest floor, it's body greyed out.
She quickly looted the fallen bodies before pausing for a moment. Unlike before where there were only coins from the corpses, this time she had gotten something more. Now laying innocently in her item box, was an item called [Minor Data Crystal], she knew what it was the moment her eyes were laid upon it.
The data crystals were one of the most important things within the game, something that she had read off of an npc that gave out starter quests, as it had tabs for few of the more common questions a player might have.
Those small seemingly innocent crystals had a great variety of purposes.
One could add effects to items with them, change appearances of anything player owned, or even slightly tweak how one's skills looked.
They were multipurpose and a common drop in their low quality as the quality of crystals themselves was important. A smith cannot make a legendary weapon from crappy materials.
Rhea smiled, even if her avatar couldn't portray it before she activated the last ability that she had learned.
[Wings of Nephalem]
Black and white light tentacles sprouted from her shoulder blades before she quickly took off into the skies.
A jubilant laughter tearing above the forest as she flied towards the first town.
The Wings of Nephalem, while without any sort of positive ability towards flight, were something that she wanted to have the moment she saw this ability.
Who could blame her? The in-game abilities were directly transferred into real abilities in real world and the thought of being able to fly in any sort of way greatly pleased Rhea.
Even without the sense of touch that would allow her to feel the wind upon her skin, the vast picture that the YGGDRASIL painted in her sights was majestic in itself. The forest below her created a shimmering green ocean that contrasted gently with the blue sky and it's pure white clouds as they lazily moved across the sky, the sun shone brightly as it encompassed all under it's gaze.
Rhea was briefly entranced by the picture presented to her but she quickly shook it off and sped towards the main gates of the town of beginnings where the quest giver for the goblin extermination quest was. After doing that, she planned to move towards the other side of the city where the large spiders were nested if the quest lore was anything to go by.
/
A crowd of players swarmed around one of the NPCs as Rhea landed right next to the gate. It wasn't something unusual given that she too had to get inside the cramped circle in order to complete her quest and get both coins and exp.
Pushing past the crowd wasn't an easiest thing Rhea had to do, it took some effort but in the end she had done it and completed her quest.
A burst of triumphant trumpet followed her quest completion, making her pause before she realized that the sound meant that she had leveled up, or atleast was able to increase her level due to her experience being filled up.
Shifting through the menu, she quickly reached her added another level to her [Nephalem] racial class. For now there didn't seem much difference between getting a new class or completing her racial class completely.
Then came choosing of 3 skills from the list. There wasn't much at her level, but she quickly found the three that appealed to her and that should work in the long run as her two active attack skills should keep up for at least few levels.
[Minor Elemental Resistance] was a skill that caused any non-pure magical, physical, dark, and light attacks to reduce in damage done to her by 5%. While the decrease wasn't large by any stretch of imagination. It should fare well in later stages when it will be needed.
[Minor Mind Control Resistance] was a skill that could counter mind manipulations below level 20, it wasn't the strongest mind control resistance out there but when she thought of someone messing with her brain right at this moment in reality, Rhea couldn't not choose this skill.
Lastly there was the [Minor Chaos Mastery] skill which decreased both the mana usage and the cool down of Chaos based magic and skills. Again like with the elemental resistance, the chaos mastery, while minor, will likely fit well both now and in later stages of the game.
A quick check to her status page showed increase in four attributes. Both Mag. Atk. And Def. Went up by 1, MP went up by 2, and special went by 1.
Confirming the increases provided by the level, she quickly re-summoned her wings with the [Wings of Nephalem] skill and flew towards where the large spiders were said to infest.
/
Riding the train towards Hogwarts, Harry was almost content.
Almost being the important word in that sentence.
He wasn't sure what was wrong, besides the rather nasty headache that he was developing over the course of last few weeks.
Maybe it was the sudden shift in his life that he felt he had no control over. Things started to become weird since those letters started to arrive at his uncle's house.
His lips quirked up at the memory of his uncle, puce colored in his indignation and rage as literal swarms of letters, that he later found out were his acceptance letters to Hogwarts, as he tried his best, and failed, to contain the letter storm that had graced his house.
Harry wasn't the least bit surprised that ,when someone added his uncle's stupidity and anger, they moved from their quaint and normal house at Privet Drive to some hole in the middle of nowhere that seemed to haven't been graced with a living presence in at least few years.
The place was worn and old, damp due to it's immediate proximity with large amounts of water, layered with a coat of dust that would make many people cringe at the thought of living there, and two bedrooms that meant both he and his twin had to sleep on the floor. The couch and armchairs, while being a better alternative to comfort, were filled with mold due to the damp air and weren't ideal for long term exposure to living beings.
At least even if he were to sleep on the floor, he wasn't alone in it. Thoughts of his twin, Dorea, brought a smile to him, quickly replaced by a frown coupled with a wince as he felt his headache increase sidetracking him from his train of thought.
It was after the giant of a name, a rather nice ground's keeper named Hagrid, came and talked to him that things started to become weird and uncomfortable.
His twin, his second half in all but the name with how attached they were, started to distance herself once they realized that while he could do magic, Rhea wasn't gifted with it's use. He thought at first that maybe she was sulking due to getting separated but the distance between themselves didn't vanish at all, instead it seemed to slowly but surely increase with time and every time he had tried to talk to Dorea about it, something always happened to derail him from his attempts.
His uncle getting angry for no apparent reason and keeping him from talking to his sister.
Dudley actively started to hunt only him and left Rhea alone, something that was both a blessing and a curse as having Dudley and his gang chasing only after him meant that it was much harder to get away from them than before.
His aunt piling up chores that Dorea usually did with him, together, stating that it would be his sister's duty to do the chores once she was the only one left in the house, one of the few things that Harry was genuinely sorry due to how things were turning out.
The dull pain that he felt caused him to close his eyes, the light slowly but surely starting to become painful, his mind trying to pick out just why it felt like that before a proverbial light bulb started to shine and he realized the problem, or rather just what was causing the headache.
Every time he thought of his sister in any kind of context, the pain in his head increased slightly in intensity. As if something or someone didn't want him to even think about his twin. The realization worried him greatly, as while he knew what was causing the pain he felt, he didn't know how it happened.
The questions and thoughts of his weird few weeks stalled and their place came the question of why.
Why would someone or something want to make sure that he didn't think of his twin?
Why would someone or something make him feel a slowly increasing headache when he thought of his counter part?
An idea sparked as he mulled over the possibilities and things that happened before, random things and situations that seemed to be pre-programmed to make sure he didn't have any time to question the sudden distance from Dorea.
If those seamlessly ingrained situations were the work of something or someone who wanted them away from each other, then it was possible that something was preventing whatever they had done to him to fully work, seeing as people around him worked towards the goal of make sure Dorea and he don't speak about it, at all.
Perhaps the pain, is in fact, some sort of side-effect due to him resisting whatever was done to him. Thinking about it like that, Harry couldn't help but agree with his own reasoning.
The door to his cabin opened, causing Harry to pause his thoughts.
Looking over the entrance, he could see a boy his age with ginger hair and freckles standing right before the opened doors, fidgetting slightly.
"Hi." squeaked the boy slightly.
"Hello." answered Harry.
"Do you mind if I sit here? There's not much space left in other compartments." asked the ginger boy.
"Sure, no problem." answered Harry, a smile creeping upon his features as he look over the boy that slowly shuffled into the compartment.
His thoughts if the problem that caused him pain shuffled to the back of his mind for a moment, as he focused completely upon the boy that now sat opposite of him as he realized that without Dudley and Drusleys in general, he had a shot at making friends, friends that he could talk with and share time together without anyone talking badly about him behind his back and chasing off his friends.
He promised himself to come back to the problem that plagued him and caused the slowly receding headache as he started to talk to the freckled boy. The possibility of becoming friends with someone his age without his extended family hovering over him and destroying any chance of it happening trumping over the slight fear of machinations done upon his life.
/
Rhea arrived at the indicated spot of the forest where the giant spiders were said to be nested and imminently knew that this was the place that she was looking for.
Unlike where the goblins were before, this part of the forest had webs of spider silk hanging from tree to tree, creating a sea of white and green, intersected with the brown bark and shadows cast by the sun hitting the crowns of the trees.
She dismissed the [Wings of Nephalem] and started to walk around the forest, seeing as when she flew overhead the trees, she couldn't make out the monsters within the sea of trees easily and instead opted to only use her mobility skill only when coming to and from the hunting grounds, at least until there aren't many obstacles to her vision from distance or she gains another skill that would allow her to find her targets even with the abysmal vision.
Suddenly, as she walked through the forest, she felt her vision sink forward, she didn't know what happened but her avatar fell to the ground. She quickly maneuvered to stand up as she glanced to her health bar and noted that it had a chunk of it missing, which meant that something had attacked her.
As she positioned herself to look where she was before, her thoughts were confirmed as a monster that she was going to hunt was standing at her previous spot.
With the body that was the size of a small dog, eight large spindly legs, numerous red eyes that malevolently gazed at her as if she was prey, and hairs that seemed to stick out from any possible spot. The spider caused Rhea to internally shiver that only went unnoticed by the monstrous abomination because the system didn't fully immerse the player into the game.
A small prayer and thank you's went to the creators of the game when she realized that if it really was the fully immerse experience then she would feel as that dog sized monster landed upon her causing her to shiver again.
[Tier One: Chaos Bolt]
The bolt of chaos formed on her outstretched hand as she vowed to finish the fight fast, the overgrown spider not helping Rhea's composure with it's appearance and entrance.
The magic ball was right on the target, making Dorea smirk before it was quickly replaced by a frown. The chaos bolt, instead of hitting it's target, had flown over it and harmlessly splashed against the grass floor. Even as the spider closed in on her, Rhea thought over what happened and quickly came to a conclusion as to why she had missed.
Unlike her previous targets, goblins, the giant spiders were much smaller in height making her aim downwards. Due to the angle at which she cast the spell, as well as the higher than goblin speed of her new opponent, the ball of pure chaos magic harmlessly moved overhead the spider.
Once the spider was close enough, instead of charging at her all the way, it instead lunged upon Rhea. The sudden attack startled her, making her take a step back and swing her trainee sword aimlessly in the general direction of the fast approaching enemy.
The sword hit the incoming missile of a body, causing damage and forcing the spider backwards.
[Tier One: Chaos Bolt]
Thanks to her new skill, [Minor Chaos Mastery] her only projectile skill swiftly cooled down and was used in tandem with her new information, instead of aiming straight at the spider, she instead aimed a little in between herself and the target.
Just like predicted, the chaos bolt successfully hit it's target, the A.I. of the monster not dodging the blow, the splash of raw chaos energy dealing massive damage.
Instead of keeping a safe distance, she marched towards the incoming target, hoping to acclimatize her reactions to the jumping spider.
This time, when the monster jumped at her, she didn't flinch instead she hit the target with a downward stroke of her sword, causing the spider to fall down near her instead of bouncing it away. She followed through the sword strike with her single close range attack skill.
[Chaos Claw]
Her free hand raking through the body of the spider, killing it as it became grey and lifeless.
Quick looting followed in which she found that spiders dropped [Spider Silk], most likely material for crafting classes, before she focused on her fight, thinking of what might have been done better and things to expect from giant spiders in the future.
Unlike the goblins with whom Rhea had the first blood advantage against, the spider in question jumped her from one of the many webs that hung throughout the forest, making them have the unexpected attack. Having fought only one spider she couldn't be sure that this was the only place they were coming from and if she had started to stare at the webs spanning the trees only to be ambushed by few spiders that might move along the ground, she would probably cry. Two or three mosnters are still within her capabilities, their A.I. wasn't overly complicated, rather simplistic in fact, but she still didn't have any sort of great equipment or skills and her health was still pitifully low.
Both HP and MP in YGGDRASIL was counted times five of what you had as your stat. For Rhea who has HP at five and MP at twelve meant that she had twenty five HP points and sixty MP points respectively.
The small HP pool that her nephalem avatar had, made Rhea a little cautious of any fights with more than one monster, even if they fought simplistically. Sure, she could easily disengage with her [Wings of Nephalem] skill if there was no ranged or flying monsters but if there was enough low leveled monsters attacking her then she might not have the time to even use it before she dies.
So instead of over complicating it, Rhea chose to walk around as always, looking forward and sneak attacking any monsters that hadn't had seen her and deal with ambushes just like she had done before.
Author's Note: How did you like it? Review it and give me an opinion, I welcome both positive and negative ones. :3
Take care, we will see each other next Friday! Bye!