NOVEL WEB Chapter 16
Episode 16
It’s not too hard to catch up. They’ve torn the return scroll, so you can tear your own. The Return Scroll will teleport them to the nearest town.
Karen and Ren were eating food and watching television in a diner.
They could eat food in Middle-earth. The flavours are just as antalizing. But the food in the diner is first-class, and the flavours are just as stimulating. That’s true of any restaurant. It’s said that some people join Middle Earth because of the flavour.
There is also television. A system that contracts with real-life broadcasters to broadcast their programs. Middle-earth has a star system. There are contracts with stations to make money, and there are also publishers. Real-life publishing companies are moving into virtual reality in games.
You can watch TV and buy books with gold. With a 10:1 gold-to-cash ratio, it’s even possible. In any case, if you had a capsule with access to Middle-earth, you could watch channels from all over the world, even if you didn’t have a television, and buy books. Middle-earth is not a game world; it’s a second reality.
“Karen’s job is a test master, right? Shouldn’t she have a second job?”
“…….”
You can advance to level 102 without a second job change, but after that, you can only advance after a job change. There is no set time for a secondary class, but it is usually done before mastery. This is because the combination of swordsman and mage skills makes it easier to kill monsters. However, the levelling can be almost unbearable. But it’s fun, I was told.
I didn’t answer. I was supposed to leave Middle-earth as of today. Ren had only delayed it a little, but I still wanted to. I hadn’t finished the goal I’d set for myself, and I didn’t need to do it anymore.
“Why don’t you answer that?”
“Because I don’t feel like playing Middle-earth anymore. I was going to leave earlier, but a beautiful girl like Ren asked me to go hunting, so I played a little longer, and I’ve decided to stop playing Middle-earth as of today.”
Ren seemed to be lost in thought for a moment.
* * *
Truth be told, she didn’t care if Karen folded or not. But ever since he’d been assigned Karen, things seemed to get easier. It was tiring to hunt for bugs and monitor them all day, and it was fun to make money from the hunt. I was desperate to catch Karen.
“I wanted to play games with Karen. She’s handsome, and I feel relaxed when I’m with her, but why does she want to stop playing?”
* * *
Karen seems to pick and choose her words. Why does she want to stop playing this game? Isn’t this game fun?
The game is fun. I started this game to own the capsule, but now I’m having a lot of fun with it. The struggle in the ‘cave’ is a kind of fun, and the master quest is a different kind of fun.
I’m sure I forced myself to do it by calling it a ‘goal’, but honestly, I kept doing it because it was fun. I’ve only been doing it for two days…
“Well, I don’t know, because I got what I wanted at the beginning.”
“So Middle-earth isn’t fun?”
“Of course not; it’s fun.”
“Then why are you thinking about giving it up?”
I pondered her question for a moment. Okay, now that I think about it, why would I want to give up on this game?
Should I just come clean?
“To play Sudden Death… Alas, I have to tell you the whole story first, and I have a lot of time on my hands. I bought a capsule, and I bought it through an event for four million won, on the condition that I play Middle-earth for six hours a day. You know that event, right?”
Ren nodded.
“I’m a Sudden Death fanatic by nature. They said that if I levelled up to 100 within a month, I wouldn’t have to play Middle-earth six hours a day anymore, and I wouldn’t have to make any additional deposits. I started playing, and now I’m already over a hundred. I’ve been playing for about three days now, and I don’t have to play Middle-earth anymore.”
I nodded again, this time vigorously.
“So is Sudden Death more fun than Middle-earth?”
“……?”
Why am I suddenly comparing games?
“Well, since Sudden Death is better for you, Karen, didn’t you set a goal of levelling 100 in a month and not playing Middle-earth anymore? You started the event to get capsules cheap, and you started Middle-earth for the end goal.”
“Such…….”
I couldn’t answer confidently. I’m sure I could have answered with confidence at the start of the event, but I couldn’t now; the addictive nature of Middle-earth was too much. Is sudden death more fun than Middle-earth?
“Tough call.
“Well, it’s a shooter, isn’t it? You don’t have to do that for long periods; you can play a little bit when you’re bored, right?”
I nodded.
“So you play Middle-earth, and then you play Sudden Death, and then you keep playing Sudden Death, and it doesn’t change much, does it? Same maps, same companions, same shooting… doesn’t it get old after a while?”
I understood what she was saying.
If you get bored playing Middle-earth, you can play Sudden Death, and if you get bored playing Sudden Death, you can play Middle-earth. Besides, if you spend a day in Middle-earth, isn’t that four hours in real life?
Eventually, I was persuaded and decided to switch to archery. The reason I chose to become an archer instead of a warrior or wizard was to keep my sense of the real world alive.
Even in Middle-earth, the sense of reality is still there. I chose archery because I am exceptionally good with guns.
Guns and arrows are a little different, but here the arrow flies in a straight line. They don’t travel in a parabolic arc. So it’s not much different from a gun, so I chose archery.
“I wanted to ask you something.”
“……?”
“How the hell did you learn magic?”
It is not a second career. Not a mage. How did he learn magic? Her curiosity was peaked.
“You know, the usurpation event? I killed the Blood Emperor.”
“……!”
Mr. Park hadn’t told her about this, just that she was a lucky user, and he’d left it to her to keep an eye on it.
“How on earth?”
The Blood Emperor’s effective level was 300. It was not the kind of monster that could be killed by a level 100.
“It’s a long story. I don’t think I’ll do it.”
Not because it was long, but because I was in a hurry to eat, but I didn’t notice much difference. The food in the restaurant was so delicious.
“Hmm, so you have a lot of items then? Since this is the first Blood Emperor I’ve ever caught, the drop rate is 50%, which should be good.”
“I don’t know if it’s good, but we have tonnes of items. Do you want me to show you the inventory list?”
“Sure.”
Middle-earth can copy his inventory list onto a piece of paper and show it to you.
When you open your inventory, you see a list of your inventory, and when you say copy, it prints out a paper copy of your inventory.
Many little systems prevent theft.
I quickly handed over the inventory list and went back to eating. With over 50 million gold, there was nothing I couldn’t eat.
“……!”
Ren was genuinely surprised. Where did you get these items?
“This is… item heaven?
It was a list with only the names of the items, but she had been playing Middle-earth for a long time and knew what they were just by their names.
Seven master items. (She’d already been told this by the shopkeeper, but it was a lie.)
Forty-two unique items, to name a few: Dragon Slayer, Holy Sword, and Dwarven Mithril Full Plate.
These alone are worth a couple thousand golds each. There are many more minor uniques.
Rare items. I stopped counting at 100. It’s amazing how many there are.
Set items. The Obedience sets were better than most of the uniques, and a couple were comparable to master items. Perhaps the Blood Emperor’s is unique. Other than that, all of the named set items were collected.
As for accessories, I gave up after counting 120 (I’ve never seen anyone carry that many even without inventory limits).
Still, I didn’t pick up any magic items to see if Karen had eyes. At a guess, I’d say they were probably vampire items.
A glance at Karen showed that he was only concerned with eating.
Wren’s thoughts about Karen boil down to a few things.
skill fraud.
Items are also fraudulent.
Humanity is seriously problematic.
kind of an asshole.
but fun and easy to be around.
The first two are my thoughts as a user; the other three are my subjective thoughts.
The boss told me to keep an eye on Karen to make sure she doesn’t have any more luck and to help her grow into a normal (?) user. But to make mediocrity out of the best item? It’s impossible.
By now, Karen had finished her food and was watching TV. It was a children’s animation, and she was staring at it, mesmerised.
“Karen, let’s go.”
She struggled to speak. Her heart was broken.
“Yes. I’m going to switch to being an archer today.”