End Online: Volume 3 (12 page)

“You’re… asking me… to
come?” Her eyes widen slightly, showing faint hints of surprise.

“Of course. I mean, aren’t
you always there next to me?”

If I were to tell the
truth, I’m a little afraid of making her mad. And asking her to leave not too
long ago was what started the last incident.

I don’t dislike or hate
Fen for what she did. Nor do I have an impenetrable fear of her. It is more
that I feel cautious around her, fully aware of what she is capable of.

With a quick shake of my
head, I clear my mind of thoughts about being permanently trapped in virtual
reality and log on to End Online.

***************************************************

Once the fog in my vision
clears and reveals the interior of the Gold Run Inn, Fen shortly grabs on to my
arm and pulls herself tightly against it.

My body tenses up slightly
and I frown a little under my hood.

She also stares intently
at the hood on my head, but she hasn’t pressed for me to take it off again
since we went on that ‘date’. I don’t even know if she understands what a date
is to be honest.

“Let’s go. We need to
collect some herbs.” I speak to the girl next to me who nods in return.

According to the time, I
should have a little over an hour before everyone planned to meet up.

Heading out into the
streets of Grenton, I travel to a few parks I had knowledge of containing some
green medicinal herbs.

Arriving at the first one,
however, I feel my earlier hopes sinking. I had thought that if I logged on
early I would be able to get a some of the herbs from some parks before
everyone swarmed in.

I was wrong. Currently,
the park in front of me was as full of players as it had been the very first
time I walked into Grenton. Thanks to the information about being able to get
herbs in Grenton’s parks, everyone, whose knowledge does not extend past that
information, coalesces here.

Opening up my inventory, I
notice that not only do I have 732 gold coins, but I also still have fifty
green medicinal herbs and twenty five yellow medicinal herbs. I can always leave
town to collect more if I ever need. I would definitely rather not buy more of
them though.

Deciding to use what herbs
I have, I pull out the ‘Tunix of Toxication’ from my inventory and quietly sit
on the side of the main street.

As soon as the item is
equipped, my head starts to spin and I receive an incredibly sick feeling
throughout my body. The tunic will take off twenty points of health every ten
seconds. Considering I have to wear it for ten minutes straight to receive its
benefits, I will lose 1200 of my health. I only have 1254 health points to
begin with, naturally increasing the danger to me.

Fens sits down next to me
and rests her head on my shoulder, seemingly unaffected by the tunic’s
toxicity.

Five minutes of wearing
the tunic and my health is nearly at halfway, the feeling of the poison causing
my mind to not only feel dizzy, but also somewhat feverish. I pull out my first
green medicinal herb and force myself to chew on it.

A ‘Green Medicinal Herb’
currently heals three health points every second for ten seconds. It has a much
stronger effect than ever due to the existing ‘Herbalism’ being a part of my
class skill.

This means that every ten
seconds, after the poison affects me, I gain ten health points. I also consume
an ‘Antidote Herb’ to help relieve the effects of the poison.

I also have a thirty
percent chance of removing minor poisons with this. But this isn’t a minor
poison and I am lucky enough that it still has a small effect when I try it. My
mind clears a little, but the poison comes back when the ten second cycle of
poisoning recurs.

Fen starts dozing off on
my shoulder after another five minutes. Around the same time, a message
appeared in front of me.

I feel a small delight at
the message. While it is only a minute increase to my resistance, it is
permanent. If only I could make more of these shirts.

‘I know where to get
more of rotten tattered leather! Why can’t I make more of these shirts and get
a 100% immunity to poison and acid?!’

The thought occurs to me
while I stuff more medicinal herbs into my mouth to keep up my health
regeneration.

I am only a little
saddened that while I have slightly over nine hundred health I have already
used an entire third of my ‘Green Medicinal Herbs’.

Standing up, Fen also
wakes from her half asleep daze. I beckon her to follow despite her still
trying to find her bearings.

Players and NPCs alike
move out of my way down the street, holding their noses as if smelling
something vile. This poisonous clothing must give off some pungent odour. Alas,
I cannot smell anything.

A full half hour passes in
which I use all of my herbs and have still not found a herb shop like the one
in Iceridge. Due to not constantly eating herbs, however, my health usually
remains between seven and nine hundred.

I decide to try one of the
‘Yellow Medicinal Herbs’ for their healing effects. I had previously avoided it
over how difficult they seemed to come by, but I need to find out how good or
bad the effect is. I will just avoid mixing it with another ‘Solar Stem’, which
according to my findings with Fen, turned out to taste exceptionally bad.

The herb itself tastes
quite nice and seems to fill me with new life. I notice my health climbing much
faster than before. I open up the information window and look at the herb
stats.

It says the health
recovery is twenty health points over eight seconds, but that is for someone
with the ‘Herbalism’ skill at level 1. Thanks to the effects of my ‘White
Warrior’ class skill, this herb recovers approximately seventy health points. I
must make it into a potion at the next opportunity to test the potions effects
as well.

Through the crowd parting
in front of me, a few shops come into view. One of those shops is exactly what
I have been looking for – The apothecary.

I enter the shop and head
straight to a very discreet pile of green medicinal herbs. There is a price in
front of the pile saying they are ninety silver each.

“Ninety silver each!” I
practically shout. “What a ridiculous price for a herb that you can get just
about everywhere!”

“F-forgive me, herbs are
in h-high demand currently.” A shop keeper standing next to me turns pale when
speaking to me. “B-but I could s-sell them to you for eighty silver each i-if
you prefer.”

‘Not good,’ 
I panic inwardly, 
‘Why did I come into this shop myself?
Was I not thinking properly because of the feverish feeling I am having? What
should I do now?’

I could only think up one
possible solution to avoid gaining more infamy. Grabbing Fen by the arm, I drag
her along with me as I walk straight out of the shop. That’s right. Considering
that all my infamy gains are after transactions or when related to quests, if I
cut off my contact with the NPC immediately, I’m sure there will be nothing bad
to say about me.

Once I’m outside the shop
and around the corner, I turn to Fen.

“Fen, please go buy me
some of those ‘Green Medicinal Herbs’.”

“Okay…”

“Thanks, Fen. Here is
fifty gold. Buy as much as you can with it. I will wait here.”

I am relieved when she
agreed to purchase the stuff for me, but it is still painful to part with the
gold.

The wolf girl turns and
strolls off towards the apothecary in order to purchase my herbs for me. I
guess I truly am lucky to have such a companion that can take care of all my
NPC relations for me. I know I could possibly have another player do it, but
that would also cost me more than what is fair.

Even with the use of the
sparse ‘Yellow Medicinal Herb’, I still lose another two hundred health points.

“… I’m back.”

Fen stops in front of me,
clutching a large pile of medicinal herbs to her chest in her hands.

‘Hmm, does she not
have a personal inventory? Is it because she is a companion? Or because she
technically isn’t human?’

As I start to wonder a
little more about her, I notice a few players tracking her through the crowd.
Through the enhanced vision of my hunter’s eyes, my sight scopes in on them.

There are three players in
total. They all appear relatively average in height and build, and they are
wearing a dark green tunics and brown leather pants. Even without seeing the
lack of Grenton’s symbol on the back of their hands, I can tell they’re newbies
from the full suit of beginner equipment.

I bring my right hand out
from under my cloak, showing that I am from the kingdom of Glace. But that
isn’t the main purpose of my actions. I plan to let them know I am a lot
stronger than them, hopefully deter them from causing any trouble.

The three seem to be
intent on Fen for some reason. They don’t even notice I am there until I take
the herbs from her.

I notice mixed feelings
stirring in their eyes. I would like to be able to tell what they are thinking
of doing, but there are too many emotions there to tell: curiosity, outrage,
wariness, envy, sadness, disgust. What I feet from all three is extremely
confusing.

They finally reach us and
stop before Fen. One glances at my right hand but doesn’t say anything about
it. They all, however, turn their noses away from me.

“Excuse me,” the apparent
leader speaks first. “Would you be interested in joining a party with us. We
plan to go out and level up to level fifty. We will guarantee your safety and
even help you level with us.”

I feel slightly sick
listening to this player. It was the typical sexism within a game, where the
males offer to give the females everything they need for next to no effort at
all. They even use the opportunity to try and flirt with them more often than
not, too.

Unfortunately for these
players, they don’t know Fen very well. She usually doesn’t show any interest
in others, especially this type of guy. If they knew her better, they probably
would know the best way to get her interest is with meat. With this kind of
approach, she doesn’t even acknowledge their existence.

“You should definitely
come party with us, not this guy. I mean, we are all under level fifty and
haven’t even got our kingdom’s insignia yet. This guy clearly already has, and
he’s not even from around here!”

The player that speaks up
this time is the one who had looked my way and noticed I was from Glace when
they arrived.

She looks their way when
this guy speaks up, saying she shouldn’t party with me. An angry expression
comes over her face momentarily, but it shortly passes and she turns her
attention back to me.

“Let’s… go.” She has
already forgotten about those three next to us.

With her grabbing my arm
once again, I start to walk off from the three players.

They start to try to catch
up and continue their persuasions, but one icy glance from Fen over her
shoulder stops them in their tracks.

I find a quiet spot away
from the majority of players to continue battling the poison of the tunic
without their disgust at the smell of the clothing.

Another forty minutes pass
and with the sun at high noon and the durability of my shirt is down to two. At
this point in time, everyone else logs on as well.

“Lost, it’s Mason, we
are all here at the inn. Are you coming over to form the party so we can search
for this mysterious boy?”

“Sorry, can we do it
in twenty minutes? I am a little busy with something at the moment.”

“That should be fine,
I will let everyone know. But don’t be any later than that!”

“Haha, of course.”

It is something that I
noticed with the ‘Tunic of Toxication’. You need to wear it for ten minutes
straight to have your  poison and acid resistance permanently increase.
But you do not need to wear it for ten minutes straight for it to lose one
durability, just ten minutes accumulatively.

This means if I do not
wear it for the entirety of the one hundred minutes of lifetime that it has
without taking it off, I will not gain the maximum benefits.

In no time at all, my
medicinal herb supply starts to run low, but the final two points of durability
on the tunic disappear and it literally falls to pieces. Bits of rotten,
tattered leather fall off my body and land on the ground, nothing more than
scrap.