| Author: Starving Wind | Original Source: Joara | Word Count: 3892 characters |
| Translator: Anonymouss | English Source: Re:Library | Word Count: 2239 words |
| Editor(s): Silva | ||
I was burnt out.
Yes, that would be the most apt description.
Three hours? Four? I was not sure how much time had passed. Although my white blade wasn’t completely covered in red, the shining and reflective plate mail was wrecked in several places, making it look terrible overall.
Although I didn’t count them individually, I felt that I must have killed at least several hundred Liches and Death Knights. The interesting thing was that because I killed five Death Knights in a row with one strike each, I received the title of ‘Death Knight Massacre’, which gave me bonus stats along with a level up.
Of course, the price for all that effort was that I ended up using around half of the potions I had. More than anything, I was extremely tired. This exhaustion that I felt is equivalent to my mental fatigue, and it severely affects the machine. Because of that, I genuinely felt as if I had been fighting monsters for the last few hours.
Usually, I would have taken out my essential day to day item of cigarettes from my pocket and roll it around in my mouth, but my body is still underaged. I was actually barred from buying cigarettes from the Real Mode world that I was in. It probably meant that I won’t be able to have a drink inside the game as well.
“No way… Does that mean if I go to a pub or an inn, I am stuck with sipping non-alcoholic drinks!?”
It meant that the few joys I garnered from this videogame were gone. Of course, it was only a matter of time, but the problem was that I was not able to enjoy it right now.
After I unequipped the helmet, I tussled my hair which was already in a huge mess. As I crumpled onto the floor with my legs giving out, I looked at the items around me.
Most of them were gold and the usual trash items, but it could be quite profitable to gather them all. On top of that, I saw a few rare tier items among them as well.
It would have been great if I saw Special tier items as well, but… Of course, such rarity doesn’t come around often.
As normal monsters are limited to dropping only up to Special grade, I should be thankful that there were even Rare tier items. But still, it was nearly impossible to make much money just from hunting normal monsters, unless you had been doing so since the open beta. The gold that monsters usually drop is pretty little. On top of that, the probability of them dropping skill books or rare materials was as rare as getting a special tier item drop, and the usual Normal to Rare tier items that drop from them only sell for the equivalent of a few pennies. Which means that the only way to make money with this is when you sell Rare tier items, but since even these don’t drop regularly, you wouldn’t find enough to really make a profit, even if you hunted all day.
This gets even worse when you are hunting as a party, as the items that are dropped would be all calculated as gold price, and would be divided among 3 to 8 people fairly, which means that you would get an even smaller amount of gold.
Therefore it was wrong to assume that all high level players were rich. There were poor players even among the ranking players. The one reason was the high cost for the consumption items they used.
The potion’s price was usually 50 gold. The Death Knights that I defeated just then gave a measly 50 silver each. Since you need 100 silver to make 1 gold, if you wanted to earn 50 gold just from killing Death Knights, you would need to kill 100 of them just to buy one potion. Of course, there is a probability that you could gain a Rare tier item while hunting them, but it was not always guaranteed.1
It’s not only the potions either, you also needed rare scrolls or a number of talismans that cost around 1 gold each, and to use the Teleportation Circle you had to pay 100 gold for it. Therefore, there was no way to make a profit just from hunting monsters in an ordinary way.
On top of that, if your level reached a certain point, you would need to upgrade your equipment as well as buy a number of skill books to match your level. There was no way you could afford that just from hunting normal monsters.
Ah, of course, the way to make money is to go on raids. But one would usually do this with their guild. If a random selection of players were to group up, there would often be cases where someone steals all the loot and escapes, or people would fight and backstab each other as Rare tier items fetched a very high price.
Does that mean guild parties distributed earnings fairly? I don’t particularly think so. There had been several cases where the guild master would take the lion’s share of the loot and cause the guild to break up due to infighting.
Does that mean playing solo is the best way to go? I think that it’s possibly the hardest way. As you can see from my status, even though I had used up dozens of expensive potions, I only gained loot that was barely enough to pay for a quarter of the potions that I’ve used so far.
Considering my high level equipment and skills, ordinary players wouldn’t even be able to dream of achieving this.
In the end, users that didn’t think just hunting was profitable enough would end up turning towards trading and business, or did quests that gave a relatively little amount of EXP in order to earn money.
Meaning that the system was set in a way that there was no other way but for users who specialized in production to start to appear.
Of course, there are ranking users who had been hunting from start to finish without taking too many risks and are completely satisfied with that, but it was an extreme minority..
That goes to show just how much this Artoria character was in the perfect environment to become a ranking player. Top tier equipment, skills, monopolization of titles as well as adequate consumption items.
Any gamers would dream of achieving this level at least once in their gaming career. I would have wanted nothing more than this, other than wishing that the character’s gender wasn’t female.
“Sigh… It’s not like being disappointed will change anything. I’ll just stop whining about it.”
After gathering up all the spoils, I headed towards the Teleportation circle with tired footsteps.
Crumble.
Hearing a sudden sound of something crumbling and crashing, I hurriedly turned around. The Stonehenge that was already in a half-destroyed state was now crumbling and falling apart.
If I were a pure-blooded English person, I would have looked as if the South Gate was burning as it did in the past, but right now I simply looked on like an interested tourist.2
- Artoria has met the requirements for unlocking the SSS tier quest ‘The Forgotten Dragon’s Revival’.
A server-wide announcement suddenly rang out.
It suddenly appeared, though it is only used for important events or quests. On top of that, it says that I am the one who caused it to happen!
Surprised, I hurriedly opened my status panel.
“Open Quest List.”
As I spoke, a list of completed quests streamed out and disappeared, then a quest that was newly generated appeared.
[SSS Tier Quest, Rank: Legendary, ‘The Forgotten Dragon’s Revival’.Trigger Requirements:
2nd proficiency level achieved – Satisfied
Has the title ‘Never Died’ – Satisfied
At least one party member owning an Excalibur – Satisfied
Destroy 500 Death Knights around the Stonehenge in a single day 500 / 500 – Satisfied
All hidden requirements have been satisfied]
The difficulty tier was actually a triple S. Considering that the most difficult quests I’ve been on had been a single S tier, it meant that this was the highest difficulty that I’ve ever seen. The problem was that the more difficult the quests, the higher and more lucrative the rewards for them.
[Would you like to accept the quest?Yes / No]
That was the question that popped up before I even had the time to think.
The time limit I have to accept or decline is only 10 seconds.
It could simply be a connected quest to what I was doing, and an epic monster could come out. Of course, considering the title of the quest, it meant that a dragon level boss could be appearing…
But I was alone and didn’t have any party.
Although I was confident in dealing damage myself, the question is whether I can hunt it by myself. On top of that, if it’s a white dragon that has the Light attribute, I am certain to be completely obliterated.
Of course, I selected ‘No’.
“Nope… No.”
[Would you really like to begin the quest? Be-be-beep]Another line passed by and disappeared. I had a bad feeling about it.
- Artoria has accepted the ‘The Forgotten Dragon’s Revival’ quest, SSS tier.
“Dear lord, what is happening!”
[You received the title ‘Proud and Lonely Female Knight’. You gained stat bonuses +3, and 30% additional EXP.]“So you won’t even give me a chance to say yes or no…”
I was too stunned for words. Of course, I was the one who caused this to happen anyways. Although I should have definitely said no just once, I ended up saying ‘no’ twice which became a double negative.
- The Teleportation Circle in the Stonehenge area is now unable to be used.
“Won’t even let me escape, huh?”
I was stunned again just how underhanded the management of this system was.
In the end, I couldn’t do anything but accept this situation as I drank another potion to max out my HP.
If there was one saving grace, it was that I had a lot of skills and I had tried using them all. Therefore I could find comfort in knowing that I was able to deduce which skills I should use for any situation.
And with that, with my mind half given up on fighting back, I looked around while gripping my Excalibur tightly.
The ground cracked and the Stonehenge crumbled completely. Then something slowly appeared from within the cracks in the ground.
10 meters? No, 50? A massive figure that was hard to perceive the size of blew dust around as it showed its face.
Rooooaaarrr!
The Dragon’s Roar, that makes all lifeforms surrender in fear!
- You resisted the Dragon’s Roar!
Thankfully, I was able to withstand the Dragon’s Roar, and bit my lower lip as I looked upon its gigantic size and power.
It was not the usual dragon, but a skinny dragon that only had its bones left. Its official designation was Bone Dragon. The boss monster that’s considered the strongest of the undead archetype. It was the very first time it was showing its face.
Although there are many types of boss level monsters in Blue Sky, all of them were divided into 5 tiers.
(Bronze tier boss monsters. As the lowest tier of the boss monsters, usually the boss monsters that pop out on the fields belong in this tier and are only slightly stronger than regular monsters.
Silver tier boss monsters. These appear in regular dungeons and not only the raid tier ones. They’re highly sought after as they drop Unique Tier items. But these monsters are still far from actual boss monsters, as they are only slightly stronger than regular monsters.
Gold tier boss monsters. At this tier, they are definitely regarded as bosses. These monsters appear in raid tier dungeons, and have around several hundred times more HP and stats than normal monsters.
Red tier boss monsters. Called the walking calamities, the dragons are usually in this tier. Often these boss monsters would be of Angel or Demon archetype, and many guilds would often recount tales of being completely defeated by them over and over. Though of course, quite a number of them have been conquered by players, they still have high notoriety.
Purple tier boss monsters. Currently, there was no purple tier boss monster that has ever appeared.)
Therefore this Bone Dragon belonged to the 4th highest tier of the boss monsters. Although they say it’s on the weaker side compared to other boss monsters in the same tier, it was still aptly called a calamity.
It meant that it was basically over for me.
“But I still won’t go down that easily.”
I still wasn’t willing to just go down without a fight. I’ve already died once and lived again, what does a character’s death matter in comparison?
As my vision was completely filled with the Bone Dragon in front of me that was repeatedly trying to put out my fighting spirit, I pulled out my Excalibur again and fixed it in the right position as I once again fired up my brightly burning fighting spirit.
Footnotes:
- Silva: Wao… and yet you drank 50 gold just to trigger the Death Knight and break them from the Cross Attack formation? Just because the potion originally belongs to someone else, it doesn’t mean you can waste them like that xD
Anonymouss: well I guess they were being ‘yolo’ xD
they didn’t want to ruin the title of ‘never died’ of the character so they used a desperate tactic~
but yeah doesn’t really care about the possibility that the original owner of the body can come back XD - TN: South Gate, Namdaemoon is a Korean cultural heritage site of a huge gate that was unfortunately burned down.
