A New World (Gamer, Book 1) (4 page)

He makes his excuses and leaves quickly. It
doesn't take long to get onto the east side of the farm, where he
finds a number of fat looking pigs standing about looking bored. He
walks over to a group of them and they all turn as one to look in
his direction. He backs off a little as they began slowly edging in
his direction and decides that charging in is not the best
approach.

He hunts around in the grass and finds a few
small stones. Walking over to one of the trees, he steps behind it
and does his best to carefully memorize as much of the details of
the picturesque scene in front of him as he can. The five pigs are
standing together and look extremely tough. They are fat, yet there
is heavy muscle underneath those layers of softness. All of them
have brown silky coats that look extremely unrealistic, considering
real pigs get dirty very easily. The five of them are standing in a
small clearing amongst the sparse trees and there is a small pond
in the distance with two or three birds lazily making their way
around it in small circles, occasionally dipping down to the
surface of the water to swipe up a fish or two.

It's incredibly real scene for something that
Harry knows is in a game and it’s certainly a far cry from the type
of games that Harry has played all his life.

He carefully takes a bead on the rearmost pig,
putting thoughts of how the virtual reality world of 2222 is as
good, if not better than the real world and steadies his arm. He
will not have another chance if he stuffs up what he is trying to
do. Accuracy is the key; concentration Harry’s best
friend.

He breaths in, aims carefully and throws one
stone at the rear pig. It hits it on the ass and the beast spins,
looking out into the trees trying to find its opponent. Harry
throws another stone a little further off into the distance and the
pig moves off from the main group and heads towards a grassy area
just off to the left. Harry throws another stone and this one hits
the first pig just behind the ear. It's an incredibly lucky shot
and he is feeling more than happy with his throwing ability right
now.

The pig turns around and shoulders the one
next to it before giving off two angry snorts and moving a short
distance away.

He performs the same trick again, barely
connecting with the stone, and two more pigs leave the group. He
now only has one pig left and he is feeling a lot more
confident.

Harry steps out from the trees and picks up an
even larger rock that he spotted earlier in the undergrowth. He
stealthily makes his way over to the remaining pig munching away on
some grass and manages to get within one meter of it before the
beast turns its head and starts to stare at him.

"Damn, I guess you saw me, eh?"

Harry jumps in and smashes the rock down on
the back of the pig. There's a nasty crack inside its body and a
line of red, which is heavily pixilated and nothing like real
blood, flows from its back. Harry swings the rock around and tries
to hit the pig in the snout, but misses wildly. He desperately
brings the rock around for another attack, but the pig rams him
with its tasks and knocks him to the grass. The beast jumps on top
of him and tries to gore him with its nasty prongs and scores a
hit.

Harry cries out in pain as the tusks cut into
him. Even though one can't really be hurt in this sort of game,
small lines of red and bursts of a deeper red are admitted from
Harry's body, as the pig gores him and his life gauge, which is
hovering down from the top of his vision with a slight flashing red
surrounding it, goes down.

Watching it as he pushes the pigs head away
with the rock, he notes that it is going down very, very quickly
and Harry is starting to feel afraid that he is not going to
survive this assault.

He brings his rock around and slams it into
the side of the pig's head. The beast gives a mighty grunt and
falls to the side as Harry jumps out from under it and, screaming
like an animal, slams the large rock into the side of its
head.

The big pig’s eyes roll up and a vaguely
comatose look spreads across its face. Harry looks as his life
gauge and it appears in his view. He is down to half after only
being gored by the pig for a few seconds. His whole body stings
with pain and he wonders if this is anything like the real thing.
It certainly hurts enough to be.

Something hurtles up from behind him and slams
into his back. His life gauge slips down even more quickly and he
is left with just a quarter as he spins around, trying to see who
attacked him and finding himself face-to-face with another big pig,
who manages to knock the rock from Harry’s hands on its second
charge.

The beast lurches forward again and Harry
tries to throw a rather unskilled punch at its head. The pig takes
it on the snout and then bellows loudly as it begins swiping its
head viciously left to right. Harry skips back and sees a large
piece of wood sticking out from beside a tree. He grabs it up and
starts poking at the pig. The beast manages to catch it with one of
its tusks and gets close enough to rip it away, while delivering
some damage to Harry as his remaining life becomes the faintest
flicker of light. He is without a weapon and there is no chance of
facing this thing hand to hand.

Choosing the safest option, he runs around one
of the trees and the pig follows him. They do this running dance of
death with each other for quite some time until Harry is breathing
hard and running from tree to tree to stay alive.

There is a small rock at the base of one of
the trees he passes by. He reaches as he runs and grabs some soil.
Harry spins and throws the soil at the oncoming pig, doing no
damage to the beast, but blinding it momentarily.

He sprints to the rock and grabs it up. It has
one sharp end and he slams that down into the pig’s head as it
rushes after him. The creature hits the ground hard and ends up
lying flat on its stomach. Harry brings the rock up and down a few
times just to make sure that it's completely out of the game and
then sits beside it, trying to catch his breath as his chest burns
with the effort of engaging in combat.

A small message appears in front of him. It
tells him that he has gained the pig meat needed for the quest as
well as various other things that he honestly can’t see any use
for. There’s a little bit of coin included and a tiny amount of
experience points, which is what allows him to gain levels in the
game. He smiles happily, until he realizes that to reach the next
level, he only needs another 400 experience points, the equivalent
of killing thirty or forty of these pigs at this rate.

He checks his inventory and counts the pig
flesh. There is just enough to complete the quest that the farmer
has sent him on.

“
Thank goodness,” he mumbles,
collapsing to his hands and knees in thanks to whoever is watching
over him from the great game world in the sky.

Clapping his hands together in excitement at
the thought of completing his first real quest and maybe getting
some real money, he gets up and slowly walks back towards the farm.
If he can get enough of a gold bonus from the company when he
leaves this testing nightmare then he might just make it when he
has to face up to what is waiting outside in 3 real world days
time.

When he gets to the farm, he finds the farmer
standing outside of his house, looking inward with a rather angry
expression on his face.

This can’t be good,
he thinks to
himself approaching the NPC and the house with care.

He stops beside the NPC and follows his gaze
into the small house. Inside is a player sitting at the farmer’s
kitchen table eating a large ham sandwich. She is tall, slim and
wearing some form of greenish camo top with a rag of the same color
that seems to be a makeshift short skirt that comes down to just
above her knees. The whole green color scheme even reaches her
boots, which are made of a strange cloth like material that
probably doesn’t exist in the real world or is based on something
very old and long out of production. Next to her is a long wooden
bow with a black cord grip and a fancy looking quiver full to the
brim with feathered arrows. What strikes Harry most though is the
fact that her hair is a flaming red, which almost looks odd on her
tanned complexion.

She is more than a little bit attractive and
Harry realizes with discomfort that if she looks up right now she
is going to see him completely butt naked (having been unable to
locate anything to wear after losing his clothing to GM Goldie
Locks – or at least nothing that didn’t immediately fade away once
he tried tearing it off whatever it was connected to).

He immediately decides he would prefer to keep
his dignity intact and drags the NPC around the corner of the
house.

"I see you have the meat, kind sir!" the NPC
virtually shouts in his most cheerful voice.

“
Be quiet…”

“
Oh, I didn’t realize that there
was…”

The woman gapes at Harry as he covers
himself.

“
Oh man. Hold on. I got to take a
screen shot of this.”

The woman lines up her hands and there is a
faint clicking sound from her direction.

“
Hey!” Harry says putting up a
hand, which just happens to be the one covering his
groin.

“
Oh man... seriously, stop you’re
killing me…”

The red head puts her hand on the wall and
breaks into laughter.

10 minutes later, she stops and manages to
contain herself enough to trade Harry a greenish skirt the same
size and length as hers, which she says is for her own sanity (of
course, taking several screen shots of Harry in a dress in the
process).

When the humiliation is finely over, she
manages to compose herself enough to introduce herself.

“
I’m Killer Extreme, but you can
call me Axel. What’s your name?”

“
Gold Hunter, but my real name is
Harry.”

“
Descriptive name.”

“
I could say the same for
you.”

Axel smiles.

“
True. Are you on the Saving Sally
quest?"

The farmer, who has been staring at Axel all
this time with a faintly angry look on his face, perks up when she
mentions the quest.

"I am."

Axel winks at him and slaps the NPC on the
shoulder as hard as she can, which barely moves it.

“
Well, Chuck here has been going
on about that stupid quest of his since I got here. I guess it’s
about time we got it sorted for him.”

The look on her face says she knows something
that Harry doesn’t. He doesn’t know how right he is.

“
Hey, Chuck. This guy wants to
finish the quest.”

‘
Chuck’, who doesn’t look anything
like a Chuck, looks to Harry in a way that seems too motivated to
be real.

“
Good sir, can you help
Sally?”

A small silver window appears in Harry’s view
and he clicks
accept.

"This is going to be incredibly fun," Axel
says, watching the NPC’s delighted face.

Hurrying away on its own, the NPC heads over
to his barn with Harry in tow. Axel ambles on behind, obviously
taking great amusement in watching Harry’s butt poking out of the
back of the skirt.

“
It’s a cow,” Harry says in
surprise as he steps into the small barn to find the big beast
dominating the center.

“
Yeap,” Axel says, coming in to
lean up against a stall full of chickens.

Harry looks around at the interior of the
barn. There’s a horse and a few other small stalls, with a variety
of creatures in them. The place is about as rustic as one can
possibly get, yet what is unfolding in front of him with Sally is
definitely not
rustic,
in fact, looking at the overly
swollen cow,
crazy
comes to mind as a more apt
description.

"She is a cow," Harry says matter-of-factly,
still surprised as the quest description didn’t mention this at
all.

The redhead player reaches over top of the
gate of one of the stalls and strokes the top of a sheep's head as
it stands near the bars chewing at her.

“
Here it comes,” she says in
amusement.

"My Sally! My Sally!” the NPC screams, “She is
suffering so badly. We have to give her the meat.”

The other player is already covering her mouth
as she watches Harry’s indecision and lack of understanding. His
knowledge of cows is actually very limited, considering no one has
a farm in 2222. The only time he’s even seen one is the very rare
ones found in virtual zoos. Everything he knows about cows is over
100 years old and it hasn’t prepared him very well for the reality
of one of the oversized beasts; to say that he doesn’t know what to
do is an understatement - he’s got no idea.

What am I supposed to do with the meat?
His memory tells him that the beasts eat grass (another throwback
to another century). It doesn’t seem like it would want to eat pig
meat.

“
I would step back a little,” Axel
says.

A squirt of brownish red pixilated fluid flows
out of the cow’s butt.